"Fakes, Forgeries, and Fictions" Symposium at York University

TONY BURKE: 2015 YORK CHRISTIAN APOCRYPHA SYMPOSIUM UPDATES. I noted the symposium already back in May, but Tony's latest posts has some updates in the lineup of speakers and he also announces a new symposium website.

Taylor (ed.), Jesus and Brian

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY T&T CLARK: Jesus and Brian: Exploring the Historical Jesus and His Times Via Monty Python's Life of Brian by Joan E. Taylor.

Monty Python's Life of Brian film is known for its brilliant satirical humour. Less well known is that the film contains references to what was, at the time of its release, cutting edge biblical scholarship and Life of Jesus research. This research, founded on the acceptance of the Historical Jesus as a Jew who needs to be understood within the context of his time, is implicitly referenced through the setting of the Brian character within a tumultuous social and political background.

This collection is a compilation of essays from foremost scholars of the historical Jesus and the first century Judaea, and includes contributions from George Brooke, Richard Burridge, Paula Fredriksen, Steve Mason, Adele Reinhartz, Bart Ehrman, Amy-Jill Levine, James Crossley, Philip Davies, Joan Taylor, Bill Telford, Helen Bond, Guy Steibel, David Tollerton, David Shepherd and Katie Turner. The collection opens up the Life of Brian to renewed investigation and, in so doing, uses the film to reflect on the historical Jesus and his times, revitalising the discussion of history and Life of Jesus research. The volume also features a Preface from Terry Jones, who not only directed the film, but also played Brian's mum.

- See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/jesus-and-brian-9780567658326/#sthash.RanAHdRM.dpuf

The conference was noted here.

Biblical Studies Carnival

AT MY DIGITAL SEMINARY: JULY BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL (Lindsay Kennedy).

Review of Upson-Saia et al. (eds.), Dressing Judeans and Christians in Antiquity

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEWS:

Kristi Upson-Saia, Carly Daniel-Hughes, Alicia J. Batten (ed.), Dressing Judeans and Christians in Antiquity. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Pp. xvi, 293. ISBN 9781472422767. $129.95.

Reviewed by Karel C. Innemée, Leiden University (K.C.Innemee@arch.leidenuniv.nl)

[...]

The book as a whole presents an interesting and kaleidoscopic view on a number of aspects of the language of the human body and its adornments in ancient Judean and Christian culture. In some contributions the aspect of dress is remotely present or almost absent, but each shows that understanding the grammar and vocabulary of the language of the human body is an undeniable but sometimes still underestimated part of human culture.

The publication of the book was noted here.

Royalty on ancient heresy

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Heresy in Earliest Christianity

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul faces disagreements on a wide range of issues such as factions over leadership according to who baptized whom, women’s leadership in prophecy and prayer, eating meat purchased from temples, the most important spiritual gifts, and the existence and meaning of the resurrection. The divisions in the community are most likely social, between wealthier and better educated members (the “strong”) and those with less education and social status (“the weak). Paul responds in this letter with appeals to unity (homonoia or concordia), often acknowledging differences in belief on these topics. But in Galatians, faced with the schism with Peter and others over circumcision and eating with Gentile believers, he demonizes difference, “a different gospel” (1:6) as part of the sinful sphere of the flesh (5:17–21). Then, in a later response to continuing divisions in Corinth, Paul goes on full heresiological attack against his rivals there, the so-called “super-apostles” (2 Cor 11:5). Whereas he had earlier sought homonoia or unity with these opponents (which meant in many ways that they should agree with him, 1 Cor 4:14–21, 15:1–8), here he attacks them as satanic, seducing the Corinthians just as the serpent led Eve astray (2 Cor 11:2–3, 13–15). While not using the word heresy, Paul demonizes his apostolic with two dominant tropes of Christian heresiology, satanic influence and sexual impurity, while building on ideologies of tradition, apostolic witness, and apocalyptic dualism.

See also: Robert M. Royalty, Jr. The Origin of Heresy: A History of Discourse in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity (Routledge, 2013; pb. 2015).

By Robert M. Royalty, Jr.
Wabash College
July 2015

I noted the book when it came out a few years ago. And Larry Hurtado has commented recently on the book here.

Shanks, paleographers, and the James Ossuary

JAMES MCGRATH: Hershel Shanks: The World’s Best Paleographers Will Declare the James Ossuary Authentic. More specifically, the full inscription on the James Ossuary. Everyone already agrees that the ossuary itself is a genuine ancient artifact. This should be interesting.

There are numerous past posts on the James Ossuary. Start here and just follow those links.

Annotated Syriac bibliography

SYRIAC WATCH: syri.ac:An annotated bibliography of Syriac resources online. Scott Johnson has some additional information on the site in a Hugoye post here.

Another, unrelated, online Syriac bibliography was noted here.

Sacred Writings at the Penn Museum

COMING SOON: Sacred Writings: Extraordinary Texts of the Biblical World.

In honor of the first visit by Pope Francis and the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, the Penn Museum offers a special focus on the ancient Near East, Egypt, and the Bible Lands—with a limited-time-only display of rare artifacts from the collections of the University of Pennsylvania, on view August 15 through November 7, 2015.

A centerpiece exhibition, Sacred Writings: Extraordinary Texts of the Biblical World, highlights the many ways the Bible—and stories akin to those in the Bible—have been represented over time and across continents.

[...]

The exhibition includes a third-century Greek fragment of the Gospel of Matthew and the so-called Eridu Genesis, the tablet containing the Sumerian Flood story (pictured).

The Museum also has a large collection of Aramaic Incantation Bowls. See here for a 1910 article about them in the Museum Journal by James Montgomery. I think it would be cool if they got some of these out too, but maybe that's just me.

Interview with a Karaite

THE KARAITES ARE ALIVE AND WELL: Chatting with the Karaites (Sue Fishkoff, JWeekly.com).

You don’t hear much about the Karaites. That despite the fact that the only Karaite synagogue in America is right here in the Bay Area, B’nai Israel in Daly City. So when I got a call last week asking if I’d like to sit down with Rabbi Moshe ben Yosef Firrouz, the chief rabbi of the world Karaite community, I said sure.

I’ve long been fascinated by the Karaites, a community of Jews who follow the Torah but eschew the rabbinic writings, most notably the Talmud. Once spread throughout Iraq and Syro-Palestine, they co-existed with rabbinic Judaism until the time of Sa’adia HaGaon, the 10th-century sage who excoriated them as apostates and demanded they be excluded from mainstream Jewry. And so they have been ever since, much to their chagrin.

[...]

This article has a good overview of how the Karaites differ from Rabbinic Judaism and where they stand socially and legally today in Israel.

You can find lots of background on the Karaites in past posts here, here, and links

More on those cave wall paintings

NEWSER: Archaeologists Find Rare Writing, Then It Disappears. INSCRIPTIONS ON PLASTER IN RITUAL BATH HAVE NOW BEEN SEALED (Arden Dier). This report has some details that I have not seen before. Also, some statements that have already been circulated require some comment.

"The wall paintings are so sensitive that their exposure to the air causes damage to them," the IAA says, per Ynetnews. Crews quickly removed and sealed the plaster so the graffiti, along with a few carvings, can be preserved. Archaeologists say the Aramaic inscriptions are particularly special as few such writings have been found, though the script is hardly legible now. They guess at a few words, including what translates to "served" and the name "Cohen." Still, the inscriptions back up the argument that Aramaic was commonly used at the time and perhaps even the language of Jesus. The plaster also holds drawings of a boat, palm trees and other plants, and what might be a menorah—portrayals of which were then considered taboo.

My comments:

1. This is the first time I have seen references to specific words that are possibly in the Aramaic inscriptions: "served" and the name (name? title?) "Cohen" (the Hebrew word that means "priest"). I don't know where Ms. Dier got this information or how reliable it is. It seems as though it may be a bit garbled.

2. We already knew that "Aramaic was commonly used at the time" and that Jesus spoke Aramaic. That doesn't need any backing up. The point is that it is very exciting to have new Aramaic inscriptions from this period.

3. The contention that the portrayal of a menorah was " considered taboo" in this period is an overstatement. I might go with (as per earlier reports) "exceptional." For some portrayals of menorahs in the Second Temple period, see here, here, here, and here. They do seem to be more common in the Byzantine period.

4. Given that the ink started fading as soon as the cave was opened, I hope someone had the presence of mind to whip out their iPhone and take photos immediately. This article links to an Haaretz video that shows some of the drawings and inscriptions.

Background here. Cross-file under Aramaic Watch.

UPDATE (10 August): Joseph Lauer points me to this Haaretz article, which seems to be the source of Ms. Dier's information (see #1 above): Mysterious Ancient Mikveh With Aramaic Graffiti Found While Building a School in Jerusalem (Nir Hasson and Ruth Schuster) [Dead link now fixed. Sorry!].

Cohen woz 'ere?

Finding a decently-preserved concentration of inscriptions and symbols from the Second Temple period is rare, the IAA notes, while admitting in the same breath – see the pictures – that the writing is not legible any more.

Some of the inscriptions might indicate names. Or they might not. One word might be the name "Cohen," suggests Prof. Hagai Misgav of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Another word looks like it might be "avad" (as in "served" - e.g., served the Lord, not "worked").

"The symbols we see are familiar to us from coins, sarcophagi and graves, but a concentration like this is certainly unusual," Re'em said. "It is possible that writing on mikveh walls was common, but was not usually preserved."

At this point the archaeologists have no theory as to who wrote and carved the words and images, or if there was a message the artist wanted to convey.

While the symbols that can be discerned are common elements in the visual arts of the Second Temple period, says the IAA – it adds that the drawing that might possibly be construed as a menorah is exceptional because back then, it was taboo to portray this sacred object located in the Temple.

Harvard fellowship on "Jews and the Classical World"

THE APA BLOG:

Henry Starr Fellowship: Jews and the Classical World

The Center for Jewish Studies and the Department of Classics Harvard University invite applications for the 2016-2017 Harry Starr Fellowship in Judaica on the theme “Jews and the Classical World”. Applications are welcome from candidates across the disciplines treating topics related to the intellectual, cultural, social, and political interactions of Jews and non-Jews in the ancient Mediterranean. Projects may engage with any relevant aspect of the classical, Hellenistic, Roman, and late antique worlds as well as the intellectual history of our modern academic disciplines.

The Starr Fellowship covers travel expenses and a stipend for a group of scholars from around the world to gather at Harvard to engage in full-time research in a designated subject area in Judaica. Junior faculty are especially encouraged to apply, the Ph.D. degree is required and Fellows must be in residence. The stipend is $40,000 for the spring semester or $50,000 for the full year.

Follow the link for application information. The deadline is 1 December 2015.

Incantation bowls in the National Syrian Museum?

ARAMAIC WATCH: How to stop Daesh from eradicating history? Iraq gets a digital library to preserve artifacts (albabwa.com). This article tells the important story of a project to digitize books and documents in the Baghdad National Library, which is good news, but is outside the scope of PaleoJudaica. That story is also covered by The Independent and the AP (follow the links in the piece linked to above).

But what caught my eye in the albabwa.com article was the photograph, the caption of which reads "A book, one of the 700 Iraqi antiquities, in the care of Syria authorities is on display at the National Syrian Museum in Damascus on April 23, 2008. (AFP/File)." The photo does indeed show an Arabic book, but in the foreground there is also a partial view of two bowls. The one on the right is unquestionably an Aramaic incantation bowl. I can make out some of the letters, but no connected sense. I suspect the bowl on the left is another of the same, but I can't see enough to be certain. So that tells us that the National Syrian Museum in Damascus has one and probably more Iraqi Aramaic incantation bowls in its collection. That is hardly a surprise, but it's an interesting little tidbit.

Yod

YONA SABAR: Hebrew word of the week: Yod, yud.

Professorship in Archaeology of Israel at Harvard

H-JUDAIC:

JOB: Harvard University, Professor of the Archaeology of Israel

Discussion published by Sarah Imhoff on Wednesday, August 5, 2015 0 Replies

Harvard University, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
Senior Professorship of the Archaeology of Israel

Harvard University - Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Senior Professorship of the Archaeology of Israel

The NELC Department at Harvard invites applications for a senior Professorship of the Archaeology of Israel. The research and teaching of the successful candidate will focus on the peoples and lands of ancient Israel and its environs, their archaeological remains, culture, and history. The successful candidate will have proven scholarly excellence in archaeological methods and technology, and teaching excellence in the archaeology of Israel and the Levant in the periods between the third millennium BCE and the Roman era. Offering undergraduate surveys as well as doctoral seminars, the successful candidate will actively participate in the ongoing revitalization of NELC, and collaborate with colleagues in other disciplines and departments such as Anthropology, Classical Archaeology, History of Art and Architecture, Religion, and the Harvard Divinity School. The successful candidate will work closely with the director and collections of the Harvard Semitic Museum. Candidates are strongly encouraged to apply by September 30, 2015; applications will be reviewed until the position is filled.

Candidates are required to have a doctorate. Familiarity with the Hebrew Bible in the original is desirable. Candidates should be at the rank of associate professor or full professor, or a comparable rank, at the time of application.

Follow the link for application information.

Is Aramaic doomed?

MODERN ARAMAIC WATCH: The end of Aramaic. Descended from the tongue spoken by Jesus, an ancient language faces extinction as ISIS advances in Iraq and Syria (Tali Folkins, United Church Observer).

Now, as the war in Syria drags on and the Islamic State’s occupation of much of northern Iraq marks the end of its first year, worries are mounting about another slow death: that of modern-day Aramaic, a tongue that’s the closest living relative to the language of Jesus.

Although Jesus was a Jew, the language he spoke wasn’t Hebrew. By the time of Christ, Hebrew was spoken only by Jewish priests and perhaps nobles, says Amir Harrak, a professor of Semitic languages at the University of Toronto. As the spoken language of ancient Israel, Hebrew had almost entirely given way to Aramaic. A relative of both Hebrew and Arabic, Aramaic had become the common language of much of the ancient Middle East by around 500 BC; its origins go back at least another 500 years.

There is some debate over how widely Hebrew was spoken in the Palestine of Jesus' day, on which see more here and links.

That Aramaic is still spoken today — probably by somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 people — sometimes surprises his students, Harrak says with a laugh. “I’m not exaggerating: you have important towns, essentially Christian, and people have spoken that dialect since the first millennium BC.”

At least, until recently. Sectarian strife that broke out after the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq spurred another wave of emigration, and the arrival of the Islamic State in the country’s north seems likely to mean the end of Iraq’s Aramaic-speaking community. Confronted with threats to convert to Islam, an estimated 200,000 Iraqi Christians living in the plain of Nineveh fled eastward to Kurdish-held territory after the Islamic State swept into the area last summer. From there, they have been moving on to more distant places in the Middle East and around the world, including Canada.

To Harrak, whose own background is Iraqi Christian, this diaspora does not bode well for their language.

“It’s the end of Aramaic, basically,” he says. The descendants of these refugees, he believes, will eventually assimilate to the language and culture of their host countries. “We know that the Germans in the U.S., the descendants of Germans are very much attached to the language, the culture, but by the third generation they are Americans. That’s the danger. And it will happen here. There’s no question about it.”

The situations is indeed very grim, but we should not give up hope yet. As a more recent article by Pieta Woolley in the UC Observer points out, there are at least Five languages that have returned from the brink, Hebrew and Sanskrit among them. For some time I have been following the story of the persecution of Aramaic-speaking Christians in the Middle East as well as recent efforts internationally to keep Aramaic going as a spoken language. See here, here, here and follow the many links.

I will let Professor Harrak have the last word:

“You know, we talk about genocide,” Harrak says. “But linguists, they have another term — ‘linguicide.’ So we have genocide, linguicide and also culturcide. Because three millennia of culture is going.”

Interview with Ken Penner

CENTER FOR ANCIENT CHRISTIAN STUDIES BLOG: BRIAN W. DAVIDSON INTERVIEWS KEN PENNER ON THE HEBREW OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS. This with reference to Penner's new book, The Verbal System of the Dead Sea Scrolls, noted here.

Roman mansion in Jerusalem

EXCAVATION: UNCC archaeology team in Jerusalem unearths 1st-century mansion (REID CREAGER, Charlotte Observer)

• UNC Charlotte team unearths lavish, lower-level rooms from the time of Jesus
  
• Remains of early Roman mansion ‘extraordinarily well preserved,’ says dig director Shimon Gibson
  
• This summer’s find: a complete vaulted room

Shimon Gibson marvels at a depth of irony that’s borderline mythological: While digging up Jerusalem’s past, he’s also digging up his own.

The UNC Charlotte adjunct professor of archaeology has been co-directing an annual dig on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion that returns him to the historic, mysterious region he first explored as an 8-year-old. The UNCC team is using maps Gibson made in 1975 – at age 17 – as it uncovers unprecedented findings that provide important clues about life in first-century Jerusalem.

UNCC student Brijesh Kishan calculates elevations at the site of the Mount Zion dig. UNCC student Brijesh Kishan calculates elevations at the site of the Mount Zion dig. Rachel Ward UNCC “This dig is the only academic archaeological expedition currently working in Jerusalem,” said Gibson, 57, an English native. “UNCC did some probes in the early 2000s, but it was in 2006 and 2007 that we really started excavating.”

This summer his crew has continued to investigate a finished bathroom it discovered in 2013, on the lower levels of what it believes to be an early Roman mansion. The team also found another complete vaulted room, again easing decades of concerns by archaeologists that remains from first-century Jerusalem were poorly preserved.

[...]

HT Joseph Lauer.

British Library's Hebrew manuscripts going online

DIGITIZATION: World's oldest Hebrew Bibles, prayer books to go online (AP/Israel HaYom).

Project is part of National Library of Israel's million-dollar global initiative, together with British Library in London, to digitize tens of thousands of rare Hebrew manuscripts currently dispersed between hundreds of collections worldwide.

HT for this story, Gerald Rosenberg. For posts on many other manuscript digitization projects in recent years, see here and here and follow the links.

A report of more Jewish-Temple denial from the PA

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: PA Minister: Israel Steals Muslim Artifacts on Temple Mount. In absurd reversal of fact, religious affairs minister claims Israel trying to 'Judaize' Mount in 'carcinogenic plan' via 'desecration' (Dalit Halevy, Arutz Sheva).

The Palestinian Authority (PA) Minister of Holy Sites and Religious Affairs Sheikh Yusuf Idis has claimed that the Israeli government is spreading "lies" about the history of Jerusalem, the 3,000-year-old capital of the Jewish people.

According to the sheikh, the fact that the Al-Aqsa Mosque was built on the ruins of the First and Second Temple on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, and that Jews are forbidden from praying at the site by the Jordanian Waqf, is all just propaganda.

Idis said Israel is trying to give Al-Aqsa Mosque a "Jewish Talmudic" nature via daily "break-ins" by "settlers" to the Temple Mount, thereby causing a "desecration" to the site he says is holy to Muslims. He said Jewish visits to the site are meant to make the public think Jews have a connection to the site.

[...]

I believe the sheikh's name is "Idris," not "Idis." Similar complaints about the "Judaization" of Jerusalem have been around for a while. The accusations reported in this article sound like a classic case of projection.

UPDATE AND CORRECTION (6 August): The proper form of the sheikh's name seems to be "Ida'is," as correctly given in today's Arutz Sheva article: PA Incites Religious War Over Temple Mount.

Ancient ritual bath with inscriptions in Jerusalem

DISCOVERY: Ancient Mikveh With Rare Inscriptions Found in Jerusalem. Second Temple period ritual bath found during construction of kindergarten, with highly 'significant' wall paintings of Temple artifact (Arutz Sheva).

But the most unusual aspect of the mikveh was its walls, which were treated with ancient plaster and bore numerous wall paintings and inscriptions, written in mud, soot and incising.

As was customary at the end of the Second Temple period when the Romans occupied the Jewish state of Israel, the writing was in Aramaic and written in cursive Hebrew script. The symbols drawn on the wall include a boat, palm trees and various plant species, and what looks to be a menorah.

"There is no doubt that this is a very significant discovery," said Royee Greenwald and Alexander Wiegmann, excavation directors on behalf of IAA. "Such a concentration of inscriptions and symbols from the Second Temple period at one archaeological site, and in such a state of preservation, is rare and unique and most intriguing."

The inscriptions remain largely a mystery at this point, with some apparently indicating names. The drawing that might be a menorah is exceptional because in Second Temple days, Jews largely abstained from portraying the sacred object which was located in the Holy Temple.

UPDATE: The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs has posted the full IAA press release: Mystery in Jerusalem: Rare ancient message.