Professor Alan R Millard (1937–2024) (Peter J. Williams, Tyndale House)
Obituary: Professor Alan Millard (Dr. Paul Lawrence and Dr. Bruce Routledge, University of Liverpool)
Professor Alan R. Millard (1937-2024) (Rob Bradshaw, Biblical Studies Blog)
Background here.
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For PaleoJudaica posts on female scribe from antiquity to the present, see the links collected here, plus here.
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Thus the hoard of 94 coins from the time of the Gallus Revolt, the last Jewish rebellion against Rome, was belatedly regained, the IAA revealed on Sunday.The story is also covered by the Times of Israel:The stash had been placed under the floor of a 4th century building probably associated with the ancient Jewish community of Late Roman Lod on what is today Nordau Street. The coins were dated between 221 and 354 C.E.
and Live Science:
1,700-year-old 'emergency hoard' of coins dates to last revolt of Jews against Roman rule. Many of the silver and bronze coins were minted during the Gallus. Revolt during the Roman era (Jennifer Nalewicki)
For many PaleoJudaica posts on ancient Lod and its remarkable mosaics, start here and follow the links.
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Wollenberg’s book compels us to keep firmly in mind what the trope of Written Torah v. Oral Torah tends to obscure, namely, that the rabbis absorbed, studied, and taught Scripture chiefly as an oral text. Surely, renewed attention to this fact will lead us to new conclusions about rabbinic scholasticism and perhaps also rabbinic theology.For a statement by the author about her book, also at AJR, see here.
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What do the Dead Sea Scrolls say about Jesus? Nothing.I tend to turn the picture around and look at the New Testament as contemporary evidence for a first-century messianic Jewish sect. But your roadmap may differ.What do they say about the world in which Jesus lived? Lots.
[...]
The 2015 underlying Bibical Archaeology Review article by James VanderKam is behind the subscription wall. But this summary essay is worth reading.
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McGrath makes some rather bold claims in this popular-level book on John the Baptist. For example, “What became Christianity was an offshoot of the Baptist movement” (124). Jesus was a disciple or apostle of John (93), and “Jesus’s teaching was the gist of John’s message” (74). Christmaker challenges much of what most Bible readers think they know about John the Baptist.The book was published last week.
Background here and links, plus here.
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The Comparative Textual Criticism of Religious ScripturesSeries:
Supplements to the Textual History of the Bible, Volume: 8Volume Editors: Karin Finsterbusch, Russell Fuller, Armin Lange, and Jason Driesbach
This collection of articles uniquely brings into scholarly dialogue the textual history and criticism of authoritative literatures from diverse cultures: they study Mesopotamian literature, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Homeric epics, the Quran, and Hindu and Buddhist literatures with an interest in all matters of their textual transmission. Contributors address questions such as: What role does textual criticism play in the study of authoritative texts in these fields? How much variation exists in these textual traditions? Can you observe processes of textual standardization? What role does the oral transmission play? How are critical editions prepared? While these questions have produced a wealth of scholarly literature for each individual field, this volume is the first to study them from a comparative perspective.
Copyright Year: 2024
E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-69362-3
Publication: 13 May 2024
EUR €129.00Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-69175-9
Publication: 30 May 2024
EUR €129.00
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The Moral Life According to MarkM. John-Patrick O’Connor (Author)
Paperback
$39.95$35.95Hardback
$120.00$108.00Ebook (PDF)
$35.95$28.76Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
$35.95$28.76Product details
Published Nov 30 2023
Format Paperback
Edition 1st
Extent 216
ISBN 9780567705624
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series The Library of New Testament Studies
Publisher Bloomsbury PublishingDescription
M. John-Patrick O'Connor proposes that - in contrast to recent contemporary scholarship that rarely focuses on the ethical implications of discipleship and Christology - Mark's Gospel, as our earliest life of Jesus, presents a theological description of the moral life.
Arguing for Mark's ethical validity in comparison to Matthew and Luke, O'Connor begins with an analysis of the moral environment of ancient biographies, exploring what types of Jewish and Greco-Romanic conceptions of morality found their way into Hellenistic biographies. Turning to the Gospel's own examples of morality, O'Connor examines moral accountability according to Mark, including moral reasoning, the nature of a world in conflict, and accountability in both God's family and to God's authority. He then turns to images of the accountable self, including an analysis of virtues and virtuous practices within the Gospel. O'Connor concludes with the personification of evil, human responsibility, punitive consequences, and evil's role in Mark's moral landscape.
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Claude, MarionAn important Greek manuscript containing material from the Book of 1 Enoch, the Gospel of Peter, and the Apocalyse of Peter was discovered at Akhmîm (Akhmim). The city was also the site of the activity of the late-antique alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis.
Akhmîm et la 9e province de Haute Égypte
Étude de géographie religieuseseries: Studien zur spätägyptischen Religion
volume: 41
pages/dimensions: XI, 412 pages, 48 ill.
language: French
binding: Book (Hardback)
dimensions: 21.00 × 29.70 cm
weight: 1835g
publishing date: 03.05.2024
prices: 128,00 Eur[D] / 131,60 Eur[A]
ISBN: 978-3-447-12070-8978-3-447-12070-8 Printed Version 128,00 Eur
978-3-447-39451-2 E-Book (pdf) 128,00 EurThe 9th Upper Egyptian province, with its capital city Akhmîm (also known as Ipu, Khenty-Min, or Panopolis), was a renowned cult center throughout Antiquity yet it has so far been largely neglected, due mostly to circumstances of archaeological discoveries and research.
This book, which stems from the author’s doctoral research, aims at summarizing, for the first time, the current knowledge about the religious geography of this area and its development from the Old Kingdom to the Roman Period. Starting with a study of the modern physical geography of the province as a frame of reflection for ancient landscape mobility, it moves on with an analysis of the archaeological sites and discoveries of the area. The next two chapters are dedicated to the toponyms attested for the province, and the question of their identification, as well as to the various deities, starting with Min, Horus, Isis or Repyt, who received a cult in these places. Finally, the last chapter proposes a diachronical overview of the development of temples and cults in the area. The whole book is illustrated with many maps and aims at providing an insight into the religious life of provincial cities, in a place rather remote from Egypt’s wellknown centers of power, be it Thebes or Memphis.
For PaleoJudaica posts on these and other matters pertaining to Akhmim, see here and links plus here.
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The Jerusalem Post also covers the story, with additional details: Phylacteries were not colored black 2,000 years ago, new study reveals. Tefillin are small leather cases containing miniscule parchment scrolls inscribed with biblical verses. They are worn even today by observant Jews as part of their morning prayers (Judy Siegel-Itzkovich).
The underlying PlosOne article is open access:
Black surfaces on ancient leather tefillin cases and straps from the Judean Desert: Macroscopic, microscopic and spectroscopic analysesThis makes sense to me. The leather of the Dead Sea Scrolls sometimes has aged to a black color that is about the same as the ink. The ink is only visible on infra-red photographs. An example is 4QGenesisb, which I published in DJD 12.Yonatan Adler, Ilit Cohen-Ofri, Yonah Maor, Theresa Emmerich Kamper, Iddo Pinkas
Published: June 13, 2024
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303635Abstract
Tefillin are Jewish ritual artifacts consisting of leather cases, containing inscribed slips, which are affixed with leather straps to the body of the tefillin practitioner. According to current Jewish ritual law, the tefillin cases and straps are to be colored black. The present study examines seventeen ancient tefillin cases discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls in caves in the Judean Desert. All seventeen cases display grain surfaces with a very dark, nearly black appearance. We start with a hypothesis that the cases were intentionally colored black in antiquity using either a carbon-based or iron-gall-based paint or dye. The aim of this study is to test this hypothesis by subjecting these tefillin cases to a battery of examinations to assess the presence of carbon and iron used as pigments, and of organic materials which may have been used as binding agents in a paint. The tests deployed are: (1) macroscopic and microscopic analyses; (2) multispectral imaging using infrared wavelengths; (3) Raman spectroscopy; (4) Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR); and (5) scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy. The results of these tests found no traces of carbon-based or iron-gall-based pigments, nor of organic compounds which may have served as binders in a paint. These results suggest that our posited hypothesis is unlikely. Instead, results of the SEM examination suggest it more likely that the black color on the surfaces of the tefillin cases is the result of natural degradation of the leather through gelatinization. The Judean Desert tefillin likely represent tefillin practices prior to when the rabbinic prescription on blackening tefillin was widely practiced. Our study suggests that the kind of non-blackened tefillin which the later rabbis rejected in their own times may well have been quite common in earlier times.
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The Gospel of the Son of GodPsalm 2 and Mark’s Narrative Christology
James M. Neumann (Author)
Hardback
$115.00$103.50Ebook (PDF)
$103.50$82.80Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
$103.50$82.80Product details
Published Nov 16 2023
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 256
ISBN 9780567711489
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series The Library of New Testament Studies
Publisher Bloomsbury PublishingDescription
James M. Neumann proposes that there is far more at work in Mark's portrayal of Jesus as Son of God, and what it means for Mark to depict him as such, than past scholarship has recognized. He argues that Mark presents Jesus's life from beginning to end as the actualization of Psalm 2: a coronation hymn describing the Davidic king as God's “son,” which was interpreted messianically in early Judaism and christologically in early Christianity. Rather than a simple title, the designation of Jesus as God's “Son” in Mark contains and encapsulates an entire story of its own.
Beginning with an analysis of why this most important identity of Jesus in the Gospel has been under-studied, Neumann retraces the interpretive traditions surrounding Psalm 2 in early Judaism and Christianity alike. Pointing to Mark's first introduction of Jesus as God's Son into the narrative via an allusion to Ps 2:7 and portraying his baptism as a royal anointing, he demonstrates how Jesus begins to realize the implications of his anointment through his disestablishment of Satan's kingdom. Focusing on the repetition of the allusion to Ps 2:7 at Jesus's transfiguration and exploring how the Parable of the Vineyard uniquely encapsulates the Gospel as a whole, Neumann traces the use of the psalm throughout the Markan passion narrative, contending that, in Mark's vision, the hope envisaged by the psalm has been realized: the Son begins to inherit (the worship of) the nations. He concludes that Mark paradoxically portrays the accomplishment of the Messiah's victory through Jesus's crucifixion.
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A popular reel about an out-of-the-way village in Syria where a small portion of the residents still speak what linguists believe to be the specific Aramaic dialect that Jesus spoke is catching a lot of attention on social media. With over 234,000 "likes" and 12,000 comments, the informational short by @AuthenticTraveling is certainly resonating with its audience.The bold-font emphasis is theirs. To say "the specific Aramaic dialect that Jesus spoke" is overly precise, but it is true that Maaloula preserves a Western dialect of Aramaic which is of the same general type as ancient Palestinian Aramaic, in contrast to Eastern Aramaic, notably Syriac.[...]
I am pleased to hear from the clip that Maaloula continues to recover from the ravages of war.
For PaleoJudaica posts on Maaloula (Ma'aloula, Malula, Maalula - etc!), start here and follow the links.
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While working through collections of unstudied papyri at the Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky State and University Library in Germany, two scholars made a shocking discovery: the earliest known copy of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Although the small papyrus contains only 13 lines of fragmentary Greek text, it provides an incredible window into the history of this early Christian apocryphal gospel.For more on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, including plans for a horror movie based on it, see the links collected here.[...]
Cross-file under New Testament Apocrypha Watch.
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The list includes shipwrecks found in or around Israel, and Phoenician and Punic shipwrecks. Also, the Antikythera shipwreck. Most of those, and more, have coverage in the PaleoJudaica archives.
Cross-file under Maritime (Underwater) Archaeology and under Phoenician and Punic Watch.
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The purchaser made a good investment. But it belongs in a museum. Donating it to one would be the best investment in humanity.
Background here and links.
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Christianity's oldest religious book, according to auction house Christie's, has been sold for more than £3m.To be a bit more precise, as are some of the other headlines, this is now the oldest privately owned Christian codex. For a possible (not certain) candidate for the oldest surviving codex, see the comments here.The Crosby-Schøyen Codex, written in Coptic script on papyrus in Egypt, dates to between 250 to 350AD.
The book, believed to be one of the oldest in existence, was auctioned off for £3,065,000 on Tuesday, Christie's in London told BBC News.
[...]
Be that as it may, this codex has now been sold to an anonymous buyer. As before, I encourage the buyer to donate it to a museum. The buyer of the Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus at the same auction has already set a good example.
Background here and links.
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Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder and the Honorary Chair of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Tuesday purchased a unique handwritten manuscript of the 10th-century by the famed Georgian calligrapher, author, translator and bookbinder-monk John Zosimos at Christie's auction in London.The manuscript is a palimpsest, whose underlying text contains excerpts from an early Aramaic translation of the Gospels and other Aramaic texts.The GD’s press office announced that the Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus, the unique manuscript of the 5th-7th century, would be donated to the Georgian National Museum.
[...]
It belongs in a museum. I commend the buyer for doing the right thing.
Background here.
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I noted another review of The Madwoman in the Rabbi's Attic here.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Last year's Shavuot post, with links, is here. For biblical references, see here.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Israelite religion developed from a revolutionary idea: monotheism. And religion alone, not external factors, accounted for the remarkable preservation of Jewish national identity and consciousness in exile.For more on Yehezekel Kaufmann and his work, see here and links.
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