Lecture: "Syriac Parallels with Lectio Divina: Monastic Reading in the Church of the East (400-700 CE)"

SYRIAC WATCH: REVIDEM GUEST LECTURE: DAVID A. MICHELSON Syriac Parallels with Lectio Divina: Monastic Reading in the Church of the East (400-700 CE) (ÖSTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN ERC-PROJECT REVIDEM).

Datum: 6 November 2025, 18:00.

Raum: Besprechungsraum 4 (4. OG), PSK

Contemplative reading was a spiritual practice developed by diverse Christian monastic communities in the early Middle Ages. In Latin monasticism this practice came to be known as "lectio divina". This talk examines a related practice of monastic reading in sixth- and seventh-century Mesopotamia. Ascetics belonging to the Church of the East pursued a form of contemplation which moved from reading, to meditation, to prayer, to the ecstasy of divine vision. The development of this Syriac tradition can be seen through three phases: its establishment as an ascetic practice, the articulation of its theology based upon “Egyptian” sources, and its maturation and spread beyond Mesopotamia to other regions of Eastern Christianity. The comparison of East Syrian contemplative reading with the Latin tradition of lectio divina is insightful because it allows us to see that parallel branches of ascetic reading developed in both Latin and Syriac monastic practice from roughly the same Evagrian and Egyptian origins.

In-person only, but if you are in Vienna tomorrow, worth attending. I wish I could go.

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When did Israel become monotheistic?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: When Did Monotheism Emerge in Ancient Israel? (Philip D. Stern).

When did the Israelites first begin to worship YHWH, refusing to worship or even recognize the existence of other deities? Was monotheism part of Israelite religious belief from the beginning, or was it an idea that developed later? While many biblical scholars view monotheism as a relatively late development within Israelite religion, I believe—based on evidence from early Israelite poetry—that the origins of biblical monotheism can be located early in Israel’s history, most likely by early in the first millennium B.C.E.

There is still some debate about the date of these biblical poems, but I accept them as early.

That said, I think the straightforward reading of Exodus 15:11 is that there are other gods, but YHWH, the God of Israel, is by far the greatest in that category.

Deuteronomy 32 is harder to pin down. Verse 39 sounds as monotheistic as anything in Second Isaiah. But who is the speaker? Is it YHWH, or the Most High, or are they the same? Verse 8 pretty clearly allows for a category of divinity called the "sons of god" whose number corresponds to the number of the nations, implying that each is in charge of one nation. YHWH's charge is "Jacob," that is, the people of Israel, so he got the best deal. That seems to put the sons of god as his peers in some sense. If he is the Most High, which is debated, he also did the assigning, which puts him uniquely in charge.

Elsewhere the poem says other gods are demons, not gods, and newcomers (V. 17); that they weren't involved in the wilderness events (v. 12); that Israel made YHWH jealous with their non-god idols; and that the other gods are powerless, but they did eat and drink the sacrifices to them (vv. 37-38).

To make matters more complicated, a line seems to have been deleted in v. 43, and the verse was adjusted in other ways. 4QDeuteronomy^q reads the opening of the verse as "Chant O heavens with him / and worship him all gods." The Septuagint reads the second line as "and worship him all sons of god." The second line is missing in the Masoretic Text and the Samaritan Pentateuch. But the poetry needs a parallel line in that spot. It's pretty clear that someone deleted it because it sounded less than monotheistic.

In short, those early poems regard YHWH as very high in the divine hierarchy, at the top according to Exodus 15 and perhaps also in Deuteronomy 32. But he is not unambigously the only god. That level of monotheism only comes with Second Isaiah.

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A statement by the director of "The Carpenter's Son"

CINEMA MEETS NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA WATCH: The Carpenter’s Son Is Coming To Deliver Us From Evil In UK Cinemas (Carl Roberts, Future of the Force).

Writer and director Lotfy Nathan (12 O’Clock Boys, Harka) draws from his Coptic Christian background, delivering a meticulously crafted, genre-bending supernatural thriller packed with unshakeable images of the divine and demonic at war.

There follows a "Director's Statement" by Mr. Nathan. You can read it yourself and see what you think. It looks to me like an attempt at damage control after the negative reactions to the grim trailer for the movie.

I doubt it will have much effect. People either like graphic horror or they don't. The natural target audience for the subject matter likely won't be very interested. But we'll see.

Past posts on the upcoming film and the trailers are here, here, and here, with links for the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

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Ross on syntax of year expressions in LXX Greek

WILLIAM A. ROSS: NEW PUBLICATIONS: PART 3.

Essentially, my essay is an investigation of how dates are phrased in Greek, specifically dates that state a year. For example:

ἐν ἔτει τριακοστῷ καὶ ἐνάτῳ Αζαρια βασιλεῖ Ιουδα καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν Μαναημ
“In the thirty-ninth year of Azaria king of Iouda, Manaem also ruled” (2 Kgs 15:17)

The essay is technical, but open access.

For previous posts in this series start here.

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Fox-footprint find at el-Araj

FAUNAL ARCHAEOLOGY: There Was a Fox in Bethsaida. In the dead of night, an unexpected animal walked on the freshly mortared wall of a Byzantine church complex by the shore of the Sea of Galilee 1,700 years ago (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

In the hours after nightfall, as the monks slept in their chambers, a fox came to Bethsaida.

He would have waited for the men to finish their day, to shut out the black night behind doors in order to raid the garbage, as nocturnal wild animals in commensal relationships with humans do. As the fox silently stole through the dark, he walked along the top of a freshly plastered wall in the Late Byzantine church complex.

[...]

I hope he found some leftovers.

For many posts on the archaeology of the ancient town of Bethsaida, mentioned in the New Testament, see here and links. The fox left its footprints at el-Araj, which seems to be the main contender for the site of the city. The other possibility is the nearby site of et-Tell/e-Tel. Follow the links for the details of the debate.

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Inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum

GRAND OPENING: With pomp and fanfare, Grand Egyptian Museum opens as ode to ancient civilization. Museum, the biggest worldwide dedicated to a single civilization, will exhibit some 50,000 artifacts of pharaohs and Egyptian gods (SAMY MAGDY, AP via Times of Israel).

Egypt’s pharaonic history has long made it a tourist magnet. But it has also long struggled to organize and display the sheer huge amount of artifacts — everything from tiny pieces of jewelry and colorful tomb murals to towering statues of pharaohs and animal-headed gods, with more as discoveries are constantly being made across the country.

Touted as the world’s biggest museum dedicated to a single ancient civilization, the new building, in contemporary style, is a stark contrast. Its large, open halls give space for some 50,000 artifacts on display, along with virtual reality exhibits. It displays the entire collection of treasures from the tomb of the famed King Tutankhamun for the first time since its discovery in 1922.

The museum replaces the Egyptian Museum, housed in a building more than a century old in downtown Cairo that — while elegant in its Neo-Classical style — had become antiquated and was often compared to a warehouse, overpacked with artifacts with little explanation.

I thought the inauguration was going to be tonight, but it seems it was last Saturday night. Background here.

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Jassen on imagined violence in the DSS

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Publication Preview | Exploring the Violent Imaginary of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Alex P. Jassen).

Alex P. Jassen, Violence, Power, and Society in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025.

The Dead Sea Scrolls inhabit a world between texts and ideas, between imagination and lived reality. The texts are carefully constructed literary productions that reflect a wide range of human creativity and imagination, and likely a good deal of anxiety about the world and the authors’ place in it. My goal in this book has been to peek behind the texts to recover the opaque world of the ancient people who created these texts and the impulses that compelled them to do so. In so doing, I also was finally able to answer many of my own linger questions about the Branch Davidians.

I noted the publication of the book here. And here is an old post of mine about the Branch Davidians. Alas, almost all the links have evaporated.

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Baker, Why a ''New Testament''? (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Why a ''New Testament''?

Covenant as an Impetus for New Scripture in Early Christianity

Series:
Texts and Editions for New Testament Study, Volume: 19

Author: Levi S Baker

Why would early Christians perceive the need for a ‘New Testament’? Unfortunately, most studies on the NT canon concentrate on its development and closing to the neglect of its impetus. Yet NT texts like 1 Tim. 5:18 and 2 Pet. 3:16 reveal that, within the first century, early Christians began receiving recent Christian texts as “Scripture”, on par with their Old Testament scriptural collection. What explains this rapid and remarkable development? Levi Baker traces the connection between Scripture and covenant in early Judaism and early Christianity, arguing that the answer lies in early Christianity’s conviction that Jesus had inaugurated the new covenant.

Copyright Year: 2025

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-73542-2
Publication: 22 Sep 2025
EUR €139.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-73539-2
Publication: 02 Oct 2025
EUR €139.00

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Jassen, Violence, Power, and Society in the Dead Sea Scrolls (CUP)

NEW BOOK FROM CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Violence, Power, and Society in the Dead Sea Scrolls

Author: Alex P. Jassen, New York University
Published: October 2025
Availability: Available
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9781009609081

£90.00 GBP
Hardback

£90.00 USD
Adobe eBook Reader

Description

Violence is one of the key themes in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It captured the imagination of the Sectarians who wrote these scrolls, and who saw themselves as victims of persecution. Their vision for the end of days included fantasies of revenge against their enemies. In this volume, Alex P. Jassen explores the intersection of violence and power in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the ancient sectarian movement which generated and preserved these texts. Bringing a multidisciplinary approach to this topic, he offers insights into the origins and function of violence for the people behind the Dead Sea Scrolls. He demonstrates how they positioned themselves in a world dominated by more powerful Jews and the overwhelming might of foreign empires. Jassen addresses the complex relationship between violence, power, and social groups by drawing on cross-cultural examples of sectarianism, millennial movements, and disempowered groups, with particular emphasis on New Religious movements such as the Branch Davidians.

• Explains the origin and rhetorical function of violent language and imagery behind the Dead Sea Scrolls
• Employs a multidisciplinary approach by utilizing social-scientific approaches
• Addresses the complex relationship between violence, power, and social groups in an ancient society by drawing on cross-cultural examples of sectarianism, millennial movements, and disempowered groups

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Maier on Shaphan the scribe

HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION: Shaphan the Scribe and the Jewish Question: Or, How Not to Find the Elephant in the Room. The claim was made that Shaphan 'invented' Judaism as we know it, and that the only real find in ancient Jerusalem was a toilet. An archaeologist answers (Aren Maeir, Haaretz).

In a recent article in Haaretz, Ofri Ilany argued that Shaphan the Scribe, a figure who lived during the region of Josiah, King of Judah in the late 7th century BCE, is perhaps the most important figure in Jewish history, and in fact invented Judaism as we currently know it.

The mentioned article is in Hebrew and behind the subscription wall. (And I haven't read it.) I noted another reply to it, by journalist Ariel David, here. Prof. Maier also replies to Mr. David in this article. Back to Prof. Meier:

I would like to point out several extremely problematic aspects of his proposal, with a particular emphasis on the archaeological evidence, which unfortunately was poorly represented, and even misconstrued.

I have only one comment on his discussion.

As for the supposed cultic reform during the reign of Josiah, the historicity of this reform is not only questionable from the perspective of biblical scholarship. Archaeologically, there is no clear-cut evidence of it, despite more than a century of archaeological research.

There is very little clear-cut archaeological evidence for most things in the Bible. But the Yavneh Yam ostracon provides some quite suggestive evidence for Josiah's reforms and even the elusive rediscovered Book of the Law. It is an employee complaint dating to roughly Josiah's reign. It may refer to a law in that law book. Some substantive posts on it are here, here, here, and here.

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Open Access Monographs from the Institute for the Study of the Ancient Cultures

THE AWOL BLOG: Open Access Monograph Series: Institute for the Study of the Ancient Cultures Miscellaneous Publications.

There are some classics here; out of date, but still worth a read. And some interesting newer volumes, including some for children.

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On Garshuni

SYRIAC WATCH: Garshuni: The Enduring Script Bridging Syriac and Arabic Heritage (SyriacPress).

BEIRUT — Garshuni, a unique method of writing the Syriac language using the Arabic script, continues to thrive among members of the Syriac community in their daily lives, correspondence, and even in the liturgies of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Arabic-speaking countries, as well as the Syriac Maronite Church in Lebanon. Yet for many Syriacs, the origins, meaning, and historical adoption of this writing system have long remained obscure.

[...]

Garshuni comes up occasionally in PaleoJudaica. Search the archives for the posts. Unfortunately, many of the links have rotted.

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Apocalyptic masculinity?

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Apocalyptic Masculinity (Megan Wines).

Megan Wines, “Apocalyptic Masculinity: Messiahs, Monsters, and Men Out Of Time” (PhD Dissertation, Loyola University Chicago, 2025).

... Taken together, these themes illuminate the fluidity and instability of the depictions of masculinity in apocalypses. Rather than depicting one sole model of masculinity to aspire to, the apocalypses instead depict masculinities that exist at either end of a spectrum, with hypermasculine traits at one end and emasculating traits at the other. Yet rather than having different figures for the two poles, apocalypses instead often have a sole figure exhibit traits from either end of the spectrum. This then causes a dissonance in the presentation of masculinity, one not resolved by the individual apocalypses. Rather, this dissonance, I argue, is a staple for how masculinities are depicted in apocalypses, the essential element of “apocalyptic masculinity.” ...

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Lied on the imaginary Book of Noriah

PROF. LIV INGEBORG LIED: The Book of Noriah (Noah’s Wife) and Other Pre-Flood Books (TheTorah.com).

Why did ancient Jewish and Christian authors attribute books, both real and imagined, to Adam and Eve, their daughters, Seth, Enosh, Kainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Lamech, Noah, and Shem?

Prof. Lied also discusses the general subject of such books in an essay with Matthew P. Monger in MOTP2, pp. 635-49: "Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Known Only by Title." Sadly, she does not cite it here. 😢

There are many PaleoJudaica posts on Lost Books (also here and here), some of which were real and some imaginary. Often it is debatable which are which. I mention a couple of other lost books of Noriah (with different spellings of the name) here.

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Review of Philo of Alexandria and philosophical discourse

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Philo of Alexandria and philosophical discourse.

Michael Cover, Lutz Doering, Philo of Alexandria and philosophical discourse. Ioudaioi, 14. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2024. Pp. 397. ISBN 9783525500972.

Review by
Sean A. Adams, University of Glasgow. Sean.Adams@glasgow.ac.uk

The individual chapters in this volume do not really engage with each other. However, the composite whole provides an interesting and needed consideration of Philo’s pluriform engagement with different philosophical schools. The primary thesis developed in the volume is that Philo engaged widely with contemporary philosophical schools, and each study reinforces Philo’s creative and complex participation in intellectual debate and the development of ideas. ...

The book is open-access. I noted it publication here. And the workshop that led to it here.

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Shaphan and the origins of Judaism?

HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION: Was Judaism Really Invented by an Obscure Scribe Named Shaphan? Shaphan, scribe to King Josiah, may have launched a reform, but the religion we call Judaism was born later – out of exile, loss, and reinvention in Babylon (Ariel David, Haaretz).

The Judaism that conquered the ancient world and survives today bears little resemblance to the temple cult of Josiah's reform. It is instead the child of exile – brilliant, adaptive, and endlessly creative. Those forgotten Babylonian innovators, not Shaphan in Jerusalem's temple, were the true inventors of Judaism. The weekly Sabbath stands as their most enduring monument – not merely a day of rest, but a complete reimagining of how humans mark sacred time. Through their genius, catastrophe became creativity, loss became law, and exile became the birthplace of a faith that could thrive anywhere. They gave us the supreme irony of religious history: the most radical revolution ever achieved by presenting itself as the recovery of ancient tradition.

For more on the Shaphan ostracon from Lachish, see here. And follow the links from there for more on Shaphan himself.

For more on the Elephantine "Passover Papyrus," which does not actually have the word Passover in the surviving text, see here and links.

The Sabbath is mentioned in the Elephantine texts. See here. If Papyrus Amherst 63 came from the Elephantine Judean community, they had access to Babylonian traditions. See here. Whether they knew about Babylonian ideas that turned into exilic innovations is not clear, at least to me.

For more on the reconstructed origins of the Sabbath, see here.

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Dr. Stephen J. Pfann (1952-2025)

SAD NEWS: I am hearing from various Facebook sources that Dr. Stephen J. Pfann passed away a couple of weeks ago. The University of the Holy Land (which he and his wife founded) has a post with details here.

Dr. Pfann is known particulary for his work on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran. His his Academia.edu page is here. There is a brief 4 Enoch entry for him here. The Wikipedia entry for the University of the Holy Land is here.

Stephen showed up from time to time in PaleoJudaica. I reported on a conversation I had with him about the Mount Zion Cup and its inscription here. For a recent follow-up of that, see here. For his early report about the rather doubtful "Ben Padiah Scroll," see, most recently, here. For other posts on his involvement with, e.g., the Afghan Liturgical Quire, the Talpiot tombs, the Ezekiel Plates, the Logos Dead Sea Scorlls Database, etc., see the archives.

Requiescat in pace.

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Review of Gathercole, The Genuine Jesus and the Counterfeit Christs

NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA WATCH: Simon J. Gathercole, The Genuine Jesus and the Counterfeit Christs: New Testament and Apocryphal Gospels (Phil Long, Reading Acts).

Gathercole has two propositions for this study. First, the four New Testament Gospels share key elements of theological context that mark them out from most of the non-canonical gospels. Second, the reason why the four New Testament gospels are theologically similar to one another is that they—unlike most others—follow the existing gospel message of the apostles. Essentially, the canonical Gospels are based on apostolic preaching and aim to preserve it; the non-canonical gospels “have a clear desire to distance themselves from key elements” of the apostolic preaching (109).

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On the recovery of 30 looted Carthaginian coins

PUNIC WATCH DAY: Carthaginian bronze coins from a hoard found off the coast of Tunisia (Håkon Roland and Paolo Visonà, Lybian Studies; published online by Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Core) on 10 October 2025). HT Rogue Classicism.

Abstract

In 2022, a Tunisian citizen was arrested in Oslo when he tried to sell 30 Carthaginian bronze coins to a local antiques dealer. The dealer had previously alerted the police after receiving an email inquiry asking him whether he was interested in buying a ‘large number’ of Punic coins from an alleged underwater find, presumably a hoard, off the coast of Tunisia. The University of Oslo’s Museum of Cultural History, which cooperates with law-enforcement agencies and the authorities in cases involving illicit cultural artefacts, assisted with the identification of the coins. Eventually, the latter were returned to Tunisia, and Norwegian prosecutors dropped the charges against the Tunisian national. This article discusses the relevant legal framework of the case and the process that unfolded from the time when an attempt was made to sell the coins until they were returned to their country of origin. The broader numismatic implications of this find are also examined.

This long article gives extensive legal background to the situation and extensive details about the 30 recovered bronze coins, which were minted in Carthage during the Second Punic War.

Cross-file under Numismatics and Apprehended.

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The Punic Wars meet Snopes

PUNIC WATCH DAY: Did Rome and Carthage sign 1985 peace treaty for wars that began more than 2,000 years earlier? The two ancient cities fought a series of wars, known as the Punic Wars, between 264 B.C. and 146 B.C. (Emery Winter, Snopes).

Rated Mostly True:

While the mayors of the cities did sign a peace treaty in 1985, it was a symbolic gesture. In reality, the wars between the two ancient civilizations ended more than 2,000 years prior when Rome destroyed Carthage.

I've posted on this treaty before, but there are more details here. The Snopes article also re-posts an amusing, if historically garbled meme. It seems to go back to Reddit. See Snopes for the links.

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