Richey, Visions of Gods and Monsters (PhD thesis)

THE AWOL BLOG: Visions of Gods and Monsters: Levantine and Mesopotamian Iconographies of Divine Combat and Their Textual Impressions. An open-access 2019 University of Chicago PhD Thesis by Madadh Pyrene Richey.

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What is a word and when did we decide that?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: In the Beginning, Was There a Word? (Aaron J. Koller).

“In the beginning was the word” (John 1:1)—but what is a word?

A “word” is a thing, a concept, that seems clear from afar, but gets fuzzier the harder we look at it. Within English, is “birthday” one word or two? What about “wedding day”? If you thought it was obvious that “birthday” is one word but “wedding day” two, it is because of the way they are written.

Similarly, what gives us the idea that a written sentence is made up of individual words? ...

Surprisingly, the invention of the alphabet only made matters more confusing.

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Cross, The Poetics of Plot in the Egyptian and Judean Novella (PhD thesis)

THE AWOL BLOG: The Poetics of Plot in the Egyptian and Judean Novella. An open-access 2022 University of Chicago PhD thesis by Joseph John Cross. Downloadable for free.

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Why is Hebrew written right to left?

PHILOLOGOS: How Hebrew Came to Be Written From Right to Left. Hebrew was once written in both directions. How did it fix its direction, and what does that show about the history of writing in general? (Mosaic Magazine).

If the word "Boustrophedon" is not already in your vocabulary, this is your chance to add it.

For more on that lice comb inscribed with the earliest Canaanite sentence, see here.

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Review of a new edition of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Flavius Philostratus. Vita Apollonii Tyanei.

Gerard Boter, Flavius Philostratus. Vita Apollonii Tyanei. Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana, 2043. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022. Pp. lxiii, 322. ISBN 9783110218824

Review by
Tomás Fernández, University of Buenos Aires, Conicet. Tomas.Fernandez@conicet.gov.ar

[...]

All in all, Boter’s edition has made significant advances in all major features of critical editions. His collations are more systematic, his stemma more solid, and the conjectures he includes are enough to allow the reader to picture, even in problematic cases, what the genuine reading may be.

For more on the first-century itinerant sage Apollonius of Tyana, especially in relation to Jesus, see here and links.

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On the European "Geniza"

GENIZA WATCH: The European Genizah. Thousands of Hebrew manuscript fragments were discovered in Central Europe, where they had been used by Christians to bind books (Simcha Emanuel, Tablet Magazine). Excerpts:

The European Genizah is entirely different [from the Cairo Geniza]. For the most part, its contents reflect the hundreds of manuscripts that have been preserved from that era. It therefore contains relatively few innovations. The European Genizah does, however, have a certain advantage. While the Cairo Genizah preserves the books that had reached a single city, the European Genizah contains the remnants of libraries from dozens of Jewish communities throughout Central Europe, and thus offers a comprehensive snapshot of the culture of Central European Jewry during the late medieval and early modern eras. ...

I mentioned above that most fragments discovered in the European Genizah come from works that were very prevalent in Central Europe at the end of the Middle Ages: Scripture and its commentaries, prayer books, the Talmud and its traditional commentaries, and familiar halakhic works. Most of these works were already available to us both in printed editions and in dozens of complete manuscripts. Thus, the European Genizah has not yielded much new material. Nevertheless, the Genizah makes novel contributions to a variety of disciplines.

I noted the author's book, Hidden Treasures from Europe here and a more recent book on the European Geniza here.

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Want to do archaeology this summer?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Finding an Archaeological Dig. Answering your questions about excavating the biblical world (Nathan Steinmeyer).

It may not seem like it, but summer will be here soon. If you are thinking of volunteering at an archaeological dig in the Holy Land, now is the time to make plans. This essay is a good place to start.

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Waller, with Molin, The Bible in the Bowls (open access)

NEW BOOK FROM OPENBOOK PUBLISHERS/CUP:

The Bible in the Bowls
A Catalogue of Biblical Quotations in Published Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Magic Bowls

Daniel James Waller (author) Dorota Molin (contributions by)

Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures 16

The Bible in the Bowls represents a complete catalogue of Hebrew Bible quotations found in the published corpus of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic magic bowls. As our only direct epigraphic witnesses to the Hebrew Bible from late antique Babylonia, the bowls are uniquely placed to contribute to research on the (oral) transmission of the biblical text in late antiquity; the pre-Masoretic Babylonian vocalisation tradition; the formation of the liturgy and the early development of the Jewish prayer book; the social locations of biblical knowledge in late antique Babylonia and socio-religious typologies of the bowls; and the dynamics of scriptural citation in ancient Jewish magic. In a number of cases, the bowls also contain the earliest attestations of biblical verses not found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Pre-dating the next available evidence by four to five centuries, the bowls are a valuable resource for biblical text critics.

By making these valuable witnesses to the Hebrew Bible easily available to scholars, The Bible in the Bowls is designed to facilitate further research by linguists, liturgists, biblical text critics, and students of Jewish magic. It collates and transcribes each biblical verse as it appears in the published bowls, furnishes details of the bowls’ publication, and notes various features of interest. The catalogue is also accompanied by an accessible introduction that briefly introduces the incantation bowls, surveys their deployment of scripture in light of their magical goals, and discusses the orthography of the quotations and what this can tell us about the encounter with the biblical text in late antique Babylonia

HT the AWOL Blog.

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Profile of Michael Langlois

NORTHWEST SEMITIC EPIGRAPHY: How an Unorthodox Scholar Uses Technology to Expose Biblical Forgeries. Deciphering ancient texts with modern tools, Michael Langlois challenges what we know about the Dead Sea Scrolls (Chanan Tigay, Smithsonian Magazine).

But ancient inscriptions, whether sacred or mundane, don’t always survive unblemished. To decipher them, Langlois draws on an impressive range of academic training. He holds three master’s degrees—theology, ancient Middle Eastern languages and civilization, and archaeology and linguistics—and a doctorate in history and philology from the Sorbonne. But his facility with sophisticated technologies, some of his own design (he briefly worked constructing simulations to chart the route of a high-speed train through a mountain tunnel), has armed him with techniques that allow him to make sense of texts so badly damaged by age, climate or human folly that they are now nearly illegible. His approach, which combines the close linguistic and paleographical analysis of ancient writings with advanced scientific tools—from multispectral imaging to artificial intelligence-assisted “texture mapping”—can sometimes make long-gone inscriptions come back to life.

Or it can bury them for good—as in his most widely publicized feat of scholarly detective work, an exposé involving arguably the greatest archaeological discovery of the 20th century.

This is an excellent biographical piece on Strasbourg epigrapher, Professor Michael Langlois. PaleoJudaica has cited his work many times, notably on the Maresha archive and on debunking fake Dead Sea Scroll fragments. You can also find much valuable material on his website.

Chanan Tigay, who is the son of biblical scholar Jeffrey Tigay, is a journalist who is well known in PaleoJudaica circles for his book on the Shapira Scroll fragments. (See here, cf. here, and follow the many links.)

For more on the recent claim to have established the reading "the house of David" on the Mesha Stele, see here and here. The BAR article is behind the subscription wall. I have not seen the photographs and have no particular view on the question.

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Review of Kotzé, Images and Ideas of Debated Readings in the Book of Lamentations

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Images and Ideas of Debated Readings in the Book of Lamentations (Aron Tillema).

Gideon R. Kotzé. Images and Ideas of Debated Readings in the Book of Lamentations. Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen, 2020.

In Images and Ideas of Debated Readings in the Book of Lamentations, Gideon R. Kotzé hones in on several cases of disputed readings in the book of Lamentations where scholarship has not reached a consensus. In a number of places, the textual representatives appear strange to modern interpreters, so these “debated readings” are often emended with recourse to comparative philology, or according to the reader’s poetic sensibilities. Kotzé, however, asks readers to reconsider when and for what reason emendation is necessary. If the text comes from a cultural world far different than our own, then we ought to anchor those cases in the same world that produced them. ...

I noted the publication of the book here.

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Podcast on Babatha

JEWISH UNPACKED: Listen: Babatha: The Jewish mom of ancient times.

Yael: So, who is she? I’ve never heard of her.

Schwab: You have not heard of her. And she’s not very well-known. We’re gonna talk about Babatha and her story, but part of what’s really interesting is, she’s kind of thoroughly unremarkable in a lot of ways. In contrast to a lot of the characters we’ve talked about, Josephus, Sabbatai Zevi, Dona Gracia Nasi, Saul of Tarsus, Babatha did not have a huge impact on Jewish history. She’s not a major protagonist. She didn’t lead a movement. She didn’t have followers. And the truth is, we only talk about her and know about her because of what her documents tell us about history.

Yael: We’re actually getting a sense of what a regular person’s life was like.

I have not heard of Schwab and Yael before, but this podcast is meticulously researched and also entertaining.

Babatha left us a substantial archive of her personal papers during the Bar Kokhba revolt. For more on her and on the Cave of Letters, where her documents were found, see the links collected here

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On the cherubim

ANGELOLOGY: The Cherubim: From Guardians of Eden to Auschwitz (James A. Diamond , Marginalia).

Anxiety of Cherubim

I have been thinking for quite some time now about the significance of angels in the Jewish tradition to the extent that I devoted an entire chapter to them in a book on Jewish philosophical theology attempting to lend them some respectability. The problem that continues to vex is how to wrest meaning from creatures that are mythological figments of ancient cultures. They appear to be remnants of a pagan imagination and metaphysics, and yet they populate monotheistic Judaism’s canonical texts from the biblical, through the classical rabbinic, and the kabbalistic traditions. ...

For more on the cherubim, see here and links.

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Review of Caldwell, The Fifth Gospel

FOLLOW-UP NOVEL: Review: The Fifth Gospel ( Michael D. Langan, NBC-2).

Ian Caldwell’s second novel, “The Fifth Gospel”, a murder mystery set in the Vatican in 2004, took ten years to write. ...

“The Fifth” comes after Caldwell’s mega-hit, “The Rule of Four”, written with his boyhood friend, Dustin Thomason. Caldwell is a Princeton grad; Thomason a Harvard grad. “The Rule’s” plot concerned, among other things, senior college students at Princeton in 1999 trying to solve a mystery that appeared in a handsome book published in Venice in 1499.

Sounds like an amusing, if predictable, romp through conspiracy-theory-ville. There is an ancient Gospel hidden in the Vatican which maybe mentions the Shroud of Turin! The finder is murdered! Dark forces are at work! All the things!

The novel was published in 2015, so it isn't new. I either didn't hear about it then, or didn't get around to mentioning it. But I just ran across this reprinted review, so here it is.

I enjoyed The Rule of Four. I reviewed it briefly here. See also here.

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Review of The Language of Colour in the Bible

WILLIAM A. ROSS: THE LANGUAGE OF COLOUR IN THE BIBLE (A SHORT REVIEW).

Today I want to draw attention to a fascinating new book dealing with linguistic theory and biblical lexicography, two areas of research that are near and dear to my heart. This volume, entitled The Language of Colour in the Bible: Embodied Colour Terms Related to Green, was edited by a team of scholars that includes my friend and colleague in philology, Anna Angelini, who was kind enough to send me a copy.

[...]

I noted the publication of the book here.

For PaleoJudaica posts on language and ancient color perception, see here (cf. here) and links.

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Another Bar Kokhba-era coin recovered in a cave

NUMISMATICS: Archeologists Find Ancient Hebrew Coin Dated to Jewish Rebellion Against Rome: ‘Year Two of the Freedom of Israel’ (The Algemeiner).

An ancient Hebrew coin minted during a Jewish rebellion against Roman rule in Judea has been found during an excavation of caves by the Dead Sea, the Israel Antiquities Authority recently announced.

The bronze coin was discovered at the Nahal Darga Nature Reserve. It is dated to the second year of the Bar Kokhba revolt, a failed Jewish uprising against Roman rule in Judea that broke out in 132 CE, following Roman repression of Jewish practice. ...

A silver tetradrachm from the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt was also discovered recently in a cave in the nearby Nahal Teqoa.

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Review of Gods, spirits, and worship in the Greco-Roman world and early Christianity (ed. Evans & Wright)

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Gods, spirits, and worship in the Greco-Roman world and early Christianity.

Craig A. Evans, Adam Z. Wright, Gods, spirits, and worship in the Greco-Roman world and early Christianity. Jewish and Christian texts in contexts and related studies, 23. London; New York: T & T Clark, 2022. Pp. 280. ISBN 9780567703262

Review by
Fritz Naerebout, Leiden Universty (retired). frits@naerebout.com; f.g.naerebout@gmail.com

This volume contains twelve papers by twelve authors, including both editors, that claims to offer “innovative studies that focus on the ways Jews and Christians in late antiquity appropriated, interpreted, and presented afresh the sacred traditions of the past”. It looks like a somewhat haphazard collection, which might be because it is a Festschrift, a type of publication that usually features rather arbitrary compilations, dedicated to Hans Dieter Betz on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday. ...

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Crash Course in Greek Palaeography at Ghent University

THE ETC BLOG: Crash Course in Greek Palaeography (Peter M. Head).

Crash Course in Greek Palaeography

Ghent University, 22-23 May 2023

The Greek department of Ghent University offers a two-day course in Greek palaeography in collaboration with the Research School OIKOS. The course is intended for MA, ResMA and doctoral students in the areas of Classics, Ancient History, Ancient Civilizations and Medieval studies with a good command of Greek. It offers a chronological introduction into Greek palaeography from the Hellenistic period until the end of the Middle Ages and is specifically aimed at acquiring practical skills for research involving literary and documentary papyri and/or manuscripts. We will also provide the unique opportunity to read from original papyri in the papyrus collection of the Ghent University Library and become familiar with the ongoing research projects at Ghent University.

Follow the link for the full program and a link to the course page.

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An Amorite glossary from the time of Hammurapi?

PHILOLOGY: Two 3,800-year-old Cuneiform Tablets Found in Iraq Give First Glimpse of Hebrew Precursor. The ancient tablets, uncovered 30 years ago during the Gulf War and forgotten until now, offer a first glimpse of the Amorite language that Hebrew developed from (Ofer Aderet, Haaretz).

The text on the tablets resembles a language manual that is divided into two parts. On the first are words and phrases in the Amorite/Canaanite language – an extinct ancient language of which scholars hitherto had very little knowledge, and the second contains their translation into Akkadian, a known language that can be read and translated.

"Amorite" is a general term for the proto-Northwest Semitic dialects in the second millenium BCE which are ancestral to the Northwest Semitic languages: Ugaritic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Phoenician, Moabite, etc.

Up to now our knowledge of Amorite has come almost entirely from names of its speakers preserved in Akkadian and Egyptian transcription. Neither Egyptian hieroglyphics nor Akkadian cuneiform are well suite to transcribing the Amorite language, and names are a poor source for the current state of a language - they often reflect a more archaic form. So our knowledge of Amorite has been very imperfect.

This new discovery is a potential game changer. It still does not give us a connected narrative text. But it preserves a list of words, and even sentences, in a current spoken form of Amorite with Akkadian translations. That is a huge amount of new information.

All that said, I have two reservations.

First, although the tablets have been published in a peer-review journal, which is gold-standard good, I still want to see the reaction of other Assyriologists. Cuneiform texts are difficult. Those transcribing another language are very difficult indeed. Let's see some more publications and find out whether there is general agreement that the tablets contain an Amorite glossary.

Second, the tablets are unprovenanced. They were not scientifically excavated. They were "transferred" from Iraq during the Iraq war. Reportedly they sat around somewhere for more than thirty years until the editors noticed them. I don't have access to the journal article, but the Haaretz article gives no other information about the provenance trail.

I used to think that convincing forgery of cuneiform tablets was virtually impossible, but apparently it does happen. And the contents of these tablets are just the sort of thing a competent forger might have the incentive to produce.

In this case the tablets have been studied thoroughly by experts, so the chance of a forgery seems remote. But I want more information before I rule it out. Again, what is their provenance trail? Did anyone get a lot of money for them at some point? And, again, I want to see evaluations by other Assyriologists. I myself have some training in cuneiform, now very rusty, but I am not an Assyriologist and am not qualified to have an opinion of my own.

In sum, this announcement is probably very good and important news. But let's take our time and vet it thoroughly before we get too excited. Modus et ordo.

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Congratulations to Eva Mroczek!

CHANGES: Spatz Chair aims to unlock new opportunities in Jewish Studies (Dal News).

Dream jobs can be tough to come by, but Dr. Eva Mroczek feels like she’s finally found hers.

Dr. Mroczek has been named Dalhousie’s inaugural Simon and Riva Spatz Chair in Jewish Studies, an appointment that’ll see the seasoned Jewish Studies scholar trade the Californian coast for Nova Scotia.

“I’ve wanted to live in Halifax since I was a teenager, and I’ve hoped to return to Canada at some point in my life to help build Jewish Studies here,” says Ontario-born Dr. Mroczek, who’ll formally take up the post at Dal in July 2024. “It really is my dream job, and I can’t wait to see what we build together.”

Dr. Mroczek will deliver her first public lecture as chair, titled “The Myth of the Lost Torah,” at Dalhousie next Tuesday (January 24) at 7:00pm in the McInnes Room of the Dalhousie Student Union Building.

[...]

And congratulations to Dalhousie University as well.

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Microarchaeology collaboration by Israeli universities

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Israel’s Technion, U of Haifa announce game-changing microarchaeology collaboration. With excavators in need of cutting-edge science and advanced lab equipment to study finds on a molecular level, academics say the partnership will benefit both institutions (Melanie Lidman, Times of Israel).

For some modern-day archaeologists, shovels and picks are now ancient history. The tools leading to breakthrough discoveries today are microscopes, DNA sequencing and artificial intelligence, according to professors who launched a new joint initiative in archaeological sciences between the University of Haifa and Technion – Israel Institute of Technology on Wednesday. ...

There’s been an explosion of research using cutting-edge scientific methods. On Wednesday, archaeologists from the University of Haifa presented their research on DNA extraction of ancient grape seeds to identify their closest living relative; biochemical analysis of animal waste; AI and algorithms to identify flint and tooth marks on animal bones from 40,000 years ago; and chemical analysis to identify cannabis resin on an ancient altar. These research methods have allowed new insights into the daily life of people whose habitats have already undergone excavation by archaeologists for decades.

Everything is proceeding as I have have foreseen.

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