New Book, Article, and Conference Report

It is worth pointing out a few books and articles that have come out recently that may be of relevance to readers of this blog.




Wolfgang Kraus, Michael N. Van Der Meer, and Martin Meiser (eds.), XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies: Munich, 2013 (SBL Press, 2016).

ISBN	9781628371383
Status	Available
Price:	$99.95
Binding	Paperback
Publication Date	September 2016
Pages	780

Essays from experts in the field of Septuagint studies
The study of Septuagint offers essential insights in ancient Judaism and its efforts to formulate Jewish identity within a non-Jewish surrounding culture. This book includes the papers given at the XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS), held in Munich, Germany, in 2013. The first part of this book deals with questions of textual criticism. The second part is dedicated to philology. The third part underlines the increasing importance of Torah in Jewish self-definition.
Features:

• Essays dealing with questions of textual criticism, mostly concerning the historical books and wisdom literature and ancient editions and translations
• Philological essays covering the historical background, studies on translation technique and lexical studies underline the necessity of both exploring general perspectives and working in detail

Wolfgang Kraus is Professor of New Testament at the University of Saarland, Protestant Theology. He is the author of Zwischen Jerusalem und Antiochia. Die ,Hellenisten', Paulus und die Aufnahme der Heiden in das endzeitliche Gottesvolk (Katholisches Bibelwerk) and Das Volk Gottes. Zur Grundlegung der Ekklesiologie bei Paulus (Mohr Siebeck).
Michaël N. van der Meer is an independent scholar Biblical Studies and teacher of Religious Education at Hermann Wesselink College, Amstelveen. He is the author of Formation and Reformulation: The Redaction of the Book of Joshua in the Light of the Oldest Textual Witnesses (Brill).
Martin Meiser is Assistant Professor of New Testament at the University of Saarland, Protestant Theology. He is the author of Galater (Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht) and Judas Iskariot. Einer von uns (Evangelische Verlagsanstalt).


Eran Viezel, "Medieval Bible Commentators on the Question of the Composition of the Bible: Research and Methodological Aspects," Tarbiz 84, nos. 1-2.


Roberta Mazza's "Fragments of an Unbelievable Past? Constructions of Provenance, Narratives of Forgery. A Report."


In light of recent discussion about the SBL policy on publishing unprovenanced artifacts, Roberta Mazza's report on the conference "Fragments of an Unbelievable Past? Constructions of Provnance, Narratives of Forgery" from 14-16 September 2016 at the University of Agder is highly pertinent. For those who do not know her work, Roberta is a prominent voice from the side that argues that we should not publish unprovenanced materials, and her vocal contribution to the debate would be hard to underestimate. The conference on forgeries and questions of provenance is particularly appropriate in today's climate, where numerous ancient biblical and Bible-related manuscripts have come up with questionable provenance and/or authenticity, and it sounds like a very interesting and successful conference. One caveat... I don't personally know Nina Burleigh, and I did not hear her paper at the conference, but the article linked to in the report The Messiah Cometh was decidedly one-sided and unnuanced, a big disappointment in comparison to Ariel Sabar's outstanding work "The Unvelievable Tale of Jesus's Wife."


HT Agade, John Meade