Intact Inkwell from Khirbet Brakhot

 An intact inkwell has been discovered in Khirbet Brakhot.

David Marcus on the Masorah in BHQ

David Marcus has a helpful discussion on the Masorah and its treatment in the BHQ series on Ancient Jew Review, including many examples and help in interpreting the notes.

Albert Baumgarten on the puncta extraordinaria in Deut 29:28

Albert Baumgarten proposes an interesting theory that the puncta extraordinaria in Deut 29:28 were added to mark these words for deletion by scribes concerned with the possible partisan use of these words to claim esoteric revelation.

Shaus et al. on the Writer Identification at Arad

The Tel Aviv team has produced another interesting article on writer identification in the Arad ostraca, this time comparing an analysis by a forensic document examiner with two computer algorithms. The forensic analyst concludes that the 18 samples were written by at least 12 different writers, which implies a proportionally large number of writers at the fort of Arad. The two computer algorithms are more conservative in concluding multiple writers, but provide some additional quantitative support for the FDE's conclusions.

Shaus A, Gerber Y, Faigenbaum-Golovin S, Sober B, Piasetzky E, Finkelstein I (2020) Forensic document examination and algorithmic handwriting analysis of Judahite biblical period inscriptions reveal significant literacy level. PLoS ONE 15(9): e0237962. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237962 

IntCal20 Radiocarbon Calibration Curve

According to Science Daily, the new IntCal20 calibration curve for radiocarbon dating is now complete and will be published in Radiocarbon. I checked the OxCal website, and the new curve is already available.

HT Agade

New York University Conference Recordings

The video recordings of the New York University public conference "Dead Sea Scrolls in Recent Scholarship" (May 17-20, 2020) are now online here. Among many other interesting lectures, see especially the Groningen paleography lecture:

The Hands that Wrote the Bible. Digital Palaeography of the Dead Sea Scrolls for Identifying and Dating Manuscripts - Mladen Popović and Maruf Dhali, University of Groningen

Noonan on Non-Semitic Loanwords

Benjamin Noonan provides an interesting overview article based on his book on non-Semitic loanwords in the Hebrew Bible. He suggests that Egyptian loanwords predominate in the earlier texts of the Hebrew Bible, while later texts have much more influence from Greek and Old Iranian.