Nehemiah scroll fragment

EXCITING NEWS FROM BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Book of Nehemiah Found Among the Scrolls. Scroll scholars find first fragment of Nehemiah.

Of course readers of PaleoJudaica have known about this for nearly four years. But it's good to hear that the official publication is coming out soon.

Armenian manuscripts digitized in Syria

FINISHING a digitization project in Syria, and none too soon:

Armenian manuscripts digitized in Syria

May 18, 2012 - 15:15 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at St. John’s University completed a manuscript preservation project in the Middle East shortly before the violence worsened in Syria, sctimes.com reports.

“This was our last current project in Syria, and we had done actually a series of projects - about six of them in Syria - in different locations,” said the Rev. Columba Stewart, executive director of the Collegeville-based library.

However, HMML-trained technicians in Aleppo, Syria, were able to complete the digitization of 225 Armenian manuscripts belonging to the Armenian Orthodox Diocese of Aleppo - one of the largest Armenian collections in Syria.

[...]

Adam McCollum, who is mentioned later in the article, is lead cataloger of Eastern Christian manuscripts at HMML and has a blog, hmmlorientalia, to which I have linked from time to time.

No word on the contents of the manuscripts, but many Old Testament pseudepigrapha circulated in Armenian translations, and translations of Philo of Alexandria's works were also transmitted in an important Armenian manuscript tradition. Perhaps some of these manuscripts preserve such material.

Lots of other digitization projects have been noted here and links.

PaleoJudaica miscellanea

STILL UNBELIEVABLY BUSY, but I'm taking a few minutes to catch up with blogging. Here are some recent stories of interest:

More on that Arabic Talmud from Arutz Sheva: Talmud in Arabic Being Sold in Jordan. A group of researchers and translators in Jordan have translated the Talmud into Arabic. Translated version sold in local book fairs. A copy has been purchased by the National Library in Jerusalem.

Background here and links.

An article on IAA supervision of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Philadelphia exhibition: Dead Sea Scolls exhibit opens under careful scrutiny (AP).

Background here and links.

New archeological discovery: Ancient olive oil press unearthed in Modi’in. Archaeologists say the unusually well-preserved facility was active 1,400 years ago (Times of Israel).

Can't make it up: Jesus Christ, now they’ve made him a video-game character (Religion World blog, Orlando Sentinel).

James Charlesworth has released his much awaited report on Talpiot Tomb B and you can download it as a pdf file: What is the Message of the "Patio Tomb" in Talpiot, Jerusalem? I don't have time right now to give it the attention it deserves, but Mark Goodacre, who has been following this story much more closely than I, has some reflections: James Charlesworth on Talpiot Tomb B.

Background here and links.

Review of Friedman, The Aleppo Codex

MATTI FRIEDMAN'S THE ALEPPO CODEX is reviewed by Lauri Miller at Salon: “The Aleppo Codex”: The bizarre history of a precious book. A reporter traces the shadowy fate of the definitive version of the Hebrew Bible. Excerpt:

The codex was the perfect version of the Bible, a sort of atomic clock of Judaism, and intended to be the model for all subsequent copies. Its early history was fraught: captured by Crusaders in the fall of Jerusalem, ransomed by the Jewish community in Cairo and consulted by the fabled sage Maimonides, it was eventually taken to the Syrian city of Aleppo. There, it resided for half a century. Although it was well-cared-for by Aleppo’s Jewish community, it had come to be revered as a relic or treasure; few were allowed to see it and no one was allowed to copy it.

All that changed in 1947, when the establishment of the state of Israel by a United Nations resolution led to unrest in the Arab world and the harassment and persecution of Jewish communities in Muslim nations. In Aleppo, this took the form of riots and the sacking of the synagogue. The codex — commonly referred to as the Crown — was supposed to have been consumed in a fire set by the mob.

It was not, and in 1958, the Crown was smuggled into Jerusalem by a cheese merchant who was one of the few Syrian Jews to receive official permission to emigrate to Israel. Friedman became interested in this “lonely treasure and millennium-old traveler” in 2008, when he decided to write an article about it. He imagined the piece would be “an uplifting and uncomplicated account of the rescue of a cultural artifact,” but what he discovered instead was a thicket of conflicting reports, missing records, puzzling omissions, stonewalling officials and obsessed amateur sleuths.

Blessed are the cheese merchants.

Earlier reviews etc. here and links.

Classical Timeline

A NEW ONLINE PROJECT run by University of Aberdeen postgraduate Erlend D. MacGillivray is seeking an editor to help with the project:

An editorship supervising entries on Judaism and Christianity in Classical antiquity for www.classicaltimeline.com is currently vacant and is seeking suitably qualified candidates to apply. It is expected that the prospective editor will have an academic position, a PhD, or have published research within this field. The editor can choose to devote as much time as they wish to this role, but it is anticipated that they will spend on average 2 hours a week contributing and supervising material. While they are expected to be fastidious in ensuring the reliability of the content of the timeline, it should be noted that there will be a disclaimer on the introductory screen stating that the timeline is not intended to be a substitute for more conventional sources of information on the Classical world, and that serious inquirers should continue to direct their attention to such resources.

ClassicalTimeline has only been online for less than a week but has already several thousand views.This should be an exciting project to be involved in; particularly for those who wish to try and increase public knowledge on the history of Judaism and Christianity and for those interested in the expanding field of the digital humanities. For more information please visit http://www.classicalstudiesonline.org/get-involved/.

Charlesworth on the Talpiot Tombs controversy

JAMES CHARLESWORTH is interviewed by Ben Witherington at Professor Witherington's blog, The Bible and Culture: Dr. Jim Charlesworth on Talpiot Tomb B. These are Professor Charlesworth's views given first-hand for the first time and it is very helpful to have them. He will be posting more on his website (www.FJCO-DSS-Events.org) this week. I look forward to seeing what he has to say.

Background here and links.

Phoenicia back in Gibraltar

THE GOOD SHIP PHOENICIA is back under sail and has just rescued a sailor stranded in Gibraltar. Sort of. Phoenicia cruises into Gibraltar’s Ocean Village. What's upcoming:

Speaking this week of Phoenicia’s return to the Rock, Captain Philip Beale commented, “Phoenicia is delighted to be back in Gibraltar and hosted once again by Ocean Village. We first visited Ocean Village towards the end of Phoenicia's historic circumnavigation of Africa in August 2010 and we received exemplary service and support from the team. They have also worked tirelessly for our current visit and offered vital assistance to crew member Len who has been a fortnight in Gibraltar in anticipation of our arrival. We are still urgently looking for one or two other crew members for our sail to London’s St Katharine Docks where she will be transformed into a floating museum for the summer. If you’re keen – get in touch.”

Phoenicia will now retrace the ancient Phoenician-Cornish tin trade route and head towards Falmouth and finally London, arriving at St Katharine Docks on 2 June. “The Phoenicians: The Greatest Ancient Sailors” exhibition will run through to September and feature ancient artefacts from the Phoenician era. Visitors will be able to climb onboard Phoenicia for a tour of the vessel and learn more about Phoenician culture as well as the recent expedition that triumphed over Somali pirates, treacherous storms and mechanical problems to recreate one of mankind’s greatest journeys. Visit phoenicia.org.uk to purchase tickets or for more information. Phoenicia hopes to visit Gibraltar again later on in the year and offer tours to local schoolchildren. Meanwhile, Len’s grandchildren, all seven of them, are back in South Africa following the Ship’s Log and satellite tracker and keeping a scrapbook of their grandfather’s fantastic adventures.

Background on Phoenicia and her epic circum-African voyage is here and links.

Abraham Tal receives Gesenius Fellowship

CONGRATULATIONS TO ABRAHAM TAL. Jack Sasson reports on the Agade list:

From Stefan Schorch (schorch_AT@gmx.de):
====================================

Professor Abraham Tal is the first recipient of the newly established Gesenius-fellowship at the University of Halle-Wittenberg.

Tal is professor emeritus of Tel Aviv University, former Vice President of the Academy of the Hebrew Language in Jerusalem, and Editor-in-Chief of The Historical Dictionary of the Hebrew Language. He has published widely in the field of Hebrew and Aramaic
linguistics. Among his numerous publications are the pioneering critical edition of "The Samaritan Targum of the Pentateuch" (1980-83); "A Dictionary of Samaritan Aramaic" (2000). For more details, see his homepage at: http://humanities.tau.ac.il/segel/abraham/

Tal is the first "Wilhelm-Gesenius-Gastwissenschaftler" at the University of Halle-Wittenberg. The Gesenius fellowship and the Gesenius junior-fellowship were established by the Institute of Biblical studies at the University of Halle-Wittenberg in commemoration of Wilhelm Gesenius (1786-1842), the founder of modern Hebrew studies, who was a professor at this institute throughout his entire academic career, 1810-1842.

Go here for the homepage of the "Gesenius fellowship": http://www.theologie.uni-halle.de/at/gesenius/.

Earlier PaleoJudaica posts involving Professor Tal are here, here, and here.

Arrived

I'M IN SAN DIEGO. More tomorrow.

Tony Burke's NT Apocrypha course

TONY BURKE is teaching a course on the New Testament Apocrypha. And here's a report on the first week: New Testament Apocrypha Course: Week 1

Birmingham conference on reception history

ETC: Birmingham Conference: "Biblical Texts and Reception History".

An army of epigraphers?

DAVID MEADOWS is trying a experiment in epigraphic crowdsourcing over at Rogue Classicism: Crowdsourcing a Greek Inscription Reading. The inscription in question is one from one of the Talpiot Tombs (the inscription that everyone agrees is an inscription, although its readings are debated; see here and links).

(More "An Army of" posts here, here, here, and links.)

Off to San Diego

I'M OFF TO SAN DIEGO this morning. I'm pre-posting some things for later today (and Sunday too, in case of flight delays), so do keep visiting. I expect to arrive sometime this evening and will check in once I'm in and settled. I shall be very busy on this trip, but I will try to keep the blogging up pretty much as usual.

More on Friedman on the Aleppo Codex

MATTI FRIEDMAN'S NEW BOOK on the Aleppo Codex is generating some controversy:

Revealed: The scandalous history of Judaism’s most precious book

Theft, espionage, corruption and a cover-up lasting decades — a new book by a Times of Israel reporter exposes the extraordinary saga of the uniquely revered, 1,100-year-old Aleppo Codex

By Times of Israel staff May 10, 2012, 3:52 pm 4

A new book by a Times of Israel reporter reveals dramatic new information about the fate of a manuscript many consider Judaism’s most important book — the 1,100-year-old Aleppo Codex.

[...]

“I did not imagine,” author Matti Friedman writes of his first encounter with the codex at the museum, “that there could be much new to say about something so old, and it certainly did not occur to me that the true story of the manuscript had never been told at all.”

Publication of the book in Hebrew on May 1, and an extensive article on the investigation in Israel’s biggest daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, several days later, have revived interest in the codex in Israel and have drawn angry responses from some involved or implicated in the story.

[...]

According to the known story of the codex, the manuscript was damaged around the time of the fire, and it was then that the pages — including the most important part of the manuscript, the Five Books of Moses – went missing, never to be recovered. In 1957, the chief rabbis of Aleppo smuggled it to Israel and presented it to the president of the new state, Itzhak Ben-Zvi, who was also a scholar of Middle Eastern Jewish communities. The academic institution the president founded, the Ben-Zvi Institute, remains the official custodian of the codex today.

According to the new book’s findings, that version of the manuscript’s travels is mostly false, serving in large part to conceal the actions of government officials and academic scholars in Israel.

[...]

Background on the book, the author, and the Aleppo Codex is here with many links.

UPDATE: The Times of Israel also has an interview with Matti Friedman, with video: Four years on the trail of the codex: Matti Friedman, author of ‘The Aleppo Codex,’ explains how he got drawn into a search for the truth about the most revered version of the Hebrew Bible.

Lectures by Daniel Matt

DANIEL MATT is lecturing in Baltimore:

Reform Temples Hosting Top Kaballah [Sic! Sigh.] Scholar

Bernie Hodkin (Baltimore Jewish Times)

In the past decade, kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, has experienced a massive surge in popularity, largely owing to an interest by mega-celebrities such as Madonna. But with such spotlights often comes a dilution of the original tradition and intent of its creators.

That’s where Dr. Daniel Matt, a famed scholar of kabbalah and translator into English of its foundational central work — the “Zohar” — comes in. He will give four lectures in the next three days at area Reform temples as the Hoffberger Foundation’s scholar-in-residence.

His passion, he tells the Baltimore Jewish Times, “is the attempt to re-imagine God. The “Zohar” really offers an alternate approach to the nature of God.”

[...]

An interesting inteview that, unusually, moves into devotional territory. Background on Dr. Matt's work on the Zohar is here with a great many links.

Philadelphia DSS slide show

THE EXHIBITION STARTS TOMORROW: Dead Sea Scrolls at Franklin Institute: Slideshow.

Background here and links.

Philly DSS exhibit opens Saturday

COMING SOON: Dead Sea Scrolls come to the Franklin Institute.

Known today as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the 972 parchments and papyrus fragments in this and other nearby caves contained some of the oldest surviving examples of Jewish scripture. Likely hidden from Roman authorities by the small, pious community that lived nearby, the scrolls had survived 2,000 years in the arid desert climate to provide scholars — and the world — with an extraordinary glimpse at the Bible and Judaism around the time of Christ.

And now the Philadelphia area may gaze onto that world as well. On Saturday, the Franklin Institute will open the doors on a remarkable exhibition, “Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Ancient Times.”

The collection consists of more than 600 figurines, altars, coins, pottery, menorahs, bone boxes, and incense burners, and a giant stone from the Western Wall of the great temple of Jerusalem. The exhibition was created in cooperation with the Israeli Antiquities Authority, the Discovery Museum, and the Franklin Institute. It will be open seven days a week through mid-October.

Background here and links.

UPDATE: tangentially related: Gallery: Lost Treasures of the World (News24). Er, someone tell them that the Dead Sea Scrolls have been found.

Miracle stone discovered, maybe

ANOTHER MIRACLE PROVED:

Possible site of Sixth Century church building miracle discovered in Jerusalem

Israeli archeologists says site may be quarry described by Byzantine historian where 'God revealed a natural supply of stone perfectly suited to this purpose in the nearby hills.'

By Nir Hasson (Haaretz)
Tags: Jerusalem Israel archeology


An Israeli archaeologist says he has found the site of a Sixth Century miracle documented by the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea.

In his book The Buildings of Justinian in which the historian recounts the many building projects erected during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian the Great, in the mid-Sixth Century. Describing the construction of Nea Ekklesia of the Theotokos, a church near Jerusalem, Procopius says that God miraculously provided giant red stones near the construction site.

"God revealed a natural supply of stone perfectly suited to this purpose in the nearby hills, one which had either lain there in concealment previously, or was created at that moment…So the church is supported on all sides by a number of huge columns from that place, which in color resemble flames of fire… Two of these columns stand before the door of the church, exceptionally large and probably second to no column in the whole world," He wrote.

[...]

Okay, maybe this doesn't exactly prove the miracle, but the stone still sounds kind of cool.

Jews or Judeans?

PHILIP ESLER has published an essay at Bible and Interpretation arguing that we should refer to first-century Jews as "Judeans, not "Jews": Identity Matters: Judean Ethnic Identity In The First Century CE

This is an interesting argument, which Philip and Josephus-scholar Steve Mason have been making in technical publications for some time. I have to say that so far I am not convinced. It is true that Ioudaios in the first century refers to an ethnic/geographic and religious identity, just as other names of peoples did in that area in that period. But in modern usage "Jew" and "Judaism" likewise mean both an ethnic identity and a religious one, and this identity remains tied to a particular geographic origin. Certainly there are differences between the modern words and the ancient one, but these are nuances that are best left to explanation in introductions and footnotes rather than a wholesale change in terminology.

The proposed change starts from the misapprehension that the modern terms "Jew" and "Judaism" refer only to a religious identity like "Christian" and "Buddhist." But the solution is to make clear that, unlike many other religions, Judaism also involves and always has involved an ethnic identity and even a recognition of a particular geographical origin. In other words, correct the misunderstanding of the modern terms, don't drop them because of it.

There is also the unintended consequence that calling first-century Jews "Judeans" implies a qualitative distinction between them and modern Jews, even though the close genetic and cultural continuity between them is undisputed. The opportunities this implied erroneous distinction raises for abuse in modern political discourse are obvious and disquieting.

But the political implications are a side issue. If I thought the change in terminology had a solid intellectual payoff, I would not be worried about them. But calling Jews in the Second Temple period only "Judeans" is problematic in itself. It is overkill and at best it reminds us what the traditional terminology really means, if we need reminding. As I said, I am not at all persuaded that it is helpful.

I would like to say more on this at some point, and I have some notes put aside, but I'm out of time for now. (It doesn't help that a version of this post accidentally got eaten by Blogger yesterday and was irrecoverable.) Meanwhile, my earlier comments (here and here) on Jonathan Z. Smith's "polythetic" approach applied to Judaism are relevant and may clarify my position. The links to my 2002 conference paper have rotted, but you can read it here: "Jewish Pseudepigrapha and Christian Apocrypha: (How) Can We Tell Them Apart?"

More on the Tel Qeiyafa shrines

MORE RESPONSES to that press release on the recent finds at Tel Qeiyafa have been coming out.

First, some pushback from other archaeologists. In The Times of Israel: 3,000-year-old artifacts fuel Biblical archaeology debate (Matti Friedman).

Other scholars have urged caution in reaching conclusions based on the findings from Qeiyafa.

Model shrines of the type presented Tuesday have been found at many other sites belonging to other local cultures, and their similarity to Temple architecture as described in the Bible has already been noted, said Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University, who leads a dig at the ruins of the nearby Philistine city of Gath. And the existence of lions and birds on the clay model undermine the claim that no figures of people or animals have been found at Qeiyafa, he said.

Qeiyafa indeed appears to have been inhabited by Israelites, Maeir said, but the cultural lines among the various peoples of the Land of Israel at that time, he said, were “fuzzier than the way they are often described.”

The new finds do not prove conclusively who residents were or provide dramatic new evidence for any side in the ongoing dispute among biblical archaeologists, he said.

“There’s no question that this is a very important site, but what exactly it was — there is still disagreement about that,” Maeir said.

From Haaretz: Archaeological find stirs debate on David's kingdom (Asaf Shtull-Trauring).

However, Prof. Nadav Na'aman, a historian and archaeologist at Tel Aviv University, discounts Garfinkel and Ganor's conclusions. "These are beautiful finds but they are not special in that similar ones have been found in various places, and they should therefore not be connected in any way to the ark," nor to the Temple in Jerusalem, says Na'aman.

He says believers made models of shrines out of various materials as an act of devotion. "There was no such thing as making a model that represented a temple in another place."

He said he found the combination on one of the items of lions and doves very interesting. "The dove is connected to a fertility goddess, and this combination hints that the model belonged to a cultic site of a fertility goddess. I think Qeiyafa was a Canaanite site that had no connection to Jerusalem," he added.

In invoking Canaanites, Na'aman has touched on the heart of the scholarly debate. For Qeiyafa to play a role in disproving the claims of the minimalists about the meager nature of David's kingdom, Garfinkel has to show that it was neither a Canaanite nor Philistine site.

Garfinkel and Ganor say the shrine models they have found differ from those known so far and that their design underscores a Judean connection.

But Garfinkel says he does not need the shrines to prove that Qeiyafa was Judean - other discoveries at the site do it for him. For example, out of thousands of animal bones unearthed there, none were pig bones, and no figurines were found - two elements some see as alluding to biblical prohibitions. An inscribed potsherd was also found there whose writing some archaeologists identify as ancient Hebrew.

Na'aman has a different explanation for the lack of pig bones: "The Canaanites also did not eat pork. Only the Philistines ate a great deal of pork at this time." As for figurines, Na'aman says places elsewhere in Judea "were full of figurines."

Minimalists also discount the inscribed potsherd, saying it is impossible to differentiate its letters from other languages at that time.

Second, some commentary at the Serving the Word blog: Khirbet Qeiyafa: Possible Unintended Consequences. Notes from a conversation between Seth Sanders, Matthew Suriano and Jacqueline Vayntrub.

This story is on the borderline of my usual interests. I will keep an eye on it, but, unless more epigraphic material turns up, I will not aim for anything like exhaustive coverage.

For more on previous discoveries at Kirbet Qeiyafa and their implications, go here and follow the links.

UPDATE: James McGrath produces one of his thorough roundups in the midst of marking: Khirbet Qeiyafa’s Model Shrines and the Accuracy of the Bible