Esler on the Babatha Archive

THE OUP BLOG: Ancient legal papyri bring lost world to life (Philip F. Esler).

Everyone has heard of the ancient Jewish religious scrolls discovered at Qumran by the Dead Sea in the middle of the 20th century. But who is aware that nearly 100 legal papyri have been found in the same region, or that they allow unparalleled access to the ancient social world of Judea and Nabatea in the period 100 BCE to 200 CE?

Then, as now, you went to a lawyer (‘scribe’ to use their term) when you had a big problem or a big opportunity in your life. Legal papyri concern issues that mattered. And then, as now, it was in the parties’ interest to make sure that they stated they facts accurately; with these documents there are no issues of literary genre or religious belief to obscure our interpretation of the data. Yet the scholarship these papyri has attracted so far focuses almost entirely on their legal dimensions.

[...]

There was early success by a team at Wadi Murabba‘at in 1952. But in March 1961 a member of a team led by Yigael Yadin exploring a cave high in a cliff face in Wadi Hever hit the jackpot. A stone rocking under his foot disclosed the cunningly concealed hiding place in which a Jewish woman Babatha, daughter of Shim‘on, had hidden some of her personal possessions and a leather sachel containing her archive of 35 legal papyri. She had been hiding in the cave with other Jewish fugitives from the Romans at the end of the Bar Kokha revolt from 132-135 CE.

The Romans, who had built a camp on the plateau directly above the cave, must have captured Babatha and her companions and either killed or enslaved them. Other objects were found in the cave, including a cache of beautiful bronze vessels (see Image 2) and letters from Bar Kokhba himself, for which reason it is called ‘the Cave of the Letters.

These 35 papyri tell us so much about Babatha and her family by birth and marriage that we now know more about her than any other Jewish woman from antiquity. The Greek papyri from the archive were published in 1989 and those written in Jewish or Nabatean Aramaic in 2002.

[...]

Babatha and her archive have been mentioned from time to time on PaleoJudaica. Substantive posts are here, here, and here. Cross-file under Nabatean Watch (Nabataean Watch).

UPDATE:: Just to be clear, the inspiration behind this essay is Professor Esler's new book, Babatha's Orchard: The Yadin Papyri and an Ancient Jewish Family Tale Retold (OUP, 2017).

Levick, Vespasian (2nd ed.)

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2017.02.53
Barbara Levick, Vespasian. Second Edition. Roman Imperial Biographies. London; New York: Routledge, 2017. Pp. xxvi, 345. ISBN 9780415708890. $140.00/£90.00​.

Reviewed by Christopher Mallan, St. Benet’s Hall, University of Oxford (christopher.mallan@stb.ox.ac.uk)

Preview

This is a biography for those who prefer their biographies to be more about the times than the man. Levick’s Vespasian is a political history of mid-first century AD structured around the figure of Vespasian. Within these parameters, Levick’s book remains an important and useful contribution to scholarship. As the greater part of Vespasian is unchanged from its first incarnation, it is sufficient to provide a brief summary of its contents before turning to the question of whether the second edition represents a substantial improvement on the first.

[...]

As the review notes, Vespasian was an important figure in the Great Revolt/Jewish War of 66-70 CE. Some past PaleoJudaica posts involving Vespasian are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Historical reliability of Luke-Acts, part 3

THE BIBLE PLACES BLOG: Luke and Acts: Historical Reliability - 3 (Michael J. Caba). This post is on Herod Antipas (Herod the Tetrarch).

Earlier posts in the series have been noted here and here.

Assyrian palace found under destroyed (traditional) Tomb of Jonah

DISCOVERY: Islamic State looting uncovers ancient palace beneath Jonah’s Tomb. Archaeologists in Iraq find residence of biblical kings Sennacherib and Esarhaddon in IS-dug tunnels beneath ruined shrine, according to report (Times of Israel/AFP).

Past posts on the (traditional) Tomb of Jonah and its destruction by ISIS in 2014 are here, here, here, and here.

Pro-Government forces near Palmyra

PALMYRA WATCH: Activists: Syrian Pro-Government Forces Near IS-Held Palmyra (AP). Great. ISIS vs. the Syrian Government and Hezbollah. That's not much of a choice, but the latter will at least take care of what's left of the ruins on the site if they recapture it.

Background on Palmyra, its history, the ancient Aramaic dialect spoken there (Palmyrene), and the city's tragic recent fate, now a second time, in the hands of ISIS is here with many, many links.

Hempel on the Community Rule

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: The Community Rule Manuscript Tradition from Qumran and the Growth of Ancient Jewish Texts (Charlotte Hempel).

Qumran’s Glimpses into Textual Evolution

One of the most fascinating insights provided by the Dead Sea Scrolls is the way they allow us a first-hand glance at the way in which ancient texts grew. By looking at the original manuscripts we are almost watching ancient texts grow and evolve in front of our eyes. The question of how ancient texts developed over time has been and continues to be of great interest to scholars of the Hebrew Bible. The important difference for Qumran studies is that we have actual ancient manuscripts to check the theory in crucial places.

[...]

True. And that makes it all the more frustrating that scholars still can't agree on basic questions like in what order the different versions of the text developed. So it is probably even more difficult to solve the similar but more complicated questions about, say, the redaction of the Pentateuch. [Update: dead link now fixed.]

Earlier essays in AJR's current series on the Dead Sea Scrolls (in honor of the 70th anniversary of their discovery) are noted here and links.

Cutting open the Copper Scroll

VIDEO: 1955 Film of Cutting Open of the Copper Scroll. Posted by the Leverhulme International Network Project for the Study of Dispersed Qumran Cave Artefacts and Archival Sources, courtesy of Judy Brown, John Allegro's daughter. Seen on Facebook etc.




For clarification (the accompanying text is a bit confusing), the original film is 1 minute 21 seconds long.

For past PaleoJudaica posts on the Copper Scroll, start here and follow the many links back.

Jesus, Judah the Maccabee, and cleansing the Temple?

READING ACTS: “The Lord Leading Them On” – 2 Maccabees 10:1 and Mark 10:32.

In New Testament studies it is somewhat commonplace to say the Jews at the time of Jesus were expecting a messiah who was a military leader or a Davidic king. In popular preaching this is usually stated without any sort of evidence. There is some reason to think at least some Jewish people in the first century had this view of the messiah, although it was not the only way to think about the messiah in the first century.

This semester I have been teaching a class on the Second Temple period as well as a series of Bible studies in the Gospel of Mark. When I was preparing to teach Mark 10:32-34 for this week, I ran across a potential allusion to the military activity of Judas Maccabees in the Gospel of Mark. I am sure someone what noticed this before, but let me offer this as an illustration of how reading Second Temple period literature helps to illuminate the New Testament.

[...]

Maybe.

Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.

Matt on the Zohar

NPR INTERVIEW: Decades Later, Translation Of Jewish Text Will Open Zohar's Gates To English Speakers.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Now we'd like to tell you about an important Jewish text that will finally be available in English. In May, publishers will release the final volume of the first authoritative English translation of "The Zohar." Judy Silber from member station KALW in San Francisco tells us about the significance of this text and about the scholar who's dedicated nearly two decades to revealing its secrets.

That scholar is, of course, Daniel Matt.

For many, many past posts on the Zohar and on the English translation of it headed by Prof. Matt, start here and here and follow the links.

The Talmud on real estate transactions

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: If You’ll Buy That, the Rabbi’ll Throw the Golden Gate in Free. This week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ Talmud study examines the origin of rules for real estate transactions.

Chapter Three of Tractate Bava Batra deals with a crucial issue in real-estate law. How does a person prove that he is the legal owner of a piece of property, such as a house or a field? In modern societies, there are government registries that keep track of deeds to property. But even now, clearing title to real estate can be a complicated process, which is why most property transactions involve the purchase of title insurance. After all, how do you know, when you buy a house from someone, that he has the right to sell it to you? What if the house was never his to begin with, and he is only squatting on the property? Or what if he previously sold it to someone else? In Talmudic times, poor record-keeping and difficulties of communication made such problems even more complicated.

[...]

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Review of Mason, A History of the Jewish War, A.D. 66-74

BYRN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Steve Mason, A History of the Jewish War, A.D. 66-74. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xii, 689. ISBN 9780521853293. $150.00.

Reviewed by Matthew V. Novenson, University of Edinburgh (matthew.novenson@ed.ac.uk)

Preview

When I discovered the package containing Steve Mason’s A History of the Jewish War, A.D. 66-74 in my office mailbox, my first response was excitement, since I, like many scholars of Judaism in antiquity, had known about and been anticipating Mason’s summa on the war for some years now. My second response, upon opening the package, was surprise at the book’s title, since one of Mason’s professional calling cards is his insistence upon using “Judaean” rather than “Jew” or “Jewish” for Greek Ἰουδαῖος and Latin Iudaeus. (I can only guess that the title represents a compromise between author and publisher, since in the pages of the book Mason uses his customary “Judaean” throughout.) My third and lasting response, upon reading the book, was deep appreciation for Mason’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the contexts of the war and his nimble handling of numerous historiographical problems. Mason’s Jewish War was originally commissioned for Cambridge University Press’s Key Conflicts of Classical Antiquity series, a match made in publishing heaven. But whereas the previous entries in that series—Michael Kulikowski’s Rome’s Gothic Wars and Waldemar Heckel’s Conquests of Alexander the Great—weigh in at about 240 pages, Mason’s Jewish War runs to nearly 700. While a series-appropriate 240-page “foundation for undergraduates with no background in ancient history” (as per the series description in the CUP catalogue) on the Jewish War from Mason would be very welcome, the book that he has in fact produced is a far more interesting one.

[...]

YU Professor Joseph Angel

INTERVIEW: Featured Faculty: Professor Joseph L. Angel (Arthur Schoen, YU Commentator).

Professor Joseph L. Angel is an Associate Professor of Jewish History at YU, where he teaches Bible and Jewish History courses in YC, IBC, and Revel. A recent tenure recipient, Professor Angel has been teaching at YU since 2008, the same year he received his PhD from NYU.

Professor Angel is a specialist in the Dead Sea Scrolls. A couple of past PaleoJudaica posts on him and his work are here and here.

New e-Clavis entires

AWOL: New Additions to e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha (February 2017). There are new entries in the e-Clavis bibliography (on which more here) on the following texts:

Apocalypse of Peter (Greek/Ethiopic) by Cambry Pardee
Dialogue of the Savior by Anna Cwikla
Gospel of Philip by Emily Laflèche
Gospel of Jesus’ Wife by Ian Brown
History of the Virgin (East Syriac) by Tony Burke
Pseudo-Clementines by F. Stanley Jones

Cross-file under New Testament Apocrypha Watch.

1 Enoch 83-84

READING ACTS: A Righteous Remnant in 1 Enoch 83-84.

It is very difficult to date with certainty any section of 1 Enoch, but if these two chapters were originally an introduction to the Animal Apocalypse (which follows in 1 Enoch 85-90), then the historical context of the righteous remnant in the present generation the Maccabean revolt and the righteous ones who remained faithful to the Law when tested by Hellenists.

But is this prophetic speech created to support the Hasmoneans (as the righteous ones struggling against the Greeks), or the Hasadim as they struggled against the later Hasmonean kings? Defining the “righteous remnant” seems to be a regular feature of apocalyptic literature (in the ancient world or today).

Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.

Studies in Late Antiquity 1.1. (2017)

NEW JOURNAL: Studies in Late Antiquity Launches First Issue. Follow the link for subscription information and the TOC for the first issue. You can access all the content for free online. For you, special deal!

Past posts noting that the journal was forthcoming are here and here.

Textus 26 (2016) now in print

NEW JOURNAL VOLUME FROM MAGNES PRESS:

Textus

Studies of the Hebrew University Bible Project

Edited by: Dr Michael Segal

Publisher: The Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies
Series:
Textus - STUDIES OF THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY BIBLE PROJECT
Categories:
Jewish Studies, Bible Studies
Publish date: February 2017
Language: English
Volume: XXVI
Danacode: 45-632026
ISSN: 0082-3767
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 282
Format: 24x17 cm
Weight: 600 gr.
Articles in this volume:

Emanuel Tov - The Development of the Text of the Torah in Two Major Text Blocks

Michael Segal, Emanuel Tov, William Brentת Seales, Clifford Seth Parker, Pnina Shor, Yosef Porath, with an Appendix by Ada Yardeni - An Early Leviticus Scroll from En-Gedi: Preliminary Publication

Kristin De Troyer - Reconstructing the Older Hebrew Text of the Book of Joshua: An Analysis of Joshua 10

Armin Lange - 4QXIIg (4Q82) as an Editorial Text

Gary A. Rendsburg - How Could a Torah Scroll Have Included the Word זעטוטי?

Nancy Benovitz - Psalm 91:1 and the Rabbinic Shemaʿ in Greek on a Byzantine Amuletic Armband

Yosef Ofer - A Fragment of the Aleppo Codex (Exodus 8) that Reached Israel

Rachel Hitin-Mashiah - Main Division in the Verse in the 21 Prose Books: Syntactic Study

Jordan S. Penkower - An Esther Scroll from the 15th Century: Determining its Type among Five Traditions (Oriental, Sefardi, Ashkenazi, Italian, Yemenite)

Volume 26 is now complete and available in print form, but the articles are also available with open access online. I noted the online version last year here.

Lieu et al. (eds.), Manichaeism East and West

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Manichaeism East and West. Notice of a new book: Lieu, Samuel, Nils Arne Pedersen, Enrico Morano & Erica Hunter (eds.). 2017. Manichaeism East and West (Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum – Analecta Manichaica 1). Brepols Publishers.

Deutsch, The Illustrated Pirkei Avot

FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM PRINT-O-CRAFT:

The Illustrated Pirkei Avot: A Graphic Novel of Jewish Ethics

Ships on or before April 20, 2017.
Composed almost 2,000 years ago, Pirkei Avot is Judaism’s oldest and most important book of wisdom and ethics.
The book was designed to be memorable. Its ideas sticks in your head and grow as you do. There is no other book quite like it.
In this volume, Jessica Tamar Deutsch has fully and finally opened up Pirkei Avot for easy public consumption. The Illustrated Pirkei Avot pairs a complete English translation of the work with more than 120 richly illustrated drawings. (The complete Hebrew text is included as an appendix.)
Deutsch’s book is perfect for both children and adults; for personal use, classroom use, or for reading to children. It is a pleasure to hold and a pleasure to read.

Cross-file under Mishnah Watch.

Embryology in Jewish and Ancient Middle Eastern Sources

DR. LEAH MAZOR: Embryology in Jewish and Ancient Middle Eastern Sources: Korot vol.23 2015-2016.

Samuel S. Kottek (ed.), Embryology in Jewish and Ancient Middle Eastern Sources: Korot vol.23 (2015-2016). The Magnes Press

EDITORIAL
The present volume 23 of Korot has as main topics, first, embryology in Jewish and ancient Middle Eastern sources, and second, medicine in the Holocaust

Follow the link for details. The first section includes articles on the Septuagint and Philo of Alexandria

HT reader Yoel.

Destro and Pesce, From Jesus to his First Followers

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

From Jesus to his First Followers: Continuity and Discontinuity
Anthropological and Historical Perspectives

Adriana Destro and Mauro Pesce, University of Bologna
From Jesus to His First Followers examines to what extent early Christian groups were in continuity or discontinuity with respect to Jesus. Adriana Destro and Mauro Pesce concentrate on the transformation of religious practices. Their anthropological-historical analysis focuses on the relations between discipleship and households, on the models of contact with the supernatural world, and on cohabitation among distinct religious groups. The book highlights how Matthew uses non-Jewish instruments of legitimation, John reformulates religious experiences through symbolized domestic slavery, Paul adopts a religious practice diffused in Roman-Hellenistic environments. The book reconstructs the map of early Christian groups in the Land of Israel and explains their divergences on the basis of an original theory of the local origin of Gospels’ information.