Star Trek and Rabbinics?

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Using Star Trek to Teach Rabbinics (Rebecca Kamholz).
Good, creative pedagogy. I like it.

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Ancient synagogue mosaic in Greece on exhibit

DECORATIVE ART: RACE TO PRESERVE RARE MOSAIC OF ANCIENT GREEK SYNAGOGUE. A special exhibition of the 4th Century CE mosaic was opened last week on Aegina Island (Ilanit Chernick, Jerusalem Post).

In a press release, EcoWeek described the geometric mosaic floor as “the most rare and significant finding of Jewish archaeology discovered in Aegina Island in the 19th century. The mosaic is at a dangerous state of damage and neglect and requires urgent preservation and protection.”

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Gold jewelry found in Jerusalem's Babylonian destruction layer

ARCHAEOLOGY: Rare Jewel Found on Mt. Zion Reveals Babylonian Destruction of Jerusalem. First Temple-era Jerusalem was bigger than thought, archaeologists say, adding: ‘Nobody abandons golden jewelry and nobody has arrowheads in their domestic refuse’ (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz premium).

Cross-file under Ancient Bling.

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Review of Berman, Inconsistency in the Torah

REVIEWS OF BIBLICAL AND EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES:

2019.3.4 | Joshua A. Berman. Inconsistency in the Torah: Ancient Literary Convention and the Limits of Source Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. ISBN 9780190658809.

Review by Lindsey A. Askin, University of Bristol.

Excerpt:

... We have always known the Pentateuch repeats itself but historically we have been less certain about why it does so. Berman’s Inconsistency in the Torah demonstrates that the repetition of incongruous laws and “unnecessary” repetitions have their own setting and context in the ancient traditions of common-law, an insight that should have reverberations in Pentateuchal criticism.

Earlier reviews of the book etc. are noted here and links.

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SOTS Book List 2019

IN THE MAIL:

John Jarick (ed.), Society for Old Testament Study Book List 2018 (= JSOT 43.5) (London: Sage, 2019).

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Tisha B'Av 2019

TISHA B'AV (THE NINTH OF AV) begins this evening at sundown. An easy fast to all those observing it.

The Ninth of Av is not specifically a biblical holy day. Rather, it commemorates a number of disasters that happened to the Jewish people, traditionally all on that same day. These include the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Babylonians, the destruction of the Herodian Temple by the Romans, and the fall of Betar during the Bar Kokhba revolt.

Last year's Tisha B'Av post is here with links.

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Louden, Greek Myth and the Bible

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Bruce Louden, Greek Myth and the Bible. Routledge monographs in classical studies. London; New York: Routledge, 2018. Pp. viii, 241. ISBN 9781138328587. $140.00. Reviewed by James J. Clauss, University of Washington (jjc@uw.edu).

Bruce Louden makes his position on the relationship between Greek Myth and the Bible loud and clear, and it will doubtless take many by surprise: “Israel’s oral traditions and scribal culture were not only acquainted with but also influenced and shaped by ancient Greek culture” (p. 2). I will state up front that I am not ready to go as far as Louden wants to take us, but readers will see first-hand that behind the Biblical passages discussed lurk traditional tales from polytheistic cultures. And the connections he points out are many and truly astonishing.

[...]

Some of what this review reports of the book sounds like parallelomania to me. But I haven't read the book, so I shall try to keep an open mind. Perhaps I would find the full arguments more convincing.

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Scialabba, Creation and Salvation

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Daniela Scialabba. Creation and Salvation. Models of Relationship Between the God of Israel and the Nations in the Book of Jonah, in Psalm 33 (MT and LXX) and in the Novel »Joseph and Aseneth.« 2019. XIV, 354 pages. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 106. 84,00 € including VAT. sewn paper ISBN 978-3-16-156261-7.

Published in English.
In recent decades, the debate on monotheism and religious pluralism has been strongly influenced by the idea that monotheism originating in the Old Testament is the root of intolerance and violence. In this study, Daniela Scialabba investigates inclusive tendencies in Old Testament monotheism, in particular theological principles motivating and supporting the possibility of a positive relationship between non-Israelites and the God of Israel. Thus, she examines three texts thoroughly: the Book of Jonah, Psalm 33 (MT and LXX), and the novel »Joseph and Aseneth«. Despite their difference concerning genre, date of origin and provenance, these texts have important ideas in common: the relationship between the God of Israel and non-Israelites as well as the concept of God as a universal creator who has pity with all his creatures.

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On the Geonim

MICHAEL SATLOW: The Geonim: An Introduction. The Geonim were "the rabbis who lived at the very end of the Talmudic period and the shift to the Middle Ages." Professor Satlow now has a video series on them.

Some related PaleoJudaica posts are here and links.

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

Schwartz, Rewriting the Talmud

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:Marcus Mordecai Schwartz. Rewriting the Talmud. The Fourth Century Origins of Bavil Rosh Hashanah. 2019. XI, 151 pages. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 175. 99,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-154123-0.

Published in English.
In this study, Marcus Mordecai Schwartz argues that there were two distinct periods in which traditions from Rabbinic Palestine exerted their influence upon extended passages of B. Rosh Hashanah. This doubling of influence resulted in a Babylonian-born text with two distinct Palestinian ancestries. This oddly mixed parentage was responsible for Bavli texts that both resemble synoptic passages in the Yerusalmi and differ from them in substantial ways. The main project of this book is to trace the dynamics of this doubled Palestinian influence and to account for the mark it left on passages of B. Rosh Hashanah.

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Dibon-Gad or Dibon and Gad?

PROF YIGAL LEVINE: Dibon-Gad: Between the Torah and the Mesha Stele (TheTorah.com).

In the southern Transjordanian Mishor (plateau), an area that changed hands between Israelites and Moabites, there once lived two neighboring tribes, Gadites and Dibonites…

For many past posts on the Mesha Stele, start here and follow the links.

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The Shekel (journal)

THE AWOL BLOG: Open Access Journal: The Shekel. Includes many articles on ancient Jewish coins. Cross-file under Numismatics.

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Josephus on Phinehas

DR. YONATAN MILLER: Sedition at Moab: Josephus’ Reading of the Phinehas Story (TheTorah.com).

The Torah describes Phinehas as a zealot, who kills Zimri in an act of vigilante fervor, and is rewarded by God with eternal priesthood. Anticipating the rabbis’ discomfort with Phinehas’ vigilantism, Josephus transforms Phinehas into a military general and Zimri’s sin into a dangerous sedition requiring a military response.

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New translations of NT Apocrypha

NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA WATCH: Years in the Making: The Debut of NASSCAL’s Early Christian Apocrypha Series (Tony Burke, Apocryphicity Blog).

The North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature (NASSCAL) is celebrating the release of the first two volumes in their Early Christian Apocrypha series: The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Nativity of Mary, by Brandon W. Hawk, and The Protevangelium of James, by Lily C. Vuong. To be clear, the two books are numbered volumes 7 and 8 because NASSCAL is continuing a series that was begun by Julian V. Hills, who edited six volumes of texts for Polebridge Press.

[...]

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Review of Dhont, Style and Context of Old Greek Job

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Marieke Dhont, Style and Context of Old Greek Job. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism, 183. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2018. Pp. 410. ISBN 9789004358485. €138,00. Reviewed by Patrick Pouchelle, Centre Sèvres (patrick.pouchelle@gmail.com).

This excellent book offers clear and nuanced conclusions. The application of PST to the OG of Job is productive, as it asks one to consider the OG of Job for itself. The recent renewal of the studies of the Septuagint follows two different paths: treating it as the Old Testament of early Christianity, or as the product of a Greek-Hebrew Jewish translator. This last approach produced the interlinear paradigm in which the LXX is understood as a resource intended to be read alongside its Hebrew original. The PST offers another approach. As a cultural artefact of the Greek-speaking Jewish world, the OG of Job should be studied not against the Hebrew source text, but against the literature of the Greek Jewish communities. ...

I noted the publication of the book last year.

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Walsh on angels and the Qumran sect

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Claiming Israel’s Angels as their Own: The Angelic Realm and the Religious Identity of the Qumran Sect

Several ancient Jewish texts suggest that a connection, correspondence, or parallel was thought to exist between the faithful angels of heaven and Israel on earth. The Qumran sect put their own stamp on these broader convictions by boldly claiming both fellowship with the angels and that they outranked the angels in some sense. In doing so, the sectarians bolstered their claims to be the true Israel.

See Also: Angels Associated with Israel in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Angelology and Sectarian Identity at Qumran (Mohr Siebek, 2019).

By Matthew L. Walsh
Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies
Acadia Divinity College
July 2019

Cross-file under New Book.

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Are the skeletal remains from Masada non-Jewish?

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Masada, the Human Remains: An Anthropological Critique

Masada, known throughout the western world for the suicide narrative described by Josephus and later excavations by Professor Yigal Yadin, is not without controversy. Outside the academic world, few are aware of the controversy surrounding Masada; however, scholars have long questioned the veracity of the narrative and its interpretation by Yadin. Unfortunately, few scholars have subjected the narrative to rigorous anthropological research, the basis upon which the final Masada drama rests. Professor Amnon Ben-Tor, who excavated Masada, has attempted to summarize the archaeological along with the anthropological findings for a wider public audience. However honest his attempt, the anthropological findings strongly suggest that nearly all, if not all of the human remains found to date, are ethnically non-Jewish.

By Joe Zias
Science and Antiquity
Jerusalem, Israel
July 2019

For past PaleoJudaica posts on the history and archaeology of, and revisionist views on, Masada, see here and links. And another recent post on Masada is here.

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Review of Alter's book on Bible translation

THE JERUSALEM POST: BOOK REVIEW: AN UNCOMPROMISING BIBLE TRANSLATION. Robert Altar [That's "Alter!" - JRD] pushes back against modern translations, which he thinks interpret too much and translate too little (Neville Teller).

In The Art of Bible Translation, Alter provides an intriguing insight into the complexities he faced in producing, single-handed, his translation of the Hebrew Bible. It makes fascinating reading.

This review too has some good examples of specific biblical texts.

For past reviews of this book and of Professor Alter's translation of the Hebrew Bible, start here and follow the many links.

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Frey et al. (eds.), Between Canonical and Apocryphal Texts

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Between Canonical and Apocryphal Texts.
Processes of Reception, Rewriting, and Interpretation in Early Judaism and Early Christianity. Ed. by Jörg Frey, Claire Clivaz, and Tobias Nicklas, in collaboration with Jörg Röder. 2019. IX, 490 pages. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 419. 149,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-153927-5.

Published in English.
The present volume aims at a comparative study of the processes of reception, rewriting and interpretation between canonical and apocryphal texts in early Jewish and early Christian literature. A closer look at the respective developments in both corpora of literature can open up new perspectives for understanding the developments and changes between texts that were already considered authoritative, and their reception in new, 'parabiblical' or 'apocryphal' compositions. The way of reception may also influence the perspective on canonical texts. The range of texts considered includes the LXX, Targumim and Pesharim, books such as Jubilees, the Genesis Apocryphon, the Gospel of Thomas, and Apocryphal Acts, traditions about Esther, Ezra, Manasseh, Peter and Paul, depictions of hell from Enoch to the Apocalypse of Paul, and the development of miracle stories.

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On myth and metaphor in the Hebrew Bible

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Myth as Story and Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible

Myth constitutes a vital part of the Hebrew Bible; it powerfully shapes the contours of biblical language, its various narratives, and theologies. That is, myth deeply defines what we might call the biblical world – populates the landscape with mythic monsters and deities and animates that world in which the God of Israel rises against forces of evil and, through victorious battle, creates order, erects his temple, and establishes his kingship.

See Also: Myth, History, and Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

By Paul K.-K. Cho
Wesley Theological Seminary
June 2019

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