Rimmon

YONA SABAR: Hebrew Word of the Week: rimmon “pomegranate.”

The pomegranate is one of several components of the Sephardic seder for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year holiday. The symbolic reason for eating it is “so that we become filled with mitzvot (good deeds, religious observations), as the pomegranate is filled with seeds.” Interestingly, the English word also means “apple/fruit full of grains (seeds),” from French-Latin pomum granatum. Compare to Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruits.

And there's more on the possible etymologies of the word.

Textus

AWOL: Open Access Journal: Textus: Annual of the Hebrew University Bible Project. I already noted this journal a few years ago here, but I haven't been keeping up with subsequent volumes. Recently I did note one article on the Ein Gedi Leviticus scroll here, but the current volume (26, 2016) includes more articles, all online for free:

The Development of the Text of the Torah in Two Major Text Blocks
E. Tov
English

How Could a Torah Scroll Have Included the Word זעטוטי?
G.A. Rendsburg
English

Reconstructing the Old Hebrew Text of the Book of Joshua: An Analysis of Joshua 10
K.D. Troyer
English

4QXIIg (4Q82) as an Editorial Text
A. Lange

Hebrew Bible job at Saint Louis University

FROM PROFESSOR PAULINE LEE:

The Department of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University is inviting applicants for a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. As the chair of the search committee, I am contacting you in order both to solicit nominations for particularly promising students or recent graduates and to ask that you encourage such candidates to apply for this position.

Our department is committed to world-class research, as well as innovative and transformative teaching. Faculty in our department work with undergraduate, masters and doctoral students, benefit from extensive library holdings in the area of biblical studies and theology, receive the support of graduate research assistants ranging from 5-20 hours a week, and enjoy a 2-2 teaching load with classes capped at 25 students. We are looking, therefore, for candidates who will not only be effective teachers in the classroom, but also show a great deal of promise in their research. I have included (below) the job advertisement which you will also find on the AAR-SBL website.

The Department of Theological Studies at SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track position in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at the rank of assistant professor. A doctorate is required by the time the appointment begins on August 15, 2017.

Area of specialization is open. However, preference will be given to applicants who diversify existing expertise and pedagogical approaches within the department and who work in an interdisciplinary manner. The successful candidate will have strong research competencies and the ability to teach a range of subjects at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The standard teaching assignment in the department is 2/2 and faculty regularly receive the support of graduate research assistants. Additional duties include advising and mentoring students and participating in faculty governance at the department, college and university level.

Regardless of his or her own faith tradition, the successful candidate will demonstrate a strong commitment to the university’s Catholic and Jesuit mission, which affirms the importance of diversity and fosters an inclusive work environment.

All applications are made online at http://jobs.slu.edu and include a (1) cover letter, (2) curriculum vitae, (3) statement of research agenda, (4) one sample of scholarly work no longer than 30 pages, (5) a teaching statement where we invite you also to describe your cultural competencies and experiences engaging a diverse student body, and (6) three letters of reference. Applications are due November 4. Questions about this position should be directed to: Pauline Lee, Associate Professor of Chinese Religions, Department of Theological Studies, Saint Louis University, 3800 Lindell Blvd., Saint Louis, MO 63108. Contact email: leepc@slu.edu.
Saint Louis University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer and encourages applications from women and minorities.

Nabatean inscriptions

AWOL: Nabataean: Corpus of Nabataean Inscriptions.

The Corpus of Nabataean inscriptions on DASI has been accomplished thanks to the agreement with the CNRS laboratory UMR 8167 – Mondes Sémitiques, under the scientific supervision of L. Nehmé. Presently it includes all the tomb inscriptions from Hegra.

Nabatean was the written Aramaic dialect that was the official language of the ancient Arabic-speaking Nabateans in the region of modern Jordan extending into northwestern Saudi Arabia. It's script was the basis for the later Arabic alphabet. More on that here. For much more on the Nabateans (Nabataeans) see the immediately preceding post on The gardens of Petra and follow the links, or run "Nabatean (Nabataean) Watch" through the blog search engine.

The gardens of Petra

NABATEAN (NABATAEAN) WATCH: Monumental Forgotten Gardens of Petra Rediscovered After 2,000 Years. Cool fountains and a huge pool in mid-desert enabled by strikingly advanced stone-carved irrigation and water storage system (Philippe Bohstrom, Haaretz).

Recent excavations at Petra have revealed a startlingly advanced irrigation system and water storage system that enabled the desert city's people to survive – and to maintain a magnificent garden featuring fountains, ponds and a huge swimming pool. The engineering feats and other luxuries attest to the ancient Nabatean capital's former splendor and wealth some 2,000 years ago.

Petra is perhaps best known for its sandstone canyon that leads directly to Al Khazneh, The Treasury, seen in the climax to "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" where the hero archaeologists, played by Harrison Ford and Sean Connery, ride out of the canyon and into the Treasury in their quest for the Holy Grail.

However, 2,000 years ago, Petra was renowned for completely different reasons. It was one of the most famous water stops in the Middle East, where camel caravan routes linked distant cities. Now archaeologists are discovering the Nabataean capital, situated in the southwestern deserts of Jordan, once was adorned with an exquisite, artificially irrigated garden. It featured paths likely shaded by vines, trees and date palms, and grasses, which were cultivated next to a huge, 44-meter wide swimming pool.

The Nabataeans’ ability to tame nature, and conspicuous consumption of a precious resource, water, was pure propaganda. It was a means to display wealth and power, which they could do thanks to the ingenious hydraulic system they invented, which allowed the people not only to reserve enough water for their own needs, but to water the lavish garden with fountains and an open-air pool. It had previously been unthinkable that water, a scarce resource in the desert wastes, would have been used for anything but necessity.

[...]

The recent explorations and excavations of Petra in Jordan have been producing a lot of new information. See, recently, here for newly discovered monumental architecture and here for the recovery of two ancient mythological statues. See also here for some recent scholarly work on Petra and the Nabateans. And here's another post on the Petra gardening system from last year. Follow the links in those posts for much more on Petra. This work has been going on for some time. The 2007 Smithsonian article noted here already foreshadows some of the recent discoveries.

Jewish history recognized in India

EXHIBITION: History of a faith: Exploring the last 3,500 years of Jewish cultural heritage (Sunday Guardian Live).

A special exhibition exploring the cultural and social roots of the Jewish community is being hosted in New Delhi throughout this month. Previous editions of the show have been held in cities like New York, Paris and Copenhagen, writes Srija Naskar.

Indian government leaders and ambassadors from different nations met recently for the Asian premiere of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s historic exhibition, People, Book, Land: The 3500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People with The Holy Land at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. It was co-organised by UNESCO, the first such exhibit gaining UN approval, and sponsored by governments of Israel, US and Canada. This exhibit has been presented at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, the UN headquarters in New York, the Vatican, the US Congress, Israel’s Knesset, as well as in cities like Copenhagen and Chicago.

The exhibit traces 35 centuries of Jewish people’s relationship with their land, emphasising the universal and particularistic values that inspired the unique journey of the Jewish people throughout history and inspired Jews to retain an unbreakable bond and love for their ancestral homeland.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said, “ It is appropriate that the Asia launch of this exhibit is taking place in New Delhi as the Jewish people know that throughout history they have always been welcomed by the people of India.”

[...]

Rabbi Cooper is also interviewed about the exhibition by Indranil Banerjie in The Asian Age: Now in India: A glimpse of the 2,000-year [sic] history of the Jews.

Congress volume for 15th IOSCS meeting, 2013

NEW BOOK FROM THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE:

XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies: Munich, 2013
Wolfgang Kraus (Editor), Michael N. Van Der Meer (Editor), Martin Meiser (Editor)

ISBN 9781628371383
Status Available
Price: $99.95
Binding Paperback
Publication Date September 2016
Pages 780


Essays from experts in the field of Septuagint studies

The study of Septuagint offers essential insights in ancient Judaism and its efforts to formulate Jewish identity within a non-Jewish surrounding culture. This book includes the papers given at the XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS), held in Munich, Germany, in 2013. The first part of this book deals with questions of textual criticism. The second part is dedicated to philology. The third part underlines the increasing importance of Torah in Jewish self-definition.

Features:

• Essays dealing with questions of textual criticism, mostly concerning the historical books and wisdom literature and ancient editions and translations
  
• Philological essays covering the historical background, studies on translation technique and lexical studies underline the necessity of both exploring general perspectives and working in detail

I noted the Congress just after it happened here.

Stökl Ben Ezra, Qumran

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

DANIEL STÖKL BEN EZRA

Qumran
Die Texte vom Toten Meer und das antike Judentum

[Qumran. The Dead Sea Scrolls and Ancient Judaism.]
2016. XIII, 462 pages.
utb Jüdische Studien 4681/3

34,99 €
paper
ISBN 978-3-8252-4681-5
available

Published in German.
Hardly an archaeological discovery has so revolutionized our understanding of ancient Judaism and the emergence of the Hebrew Bible as the Dead Sea Scrolls. In this textbook, Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra discusses clearly the most important theories on the Qumran scrolls in their archaeological context. Who were the owners of the scrolls, how did they live and think? What can we learn from the scrolls about the Hebrew Bible's text, editorial and canon history? Particular attention is paid to the meaning of the scrolls for the understanding of ancient Judaism beyond the circle of their once owners. Qumran scroll themes such as interpretation, Halacha, prayers, mysticism, and eschatology are systematically brought into discussion with other ancient Judaism sources, including Hellenistic and rabbinical texts, the New Testament, and archaeology.

Amal Clooney calls out the UN for the Yazidis

YAZIDI WATCH: Amal Clooney Says U.N. Has Failed Yazidi Women (Lucy Westcott, Newsweek via San Diego Jewish World).

Renowned human rights lawyer Amal Clooney criticized the United Nations for failing to act on behalf of the persecuted Yazidi minority group, thousands of whom remain enslaved by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).

Clooney spoke during a ceremony for Nadia Murad Basee Taha, a 23-year-old Yazidi woman who was kept as an ISIS sex slave for three months before she escaped. On Friday, Murad was appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking for the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said ISIS is committing a genocide against several minority groups in Iraq and Syria, including Yazidis, Turkmen and Christians.

"Make no mistake: What Nadia has told us about is genocide,” Clooney said during a speech on Friday. “And genocide doesn't happen by accident. You have to plan it."

Clooney, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London who focuses on international and human rights law, will represent the Yazidis in an International Criminal Court case, in which she plans to seek accountability for the genocide, sexual enslavement and trafficking of Yazidi women and girls by ISIS. ISIS believe Yazidis are non-believers as they follow an ancient religion and are not Muslim.

[...]

Good for Ms. Clooney. She is doing a brave thing that is not without personal risk. Background on the Yazidis, their Gnosticism-themed religion, and their tragic fate in the hands of ISIS, is here with many links.

The Memoirs of Og

REMNANT OF GIANTS: Og the Giant’s Memoirs now on Chabad.org. Some past PaleoJudaica posts on Og the giant are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Mahnaz (ed.), Zoroastrianism

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Zoroastrianism: Religious texts, theology, history and culture. Notice of a new book: Moazami, Mahnaz (ed.). 2016. Zoroastrianism: A collection of articles from the Encyclopaedia Iranica (Encyclopaedia Iranica Extracts – EIE), 2 vols. New York: Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation.

The case of the missing verse

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Is There No Nun Verse in Ashrei? (Mitchell First, Jewish Link of New Jersey). Interesting analysis of the problem of a missing verse (that should begin with the letter nun) in the acrostic poem in Psalm 145.

There's more here on the longer passage about Nahash the Ammonite found in a copy of 1 Samuel 10/11 in one of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Armitage, Theories of Poverty in the World of the New Testament

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

DAVID J. ARMITAGE

Theories of Poverty in the World of the New Testament

[Gedanken zur Armut in der Welt des Neuen Testaments.]
2016. XVI, 301 pages.
Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 423

89,00 €
sewn paper
ISBN 978-3-16-154399-9
available

Published in English.
David J. Armitage explores interpretations of poverty in the Greco-Roman and Jewish contexts of the New Testament, and, in the light of this, considers how approaches to poverty in the New Testament texts may be regarded as distinctive. Explanations for the plight of the poor and supposed solutions to the problem of poverty are discussed, noting the importance in Greco-Roman settings of questions about poverty's relation to virtue and vice, and the roles of fate and chance in impoverishment. Such debates were peripheral for strands of the Jewish tradition where poverty discourse was shaped by narrative frameworks incorporating transgression, curse, and the anticipated rescue of the righteous poor. These elements occur in New Testament texts, which endorse wider Jewish concern for the poor while reconfiguring hope for the end of poverty around an inaugurated eschatology centred on Jesus.

Syriac inscriptions from Kazakhstan

SYRIAC WATCH: Evidence of ancient Christianity discovered in Kazakhstan (Tom Davis, SWBTS News).

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following report is by the Tandy Institute for Archaeology’s Tom Davis, professor of archaeology and biblical backgrounds at Southwestern Seminary as well as chair of its archaeology department.

New Syriac epigraphic material on the Silk Road:

The ancient city of Ilyn Balik, known from pilgrims’ travels and historical texts, has been discovered in Kazakhstan. Historians of Christianity along the Silk Road have known of travelers’ accounts of Christian communities in the region and in the ancient city of Ilyn Balik, but now, recent excavations at the village of Usharal, 60 kilometers from the Chinese border, have uncovered the ancient city as well as the site’s cemetery, where eight gravestones have been found.

This discovery is the first archaeological evidence for a Christian community in the borders of the Republic of Kazakhstan. This discovery supports the understanding of ancient Kazakhstan as a multi-cultural center between the East and West, with Muslims, Buddhists and Christians living among the local herdsmen and nomadic tribes.

[...]

The team discovered seven inscribed gravestones clustered on the surface outside of the main area of settlement of the site. The suspected grave markers all have inscribed Nestorian-style crosses, and two of them have fragmentary inscriptions.

The new discoveries provide context for the previously discovered inscribed stone and most likely indicate an extra-mural cemetery and possibly an associated Christian community. One of the inscriptions in Old Syriac has been partially deciphered by the Tandy Institute’s epigrapher, Ryan Stokes, associate professor of Old Testament at Southwestern, and indicates a date of 1162 A.D.

[...]

HT AINA. I have noted discoveries of Syriac texts in China (see here, here, here, and here and links), but this is the first time I have encountered Syriac in Kazakhstan.

NovT TC reviews

ETC BLOG: A Bounty of Text Critical Reviews in the Latest NovT (Peter Gurry). Most of them deal with New Testament textual criticism, but one involves ancient Judaism.

Palimpsests

THE BRITISH LIBRARY MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS BLOG: Palimpsests: The Art of Medieval Recycling (Peter Toth).

The art of recycling — re-using waste materials to reduce consumption of fresh raw materials — may seem alien in a medieval context. Yet when it comes to writing, past peoples were often much more sparing than many of us today.

Seen on Facebook. Past PaleoJudaica posts on palimpsests are collected here, with subsequent posts here and here.

Tilly et al. (ed.), L'adversaire de Dieu

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

L'adversaire de Dieu – Der Widersacher Gottes
6. Symposium Strasbourg, Tübingen, Uppsala. 27.-29. Juni 2013 in Tübingen
Hrsg. v. Michael Tilly, Matthias Morgenstern u. Volker Henning Drecoll unter Mitarb. v. Hendrik Stoppel

[The Adversaries of God. The Sixth Strasbourg-Tübingen-Uppsala Symposium. Tübingen 27–29 June 2013.]
2016. XIV, 359 pages.
Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 364

Published in German.
This trilingual collection contains studies on how the literary guises of God’s enemies originated, how they were presented and what meaning they held in the Jewish Holy Scriptures, the Christian Bible, ancient and rabbinical Jewish writings, in early Christianity and in gnostic texts. Exegetic-philological, history of religion, Jewish- as well as conceptual and history of theology aspects are all comprehensively dealt with. Scholars from the universities of Strasbourg, Tübingen and Uppsala’s evangelical theology faculties examine Satan, Beelzebub, the Anti-Christ, the diabolical, demons, evil intent and other God-opposing forces, as well as the Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier’s treatment of evil, in their contributions.

The Los Lunas inscription, once more

NEW WORLD FORGERY WATCH: Oldest Paleo-Hebrew Ten Commandments Found Where?! (Tsivya Fox, Breaking Israel News).

It may surprise many people to learn that the oldest known Ten Commandments written in Hebrew on stone may not be in the Holy Land, but in America. The controversial carving resides west of Los Lunas, New Mexico at the bottom of a place called Hidden Mountain. Named the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone, it is also known as “Mystery Stone”, “Phoenician Inscription Rock”, or “Mystery Rock”. It contains the text of the Ten Commandments written in ancient Paleo-Hebrew.

[...]

Here we go again. The Los Lunas inscription forgery shows up in the media every few years. I replied to pretty much the same set of claims a few years ago here. If I may quote myself:

The Harvard Professor—Robert Pfeiffer—died in 1958 and it is not clear from the coverage here that he said "yes" in the sense of thinking that it was possible that it was an ancient inscription.

This [earlier] article gathers together some entertaining anecdotes and occasionally some interesting information, but ultimately it tries to find a "debate" where there is none. No epigrapher of ancient Hebrew is willing today to defend the authenticity of the inscription. (James Tabor tried once in a popular article, but this article reports that he has changed his mind.)

Further detail there. And as always, let me reiterate this:

As usual, if a trained specialist wants to publish an article in a peer-review journal which argues that the stone is really an ancient inscription that shows the presence of pre-Columbian Jews in New Mexico, I would be willing to listen to the argument. But in the meantime, it's a fake.

Follow that link for additional past posts on the subject. In particular, in this post I mentioned that the late Cyrus Gordon argued that the inscription was a genuine late antique (Samaritan) artifact. The 1995 article was in the Japanese (English-language) journal Orient and you can download it for free here. You can read his discussion of the New World inscriptions, including the Los Lunas inscription, in the first several pages. No real case is made. By real case I mean a serious, detailed paleographic and orthographic analysis. If someone wants to do that and to get it published in a peer-review journal, there would be a case to consider. There isn't now. My past posts on the Los Lunas inscription also deal with the Bat Creek stone inscription and the Newark Stones.

Still more on the Ein Gedi Leviticus scroll

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: An Early Leviticus Scroll from En-Gedi: Preliminary Publication) (Michael Segal, Emanuel Tov, William Brent Seales, Clifford Seth Parker, Pnina Shor, Yosef Porath with an Appendix by Ada Yardeni. This is the scholarly publication in Textus 2016 that generated all the recent excitement. I've only had time for a quick look at the first part of it. Given the C-14 test results given in the article, I am baffled by the original report that said they dated the scroll to the late sixth century CE.

The recent media coverage has generally been good, but a couple of headlines have gotten overly excited:

Digitally unwrapped Hebrew scroll reveals earliest copy of Old Testament Bible scripture (The Straits Times)

Scientists finally read the oldest biblical text ever found (The Independent)

There are many Dead Sea Scrolls fragments of the Hebrew Bible that are older than the oldest date posited for the Ein Gedi Leviticus Scroll. And arguably the oldest biblical text ever found was in the Ketef Hinnom silver amulets from the seventh century BCE.

Background here and links.

Interview with Dr. Ilana Sasson on Judeo-Arabic

PHILOLOGY: Recovering Judeo-Arabic. Local scholar translates Karaite Bible commentary of Yefet ben Eli (LARRY YUDELSON, Times of Israel).

When Dr. Ilana Sasson of Teaneck was growing up in Israel, the child of Iraqi immigrants, she was embarrassed by the Arabic her parents would speak at home.

“I wanted people to speak Hebrew,” she said. “Kids who had Yiddish in their house felt the same. It was more so for those of us coming from the Islamic world, since Arabic was identified as the language of the enemy.”

Her childhood self would be quite surprised, therefore, that Dr. Sasson wrote a dissertation on a Judeo-Arabic translation and commentary on the biblical book of Proverbs. A revised version of the dissertation was published this summer by Brill Publishers as “The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben Eli on the Book of Proverbs.”

[...]

I noted the book when it came out this summer.

So what is Judeo-Arabic?

Briefly, it’s the distinctive versions of Arabic used by Jews.

But it’s not so simple.

“There is a big debate now,” Dr. Sasson said. “There’s a scholar at New York University, Dr. Ella Habiba Shohat, who claims that we shouldn’t say Judeo-Arabic, we should just say Arabic.”

That’s because “Arabic has so many dialectics and so many levels. Every ethnic group has its own. Yemenites cannot understand Moroccans, their dialects are so far apart from each other.”

Jews, Dr. Shohat argues, may have spoken a different dialect than their Muslim neighbors. But still, it was closer to their neighbors’ than that of distant Jews.

Yet in the traditional understanding of Judeo-Arabic as a unique thing, there are two possible definitions, Dr. Sasson said. “One says that anything written or said by a Jew in Arabic is by definition Judeo-Arabic. The other says anything in Arabic written in Hebrew characters is Judeo-Arabic.” (As it happened, some of the manuscripts she worked from were written in Arabic characters.)

I generally think of Judeo-Arabic as Arabic written in Hebrew letters, but that's because that type of Judeo-Arabic is relevant to my own research. As the article says, the matter is more complicated. Some past PaleoJudaica posts involving Judeo-Arabic are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

As an aside, as I have noted before, there sure is a lot of good philology going on in Teaneck, New Jersey. See here and here and links.