Review of Goodman, Josephus's The Jewish War: A Biography

THE NEW CRITERION: Written by the victors? On Josephus’s The Jewish War: A Biography by Martin Goodman. (David Polansky).

Josephus thus comes to us as both oath-breaker and turncoat, mistrusted by his erstwhile Jewish and his Roman compatriots (as well as subsequent readers). At the same time, he is himself the source of our knowledge of his perfidy, as well as a crucial source concerning both the events of the war and its backdrop. As with the man from Crete who claims that all Cretans are liars, trusting Josephus and his work is no simple matter.

Cross-file under New Book. The full reference is Martin Goodman, Josephus's The Jewish War: A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books 45 Princeton University Press, 2019).

Some recent posts on the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus are here and links, here, and here. And there are many more in the archives.

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On Creation, primordial matter, and time

THETORAH.COM has two essays on the creation story in Genesis 1:1-2:4, with special attention to the question of primordial matter in the account.

Creation from Primordial Matter: Did Rashi Read Plato’s Timaeus? (Prof.Warren Zev Harvey)

Rashi interprets the opening verses of the creation story as describing God’s use of primordial substances to form the world. This idea appears in various forms in rabbinic literature but some of Rashi’s particular notions are only found in Plato’s Timaeus. Could this be one of Rashi’s sources?

The Genesis of Time (Professor Jack M. Sasson)

The simple meaning of Genesis 1–2:4 is that God created the world out of primordial elements. And yet, one important new initiative was the construction of time, embracing the day, the month, the year, and the week. The week, however, does not depend on a cosmic phenomenon but served to introduce the concept of a people holy to a creator God.

For some past PaleoJudaica posts on Genesis 1:1, see here and links.

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Interview with James Diggle

WILLIAM ROSS: THE CAMBRIDGE GREEK LEXICON: AN INTERVIEW WITH PROF. JAMES DIGGLE.

For Dr. Ross's many previous interviews with Septuagint scholars, see here and links. Professor Diggle is not a Septuagint scholar, he is a Classicist. But the Cambridge Greek Lexicon includes some biblical material (the Gospels) and will certainly be of interest to Septuagint scholars.

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AJR reviews Hicks-Keeton, Arguing with Aseneth

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Book Note | Arguing with Aseneth: Gentile Access to Israel’s Living God in Jewish Antiquity (Gillian Glass).

Jill Hicks-Keeton. Arguing with Aseneth: Gentile Access to Israel’s Living God in Jewish Antiquity. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Jill Hicks-Keeton’s book considers the creation, maintenance, and permeability of the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in ancient Judaism as evidenced in Greco-Jewish literature from the Hellenistic and early Imperial periods.

[...]

For past PaleoJudaica posts on the book, see here and links.

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Penwell on the Samaritans

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Josephus on Samaritan Origins

According to Joachim Jeremias, the Samaritans in Josephus are viewed as a “mixed Judeo-Gentile race,” a position held in some circles even today. Jeremias, however, is wrong. This essay focuses on Josephus’ origin stories for the Samaritans and draws attention to the names he uses for the Samaritans. As we will see, these names have less to do with the Samaritans’ actual origins, but instead, the names Josephus applies to the Samaritans have a social-rhetorical function of categorizing these people as not us, that is, not Jews/Judeans.

See Also: Jesus the Samaritan: Ethnic Labeling in the Gospel of John (Brill 2019).

By Stewart Penwell
Corydon, IN
October 2019

Cross-file under New Book.

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Ruth Calderon has been teaching Talmud in America

TALMUD WATCH: Scholar-activist to speak in Teaneck. Dr. Ruth Calderon to teach Talmud, discuss Jewish literacy (LOIS GOLDRICH, The Jewish Standard).

Dr. Ruth Calderon is spending this year as a professor of talmudic civil law at Harvard Law School, so she could be introduced as an academic.

She was a member of the Knesset from 2013 to 2015, so she might be presented as a politician.

[...]

Remarkably, all these titles would fit, and all the knowledge and skills Dr. Calderon has gained from these pursuits will be in evidence next weekend when she takes up her new — albeit temporary — role of Barry Shaeffer Memorial Scholar-in-Residence at Teaneck’s Congregation Beth Sholom.

She will be teaching in Teaneck, New Jersey, on 15-16 November.

Past posts on Dr. Calderon and her book A Bride for One Night: Talmud Tales are here and links. And, as I've noted before (e.g. here, here, here, and links), Teaneck is a scholarly place.

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The Talmud on detecting menstruation

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Menstrual Camps. In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ Talmud study, ancient rabbis take sides on how to deal with uncertainty when it comes to ritual impurity in women.

This week, Daf Yomi readers entered the home stretch of our 7 1/2-year journey through the Talmud, as we began the last tractate in the cycle—Tractate Nidda, which is devoted to the laws governing menstruation. ...

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

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More on the Phoenicia's new voyage

PHOENICIAN WATCH: The Phoenicia: A Voyage to Rewrite History. Is it just a myth, or “one of the greatest voyages in maritime history”? (Madeleine Handaji, Morocco World News).

This is a good background article on the earlier and current voyages of the Good Ship Phoenicia. But it has some lapses in logic. On the first voyage:

According to London’s “The Phoenicians: The Greatest Sailors Exhibition,” as early as “600 BC a fleet of Phoenician ships was said to have embarked on an epic journey to circumnavigate Africa.” In 2008, the crew of the newly-built Phoenicia set out to prove that the myth was, in fact, history.

After a two year voyage in a copy of a 3,000-year-old ship, the Phoenicia dodged Somalian pirates and extreme weather, sailing into the history books—the epic tale of the Phoenician explorers was no myth. However, not satisfied with one groundbreaking voyage, the crew of the Phoenicia is now on a mission to prove that the Phoenicians sailed to America over 2,000 years before Columbus.

The 2008-2010 voyage of the Phoenicia did not prove that the ancient Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa. It did prove that they could have with the ship technology that they had.

Likewise, with reference to the first paragraph, if the Phoenicia does reach the Americas — and I hope it does! — that would not prove that the Phoenicians actually got there. It would just show that they could have. Later in the article the situation is presented more accurately.

To prove that the Phoenicians reached the Americas, we need positive evidence, such as demonstrably ancient Phoenician inscriptions. Such evidence as has been presented thus far is not credible. Maybe someday that will change.

Background here and links and here.

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Kalmin on the Late Antique Babylonian Rabbis

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: The History and Literature of Late Antique Babylonian Rabbis (Richard Kalmin).

Too often the issue of the historicity of ancient rabbinic stories is assumed to be “yes or no”: either they are historically accurate or they are not. For me, however, the issue is never all or nothing, but rather of differing degrees of probability. When are these sources more likely to yield usable historical information and when are they less likely? And since it is extremely unlikely that we can accept any Talmudic narrative’s recounting of events as wholly accurate, are we permitted to translate the narrative’s distortions into reliable history, and if so, how?

[...]

For more on the creepy story about Herod and his Hasmonean wife, see here.

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More on the Machaerus ostraca

NORTHWEST SEMITIC EPIGRAPHY: GWU Professor Translates Ancient Inscriptions Discovered at the Site of Machaerus. Nice video. The George Washington University professor is, of course, Christopher Rollston.

Cross-file under Aramaic Watch and Technology Watch. Background here.

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Biblical Studies Carnival 165

BELATEDLY NOTED: Biblical Studies Carnival # 165. October 2019 (Gary Greenberg, Bible, Myth, and History Blog).

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

Dead Sea Scroll Detectives

ON NOVA (PBS) TONIGHT: Dead Sea Scroll Detectives Preview. Preview: Season 46 Episode 20 | 28s.

Since the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, these fragile parchment relics have intrigued scholars, religious leaders, and profiteers alike. The 2,000-year-old scrolls include the oldest-known versions of the Hebrew Bible and hold vital clues about the birth of Christianity. While certain scrolls have survived intact, others have been ravaged by time—burnt, decayed, or torn to pieces.

And keep watching. A three-minute excerpt of the episode follows the preview.

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Philanthropic Pontius Pilate?

CANDIDA MOSS: New Archaeological Evidence Shows Pontius Pilate Not as Bad as We Thought. Long known as an ineffective leader whose actions contributed to political unrest in the region, recent discoveries may be complicating that picture (The Daily Beast).

The discovery that Pilate was responsible for building the street from the pool of Siloam to the Temple Mount suggests that there was another side to the intemperate governor. One in which Pilate funded public works for the benefit of both the local people and their religion. ...

Background on this story is here, with past links on Pontius Pilate more generally.

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Tim Bulkeley, R.I.P.

SAD NEWS: I learn from Jim West that Old Testament scholar Dr. Tim Bulkeley has passed away. I have no further information at the moment.

Tim was based in New Zealand. I can't recall ever meeting him in person, but I got to know him a bit in the early years of blogging. His Sansblogue was one of the earliest "biblioblogs," one of the seven that were founded within a year of PaleoJudaica. (For more on the early history of biblioblogging, see my 2010 SBL paper, What Just Happened.) The opening post of Sansblogue was on 31 January 2004 and the most recent one on 17 August of this year. That makes it one of the longest continuously running biblioblogs.

I am sorry to hear that Tim is gone. All sympathy to his family and friends. Requiescat in pace.

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Nissinen, Essays in Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy

NEW BOOK FROM DE GRUYTER:

Nissinen, Martti

Prophetic Divination
Essays in Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy

Series: Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 494

139,95 € / $160.99 / £127.00*
Hardcover
Publication Date: October 2019
ISBN 978-3-11-046654-6

Aims and Scope
Prophecy was a wide-spread phenomenon in the ancient world - not only in ancient Israel but in the whole Eastern Mediterranean cultural sphere. This is demonstrated by documents from the ancient Near East, that have been the object of Martti Nissinen’s research for more than twenty years. Nissinen's studies have had a formative influence on the study of the prophetic phenomenon. The present volume presents a selection of thirty-one essays, bringing together essential aspects of prophetic divination in the ancient Near East.

The first section of the volume discusses prophecy from theoretical perspectives. The second sections contains studies on prophecy in texts from Mari and Assyria and other cuneiform sources. The third section discusses biblical prophecy in its ancient Near Eastern context, while the fourth section focuses on prophets and prophecy in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Even prophecy in the Dead Sea Scrolls is discussed in the fifth section.

The articles are essential reading for anyone studying ancient prophetic phenomenon.

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On the discovery of the DSS

THE ETC BLOG: 5 Surprising Details about the Initial Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Anthony Ferguson). The details are from Weston W. Fields's book, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Full History (Brill, 2009).

Past PaleoJudaica posts on the book are here, here, and here.

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Illegal construction halted at West Bank Hasmonean site

APPREHENDED: OFFICIALS STOP ILLEGAL BUILDING BY PALACES OF SECOND TEMPLE 'HANUKKAH HERO,' Catching the vehicles before construction started likely prevented damage from being done to the current and future archaeological findings (Jerusalem Post).

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The Vocabulary of the Septuagint and its Hellenistic Background (ed. Bons, Pouchelle, Scialabba)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: The Vocabulary of the Septuagint and its Hellenistic Background. Ed. by Eberhard Bons, Patrick Pouchelle, and Daniela Scialabba. [Das Vokabular der Septuaginta und ihre hellenistische Grundlage.] 2019. XII, 157 pages. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 496. 69,00 € including VAT. sewn paper ISBN 978-3-16-153020-3.

Published in English.
This volume precedes the projected Historical and Theological Dictionary of the Septuagint which is to offer historical studies of Septuagint words, retracing their usage from early authors, over koine Greek and the translation itself, into Jewish-Hellenistic and early Christian literature. The earliest of these phases were the object of a several workshops held between 2013 and 2017, the proceedings of which now appear in this book. The papers focus on the following key questions: what can we say about the meaning, the usage and the semantic development of Greek words attested in the Septuagint; where and how does the Septuagint use these words, and to what extent do they correspond to their Hebrew and Aramaic equivalents? Furthermore, to what extent can papyri contribute to a better understanding of typical Septuagint words? The papers combine the analysis of selected words and word groups with considerations of method.

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Late-antique iron hammer and nails found at Usha

ARTIFACT: Nailed it: Rare 1,400-year-old iron hammer found by family at Sanhedrin site. Volunteers at excavations at Western Galilee’s Usha uncover previously unknown blacksmith industry, an addition to impressive glassworks found there (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

A family volunteering at excavations at Usha, the first location of the Sanhedrin following the Bar Kochba revolt, discovered a previously unknown iron industry at the site and a rare 1,400-year-old iron hammer, according to an Israel Antiquities Authority press release on Wednesday.

[...]

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Was the "glorious martyr" Thecla?

GRAMMAR MATTERS: Tales from a crypt: Shedding light on a mysterious – female? – ‘glorious martyr.’ A 1,500-year-old Christian site in the heart of ultra-Orthodox Ramat Beit Shemesh takes The Times of Israel down a rabbit hole to meet St. Thecla, a feisty 2nd-century preacher (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

The article reports that the grammatical gender of the martyr in the Greek inscription is unspecified. Speculation on who the martyr may have been is, well, speculative. But fun.

Background here.

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