Proverbs and Amenemope

Bernd Schipper has posted a fascinating article on Proverbs' use of the Wisdom of Amenemope, arguing that the author was familiar with the Egyptian practice of studying wisdom texts over extended periods of time and focusing on the incipit verses of chapters. According to Schipper, Proverbs primarily uses these incipit verses and frames them with terms of chronological sequence that fit an Egyptian scribal context.

Tov on the Original Text of the Torah

Emanuel Tov has published a nice piece on what we can know about the archetype and/or original text of the Torah from the manuscript witnesses.

Quranic Textual Scholarship

There is a fascinating recent interview with Hythem Sidky on the current state of textual scholarship on the Quran that might be of interest both for its historical significance and methodological parallels with discussions in biblical textual criticism. Sidky argues that there were multiple reading traditions in interaction with a controlling written textual tradition from earliest times. Prior to the Uthmanic standardization of the tradition, we have little manuscript insight into what might have happened, though the undertext of the Sanaa palimpsest sheds some light on alternative versions of Mohammed's companions, which includes different sequences of Surahs and a higher degree of variation (though still restrained and relatively mundane) than in the later manuscripts. The discussion of the interrelationship between oral and written are particularly interesting for biblical scholarship.

Cook, The Targum of Psalms

Edward Cook has revised his 2001 translation of the Psalms Targum.

Aramaic Literature from Egypt and the Levant

Tawny Holm has published a useful anthology of Aramaic literature with English translations. She has done a lot of work recently on P. Amherst 63, an Aramaic psalm collection in Demotic script, so I'm sure she will have lots of helpful observations.