Short notice: Job/PhD in Greco-Coptic lexicography

THE NSEA BLOG: DOCTORAL POSITION: GRAECO-COPTIC LEXICOGRAPHY, BERLIN. Just noticed this one, which was posted a week ago. This is a part-time job that is tied to a PhD. The postmark deadline for applications is 15 October 2018. It is also possible to e-mail an application If you are interested, hurry!

Cross-file under Coptic Watch.

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A murder at that other Jericho?

THE HOLY LAND PHOTOS' BLOG: Murder of a Jewish High Priest at NT Jericho (Carl Rasmussen). There is no way to know whether Josephus' account of the death of Aristobulus III is true. But Herod did murder a lot of people. Anyhow, the post has some good photos.

Background on Herodian Jericho is here.

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Dating in the ancient world

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: How Old Is That? Dating in the Ancient World. An introduction to scientific dating methods (Jennifer Drummond).

In the September/October 2018 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, David A. Warburton provides an introduction to scientific dating methods in his article “Dating in the Archaeological World.” This is the first article in a new BAR series called Biblical Archaeology 101.

If you were hoping for an article on courtship in antiquity, you're out of luck. But I can tell you that it did not involve dating.

As usual, the BAR article is behind the subscription wall. But this BHD essay gives you some basics from it.

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Did God abandon the Garden of Eden?

IS THAT WHAT HAPPENED? God Abandons the Garden of Eden and Dwells with the Cherubim (Dr. Raanan Eichler, TheTorah.com).

Four Aramaic targumim (ancient translations) have God, and not just cherubim, taking up residence east of the garden. This is based on a slightly different vocalization of the Hebrew text, which is likely a more original reading than our current biblical text (MT).

Could be. That is clearly the interpretation of the Targumim, but I'm not convinced that it was also the sense of the original Hebrew. One weakness of this reading is that the meaning of so many of the suggested parallel passages is also in doubt.

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Charming Conference

THE NSEA BLOG: CFP: CHARMS, CHARMERS, AND CHARMING.

Conference: Charms, Charmers, and Charming
When: May 22 – 24, 2019
Where: University of Chieti-Pescara (Italy)

Deadline for abstracts: December 1, 2018

Follow the link for further particulars.

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McGrath does the MOTB

THE RELIGION PROF BLOG: Museum of the Bible. James McGrath has visited the Museum of the Bible. He seems to have liked it. He reports with a long photo-essay. It has uncountably many pages. Or at least I lost count. Plus approximately a zillion photographs.

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Interview with John A. L. Lee

WILLIAM ROSS: SEPTUAGINT SCHOLAR INTERVIEW: JOHN A. L. LEE. It's been a while, but here, at last, is another of William's interviews with a Septuagint scholar. For his past interviews, see here and links.

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The cyborg's Talmud?

TALMUD WATCH: The Algorithms Translating Talmud. A new edition of the Babylonian Talmud has human translators collaborating with advanced algorithms (Simone Somekh, Tablet Magazine). No, AI is not translating the Talmud. Not yet. But this article tells about the algorithms that are aiding the translators of the new Italian translation of the Talmud.

The small team of developers Piperno recruited knew that no existing translation software could handle this type of work; new algorithms were needed. Based in Rome, the group created a computer-assisted translation software that memorizes all translations performed by the human collaborators, storing them into a cloud in order to facilitate future ones. They named it “Traduco,” which means “I Translate” in Italian.

The translators divide the text into paragraphs and strings, then select the portion they want to translate; the software searches for similar excerpts and corresponding translations in its database and offers the translators a list of suggestions.

“The software has ultimately become an excellent tool for analysis of the text itself and of the quality of the translations,” Michael Dollinar, an IT manager who worked on Traduco, told Tablet.

He explained that the software doesn’t translate the Talmud; it makes suggestions to the human translator, increasingly developing an interconnectivity between different passages that no other translation software allows. This feedback loop is meant to enhance the work’s overall accuracy and coherence.

This is a remarkable use of algorithms that, in effect, makes the human translators into cyborgs with machine-level precision of memory.

Background on the Italian translation of the Talmud is here and links. Cross-file under Technology Watch and The Singularity Is Near.

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Was Moses' death untimely?

DR. GILI KUGLER: Moses Dies at the Age of 120 — Was it Premature? (TheTorah.com).

The end of Deuteronomy recounts that at an age of one hundred and twenty Moses says he is no longer able/allowed to lead the people’s journey and will therefore not be carrying them on to cross the Jordan (Deut 31:2). According to other places in the Torah, however, Moses dies because of a sin – his or of the people.

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Specifying the Ten Commandments?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Understanding Israel’s 10 Commandments. Are the 10 Commandments really a moral code? (Shawna Dolansky). A nice overview of the Decalogue from a scholarly perspective. Everyone agrees it contains ten commandments, but different traditions divide them up differently.

I have commented on the meaning of the sixth commandment (prohibiting "murder," sort of) here. There is more on the (Samaritan) stone decalogue tablet, pictured in the essay, here and links.

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The Cartagena Festival 2018

PUNIC WATCH: Cartagena, Spain, has been celebrating its annual Romans and Carthaginians Festival over the last week. I have been watching for news, but so far all I have found is one notice of the festival, here, from Murica Today. Cartagena was a Punic town founded in the third century.

If I find anything more about this year's festival, I'll let you know. Usually someone posts a report.

Past posts on the history of Cartagena and its modern festival are here and links.

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Matassa, Invention of the First-Century Synagogue

THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE has posted the full text of a new book online for free. For you, special deal!

Lidia D. Matassa, Invention of the First-Century Synagogue (SBL Press, 2018)

In Invention of the First-Century Synagogue, Lidia D. Matassa critically reevaluates the scholarship surrounding the identification of firsrst-century synagogues at five key sites: Delos, Jericho, Herodium, Masada, and Gamla. These sites are consistently used in modern scholarship as comparators for all other early synagogues. Matassa reviews the scholarly discourse concerning each site, inspects each site, and examines the excavation reports in conjunction with a thorough analysis of the literary and epigraphic evidence. She uncovers misunderstandings of the site remains by previous scholars and concludes that excavators incorrectly identified synagogues at Delos, Jericho, Masada, and Herodium. After a clear review of the material evidence, Matassa concludes that the identification of a synagogue at Gamla may be correct.

LIDIA D. MATASSA was an independent scholar and founding president of the Irish Association for the Study of the Ancient Near East. She participated in a number of excavations in Israel and helped organize multiple interdisciplinary conferences in Dublin. She coedited Text, Theology, and Trowel: Recent Research into the Hebrew Bible (2011). Matassa passed away suddenly in January 2016.

HT Todd Bolen at the Bible Places Blog. Cross-file under New Book.

Also, the work of the late Dr. Matassa was mentioned here.

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Jacobs, Delicious Prose

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Delicious Prose: Reading the Tale of Tobit with Food and Drink
A Commentary

Series:
Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism, Volume: 188

Author: Naomi S.S. Jacobs

In Delicious Prose: Reading the Tale of Tobit with Food and Drink, Naomi S.S. Jacobs explores how the numerous references to food, drink, and their consumption within The Book of Tobit help tell its story, promote righteous deeds and encourage resistance against a hostile dominant culture. Jacobs’ commentary includes up-to-date analyses of issues of translation, text-criticism, source criticism, redaction criticism, and issues of class and gender. Jacobs situates Tobit within a wide range of ancient writings sacred to Jews and Christians as well as writings and customs from the Ancient Near East, Ugarit, Greece, Rome, including a treasure trove of information about ancient foodways and medicine.
See Less
Publication Date: 2 October 2018
ISBN: 978-90-04-38247-3

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Journal of Jewish Languages 6.2

H-JUDAIC: TOC: Journal of Jewish Languages 6.2. This issue includes an article on Jewish Neo-Aramaic and another on Judeo-Arabic.

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Frankel Institute Annual 2018

THE FRANKEL INSTITUTE ANNUAL, Volume 2018 is now available for free online.

Jews and the Material in Antiquity

How did Jews in the ancient Mediterranean engage, sense, and construct material entities, artifacts, bodies, buildings and more? How did those who were not Jewish perceive or represent the relationships between Jews and matter? How has the history of Jews and matter been reconstructed in modern scholarship and how might scholars approach the nexus of Jews and the material more productively?

HT AJR.

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Review of Gmirkin, Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Review of Russell E. Gmirkin, Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible

The author proposes that the Laws of Plato constitute a new hermeneutical key for the ideology not only of the Pentateuch but the whole of the Bible

By Stéphanie Anthonioz[1]
Professor of Literatures and Comparative Religions of the Ancient Near East
Université Catholique de Lille, France
October 2018

I noted the book when it was published here. I commented a bit there. I have still not read it, nor do I plan to.

Nevertheless, the author's thesis is pretty clear from the summaries and this review. The review flags the question of language, which seems to me to be a serious concern:

This methodological question invites us to note an aberration that the author does not mention, that of language. If the Septuagint really copies the Greek laws in the Greek scholarly milieu of the Great Library of Alexandria, how can one explain why no Greek lexical or stylistic borrowing is in Hebrew? It is indeed in general the Greek translation known as the Septuagint that one credits with “hebraisms," not the opposite. The whole of these points attenuates, it seems to me, the strength of the theory of the author.

But read the whole thing, because the reviewer has a lot more to say, both positive and negative.

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Hurtado is home

LARRY HURTADO: A Personal Update. Larry has finished his second round of chemotherapy and is recovering at home. Again, all best wishes to him from me and on behalf of PaleoJudaica's readers.

Background here and here.

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Kindle deals from Eerdmans

FOR YOU, SPECIAL DEAL: Kindle Deals on Second Temple Judaism and the New Testament Backgrounds from Eerdmans (Phil Long, Reading Acts). The special Kindle prices for these books are still on as of this posting.

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The LXX at AAR/SBL etc.

AAR/SBL IS COMING: The Septuagint at the Denver Meetings (John Meade, ETC Blog). The annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion, with various associated meetings, is in Denver late next month.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

The Bulletin for Biblical Research (BBR)

THE AWOL BLOG: Open Access Journal: Bulletin for Biblical Research (BBR). The volumes of this journal from 1991 through 2014 are available online for free.

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