Virtual Museum of the Bible

ETC: Museum of the Bible - 90 second fly through video (Peter Williams). The museum is, of course, currently under construction.

Background here with many links.

Review of Dolgopolski, The Open Past

MARGINALIA REVIEW OF BOOKS: Out of This World: Virtual Reality and Philosophical Talmud – By Zachary Braiterman. Zachary Braiterman on Sergey Dolgopolski’s The Open Past

The argument is, in fact, simpler than the technical jargon that will surely discomfit many of Dolgopolski’s readers. To conceive Talmud as virtual, the first step would be to note that there is no subject ready at hand to identify. What justifies calling Talmud virtual has largely to do with the significant inconvenience that, despite the best scholarly efforts, there is practically no firm purview onto the historical Sassanian contexts in the third through seventh centuries with which to make sense of the Talmud as a discrete textual production or its “authorship.” Even those scholars most invested in the study of the Bavli in its Iranian contexts can only work by of inference from Zoroastrian texts condensed some four to five hundred years after the redaction of the Talmud. Can Talmud then serve as a source of historical information about Sasanian Persia? Is there even enough information about Sasanian Persia to shed light on the Talmud? In both cases, not really. In part, to call Talmud “virtual” is only to indicate that we can only imagine the historical reality of the Babylonian rabbis based on fragments that do not piece together.

As given or available to us, the actuality of the Talmud is largely imaginary. The rabbis appear more like ciphers, while their nameless editors stand out as disembodied and invisible actors external to the main action they create inside the text. A spectral form of presence, there is no firm reality available beyond the virtual layers of the text, and the opportunity to participate in a form of thinking peculiar to them. No one actually owns Talmud in the absence of a historical subject conceived along the lines of a romantic or modern author who could be said to control the meaning of its literary production (58).

What happens when we bracket out the subject modelled on a modern or single controlling Cartesian subject in full control of his rational faculties, the subject who, after a rigorous performance of methodological doubting, can at least be confident that “I think, therefore I am”? What remains after the Cartesian subject is the pure act of thinking itself, as disconnected and distinct from real subjects as from real objects given to hand. The virtual author of Talmud claims no thought as his own. He can barely be said even to exist.

To be honest, the reviewer lost me when he brought in "being" and Heidegger, but maybe that's just me.

Hebrew Annual Review

AWOL: Open Access Journal: Hebrew Annual Review.

"A journal of studies of Hebrew language and literature." The Melton Center for Jewish Studies Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University.

From 1977 to 1994.

A new fragment of Ezekiel the Tragedian's "Exagoge"

THE OXYRHYNCHUS PAPYRI: Ancient Egypt: Citizen scientists reveal tales of tragedy unearthed from centuries-old rubbish dump.Papyrus scraps tossed on a rubbish tip thousands of years ago are finally giving up their secrets (Adam Lusher, The Independent).

Tales of tragedy written on papyrus that lay hidden for centuries in an Ancient Egyptian rubbish dump have been revealed after being pieced together with the help of a small army of citizen scientists.

[...]

There's more on the Ancient Lives Project here and links.

The Ancient Lives volunteers also helped discover a fragment of a long-lost rendition of the Book of Exodus, written in the style of a Greek tragedy, by a little-known author called Ezekiel, in the Second Century BC, in Alexandria.

“Before, we had only known about this work because it had been quoted by the [4th Century AD] Church Father Eusebius,” said Professor Obbink. “We didn’t know for certain that a text existed: Eusebius might have made it up or misremembered it.

“Now we have a real copy, a long speech by Moses, in iambic trimeters, telling the history of his life and how he was discovered as a baby in the bulrushes.

“We can put some flesh and bones on a lost work of literature, one that was presumably performed long before Charlton Heston.

“It’s amazing what gets thrown out in the rubbish.”

[...]

Indeed. The article includes a translation of the fragment:

Newly discovered fragment of Ezekiel’s Exagoge, spoken by Moses:

Then the princess with her maidservants came down to bathe.

When she saw me, she took me up and recognised that I was a Hebrew.

My sister Mariam then ran up to her and spoke,

‘Shall I get a nursemaid for this child from the Hebrews?’ The princess urged her on.

Mariam went to fetch our mother who presently appeared and took me in her arms.

The princess said to her, ‘Woman, nurse this child and I shall pay your wages.’

She then named me Moses, because she had taken me from the watery river-bank.

HT AJR. This story broke in August of 2010 and I noted it here with comments and a caveat, all of which, as far as I can tell, still apply. Cross-file under Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch and An Army of Papyrologists.

Pras

YONA SABAR: Hebrew word of the week: Pras/Prize.

Mene mene tekel upharsin (Daniel 5:25). Okay, that's Aramaic.

Becker, Avot de-Rabbi Natan B

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Avot de-Rabbi Natan B
Aus dem Hebräischen übers. u. hrsg. v. Hans-Jürgen Becker

[Avot de-Rabbi Nathan B.]
2016. V, 189 pages.
Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 162

119,00 €
cloth
ISBN 978-3-16-154088-2
available

Published in German.
Following the analysis of the Hebrew basis-text through the edition of the Genizah fragments (2003) and the synopsis of the manuscripts of both versions of Avot de-Rabbi Natan (2006), Hans-Jürgen Becker presents a translation of Version B with this volume. The translation is in alignment with the text research for this work, which is a central source for historical interpretation and wisdom of antique Rabbinic Judaism, and renders the work accessible to interested neighbouring disciplines. The basis of the translation is the oldest and most completely preserved manuscript MS Parma 2785 (= de Rossi 327, Spain 1289), supplemented by the MS Vatican 303 (Italy, 15 th century). Translation-relevant variations of all textual witnesses are annotated or documented in a synoptic depiction. The greatest possible literality is aimed for and difficult passages are not linguistically concealed. The remarks indicate possible understandings of the text without preempting its interpretation.

Paul Keim profiled

PHILOLOGIST: CONNECTING GOSHEN TO DEAD LANGUAGES, TRAVEL ABROAD, AND THE OLD TESTAMENT (ELSA LANTZ, The Record). That is, Goshen College in Indiana, not the biblical Land of Goshen.

Paul Keim, professor of Bible and Religion, has an office filled with books on languages, books on the bible and one rabbit that he thinks might belong to the Biology department.

Keim has been working at Goshen College since 1997, although he did not become a professor until 2001. He attended Goshen College as a student before going to Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, or AMBS, and then Harvard. At Harvard, Keim earned a degree in ancient Near Eastern languages and civilizations, which Keim says is “what you do when you study the Old Testament.”

[...]

However, Keim has a stronger focus on classical and dead languages. He’s studied all of the Semitic languages—Hebrew, Greek and Latin [Greek and Latin are not Semitic languages. - JRD]. He has also studied many ancient dialects [i.e., languages - JRD] like Acadian [Akkadian - JRD (the brackets in the next paragraph aren't mine)], Ugaritic, Classical Arabic, Aramaic, Syriac and others.

“There is something about the mystery [of a language],” said Keim. “The allure [to learning new languages] is that there are these sounds and signs that remain a secret way of communicating. And it opens up a whole world, a culture and history, a different way of thinking. The way words sound and their histories, I find it very interesting.”

Keim mentioned that when walking around Petra, Jordan, he saw inscriptions on the walls that were 2000 years old. Because Keim had been studying the language, he could read them. “It was like time travel,” he said. “It was a great feeling.”

[...]

Professor Keim and I overlapped as PhD students at Harvard University in the 1980s. I haven't seen Paul for a long time. It's good to see what he's been up to.

Juicing in the DSS?

COOKING - ANCIENT EDITION: Select: 2,000-year-old bread and a brief history of the kitchen.The history of some of our most ubiquitous kitchen gadgets (Aoife McElwain, The Irish Times). The bread in question was a carbonized loaf preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius, but Google flagged up this article for me because of the following paragraph in it:

Juicing has got to be a new trend, though, right? Nope. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of nearly 1,000 texts discovered between 1946 and 1956 in the West Bank, thought to date from 300BC to AD100. One of these texts mentions a “pounded mash of pomegranate and fig” resulting in “profound strength and subtle form”. Possibly the world’s first documented example of juicing advocacy?

The date range for the scrolls is a little off; let's say from the third century BCE to around 68 CE. More frustrating is the typical failure to cite a specific text. I doubt very much that this quote represents ancient juicing advocacy, but I would be interested to know what it was actually about. Does anyone have the reference?

Lander, Religious Violence in a Post-9/11 World

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Religious Violence in a Post-9/11 World (Shira Lander).

The presentations given in the “Violence and Representations of Violence among Jews and Christians Unit” (henceforth VRV) have deepened our understanding of the intersection of religion and violence in the Greco-Roman world. Many of the papers delivered in this unit have been published, both individually and as books. The unit has collected and analyzed a broad range of ancient examples of religious violence and its representations in both material and literary culture.

[...]

Earlier essays in the series are noted here and links.

LXX Summer Course at Trinity Western

ETC: 2016 Summer TWU LXX Summer Course.

JQR 106.1 (2016)

A NEW ISSUE OF JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW (Volume 106, Number 1, Winter 2016) has been published. TOC:

Articles>

‘‘Cities Surrounded by a Wall from the Time of Joshua Son of Nun’’ as a Rabbinic Response to the Roman Pomerium
pp. 1-20
Eyal Ben-Eliyahu

Jewish Medieval Traditions concerning the Origins of the Kabbalah
pp. 21-41
Oded Yisraeli

Rabbi David Oppenheim on Trial: Turks, Titles, and Tribute in Counter-Reformation Prague
pp. 42-75
Michael Laurence Miller

Wreaking Judgment on Mount Esau: Christianity in R. Kook’s Thought
pp. 76-100
Karma Ben Johanan

Bibliographical Essay
A Century of Hebraica at the Library of Congress
pp. 101-129
Brad Sabin Hill

Contributors
p. 131

Recent Dissertations
pp. e1-e3
Bonnie L. Blankenship

The abstracts are free, but access to the articles require a paid personal or institutional subscription.

Another review of Kalmin, Migrating Tales

MARGINALIA REVIEW OF BOOKS: Here, There, and Everywhere – By Amit Gvaryahu. Amit Gvaryahu on on Richard Kalmin’s Migrating Tales.

Richard Kalmin’s Migrating Tales is neither about ISIS nor about Palmyra but about similar pods of knowledge which were successfully able to traverse political and ethnic boundaries. The subtitle, The Talmud’s Narratives and their Historical Context, is slightly misleading. The book is not about the historical context of the narratives but rather about the historical context of their transmission and migration. That is, readers will not get to know the precise location of Alexander’s fountain of youth but they will learn something about the tribulations of the story of Alexander and fountain of youth. In this sense, the stories themselves are historic artifacts. In eight chapters, Kalmin shows how non-rabbinic traditions from the Roman East ended up in the most rabbinic of rabbinic works, the Babylonian Talmud, which was redacted beyond the borders of the Roman Empire.

And here I was looking forward to finding out the precise location of the fountain of youth.

Earlier posts relating to the book are here, here, and here.

More on "Sacred Journeys"

EXHIBITION: Gustavus professor helps open museum exhibit “Sacred Journeys” at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis (Deven Kelley, The Gustavian Weekly).

Marcia J. Bunge, Professor of Religion and the Bernhardson Distinguished Chair of Lutheran Studies, was one of eight religious scholars invited to serve as a national advisor for a ground-breaking exhibit on world religions entitled “Sacred Journeys” held at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.

The exhibit was created in collaboration with the National Geographic Society and funded by a 1 million dollar grant from the Lilly Endowment.

The exhibit highlights elements of the history, beliefs and practices of five major world religions.

“Sacred Journeys” features videos, photography, and some amazing artificats, such as fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls, a large stone from the Western Wall in Jerusalem, a throne that had been built for the Dalai Lama, a piece of fabric from the Kaaba in Mecca, and a Hindu statue of Ganesh.

[...]

The exhibition has been running since late August. Still no word on which specific Dead Sea Scroll fragments are on display. I would think that would be important.

Noted just before the opening date here.

Christian Bale meets The Hymn of the Pearl

CINEMA: 'Knight Of Cups' Isn't A True Story, But The Christian Bale Drama Comes From An Unexpected Source (SAGE YOUNG, Bustle).

Christian Bale attended Sunday night's Oscars as a Supporting Actor nominee for the financial crisis drama, The Big Short, but the inspiration behind his next project is much more obscure than a recent economic meltdown with global repercussions. Although Knight Of Cups isn't a true story, Bale plays a screenwriter at a personal crossroads. Family drama and loss push Rick farther into the hedonistic playground occupied by industry elite, and he's driven to face some harsh internal truths and the objects of past mistreatment. Director Terrence Malick is infamous for both his unconventional methods and long stretches between film releases, but what drove this particular piece of work?

Rick is not based on one existing Hollywood screenwriter, and Knight Of Cups doesn't follow one real-life experience. The film has its roots in a couple of vintage morality tales, including the 1698 allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress From This World To That Which Is to Come; Delivered Under The Similitude Of A Dream. (A catchier title than Knight Of Cups? You be the judge.) Author John Bunyan composed the story of Christian (who is a Christian, because that's how allegory works), who seeks forgiveness for his sins on his journey to the afterlife. According to Yahoo, The Knight Of Cups script takes more than the human need for absolution and mercy from The Pilgrim's Progress; the script includes passages and quotes taken directly from the text. The movie also pulls from another quest narrative, the "Hymn Of The Pearl" from the Gnostic Acts Of Thomas. In those verses, a young boy on a mission is waylaid by seductive forces before he sets himself back on his righteous path. The shared theme is clear: life is full of temptations, and most aren't born with a perfectly calibrated moral compass. Choice reigns supreme.

[...]

My bold-font emphasis. More on The Acts of Thomas is here. You can read a couple of English translations of "The Hymn of the Pearl" here. Cross-file under Gnosticism Watch.

Beyond Authority

CONFERENCE: Beyond Authority: Composition and Transmission in Late Antiquity.

Princeton University
March 20-22, 2016

Beyond Authority will focus on the composition and transmission of texts and traditions in Late Antiquity. We intend to dismantle the regnant presumption that late antique tradents compose and transmit texts for the primary purpose of asserting and maintaining authority.

Follow the link for registration information and the schedule.

Ancient winery and Roman bathhouse found in Jerusalem

IAA PRESS RELEASE:

Surprising Finds in Jerusalem’s Legendary Schneller Compound: A Large Impressive Winery and a Roman Bathhouse were Exposed
In excavations of the Israel Antiquities Authority prior to the construction of residential buildings for the city’s ultra-orthodox population

Unexpected finds more than 1,600 years old were uncovered during archaeological excavations financed by the Merom Yerushalayim Company, which the Israel Antiquities Authority is carrying out in Schneller Compound prior to the construction of residential buildings for Jerusalem’s ultra-orthodox population.

Schneller Orphanage operated in Jerusalem from 1860 until the Second World War. During the British Mandate, its German inhabitants were expelled and a military base was established there. After the British withdrawal in 1948 the compound was turned over to the Hagana and later served as an army base used by the Israel Defense Force until 2008.

Interesting and assorted finds from Jerusalem’s past were discovered in the archaeological excavation, most notably a large and impressive winery dating to the Roman or Byzantine period, some 1,600 years ago. The complex installation includes a pressing surface paved with a white mosaic. In the center of it is a pit in which a press screw was anchored that aided in extracting the maximum amount of must from the grapes. Eight cells were installed around the pressing surface. These were used for storing the grapes, and possibly also for blending the must with other ingredients thereby producing different flavors of wine. The archaeologists believe that this winery served the residents of a large manor house whose inhabitants made their living by, among other things, viticulture and wine production.

Evidence was unearthed next to the impressive winepress which indicates the presence of a bathhouse there. These finds included terra cotta pipes used to heat the bathhouse and several clay bricks, some of which were stamped with the name of the Tenth Roman Legion. This legion was one of four Roman legions that participated in the conquest of Jewish Jerusalem, and its units remained garrisoned in the city until c. 300 CE. Among the Roman legion’s main centers was the one in the vicinity of Binyanei Ha-Uma, located just c. 800 meters from the current excavation, where a large pottery and brick production center was situated. The archaeologists suggest that the Schneller site, in the form of a manor house, constituted an auxiliary settlement to the main site that was previously exposed at Binyanei Ha-Uma. As was customary in the Roman world, here too in the Schneller Compound, a private bathhouse was incorporated in the plan of the estate.

The current archeological exposure is actually a continuation of the salvage excavations that were carried out at the site half a year ago when evidence was uncovered there of a Jewish settlement that dated to the Late Second Temple period.

According to archaeologist Alex Wiegmann, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, "Once again, Jerusalem demonstrates that wherever one turns over a stone ancient artifacts will be found related to the city’s glorious past. The archaeological finds discovered here help paint a living, vibrant and dynamic picture of Jerusalem as it was in ancient times up until the modern era".

According to Amit Re’em, the Jerusalem district archaeologist, "This is an excellent example of many years of cooperation and deep and close ties with the Haredi community. The general public is used to hearing of the clashes between the archaeologists and the orthodox community around the issue of the graves, but is unaware of the joint work done on a daily basis and the interest expressed by the ultra-orthodox sector. The Israel Antiquities Authority is working to instill our ancient cultural heritage in this population, as it does with other sectors”.

Follow the link for a photo of the site. Articles by JNiMedia and Arutz Sheva have additional photos and the latter also has a video.

The ethnology of epigraphic Hebrew names

THE ASOR BLOG: What names teach us about Iron II society in the Land of Israel (Mitka Golub).

Names send messages about identity. Today, many African-Americans have first names that are totally different from those of white Americans. But until the early 1970s there was a great similarity between the two communities. Scholars who studied this phenomenon, Roland Fryer and Stephen Levitt, attribute this change to the Black Power movement of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. When black parents give their children distinctively black names, they declare and affirm their cultural identity.

Hebrew personal names from the Iron Age II bear witness to the important historical and ethnic changes of that period in much the same way: the interplay between polytheism and monotheism, the rise of Yahwism, and the evolution of ethnic identities. Hebrew personal names also shed light on the relationship between archaeology and the Bible.

[...]

Requires free registration to access the whole essay.

Review of Russell, Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms

THE MIDDLE EAST: Paperback non-fiction choice October: Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms by Gerard Russell (William Dalrymple, The Guardian).

Russell takes us on a fascinating and timely journey through the beliefs and predicaments of seven fascinating but little-known religions; as well as the Mandeans and Yezidis, we meet the last of the Iranian Zoroastrians, the Druze and Samaritans lodged uneasily between Israel and the Arabs, the increasingly persecuted Coptic Christians of Egypt and the Kafir Kalash of the Hindu Kush. It’s a long time since I read a travel book that taught or illuminated so much, but its importance is greater than that. Tragically, this book puts on record for the last possible time a once-plural world that is on the verge of disappearing for ever.

This summary article on the book is from the Guardian's "Shelf Improvement newsletter" and it links to a full review by Dalrymple at the end of 2014, which I missed at the time. The book is more timely than ever. PaleoJudaica has been keeping some track of most of these groups in recent years. Recent posts on each: the Mandaeans (Mandeans), the Yazidis (Yezidis), the Druze, the Samaritans, and Coptic and the Copts. The past posts on the Zoroastrians have been on the ancient religion (most recently here), but I recently ran across this article on a Zoroastrian community in New York: Zoroastrians Build New Religious, Cultural Center In Pomona, N.Y. (Ela Dutt, News India Times).

Zoroastrians, or Zarathushtis as they are traditionally called, are fighting stereotypes about the community’s decline, opening a new religious and cultural center in Pomona, N.Y. this March, and counting a steady rise in their numbers. The new Dar-e-Mehr building is inspired by ancient Persian and Zoroastrian architecture of the fire temples of India.

The small community of 500 families of both South Asian and Iranian extraction, raised $5 million over a period of four years from local, national and international sources, to build a home for future generations, a press release from a group of organizations said. The current Zarathushti population in the Greater New York area is estimated at about one thousand and growing as the community becomes more culturally flexible and intermarriage is accepted.

[...]

UCSD updates the Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: UCSD Professor Works to Preserve Data from Middle East (Rebecca Chong, UCSD Guardian).

Two of UCSD’s professors in the anthropology department are working with the Israel Antiquities Authority to preserve archaeological sites in Israel that are threatened by both violence from extremist groups like ISIS and by development. Their collaborative efforts will update the Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land, the largest internet repository of archaeological data from Israel.

As the director of Qualcomm Institute’s Center for Cyber Archaeology and Sustainability, Professor Thomas Levy will lead the project alongside department research associate Steven Savage. Levy expressed enthusiasm for the unique opportunities that partnering with the IAA will foster.

“We want to work closely with the IAA and other scholars and institutions from around the Mediterranean world to share data and build scholarly bridges between communities,” Levy told the UCSD Guardian. “Having our students and faculty engaged with Israeli researchers and those from the neighboring lands in one of the most fascinating historical regions in the world is a great opportunity for them and the way forward to new discoveries and learning.”

Director of Communications at the Qualcomm Institute Doug Ramsey emphasized the CCAS’s creation as a way of advancing the innovative use of computing in the social sciences.

[...]

Director of Israel Museum to change roles

Israel Museum’s longstanding and well-connected director to step aside. In new role US-born James Snyder will continue to foster Jerusalem institution’s global relationships (JAVIER PES, The Art Newspaper ).

The Israel Museum will be seeking a new director as James Snyder announced that after 20 years at the helm of the Jerusalem institution he will become its international president. The US-born director, who arrived in Jerusalem in 1997 having worked at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is due to take up the new role in January 2017.

[...]

More on the Hadrian exhibition is here and links and more on the celebration of the Israel Museum's fiftieth anniversary is here and links.