Battle of Zama anniversary

PUNIC WATCH: Today is the (traditional, but perhaps approximate) anniversary of the Battle of Zama (202 BCE), in which the Roman general Scipio Africanus decisively defeated Hannibal Barca's army, ending the Second Punic War.

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Ancient Judaism & RS job at USC

H-JUDAIC: FEATURED JOB: Open Rank Professor of Ancient Judaism and Religious Studies, University of Southern California.

The school of religion at the University of Southern California invites applications and nominations for a position in ancient Judaism, to begin in the fall semester of 2023. Rank is open to assistant professor, associate professor and full professor candidates. We seek candidates who can teach broadly across Jewish Studies and Religious Studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels. We conceive of ancient Judaism broadly, from the biblical through the late ancient period.

Follow the link for further particulars and application information. The deadline for first consideration of applications is 15 November 2022.

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AI handwriting analysis of DSS and papyri

ALGORITHM WATCH: Ancient world's multicultural secrets revealed by handwriting analysis of scrolls ( Ethan Bilby, PhysOrg).

The story deals with a Dead Sea Scroll of the Book of Isaiah and with papyri from Roman-era Egypt.

For more on the AI work on the Isaiah Scroll, see here.

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Hebrew Bible job at University of Pennsylvania

H-JUDAIC: FEATURED JOB: Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible/Ancient Israelite Culture, University of Pennsylvania.

The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC) in the School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Hebrew Bible and ancient Israelite history and culture. We seek candidates who demonstrate a broad knowledge of relevant Near Eastern contexts of the Bible and of post-biblical interpretive traditions; proficiency in relevant research languages; and promise of excellence in research and teaching. We also seek candidates who will play an active role in the life of the department and in Penn’s Jewish Studies Program.

Follow the link for further particulars and application information. Review of applications begins on 1 November 2022.

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When Did Jews Start Observing Torah?

PROF. YONATAN ADLER: When Did Jews Start Observing Torah? (TheTorah.com).

By the 1st century C.E., observance of Torah laws is abundantly evident in Judean society. But how far back does this widespread observance go?

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Quick & Ramos (eds.), New Perspectives on Ritual in the Biblical World (T&T Clark)

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

New Perspectives on Ritual in the Biblical World

Laura Quick (Anthology Editor), Melissa Ramos (Anthology Editor)

Hardback $115.00 $103.50

Ebook (PDF) $103.50 $82.80

Product details

Published Jul 14 2022
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 296
ISBN 9780567693372
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

Description

This volume presents a range of methodologically innovative treatments on ritual action in the Hebrew Bible. They treat a diverse range of ritual phenomena, including space, blessings and oath-taking, from the world of ancient Israel and Judah.

The introduction engages with the dominant scholarly models drawn from ritual theory, and the volume explores their applicability to ancient textual material such as the Hebrew Bible. The chapters reflect high-level specialized engagement with specific ritual phenomena through the lens of appropriate theoretical and methodological approaches.

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Shemeni Atzeret and Simchat Torah 2022

SHEMINI ATZERET begins tonight at sundown. In Israel, this is also the holiday of Simchat Torah (Simhat Torah). Outside of Israel, the latter holiday begins tomorrow at sundown. Best wishes to all those celebrating!

Last year's Shemini Atzeret post is here. Biblical etc. links are here.

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Reading, Writing, and Bookish Circles in the Ancient Mediterranean (Bloomsbury)

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY:

Reading, Writing, and Bookish Circles in the Ancient Mediterranean

Jonathan D.H. Norton (Anthology Editor), Garrick Allen (Anthology Editor), Lindsey A. Askin (Anthology Editor)

Hardback $115.00 $103.50

Ebook (PDF) $103.50 $82.80

Ebook (Epub & Mobi) $103.50 $82.80

Product details

Published Jul 28 2022
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 272
ISBN 9781350265028
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series Education, Literary Culture, and Religious Practice in the Ancient World
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

Description

By integrating conversations across disciplines, especially focusing on classical studies and Jewish and Christian studies, this volume addresses several imbalances in scholarship on reading and textual activity in the ancient Mediterranean. Contributors intentionally place Jewish, Christian, Roman, Greek and other reading circles back into their encompassing historical context, avoiding subdivisions along modern subject lines, divisions still bearing marks of cultural and ideological interests.

In their examination, contributors avoid dwelling upon traditional methodological debates over orality vs. literacy and social classifications of literacy, instead turning their attention to the social-historical: groups of people, circles and networks, strata and class, scribal culture, material culture, epigraphic and papyrological evidence, functions and types of literacy and the social relationships that all of these entail. Overall, the volume contributes to an emerging and important interdisciplinary collaboration between specialists in ancient literacy, encouraging future discussion between two currently divided fields.

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The Oxford Oxyrhynchus papyri online

THE AWOL BLOG: The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Database.

This database presents digitised images of the published papyri belonging to the Egypt Exploration Society and housed in the Sackler Library at Oxford. The collection comprises thousands of texts on papyrus and parchment and is the largest of its kind in the world. It includes principally literary, documentary, and other texts in Greek, dating from the second century BCE to the seventh century CE; other languages represented include Latin, Demotic, and Coptic. Most of the papyri come from excavations conducted at the site of Oxyrhynchus (modern Behnesa) by Oxford classicists Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt in 1896–1907 on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund (now Society). Since then, scholars have worked continuously to catalogue, decipher, and publish this material.

The site of the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus is best known for its trove of many thousands of ancient papyri found in a trash dump. For many posts on it and them, start here and just follow those links. For the missing Oxyrhynchus papyri scandal, see here and links. Cross-file under Oxyrhynchus Watch.

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Intensive agriculture in the Byzantine-era Negev

ARCHAEOLOGY: Making the Negev Bloom: The Byzantines Did It First. Archaeological survey finds not the odd isolated farm but intense agriculture in Israel’s Negev desert in the Byzantine period, between the 2nd and 6th centuries (Nir Hasson, Haaretz).

The archaeologists behind the survey hoped for insight into two questions about the Byzantine Negev. How did the arid southern desert became so prosperous back then? And why did the good times end?

A long and informative article on the survey.

For PaleoJudaica posts on the recent archaeology of the late-antique Negev, see the links collected here, plus here and here. For a couple of important, slightly later discoveries in the region, see here.

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

Update on the Phoenicia's Atlantic voyage

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Phoenicians Sailing to the New World. Did Phoenicians beat Christopher Columbus to the Americas by thousands of years? (Jonathan Laden).

I noted this BHD essay back in October of 2019. It dealt with a new expedition of the Good Ship Phoenicia in the direction of the Americas to try to establish that such a voyage was possible in an ancient Phoenician ship.

I had not heard the result of the expedition until now. The updated essay reports:

The Phoenicia, after 39 days at sea, did in fact reach the Dominican Republic on December 31st, 2019. Even if the actual Phoenicians never reached the Americas, the journey demonstrates their impressive boat-building skills, and their capability to have done so. There is good reason they were famous mariners.

Follow the link above for background on this story, the earlier voyage of the Phoenicia around Africa, and the whole question of whether the Phoenicians reached the New World.

The short answer to the question is, their boats were physically capable of making the journey. It is possible that they did. But there is no positive evidence that they ever got that far. Supposed Phoenician (and ancient Hebrew) inscriptions in the New World have not been credibly authenticated.

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Macatangay & Ruiz-Ortiz (eds.), Ben Sira in Conversation with Traditions (De Gruyter)

NEW BOOK FROM DE GRUYTER:

Ben Sira in Conversation with Traditions
A Festschrift for Prof. Núria Calduch-Benages on the Occasion of Her 65th Birthday

Edited by: Francis M. Macatangay and Francisco-Javier Ruiz-Ortiz
Together with: Renate Egger-Wenzel

Volume 47 in the series Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110762181

PDF £100.00

Hardcover £100.00

eBook
Published: August 1, 2022
ISBN: 9783110762181

Hardcover
Published: August 1, 2022
ISBN: 9783110761979

About this book

This volume of essays on Ben Sira is a Festschrift on the occasion of the 65th birthday of Prof. Nuria Calduch-Benages.

The volume gathers the latest studies on Ben Sira's relationship with other Jewish traditions. With a variety of methods and approaches, the volume explores Ben Sira's interpretation of received traditions, his views on the prevailing issues of his time, and the subsequent reception of his work.

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Revival of the Coptic language?

COPTIC WATCH: Preserving the Coptic Language. Many Egyptians are trying to revive the lingual link to their past (Lydia Wilson, New Lines Magazine).

From the hieroglyphs on the walls of tombs to the Greek letters on a keyboard today, the language of Egypt has survived — just — through millennia, expressing different belief systems and cultural norms, written in many different scripts. It has mostly endured through the Coptic Church, with its services, prayers and Sunday school lessons. But there is no doubt — as seen in Maurice’s home — that it can be used for everyday life. Whether it flourishes in this living form is down to a fringe group but one that hopes to spread the word, literally.

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Frankfurter interview on ancient magic

THE COPTIC MAGIC PAPYRI BLOG: Podcast #12: Talking Ancient Magic with David Frankfurter.

In this episode, the well-known scholar of ancient Mediterranean religion David Frankfurter not only introduces the into the basic questions concerning magic in the ancient world, but also shares his memories of magic studies during their revival in the 1990’s. David Frankfurter specializes in Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, magical texts, popular religion, and Egypt in the Roman and late antique periods. ...

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Revival of the Hakhel ceremony?

FOR SUKKOT: The ancient Jewish practice of hakhel, an every-7-years gathering, gets a 21st-century revival (Jackie Hajdenberg).

(JTA) — Every seven years, in ancient times, Jewish men, women, and children would gather at the Temple on the first day of Sukkot to hear the king of Jerusalem read aloud from the Torah.

In 2022, there’s no king and no Temple, and more than half of all Jews live far from Jerusalem — but the ritual is still inspiring Jews around the world to gather together. In fact, the tradition, known as hakhel, appears to be seeing a resurgence of popular interest.

[...]

This article focuses on the contemporary situation and is vague about the historical background. Our information about the ancient Hakhel ("Assemble!" - imperative verb) ceremony comes from Deuteronomy 31:9-12 and Mishnah Sotah 7.8.

I noted an essay on the Hakhel ceremony by Aaron Demsky in TheTorah.com here. Another, by Marc Zvi Brettler, is here.

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Harland et al., website on Ethnic Relations and Migration in the Ancient World

PHILIP HARLAND: Ethnic Relations and Migration in the Ancient World. Another useful website/blog by Professor Philip A. Harland (and collaborators), this one drawn to my attention by David Meadows at Rogue Classicism. I have mentioned it long ago under another name. I am happy to see it is still thriving. It is now added to my blogroll.

“Ethnographic culture,” as we intend it, moves beyond the idea of “ethnography” as a Greek and Roman literary genre describing non-Greek and non-Roman peoples (“barbarians”). Instead, ethnographic culture refers to the ways in which the classification and description of “other peoples” was an active imagination that played out in large-scale and small-scale ways across societies, in local social interactions, and in connection with diasporic communities of immigrants. Judeans (Jews) and Jesus adherents (Christians) were very much a part of this larger sphere of ethnic encounters, so they have a place here too as instances of minorities (see especially categories 1 and 5).

This website then combines literary, epigraphic, and visual data in order to aid students and researchers in a fuller understanding of ethnographic culture. It also facilitates the reconstruction of minoritized ethnic groups spread across time (from the fifth century BCE to the sixth century CE) and geography (across the Mediterranean and near east).

There are many posts on matters of interest to PaleoJudaica.

Some PaleoJudacia posts on Professor Harland's books and websites are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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

Sukkot Temple pilgrimage in antiquity

ARCHAEOLOGY: Sukkot: Uncovering the ancient pilgrimage to the Temple Mount. Pilgrimages to the Temple Mount were a central aspect of Sukkot in biblical times. Discoveries along the pilgrimage road in Jerusalem’s City of David shed light on this oft-forgotten custom (Aaron Reich, Jerusalem Post).

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Which Temple gate was "Beautiful?"

LEEN RITMEYER: The Beautiful Gate. What was so beautiful about it?

The miracle [of Acts 3:2, 10] took place at the Beautiful Gate [to the Temple], but the question is, which gate is the Scripture referring to and how can it be identified? There were at least seven gates in the outer walls of Herod’s Temple Mount, but only in one of these gates have decorations been found.

Cross-file under Temple Mount Watch.

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Sukkot 2022

THE SEVEN-DAY FESTIVAL OF SUKKOT (BOOTHS, TABERNACLES) begins tonight at sundown. Best wishes to all those observing it.

Last year's Sukkot post was here. More recent relevant posts are here and here. For the biblical background to Sukkot, see here and here.

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

Review of Gray, Charity in Rabbinic Judaism

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Charity in Rabbinic Judaism (Dov Kahane).

Alyssa M Gray. Charity in Rabbinic Judaism: Atonement, Rewards, and Righteousness. (Routledge, 2019. Pp. 214. ISBN 978-1-138-5996-3)

... In sum, Gray is a careful and intuitive reader and teacher of rabbinic text creating cogent and compelling arguments which support her conclusions about the interplay and shift in rabbinic values and theology on charity. ...

For more on Professor Gray's book and on books on related topics, see here.

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