Balshanut links to this exchange about the origins of the alphabet. Two scholars disagree whether it was invented by “illiterate Canaanite miners in the turquoise mines of Serabit el-Khadem in the Sinai peninsula” or “highly sophisticated Northwest Semites.” Also see this very good post on the origins of the alphabet by Christopher A. Rollston, who [...]
As those on the East Coast of the US are soon to see this year’s Tisha B’av exit, I thought that I would bring a text that accentuates the gap between the historical memory of ḥurban ha-bayit and what we know from the historical record. The text below is from Lee I.A. Levine, “Judaism from [...]
Dr. Thamar E. Gindin has posted Hebrew summaries of a series of lectures that she gave on the historicity of the Scroll of Esther. The summaries can be found here. Also see this post (Hebrew) on the burial places of Esther and Mordechai by Orli Rahimian.
As a follow-up to this post on a recently discovered Hebrew epigraphical text and the problems of its interpretation, one of the more famous examples of interpreting epigraphical texts through potentially Biblically-biased eyes comes to mind. For some years people felt that an Ugaritic text describing the cooking of a kid in its mother’s milk [...]
(photo courtesy of the University of Haifa) Never a dull moment for the history of the Hebrew language. A breakthrough in the research of the Hebrew scriptures has shed new light on the period in which the Bible was written. Prof. Gershon Galil of the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa has [...]
Last year I bought Israel Knohl’s new book מאין באנו (“From Where did we Come?) which addresses the origins of the Israelites. I have just gotten around to reading it now and I wanted to post about Knohl’s main theses. He claims that the origins of the Israelites can be found in three distinct groups: [...]
INN is reporting that archaeologists have discovered a synagogue dating from the late second temple period in Migdal/Magdala, north of Tiberias. See this press release and these posts. Below are some pictures from the Antiquities Authority. The article quotes Dina Avshalom-Gorni saying that this is the first time that a menorah decoration has been found [...]
It seems that another burial cave of a rabbi was discovered in Tzippori. (hat tip) See here for a previous post on epigraphical rabbis. Apparently this inscription is in Aramaic and says “This is the burial[place-MM] of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi ha-Kappar.” That he inscription says “Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi ha-Kappar” leads some to think [...]
It seems that this summer has been rich with many important archaeological finds in Israel and the latest one is a Roman mansion found in the City of David. Dr. Doron Ben-Ami, the excavation’s director said that “[the] building most likely met its end during a massive earthquake that shook Jerusalem in 363 CE.” In [...]
Not that anyone should think that I have some fixation about urination, but my previous post on “Urinating Rabbis” is still buzzing around my head. Being that no one took up the challenge of commenting on the text that I brought from the Talmud, I had to find something to say in addition to what [...]
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