I am very pleased to publish an interview with Dr Geoffrey Khan, an expert in the field of Semitic studies, and the Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge.
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This book is a result of research funded by the National Science Centre in Poland and conducted at the University of Rzeszów from 2012 to 2015. It does exactly what the title suggests, discussing the geography and history of the three neighbouring regions of Sophene, Gordyene, and Adiabene in northern Mesopotamia during the period from about 200 BC to about AD 600. There is no single, overarching argument, and the result is essentially a reference work for anyone interested in the development of these regions. Many of the chapters have already been published in a variety of academic journals during the period from 2011 to 2016. However, the journals were sometimes relatively obscure, and it is good to have revised versions of the original papers drawn together to form a larger, coherent whole. The author draws upon a wide range of literary sources in a number of languages, primarily in Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Armenian. He also draws upon a wide range of material sources and the latest archaeological data. The result is an indispensable tool for anyone interested in the geography and history of northern Mesopotamia.The material on Adibene (modern day Erbil) will be of particular interest to PaleoJudaica readers. The ruler of the kingdom of Adiabene, Queen Helena, converted to Judaism in the first century CE. Background here and links.
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For over 2,000 years, historians have argued over the route used by the Carthaginian general Hannibal to guide his army — 30,000 soldiers, 37 elephants and 15,000 horses — over the Alps and into Italy in just 16 days, conducting a military ambush against the Romans that was unprecedented in the history of warfare.For more on the coprological evidence for Hannibal's route, see here. There are many past PaleoJudaica posts on Hannibal and his campaign in the Second Punic War. For some of them see that post, plus here, here, here, here, and here, and follow the links
Such an achievement required careful planning and strategizing, but with little physical evidence of the journey available today and few recorded details of the crossing, uncertainty remains about how it was accomplished.
However, in "Secrets of the Dead: Hannibal in the Alps," a new documentary airing on PBS tonight (April 10), a team of experts takes a fresh look at Hannibal’s incredible trip across treacherous mountain terrain. Together, they re-create his long-lost route and reveal the latest discoveries about his historic accomplishment — and depict the famous elephants that played a critical part in his victory against the Romans.
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I am grateful to the editors of Ancient Jew Review for the opportunity to reflect on my long engagement with the Gospel of John. The invitation comes at an appropriate moment: I have just submitted a book manuscript on John, called Cast Out of the Covenant: Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John, which will be published by Lexington/Fortress Press later this year.[1] This book concludes what is very likely my last major project on the Fourth Gospel. While I already have made commitments to several conference papers and articles on John, I do not plan another sustained book-length study. In effect, having long had a conflicted relationship with the “Beloved Disciple,”[2] – since my doctoral research in the late 1970s -- it is time to break up. For this reason, it seems like the right time to reflect on my relationship with the “other man” in my life (as my husband refers to “John”).
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Jesus and Early SynagoguesCross-file under New Book.
When we situate Jesus’ ministry within what we know of early synagogues and their functions, we can infer that Jesus’ teaching and proclamation would have been open to discussion and debate for the assembly to decide whether to accept or reject it, just like any other proposition put forward in a public synagogue. We must remember that public synagogues represented the town, and that the decisions made in local synagogue assemblies were thus made for the town as a whole. If Jesus could persuade the local assemblies to accept his teaching and proclamation of the outbreak of the Kingdom of God, and to repent in light of it (Mark 1:14-15), it would have been tantamount to the corporate acceptance of the proclamation by that town.
See Also: The Role of the Synagogue in the Aims of Jesus (Fortress Press, 2017).
By Jordan J. Ryan
Assistant Professor of New Testament
University of Dubuque Theological Seminary
April 2018
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Of all Alexander's successors, Ptolemy is perhaps the one most worthy of a biography. Having been born into a relatively humble family, he rose to become one of Alexander's bodyguards, and eventually Pharaoh of Egypt. His life, furthermore, falls within a timespan that incorporates the early Hellenistic world's major developments. From the rise of Philip of Macedon and the campaigns of Alexander to the solidification of the Hellenistic monarchies, Ptolemy was there. With this book, Ian Worthington, an expert on the period, provides the first biography of Ptolemy I since W. M. Ellis's Ptolemy of Egypt (1994). Although the influence of Ptolemy, who is known as patron of the arts, economic innovator, and sophisticated administrator, cannot be downplayed, a full-length biography proves to be a difficult enterprise. The nature of the source material, from which Ptolemy is largely absent until the death of Alexander, is problematic when the aim is a singular focus on Ptolemy, as can be seen from this book.Some knowledge of the Diadochoi (the "Successors" to Alexander the Great), especially Ptolemy I and Seleucus I, is important as background for Second Temple Judaism. Both are mentioned, although not named, in the Book of Daniel.
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What do the terms “holocaust” and “shoah” mean, and what do they reveal about how we view the respective roles of God and the Nazis in the Jewish genocide?Yom HaShoah/Holocaust Remembrance Day was on the 11th-12 of this month this year (27 Nisan). Another post on the question of whether "Holocaust" is an appropriate term for the slaughter of millions of Jews by the Nazis is here. Professor Garber's essay is the most thorough discussion of the issue that I can recall reading.
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TIMNA – Around 3,200 years ago, the great empires around the Mediterranean and the Middle East suddenly imploded. The Egyptians retreated from Canaan and the copper mines of Timna in the Negev, skulking back to the banks of the Nile. And in the arid wastes of southern Canaan, a new power arose.Hmmm ... interesting idea. I agree that the biblical texts seem to look to the region of Timna/Edom for the earliest traditions about YHWH. But, with Professor Romer, I think the fiery imagery around YHWH has to do with his being a storm god, not with any association with a metallurgical cult.
The Timna mines were taken over by semi-nomadic tribes, which set up a mining operation that dwarfed the previous Egyptian industry.
This new desert kingdom would leave its mark on the main building at Timna: the Egyptian temple of Hathor, protector of miners. The new masters smashed the effigy of the Egyptian deity – leaving the fragments to be found by archaeologists more than 3,000 years later – and set up over the ruins of the temple a tent sanctuary, judging by the remains of heavy red and yellow fabric found in the 1970s.
There they worshipped a new god, one that had no apparent name or face.
That miners' god was none other than the deity known by the four Hebrew letters YHWH, who would become the God of the Jews and, by extension, of Christians and Muslims, claims Nissim Amzallag, a biblical studies researcher at Ben-Gurion University.
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In this excellent book, Daniel Ogden tackles head-on a tricky, but fruitful topic in Hellenistic studies: the many stories, legends and myths surrounding the figure of Seleucus Nicator. The book consists of six thematic chapters that roughly follow the course of Seleucus’ life. The seventh, and final, chapter is a more in-depth discussion of methodology and sources. The book aims to unite and combine different narratives about Seleucus into a coherent whole, while systematically disentangling various layers of the legend. One of its strong points is the exhaustive collection and thorough discussion of the sources. Ogden not only discusses different source passages in depth, he integrates his discussion with possible typological comparanda. The most important of these is the Alexander Romance, but Ogden also looks at folk-tale motifs and other legends, from Greek and Near Eastern mythology. In addition to his careful analysis of passages, Ogden often raises more speculative questions about the material, which subsequently remain unanswered. This happens consistently throughout all chapters and seems to be a conscious choice. Many of the questions raised are tantalising, but not particularly well suited where they appear in the text, as throw-away remarks that disturb the flow of the main argument.The Book of Daniel mentions Seleucus I, although not by name. For more on that, see here. The review does not mention the passage in Daniel, but I assume the book under review does somewhere.
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David Lambert. How Repentance Became Biblical: Judaism, Christianity, and the Interpretation of Scripture. Oxford University Press: 2015.Excerpt:
Useful for students of the Hebrew Bible, certainly, but also for students of early Christianity, rabbinics, and the ancient Mediterranean world, this book asks and invites more questions- about interiority, about repentance, about reading the Bible historically and how it has historically been read- than it answers. To that end, it usefully opens conversations that might otherwise remain foreclosed.I noted the publication of the book here.
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The Passover Seder is one of the most recognized and widely practiced of Jewish rituals, yet had our ancestors visited one of these modern-day celebrations, they would be baffled.This came out in late March. I've been meaning to get to it. It involves a good bit of speculation. But overall it's a plausible reconstruction.
Not only does our modern Seder wildly diverge from the Passover of old: during antiquity itself the holiday underwent radical changes. Below we chart as best we can - considering the shortage of historical documentation - the origins of Passover, from the dawn of Israelite people to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, and the consequent establishment of the embryonic Passover Seder, which modern Jews would recognize.
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The Library of Congress recently got its hands on a Torah scroll sheet that dates to the 10th or 11th century, the earliest known legible version of the “Song of the Sea” and an invaluable find — and a Rutgers University professor played a vital role in its acquisition.This article gives some of the back story of the acquisition of this manuscript by the Library of Congress, including the contribution of Professor Gary Rendsburg.
Detailing the flight of the Jewish people from Egypt, the vellum sheet measures 23 by 23.5 inches and contains Exodus 10:10 to 16:15, beginning with the “Ten Plagues” and continuing through the “Song of the Sea.”
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Last night in the UK, Channel 4 aired a TV documentary on the evidence of women’s involvement in the ministry of Jesus and the earliest Jesus-movement, featuring Professor Helen Bond (New College, Edinburgh) and Professor Joan Taylor (Kings College London), available here. On the whole, and for the popular TV audience for which it was prepared, the programme was interesting and informative. The main point was (quite rightly) to bring to the foreground the place of women among Jesus’ followers and in early Christianity thereafter.I haven't seen this documentary, but I'm hearing good things about it. Unfortunately, I don't think the Channel 4 link will work outside the U.K. (Please correct me if that's wrong.) But the CSCO Blog has background material on the documentary here. And Professors Bond and Taylor discuss the new Mary Magdalene movie here.
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The Exotic Garden in the Song of SongsCross-file under New Book.
The logic of the garden exoticism in the Song, then, persuades the reader not that the garden is a “fantasy garden,” but that the space is the result of attention and care—one that presumes the intervention of a skilled gardener.
See Also: Landscapes of the Song of Songs: Poetry and Place (Oxford University Press, 2017).
By Elaine T. James
Assistant Professor of Theology
St. Catherine University
April 2018
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A group of elementary-school-aged archaeologists-in-training don’t have to dig deep into their imaginations to visualize life in the Land of Israel some 1,500 years ago.
In an archaeological excavation just meters outside of the grounds of the Benzion Netanyahu school, students in grades one through six from the West Bank settlement of Barkan 25 kilometers outside Tel Aviv have uncovered pieces of ornately decorated Talmudic-era clay lamps.
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This week, Daf Yomi readers began Tractate Horayot, the last tractate in Seder Nezikin, the division of the Talmud that deals with civil and criminal law. Horayot, whose name means “decisions,” is a very short tractate—just 14 pages long—and it deals with a narrow but important area of Jewish law: namely, what to do when a court issues an erroneous judgment. The short answer is that courts that mistakenly permit a forbidden act, and thereby encourage the Jewish people to sin, are liable to bring a sacrifice in atonement. But, of course, matters are never quite so simple in the Talmud, and the discussion ends up touching on basic questions about law and justice: above all, the question of when a person is obligated to obey a mistaken or unjust authority.Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.
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Unlike Hebrew liturgical poetry, Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic poetry in the Cairo Genizah is an area that has hitherto received very little attention. While many scholars have worked on the Hebrew poetry, with extensive collections collated in books and on websites,2 the Arabic material has been largely neglected. If mentioned at all in catalogues, labelling is mostly limited to ‘Arabic poetry’, without any further details, and the large majority of sources still await description.Most of this material is a bit late for PaleoJudaica (the Fatimid era). But I do like to keep an eye on what is going on in the field of Judeo-Arabic.
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Much of the Arabic poetry in the Cairo Genizah collection is written in Judaeo-Arabic. ...
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