When is a name a wall?

DR. MORDECAI DAVID ROSEN: The Cities of Nebo and Baʿal-Meon Were “Musabot Shem” (TheTorah.com).

What does this phrase, found in Numbers 32:38, mean?

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Maaloula is coming back!

MODERN ARAMAIC WATCH: Syrian village with language of Jesus prepares for returning pilgrims (AFP via i24News).

The Town of Maaloula is one of the last places where Aramaic is (or at least was recently) still a spoken language. It was ravaged by ISIS in the war, then presumably shut down for pilgrims during the pandemic. But now it is preparing to reopen for pilgrimages.

The Saint Taqla mentioned in the current article is better known as Saint Thecla, whose traditional tomb was in Maaloula. It was reportedly descecrated during the war. I don't know its current status.

For PaleoJudaica posts on Maaloula (Ma'aloula, Malula, Maalula - there seem to be endless spellings), start here and follow the links.

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The Dead Sea Scrolls LOL

ENTERTAINMENT: Back on stage with a humorous theatrical show (Christine DeSouza, Heritage Florida Jewish News).

Who thought the topic of the Dead Sea Scrolls could be so entertaining? Natural story-teller Kenneth Hanson, Ph.D., as done just that. In addition to being an associate professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Central Florida, he is a brilliant actor who brings to life academic topics such as archeology finds in Israel and the Dead Sea Scrolls through his characters known as Jerusalem Jones and Menachem the Essene, also known as the 2,001-year-old man.

[...]

Don't miss the link to the video teaser.

This is a long-running gig. I see that I noted Professor Hanson's show back in 2005.

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Where was John the Baptist really from?

RELIGION PROF: Could John the Baptist Have Been From Nazareth? (James McGrath). The argument for this is indirect. But maybe.

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The Copper Scroll: treasure chest or quest?

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST TODAY: A Treasure Quest in the Copper Scroll from Qumran (Jesper Høgenhaven).

The Copper Scroll from Qumran sends its reader on a quest to uncover hidden treasures. Is this treasure hunt for real or a symbolic journey? Is this dichotomy even fruitful? Maybe the most important thing is that the text sends the reader’s mind on a quest.

[...]

This essay gives a good overview of the history of the study of the Copper Scroll and the current questions still surrounding it.

One question it does not address is, if the Copper Scroll is entirely fictional, why did someone put in the extensive effort and expense to engrave it on copper sheets and then hide it in a cave? I would not say that is a compelling refutation. After all, someone carved the obviously fictional Treatise of the Vessels on a stone plaque as an addendum to an ambitious stone-plaque presentation of the whole book of Ezekiel. But even so, I would have liked to see some discussion of the question. But presumably he addresses this in his book.

For Professor Høgenhaven's recent book on the Copper Scroll, see here. And follow the links from there for many PaleoJudaica posts on the Copper Scroll. And for more on the Treatise of the Vessels (which I translated into English for the first time in 2013) and the Ezekiel Plates, see here and here and links.

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AJA review of Stern, Writing on the Wall

AJA ONLINE BOOK REVIEW: Writing on the Wall: Graffiti and the Forgotten Jews of Antiquity.

By Karen B. Stern. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2018. Pp. xxiii + 283. $35. ISBN 978-0-691-16133-4 (cloth).

Reviewed by Haggai Olshanetsky

HT Rogue Classicism. The review is an electronic preprint from the October issue of the American Journal of Archaeology.

For more on the book and the author's work, see here and links (cf. here).

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Review of Jacobs, Ancient information on Persia re-assessed

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Ancient information on Persia re-assessed: Xenophon’s “Cyropaedia”.

Bruno Jacobs, Ancient information on Persia re-assessed: Xenophon's "Cyropaedia". Proceedings of a conference held at Marburg in honour of Christopher J. Tuplin, December 1-2, 2017. Classica et Orientalia, 22. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2020. Pp. xxxii, 407. ISBN 9783447112833 €98,00.

Review by
Nicholas Sekunda, University of Gdansk. nicholas.sekunda@ug.edu.pl

I noted the publication of the book here and here. It addresses a wide range of topics. Of particular interest are the articles on the relationship of the Cyropaedia to the Greek novel and to Esther and Judith.

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ANE List anniversary

THE AWOL BLOG: ANE mailing lists (Chuck Jones).

Twenty-eight years ago yesterday John Sanders and I launched the ANE mailing list at the OI Chicago. ...

That was 7 July 1993. I was a charter subscriber!

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First-century public building excavated in Jerusalem

ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE: Magnificent Second Temple-Era Building Discovered in Jerusalem (Jewish Press News Desk).

According to Dr. Shlomit Weksler-Bdolach, Excavation director on behalf of the IAA, “This is, without a doubt, one of the most magnificent public buildings from the Second Temple period that has ever been uncovered outside the Temple Mount walls in Jerusalem. It was built around 20–30 CE. The building, which, apparently, stood along a street leading up to the Temple Mount, was used for public functions – it may even have been the city council building where important dignitaries were received before entering the Temple compound and the Temple Mount.”

The building is going on display as part of the Western Wall Tunnels complex. For more on the latter, see the links collected here and also here and here.

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Moses took credit for Jethro's idea?

PROF. BERNARD M. LEVINSON: The Founding of Israel’s Judicial System (TheTorah.com).

Even before Israel receives laws at Sinai, Exodus tells how Jethro the Midianite advises Moses to establish judges, a unique origin story for the judicial system with no parallel in ancient Near Eastern law collections. Deuteronomy revises the story to credit Moses with this idea after the revelation at Horeb.

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What's on at the Israel Museum

EXHIBITIONS: Divine edibles, rare drawings, magical music: All at the Israel Museum. There is too much going on there to cover everything in a single article, but here are a few highlights and you can check the website for a complete listing of all that is available this summer (Hannah Brown, Jerusalem Post).

I thought this "divine edibles" exhibition was going to be on cannabis at ancient Arad. But the Arad temple used cannabis as incense (mixed with dung!), not as an edible, so that doesn't work. It turns out to be about "a look at the portrayal of maize, cacao, and maguey (agave, a sweetener also used to make tequila) in artworks ranging from pre-Columbian to contemporary art."

The exhibition on the magical use of the Shema sounds interesting.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Talmudic books recovered at Surfside collapse

TALMUD WATCH: ‘A piece of somebody’: Sacred Jewish texts recovered from homes in Surfside rubble (SAMANTHA J. GROSS, Miami Herald).

On Tuesday Israeli Col. Golan Vach worked alongside local rescue teams to locate the bodies of a Jewish couple buried in the pile of rubble where the Champlain Towers South condo once stood.

Vach, who heads a specialized search and rescue unit of the Israel Defense Forces, started to gather personal belongings near the couple, mostly shreds of paper, notes and books. He noticed that many books were texts from the Talmud, a compilation of Rabbinical discussions, debates and the teachings of Jewish religious law.

Someone, Vach doesn’t remember who, snapped an image of Vach in an orange helmet and red gloves, handing the small stack of dark blue books to a South Florida Urban Search and Rescue team member.

[...]

The photo is touching. All strength to the surviving victims and the families involved in this terrible tragedy.

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Greenspoon on the Greek Bible

PROF. LEONARD GREENSPOON: Greek Bible Captured My Imagination (TheTorah.com).

Another in the series On Becoming a Jewish Bible Scholar. I noted some of these here. There have been many others, so have a look. I am only highlighting the ones of particular interest to PaleoJudaica.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Write That They May Read (Millard Festschrift) (Pickwick)

RECENT BOOK FROM WIPF AND STOCK:

Write That They May Read
Studies in Literacy and Textualization in the Ancient Near East and in the Hebrew Scriptures:Essays in Honour of Professor Alan R. Millard

Edited by Daniel I. Block, David C. Deuel, C. John Collins and Paul J. N. Lawrence
Imprint: Pickwick Publications
538 Pages, 7.00 x 10.00 x 1.00 in

Paperback
9781725252103
Published: July 2020
$61.00 / £45.00 / AU$88.00

Hardcover
9781725252080
Published: July 2020
$86.00 / £63.00 / AU$124.00

eBook
9781725252097
Published: July 2020
$61.00 / £44.00 / AU$88.00

DESCRIPTION

Write That They May Read is a collection of essays written in honor of our mentor, friend, and fellow scholar, Professor Alan R. Millard. Respectful of his contribution to our understanding of writing and literacy in the ancient biblical world, all the essays deal with some aspect of this issue, ranging in scope from archeological artifacts that need to be "read," to early evidence of writing in Israel's world, to the significance of reading and writing in the Bible, including God's own literacy, to the production of books in the ancient world, and the significance of metaphorical branding of God's people with his name. The contributors are distributed among Professor Millard's peers and colleagues in a variety of institutions, his own students, and students of his students. They represent a variety of disciplines including biblical archeology, Egyptology, Assyriology, Hebrew and other Northwest Semitic texts, and the literature of the Bible, and reside in North America, Japan, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Germany. ...

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Wills, Introduction to the Apocrypha (Yale)

NEW BOOK FROM YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Introduction to the Apocrypha
Jewish Books in Christian Bibles

Lawrence M. Wills

Format: Paper
Price: $38.00

Description

An ambitious introduction to the Apocrypha that encourages readers to reimagine what “canon” really means

Challenging the way Christian and non-Christian readers think about the Apocrypha, this is an ambitious introduction to the deuterocanonical texts of the Christian Old Testaments. Lawrence Wills introduces these texts in their original Jewish environment while addressing the very different roles they had in various Christian canons. Though often relegated to a lesser role, a sort of “Bible-Lite,” these texts deserve renewed attention, and this book shows how they hold more interest for both ancient and contemporary communities than previously thought.

Lawrence M. Wills is visiting professor of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies at Brown University. His books include a commentary on Judith in the Hermeneia series, Not God’s People: Insiders and Outsiders in the Biblical World, and The Jewish Novel in the Ancient World.

ISBN: 9780300248791
Publication Date: June 22, 2021
328 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
18 b/w illus.

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Gibson & Taylor, Beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Jerusalem (1994, PEF, open access)

THE AWOL BLOG: Beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Jerusalem. The Archaeology and Early History of Traditional Golgotha. (Chuck Jones). This is a 1994 volume by Shimon Gibson and Joan E. Taylor published by the Palestine Exploration Fund and now open access.

For more recent archaeological and social developments at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Holy Sepulcher), see here and here and many links. Notable in particular is the 2016 restoration of the first-century tomb (of Jesus?).

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Ptolemaic date-palm genomics

PALEOBOTANY: Archaeology meets DNA: peering into the past of the date palm. Scientists have decoded the genetic history of the date palm using a mysterious 2,000-year-old Egyptian artefac (DR CHELSEA SNELL , DR OSCAR ALEJANDRO PÉREZ ESCOBAR , DR NATALIA PRZELOMSKA , DR SIDONIE BELLOT AND DR PHILIPPA RYAN, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew).

Within the [Kew’s Economic Botany] collection we found an ancient Egyptian artefact made of plaited date palm leaves.

The unusual archaeological object was found 50 years ago at the ‘west dump’ in the temple complex of the animal necropolis of Saqqara, 20km south of Cairo and adjacent to the Nile Valley.

The object is from the late Ptolemaic period. The researchers were able to extract DNA from it and gain some insight into the relationship of the ancient palm to modern varieties and what that tells us about the history of its cultivation.

The article does not mention the similar work on Methuselah and Resurrection Genomics in Israel. That involves the cultivation of comparably ancient date palm seeds from Masada and other Judean Desert sites and their successful genomic sequencing.

There is no indication that anyone wants to try to clone the Egyptian palm. But who knows what is coming?

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Review of Bowman & Crowther, The epigraphy of Ptolemaic Egypt

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: The epigraphy of Ptolemaic Egypt.

Alan Bowman, Charles Crowther, The epigraphy of Ptolemaic Egypt. Oxford studies in ancient documents. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. 384. ISBN 9780198858225 $115.00.

Review by
Stefano Caneva, Università di Padova. stefano.caneva@unipd.it
Julien Dechevez, Université de Liège. julien.dechevezsv@gmail.com

This sounds like a wonderfully comprehensive volume. Several articles deal with religion, including Judaism, in the Ptolemaic-era inscriptions.

The volume would go nicely alongside the online Corpus of Ptolemaic Inscriptions (CPI), on which more here. Follow the links there for more on the Ptolemaic dynasty and its importance for the study of ancient Judaism.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Advances in Ancient Biblical and Near Eastern Research (new journal)

THE AWOL BLOG: New Open Access Journal: AABNER: Advances in Ancient Biblical and Near Eastern Research (Chuck Jones).

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Cyril and Methodius Day 2021, round three

OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC WATCH: Thousands commemorate arrival of Saints Cyril and Methodius to Czech lands. bout 15,000 people took part in the annual pilgrimage mass at Velehrad today, marking the arrival of Cyril and Methodius to Moravia in 863 (Czech News Agency via expats.cz).

Saint Cyril (827-869) and Saint Methodius (825-885), known as "the Apostles to the Slavs," were two Greek brothers from Thessalonica. They translated the Holy Scriptures into Old Church Slavonic, and designed a Slavic alphabet called Glagolithic. Its descendant, called Cyrillic, is still used by Slavs in the Orthodox Church.

They came to the Great Moravian empire in 863 AD.

July 5th is the Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius and a national holiday in the Czech Republic.

This celebration took place yesterday, 5 July 2021.

The day is celebrated on 24 May in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Russia, and on 5 July in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The Roman Catholic Church celebrates their saints' feast day on 14 February. It is celebrated on other days in other churches.

Their work preserved some ancient literature that otherwise would have been lost, including some intriguing Old Testament pseudepigrapha.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on (Old) Church Slavonic, start here and follow the links.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.