Ancient ring found on pilgrim's road

ARTIFACT: 2,000-year-old Ring Found in Pilgrim's Road to Temple Mount. Ring seems to have been found in ritual bath, either slipped off somebody's finger or was forgotten, archaeologists excavating the City of David suggest (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz premium).

It's annoying to lose your precious baubles in a public pool and probably was just as irksome 2,000 years ago too, when a ring seems to have slipped off the finger of an unwary bather in a mikveh. Or maybe it was taken off for the purposes of the ritual purifying bath, and was forgotten there.

[...]

"Precious?" Oh no.

The story is also covered by Amanda Borschel-Dan in the Times of Israel: Misplaced 2,000-year-old ring discovered in Jerusalem’s City of David.

For more on those two ancient gold earrings, see here and links. For that Byzantine-era hoard of gold coins, see here and here. And for the recently discovered "Pilate" ring from the same period as Precious, see here and here.

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Report on the Material of Christian Apocrypha Conference

NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA WATCH: At the Apocryphicity Blog, Tony Burke is reporting on the recent Material of Christian Apocrypha Conference:

Reflections on the Material of Christian Apocrypha Conference: Part I

Reflections on the Material of Christian Apocrypha Conference: Part II

There was lots of attention to the Infancy Gospel traditions, so this seems like a good day to note Tony's posts. But there was also much attention to other apocryphal traditions, both literary and iconographic.

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Finkelstein, Hasmonean Realities behind Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles

NEW BOOK FROM THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE:

Hasmonean Realities behind Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives
Israel Finkelstein

ISBN 9780884143086
Status Available
Price: $47.95
Binding Hardback
Publication Date September 2018
Pages 222

A thorough case for a later date for of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles

In this collection of essays, Israel Finkelstein deals with key topics in Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1 and 2 Chronicles, such as the list of returnees, the construction of the city wall of Jerusalem, the adversaries of Nehemiah, the tribal genealogies, and the territorial expansion of Judah in 2 Chronicles. Finkelstein argues that the geographical and historical realities cached behind at least parts of these books fit the Hasmonean period in the late second century BCE. Seven previously published essays are supplemented by maps, updates to the archaeological material, and references to recent publications on the topics.

Features:

• Analysis of geographical chapters of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles
• Study of the Hasmonean period in the late second century BCE
• Unique arguments regarding chronology and historical background

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Christmas 2018

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all those celebrating!

For posts of Christmas past, see my 2017 Christmas post and links. Christmas-related posts in the last year are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

I am busy this morning, but I will post some more later today.

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How many wise men?

'TIS THE SEASON: Were there more than Three Kings? (BBC).

Thirty years ago there were 50,000 Christians in south-eastern Turkey speaking a dialect of Aramaic - the language of Christ. Now there are 2,500. Talking to one of them, the BBC's Jeremy Bristow learned that instead of Three Kings, there might actually have been 12.

If we wanted to be pedantic, we could say that there weren't any kings. The Gospel of Matthew just refers to "magi." It doesn't say how many there were. We just infer there were three because they brought three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Their gender isn't even specified. "Magi" could be read as all male or as a mixed-gender group. (Past PaleoJudaica posts on Matthew's Magi are here and many links, plus here, here, and here.)

But we are not pedantic, are we? And later tradition promotes the magi to kings, gives them names, and specifies their number: three sometimes, but also twelve. And the recently rediscovered Syriac apocryphal text, The Revelation of the Magi, gives their number as twelve and more. The Revelation of the Magi is a very long work, but you can read a detailed summary of it by its re-discoverer, Dr. Brent Landau, here. And there's more on it here and links.

Also, let's not miss that this article is actually about a modern Syriac scribe, a rarity these days. But one I hope we will be seeing more of in a more peaceful Middle East.

Peace on Earth.

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Apocryphal Christmas, reprised

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Christmas Stories in Christian Apocrypha. The birth of Jesus in the apocryphal gospels (Tony Burke). I have noted this piece a couple of times before. But it's been a few years and 'Tis the Season, so here it is again.

If you want to read more about some of these texts, see here and links. And if you want to read the texts themselves, then buy Tony's and Brent Landau's book, New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, volume one.

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The original sign of Immanuel

'TIS THE SEASON: The Original Sign of Immanuel – Isaiah 7:1-14 (Phil Long, Reading Acts). Because you should know these things.

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The real Santa?

'TIS THE SEASON: Who Was St. Nicholas? Was St. Nicholas jolly or holy? (Mark Wilson). This essay was published last year, but it appears I missed it then, so here is this year's reprint.

We don't know much about the historical St. Nicholas: he was a fourth-century bishop from Anatolia whose name appears in a couple of lists. Plus we apparently still have his body. Mark Wilson's essay recounts some more ancient and less outlandish legends about him than that Santa Claus stuff.

Also, at the Holy Land Photos' Blog, Carl Rasmussen has reposted his The REAL Saint Nicholas! December 6, on which I have commented here. Follow the links there (plus see here) for additional past posts on Saint Nick.

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Herman and Rubenstein (eds.), The Aggada of the Bavli and Its Cultural World

NEW BOOK FROM THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE:

The Aggada of the Bavli and Its Cultural World
Geoffrey Herman (Editor), Jeffrey Rubenstein (Editor)

ISBN 9781946527080
Status Available
Price: $56.95
Binding Paperback
Publication Date August 2018

Essays that explore the rich engagement of the Talmud with its cultural world

The Babylonian Talmud (Bavli), the great compilation of Jewish law edited in the late Sasanian era (sixth–seventh century CE), also incorporates a great deal of aggada, that is, nonlegal material, including interpretations of the Bible, stories, folk sayings, and prayers. The Talmud’s aggadic traditions often echo conversations with the surrounding cultures of the Persians, Eastern Christians, Manichaeans, Mandaeans, and the ancient Babylonians, and others. The essays in this volume analyze Bavli aggada to reveal this rich engagement of the Talmud with its cultural world.

Features:

• A detailed analysis of the different conceptions of martyrdom in the Talmud as opposed to the Eastern Christian martyr accounts
• Illustration of the complex ways rabbinic Judaism absorbed Christian and Zoroastrian theological ideas
• Demonstration of the presence of Persian-Zoroastrian royal and mythological motifs in talmudic sources

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Online Course on ancient health and wellbeing

THE AWOL BLOG: Online Course: Health and Wellbeing in the Ancient World. The ancient world is understood, in this case, as Greece and Rome. But I'm sure this material has potential to help us understand the same concerns in contemporary ancient Judaism.

This course is with the Open University and it runs in January 2019 and again in June of 2019.

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Recovering the layout of lost Geniza fragments

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH (NOVEMBER 2018): Reconstructing folios from text editions: Lévi (1900) + T-S NS 98.18 and Bodl. MS Heb d.74.27 (Sacha Stern and Jay Birbeck).

Joining fragments is commonplace in Genizah research; less common is joining fragments with edited text.

The two folios in question, part of a larger manuscript that Sacha Stern is currently editing,[1] were torn horizontally, probably before they even left the Cairo Genizah. One of the lower fragments ended up in Cambridge, and the other in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The upper fragments have not survived, but they were seen by Israel Lévi at the great exhibition of Paris in 1900, at the stall of a merchant from Cairo. Lévi copied out the text and promptly published it, but without saying what happened to the fragments.[2] They may have remained in the hands of the merchant, or they may have been sold. Sacha Stern has searched for them in vain, in Paris and elsewhere; the assumption must be that they are lost. All that we have of them now is Lévi’s edition.

Three other sections of this codex survived in the Cairo Geniza:

These three folios, thus joined, contain the copy of a Hebrew letter that was written in 922 by someone most likely in Syria or Palestine. This can be told by his dating from the destruction of the Temple, a chronological era which was never used in Babylonia or further east. The letter concerns the controversy about the calendar and dates of the festivals that was raging, in 921/2, between Palestinian and Babylonian Rabbanite leaders (a controversy that has been known until now as ‘between Saadya and ben Meir’; but the role of Saadya was actually marginal). Although a Westerner, the author of this letter sides with the Babylonians, and reproaches his correspondent for appearing to support the Palestinians.

The subject matter of this correspondence is late for PaleoJudaica's usual interests. But this is worth a read just to follow the fascinating process of reconstructing the original layout of lost manuscript fragments using computer technology. So cross-file under Technology Watch.

Past posts noting Cairo Geniza Fragments of the Month in the Cambridge University Library's Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit are here and links.

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Gary N. Knoppers, 1956-2018

SAD NEWS: Word has just come in from the Agade List and Facebook that Professor Gary N. Knoppers passed away yesterday.

Gary and I were both NELC PhD students at Harvard University in the mid-1980s. I remember him as a nice, quiet, and unassuming guy. I once interrupted him in his library carrel to get him to help me move a large desk up to my third-floor apartment. It was really a three-man job, but we just barely managed it.

He was working on the Books of Chronicles back before it was cool. He went on to publish the Anchor Bible Commentaries on 1-2 Chronicles.

Requiescat in pace.

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Review of McKechnie and Cromwell (eds.), Ptolemy I and the Transformation of Egypt, 404-282 BCE

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Paul McKechnie, Jennifer Cromwell (ed.), Ptolemy I and the Transformation of Egypt, 404-282 BCE. Mnemosyne supplements. History and archaeology of classical antiquity, 415. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2018. Pp. x, 247. ISBN 9789004366961. €110,00. Reviewed by Tara Sewell-Lasater, University of Houston (tlsewell@uh.edu).

This book is a collection of essays presented at a 2011 conference at Macquarie University, where the overall theme was the transformation of Egypt during the fourth century. As Paul McKechnie notes in his introduction, the common view that the reign of the Ptolemies was a new and unique event in the history of Egypt has prevented much-needed analysis, especially of the continuity with the immediately preceding Persian period: “Alexander and his successor Ptolemy maintained vital features of the Thirtieth Dynasty settlement while simultaneously building an innovative settler society on foundations derived from their Macedonian heritage” (5). The essays collected here look at the transformation from several different angles.

[...]

Ptolemy I is a character in the Bible. For more on him, see here, here, and here and links.

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Your Septuagint New Year's present

WILLIAM A. ROSS: ONE YEAR GRADED SEPTUAGINT READING PLAN.

You will not be surprised to learn that the Plan is keyed to William A. Ross and Greg Lanier, Septuaginta: A Reader’s Edition (Hendrickson 2018), on which more here and links. And you can still sign up for that drawing for a free copy at the link.

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New PhD thesis on "non-aligned" biblical DSS

THE ETC BLOG: New Dissertation on the ‘Non-Aligned’ Dead Sea Scrolls (John Meade). The dissertation is by Anthony Ferguson: "A Comparison of the Non-Aligned Texts of Qumran to the Masoretic Text," SBTS.

Fun fact: I published 4QGen^k (in DJD 12, pp. 75-78). There's not much left of it, so I would be cautious about assigning it an "alignment." But it reads mostly with the Masoretic Text, a couple of times with the Septuagint against the MT, and it has one unique reading.

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Review of Hendel and Joosten, How Old Is the Hebrew Bible?

BOOK REVIEW: The Bible Under a Microscope (Jonathan Kirsch, Jewish Journal). The book is Ronald Hendel and Jan Joosten, How Old Is the Hebrew Bible? A Linguistic, Textual, and Historical Study (Yale University Press, 2018). Excerpt from the review:

“How Old Is the Hebrew Bible” bears a weighty subtitle: “A Linguistic, Textual and Historical Study.” Indeed, it is a serious monograph that confronts some of the hottest controversies in biblical scholarship. But it is also a kind of whodunit in which words serve as clues and a lens through which we can learn new and wonderful things about the ancient writings the world regards as sacred scripture.

Cross-file under New Book.

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The NYT on Alter's translation of the HB

NOW COMPLETE: After More Than Two Decades of Work, a New Hebrew Bible to Rival the King James. The pre-eminent scholar Robert Alter has finally finished his own translation (Avi Steinberg, New York Times). This is the most detailed article I have seen on the Alter translation. It includes good examples and has an extensive interview with Professor Alter. As for this:

In its day, “The Art of Biblical Narrative” was subversive. A current Berkeley colleague of Alter’s, Ronald Hendel, told me about his experience as a Harvard grad student in philology in the early 1980s. One of his instructors pulled him aside after class and whispered, “Go to the bookstore and get yourself a copy of ‘The Art of Biblical Narrative,’ but you can’t let anyone around here see that you’re reading it!” Hendel added, “And he wasn’t kidding.” One of Alter’s former undergraduate students during that period, Ilana Pardes, who is now a professor of comparative literature at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has written of “witnessing the birth of the book, or rather the birth of a new way of thinking about the Bible.”

I was in the same PhD program with Ron at the same time. I know who that instructor was, but I shan't say here. And, yes, Alter's work was subversive.

For more on Professor Alter's now-complete translation of the Hebrew Bible, see here and here.

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Oldest Aramaic incantation found?

ARAMAIC WATCH: Ancient Aramaic Incantation Describes 'Devourer' that Brings 'Fire' to Victims (Owen Jarus, Live Science).

A 2,800-year-old incantation, written in Aramaic, describes the capture of a creature called the "devourer" said to be able to produce "fire."

Discovered in August 2017 within a small building, possibly a shrine, at the site of Zincirli (called "Sam'al" in ancient times), in Turkey, the incantation is inscribed on a stone cosmetic container. ...

Zincirli is a very interesting site that has produced some important Iron-Age Aramaic inscriptions. Another, the Katumuwa (Kuttumuwa) funerary inscription, was discovered there in 2008. Others are noted here.

Most surviving Aramaic incantations are much later. The best-known ones are the Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowls, on which more here, here, here, here, and here and many links. The Cairo Geniza has also produced many Hebrew and Aramaic incantations.

Over the years I have noted some others here, here, and here (the last is written in Greek letters). There's at least one (4Q560) among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The oldest Aramaic incantation I know of after this new one from Zincirli is the so-called Uruk Incantation (4th century B.C.E.), which has Aramaic written in Babylonian cuneiform script.

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Is Jerusalem's Tomb of the Kings a holy site?

THEOLOGICAL POLITICS: The Battle Brewing Between the French and ultra-Orthodox Over a Jerusalem Archaeological Site Ultra-Orthodox demands to pray at the Tomb of the Kings – the grandest burial compound in Jerusalem – have kindled fears among the French of an Israeli land grab under their flag in East Jerusalem (Nir Hasson, Haaretz premium).

These protests are yet another round in a long-standing historic struggle over control of one of the most beautiful archaeological sites in Jerusalem, which has been closed to the public for years. On the one side stands the government of France and on the other, Haredi and right-wing Israeli factions. Israel’s Antiquities Authority is in favor of opening the site to the public, but does share the French concerns that the site might befall the same fate of many other archaeological sites in the city, which were transformed from mere archaeology and tourism sites into holy sites and then appropriated from the public’s domain.

I won't try to excerpt any more. The situation is complicated and has a long history. But you should read this article, because you will learn a lot about what makes a "holy site" in Israel and what this means.

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Haaretz top 10 biblical archaeology stories 2018

END-OF-YEAR LIST TIME: Top Biblical Archaeology Stories of 2018. Who exactly did ancient Jews really worship, and what did Jesus really look like? Find out in the top Haaretz biblical and Christian archaeology stories of 2018 (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

No, that discovery doesn't tell us what Jesus looked like! The etching was made centuries after his time. Why are headline writers such nitwits? (Not a criticism of Ms. Schuster, who does very good work and who I am sure had nothing to do with the headline.)

Anyway, this article leads you to the top 10 Haaretz articles on the subject. PaleoJudaica noted most of them and often commented on them. To find the posts, run the article headlines through our search engine.

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