The "Biblical Criticism and the Dead Sea Scrolls" conference series convened by John Screnock at the University of Oxford has begun posting recorded sessions online. These are some great presentations by leading scholars, so I highly recommend taking a look at them if you have the time.
Friday, April 9, 2021
Digital Palaeography and Hebrew/Aramaic Scribal Culture
Thanks to everyone who helped make the 2021 International Groningen Symposium "Digital Palaeography and Hebrew/Aramaic Scribal Culture" a smashing success! It was full of exciting papers and vibrant discussion between computer scientists and paleographers, which I hope will be a starting point for many future collaborations and discussions.
For those who were not able to attend, I wanted to let you know that the sessions were recorded and will be made available online in the near future.
______________________________
UPDATE 21 April 2021
You can find the program and direct links on the conference web page.
The videos are hosted on the University of Groningen YouTube channel on a dedicated playlist.
Thursday, April 1, 2021
Comparative Hellenistic and Roman Manuscript Studies (CHRoMS)
I just got word today that my Comparative Hellenistic and Roman Manuscript Studies (CHRoMS) article has now been published online:
Thanks again to all who contributed, and especially Eugenia Sokolinski for all her help getting it ready and online.
The article stems from several observations of parallels between different scripts in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, which I then developed in greater detail. This is my attempt to explain many of the most prominent stylistic developments in the Hebrew/Aramaic scripts, whose causes have to my mind never been sufficiently elucidated. I hope to build this into a larger comparative manuscript studies project.
Comparative Hellenistic and Roman Manuscript Studies (CHRoMS): Script Interactions and Hebrew/Aramaic Writing Culture
Longacre, Drew
Writing is an expression of culture and is subject to intercultural influences. In this comparative study, I argue that Egyptian and Judean Hebrew/Aramaic scripts from 400 BCE–400 CE were heavily influenced by Greek and later Latin writing cultures, which explains many previously inexplicable phenomena. Jewish writers in the third century BCE adopted the Greek split-nibbed reed pen, which dramatically changed the appearance of Hebrew/Aramaic scripts. At the same time, the normal size for Hebrew/ Aramaic scripts shrank considerably, the pen strokes became mostly monotone and unshaded, and the scripts became more rectilinear, angular, bilinear, and square.
Each of these features appears to be due to direct imitation of contemporary Greek formal writing. Beginning in the first century BCE, Hebrew/Aramaic writers began to decorate their formal scripts with separate ornamental strokes like those of contemporary Greek and Latin calligraphic scripts. And from the second or third century CE, Hebrew/Aramaic calligraphic scripts seem to be increasingly characterized by horizontal shading, parallel to the contemporary rise of Greek and Latin shaded scripts. Furthermore, in the late Roman period, the traditional Hieratic-derived Aramaic numeral system was replaced by an alphabetic numeral system under the influence of the Greek Milesian alphabetic numerals.
Tuesday, March 30, 2021
2500-year-old Torah from Turkey... Again...
So, apparently they found another 2500-year-old Torah in Turkey... :) Is it too much to ask our Turkish fraudster friends at least to copy-paste a real Torah text from the internet!?!? Surely that's not asking too much?
HT Jack Sasson
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Digital Palaeography and Hebrew/Aramaic Scribal Culture Conference Program and Registration
Digital Palaeography and Hebrew/Aramaic Scribal Culture
The 2021 International Online Groningen Symposium
6–8 April 2021
13:00–20:00 Central European Summer Time (UTC+2)
Hosted by the
Qumran Institute (University of Groningen)
Bernoulli Institute (University of Groningen)
To register, please email Drew Longacre at d.g.longacre@rug.nl.
A Zoom invitation will be sent to presenters and registered attendees on 5 April.
Tuesday, 6 April
13:00 CET Jouke de Vries (President of the University of Groningen)
Welcome
Mladen Popović (University of Groningen)
Introduction
Session 1 — The Hands that Wrote the Bible: Digital Palaeography
Chair: Eibert Tigchelaar
13:15 Mladen Popović (University of Groningen)
Digital Palaeography for Identifying the Unknown Scribes and Dating the Undated Manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls
13:45 Maruf Dhali (University of Groningen)
Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition Techniques in Analyzing the Dead Sea Scrolls
14:15 Gemma Hayes (University of Groningen)
Digital Palaeography and the Scribes of the Dead Sea Scrolls
14:45 Drew Longacre (University of Groningen)
Data Mining for Writer Identification: The Test Case of the Dead Sea Psalm Scrolls
15:15 Discussion
15:30–16:15 Break
Session 2 — The Hands that Wrote the Bible: Radiocarbon Dating
Chair: Mladen Popović
16:15 Kaare Rasmussen (University of Southern Denmark)
The 14C Dating in the ERC project “The Hands that Wrote the Bible”: Chemical Aspects and the Cleaning of the Samples
16:45 Hans van der Plicht (University of Groningen)
The 14C Dating in the ERC project “The Hands that Wrote the Bible”: Physical Aspects and the Measurement of the 14C Content
17:15 Discussion
17:30–18:15 Break
Session 3 — Hebrew/Aramaic Palaeography
Chair: Drew Longacre
18:15 Michael Langlois (University of Strasbourg)
Deciphering Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic Inscriptions in a Digital World: Potential and Limitations
18:45 James Moore (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
Toward a Systematic Description of the Imperial Aramaic Script and its Meaning for Dating and Writer Identification
PROJECT UPDATES
19:15 Bronson Brown-deVost (University of Göttingen)
Scripta Qumranica Electronica
19:30 Daniel Stoekl ben Ezra (École Pratique des Hautes Études)
eScripta
19:45 Sarah Yardney and Miller Prosser (University of Chicago)
CEDAR/OCHRE
20:00 Conclusion
Wednesday, 7 April
13:00 CET Welcome
Session 4 — Digital Palaeography
Chair: Maruf Dhali
13:15 Lambert Schomaker (University of Groningen)
TBD
13:45 Peter Stokes (École Pratique des Hautes Études)
When is a Scribe Not a Scribe? Some Reflections on Writer Identification
14:15 Nachum Dershowitz (Tel Aviv University)
Computational Paleography
14:45 Discussion
15:00–15:45 Break
Session 5 — Digital Palaeography
Chair: Lambert Schomaker
15:45 Shira Faigenbaum-Golovin (Tel Aviv University)
Algorithmic Handwriting Analysis of Iron Age Documents and its Implications to the Composition of Biblical Texts
16:15 Hussein Mohammed (Universität Hamburg)
Pattern-Recognition Approaches for Handwriting-Style Analysis
16:45 Eythan Levy (Tel Aviv University) and Frédéric Pluquet (Haute École Louvain en Hainaut [HELHa] - Tournai and Ecole Supérieure d'Informatique [ESI] - Brussels)
New Developments in the Scrypt Software for Old Hebrew Epigraphy
17:15 Discussion
17:30–18:15 Break
Session 6 — Hebrew/Aramaic Palaeography
Chair: Gemma Hayes
18:15 Judith Olszowy-Schlanger (University of Oxford)
Hebrew Palaeography Album: A New Online Tool to Study Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts
18:45 Elvira Martín-Contreras (Spanish National Research Council)
Distinguishing Scribal Hands in the Masora of the Medieval Hebrew Bible Manuscripts
PROJECT UPDATES
19:15 Joe Uziel (Israel Antiquities Authority)
IAA projects
19:30 Isabelle Marthot-Santaniello (University of Basel)
D-Scribes
19:45 James Moore (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
Elephantine
20:00 Conclusion
Thursday, 8 April
13:00 CET Welcome
Session 7 — Hebrew/Aramaic Palaeography and Textual Communities
Chair: Mladen Popović
13:15 Eibert Tigchelaar (KU Leuven)
Scribal Culture, Palaeography, and the Scrolls
13:45 Ayhan Aksu (University of Groningen)
Leaving No Scroll Unturned: Opisthographs and Scribal Culture of the Dead Sea Scrolls
14:15 Hanneke van der Schoor (KU Leuven)
Assessing Palaeographic Variation in Informal Manuscripts: The Scribe(s) of the Testament of Qahat and Visions of Amrame
14:45 Discussion
15:00–15:45 Break
Session 8 — Hebrew/Aramaic Palaeography
Chair: Ayhan Aksu
15:45 Nadia Vidro (University College London)
Calendars from the Cairo Genizah as a Dating Tool for Palaeography
16:15 Estara J Arrant (University of Cambridge)
From Scholastic to Scribal: A Developmental Analysis of “Unprofessional” Square Hebrew Script from Cairo Genizah Bible Fragments
16:45 Elihu Shannon (Sofer STaM)
Why My Script is Different from My Teacher's
17:15 Discussion
17:30–18:15 Break
Session 9 — Final Discussion Panels
Chairs: Drew Longacre and Maruf Dhali
18:15 Digital Palaeography Panel Discussion
18:45 Hebrew/Aramaic Palaeography and Scribal Culture Panel Discussion
19:15 Final Open Discussion
20:00 Conclusion
Monday, March 22, 2021
New 8ḤevXII gr Fragments and Radiocarbon Dating
There have been several news reports that the new Greek fragments of 8ḤevXII gr were radiocarbon dated to the 2nd century CE, which has raised concerns online. I confirmed with Joe Uziel of the IAA that the new fragments were in fact NOT subjected to radiocarbon dating, so we remain dependent upon the same arguments from paleography and archeological context for the date of the scroll.
Friday, March 19, 2021
Klawans on the Shapira Deuteronomy Fragments
Jonathan Klawans has an interesting contribution on the Shapira Deuteronomy fragments concerning suspiciously Christian-sounding readings, which augments the suspicious epigraphic evidence.
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