Here, I briefly review the uses (and limitations) of several dating methods, including my own specialty, archaeomagnetism, which I believe can significantly improve our understanding of Iron Age chronology.Unusually, but welcome, the full text of this BAR article is available for free.
HT Bible History Daily, which summarizes.
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The Tales of the Sages in Late MidrashIncidentally, here's a tip for choosing a title for your book.A Curtain Set with Jewels
Series: The Brill Reference Library of Judaism, Volume: 79
Author: Sivan Nir
How should we read tales about rabbinic sages unique to post-Talmudic works? What theological, poetic, and social changes do they hide? Who could have authored them? The Tales of the Sages in Late Midrash, reveals these narratives’ hypertextuality. Their characters, phrasings, and themes only invert, expand, and mimic other tales. In their own words, they are mosaics of cherished stories set into new narrative tapestries– What Acher thought of R. Akiva’s death? How was Akiva buried? Who was Resh Laqish before he met R. Yochanan? Analyzing twenty little-known such stories from fourteen compositions and discussing many others, Sivan Nir shows how medieval scholars use their stories to explore tensions between rabbis and laypersons, men and women, God and history, medieval culture and the Talmudic past.
Copyright Year: 2025
E-Book (PDF)
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ISBN: 978-90-04-73470-8
Publication: 16 Jun 2025
EUR €119.00Hardback
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ISBN: 978-90-04-54721-6
Publication: 26 Jun 2025
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This book has a good title. It tells you up front what it's about and makes a subtitle of the cute quotation. Lots of books put the subtitle first. That means that social media post titles need either to cut out the title and give the subtitle, or else give the title and leave readers without a clue what your book is actually about.
If the latter, they may not bother to click on that link.
Have your title give the subject of your book. Save any quotes or creative lines for the subtitle.
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“The gymnasion symbolized Jerusalem’s transformation into a Hellenistic city, with even priests engaging in a foreign culture,” said Dr. Haim Kaufman, an expert in Hebrew sports history who taught for years at the Levinsky-Wingate Academic Center. After Alexander the Great’s conquests, a wave of Hellenization swept through occupied territories, blending local and Greek cultures.In the second century BCE, under the Seleucid Empire, founded by King Seleucus I, a Hellenized high priest named Jason (originally Yehoshua or Yeshua) spearheaded reforms, culminating in the establishment of a gymnasion in Jerusalem, infuriating traditional Jews.
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One manuscript stands out among the new 14C dates — a copy of part of the book of Daniel, conventionally identified as 4Q114 or 4QDanc. The 14C results for that manuscript indicate that it was most likely composed between the years 355–285 BCE or 230–160 BCE. Significantly, the latter of these ranges seems to corroborate the widely held theory that the book of Daniel was completed sometime in the 160s BCE.This article has a quite good discussion of the implications of the redating of this manuscript of the Book of Daniel.The fact that scholars are so excited that a Daniel manuscript seems to date from near the time of composition of the book of Daniel in the 160s BCE may need explanation. A first perusal of the book would appear to indicate that Daniel received these prophecies of the far future in his historical setting of the sixth century BCE. Why second century, then?
Background here and here with my own commentary.
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James Bernard Murphy, Deification in classical Greek philosophy and the Bible. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. Pp. 378. ISBN 9781009392921.Sounds like an interesting book. But any discussion of deification in the Bible is going to be incomplete and misleading unless it steps outside the major canons and includes the apocalypses in the book of 1 Enoch.Review by
Zachary T. Hedges, Trinity College of Florida.
zachary.hedges@trinitycollege.edu... Murphy’s project, then, is to recover a sense of this interconnectedness between philosophy and religion, as it shapes the approaches to deification expressed in (1) archaic Greek religion, (2) the teachings of the three major classical philosophers (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle), and (3) the collective witness of the biblical canon. ...
Some other deification-related thoughts pertaining to the classical and biblical worlds are here and links.
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NOHADRA (DOHUK), Kurdistan Region of Iraq — The Ministry of Higher Education in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has approved the opening of a Syriac Language Department, in its Eastern dialect (Sureth), at the College of Education at Nohadra (Dohuk) University, starting from the current academic year.[...]
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The poems in the Torah are stylistically, theologically, and linguistically different from the prose narratives surrounding them. They include traces of earlier dialects of Hebrew, Ancient Near Eastern mythical motifs, and resemble an 8th century B.C.E. poetic fragment from Kuntillet Ajrud—all of which suggest that they are ancient remnants of earlier Israelite literature.A good discussion of archaic Hebrew poetry in the Pentateuch.
Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible I would include at least Judges 5, 2 Samuel 1, Psalm 29, and a few other bits and pieces as archaic poetry. And there is a good case for Habakkuk 3 and some other passages.
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Steven H. Wander, Flavius Josephus and artwork of Roman antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2024. Pp. 238. ISBN 9783752007916.Review by
Honora Chapman, California State University, Fresno.
hchapman@csufresno.eduThough there is copious recent scholarship on Josephus’ historiography, art historian Steven Wander focuses in his new volume upon Josephus’ “influence on artworks from Roman Antiquity and the early Middle Ages” (p. 19), ranging from the Arch of Titus to the Paris Psalter.[1] This is, indeed, very welcome, since it is the first book-length study of this important topic and is supported by beautiful illustrations throughout.[2] Wander’s detailed yet lucid observations “connecting word and image” (p. 21), found in the 56 mostly color illustrations (listed on pp. 11–16), make it an absolute pleasure to read.
[...]
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The brief underlying article in Anatolian Archaeology is open access:
WRITTEN BY LEMAN ALTUNTAŞJULY 6, 2025Orhoy and Urfa are both names of the modern city in Turkey that was known as Edessa in antiquity. The Edessen dialect of Aramaic became Syriac, the language of the Eastern Church.Ancient Tomb Discovered at Urfa Castle: Could It Belong to the Abgar Dynasty?
ANATOLIAN NEWS . SOUTHEASTERN ANATOLIA ARTICLE
Archaeological excavations at the historic Urfa Castle in southeastern Türkiye have led to a remarkable discovery that may shed new light on the region’s ancient past. A rock-cut tomb dating back to Late Antiquity has been uncovered on Dambak Hill, just south of the iconic Balıklıgöl. Experts believe the tomb may be linked to the ancient Kingdom of Osroene—also known as the Abgar Dynasty.
[...]
I noted the discovery of some other rock-cut tombs at Urfa Castle which may be associated with the Abgar dynasty back in 2016. But it sounds like this is a new find. In that same year some mosaics of Abgar V, the subject of apocryphal Syriac correspondence with Jesus, were also discovered. See here and here.
And for more PaleoJudaica posts on the Agbarid dynasty and the apocryphal Syriac correspondence between King Abgar V and Jesus, as well as on ancient Edessa, follow the links collected here.
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Religion and War from Antiquity to Early ModernityIrene Polinskaya (Anthology Editor) , Alan James (Anthology Editor) , Ioannis Papadogiannakis (Anthology Editor)
Hardback
$190.00$171.00Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
$171.00$136.80Ebook (PDF)
$171.00$136.80Product details
Published Nov 28 2024
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 512
ISBN 9780567697783
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 3 bw illus
Dimensions 10 x 7 inches
Publisher Bloomsbury PublishingDescription
Responding to the profound challenges of our times, this book provides a comparative and cross-cultural exploration of the role of religion in war in a long historical perspective, from the second millennium BCE, and even earlier, up to early modernity.
Individual chapters focus on the ancient Near East, the Mediterranean basin, Europe and North Africa. Widely diverse case studies explore the historic link between the conduct of war and the growing complexity of human society conditioned by the ownership of ideological authority. The book explores how in most historical societies this authority was religious.
Written by experts from different disciplinary perspectives, the volume challenges common assumptions about the historical relationship between religion and war and extends our understanding of the dangers and complexities of today's world.
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The IOS Annual Volume 25: "Memories Near and Far"Series:
The IOS Annual, Volume: 25Volume Editors: Yoram Cohen, Amir Gilan, Nathan Wasserman, Letizia Cerqueglini, Beata Sheyhatovitch, and Michal Marmorstein
Volume 25 of the Israel Oriental Studies Annual includes nine articles. The Ancient Near Eastern section consists of three articles. The first article is a study of the way that scholarly knowledge was memorized and internalized by the professional classes of First Millennium Mesopotamia (Gabbay). The second article discusses rhotacism in Luwian (Simon). The third article is an edition of an inscribed metal-bowl of King Iddin-Sin of Simurrum, followed by a commentary (Wasserman). The Semitic section includes six articles that touch upon languages attested, although not solely, in Africa. The issues discussed are shared etymologies between ancient Egyptian and Arabic (Borg and Sheyhatovitch), a new Digital Humanities project of Phoenician and Punic insciptions (Cerqueglini, Silber-Varod and Klein), the syntax of Hebrew spoken by the Algerian Jewish community of Wad-Souf (Gębski), the nomina agentis in Tigrinya (Gutgarts), the oral and written Beta Israel tradition (Rom-Shiloni).
Copyright Year: 2025
E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-73178-3
Publication: 13 Jun 2025
EUR €117.00Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-73177-6
Publication: 19 Jun 2025
EUR €117.00
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Tanja Hidde, Tal IlanMassekhet Shevuʿot
Volume IV/6. Text, Translation, and Commentary
[Massekhet Shevu' ot . Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar.]
2025. XI, 306 pages.
DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-164525-9€129.00
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available
978-3-16-164525-9Also Available As:
cloth €129.00Summary
Tanja Hidde and Tal Ilan offer a feminist commentary on the Massekhet Shevuʿot of the Mishnah and the Babylonian Talmud by focusing on women and gender in the texts. The tractate deals with oaths, mostly in a legal, court context. In presenting and interpreting the texts in Mishnah Shevuʿot , Tanja Hidde is concerned first and foremost with the discussion of women's participation in court cases that require oath-swearing, as well as women's exclusion from serving as witnesses.
Focusing on the Babylonian Talmud, Tal Ilan shows that, in their commentary on Mishnah Shevuʿot , the Babylonian rabbis continually use chapter 5 of the Book of Numbers, because it includes a wife suspected of adultery, who swears an oath. Tal Ilan illustrates that the Babylonian rabbis use the wife's oath-swearing as a basis for commenting on other actions of both men and women.
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Redescribing Moral Agency in Sirach, 4QInstruction, and the HodayotA Triadic Comparison
World Kim (Author)
Hardback
$120.00$108.00Ebook (PDF)
$108.00$86.40Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
$108.00$86.40Product details
Published May 15 2025
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 192
ISBN 9780567719591
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series The Library of Second Temple Studies
Publisher Bloomsbury PublishingDescription
This book presents the first comprehensive comparison of how moral agency is constructed in Sirach, 4QInstruction, and the Hodayot. World Kim argues that recent scholastic studies have overemphasized differences amongst various Second Temple texts and neglected the similarities between them. By employing four stages of comparison-description, juxtaposition, re-description, and rectification- Kim re-describes moral agency in Sirach, 4QInstruction, and the Hodayot, and aims to rectify the relationship between these texts.
Kim demonstrates that moral agency cannot be described by categories such as affirmation or denial, and argues that such agency should instead be described in terms of degrees and shaped by various factors such as knowledge and desire, that will either decrease or increase moral agency. Through an extensive comparison of these texts, Kim concludes that the degree to which one internalizes and actualizes the teachings of their religious text increases one's capacity for moral agency, and that this agency must be conceived as dynamic rather than static.
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Solomonic MagicMethodology, Texts, and Histories
Series:
Magical and Religious Literature of Late Antiquity, Volume: 11Author: Gal Sofer
Solomonic magic has captivated imaginations for centuries, yet its definition remains elusive. Is it a specialized branch linked to King Solomon, or a broader classification of practices attributed to him? This book explores the mysterious world of demon subjugation, examining previously unknown texts in multiple languages (Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and more) to reveal the historical evolution of this magical tradition. Divided into three parts, the book presents analyses of key manuscripts and examines the historical influence of Hebrew texts on later traditions. Featuring many unpublished manuscripts, this book challenges previous scholarly assumptions and offers a new perspective on the textual network that shaped medieval and early modern magical works.
Copyright Year: 2025
E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-73078-6
Publication: 19 May 2025
EUR €126.00Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-54677-6
Publication: 12 Jun 2025
EUR €126.00
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Position Description: The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University seeks to appoint a tenured professor in Jewish Studies, with a specialization in Jewish history, religion, and culture in antiquity and/or late antiquity. The successful candidate must have demonstrated expertise in Rabbinic and other Jewish literatures of the ancient world; facility with the relevant languages; deep knowledge of the surrounding civilization(s) in which Jews were embedded, i.e., some combination of Hellenistic, Roman, Eastern or Western Christian, and/or Zoroastrian; command of relevant disciplines in the Humanities including historical method. The appointment is expected to begin on July 1, 2027. The professor will teach and advise at the undergraduate and graduate levels.Follow the link for further particulars and application instructions. The closing date is 1 September 2025.[...]
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The Israelite camp’s layout provides a double layer of protection for the Tabernacle and ensures an orderly march through the wilderness. But where does this organizational model come from? New evidence points not to Egypt—but to Persia.
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H-Judaic is greatly saddened to learn of the untimely passing of Prof. Neil Danzig (1950-2025), emeritus professor of Rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary and a leading scholar of Geniza literature.[...]
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Cambridge University Library T-S E2.51 preserves an early Eastern version of the Mishnah, Tractate Pesaḥim. The upper part of the same parchment leaf, housed at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, Heb. C. 27/27, contains the conclusion of Tractate ʿEruvin. Both pieces have been catalogued and occasionally cited for textual variants.1 Yet one striking feature has gone unnoticed: this leaf is a Hebrew palimpsest.For many PaleoJudaica posts noting Cairo Geniza Fragments of the Month in the Cambridge University Library's Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, start here (plus here and here) and follow the links.On the verso of the Cambridge fragment, the Mishnah was copied over an erased text. Beneath it – still partially visible – is a passage from the tannaitic midrash Sifra. Hebrew palimpsests are rare to begin with, and even rarer when both upper and lower texts are rabbinic compositions.2
[...]
For many PaleoJudaica posts on palimpsests (manuscripts with erased, overwritten text), see here and links.
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M. David Litwa, Early Christianity in Alexandria: from its beginnings to the late second century. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023. Pp. 350. ISBN 9781009449557.The book seems also to deal quite a bit with Alexandrian Judaism.Review by
Joseph Verheyden, University of Leuven. jos.verheyden@kuleuven.be... In his most recent book, Litwa takes the reader on an exploratory journey to early Christian Alexandria on the perhaps a bit too optimistic hypothesis that more can be said about the origins and earliest history of Alexandrian Christianity than has often been thought. ...
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Armenian Apocrypha: The Short Questionnaire from Adam to MosesMichael E. Stone
ISBN 9781628376173
Volume EJL 58
Status Available
Publication Date May 2025Paperback $60.00
Hardback $80.00
eBook $60.00
Short Questionnaire, an Armenian question-and-answer text that survives in a seventeenth-century manuscript, draws on Armenian parabiblical traditions to systematically explore biblical events from creation to the exodus. The volume includes Michael E. Stone’s translation, extensive commentary, and twenty-seven essays that trace the history of parabiblical concepts and events from the Second Temple and early Christian periods down to the second millennium. Including stories of Satan’s fall from the garden, the raven’s role in Abel’s murder, the burial places of Adam and Eve, and Noah’s fourth son, the book forms a dictionary of Armenian parabiblical traditions for scholars and students interested in reception history in early Judaism and Christianity.
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