Catalogue of Biblical References in Incantation Bowls

Daniel James Waller (with contributions by Dorota Molin) has produced a very useful, open-access catalogue of biblical references in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowls. These resources are often not well understood and researched by biblical scholars and textual critics, even though they sometimes contain the oldest materially attested forms of biblical passages.

AIP Guidelines for Editing Papyri

For anyone who edits papyri, Jean-Luc Forget announced the useful AIP guidelines for editing papyri on the PAPY mailing list as follows:

Dear Papy-list members,

I am pleased to announce that the Guidelines for editing papyri are now online on the website of the Association Internationale de Papyrologues: https://aip.ulb.be//PDF/Guidelines_for_editing_papyri.pdf

This text was prepared at the request of the president of the AIP (after the Lecce Congress) by a working group headed by myselft and made up of the following people : Rodney Ast, Amin Benaissa, Willy Clarysse, Hélène Cuvigny, Alain Delattre, Nick Gonis, Jürgen Hammerstaedt, Federico Morelli, Paul Schubert, Joanne Stolk, Katelijn Vandorpe. It was presented to the AIP General Assembly at the end of the XXXth International Congress of Papyrology (July 30, 2022).

The purpose of these Guidelines is to propose precise norms for editing Greek/Latin, Demotic and Coptic papyri. It also proposes new rules for rendering certain data not taken into account by the Leiden system and for which a uniform treatment would facilitate systematic study.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of the working group and the colleagues who kindly gave their opinion and contributed to improve this text. 

We hope that these Guidelines will be useful.

Best wishes,

Jean-Luc Fournet

Meade on OT Canon

John Meade's lecture at Southeastern Seminary "The Old Testament Canon: Repertoires and Orders" is now available online. He discusses historical canon lists and how these should be understood in the Christian church.

Studies in the Masoretic Tradition of the Hebrew Bible

Check out the 2022 Open Access book Studies in the Masoretic Tradition of the Hebrew Bible with several interesting papers on the medieval Masoretic tradition.

Abstract

This volume brings together papers on topics relating to the transmission of the Hebrew Bible from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern period. We refer to this broadly in the title of the volume as the ‘Masoretic Tradition’. The papers are innovative studies of a range of aspects of this Masoretic tradition at various periods, many of them presenting hitherto unstudied primary sources. They focus on traditions of vocalisation signs and accent signs, traditions of oral reading, traditions of Masoretic notes, as well as Rabbinic and exegetical texts. The contributors include established scholars of the field and early-career researchers.

Contents

Using the Masora for Interpreting the Vocalisation and Accentuation of the 

• Elvira Martín-Contreras

The Masoretic Notes in RNL EVR II B 80+: An Initial Report

• Kim Phillips

The Marginal nun/zayin: Meaning, Purpose, Localisation

• Vincent D. Beiler

Tiberian ketiv-qere and the Combined Samaritan Written-Reading Tradition: Points of Contact and Contrast

• Aaron D. Hornkohl

A Further Analysis of the ‘Byzantine (Italian- Levantine) Triad’ of Features in Common Torah Codices

• Estara J. Arrant

Hebrew Vocalisation Signs in Karaite Transcriptions of the Hebrew Bible into Arabic Script

• Geoffrey Khan

Dissonance between Masoretic Vocalisation and Cantillation in Biblical Verse Division

 Yochanan Breuer

Why are there Two Systems of Tiberian Ṭeʿamim?

• Daniel J. Crowther

“Some Fanciful Midrash Explanation”: Derash on the Ṭeʿamim in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period

• Benjamin Williams

Does Saadya Refer to the Accents in his Introduction to the Pentateuch?

• Joseph Habib

Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae 2.0

 Version 2.0 of the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae is now available online.

The Origins of the Greek Alphabet

A. Sebastian Anderson has published an interesting review of Robert Parker, Philippa M. Steele, The early Greek alphabets: origin, diffusion, uses. Oxford Studies in Ancient Documents. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.

Moster on Hebrew Pronunciation Traditions

David Moster has posted an interesting video comparing and contrasting different Hebrew pronunciation traditions.

Autopsy

 If you ever wondered what it's like to look at manuscripts in person, check out my recent blog post for Logos' Word by Word blog.

Gordon Fee, RIP

Christianity Today pays fitting tribute on the recent passing of Gordon Fee, a man whose teachings, writings, and example have impacted so many. I never met him, but I have learned much from him.