Was Abimelech Pyrrhus, Jephtha's daughter Iphigenia, and Samson Heracles?

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

272 BCE – A Terminus a Quo

272 BCE is the first an until now only indisputable terminus a quo for the emergence of Old Testament literature. In 272 the Greek general Pyrrhus was killed during a street battle in the city of Argos, when a woman threw a tile from the roof of a house and hid Pyrrhus immobilizing him. Pyrrhus was eliminated by a bystander. Pyrrhus’ fate was undoubtedly the inspiration for the story in Judg 9, followed by the sacrifice of Jiphta’s daughter, so often likened to the fate of Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigenia, and the story of Samson, very easily identified as Heracles.

Chapter from If I Forget You, Jerusalem! Studies on the Old Testament (Equinox Publishing (May 15, 2024).

By Niels Lemche
University of Copenhagen April 2024

Nope, not buying it.

The three comparisons are very weak. They wrest stories from the Book of Judges and from widely varied places in Classical literature from their contexts, identify them on the basis of a few parallels, and claim that the argument constitutes a convincing cumulative case.

In context, the stories are very different. Abimelech is finished off with a spear by one of his own men at his own request whereas Pyrrhus is beheaded by an enemy. Prof. Lemche acknowledges the weakness of the comparison of Jephthah's daughter to Iphigenia, but still advances it as part of his argument. We can add that in the best-known version of the story, by Euripides, Iphigenia isn't even sacrificed. Unlike Samson, Heracles was deified through his own self-immolation. I could go on and on, but this illustrates my point.

Multiplying weak arguments does not add up to a cumulatively strong one.

I don't have a firm opinion about the composition date of the Book of Judges. The Hebrew looks more like epigraphic Iron Age II Hebrew than Qumran Hebrew, but it is somewhat different from both. And we don't have much in between. Judges seems to remember some old information (although cf. here), but that doesn't establish its date of composition. Neither does the argument advanced in this essay.

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Upcoming Mel Gibson movies?

TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS IN THE NEWS:

‘Resurrection’ to be release in April 2025. The sequel of The Passion of the Christ will premier on Good Friday 2025. It brings back actors from the original cast, including Jim Caviezel as Jesus (Evangelical Focus).

Mel Gibson to film story of Judah Maccabee (Jewish Chronicle)

It sounds as though the Resurrection film is actually happening. Background here and links.

There has been talk for a long time about a Gibson movie on the Maccabean Revolt. This latest announcement is more talk. The script is not even written yet. The first script was rejected by Warner Bros in 2012. We'll see if anything comes of this round of talk. Background here and links.

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Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (SBL Press)

NEW BOOK FROM SBL PRESS:

Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions: Methodological Encounters and Debates

Martti Nissinen, Jutta Jokiranta, editors

ISBN 9781628375718
Volume RBS 106
Status Available
Publication Date April 2024

Paperback $93.00
eBook $93.00
Hardback $113.00

This volume presents the work of the international, interdisciplinary research project Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (CSTT), whose members focused on cultural, ideological, and material changes in the period when the sacred traditions of the Hebrew Bible were created, transmitted, and transformed. Specialists in the textual study of the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, archaeology, Assyriology, and history, working across their fields of expertise, trace how changes occurred in biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts and traditions. Contributors Tero Alstola, Anneli Aejmelaeus , Rick Bonnie, Francis Borchardt, George J. Brooke, Cynthia Edenburg, Sebastian Fink, Izaak J. deHulster , Patrik Jansson, Jutta Jokiranta, Tuukka Kauhanen, Gina Konstantopoulos, Lauri Laine, Michael C. Legaspi, Christoph Levin, Ville Mäkipelto, Reinhard Müller, Martti Nissinen, Jessi Orpana, Juha Pakkala, Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Christian Seppänen, Jason M. Silverman, Saana Svärd, Timo Tekoniemi, Hanna Tervanotko, Joanna Töyräänvuori, and Miika Tucker demonstrate that rigorous yet respectful debate results in a nuanced and complex understanding of how ancient texts developed.

The project ran a blog to which I linked occasionally. But it appears to have been taken down.

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Hinojosa, Serek ha-Yaḥad (1QS) in Dialogue with Mimetic Theory (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Serek ha-Yaḥad (1QS) in Dialogue with Mimetic Theory

Scapegoat Mechanisms Unveiled

Series:
Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah, Volume: 146

Author: Kamilla Skarström Hinojosa

What holds a society together, what makes it dissolve, and how is a society in crisis restored? These are the questions explored in this study, which brings the Serek ha-Yahad (IQS) into dialogue with mimetic theory. It thus aims to shed light on the forms of life and thought in the yahad, as well as on their underlying reason and purpose. From the analysis emerges an image of a community that not only has a strong awareness of the mechanisms of violence, but also of its cure. Its hierarchical organization and strict regulations are motivated by a perceived dissolution of contemporary society. By subordinating personal desire to community discipline and by establishing a system of differentiation, the yahad seeks to provide a model of how a society ought to be functioning.

Copyright Year: 2024

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-68732-5
Publication: 12 Feb 2024
EUR €124.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-68643-4
Publication: 21 Dec 2023
EUR €124.00

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Was Susya an ancient Jewish-Christian town?

ARCHAEOLOGY: Could Susya be a 1600-year-old Messianic Jewish city? Some argue it was inhabited by early Christians who maintained Jewish identity (Aaron Goel-Angot, AllIsraelNews).

I'm not sure who the "some" are who argue for this. I've not heard it before. The article doesn't cite any scholarly literature. If there is any, I would like to see it.

The YouTube tourist video is informative, if a bit cheesy, but it doesn't give references.

The format of the Yeshua inscription makes it more likely that it is a dedicatory inscription than a reference to Jesus. The terms "comforter" (1 John 2:1; cf John 14:16 by implication: "another comforter") and "witness" (Revelation 1:5) are used rarely for Jesus in the New Testament, but they are used.

I am not qualified to comment on the architectual and iconographic evidence.

In short, this is an interesting idea, but I want to see more evaluation of the evidence by specialists.

For PaleoJudaica posts on the site of Susya, see here and links and the fourth article listed here.

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Passover priestly blessing at Western Wall 2024

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH, FOR PASSOVER: Thousands of Jewish worshippers attend priestly blessing ceremony at Jerusalem’s Western Wall (CHARLIE SUMMERS, Times of Israel).

I haven't noted this event for a while, but for past posts, see here and links, plus here.

For many posts on the priestly benediction (Numbers 6:24-26), see here and links and here and links.

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Passover Plague Philology Poetry

SOME PASSOVER AMUSEMENT: The First Alphabet and the Third Plague (Gershon Hepner, Jewish Journal).

For more on that Canaanite lice comb, see here and here. Cross-file under Northwest Semitic Epigraphy

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Hezser, The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity

NEW BOOK FROM ROUTLEDGE:

The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity

Edited By Catherine Hezser

Copyright 2024
Hardback £205.00
eBook £38.69
ISBN 9781138241220
568 Pages 36 B/W Illustrations
Published January 24, 2024 by Routledge

Description

This volume focuses on the major issues and debates in the study of Jews and Judaism in late antiquity (third to seventh century C.E.), providing cutting-edge surveys of the state of scholarship, main topics and research questions, methodological approaches, and avenues for future research.

Based on both Jewish and non-Jewish literary and material sources, this volume takes an interdisciplinary approach involving historians of ancient Judaism, scholars of rabbinic literature, archaeologists, epigraphers, art historians, and Byzantinists. Developments within Jewish society and culture are viewed within the respective regional, political, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts in which they took place. Special focus is given to the impact of the Christianization of the Roman Empire on Jews, from administrative, legal, social, and cultural points of view. The contributors examine how the confrontation with Christianity changed Jewish practices, perceptions, and organizational structures, such as, for example, the emergence of local Jewish communities around synagogues as central religious spaces. Special chapters are devoted to the eastern and western Jewish Diaspora in Late Antiquity, especially Sasanian Persia but also Roman Italy, Egypt, Syria and Arabia, North Africa, and Asia Minor, to provide a comprehensive assessment of the situation and life experiences of Jews and Judaism during this period.

The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity is a critical and methodologically sophisticated survey of current scholarship aimed primarily at students and scholars of Jewish Studies, Study of Religions, Patristics, Classics, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Iranology, History of Art, and Archaeology. It is a valuable resource for anyone interested in Judaism and Jewish history.

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Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Galilean Spaces of Identity

Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee

Series:
Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism, Volume: 214

Author: Joseph Scales

We understand the world around us in terms of built spaces. Such spaces are shaped by human activity, and in turn, affect how people live. Through an analysis of archaeological and textual evidence from the beginnings of Hasmonean influence in Galilee, until the outbreak of the First Jewish War against Rome, this book explores how Judaism was socially expressed: bodily, communally, and regionally. Within each expression, certain aspects of Jewish identity operate, these being purity conceptions, communal gatherings, and Galilee's relationship with the Hasmoneans, Jerusalem, and the Temple in its final days.

Copyright Year: 2024

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-69255-8
Publication: 12 Feb 2024
EUR €140.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-69254-1
Publication: 15 Feb 2024
EUR €140.00

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Magness, Ancient Synagogues in Palestine (OUP)

NEW BOOK FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Ancient Synagogues in Palestine

A Re-evaluation Nearly a Century After Sukenik's Schweich Lectures

Jodi Magness

British Academy

Schweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology

£76.00
Hardback
Published: 07 March 2024
128 Pages | 25 b/w images, 1 colour image, 1 table
234x156mm
ISBN: 9780197267653

Description

Dozens of ancient synagogues have been discovered around the Mediterranean, most of which date to the fourth-sixth centuries CE and are concentrated in Palestine. In the 1930 Schweich Lectures, Eleazar Lipa Sukenik established a typology and chronology for these buildings. Ancient Synagogues in Palestine evaluates Sukenik's conclusions in light of new discoveries since his time. It opens with an overview of ancient synagogues in the region, followed by a survey of the historiography of the study of these buildings, highlighting its ideological roots in the early Zionist movement. In the final chapters, Magness examines the evidence for the dating of the synagogues at Khirbet Wadi Hamam and Capernaum, arguing that different synagogue types overlapped and were contemporary to the fourth-sixth centuries CE instead of being sequential, as Sukenik thought. This conclusion contradicts a widely accepted view that late antique Jewish communities in Palestine suffered and declined under supposedly oppressive Christian rule.

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Chaos dragon stamp seal excavated at Hazor

ICONOGRAPHY: 2,800-year-old serpent artifact is a ‘missing link’ to Hercules mythology, study says (BRENDAN RASCIUS, Miami Herald/AOL).

The object — a 2,800-year-old seal — provides a “missing link” in the evolution of a popular motif that appears in the Bible and Greek mythology, according to a study published in the journal of Near Eastern Archaeology.

The theme of the battle of a god with a seven-headed dragon appears in Mesopotamian literature, Ugaritic, the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Revelation, and (not mentioned in either article) Syriac Odes of Solomon 22.

The underlying article in Near Eastern Archaeology 87.1 (2024) is online, but behind a subscription wall.

Mastering the Seven-Headed Serpent: A Stamp Seal from Hazor Provides a Missing Link between Cuneiform and Biblical Mythology (Christoph Uehlinger, pp. 14–19)

Abstract

The Stamp Seals from the Southern Levant (SSSL) project is based on a comprehensive corpus, big data, and complex historical scenarios. Sometimes, though, an individual artifact stands out as a highlight in its own right. Such is the case with a stamp seal discovered recently at Tel Hazor. It is unusual in several respects, but mainly because of its spectacular base engraving. The main scene represents a hero fighting a coiled, seven-headed serpent; it is enhanced by a series of mixed creatures and secondary motifs. This article offers a description and analysis of the object, situating its iconography in the long history of combat myths spanning from mid-third-millennium southern Mesopotamia through second-millennium northern Syria to first-millennium Phoenicia and Israel. Most significant for a historian of Near Eastern mythology, the seal provides a visual missing link in the main motif’s literary transition from Late Bronze Age Ugarit to the Hebrew Bible.

For lots more on the archaeology of the site of Hazor in northern Israel, start here and follow the links.

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An inscription of Thekla the deaconess near Hippos Sussita

ARAMAIC WATCH: A CHRISTIAN PALESTINIAN ARAMAIC INSCRIPTION FROM THE TERRITORY OF SUSSIT A-ANTIOCHIA HIPPOS (March 2024 ARAM Periodical 34(1&2):139-152, Authors: Estee Dvorjetski, CHRISTA MULLER-KESSLER, Michael Eisenberg, Adam Pažout,Mechael Osband). The full text of this article is available for free on Research Gate.

Abstract:

Excavations were conducted in February-April and November 2019 at the site of 'Uyun Umm el-' Azam West, ea. 3.8 km south of Sussita-Antiochia Hippos, in the southern Golan Heights and overlooking the Sea of Galilee. These excavations were undertaken on behalf of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, in the context of the Hippos Regional Project, which focuses on the study of rural sites and fortifications in the territory of Antiochia Hippos from the Hellenistic through to the Byzantine period.' Several building phases in the complex were uncovered. They included a tower, inner courtyard, and a room. The mixed Early Roman material found in the foundations of the tower might suggest an earlier date for its construction, with the tower completely rebuilt in the Byzantine period. The room known as 'The Mosaic Room' was divided, probably by a partition wall, as indicated by the gap in the mosaic running across the room. A set of rooms was built on the eastern side of the inner courtyard and against the tower including a large oven.

This paper focuses on the Christian Palestinian Aramaic mosaic inscription from 'Uyun Umm el-'Azam West dedicated by a deaconess Thekla, its parallels, and its contribution to a better understanding of the ethnic and religious diversity in the Hippos territorium in the southern Levant and its environmental interactions.

The sixth/seventh century deaconess Thekla (Thecla) has the same name as the protagonist in the Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the archaeological discoveries at the nearby site of Hippos-Sussita, see here and links.

Cross file under Decorative Art.

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Anqa, a twin city to Dura-Europos?

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: Archaeological gem Dura-Europos found to be mirror image of Iraq's Anqa. Strategically located Dura-Europos was a ‘forgotten city’ in Syria and neglected by archaeologists who finally identified Iraq’s Anqa as its near-mirror image (Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, Jerusalem Post).

The site sounds worthy of further exploration and scientific excavation. But that may be difficult in the current political climate.

The underlying article, by Simon James in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies 83.1 (2024), is online, but behind a subscription wall: The Ancient City of Giddan/Eddana (Anqa, Iraq), the “Forgotten Twin” of Dura-Europos.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on Dura-Europos, see here and links, here and links, plus here and here.

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Interview with Conway on The New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: AJR Conversations I The New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction (Colleen Conway and David Maldonado Rívera).

Below is an exchange between Colleen Conway and David Maldonado Rívera on Conway’s book, The New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2023).

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