THE EXPOSITORY TIMES is being relaunched in the spring of 2005. Mark Goodacre has details. The press release doesn't mention this, but Alison Jack told me at the BNTC that it would also be online. I'm not sure what the exact arrangement will be. I've promised her an article on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha in the spring.

"MONITOR THE MOUNT": An editorial in the Jerusalem Post weighs in on the latest Temple Mount controversy. Excerpts:

Now this archaeological travesty is being compounded by a mortal and political danger of hardly less substantial proportions. Imagine if the southeast corner of the Temple Mount, containing the Marwani mosque, collapsed on thousands of worshipers praying inside. This is no idle concern, given that a large bulge has recently appeared on the southern wall of the Mount, and signs of cracking on eastern wall, both at the corner containing the mosque.

We do not know, of course, whether the danger of collapse is exaggerated. We do know that if there is a collapse, the magnitude of the human catastrophe could be enormous. We also know that, no matter how loudly our government warns of danger and complains about its self-imposed lack of access, the blame for a disaster will be laid at Israel's doorstep.

. . . The government has no choice but to insist that its own engineers, with or without an international team of colleagues to make it more palatable, are allowed to properly inspect and monitor the site, from both an archaeological and a public safety perspective.

. . . Caution and prudence are warranted, but simply hoping for the best is neither cautious nor prudent.

Any Israeli effort to increase supervision should receive backing from relevant international bodies, such as UNESCO, to counteract the baseless accusations and conspiracy theories emitted by Islamic authorities. Neither Israel nor the international community should allow extremist bullying to endanger and destroy a treasure of immense national and international significance.

MORE ON THE KETEF HINNOM AMULETS in Ha'aretz:

Bible texts on silver amulets dated to First Temple period
By Amiram Barkat

U.S. and Israeli researchers claim to have discovered proof that the Five Books of Moses were in existence during the First Temple period.

The findings are based on new laboratory techniques used to date two small silver amulets, inscribed in ancient Hebrew and discovered in a burial cave in Jerusalem in 1979. Published last week in a scientific journal in the United States, the results were reported extensively in The New York Times yesterday.

The amulets contain the text of the Priestly Benediction, which appear in Chapter 6 of Numbers, and are still recited today in synagogue prayer by descendants of the Jewish priestly clan.

[...]

This sounds like an overinterpretation of the evidence to me. My understanding is that the amulets contain the priestly benediction, also found in Numbers 6:24-26, and perhaps also material from Deuteronomy 7:9. The benediction is the sort of thing that would have been in wide circulation and proves nothing about whether the text of Numbers was assembled c. 600 B.C.E. in anything like the form we have today. The material from Deuteronomy is more interesting and, if upheld (all I've seen on it so far is a second-hand report in an e-mail message on the ANE list), indicates that D material was floating around before the exile, which I would have guessed anyway. It would have been more accurate to begin the article by saying that it is now established that some of the material found in the Five Books of Moses existed in the First Temple period.

I haven't seen the BASOR article yet; it hasn't arrived in our library. When it does, I may have more to say on the subject, but I think it's unlikely that anything I've said above will need to be changed.

SUKKOT - the seven-day Festival of Booths or Tabernacles, begins this evening at sundown.

MORE ON THE FEARED TEMPLE MOUNT COLLAPSE:

Ha'aretz has some additional information:

The warning pertains to the underground expanses known as Solomon's Stables, which have been turned into a prayer hall that can house thousands of individuals. The marble tiles that have been laid there are putting pressure on the spaces below them, as well as on the exterior wall in the southwestern corner, where the dangerous protrusions can be seen.

If in addition to this thousands more worshipers assemble in the plaza above Solomon's Stables, the ancient archways could collapse and lead to a horrific disaster.

and a recommendation:

The danger exists in only a very small section of the mosque compound. There is an ongoing dialogue among the Waqf administration, the Jordanian authorities and representatives of the Israeli government, and everyone should agree to restricting the number of worshipers in the prayer hall and on the roof of Solomon's Stables.

The mosque compound is an extensive area that can accommodate hundreds of thousands, and the restrictions in question relate to a few thousand individuals being prevented from entering one corner of the Mount.

But here's another view:

Israel seeking to control Al-Aqsa mosque compound: Jerusalem mufti (TurkishPress.com)

BEIRUT, Sept 27 (AFP) - The top Palestinian Muslim cleric accused Israel in remarks published here on Monday of seeking to seize control of the Al Aqsa mosque compound by raising safety concerns at the holy shrine in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem mufti Sheikh Ekrima Sabri said in an interview with Lebanon's An Nahar newspaper that "the foundations ... do not raise concern and the Israeli claims to that end are baseless."

These claims were only "a justification" for Israel to put its hand on the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam, he charged.

The mufti said a recent report by engineers from the Islamic endowments authority, experts in Islamic arts and Egyptian archaeologists confirmed that the shrine stood on solid foundations, with works needed only to cover cracks in the southern and eastern sections of the structure.

[...]

You may recall from the MEMRI Special Report on Palestinian Authority Sermons 2000-2003 (cited earlier on PaleoJudaica here) that Sheikh Ikrimeh Sabri is Arafat's hand-picked Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine who has called for the destruction of the U.S.A. and Britain, said the Israelis should all go back to their own countries, and praised child suicide bombers.

I don't know what the truth is about the safety of the Solomon's Stables mosque for the Ramadan crowds, but I do know whose opinion I don't trust.

FISTICUFFS in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (and not for the first time):

Jerusalem clerics in punch-up row

Roman Catholic and Orthodox clerics have exchanged blows inside Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of Christianity's holiest sites.

The punch-up began after Greek and Russian Orthodox believers took offence at a door left open by members of the Franciscan order during a service.

At least five people were injured in the fracas - including Israeli police officers called in to quell it.

The church is shared jealously by six rival Christian sects.

[...]

Kind of embarrassing.

THE KETEF HINNOM SILVER AMULETS are the subject of an article in the New York Times:

Solving a Riddle Written in Silver
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

Published: September 28, 2004

he words are among the most familiar and ecumenical in the liturgies of Judaism and Christianity. At the close of a worship service, the rabbi, priest or pastor delivers, with only slight variations, the comforting and fortifying benediction:

"May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; may the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and grant you peace."

An archaeological discovery in 1979 revealed that the Priestly Benediction, as the verse from Numbers 6:24-26 is called, appeared to be the earliest biblical passage ever found in ancient artifacts. Two tiny strips of silver, each wound tightly like a miniature scroll and bearing the inscribed words, were uncovered in a tomb outside Jerusalem and initially dated from the late seventh or early sixth century B.C. - some 400 years before the famous Dead Sea Scrolls.

But doubts persisted. The silver was cracked and corroded, and many words and not a few whole lines in the faintly scratched inscriptions were unreadable. Some critics contended that the artifacts were from the third or second century B.C., and thus of less importance in establishing the antiquity of religious concepts and language that became part of the Hebrew Bible.

So researchers at the University of Southern California have now re-examined the inscriptions using new photographic and computer imaging techniques. The words still do not exactly leap off the silver. But the researchers said they could finally be "read fully and analyzed with far greater precision," and that they were indeed the earliest.

In a scholarly report published this month, the research team concluded that the improved reading of the inscriptions confirmed their greater antiquity. The script, the team wrote, is indeed from the period just before the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. by Nebuchadnezzar and the subsequent exile of Israelites in Babylonia.

The researchers further reaffirmed that the scrolls "preserve the earliest known citations of texts also found in the Hebrew Bible and that they provide us with the earliest examples of confessional statements concerning Yahweh."

Some of the previously unreadable lines seemed to remove any doubt about the purpose of the silver scrolls: they were amulets....

The New York Times article is long, informative, and looks quite accurate to me. Lots of fascinating information on the work of Barkay, McCarter, the Zuckerman brothers, etc. The scholarly article is published in the May 2004 issue of the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. (Unfortunately, they only publish their tables of contents online in PDF format.) It is extraordinary to have sixth-century B.C.E. magical amulets from ancient Israel.

MORE ON THE FEARED COLLAPSE OF PART OF THE TEMPLE MOUNT:

Wakf officials reject Israeli allegations about Mosque's imminent collapse (Palestine Information Center)
By
Sep 26, 2004, 14:46

Occupied Jerusalem - Muslim Wakf (religious endowment) officials in Jerusalem have rejected Israeli allegations that an ancient mosque at the Haram al Sharif compound is in danger of collapse.

The officials termed the allegations " baseless" and "mere pretext to take over Islamic holy places."

[...]

First, the location is ancient but the mosque itself was built in 1996. Second, my regard for the accuracty of this article didn't go up when I read the following at its end:

Israel has been carrying out excavation works beneath and in the vicinity of al Aqsa in a desperate efforts to locate the remnants of an Old Jewish Temple in the area.

However, after more than 37 years of digging, archaeologists found no evidence of any ancient Jewish structure.

Obviously, this is just more Jewish-Temple denial. Classes start today and I'm too busy to dig up much on the whole tiresome issue, but note the first-century Greek inscription excavated in Jerusalem in two copies in the nineteenth century by Claremont-Ganneau, which warns gentiles not to stray into the Temple compound beyond the Court of the Gentiles, on pain of death. Josephus mentions the inscription too.

NO FOREIGNER

IS TO GO BEYOND THE BALUSTRADE

AND THE PLAZA OF THE TEMPLE ZONE

WHOEVER IS CAUGHT DOING SO

WILL HAVE HIMSELF TO BLAME

FOR HIS DEATH

WHICH WILL FOLLOW

Sort of implies a temple, doesn't it?

On the whole issue of the possible collapse of the Solomon's Stables area, note also the comments of archaeologist Shimon Gibson:

Shimon Gibson, a British archaeologist who is an expert on the more than 45 chambers under the shrine, including Solomon's Stables, said it is unclear if there is a danger.

Describing the area under the shrine as a "Swiss cheese of underground spaces," he said there was a definite need to have a team of professionals survey the damage that may have been caused by the earthquake.

"I'm aware of some dangers that could be in existence due to the ancient age ... of 2,000 years," Gibson said. "At the same time I find that all sides tend to heat things up unnecessarily and they don't deal directly with the problem at hand."

RECENT PH.D.S IN MIDEAST STUDIES AT UCLA are listed on the UCLA International Insitutute website. The list includes the following dissertations of particular interest:

Jacob Dahl (NELC, 2003), "The Ruling Family of Ur III Umma: A Prosopographical Analysis of a Provincial Elite Family in Southern Iraq ca. 2100-2000 BC." Jacob was awarded a fellowship by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique for postgraduate research at the Mus�e du Louvre in Paris.

Lynn Swartz Dodd (NELC, 2002), "The Ancient Past in the Ancient Present: Cultural Identity in Gurgum during the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age Transition in North Syria." Lynn is Visiting Assistant Professor in the School of Religion and Curator of the Archaeological Research Collection at the University of Southern California.

Roger Good (NELC, 2003), �The Septuagint�s Translation of the Hebrew Verbal System in Chronicles.�

Fred Mabie (NELC, 2004), �Ancient Near Eastern Scribes and the Mark(s) They Left: A Catalog and Analysis of Scribal Auxiliary Marks in the Amarna Corpus and in the Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts of Ugarit and Ras Ibn Hani.� Fred is an Assistant Professor at Biola University in La Mirada, California.

Congratulations to all the recent Ph.D.s

MINORITY CULTURES IN NORTH AFRICA CONFERENCE:

The Berbers and Other Minorities in North Africa: A Cultural Reappraisal
Information publi�e le samedi 25 septembre 2004 par Jean-Louis Jeannelle (source : Nabil Boudraa )

Berber culture and the cultures of historically rooted North African minority groups (Jewish, Coptic, Turkish, among others) are not common foci of study in higher education. These cultures also remain shadowed in public discourse and in public policy. The same cultures have existed and thrived for a long period of time under the dominance of successive colonial powers in North Africa. Unfortunately, there is still a huge misunderstanding and a knowledge-gap regarding the diversity that constitutes the richness of a large region, situated between the East and the West and between Europe and Africa.

This conference's purpose is to promote a clearer comprehension of the complexity of these North African cultures. It will situate them in space (from Egypt to the Canary Islands) and in time (from early history to the present) within the larger dynamics of successive colonial epochs.

[...]

The conference seems to be taking place in Oregon and 1-page paper-proposals should be turned in by 1 December 2004.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Authorities fear collapse of section of Temple Mount

By Haaretz Service

The defense establishment fears the Solomon's Stables area on Jerusalem's Temple Mount will collapse under the weight of the hundreds of thousands of Muslim worshippers who are expected to arrive for Ramadan observances which start in another three weeks, Israel Radio reported Sunday morning.

[...]

PONTIUS PILATE ESSAY: Warren Carter, Professor of New Testament at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, has an essay on Pilate on the Bible and Interpretation website:

Pontius Pilate: Roman Governor

Pilate�s enormous �life and death� power should shape how we read the gospel narratives of Jesus� crucifixion. Pilate is not a neutral or weak or minor character. He is not forced to crucify Jesus by the Jerusalem leaders against his will. He crucifies Jesus because it is in Rome�s interests to do so, interests he is charged with protecting and furthering.

TORREY SELAND profiles a 1987 Norweigen doctoral dissertation that argues that the De Aeternitate Mundi was not by Philo of Alexandria. The dissertation has subsequently been enlarged and translated into English, but it isn't easy to get at.

I'VE TAPED THIS BBC HORIZON PROGRAM on Solomon's Temple and the forged "Joash Inscription," but I haven't had time to watch it yet. When I've seen it, I'll comment further.

MORE CONSTRUCTION ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT?

Building Minaret on Temple Mount 'Dangerous' Move, Expert Says
By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
September 23, 2004

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Building a fifth minaret on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is a dangerous move because it jeopardizes the religious status quo there, an expert in Jerusalem said.

Local press reports this week indicated that Jordanian religious officials, who oversee the Islamic shrines on the Temple Mount, are planning to build a fifth minaret at the site, known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif.

[...]

Dr. Yitzhak Reiter from the Jerusalem Institute of Israel Studies said allowing the construction of a minaret or anything on the mount is a "dangerous" and "irresponsible" move.

"The idea is a little bit dangerous because any change in the character of the site, digging, building, structural change is a violation of the status quo," Reiter said.

[...]

Archeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar is concerned about the idea of building on the Mount for other reasons.

Mazar is member of the non-political, Committee for Preventing the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, which sounded the alarm about what it considers the wholesale destruction of antiquities on the Temple Mount.

It is imperative that no construction be performed on the Mount without proper archeological supervision, Mazar said.

Comparing the Temple Mount's archeological significance to that of the Egyptian pyramids, she said that in the past the Wakf has used seemingly reasonable requests to engage in large building projects.

[...]

Given the WAQF's track record on this sort of thing, I'm sure not thrilled about a new construction project on the Temple Mount.

YOM KIPPUR, the Day of Atonement, begins this evening at sundown. I wish my Jewish readers an easy fast.

THE THREATENED KABBALISTIC CURSING OF ARIEL SHARON is the subject of Philologos's column this week in the Forward:

Cracking the Whip
September 24, 2004

'Who by water and who by fire," says a line in the Yom Kippur prayer U'Netaneh Tokef, which speaks of the different kinds of death in store for those not inscribed in this year's Book of Life � and if some of the extremist enemies of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Gaza disengagement plan have their way, fire will be his fate. That is, the prime minister won't die in fire but of it, from a pulsa de-nura ("whip of fire") ceremony in which he will be cursed. "Once Again: Threats of Murder and Pulsa Denura," announced a banner headline in the Rosh Hashanah issue of the mass-circulation Israeli tabloid Yediot Aharonot.

"Once Again," for those unaware of it, is a reference to the pulsa de-nura that was performed by a small group of far right-wing Jews shortly before the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, to the efficacy of which his death was then attributed.

[...]

After describing a modern pulsa de-nura ceremony, Philologos goes on to discus the origins of the ritual:

But what does all this have to do, you may ask, with whips of fire? Not very much, it would seem. Nor will you find a single reference to a pulsa de-nura ceremony in any traditional Jewish source. All that can be found is the Aramaic term itself, which occurs in several stories in the Talmud.

The most charming and interesting of these stories � one meant to illustrate the dangers of exaggerated spiritual powers � is in the tractate of Bava Metsi'a and tells how the wonder-working Rabbi Hiyya came to synagogue on a public fast day that had been declared to pray for the end of a drought. When, the Talmud tells us, he uttered the words in the Eighteen Benedictions, "He maketh the winds blow," a strong wind sprang up at once; when he said on its heels, "And He maketh the rain fall," it began to pour cats and dogs, and as he approached the words, "And He maketh the dead rise," panic broke out in heaven lest the dead be resurrected prematurely, before the coming of the messiah. "Who has revealed such [spiritual] secrets to mankind?" God demanded to know. "[The prophet] Elijah," the angels told Him. At once, the Talmud relates, Elijah was struck by "60 whips of fire" (pulsei de-nura), which caused him to descend to earth looking "like a fiery bear" and to drive Rabbi Hiyya from the synagogue in the nick of time.

[...]

Good story. There's another, in some ways similar one in the early (pre-Kabbalistic) mystical text 3 Enoch 16:

R. Ishmael said:

Metatron, the angel prince of the Presence, the adornment of the height of all, said to me:

In the beginning I was enthroned on a great throne at the gate of the seventh (celestial) palace, and I judged all the sons of the heights, the household of the Omnipresent One, with the authority of the Holy One, blessed be He. And I apportioned greatness, kingship, greatness, power, adornment, praise, the garland, the crown, and glory to all the princes of the kingdoms, when I sait enthroned in the court on high. And the princes of the kingdoms stood in attendance on me on my right and my left, with the authority of the Holy One, blessed be He. But when the Other One (Aher, Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah) came to observe the vision of the Chariot and he set his eyes on me, he was afraid and troubled before me and his soul was confounded to the point of leaving him, because of dread, awe, and fear of me. When he saw me, that I was enthroned like a king and the ministering angels were standing in attendance on me like servants and all the princes of the kingdoms, wearing crowns, surrounded me, in that hour he opened his mouth and said, "Surely there are two Powers in heaven!"

At once a heavenly voice (bat qol) went forth from before the Shekhinah, saying, "Return, backsliding sons, apart from the Other One." In that hour Anapiel YHWH, the glorious, adorned, lovely, wonderful, frightening prince came by the commission of the Holy One, blessed be He, and struck me with sixty lashes of light (pulsot shel 'or) and he made me stand on my feet.

(My translation.) Metatron is the deified Enoch, who in chapter 15 was turned into an enormous being of fire and given the title the Little YHWH. He was given his own (comparatively!) little throne in the seventh heaven next to God's big one and, when the notorious heretic R. Elisha ben Abuyah ascended into heaven on a mystical journey, he was confused and concluded (perhaps not entirely unreasonably) that if there were two enthroned superbeings in heaven, that must mean there were two Gods. His punishment was to be made unable to repent and Enoch/Metatron's (effectively, for inadvertently inciting to heresy) was the "sixty lashes of light" (which looks to me like an attempt at a Hebrew translation of the Aramaic pulsei de-nura) and the loss of his seat.

Such is the mythic background of the Kabbalistic ceremony. The ritual itself, as Philologos notes, is modern. And at least one of its recipients died many years later of old age. I'm pretty sure it hasn't actually been done to Sharon, since, legally, it would probably count as incitement to murder. Rebecca Lesses has more about the threat in Mystical Politics.

THE ALEPPO CODEX, a tenth-century manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, is being placed online (requires Flash). So far, material from Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and 1 Samuel has been posted. (Via the Hirhurim blog.)

UPDATE: Jim West tells me that the complete surviving text of the Aleppo Codex is posted here, but it seems to require a font that I don't have. If there are images, as on the first site, I can't find them.

HERE'S AN ACADEMIC TRANSLATION SERVICE FOR GERMAN, geared especially toward religious studies and theology. I don't know the the translator and can't vouch for the service, so use it at your own risk. But you can read the translator's M.Th. dissertation from the Department of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Wales here. If you do use the service, drop me a note and let me know what you think.

HERE'S ANOTHER WILLIAM MCKANE OBITUARY, this one in the Scotsman. For some reason it never registered on Google News.