More on the "Ancient Lives" Oxyrhynchus Papyri project

MORE ON THE "ANCIENT LIVES" OXYRHYNCHUS PAPYRI PROJECT:

First, some background on the genesis of the project:

Research grant combines astrophysics and archeology to decipher ancient texts
July 26, 2011 By Jenny Allan (PhysOrg.com)

Lucy Fortson, an astrophysicist and Associate Professor in the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota is part of a collaboration called Ancientlives which has received a grant to apply the analysis tools of astrophysics to help decipher a collection of ancient Egyptian papyri.

Co-PIs Nita Krevans and Philip Sellew, faculty members in Classical and Near Eastern Studies, will be working with Professor Fortson and an international team, including a new University of Minnesota post-doctoral fellow in papyrology, to oversee citizen transcribers who will volunteer to identify letters on these ancient scraps of books and documents.

The collection known as the Oxyrynchus Papyri was discovered over a hundred years ago yet archeologists and classics scholars have only managed to transcribe a handful of these fragments. Fortson said the papyri came from an ancient garbage dump and mundane documents such as insurance claims and contracts were mixed in with Homer and works by the ancient playwright Menander. Classics scholars originally had to rely on their personal knowledge of ancient texts in order to determine the meaning of the texts and thus far only 15% of the collection has been edited. The hope is that Ancient Lives will help complete the editing process by harnessing the brain-power of volunteers—no knowledge of ancient Greek required.

[...]

It's not too far off to say that only "a handful" of the papyri have been transcribed, but go and sit down and think about the fact that this "handful" consists of seventy-five large volumes. (A few of these are online.)

(Via Abu 'l-Rayhan Al-Biruni.)

Second, Alan Boyle at the Cosmic Log blog has some more information about the new fragment of a lost gospel which keeps getting mentioned:

Among the items recently picked out of the pile are fragments of a previously unknown apocryphal gospel that describes Jesus casting out demons, a lost play by Euripides titled "Melanippe the Wise" and newfound letters attributed to the philosopher Epicurus.

[...]

Update for 5:30 p.m. ET Aug. 1: Over the weekend, Oxford papyrologist James Brusuelas sent an email with further details about the juiciest bits of papyri:

Gospel: In its current edited state, the gospel has not been overtly connected to any other sources. It remains a hot topic amongst historians of religion and Christianity. One must think about how the wider apocryphal (i.e., not included in the accepted canon of biblical texts) and biblical stories of Jesus relate to and inform the very act of casting out demons. Where does this particular narrative fit in the tradition of Jesus' acts? We have the text, we've identified it. Now it has to be studied and debated (that's why this project can be so cool).

The e-mail from Brusuelas also has information on the new Euripides play.

A couple of other non-canonical gospel fragments (British Library 840 and 1224) are noted in the Wikipedia Oxyrhynchus Gospels article. No mention yet of this new one, Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 5072.

Background here, where there is a photo of the new gospel fragment. There have been many PaleoJudaica posts on the Oxyrhynchus papyri. Some interesting ones are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here (and follow those links).

UPDATE: The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Wikipedia page has lists of biblical and biblical apocrypha manuscripts (etc.). The list of apocryphal gospels is much longer than in the Oxyrhynchus Gospels page noted above, but the long list has also not yet been updated to include 5072. (HT Roberto Labanti.)

Man returns stolen Second Temple ossuary

THE "EW" FACTOR has saved an important Second Temple-era relic for science:

Man returns stolen Second Temple ossuary
Man contacts Antiquities Authority at his own initiative after realizing the item was an ossuary, saying he purchased it from an antiquities dealer some time ago.
By Nir Hasson (Haaretz)

A Tel Aviv resident returned a Second Temple period artifact to the Antiquities Authority after realizing the item was an ossuary.

The man, who works in the field of art and design, contacted the authority inspectors at his own initiative, saying he purchased the ossuary from an antiquities dealer some time ago. He told them he kept the ancient artifact in his bedroom, until one of his friends told him this was a small coffin used to store bones a year after the burial. He said he was repelled by the thought that he slept with a coffin in his room.

[...]

Via Joseph Lauer.

The wood from the siege of Masada

THE WOOD FROM THE MASADA SIEGE is the subject of a University of Haifa press release posted at IMRA:

Tuesday, August 2, 2011
University of Haifa Media release: Where did the Roman Legion find wood for their siege on Masada?

Division of Marketing and Media
August 2, 2011
Media release

Where did the timber for the Roman rampart at Masada come from?

Earlier studies claimed that the Judean Desert was much more humid 2,000 years ago, but a new study has revealed: The Romans reaching Masada faced arid desert conditions that could not supply timber for their siege, and the isotopic composition of the wood probably reflects a distant wood source.

The Roman Legion that lay siege on Masada some 2,000 years ago was forced to use timber from other areas in the land of Israel for its weapons and encampments, and was not able to use local wood as earlier studies have proposed. This has been revealed in a new study conducted at the University of Haifa, refuting earlier suggestions that described the Judean Desert area as more humid in the times of the Second Temple.

Despite all the historic and archaeological evidence that has been revealed about the Roman siege on Masada, scholars are at difference over the large quantities of timber and firewood that were required for the Jewish fortress defenders on the mountain and for the Roman besiegers. A previous study by researchers from the Weizmann Institute of wooden remains found on the siege rampart showed that they originated from a more humid habitat, and assuming that the timber was local, claimed that this was proof of the Judean region being more humid some 2,000 years ago. The University of Haifa researchers maintain that the wood originated in a more humid region: not from the local habitat but brought from a more humid region to the foot of Masada by the well-organized Roman military supply unit.

The new study, conducted by Prof. Simcha Lev-Yadun of the University of Haifa's Department of Biology and Environment at the University of Haifa-Oranim, Prof. Mina Weinstein-Evron of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, and D. S. Lucas, a student from Ohio University, included botanic, archaeological and cultural examination and modeling to verify by means of comparison to parallel traditional societies, the uses of timber and firewood from the beginning of settlement at Masada, some 220 years before the siege, and until its fall.

First, the researchers examined the amount of wood that exists today in the Judean Desert and in the wadi deltas in the vicinity of Masada, and thereby were able to estimate the amount and types of wood that the desert could supply. Next, they calculated the amount of timber and firewood that would have been needed for the inhabitants of Masada, from 150 BCE, when it was a small fortress, through the Herodian period, when the fortress as we know it was constructed, and up to the siege, which ended in 73 CE. According to the researchers, in those times, timber was mostly used for construction, heating and cooking. Based on accepted evaluations of wood consumption for these purposes in traditional societies, on the conservatively estimated number of Masada inhabitants in each time period, the harsh climatic conditions in the desert and Masada's topography, the researchers were able to conclude that by the time the Romans arrived at Masada and began their siege (73 CE), the entire area was void of timber and firewood, due to 2,220 years of massive exploitation of the immediate environment up to that point. The Romans would have had no choice but to import wood from other areas for their weapon machinery, ramparts and basic living requirements.

The researchers were able to construct a model of the Roman Legion's timber utilization in various siege scenarios, and concluded that even if the Masada area had more than its normal availability of wood, it still would not have been sufficient for the Romans' needs, so that in any event, they would have been forced to ensure a continuous supply of wood. As such, the researchers explained, the earlier claim that the region of Masada was more humid some 2,000 years ago, was in all probability not well established.

For more information:

Rachel Feldman
Division of Marketing and Media
University of Haifa
press@univ.haifa.ac.il
+972-54-5352435

Joseph Lauer points to the technical article that is the basis for the above. This article is behind a subscription wall:

Modeling the demands for wood by the inhabitants of Masada and for the Roman siege

S. Lev-Yaduna, D.S. Lucasb, and M. Weinstein-Evronc

a Department of Science Education – Biology, Faculty of Science and Science Education, University of Haifa, Oranim, Tivon 36006, Israel

b Department of Geography, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701, USA

c Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel
Received 25 April 2008;
revised 19 January 2010;
accepted 29 January 2010.
Available online 24 February 2010.

Abstract

Modeling the demands for wood, especially firewood, for the inhabitants of the unique desert fortress of Masada during the major period of its occupation (beginning about 150 B.C.E. and ending with its fall after the Roman siege in 73 C.E.) is based on the well-documented history of the site, of the number of inhabitants in each phase of occupation, and the current demand for firewood in traditional societies. The previously analyzed ancient botanical remains from Masada provide base-line data of the types of wood used. We have concluded that when the Roman siege began in C.E. 73, the vicinity of Masada would have been denuded of trees and shrubs as a result of ca. 225 years of occupation. Therefore, the Tamarix wood used to construct the upper parts of the Roman siege rampart was probably not local. The isotopic composition of the Tamarix beams probably indicates that they were imported from a different region, such as the more humid and cooler river banks east of the Dead Sea, rather than the result of climate change as previously proposed.

Keywords: Dead Sea; Desert; Environmental impact; Firewood
Article Outline

1.
Introduction

2.
The geographical setting

3.
Current woody vegetation in the region of Masada

4.
The model
4.1. Chronology and estimated population size of Masada
4.2. The wood remains from Masada and the Roman siege rampart
4.3. The use of firewood in light of the botanical remains from Masada

5.
Results
5.1. Demands for wood and its possible origin in each phase of occupation
5.2. The possible origin of the wood of the Roman siege rampart

Acknowledgements

References

Review of Shepherd, "Daniel in the Context of the Hebrew Bible"

BOOK REVIEW AT H-NET:

Michael B. Shepherd. Daniel in the Context of the Hebrew Bible. New York: Peter Lang, 2009. 163 pp. $39.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-4331-0539-5.

Reviewed by David M. Valeta (University of Colorado, Boulder)
Published on H-Judaic (July, 2011)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

The Book of Daniel: A Site of Contested Identities

"This book is not the usual sort of commentary on the book of Daniel." This opening statement in the introduction of this book is certainly true. The structure of the book is both curious and confusing. After a brief introduction that raises the question, "What is the Old Testament?" and explores the process of canonical formation, the first three chapters of the book are devoted to explorations of the Pentateuch (Torah), Prophets (Nevi'im), and a portion of the Writings (Kethuvim). Chapter 4 consists of the commentary on Daniel followed by chapter 5 on Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles, and the New Testament. The book concludes with two appendices, a short essay on Hermeneutics, and the author's translation of Daniel.

[...]

(Via the Agade List.)

Reflections on Protestant Mishnah at the Talmud Blog

PROTESTANT MISHNAH: The Talmud Blog has a post by Amit Gvaryahu on the history of modern Mishnah scholarship, informed by a new book by Hanan Gafni along with Jonathan Z. Smith's classic Drudgery Divine.

Review of Hoffman & Cole, "Sacred Trash"

SACRED TRASH, by Hoffman and Cole, is reviewed by Robert Leiter in the Jewish Exponent. Excerpt:

The early chapters of Hoffman and Cole's book move at the breakneck pace of a saga straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Once Schechter decides to depart the scene in Cambridge to become chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, the pace of the book slows a bit. There were many scholars warring for a chance to have a crack at the genizah treasures, and Hoffman and Cole provide detailed biographies of each of these eccentric characters and the various parts they played in uncovering what all this mountain of writing meant.

But throughout Sacred Trash, the intellectual excitement never flags, since, in the end, the revelations the genizah provided altered our conception of what Jewish life was like in the ancient world and beyond. No manuscript discovery would rival it until Bedouin shepherds in the early 1950s stumbled upon the urns containing the Dead Sea Scrolls in the caves at Qumran.

The review relates many entertaining personal details about the Lewis-Gibson twins and Solomon Schechter. Read it all.

Earlier reviews etc. here and links.

USN&WR has contacted me about the fake metal codices

FAKE METAL CODICES WATCH: This evening I have been contacted by a journalist with U.S. News & World Report with some thoughtful questions about the authenticity of the metal codices. I have just replied to him in detail and asked him to let me know if he published anything on it. Watch this space.

Background here.

Professor Hayim Zalman Dimitrovsky, z"l

PROFESSOR HAYIM ZALMAN DIMITROVSKY, Z"L.

James VanderKam's work on Jubilees

JAMES VANDERKAM'S WORK on the book of Jubilees ia profiled in Notre Dame News: Translating the Book of Jubilees. One choice tidbit:

A previous English translation of the Ethiopic text states in chapter 4 verse 24: “on account of it God brought the waters of the flood upon all the land of Eden.”

The problem, says VanderKam, is that the translation implies that God brought the flood on Eden because of Enoch’s presence there. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he says, “because Enoch continues to live—he doesn’t drown in the flood.”

VanderKam’s research revealed what the text actually says: “Because of him, God did not bring the waters of the flood on Eden.”

Why the mistranslation? It turns out that the Ethiopic words for “he brought” and “it did not come” look almost exactly the same: The mistranslation was the result of a visual misinterpretation.

I am reminded, perhaps perversely, of the Wicked Bible. Gotta watch those "nots."

(Via Joseph Lauer.)

The Legend of the Ten Martyrs

REFLECTIONS ON THE LEGEND OF THE TEN MARTYRS for Tisha B'Av:

THE " ASARA HARUGEI MALCHUT – THE TEN MARTYRS"

By: Rabbi Eli C. Aboud (Community Magazine)

One of the most tragic episodes in Jewish history was the ruthless torture and murder of ten Jewish sages by the merciless Roman Empire in the years following the destruction of the second Bet Hamikdash. This period was marked by particular sorrow and suffering for our people. They had been roundly defeated by the invading Roman army in their desperate attempt to protect Jerusalem and the Bet Hamikdash. The city lay in ruins, with the Bet Hamikdash burned to the ground, and the victorious Romans, dissolved any Jewish authority and ruled the land exclusively. The Romans then vented their full fury on the broken nation, and life became more difficult with each passing day. They passed laws forbidding Torah observance, and plundered the people’s possessions.

But most tragic of all was the Romans’ unspeakable brutality against ten of the greatest sages of the time (among many others) – known as the “Asara Harugei Malchut” – whom they tortured and killed in the most sadistic , barbaric methods imaginable.

A Reckoning for the Sale of Yosef

Our sages tell us that Hashem allowed the Romans to kill these ten righteous scholars as atonement for the ten sons of Yaakov who sold their brother Yosef into slavery – a crime for which the Torah assigns the death penalty (“One who kidnaps a person and sells him…shall die” – Shemot 21:16). For many centuries, the brothers’ sin went unaccounted for. Finally, during the Mishnaic period, there were ten righteous sadikim on the caliber of the sons of Yaakov whose death would be able to atone for this grave misdeed. Thereupon it was decreed in heaven that the Romans would be allowed to execute these ten spiritual giants. Nevertheless, there will come a day when this crime will be avenged and Hashem will bring full retribution upon the Romans for their brutality against the Jewish people. Furthermore, as the Midrash teaches, Hashem promised that the merits of these great sadikim and their suffering will stand for the Jewish nation until the end of days and relieve them from much suffering in this long and bitter exile.

It has become customary throughout the Jewish world to relate this tragic story in detail on Tisha Be’av (during the recitation of the Kinot), to mourn this great loss and to beg Hashem to avenge their suffering and bring an end to our exile in the merit of the ten martyrs. Many Ashkenazic communities have the custom to tell this story on the holy day of Yom Kippur (during the hazzan’s repetition of musaf), as well.

Historically, many scholars note that the ten sages were not killed all at once. They lived in different places and at different times, and the tragedy of the Asara Harugei Malchut actually transpired over the span of a century (between 70 CE-170 CE), during the bloody rule of the Roman Empire over Israel and its Jewish inhabitants in the post-Second Temple era.

We find some variation between the different sources that list the ten fallen sages. However, the list that appears in the traditional Kinot text recited on Tisha Be’av is assumed to be the most authentic, and this is the list that we present here.

[...]

This version of the story follows.

But there are other versions, including one that is particularly on my mind right now for obvious reasons. The Hekhalot Rabbati has a rather different and, in a macabre way, more cheerful account of the story. In this rendering, the evil Roman emperor who persecuted the sages is (the non-existent) Lupinus Caesar. When he set out on his program of persecution at the behest of Sammael, the evil angel of Rome, God inflicted various torments on the emperor and Rome. Undeterred, Lupinus Caesar persevered in his efforts to kill the ten sages, so God gave Lupinus' appearance to one of the sages, R. Hananiah ben Tardion, who then spent six months masquerading as the emperor and executing thousands of the leaders of the army.

Meanwhile, God altered Lupinus's appearance to be identical to another of the ten, whereupon he was tortured to death by his own Roman minions, then resurrected in the form of yet another of the ten, whom the Romans then killed, and so on until Lupinus had been slaughtered as each of the ten sages (who themselves were at home, safe and sound). Then he was sent off to his well-deserved eternal torment in the flames of Gehinnom.

You can read the story here, in a handout for my 2008 SBL paper which contains a draft translation of the relevant passage (§§107-120) from my forthcoming translation of the Hekhalot literature.

Research Leave!

MY YEAR OF RESEARCH LEAVE begins officially today. My main project is to complete the English translation of the Hekhalot literature on which I have been working for quite some time. Blogging should continue more or less as usual, and I will still be working with my doctoral students, but otherwise I intend to focus entirely on my own research.

UPDATE: More on the project here and link.

Review of Gruen (ed.), "Cultural Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean"

BMCR REVIEW:

Erich S. Gruen (ed.), Cultural Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Issues & Debates. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2010. Pp. vii, 535. ISBN 9780892369690. $50.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Anna Lucille Boozer, University of Reading (A.L.Boozer@Reading.ac.uk)

Excerpt:

The Ancient Mediterranean can make a considerable contribution to interdisciplinary studies of identity. In particular, scholars can contribute case studies that closely link appropriate theoretical vantages to data in order to explore the longitudinal development of identities within interlinked geographical locales. Gruen's Cultural Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean clearly demonstrates the value in this approach. This volume steers clear of murky theoretical debates on identity and ethnicity, which both Hall and Wallace-Hadrill explored in their volumes. Instead, Gruen's volume focuses on case studies of identity using different methodological and disciplinary lenses. Gruen's pragmatic approach allows for greater accessibility than many recent volumes on identity, although it would have been helpful to hear more about how he defines his terms. For example, there is an unstated equivalence given between identity, culture, ethnicity, and locality in many of the contributions. Definitions and debates within the introduction could have clarified how the contributors understood the term "cultural identity." Otherwise, Gruen's introduction is fluently written and he clearly explains the value of his book divisions as well as the individual papers included within the volume.

Cultural Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean includes twenty-four essays divided into eight parts, in addition to Gruen's introduction (see book contents below).5 The majority of the contributors write in accessible prose, enabling the reader to move through the volume more easily than is often the case with edited works. Like Gruen, many of the contributors eschew theoretical debates, although their case studies are theoretically informed, as evinced by the references. This approach is both practical and refreshing. The contributions cover an impressive array of cultures, encompassing Greek, Persian, Jewish, Phoenician, Egyptian, Roman, Gallic, and culturally mixed societies. The disciplinary range is equally impressive and includes archaeologists, art historians, classicists, and ancient historians. Given this expansive breadth, it is not possible to discuss each article or section systematically within this review. I have singled out two sections to discuss at greater length because the theoretical implications of these sections reach particularly far.

Adopt a Dead Sea Scroll

FOR YOU, SPECIAL DEAL:

The Dead Sea Scrolls are put up for adoption for just £1,200 a PAGE

By Mail On Sunday Reporter

Last updated at 11:24 PM on 30th July 2011

They are among the most famous pieces of writing in the world – and for £1,200, you can adopt a page.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in a cave in Qumran on the West Bank in 1947, and have spawned countless books and theories about early Christians and the life of Jesus.

The Friends of the Israel Antiquities Authority is offering the scrolls up for adoption. There are 15,000 fragments and it costs upwards of £1,200 to have one as your own.

A dedication plaque with the name of a fragment’s ‘parent’ will be displayed with it when it is exhibited.

[...]

The object seems to be to raise conservation money for the Scrolls. This seems like a good idea and I hope they make a lot. The article is substantially accurate, although the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in eleven caves, not one. If we count the other Judean Desert scrolls, still more caves were involved.

Review of Miles, "Carthage Must Be Destroyed"

BOOK REVIEW:

An Empire of the Mediterranean
There was more to Carthage than her defeat by Rome

By ADRIAN GOLDSWORTHY (WSJ.com)

'Carthage must be destroyed'—the title of Richard Miles's book was the constant theme of the Roman statesman Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 B.C.). In the last years of his long life, Cato became obsessed with Rome's old rival, the city that had unleashed Hannibal on the Roman Republic and brought it to the brink of destruction. Famed for his oratory as well as his stern morality, the old man was frequently asked to give his opinion in the Senate. Regardless of the topic, his last sentence was always the same—"And I think Carthage ought to be destroyed." A rival countered by ending his own speeches with "And I think Carthage ought not to be destroyed," but Cato carried the day, although he died before Carthage was captured in 146 B.C. The city was demolished and the site formally cursed by Roman priests. The oft-repeated story of the ground being sown with salt is a much later invention, but the destruction of Carthage as a political state was total.

The subtitle of the book is the more revealing, for this is not primarily an examination of the three Punic Wars fought between Carthage and Rome but instead a full history of "The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization." Those epic conflicts, and indeed the savage wars fought between Carthaginians and Greeks to dominate Sicily in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., are just part of the bigger story. The campaigns are covered intelligently, but even the biggest battles rarely rate more than a paragraph. Richard Miles is instead concerned with the wider context of these struggles, and his book is all the more valuable for that.

[...]

Via the Agade list. Earlier reviews here.

Review of Dov, "Bibliographia Karaitica"

BOOK REVIEW:

The Medieval Review 11.07.27

Walfish, Barry Dov. Bibliographia Karaitica: An Annotated Bibliography of Karaites and Karaism. Études sur le judaïsme medieval; v. 43; Karaite Texts and Studies; v. 2. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Pp. lxxxii, 810. $327. 978-90-04-18927-0. . .

Reviewed by:

Daniel J. Lasker
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Boston College
lasker@bgu.ac.il

Excerpt:

Despite any reservations that might be expressed about one detail or another in this bibliography, the reader can peruse the book only in amazement at the wealth of material from multiple sources amassed and described by the authors. It will certainly be impossible from now on for anyone to engage in Karaite studies without reference to this work. In combination with recent scholarship on Karaism, and the availability of library collections, archives and memorabilia in the Former Soviet Union which were inaccessible for much too long a period, it is to be hoped this Bibliographia Karaitica will accelerate the placement of Karaite studies in an honored position in the realm of Judaic studies.

Day of Archaeology 2011

TODAY IS DAY OF ARCHAEOLOGY 2011. If I'd known sooner, I would have tried to do some archaeology today. I'm sure there's something going on nearby; this time of year there always is.

HT James McGrath.

More on the Qumran brontologion and the Jewish calendar

MORE ON THE QUMRAN BRONTOLOGION and the research on it by Helen R. Jacobus which recently won the Dever Prize:

Dead Sea Scroll tract was precursor to Jewish calendar

29 Jul 2011 (University of Manchester)

An obscure Babylonian document from the world famous Dead Sea Scroll collection was almost certainly a precursor to the Jewish calendar according to University of Manchester research.

An obscure Babylonian document from the world famous Dead Sea Scroll collection was almost certainly a precursor to the Jewish calendar according to University of Manchester research.

Dr Helen Jacobus, a part-time doctoral student who graduated this month, investigated one of the 972 texts found in Khirbet Qumran on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea in Jordan between 1947 and 1956.

The Babylonian text known as Qumran scroll ‘4Q318’and kept at the Israel Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem, is thought to have been written around 2000 years ago.

Shown by Dr Jacobus to be a calendar - it contains predictions based on the moon’s position in the zodiac when the sound of thunder occurs.

The calendar can still be used to find the moon's position in the zodiac on a given date in the Jewish calendar – a calculation no other document in the world is able to achieve.

According to Dr Jacobus, the Aramaic month names used in the scroll are the same as those used in the Hebrew calendar today. They are, she says, Aramaic translations of the Babylonian month names.

Dr Jacobus said: “This ancient tract can be still used a functioning lunar zodiac calendar , which was a precursor to the Jewish calendar of today.

[...]

In defense of ancient biological anthropology

ANCIENT BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY is vigorously defended by Patricia Smith in the current issue of BAR: Archaeological Views: Uncovering the Secrets of the Dead. Excerpt:

Today, especially at salvage excavations carried out in Israel, a nonacademic religious organization—Atra Kadisha—is routinely called in to excavate and remove human remains for reburial in a common grave without proper bio-anthropological documentation.b Although cursory examination of skeletal remains on site is sometimes permitted, this is totally unsatisfactory given the need to clean, reconstruct and analyze human remains in a specialized laboratory setting. In such facilities, we not only measure, photograph and take radiographs, we also analyze the skeletons using a vast array of modern tools. These include CT scans, scanning electron microscopes, as well as DNA and isotope analyses, all of which enable us to reconstruct in great detail the life history of past individuals and populations.

While cemeteries and isolated tombs are still occasionally excavated in Israel, we are largely unable to obtain scientific information about the human individuals for whom these tombs were constructed. Had the Ashkelon skeleton been excavated after 1995, it is unlikely that we would have been able to examine her in as much detail. This means that today, we are in the absurd situation of carrying out research into past societies exclusively through the study of their material culture without access to the most direct and conclusive data set, namely the evidence obtained from their skeletal remains.

My own view is that proper respect for the ancient dead demands that we allow the biological anthropologists to run the full gamut of analyses on their remains. This is the only voice these ancients have left in which to tell us their story. It's fine to rebury the remains after the analysis, but ideally they should go into sealed containers in recorded locations in case some new wonderful new technique allows us to gain substantially more information by revisiting them.

And yes, to answer the question someone always asks at this point, I would be perfectly happy to have my remains or those of my family members studied in this way by future archaeologists. In fact I think it would be kind of cool.

In any case, this is a temporary problem. In what I suspect will be the surprisingly near future, nanotechnology should allow us to do full-scale, non-destructive scans of buried ancient human remains without disturbing where they rest. Faster please.

Tangentially related reflections here and links. [UPDATE (30 July): Also here.]

UPDATE: Then again, maybe I'll reserve my remains for other purposes. But in that case those future archaeologists and historians would learn a lot more by seeing to it that I'm reanimated.

More on Philip and Hierapolis

TIMELY: Francesco D’Andria, Conversion, Crucifixion and Celebration: St. Philip’s Martyrium at Hierapolis draws thousands over the centuries, in the current issue of BAR. Timely, of course, because of the recent claim, apparently from the same excavation, that the actual tomb of the Apostle Philip has been discovered. This article has much valuable background on the apocryphal Philip legend and on the current excavation of the site, but although it mentions the traditional tomb of Philip, there is nothing on this presumably very recent discovery. I remain skeptical until I see compelling evidence.

The Oxyrhynchus papyri and an army of papyrologists

AN ARMY OF PAPYROLOGISTS: This is an excellent idea. Oxford University press release:

Public to hunt for lost gospels, literature & letters

26 Jul 11


Papyri of a lost gospel from the Oxyrhynchus collection
Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 5072 (3rd century AD), Uncanonical Gospel. Credit: Photo courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society and Imaging Papyri Project, Oxford. All rights reserved.

Members of the public are being asked to help decode papyri, in order to find fragments of lost gospels, works of literature, and letters about everyday life in ancient Egypt, in a new project launched by Oxford University.

Ancient Lives (ancientlives.org), which launches today, is putting hundreds of thousands of images of fragments of papyri written in Greek online. Researchers say that ‘armchair archaeologists’ visiting the website can help with cataloguing the collection, and could make amazing finds, such as the recent discovery of fragments of a previously unknown ‘lost’ gospel which describes Jesus Christ casting out demons.

Nobody knows who wrote this lost gospel: it is part of a treasure trove of papyri recovered in the early 20th century from the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus, the ‘City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish’. The texts were written in Greek during a period when Egypt was under the control of a Greek (and later Roman) settler class. Many of the papyri had not been read for over a thousand years.

Because of the huge number of images involved researchers need volunteers to look through and catalogue them or transcribe the text using a simple web interface, which displays both known and unknown texts.

‘It’s with the digital advancements of our own age, that we're able to open up this window into the past, and see a common human experience in that intimate, traditional medium, handwriting,’ said lead developer and designer, William MacFarlane of Oxford University’s Department of Physics.

Experts have been studying the collection for over a hundred years. It is because of Oxyrhynchus that we now have lost masterpieces that went missing during the medieval period: the lost poetry of Sappho, the lost comedies of Menander and the lost plays of Sophocles. There are personal documents too – we learn from a letter that Aurelius the sausage-maker has taken out a loan of 9000 silver denarii, perhaps to expand his business, whilst in another letter of 127 AD a grandmother, called Sarapias, asks that her daughter is brought home so that she can be present at the birth of her grandchild.

‘Discovering new texts is always exciting,’ explains team papyrologist Dr James Brusuelas, ‘but the fact that you’re reading a piece of literature or a private letter that hasn’t been read in over a thousand years, that’s what I like about papyrology.’ Paul Ellis, an imaging specialist who assisted with the digitization of the papyrus texts, said: ‘Online images are a window into ancient lives.’

The project is a collaboration between Oxford University papyrologists, the Egypt Exploration Society, and a team in Oxford University’s Department of Physics who specialise in building ‘citizen science’ projects that allow anyone to make an authentic contribution to research.

‘Until now only experts could explore this incredible collection,’ said project leader Dr Chris Lintott of Oxford University’s Department of Physics, ‘but with so much of the collection unstudied there’s plenty for everyone. We’re excited to see what visitors to ancientlives.org can unearth.’

‘Papyrologists are well known for friendship among those interested in ancient texts,’ said Project Director Dr Dirk Obbink, Oxford University Lecturer in Papyrology and Greek Literature at the University of Oxford. ‘This effort is pervaded by a spirit of collaboration. We aim to transcribe as much as possible of the original papyri, and then identify and reconstruct the text. No single pair of eyes can see and read everything. From scientists and professors to school students and ancient enthusiasts, everyone has something to contribute – and gain.’

Ancientlives.org is part of the www.zooniverse.org network of public participation projects, which includes Old Weather, which aims to rescue weather records contained in World War I ship’s logs. More than 500,000 logbook pages have been transcribed so far. The original Zooniverse project was Galaxy Zoo, and a total of more than 400,000 people have registered to take part.

The project was supported by a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the John Fell Fund, and is indebted to the Oxford University Department of Classics and the Egypt Exploration Society, London who oversee the Oxyrhynchus Collection in the Sackler Library, Oxford as part of a wide range of scholarly and outreach activities.

Should you take part in this initiative and you happen to run across anything that might be from a known or lost Old Testament pseudepigraphon, I would be grateful if you would drop me a note to let me know. The More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project (also here) is still recruiting texts.

Earlier posts on "An Army of" projects are here (for the Cairo Geniza, where I see I called for something similar for the Oxyrhynchus papyri) and here (the link is dead, but it was about the eTACT project). The title is nicked from Glenn Reynolds's book, An Army of Davids.

UPDATE (4 August): Lots more here.

Israeli national parks and nonprofit associations

MORE POLITICS:

Knesset legislation gives right-wing group control over City of David park
Knesset approves preliminary reading of ammendment to allow nonprofit associations to manage national parks.

By Nir Hasson and Zafrir Rinat Tags: East Jerusalem Knesset

The Knesset yesterday approved a preliminary reading of an amendment to the Nature Reserves and National Parks Law allowing nonprofit associations to manage national parks.

The amendment now goes to the Interior and Environment Committee to be prepared for a first reading.

[...]

If I didn't know better, I would be wondering if Haaretz were editorializing by headline.

I've been following the Elad controversy for a long time. Some background posts are here and links, here, here, here, and here.

Golden-bell-from-HP's-vestment meme gaining traction

THE THE-GOLDEN-BELL-IS-FROM-THE-HIGH-PRIEST'S-VESTMENTS MEME is gaining traction: Audio: Temple Talk: Golden Bell Found from the High Priest's Tunic (Arutz Sheva). Folks, let's slow down a little and think through all the possibilities.

Background here and links.

Philip the Apostle’s tomb found?

AFP: PHILIP THE APOSTLE'S TOMB 'FOUND,' in a place called Pamukkale (Hierapolis in antiquity) in Turkey. As usual, the proper response to this sort of claim is skepticism until compelling evidence is produced. I give the AFP points for the scare quotes around "found."

UPDATE (29 July): Related item here.

Justin Bieber and dad's matching Hebrew tattoos

TOO WEIRD:

Like father, like son: Justin Bieber and dad's matching Hebrew tattoos

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 4:04 PM on 27th July 2011

Justin Bieber and his father pose topless, showing off their matching tattoos.

A newly-released photo shows the father and son in Israel earlier this year where they had the etching done together.

The pair had the word 'Yeshua,' - which many believe to be Jesus' Hebrew or Aramaic name - etched onto the left side of their torsos.

The name Yeshua frequently appears in the Hebrew Bible to describe Joshua the High Priest.

[...]

Yes, there's a picture, if you can bear it. "Many" do not "believe" that Yeshua is the Hebrew/Aramaic form of Jesus' name. It just is.

Joshua the High Priest is mentioned several times in the books of Haggai and Zechariah, but the name Joshua is best known from Moses' right-hand man and successor for whom the book of Joshua is named.

Cross-file under "Tattoo Watch" and "Can't Make It Up." Background here, with a link to posts on other ancient-language tattoos.

More FBAs: Nicholas de Lange and Robert Gordon

MORE FELLOWS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY: This just in from Viv Rowett on the SOTS list:

PS: Thanks to the several members who have let me know that TWO MORE of our number have also been elected Fellow of the British Academy; here is information sent to me by Janet Tollington:

Professor Nicholas de Lange, Fellow of Wolfson College, has been Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies since 2001. He is the principal investigator on both the projects: ‘Medieval Hebrew inscriptions from the Byzantine Empire’ and ‘Mapping the Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Empire’. He is based in the Faculty of Divinity and Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies.

Professor Robert Gordon is the Regius Professor of Hebrew at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and a Professorial Fellow of St. Catharine’s College. He has worked extensively on both Testaments, and has a special interest in the ancient translations of the Old Testament. He has published a number of books and has edited/co-edited several other volumes. He published a selection of his articles in 2006 under the title Hebrew Bible and Ancient Versions. He is a member of the editorial board of Vetus Testamentum, the journal of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, and was its Book List editor from 1997 to 2010.

Congratulations to all!

Indeed.

Background here.

BBC backtracks on fake metal codices

FAKE METAL CODICES WATCH—The BBC begins backtracking:

Doubts over authenticity of 'ancient Christian' books

By Kevin Connolly BBC News, Jerusalem

In the cool living room of a stone-built house in Northern Israel I might just have held in my hands the keys to the ancient mysteries of Christianity.

And then again, I might not have.

Let's go with the not.

With the blinds shuttered against the glare of the midday sun my host, Hassan Saeda, lays out a collection of extraordinary books which he says are about 2,000 years old.

Flowing of hair and neat of beard, he bears a distracting resemblance to an illustration of Christ from an old children's Bible. It lends the scene an air of extra gravity.

The books - bindings, pages, covers and all - are made entirely of various metals.

They are inscribed - or engraved, stamped or embossed - with various simple pictures and writing in a variety of languages including Greek and Old Hebrew.

[...]

"I spent so much time and so much money to prove these are real. There are a lot of professors and one of them told me that I'm living in a fantasy.

My answer to him was: 'I think you got old and your eyes don't see anything.' I took my book and went away. Many professors say it's a fake. Why? I don't know why. But this is a real book."

[...]

It's a real book all right, and it's possible that it's made from ancient lead, but the iconography and writing are modern. All those professors are saying the books are fakes because they are obvious, clumsy forgeries. I have given a detailed account of the evidence here and here.

The article also interviews a Jerusalem antiquities dealer and also osteologist Joe Zias, both of whom agree they are fake. This still isn't asking philologists and art historians, but it is progress.

The BBC has known for a long time that the codices are fake. It looks to me as though they are trying to squeeze the last dregs out of the story, while laying the groundwork for eventually correcting it with the truth. They should have done that months ago and their conduct has been reprehensible.

Background here leading back to many links. Also see Thomas Verenna's essay at Bible and Interpretation: Artifacts and the Media: Lead Codices and the Public Portrayal of History.

UPDATE: More from Tom Verenna here.

UPDATE: Mark Goodacre underlines the point and names a name here.

A Syriac printing press in Lebanon

ARAMAIC WATCH: A Syriac printing press in Lebanon:

Old school printer exploits his passion for languages to the last letter

July 27, 2011 02:00 AM
By Annie Slemrod
The Daily Star

[...]

[Abdel-Karim] Chahan’s dexterity and memory is extraordinary, but even more so given that he is 85. He is Lebanon’s only Syriac printer, but he’s more than that. His tan printer’s smock also contains a linguist, author, teacher and polyglot.

When Chahan asks his young assistant to get the old press rolling, he does so in Aramaic. The assistant is a refugee from a part of Iraq where modern Aramaic is still spoken. Chahan easily switches between Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic and English.

Languages, and Syriac in particular, are Chahan’s passion. But they began as a necessity. Born in Allepo’s Syriac quarter to a family from Odessa, he spoke Armenian with his mother, Turkish with his father, and Syriac in church. School was in French, and government activities were carried out in Arabic, so “from the age of 7 you needed to speak five languages,” he says.

[...]

Lots of interesting details in this article. Mr. Chahan's and his business partner's printing projects include Syriac translations of works by Dickens and Hemingway.

Philo Sessions at SBL Annual Meeting

TORREY SELAND: Philo Sessions at SBL Annual Meeting.

Posts from the Talmud Blog

SOME ONLINE REVIEWS pertinent to ancient Judaism are noted by Shai Secunda at the Talmud Blog: RSK’s New Book and Paradigms of Gender Research. ("RSK" is Ross Shepard Kraemer.) Note also Amit Gvaryahu's recent post on the same blog: A New Reading of 4Q251 8.

Hear the bell on YouTube

IMRA: Hear the bell on You Tube!!! The sound of the recently discovered ancient golden bell can be heard on YouTube here. And, yes, I think tinkle or bangle noise fits pretty well.

HT Joseph Lauer. Background here.

Did Jews Invent the Question Mark?

PROBABLY NOT: Did Jews Invent the Question Mark?

The question is asked by Renee Ghert-Zand in The Forward blog The Shmooze. The question mark in, er, question is the punctuation mark found in fifth-century CE (not BCE) Syriac manuscripts as noted recently by Cambridge researcher Dr Chip Coakley. Syriac is the Christian Aramaic dialect spoken in the ancient Anatolian city of Edessa and it became the language of the Aramaic-speaking Eastern Church. If the mark was invented in the fifth century, it is very likely that it was invented by Eastern Christians. Still, we (or at least I) don't know exactly how early the mark was developed, and it is possible that Jews were involved in the translation of Hebrew Bible books into Syriac a few centuries earlier, so the possibility cannot be entirely discounted.

Cross-file under "Aramaic Watch."

More on the golden bell from Jerusalem

MORE ON THE GOLDEN BELL FROM JERUSALEM:

First, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes an IAA press release: Rare gold bell discovered in excavations in Jerusalem. It is substantially the same as the Arutz Sheva article I linked to on Friday, and it looks to me as though they were both translated independently into English from the same Hebrew press release.

Second, the AP has an article that has some new details: Ancient bell found in Jerusalem Old City sewer. Evidently the sound it makes is "something between a clink and a rattle" (I wonder if that counts as a "tinkle" or a "bangle noise"). And it may be my imagination, but perhaps there's a little backtracking of the claims. Instead of coming from the clothing of "a man of high authority," the owner is now "a wealthy resident" of Jerusalem, although the bell still came from "his garment."

Also, Green Prophet gets the award for most inflated headline so far: Authentic Remnant From Solomon’s Temple? The find is from the time of the Second Temple or Herod's Temple. The First ("Solomon's") Temple was destroyed many centuries before.

Background here, where I raise the possibility of the bell coming from a woman's clothing.

UPDATE (26 July): Hear the bell tinkle.

Dura Europos exhibition coming to ISAW/NYU

ANOTHER DURA EUROPOS EXHIBITION IS COMING:

New York University
A private university in the public service

ISAW
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
For Immediate Release

July 21, 2011
EDGE OF EMPIRES: PAGANS, JEWS, AND CHRISTIANS AT ROMAN DURA-EUROPOS
Special exhibition examines character of ancient city on the Euphrates,
inhabited by Greek, Near Eastern, and Roman peoples.
September 23, 2011–January 8, 2012


Head of the Goddess Atargatis, or Tyche
with Doves

WHAT Edge of Empires: Pagans, Jews, and Christians at Roman Dura-Europos examines the life and culture of this ancient city (located in present-day eastern Syria), which flourished under the Romans from the mid-second to mid-third century CE. With 77 objects, the exhibition explores the diversity of and interconnections among religions, languages, and peoples that distinguished Dura-Europos.

Strategically located on the Euphrates River, Dura Europos was founded in the fourth century BCE by Macedonian successors of Alexander the Great. However, it was under Parthian control from the late second-century BCE until 164 CE, when the Roman emperor Lucius Verus brought Syria, and thus also Dura Europos, under Roman control. The city then thrived as a military garrison until 256 CE, when it was destroyed by the Sasanian Persians. The cosmopolitan Roman town was exceptionally well preserved, with a wealth of artifacts that, upon their discovery, fundamentally altered our understanding of religious and military practice in the late Roman period.

Highlights of the exhibition include numerous items that demonstrate the coexistence of multiple religions at Dura, with objects from its synagogue—the world’s best-preserved ancient synagogue; a Christian house-church that is older than any surviving church in Rome; and several pagan temples. Also central to Edge of Empires are objects that open a window onto imperial Roman military life and practice, including a spectacular shield and articles of dress that attest to the variety of cultures represented in the Roman military. Dishes, an engagement ring, and other quotidian items, many imported from across a broad swath of the ancient world, attest to Dura’s integration into the economy of the empire and tell us about the daily life of its inhabitants.

WHERE Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW)
15 East 84th Street, New York City

WHEN September 23, 2011–January 8, 2012
Tuesday–Sunday, 11 am–6 pm; Friday, 11 am–8 pm

ADMISSION Admission is free.
ORGANIZATION, The exhibition has been organized by the Yale University Art Gallery and
SPONSORSHIP the McMullen Museum, Boston College. The ISAW presentation has been made possible through the support of the Leon Levy Foundation.
PUBLICATION The exhibition will be supplemented by a 100-page publication containing essays by leading scholars, as well as a map of the region, a detailed site plan of Dura-Europos, archival excavation photos, a checklist of objects in the exhibition, and a selected bibliography. It will be available for purchase at ISAW and distributed by Princeton University Press.
GUIDED TOURS Free guided tours of the exhibition will be offered on Fridays at 6 pm.
INSTITUTE The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York
FOR THE STUDY University was established in 2006 by the Leon Levy Foundation.
OF THE ANCIENT In addition to its doctoral and postdoctoral programs, ISAW engages the
WORLD larger scholarly community and the public with an ongoing program of exhibitions, lectures, and publications.
The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World is located at 15 East 84th Street, New York, NY 10028. Telephone: 212-992-7800; website: www.nyu.edu/isaw
* * *

Image Caption
Head of the Goddess Atargatis, or Tyche with Doves Limestone, H. 13.0 cm, W. 25.5 cm, D. 5.0 cm From the Temple of Adonis, Dura-Europos, 1st century CE Yale University Art Gallery, Yale-French Excavations at Dura-Europos: 1935.46 Photography © 2011 Yale University Art Gallery

Much more on Dura Europos here, including links to posts on other museum exhibitions.

SBL Aramaic Studies Session

ARAMAIC WATCH: Targuman: SBL Aramaic Studies Session Finalized! Follow the link for details.

New book: "Melekhet Mahshevet"

NEW BOOK: MELEKHET MAHSHEVET: Studies in the Redaction and Development of Talmudic Literature. Edited By Aron Shemesh Aron Amit (Bar-Ilan University Press).

Description
This volume includes a selection of articles dealing with general questions regarding the redaction and the development of talmudic literature and with specific issues relating to different aspects of the editing and the transmission of certain talmudic works. The articles are based on papers delivered at an international conference sponsored by the Department of Talmud at Bar-Ilan University titled ``Rabbinic Textuality, Transmission, and Redaction: The Historical and Literary Processes which Generated the Rabbinic Corpus.`` These articles offer important innovations to contemporary research discourse and the volume as a whole is a major contribution to the study of Talmud and the history of the redaction of talmudic literature.

The articles are in English and Hebrew. Follow the link for PDF files of the prefaces and TOCs.

(HT Steven D. Fraade, who has an article in the volume.)

Ancient golden bell found in Jerusalem

A GOLDEN BELL from the Second Temple period has been discovered in an ancient drainage channel in Jerusalem:

Archaeologists Discover High Priest's Bell?
Archaeologists have discovered a rare gold bell during an excavation in the City of David National Park in Jerusalem.

by Elad Benari (Arutz Sheva)
Published: 21/07/11, 11:21 PM

Archaeologists have discovered a rare gold bell with a small loop at its end. The finding was made during an archaeological excavation in the City of David National Park (near the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem) by the Israel Antiquities Authority in cooperation with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Ir David Foundation.

The directors of the excavation on behalf of the Antiquities Authority, archaeologists Eli Shukron and Professor Ronny Reich of Haifa University, said after the finding, “The bell looked as if it was sewn on the garment worn by a man of high authority in Jerusalem at the end of the Second Temple period.

[...]

Well, maybe. On the one hand it is true that the only references to golden bells in the Hebrew Bible are to bells on the vestments of the high priest (Exodus 28:33-34; 39:25-26). On the other hand, first, the only other mention of bells (a different Hebrew word) refers to horses' trappings (Zechariah 14:20). Presumably, bells were used in many other contexts, so our sample of cultural allusions is limited. But, you say, what about golden bells? Well, second, Isaiah 3:16-18 refers to bangles that the rich women of Jerusalem wore on their ankles and which "tinkled" or made some king of bangle noise. These ladies clearly had lots of jewelery and finery (cf. also vv. 19-23), so it seems entirely likely that they sometimes wore bells as jewelry and that some of those bells might well have been made of gold. And we know that Second-Temple-era ladies in Jerusalem had very nice gold earrings. So this bell need not have come from "a man of high authority."

It would be interesting to see what the Mishnah has to say about golden and other bells.

In any case, I bet someone was extremely upset when this bell went missing.

UPDATE (26 July): More here and here.

Another review of "I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue"

I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED THE HOLY TONGUE, by Anthony Grafton and Joanna Weinberg, is reviewed in the Jerusalem Post:

A Hebrew revival

07/21/2011 17:40 By MOSHE SLUHOVSKY

Two historians convincingly make the case that Renaissance scholar Isaac Casaubon, best known for expertise in Greek and Latin, was an industrious Hebraist.


Isaac Casaubon (1559-1614), one of the greatest scholars of the late Renaissance, is hardly remembered today. In his time, though, this son of French Calvinist refugees living in Geneva was regarded by some as “the most learned man in Europe.” He held positions as professor of Hebrew in Geneva and Montpelier, was a librarian to the king of France, and ended his life in Oxford, England, as a personal friend of King James I and a friend by correspondence of all the leading members of the early 17th-century Republic of Letters.

[...]

The authors admit that Casaubon was only a second-tier Hebraist. But his use of Hebrew illuminates the contribution of people like him not to philology per se, but to a revolution in theology and historiography. He was, they rightly point out, one of the first to realize the (currently self-evident) view that a better understanding of Second Temple Judaism, early Christianity and late Hellenism cannot be achieved without a thorough familiarity with, and respect for, all religious cultures and all languages of the period.

Another review and additional background are noted here.

Professor John Healey elected FBA

ARAMAIC WATCH: Congratulations to Professor John Healey:

John Healey becomes Fellow of the British Academy

22 Jul 2011

A Professor of Semitic Studies from The University of Manchester is one of only 38 academics to be elected a Fellow of the British Academy at its Annual General Meeting on 21 July.

John Healey is the latest scholar to add to the University’s leading international reputation in Middle Eastern Studies going back to the 1940s.

[...]

John Healey came to the Manchester Department of Middle Eastern Studies from Durham University in 1989.

He is a graduate of University College Dublin and obtained his PhD in 1977 at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, for work on the Ugaritic literature — Ugarit was a Late Bronze Age city on the Syrian coast, destroyed c. 1200 BCE, but leaving behind a substantial poetic literature.

Since the mid-1980s Professor Healey has concentrated on Aramaic inscriptions, especially in the Greek and Roman periods. He is currently working on a grammar of Nabataean Aramaic.

Apart from being one of the editors of the University of Manchester’s prestigious Journal of Semitic Studies (Oxford University Press), he is on the editorial boards of Levant (London), Aram (Oxford) and Aramaic Studies (Leiden) and of journals published in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

[...]

Earliest question mark found in Syriac?

ARAMAIC WATCH:

The riddle of the Syriac double dot: it’s the world’s earliest question mark

Manuscripts written in Syriac, an ancient language of the Middle East, are peppered with mysterious dots. Among them is the vertical double dot or zagwa elaya. A Cambridge academic thinks that the zagwa elaya is the world’s earliest question mark.

I’d describe it as a significant footnote in the history of writing."
—Dr Chip Coakley

Cambridge University manuscript specialist, Dr Chip Coakley has identified what may be the world’s earliest example of a question mark. The symbol in question is two dots, one above the other, similar in appearance to a colon, rather than the familiar squiggle of the modern question mark. The double dot symbol appears in Syriac manuscripts of the Bible dating back to the fifth century.

[...]

Questions are sometimes marked in Semitic languages by prefixed particles — in Hebrew and Arabic, for example. But this is a punctuation mark, not a word or particle. A salutary reminder of how much we still don't know about ancient languages.

SANA profiles Sednaya

ARAMAIC WATCH: Another SANA profile of an ancient Syrian city: Sednaya… One of the Most Deep-Rooted Archeological Cities in Syria. Excerpt:

It dates back to ancient times and it embraces a lot of the archeological monuments and the Christian sanctities, the most important of which is the Convent of Sednaya Lady which is the second most important Christian sanctity after the Church of the Resurrection in occupied Jerusalem.

Sednaya name was mentioned in the old registries and scripts which were found in the Convent where some of the archeological monuments were found dating back to the Classical Age such as the remains of a temple and Greek inscriptions as the royal orthodox scripts were written in the Syriac language in Sednaya till the 18th century.

The City also includes the Cherubim Monastery which was built on one of the highest mounts at al-Qalamoun Mountain, and the name of the Monastery is an Aramaic word which means the angels.

There is also a Monastery of Mar Thomas in Sednaya. I think the article means "sanctuaries," not "sanctities."

More on Syriac names in Turkey

ARAMAIC WATCH: More on the legal battle over the use of "foreign" names in Turkey:

What’s in a name? – revisited

BRUSSELS/PARIS - Reuters
BURAK BEKDİL

“Greeks are Turks who think they are Italian,” the old joke goes. A matching phrase for this side of the Aegean could be “Turks are Mongolians who think they are Arabs.” Confusing? Maybe not.

Favlus Ay, a Turkish citizen of Syriac origin, recently appealed to a court to change his surname to “Bartuma,” the Syriac equivalent of “Ay,” meaning “moon.” The court denied his request on the basis of Article 3 of the Law on Family Names which bans the use of surnames “belonging to foreign nations and races.” Ay’s appeal, the verdict read, stood “against national unity.”

Ay did not give up his legal battle, appealing to the Constitutional Court to demand the article’s cancellation. They, too, ruled against the Syriac man’s appeal in order to maintain national unity through a ban on non-Turkish names.

One may think the ban and its legal basis are ridiculous. In fact, the whole story, when seen from a wider angle, is even more ridiculous than the ban itself.

[...]

That's getting pretty ridiculous.

Background here.

Enochian Comic-Con launch party.

GOOD NEWS: You can attend 'El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron' Comic-Con party. It's in San Diego too. I'm not into Comic-Con, but if I were in town I might try to use my Enochian credentials to crash this party.

Background here.

Tomb Planters revisited

TOMB PLANTERS revisited:

Work resumes on removal of 500 fake gravestones in capital

By MELANIE LIDMAN (Jerusalem Post)
07/21/2011 03:55

Leader of preservation campaign: I don’t think the argument is "real or not" – we know that this is a cemetery.


After nearly a year, the Israel Lands Authority this month resumed work removing 500 fake tombstones from the Muslim Mamilla Cemetery in downtown Jerusalem, prompting furious condemnation from Muslim groups.

Last August, Jerusalem municipality officials, working in conjunction with the ILA and the Israel Antiquities Authority, removed around 300 counterfeit tombstones, calling their erection “one of the largest acts of deception in recent years.”

The Islamic Movement accused the authorities of wantonly destroying graves, and appealed to the courts to impose a stop-work order on the removal. The order was rescinded in late June, said ILA spokeswoman Ortal Tzabar.

Since then, authorities have removed an additional 100 fake gravestones.

[...]

HT Joseph Lauer. Background here and here. Related here and links (regarding the Museum of Tolerance controversy).

More on IAA board of directors legislation

MORE ON THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT to the rules for appointing the chairman of the IAA board of directors:

Archaeology professors call on Livnat to keep posting scientific

Leading archeologists call on Minister of Culture and Sport to keep politics out of Antiquities Authority.

By Nir Hasson (Haaretz)

Four heads of university archaeological institutes have asked Culture Minister Limor Livnat to cancel the amendment she is sponsoring to the Antiquities Authority Law, which critics say aims to block left-leaning professionals from key positions in the authority.

[...]

Background here and link.

"El Shaddai" news

EL SHADDAI NEWS:

First, for North Americans: El Shaddai: Ascension Of The Metatron Delayed To August 16th. You'll just have to wait. But the European release is even later.

Second:

El Shaddai’s Lucifel, In A Way, Is Game Designer Sawaki Takeyasu

By Spencer . July 20, 2011 . 3:35pm (Siliconera)

El Shaddais Lucifel, In A Way, Is Game Designer Sawaki Takeyasu "When I thought of Lucifel, I had an idea of how I wanted him to look immediately," said Sawaki Takeyasu, lead designer on El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. In the game you play as Enoch who is chosen to stop God from flooding the Earth since he has a pure heart. Lucifel, the suave character who asks Enoch if he has enough armor, guides him through his quest. Since Lucifel has a stronger personality than Enoch, I asked Takeyasu about his vision for the archangel.

[...]

I suppose Lucifel sounds better than Michaer, as Retief would say.

Background here and links. Cross-file under "Archangel Metatron Watch."

Could Computer Analysis Help Date the Gospels?

JOHN FARRELL: COULD COMPUTER ANALYSIS HELP DATE THE GOSPELS? This with reference to the recent claims that a computer algorithm can do biblical source criticism (and note today's update to the post). Farrell ties in Maurice Casey's attempts to retrovert translated first-century Aramaic from the Greek of the Synoptic Gospels and asks:

The discovery of the scrolls, Casey argued, essentially changed the game. Scholars now have the majority of words that they need extant in Aramaic from the right period to ‘reconstruct’ a large chunk of Mark’s Aramaic foundation.

Back to Koppel and his team. Might their mode of computer analysis be able to shed more light on this?

For example, comparing a carefully retro-translated Aramaic Mark with the larger sample of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

What might such an analysis reveal? Would it suggest more than one author?

Or might it falsify the whole proposition, in spite of Casey’s thesis?

Assuming not, might it also help to more accurately date the composition of the source material? Enough, for example, for scholars to ascertain what decade the text was written.

Casey argued in his book that Mark was written no later than 40 CE. Well within the decade of Jesus’ death and reported resurrection. Could Koppel’s or another group show it might have been even earlier?

Fascinating to think about.

I have commented on Casey's retroversion attempts here. Bottom line: at best Casey has produced one of many possible retroversions of the Aramaic, but it is very unlikely that it consistently represents the Aramaic traditions that Mark had before him with any precision. Casey also often has to draw on later Aramaic and Syriac, when the relevant vocabulary does not survive in our very limited resources from the first century, and this adds yet another level of speculation to his reconstructions.

Given these limitations to Casey's work, I am confident in answering that, no, application of the computer algorithm would not be able to help us detect multiple authors in the reconstructed Aramaic sources or to date them to within a decade or to falsify Casey's work. None of these things will happen unless, first, we recover a lot more actual Aramaic from the first century and, second, we develop retroversion techniques that are far more sophisticated than the ones Casey uses. I wouldn't count on either happening any time soon, if ever.

UPDATE: Reader Jesse Abelman points me to a nonspecialist-friendly blog post about that computer algorithm at the Sephorim blog, written by one of the developers of the algorithm and the software, Professor Moshe Koppel: Attribution and Misattribution: On Computational Linguistics, Heresy and Journalism.

Great Isaiah Scroll online

THE GREAT ISAIAH SCROLL (1QIsa^a) can be consulted online with good, high resolution, color images. The site is published by the Dorot Foundation Dead Sea Scrolls Information and Study Center. (HT Gerald Rosenberg.)

Black and white images of the scroll with detailed textual analysis have been available online for a long time. Other PaleoJudaica posts on the Great Isaiah Scroll are here, here, here, here, and here.

UPDATE (5 November 2025): The link has evaporated. But you can find the whole scroll online now at The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls website here.

Robert Aumann on the Talmud and Game Theory

NOBEL LAUREATE ROBERT AUMANN is interviewed on Arutz Sheva Radio about, inter alia, the Talmud and game theory. The key passage is here:

Douglas Goldstein: You used Game Theory to solve certain Talmudic problems in the Gemara and the Talmud. How does that work?

Robert Aumann: I will tell you the story. There is a passage in the Talmud in Ketubot 93a, and it has generated a tremendous amount of ink over thousands of years, and really there was great difficulty in understanding it. My son was killed in Lebanon in 1982.

I wrote him a letter once about a certain Talmudic issue and he wrote back Ketubot 93a and to look over there. I looked at this passage in the Talmud and I couldn’t figure it out. I, together with a colleague of mine, we looked at the numbers over there and they looked really, really odd. Then we decided to apply some game theoretic tools to try to understand this.

Eventually we found one of those tools which really fit the number perfectly, but this didn’t satisfy us yet because it’s a sophisticated modern mathematical concept and it’s unlikely the sages of the Talmud knew about this.

So we had to get to the bottom of the logic and this took us a few more months and finally we did arrive at it.

The sages of the Talmud were very smart and sophisticated. Obviously, they didn’t know modern mathematics but they did know logic. It’s quite possible that the logic that we found behind these numbers really was in the minds of the Talmudic sages.

It was also published in the Journal of Economic Theory in 1985 under the title “Game Theoretic Analysis of a Bankruptcy Problem from the Talmud.”

It’s hard to believe, but they worked out a Game Theoretic approach. They did reach the conclusions, which were not at all obvious, so I take off my hat to them.

More on Prof. Aumann's work on game theory and the Talmud is here.

On a tangentially related note, Mario I. Blejer has a piece on The Talmud and Greek Debt in Project Syndicate.

More on Zahi Hawass

ZAHI HAWASS is gone (at least for now) and a Jerusalem Post columnist suggests we should be glad to see him go: Terra Incognita: Egypt’s other Sphinx: Zahi Hawass, by Seth J. Frantzman:

The news that Zahi Hawass was recently swept aside from his post in a cabinet reshuffle in Cairo, should be welcomed. There was always something about Hawass that seemed not quite right. Besides his anti-Semitic comments, it was his constant presence. He was always there – in every video, television report, newspaper article, every time Egyptian archeology was mentioned. As Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, and later as the first Minister of Antiquities, he has spent a decade as the highest government bureaucrat responsible for Egypt’s archeological heritage.

Background here and here and links.

More on Ein Kerem

MORE ON EIN KEREM: The controversy over the building site and associated antiquities receives attention from the Jerusalem Post, which gives an account of events to date:

The Tourism Ministry, which has been working on the development of Ein Kerem for 20 years in cooperation with the residents, began in April 2010, on the basis of permits issued in 2005 and 2006, to build a large structure to house public bathrooms. A Jerusalem Municipality spokeswoman explained it as part of a larger project that would eventually include underground parking and other services for tourists.

But during the work, builders found the remains of a water system dating from the Second Temple period.

The discovery meant the ministry could not build a ramp to the bathrooms to make them handicap-accessible, as required by law, a spokeswoman for the Tourism Ministry said.

In August 2010, the city’s legal adviser Yossi Havilio (who is distantly related to Ron Havilio) put a stop-work order on the building. At a meeting with the Antiquities Authority and neighborhood residents soon afterward, the decision was made to seal the building until another solution could be found.

“The residents of Ein Kerem are telling the establishment that they’re making a mistake – we’ve been saying ‘Stop! This is a mistake!’ for the past 20 years,” said Ben Ofarim, the head of the local committee.

This week, the Interior Ministry’s District Planning and Construction Committee is scheduled to release its opinion on the residents’ appeal regarding the building. The residents are asking for the building to be torn down, saying that the plan to renovate the area did not follow the proper building procedures for Ein Kerem, which include providing in-depth historical documentation before construction starts.

“They destroyed the entire top of the wadi,” Ofarim said, angrily gesturing at the area around the building, which is brown and dead compared with the lush green terraces surrounding it. “They just gave the finger to public planning.”

No mention of Copper Scroll treasures in this article.

HT Joseph Lauer. Background here.

Biblioblogospheric book reviews

BIBLIOBLOGOSPHERIC BOOK REVIEWS: Here are some recent book notes and reviews by blogging biblical etc. scholars.

From April DeConick at the Forbidden Gospels blog:
Book Note: Anthony LeDonne, Historical Jesus
Book Note: The Gnostic 4
Book Note: The Apocryphal Gospels (Ehrman and Plese)

At Larry Hurtado's Blog:
Donald Juel Volume

At the Rollston Epigraphy blog:
Review of _Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae_

By Peter Williams at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog:
Textual criticism and Qur'ān manuscripts

By Amit Gvaryahu at the recently relaunched Talmud Blog:
Sifre Bemidbar, Ed. Kahana!

OKC "Passages" exhibition Dead Sea Scroll

MORE ON THE OKLAHOMA CITY PASSAGES EXHIBITION and its Dead Sea Scroll fragment: Reader Matthew Hamilton e-mails:

I've been tracking the location of a number of fragments of the scrolls in various collections, including those in the Green Collection. The one exhibited at OKC Museum of Art is a fragment of Gen.32:3-7 that previously was the property of the book dealer Michael Sharpe. There is a nice photograph on the Passages website, go to the newsroom and then within that to Green Collection Photo Gallery. See here.

The photo of the scroll fragment is the third one down on the far left.

Background on the exhibition is here.

The 17th of Tammuz

TODAY IS THE 17TH OF TAMMUZ. An easy fast to all those observing it.

Zahi Hawass fired

ZAHI HAWASS HAS BEEN FIRED: Egypt's Iconic Antiquities Chief Fired (AP). For now, at least. He has quite a reputation for comebacks.

(HT Chuck Jones.) Background here, but then he was back for a while (cf. here).

Photographic archive of Dura Europos excavation

MORE ON DURA EUROPOS: The huge, and apparently mostly unpublished, photographic archive of the 1928-37 excavation of the site has been getting some attention from a sociological angle:

Study Sheds New Light on Archaeology of the Dura-Europos Expedition

By Dan McLerran Wed, Jul 13, 2011 (Popular Archaeology)

A new study of the photographic archives of one of the “big digs” of the 20th century reveals much more than artifacts and ancient architecture. It says something about a by-gone era in archaeology and the culture, psychology and practices of its participants.

A recent study of the photographic archives of one of the 20th century's most sensational archaeological excavations and discoveries lends powerful credence to the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words". Tucked away carefully within the archival collections of the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut, more than 5,000 unpublished photographs taken between 1928 and 1937 recount a story in visual detail that cannot be fully told in the printed words of excavation reports, site journals or the popular press of the time.

[...]

(HT James McGrath.) This article is based on an article by J.A. Baird in the current issue of the American Journal of Archaeology, which you can find online here and which is available through JSTOR.

More on Dura Europos here and links.

Copper Scroll treasures under a public toilet in Israel?

COPPER SCROLL TREASURES buried under a public toilet in Israel?

Second Temple artifacts may be buried under Ein Karem toilet

Neighborhood residents are convinced the bathroom-come-toolshed, which they call "the monster," was just a pretext for building an edifice that would some day serve as a restaurant.

By Nir Hasson Tags: Israel archeology Temple Mount Jerusalem Jewish World (Haaretz)

Have the Tourism Ministry and the Jerusalem municipality buried treasures from the Second Temple under a giant lavatory? That possibility is just one of the problems cited by opponents of a plan to improve a spring in the city's Ein Karem neighborhood, at one of Israel's most important Christian tourism sites.

[...]

But perhaps worst of all was the handling of the site's archaeological relics. A salvage dig conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority discovered ancient water systems that carried water from the spring to terraces on the wadi. This led the deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Naomi Tsur, to call a meeting in November 2009 to discuss how these relics could be preserved. The meeting, attended by Tourism Ministry and Antiquities Authority representatives, decided to freeze construction of the building and look into building an archaeological park there instead.

But on the very day the meeting was held, the tourist corporation's vice president, David Mingelgreen, sent the municipality a letter saying that, for reasons unknown, all the archaeological findings had been buried under tons of earth the day before. Thus, by the time the meeting occurred, there was nothing left to salvage.

From his letter, Mingelgreen appeared to view the findings as a nuisance. "The goal is to refrain as far as possible from work that will require archaeological digs," he wrote.

But Ron Havilio, a neighborhood resident and leading opponent of the project who has researched Ein Karem's history extensively, believes the archaeological loss may have been even greater. There is a well-known legend about a Palestinian treasure being buried in one of the neighborhood's houses during the War of Independence in 1948, and Havilio - who is distantly related to Yossi Havilio - claims this legendary treasury may actually have comprised treasures from the Second Temple.

His source for this claim is the Copper Scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1952. The scroll, which was written on metal, details the places where the Second Temple's treasures were hidden after its destruction in 70 C.E. Among other things it says: "At the ashuach in Beit Hakerem, when you go 10 cubits to the left, are 62 talents of silver."

The accepted view is that "ashuach" signifies a reservoir and that the ancient Beit Hakerem is the modern-day neighborhood of Ein Karem. The only question, Havilio argued, is the location of the ancient pool referred to in the scroll - and analyses of the area's former geography indicate that one possible answer is right under the giant lavatory.

"There is a chance, even if only a small one, that an exciting discovery could be made at Ein Karem, one of the most important discoveries in Israel of the last 100 years," he said.

[...]

There seem to be three issues here. First is the treatment of the site by the developers, and I leave those closer to the situation than I to evaluate the concerns.

Second is the question of whether a treasure from the Copper Scroll could be at the site. This sort of thing is always possible, but establishing the location of any of the sites mentioned in the Copper Scroll is a maddeningly difficult challenge, so I'm pretty skeptical. It also seems doubtful that many, if any, of the caches of precious metals listed in the Scroll have been left undiscovered until the present. Richard Freund (of recent discovery-of-Atlantis-yet-again fame) thought he found one, but his case is not philologically compelling.

Third, how did this "Palestinian treasure" (from the Copper Scroll?) come to be buried in someone's house in 1948?

In short, I am doubtful about any connection with the Copper Scroll, but I hope the site is nevertheless being handled with appropriate archaeological care.

I have a recent post on the Copper Scroll and other treasure hoards, real and imagined, here, with links as usual.

Tile murals from the Dura Europos synagogue

TILE MURALS from the Dura Europos synagogue are on display in Israel:

Ruins from ancient Syrian synagogue put on display in Israel after 63-year delay

An archaeological exhibit slated to open on Mount Scopus in 1948 finally kicked off last month with a display of tiles from the famed Dura Europos synagogue.

By Ran Shapira (Haaretz)

Painted tiles from an impressive ancient synagogue in Syria, along with other archaeological artifacts, went on display on Mount Scopus last month - after a 63-year delay.

The exhibits were originally intended to be shown to the public on Mount Scopus in 1948, but the outbreak of the War of Independence froze plans to open the nearly-completed museum built there. The exhibits were placed in drawers for decades and became accessible to the public only last month.

Among the artifacts are tiles from the ancient synagogue discovered in the city of Dura Europos, which is located in the Syrian desert above the banks of the Euphrates. To this day - about 80 years after its discovery - this 3rd century synagogue is considered one of the most complete and impressive examples of Jewish religious structures from that period.

[...]

Much more on Dura Europos here leading back to many links.