Ancient Hebrew Poetry

The Slaughter of the Innocents at Mumbai

We are all Chabadniks now, says Ron Coleman. The missionary-minded Chabad movement rubs many people the wrong way, people who long for a world in which there are no missionaries, a world in there is nothing to live or die for, and no religion, too. But I was raised on the slogan that you are a missionary in life, or you are nothing at all. Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg ran the Chabad center in Mumbai, a synagogue and community house, one of about 3,500 such outposts around the world established by Lubavitcher Hasidim. Without a doubt, the terrorists went out of their way to target the center and kill the rabbi and his wife out of hatred of Jews. For details, go here.

The question to pose to the perpetrators, sympathizers, and excusers of such a crime is the same question God is reported to pose in Bereishit (Gen 4:9):

Kuttamuwa Inscription Lines 6-13: Image, Text and Translation

As I noted in my previous post, an 8^th cent bce inscription from Zincirli has been uncovered in situ and is now a hot topic of discussion among scholars (for details on Zincirli, go here). Here is a high-resolution image (HT Chip Hardy). Click again to enlarge. Jim Getz provides a copy of Dennis Pardee’s transcription based on the latter’s SBL presentation.

Below the fold, I provide the text of the entire inscription in transliteration and in sense-unit by sense-unit format. I also include a translation of all thirteen lines. Note that d and r are virtually indistinguishable in the script; I transliterate with one rather than the other based on lexical and semantic, not paleographical considerations. The transliteration is best viewed after the font Gentium Alt is installed on your computer; it can also be converted to other fonts like Charis SIL.

2 Maccabees 12:39-45: A Catholic and Evangelical Response to Doug Chaplin’s Apparent Indifference to Solus Christus

Biblical blogdom has become snory (unless you hang out at compegalitarian, in which case, things have gotten so hot and heavy that Wayne Leman has shut down comments and hidden previous ones for the second time in less than a month). Time to get the juices flowing.

The End of the Low Chronology: Khirbet Qeiyafa Update

Student archaeologist Owen Chesnut summarizes Garfinkel’s ASOR presentation in Boston and the Q & A period following. Go here and here. Thank you, Owen! Tom Levey rightly remarks that we need more than four C-14 dates before it is known for sure that Iron IIA began around the beginning of the 10th century, such that the low chronology is definitively proven wrong. It has to be admitted however that Finkelstein’s low chronology (and Sharon's ultra-low chronology) looks increasingly improbable.

In The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, Yossi Garfinkel and Saar Ganor’s full argument for Khirbet Qeiyafa=Sha‛arayim [consistently misspelled in the JHS article] is now available: go here.

Based on findings published therein, it is also increasingly improbable that Khirbet Qeiyafa was a Philistine site. Here is a key graph:

Kuttamuwa Inscription Lines 1-5: Image, Text and Translation

What fun! A new 8^th cent bce inscription from the fantastic site of Zincirli (for details, go here). Here is a high-resolution image (HT Chip Hardy). Click on the image again to enlarge it. Jim Getz provides a copy of Dennis Pardee’s transcription based on the latter’s SBL presentation.

Alas, Jim does not provide a translation. After all, he implies, he blogs for those who will be able to translate it on their own. But Jim: that is no way to keep your stats high. Caution is the true explanation for his non-translation. Ed Cook, Duane Smith, and everyone else also choose caution and deference to Pardee over a translation attempt of their own. However, if I were Pardee, I would welcome alternative translation attempts.

Below, I throw caution to the wind, provide the text in transliteration and in sense-unit by sense-unit format. I also translate the first five lines. Note that d and r are virtually indistinguishable in the script; I transliterate with one rather than the other based on lexical and semantic, not paleographical considerations. The transliteration is best viewed after the font Gentium Alt is installed on your computer; it can also be converted to other fonts like Charis SIL.

Book Bags at Boston

I love books, so a huge highlight of the national SBL meetings is the book exhibition. I was disappointed that some publishers were absent. Equinox did not have a stall; if they did, they would have sold plenty of copies of Avraham Faust’s Ethnogenesis. I also miss not being able to look through some of the great offerings in biblical and cognate studies of the falsely so-called minor university presses. I wish they would band together and show their most precious biblical wares at the annual bazaar.

Barack Obama the Smooth Operator

Is it good or bad to be a smooth operator? According to the Hebrew Bible, it is an excellent thing if one is a smooth operator for the right reasons, but a clear and present danger if one is so for the wrong reasons.

A smooth operator in Hebrew is termed ערום , translated in two rather different ways in most translations – ‘crafty, cunning’ or ‘sensible, prudent’ - depending on whether the trait in question is possessed by a bad or good person, respectively.

The smooth operator par excellence in the Bible is the serpent in Gen 3:1. In Proverbs, however, the same adjective is used positively, of circumspect individuals. Let me count the ways in which Barack Obama might be judged a smooth operator according to the book of Proverbs:

Bible Bloggers Get Together at SBL-Boston

Here I am near Boston, a guest of Biblical blogger Calvin Park who, along with his wife Mandy, are students at Gordon-Conwell in Wenham MA. Calvin and I enjoy talking shop so much we skip meals without hardly noticing. This morning we are heading out to take in some ASOR meetings, the Harvard Semitic Museum, and the book displays assuming they are already set up at the Hynes Convention Center on Boylston Street.

If a get together for bloggers has already been organized by someone, Calvin and I missed it. Michael Halcomb at Pisteoumen talked about Sunday evening in a post, which suits Calvin, Mandy, and I just fine. So please, meet up with us at the main entrance leading to the book displays on Sunday Nov 23, at 7:00 pm. From there we'll go to one of the many excellent eateries in the vicinity, make jokes about Jim West, and talk about all things biblical and bloggable. Hope to see you there.

Khirbet Qeiyafa = Shaaraim

That is the identification Garfinkel will present at an ASOR session in Boston on Thursday. The evidence is suggestive. Go here. (HT: Jim Davila). Go here for more interesting details.

If correct, the identification accomplishes three things:

Garfinkel to Positively Identify Khirbet Qeiyafa at ASOR in Boston

That’s the word. Go here for a discussion of the site’s identification based on information available to all. Yossi, of course, will be drawing from unpublished finds in his ASOR presentation. You will want to arrive early at the presentation should you want to hear it sitting down.

UPDATE: Yossi informs me that a JHS article positively identifying the site, based no more on "speculation," but actual "finds," will appear very soon, perhaps within the week. Stay tuned.