ERC Advanced Grants

I just learned of two new ERC Advanced Grants that are relevant here:

Mladen Popović (University of Groningen), "Tracing Scribes and Scrolls." This project aims to use analytical chemistry, artificial intelligence, and palaeography to determine where the Dead Sea Scrolls were produced.

Hugh Houghton (University of Birmingham), "Exegetical Manuscripts and the Greek New Testament." This project aims to study a number of commentaries on the New Testament as new evidence for the text of the Bible.

Congratulations both Mladen and Hugh for these well-earned awards, and good luck on accomplishing these challenging aims!

Vesuvius Challenge Results

In the news recently, scholars have succeeded in virtually unrolling and reading 20 columns of a scroll from Herculaneum. This technology has been developing rapidly over the past few years, and this is the biggest success to date.

AJR on Working with Manuscripts

Ancient Jew Review has a two-part review series on Liv Ingeborg Lied and Brent Nongbri's new book on Working with Manuscripts. I haven't read it yet, but it sounds like exactly the kind of practical advice I would have liked to have had when I first started working with manuscripts. If you're interested in learning more about working with actual manuscripts, check it out!

Jeremy Smoak on the Ketef Hinnom Silver Amulets

Jeremy Smoak writes for theTorah.com an interesting article on the apotropaic (protective magic) background of the silver amulets from Ketef Hinnom that preserve a version of the priestly blessing with slight differences from Numbers 6.

Marc Michaels on Reconstructing the "Serifed Scroll"

Marc Michaels has produced an interesting Genizah Fragments article on the reconstruction of the famed "serifed scroll," which is likely the oldest Torah scroll in the Genizah collection. Several fragments of this scroll have been preserved, giving us a good opportunity to work on reconstructing the scroll. Marc, a skilled scribe and graphic designer, has done a beautiful job creating a font to imitate the distinctive handwriting of the scroll and reconstruct the missing pieces. While I have often pushed back on the scientific accuracy of these kinds of reconstructions (they sometimes can generate higher subjective levels of confidence that are really warranted), I do find them to be illustrative, probative, and aesthetically pleasing. Congratulations to Marc on the nice article!

WebApp for Estimating Scroll Dimensions

David Carr has produced a free web app for estimating the dimensions of scrolls. It allows you to fetch biblical texts and strip them to the consonantal bare bones for help with calculations. By inputting measured data for the text density, you can then estimate scroll length and surface area. I have played around with it a bit, and it looks like it will be a rather useful tool. His methods of measurement and calculation are slightly different from how I have done it in the past, but in principle should yield pretty much the same results when accounting for measurement error.

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.