Mishnah fragments from the Cairo Geniza

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH: A Genizah manuscript of the Mishnah. This is an old FOTM post from November 2012. I think I'm caught up now. Past posts on the Digital Mishnah Project are here and here.

An ancient column capital from the Temple Mount

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: A Capital from Solomon’s Porch on the Temple Mount. This is a recently reported discovery by the Temple Mount Sifting Project. Leen Ritmyer is an expert on such matters and he has detailed commentary on the report.

Paschal lamb sacrifice near Temple Mount

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Far-rightists Stage Sacrifice Away From Temple Mount, but Closer Than Before. For the first time the group was allowed to hold the ceremony just a few hundred meters from the Mount − which is administered by a Muslim religious trust (Yair Ettinger, Haaretz).

It was a reenactment of the Paschal sacrifice, staged by activists seeking to expand the Jewish presence on the Temple Mount and attended by hundreds of right-wing Jewish men, women and children. The bloody trail marked the route from the place where the lamb was slaughtered to the altar put up in the middle of the plaza.

This is the sixth year in which Temple Mount activists have staged the reenactment, with barefoot priests in white garments resembling those worn by priests in the ancient Temples and gold-painted vessels modeled after those of the Temples strewn about the altar.

But Thursday’s event marked a real achievement. For the first time the group was allowed to hold the ceremony in the heart of the Jewish Quarter, outside the Hurva Synagogue, just a few hundred meters from the Temple Mount − which is administered by a Muslim religious trust.

The activists had originally sought to hold the event at the Davidson Center in an archaeological park next to the Temple Mount. But the police scuttled that idea, and the High Court of Justice upheld the decision.

[...]

The Third-Temple movement has been slowly growing in Israel for some time. I don't have any problem with them engaging in this ritual at this particular place if they want to, but, as I have said many times before, I oppose all efforts to rebuild the Temple on the Temple Mount. No excavation or construction on the Temple Mount! Not even archaeology, until we have non-invasive and non-destructive technologies to do the work.

Last year's Paschal sacrifice ceremony was notes here. Cross-file under Politics and Passover is Coming.

The "Four Questions"

PASSOVER IS COMING: How Many Questions in the “Four Questions”? (Prof. Joseph Tabory, TheGemara.com).

A short history of how the Mah Nishtana changed: From three to four to five questions.

Conclusion:

This quick survey has shown how liturgical texts can change over time, and more specifically how the original text of three question was modified, both by addition and subtraction, to reflect the changing realities of the paschal meal. The history of these modifications exemplifies the way Jewish custom struggles to adapt tradition to reality and reality to tradition. It also shows how certain liturgical forms that we feel are fundamental and ancient—such as the four Seder questions—are not as ancient as we might think, and are themselves the result of complex historical developments.

Humayma in Jordan

NABATEAN (NABATAEAN) WATCH: Canadian scholar examines ‘Nabataean colony of Humayma’ (Saeb Rawashdeh , San Diego Jewish World; rpt. from the Jordan Times).

AMMAN — Despite no “direct literary sources”, a Canadian scholar is piecing together archaeological clues to the origins of the ancient settlement of Humayma in southern Jordan.

The first settlement at Humayma, 280km south of Amman and 40km south of Petra, was founded by Prince Aretas, son of King Obodas, noted Professor John P. Oleson from the University of Victoria in Canada.

It was probably Aretas IV — ruled 9/8 BC to 39/40 AD — the Canadian archaeologist stressed, adding that “we have no literary sources by or about the early settlers, but they were Nabataeans, using pottery and coinage from Petra, and providing a small number of inscriptions in the Nabataean language”.

The town was named “Hawara,” meaning “white” in Aramaic, a name associated with the foundation myth involving a man clothed in white riding a white camel, he continued.

[...]

Some past PaleoJudaica posts on the Nabateans, their ancient Aramaic dialect, and the ancient city of Petra are here and here and links.

The Elephantine "Passover" Papyrus

PASSOVER IS COMING: A couple of web pages on the Aramaic Passover Papyrus from Elephantine:

CENTER FOR ONLINE JUDAIC STUDIES: The Passover Papyrus from Elephantine, 419 BCE.

JEWISH HISTORY CHANNEL: How the Jews in Elephantine, Egypt Celebrated Passover in 419 BCE. DO YOU HAVE TO BURN YOUR HAMETZ? IS WINE CHAMETZ?

HT Carla Sulzbach on Facebook.

And add this, hot off the press: Darius II Delays the Festival of Matzot in 418 BCE (Idan Dershowitz, TheTorah.com). [UPDATE: The URL and title have been updated at the request of the author.]

A new look at the “Passover Papyrus” from Elephantine and the nature of the Hebrew calendar in the Achaemenid Empire.

This essay points out that "Passover" doesn't actually appear on the papyrus. It is reconstructed in a gap. The author thinks it wasn't there at all. Conclusion:

In conclusion, the remarkable “Passover Papyrus” adds even more color to our already vibrant picture of the community of Yahwists in Elephantine. At a time when some of the books of the Bible were still being composed, these Judean immigrants celebrated an extraordinary Festival of Matzot. Its date was not set by their brethren in Jerusalem, nor did they determine it for themselves; it was dictated by the Zoroastrian emperor. Together with their Egyptian spouses and relatives, they observed the holiday that traditionally marks the Exodus from Egypt as they stood mere steps from the temple of Khnum, the Nile god, on the border of Egypt and Nubia.

Past PaleoJudaica posts on the Elephantine Papyri and the site of Elephantine are here and many, many links. For more on the Passover Papyrus, see here and here.

A Gnostic Film Festival at Rice University

THE FORBIDDEN GOSPELS BLOG: Gnostic Cinema in Modern America. April DeConick has posted the opening remarks she gave at this film festival at Rice University in March. I'm sorry I wasn't able to attend, although I would have skipped Avatar.

HT James McGrath. In relation to Professor DeConick's remarks, see also her public lecture after the festival, Gnosticism and the transpower of the book, and also my review of her fascinating recent book The Gnostic New Age.

Hebrew Ben Sira

AWOL BLOG: The Book of Ben Sira. A website on the Hebrew manuscripts of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus).

Cross-file under Old Testament Apocrypha Watch.

Another review of Smoak, The Priestly Blessing in Inscription & Scripture

RELIGION AND LITERATURE OF ANCIENT PALESTINE BLOG: Review of Jeremy D. Smoak, The Priestly Blessing in Inscription & Scripture: The Early History of Numbers 6:24-26 (Oxford, 2016) (Ryan Thomas).

I found Smoak’s general thesis to be well-argued and supported. The book represents a significant contribution to the study of apotropaic ritual/magic in Israel-Judah, which will be of interest to both biblical scholars and students of ancient Near Eastern religion. The careful use of material culture and inscriptions from the broader region so as to illuminate the thought-world of the biblical texts is exemplary, building a historically-informed hermeneutical context without forcing the evidence.

Past posts on Jeremy Smoak's work on the priestly blessing are collected here. Past posts on the Ketef Hinnom silver amulets (which contain a version of the priestly blessing) and the priestly blessing itself are there and links.

Gentiles and the Temple

READING ACTS: Core Beliefs of Second Temple Judaism: Gentiles and the Temple.

The prohibition of Gentiles in the main court of the temple during the first century is well known. Paul refers to a “dividing wall” of hostility between Jews and Gentiles in Ephesians 2:15, probably an allusion to the warning to Gentiles in the Temple courts that crossing into the Court of the Men would result in their death. Paul is accused of breaking this Law by sneaking a Gentile into the Temple courts (a false charge, but it nearly cost Paul his life).

[...]

There is more on the Greek Temple Warning Inscription here, here, and here.

Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.

Funding for the Temple Mount Sifting Project?

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Netanyahu intervenes to save Temple Mount sifting project. Days after archaeological site said it would close for lack of cash, PM steps in, saying funding will continue (Ilan Ben Zion and Sue Surkes, Times of Israel).

A project to search for archaeological artifacts in soil removed from Jerusalem’s Temple Mount in the 1990s will continue, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced Wednesday, saying it had secured funding to keep it afloat.

On Monday, the Temple Mount Sifting Project, headed by archaeologist Gabriel Barkay, announced it was on the verge of closure because the Ir David Foundation, commonly known as Elad, which had financed it for 12 years, was pulling its funding.

“The Ir David Foundation, headed by David Be’eri, will continue to fund the important project,” the Prime Minister’s Office said Wednesday.

In a statement, the PMO said Be’eri and the director general of the Israel Antiquities Authority would meet in the coming days with the people involved with the project.

[...]

That sounds like good news. But the Temple Mount Sifting Project has issued the following statement (on its blog and elsewhere), which clarifies the background and the current situation somewhat: Press Release: A solution has still not been found for resuming the sifting of the Temple Mount soil. Excerpt:

We value the Prime Minister’s efforts to resolve the issue, and thank the Ir-David foundation for their long collaboration with our project. However, the scientific research is separate from the touristic activity which was, until recently, run by the Ir-David Foundation. The sifting and research are licensed by the Israel Antiquities Authority and directed by Dr. Gabriel Barkay and Zachi Dvira under the auspices Bar-Ilan’s University’s Institute of Archaeology. The research is funded by the “Israel Archaeology Foundation” which promotes archaeological research. Funding the research of the Temple Mount finds must by managed by an organization whose primary impetus is scientific rather than focused primarily on tourism.

The overlap between the touristic activity and the scientific-archaeological research caused ruptures between the Temple Mount Sifting Project directors and the Ir-David foundation, leading the Ir-David Foundation to halt the funding for the sifting activity two weeks ago. Consequently, we concluded that it is best not to renew the sifting before securing the full funding for the research of the artifacts already found by the project.

Their bold-font emphasis. Read it all. The Ir-David foundation is also know as "Elad," on which more here and links. Background on the current funding issues for the Temple Mount Sifting Project is here.

I very much hope that the project finds the funding necessary to continue its work to its conclusion.

Georgia, "'Unless He Competes Professionally'"

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Dissertation Spotlight: Allan Georgia.

Allan Georgia, "'Unless He Competes Professionally': Agonism and Cultural Production among Christians and Jews in the Roman World," Ph.D. Dissertation, Fordham University, 2016.

Excerpt:

The cultural ecosystem that resulted from this competition over Greekness was filled with the diverse peoples of Mediterranean whose competition and cooperation with one another functioned to establish the value of Greek paideia - education in Greek language and literature, but also the quality of having been civilized by a Greek education - which in turn was traded, invested and exchanged into social acclaim and public notoriety. This is the landscape that Christian and Jewish communities occupied in the early centuries CE. Describing the competition that characterized this ambitious cultural field in language is not easy. But I make the case that it can help us capture the kinetic, frictive and multi-dimensional fields of contest on which Judaism and Christianity presented themselves in the early Roman Empire.

UNESCO Director-General confirms Jewish connection to Jerusalem

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: UNESCO Director-General reaffirms historic bonds between Jerusalem and the Jewish people at ECI conference in European Parliament (EC4I.org).

Brussels, April 4th, 2017 – UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova has firmly rebuffed any attempts to deny Jewish history connected to Jerusalem. In a unique statement at the ECI policy conference in the European Parliament on Thursday she said that “in the Torah, Jerusalem is the capital of King David, where Solomon built the Temple and placed the Ark of the Covenant.”

Distinguishing between her role as the highest official of UNESCO and the resolutions passed by member states of the same organisation, she stated – “to deny, conceal or erase any of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions undermines the integrity of the site, and runs counter to the reasons that justifies its inscription in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The protection of the heritage of Jerusalem is part of a broader vision for peace and the fight against all forms of denial of Jewish history, delegitimisation of Israel and anti-Semitism”, she said. UNESCO is the United Nations specialized agency for education, science and culture.

[...]

Good for her.

The wording of her statement is a little confusing: it is in the Deuteronomistic History (Joshua - 2 Kings) that Jerusalem becomes King David's capital city and Solomon builds the Temple and places the Ark of the Covenant in it. The term "Torah" usually means specifically the Pentateuch, although it can sometimes be used as a synonym for "Bible," as she is using it here.

But this is a nitpick and her point remains the same.

Background on those unhelpful UNESCO resolutions is here, here, here and links.

Real estate deals in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: The Art of the Deal. Talmudic rabbis regulated real estate transactions based on biblical principles of ownership and centuries of experience of the practicalities of Jewish life.

Last week’s Daf Yomi reading, in Chapter Four of Bava Batra, was entirely devoted to one question: When a piece of real estate is sold, what exactly is the buyer buying? Over seven pages, the rabbis lay down the rules governing several different kinds of property: cisterns, houses, olive presses, courtyards, and more. As so often in the Talmud, definitions are at stake: When we talk about a house, what do we mean? Is a house just the four walls and roof, or does it include the furniture and the key to the front door? Going case by case, the rabbis determine what implements and outbuildings belong to the property in question, and so are sold along with it, and which ones are considered extraneous, so that they must be named specifically if they are to be included in the sale. Each new detail raises vistas of potential litigation.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

The Temple

READING ACTS: Core Beliefs of Second Temple Judaism: Temple.

While the synagogue was a place for prayer and study of scripture, the Temple was a place for sacrifice. Just as sacrifice of animals is always a part of religion in the ancient world, it played an important part of the practice of religion in Jerusalem.

[...]

Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.

The Egyptian "Magicians"

PASSOVER IS COMING: The Egyptian “Magicians” (Prof. Scott B. Noegel, TheTorah.com).

Is the Bible’s portrayal of the magicians (Ḥarṭummīm) in accord with Egyptian literature and ritual practice? How did the Israelite writers obtain this knowledge?

The Geniza and the layout of the Song of the Sea

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH: MARCH 2017: Writing Lines: T-S D1.108 and the Song of Moses. A fragment that shows that there were conventions for writing out biblical poetry (in this case, the Song of the Sea/the Song of Moses in Exodus 15) that were not found in the minor talmudic tractates that dealt with such matters.

Past posts noting Cairo Geniza Fragments of the Month in the Cambridge University Library's Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit are here and links, plus here, here, and here.

The Sabbath

READING ACTS: Core Beliefs of Second Temple Judaism: Sabbath.

When it comes to distinctively Jewish practices, how much did the “average Jew” care about keeping these traditions? The great majority of Jews, comments N. T. Wright, “cared sufficiently about their god, their scriptures, and their Jewish heritage to take a fair amount to trouble over the observance of at least biblical law” (Jesus and the Victory of God, 213-214). Thi would certainly be true for the practice of Sabbath in the Second Temple period.

[...]

Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.

The Talmud on eating leaven of a non-Jew on Passover

PASSOVER IS COMING: Hametz Owned by a Non-Jew May be Eaten on Passover?! (Dr. Joshua Kulp and Dr. Jason Rogoff, TheGemara.com).

A striking talmudic passage asserts that it is biblically permitted to eat the ḥametz of a non-Jew on Passover. How are we to explain this strange claim? What might this development teach us about the dynamics of rabbinic texts?

Excerpt:

In this essay, we will demonstrate how the Talmud’s surprising position does not reflect a fundamental legal change in the halakhot of ḥametz on Passover. Instead, it is the result of a series of literary and interpretive impulses, which carry unintended, and in this case extreme, consequences. Tracing the development of this remarkable talmudic assertion will give us a window into how complex chains of rabbinic literary processes can sometimes lead to strange conclusions.

A technical essay, but one that illuminates the process of internal exegesis in the rabbinic literature.

Another review of Glinert, The Story of Hebrew

BOOK REVIEW: From the Bible to Sir Isaac Newton: How Hebrew Survived and Thrived. Eschewing the familiar, triumphalist narrative of ancient glory and modern rebirth in Zion, 'The Story of Hebrew' follows the twists and turns of the Hebrew language from its beginnings to contemporary Israeli usage (Samuel Thrope, Haaretz).

For all its importance, Christian Kabbalah is usually deemed a curiosity of intellectual history, and is certainly seen as a side branch in the development of the Hebrew language. The fact that Glinert devotes two fascinating chapters to Christian Hebraicists like Newton is representative of his overall approach. Eschewing the familiar, triumphalist narrative of ancient glory and modern rebirth in Zion (with nothing worth mentioning in between), “The Story of Hebrew” follows the twists and turns, false starts and blind alleys of the Hebrew language from its biblical beginnings to contemporary Israeli usage. Glinert describes how, throughout the ages, Hebrew has fended off linguistic competitors — Aramaic, Greek, Arabic, German and, now, English — and, under the right circumstances of social stability and intellectual opportunity, has risen to the highest levels of scientific and poetic expression. “The Story of Hebrew” recasts Jewish history as a whole as a struggle to preserve not Judaism or Jewish culture, but the Holy Tongue itself.

It's an Haaretz premium article, so read it fast, before it goes behind the subscription wall.

An earlier review of the book was noted here.