Magical gems

AWOL: The Campbell Bonner Magical Gems Database. A very cool collection. These look to be mostly Greco-Egyptian, so much of what you see comes from Egyptian and Greek iconography and mythology. But there's some (probably indirect) Jewish influence as well. It wouldn't surprise me to see Christian material too, although I didn't happen to notice any in quickly skimming through the database.

The vellum market is narrowing

TIMES HAVE CHANGED: Vellum: UK's last producer of calf-skin parchment fights on after losing Parliament's business. As of next month, archive copies of Acts of Parliament will cease to be printed on vellum, saving £80,000 in costs (Adam Lusher, The Independent).

In the company’s original office, with its 1855 safe, overlooked by a photograph of the firm’s founding father, the general manager of parchment and vellum makers William Cowley receives a steady stream of phone calls from sympathisers and customers.

Paul Wright tells them how parchment and vellum are “the earliest writing materials, in use since man stepped out of a cave, wrapped some skins round a few sticks to make a tepee, and started scribbling on his tent walls”. He added: “All of humankind’s history is on parchment and vellum. Magna Carta was written on parchment. The Dead Sea Scrolls: parchment, in 435BC.”

Today, he says, William Cowley, based in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, may be the only company in the world making “proper” vellum in the proper way – “without any harsh chemicals, by hand and hard, pigging work”.

[...]

The dating of 435 BCE for the Dead Sea Scrolls is, of course, centuries too early, but the point does remain. I do not assume that Mr. Wright actually made the error. He may have been misquoted or misunderstood.

The company disputes that Parliament will actually save as much as £80,000 with this cost-cutting measure.

Yazidi Sun Ladies are coming for you, ISIS.

WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST: Former ISIS sex slaves now army of ‘Sun Ladies’ ready to defeat terror group (Hollie McKay, Fox News).

They call themselves the “Force of the Sun Ladies,” a name that reflects the culture’s solar reverence. Monotheistic and embracing elements of several religions, Yazidi once numbered 650,000 in Iraq, nearly all on the northern Nineveh Plain. ISIS’ genocidal campaign to “purify” Iraq of non-Muslims led to the slaughter of thousands and displaced at least 200,000.

[...]

“Our elite force is a model for other women in the region,” she said. “We want to thank all the other countries who help us in this difficult time, we want everyone to take up weapons and know how to protect themselves from the evil.”

The women willfully stepped into the line of fire as a support force to the Peshmerga on Nov. 13, the day the Kurdish forces took back their hometowns and villages from ISIS occupation. The newly formed unit engaged in direct combat and later helped clear streets and buildings rigged with explosives.

As with the Christians, Kurds and Iraqi military, they know the imminent battle to retake Mosul will be the real test. Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul is the terrorist group’s regional base. Most of the Yazidi women who escaped ISIS were held in Mosul and can help provide valuable intelligence, as well as boots on the ground. And fighting to free those left behind provides added motivation.

PaleoJudaica has been following the fate of the Yazidis, whose unique religion has interesting and yet-to-be-clarified parallels with ancient Gnosticism, for many years. Generally the news has not been good and it has only gotten worse since the rise of ISIS.

Now the survivors are fighting back. More power to them.

Related (AWOL): Monuments of Mosul in Danger. Mosul fell to ISIS in June of 2014.

Grabbe et al. (eds.), The Seleucid and Hasmonean Periods and the Apocalyptic Worldview

FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

The Seleucid and Hasmonean Periods and the Apocalyptic Worldview (The Library of Second Temple Studies)

by Lester L. Grabbe (Editor, Series Editor), Gabriele Boccaccini (Editor), Jason M. Zurawski (Editor)

This tightly focused collection of essays, from an invited seminar of international specialists, centres on the question of the apocalyptic worldview around the time of the Maccabean revolt. What was the nature of apocalyptic at this time? Did the Maccabees themselves have a distinct apocalyptic worldview? These questions lead to other, more specific queries: who of the various groups held such a view? Certain of the essays analyse the characteristics of the apocalypses and related literature in this period, and whether the apocalyptic worldview itself gave rise to historical events or, at least, influenced them.

The collection begins with two introductory essays. Both the main and short papers have individual responses, and two considered responses by well-known experts address the entire collection. The volume finishes with a concluding chapter by the lead editor that gives a perspective on the main themes and conclusions arising from the papers and discussion.

To be released on 25 February 2016. This is the proceedings volume of the First Enoch Seminar Nangeroni Meeting.

The cast of "Kings and Prophets"

TELEVISION: Meet the "Of Kings and Prophets" Cast featuring Ray Winstone (Aaron Welsh, ABC).

The cast of of Kings and Prophets contains a group of seasoned actors and that deliver suspenseful performances that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't miss the "Of Kings and Prophets" series premiere TUESDAY MARCH 8 10|9c on ABC!

There is a video trailer too. With a giant! Or at least a very big guy. Background here and here.

Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies

GNOSIS: JOURNAL OF GNOSTIC STUDIES is now taking subscription orders on the Brill website.

Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies

Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies is a peer-reviewed publication devoted to the study of Gnostic religious currents from the ancient world to the modern, where ‘Gnostic’ is broadly conceived as a reference to special direct knowledge of the divine, which either transcends or transgresses conventional religious knowledge. It aims to publish academic papers on: the emergence of the Gnostic, in its many different historical and local cultural contexts; the Gnostic strands that persisted in the middle ages; and modern interpretations of Gnosticism – with the goal of establishing cross-cultural and trans-historical conversations, together with more localized historical analyses. The corpus of Gnostic materials includes (but is not restricted to) testimonies from outsiders as well as insider literature such as the Nag Hammadi collection, the Hermetica, Neoplatonic texts, the Pistis Sophia, the books of Jeu, the Berlin and Tchacos codices, Manichaean documents, Mandaean scriptures, and contemporary Gnostic fiction/film and ‘revealed’ literature. The journal will publish the best of traditional historical and comparative scholarship while also featuring newer approaches that have received less attention in the established literature, such as cognitive science, cognitive linguistics, social memory, psychology, ethnography, sociology, and literary theory.

The journal was announced back in October of 2015.

Vampires in Jewish tradition?

THE UNDEAD: Did Jews Once Believe in Vampires? Secure in their monotheism, Jews may scoff, but some of the earliest texts on vampires were written in Hebrew by their coreligionists. (Elon Gilad, Haaretz).

The vampires that abound in popular culture today are for the most part a literary embellishment of the old Slavic belief that under certain circumstances, the dead can rise from their graves at night and kill their neighbors, friends and family.

Modern Jews might scoff at vampire culture, secure in their monotheism ruling out belief in such nonsense. But they should hold their tongues. Some of the earliest texts on vampires were written in Hebrew by their coreligionists, albeit after learning about the plague of the undead from their neighbors.

[...]

This article really deals with a period later than PaleoJudaica's main focus, but it raises an interesting question that has never been dealt with here. Lilith, of course, comes ultimately from the Bible and before, and in later traditions she was beautiful, seductive, murderous, and even a drinker of the blood of her infant victims. But Gilad correctly says that she was a demon rather than a vampire. The terafim are also biblical, but any identification of them with vampires is probably medieval. Likewise with the other apparent early Jewish mentions of vampires.

Kristianpoller, Traum und Traumdeutung im Talmud — Hebrew translation

NEW FROM MAGNES PRESS:

Traum und Traumdeutung im Talmud

(Dreams and their interpretations in the Babylonian Talmud)

By Alexander Kristianpoller

Publisher: The Hebrew University Magnes Press
Categories:
Jewish Thought, Talmud
Publish date: January 2016
Language: Hebrew
Danacode: 45-131132
ISBN: 978-965-493-850-1
Cover: Hardcover
Pages: 196
Weight: 650 gr.

The present comprehensive and orderly collection of texts from the Babylonian Talmud allows a deep insight into the knowledge of the rabbis about the importance and decryption of dream experiences and dream messages.
It covers, inter alia, the emergence of dreams and their healing power, mysterious Atonement and possibilities of influencing the content of a dream, nightmares, dream and prophecy, sexual dreams, rules and techniques of dream interpretation.
The Talmudic texts are added through detailed explanations and contemporary Jewish and non-Jewish parallels.

This book was first published in Vienna in 1923. It is Kristianpollers' thesis, written in his 20s. The thesis was finished as a book in 1914 but publication was delayed due to the first world war.

The Hebrew translation was initiated by the authors' son, Professor Nahum Kristianpoller, in memory of his parents who perished in the Holocaust.

On the Karaites

THE KARAITES ARE ALIVE AND WELL: Karaite Jews: The readers of Hebrew scriptures (EKREM BUĞRA EKINCI, Daily Sabah).

The Karaim are a Jewish community that completely reject the Talmud oral law and only recognize the Torah. They continue their existence in different regions, including Lithuania and Turkey, and it is rumored that Istanbul's Karaköy neighborhood is named after them

The article has lots of interesting historical background. I am not a specialist on the Karaites and I can't vouch for the specifics, but overall it looks accurate to me.

Past posts on the Karaites are collected here and links.

CORRECTION: Reader Eric Cohen writes in response:

Without being an expert, I wouldn't trust the Daily Sabah column on the Karaites, based on its identification of Saadia Gaon as a Karaite. He was, as described, a pioneer in the scientific study of Hebrew. He was also one of the most vehement opponents of Karaism,and would likely be horrified by this identification.

Quite right. How did I miss that one? Comes of trying to do too many things at once this morning. For more on Saadia Gaon, see, for example, here. Very grateful for the correction.

Yadin's last night in America

THE ASOR BLOG: Yigael Yadin’s Last Night in America: ASOR and the Biblical Archaeology Movement (Eric M. Meyers).

Whatever inspired Yadin, be it the Dorot program or the simple fear that in the greater and ever-changing Middle East Israel’s place in it and its archaeology might ultimately be slighted or diminished, he convened a high-powered ASOR group to meet at Leon and Shelby White Levy’s apartment in Manhattan on June 27th, 1984. In attendance were the Levys, Joy, Dick Scheuer, Ernie Frerichs, Jim Sauer, ASOR President, myself, ASOR First Vice President, and possibly Phil King, past ASOR President, whose participation I cannot recall. Yadin was so concerned about the future of the field of biblical archaeology, he said, that he intended to devote his final days — he was 67 when he died—to ensure the future of the field in the United States and he offered to lecture anywhere and turn over all of his lecture fees, which were very high even in those days, to a central fund except for his personal expenses. ...

He died the next day. His untimely death was a great loss to the field in many ways.

The ASOR Blog requires free registration to read the whole post.

Jost on the THEOT Project at SBL 2015

BELATEDLY, ON LAST NOVEMBER'S SBL MEETINGS: Garry Jost Presents at National Conference (Marylhurst University).

Dr. Jost presided over the Ethiopic Bible and Literature session with the theme: The THEOT Project (Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament Project). In the same session, Jost gave two presentations. The first, A Preliminary Report on the Families of Manuscripts for the Ethiopic Book of Ruth, was presented jointly with Dr. Daniel Assefa of the Capuchin Franciscan Institute of Philosophy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The second, Orthographic Variation in Ethiopic Obadiah: A Test Case in Methodology, featured Dr. Jarod Jacobs of Warner Pacific University as co-presenter.

Past posts on the Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament Project are here and here.

Damage to Aleppo synagogue

SYRIA AT WAR: 9th-century synagogue in Aleppo sustains minor damage in Syria fighting.

(JTA) — An ancient synagogue in Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, sustained minor damage in fighting, according to photos provided by locals to an Israeli-American peace activist in the war-torn country.

The damage to a corner of the building was probably caused by shelling, according to Moti Kahana, the founder of the Amaliah not-for-profit group, which aims to relieve the suffering of refugees from Syria and empower women there. Debris covered the corner area, making it difficult to ascertain the extent of the damage to the synagogue, which is believed to have been built in the ninth century.

[...]

Background on the now-destroyed Jobar Synagogue, mentioned later in this article, is here and links. Let's hope that the Aleppo Synagogue does not come to share its fate.

Video on buried treasures of the Temple Mount

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: VIDEO: Revealing the Buried Treasures of the Temple Mount (Israel Today). The title might make you think this was more speculation about those lost Temple treasures, but it is actually about the important work of the Temple Mount Sifting Project and is worth watching. Background here and many, many links.

Jefferson and Judaism

SURPRISINGLY, MAYBE. SORT OF: Thomas Jefferson: Jewish Student Of Talmud? (Saul Jay Singer, The Jewish Press). Excerpt:

Jefferson was not a particular friend of the Jews, and he certainly wasn’t an admirer of Judaism, but his passionate and influential advocacy of equal rights for all, including specifically freedom of religion, had an enormously positive impact upon Jewish rights in America. He almost certainly studied Talmud and, though by no means determinative, some genetic evidence does exist to support the proposition that he was descended from Sephardic Jews.

Rubenstein on Talmudic stories

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Talmudic Stories, Then and Now: A Retrospective by Jeffrey Rubenstein.

The editors of the “Ancient Jew Review” Website asked me to reflect on my scholarship on the stories of the Bavli and my “trilogy” of books, Talmudic Stories, Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture (1999), The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud (2003), and Stories of the Babylonian Talmud (2010), and I am grateful for this opportunity.

St Maron's day and the Maronites

ARAMAIC WATCH: 15 things you probably didn’t know about Maronites (Jason Lemon, StepFeed).

Maronites throughout the region celebrate the feast of Saint Maroun on Tuesday. Annually, on Feb. 9, adherents to the sect remember their founder. As the largest Christian group in Lebanon, the Maronite community has long had a significant influence on Lebanese society as well as within the broader Levant region. So, in honor of the holiday, we thought we’d share some facts about the sect that you might not know.

Regular readers of PaleoJudaica know at least some of these things, notably '2. Syriac or “Christian Aramaic' remains the liturgical language of the church." For many past posts on the Maronites and their efforts to preserve and even revive their Aramaic liturgical language, see here and here and links.

The Lod Mosaic is in Miami

THE EXHIBITION OPENS TODAY: Ancient Roman mosaic unveiled at Frost Museum of Art (Phillip Valys, southflorida.com).

Mysteries surround the enormous, ancient and well-preserved Roman mosaic that will debut Wednesday at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Art in Miami.

Measuring 50 feet long and 27 feet wide, the 1,700-year-old stone floor depicts a menagerie of wild birds, domestic mammals and mythical sea creatures, all grouped around an octagonal centerpiece of lions, tigers, elephants and giraffes. The mosaic, on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority, comes to Miami through an international museum tour.

[...]

Background to this exhibition is here. For much more on the Lod Mosaic, which has been traveling to exhibitions worldwide for some time, follow the links there. See also here and links for a second mosaic discovered at Lod.

Aleppo Codex registered by UNESCO

MANUSCRIPT: Oldest surviving copy of the Hebrew Bible recognized in International Memory of the World Register (i24 News).

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Monday officially added the Aleppo Codex, believed to be the world’s oldest surviving copy of the Hebrew Bible, to its International Memory of the World Register.

According to Dr. Adolfo Roitman, the head curator of the Shrine of the Book Museum in Jerusalem, where the Codex now resides, all current versions of the Old Testament stem, “in one way or another, from this ancient manuscript.”

It was written in the town of Tiberias, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, in or around 930 CE, and then moved to Jerusalem, from where it was stolen when the Crusaders sacked the city in 1099.

It was later ransomed by the Jews of Cairo, and brought to that city.

But the Codex is significant not only for what it contains, but also for what it doesn’t. Some 190 pages of priceless text – around 40% of the total - are missing. These include four out of five books of the Pentateuch - the first section of books in the Bible also called the Five Books of Moses - as well as five books from the last section - Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel and Ezra.

[...]

The oldest complete Hebrew Bible is the Leningrad Codex (on which see here and here). The oldest fragmentary manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible are among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Aleppo Codex is the oldest more-complete-than-not Hebrew Bible. For many, many past posts on the Aleppo Codex, see here and links or run the term through the search engine. This recognition by UNESCO is good news.

More archaeologists object to Western Wall compromise

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Archaeologists: New Western Wall prayer site will damage antiquities. Signatories to letter of protest warn of harm to ‘diamond in Jerusalem’s archaeological crown’ due to planned site for mixed-gender worship (Times of Israel).

Creating a new plaza at the Western Wall will damage “the most important archaeological site for the Jewish people,” nine senior Israeli archaeologists warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, days after plans for a multi-denominational site were announced.

The “diamond in Jerusalem’s archaeological crown” must not be harmed accommodate the needs of various Jewish religious streams, they wrote, Israel Radio reported.

The protest drives another spoke into the wheel of the plan to expand an existing area south of the main Western Wall prayer site by creating a plaza over ruins from the Temple in an area known as Robinson’s Arch.

Signatories to the protest letter include Dan Bahat, who excavated the Western Wall tunnels; Ronny Reich, head of the Archaeological Council of Israel, who exposed part of the paved road beneath Robinson’s Arch; Jerusalem Prize winner Gabriel Barkay, who directs the Temple Mount Sifting Project; and Israel Prize laureate Amihai Mazar.

[...]

Eilat Mazar has also objected to the plan on archaeological grounds. The article does not say whether she was one of the nine signatories.

Background here and here.

Postdoc on pre-modern Eurasian manuscripts

THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA:

POSTDOCTORAL SCHOLAR
REQUISITION # 2507
POSITION BASICS

Advertising Ends on: Extended Until Position is Filled
Advertising Started on: Wednesday, December 16th, 2015
College: Graduate College
Department: Interdisciplinary Programs

SALARY

Salary: $42,840.00 - $46,344.00

POSITION DETAILS

Full/Part Time Status: Full Time
Percent Time: 100%

Position Description:
The Obermann Center at the University of Iowa welcomes applications for a full-time, twelve-month Postdoctoral Scholar. The one-year residency will begin on August 10, 2016. The position is funded through the generosity of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and is part of the 2016-2017 Mellon-Sawyer Seminar, “Cultural and Textual Exchanges: The Manuscript Across Pre-Modern Eurasia,” led by co-PIs Timothy Barrett (Center for the Book), Paul Dilley (Religious Studies and Classics), and Katherine Tachau (History).

Our seminar is an interdisciplinary collaboration dedicated to mapping cultural exchanges across Eurasia from roughly 400 CE - ca. 1450 CE, by focusing on the development, distribution and sharing of manuscript technologies. We will convene approximately fifteen times over the course of the 2016-2017 academic year, in dialogue with a series of invited speakers who are internationally recognized experts in the various manuscript cultures of pre-modern Eurasia. Four of the seminar meetings will be followed the next day by hands-on workshops at the University of Iowa’s Center for the Book, in which participants will reproduce historically significant book structures, with their associated materials, under the guidance of conservators. The seminar will also develop an innovative website tracking the development of Eurasian manuscript formats and materials chronologically and geographically.

Candidates in any related field, including Archaeology, Art History, Classics, History, East or South Asian Studies, and Near Eastern Studies, Religious Studies, are encouraged to apply.

Follow the link for further particulars. This is a very open-ended position that could involve Jewish manuscripts or Jewish texts transmitted in a pre-modern Eurasian context. Go for it!