Mês: agosto 2017

Os levitas

| Por

LEUCHTER, M. The Levites and the Boundaries of Israelite Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, xiv + 306 p. – ISBN 9780190665098. 

LEUCHTER, M. The Levites and the Boundaries of Israelite Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, xiv + 306 p.

At a glance, the Hebrew Bible presents the Levites as a group of ritual assistants and subordinates in Israel’s cult. A closer look, however, reveals a far more complicated history behind the emergence of this group in Ancient Israel. A careful reconsideration of the sources provides new insights into the origins of the Levites, their social function and location, and the development of traditions that grew around them. The social location and self-perception of the Levites evolved alongside the network of clans and tribes that grew into a monarchic society, and alongside the struggle to define religious and social identity in the face of foreign cultures. This book proposes new ways to see not only how these changes affected Levite self-perception but also the manner in which this perception affected larger trends as Israelite religion evolved into nascent Judaism. By consulting the textual record, archaeological evidence, the study of cultural memory and social-scientific models, Mark Leuchter demonstrates that the Levites emerge as boundary markers and boundary makers in the definition of what it meant to be part of “Israel.”

Mark Leuchter is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism in the Department of Religion at Temple University.

Morreu Bruce Malina (1933-2017)

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Sobre Bruce Malina, confira o que escrevi em Leitura socioantropológica do Novo Testamento:

Os vários estudos de Bruce J. Malina, professor na Creighton University, Nebraska, começando com uma publicação feita em 1981, são significativos para a leitura socioantropológica do Novo Testamento, especialmente no âmbito da exegese norte-americana. Abaixo, um elenco de seus principais livros (…).

Bruce Malina (1933-2017)

Bruce Malina fundamenta-se em teorias antropológicas atuais para entender a cultura do mundo mediterrâneo antigo onde o Novo Testamento foi gerado. Seu enfoque privilegia o estudo dos ambientes sociais, dos modos de pensar e dos padrões de comportamento das comunidades bíblicas em contraste com o mundo do intérprete moderno da Bíblia, tentando construir uma ponte entre estes dois mundos que nos permita resgatar o sentido dos textos do Novo Testamento. É assim que Malina estuda Paulo e a lei numa perspectiva socioantropológica, Jesus mais como um personagem de consagrada reputação do que uma figura carismática, o grupo de contracultura que produziu o evangelho de João, a pobreza como ausência de laços sociais e não apenas como falta de bens materiais, os códigos de hospitalidade pressupostos na terceira carta de João, a relação patrão-cliente modelando a relação Deus-homem e as orações de Jesus, a percepção característica do tempo na antiguidade modelando as noções de escatologia e apocalíptica….

Diz Bruce Malina, na introdução de um de seus livros, que o objetivo da interpretação do Novo Testamento é “descobrir o que um grupo específico do século primeiro do Mediterrâneo oriental entendia quando documentos contidos em o Novo Testamento eram lidos para eles. Por isso, minha tarefa é descobrir o que os documentos têm a dizer e o que eles significavam para os seus destinatários originais. Eu considero que o sentido, tanto lá como aqui, reside, em última instância, no sistema social compartilhado por pessoas que regularmente interagem umas com as outras”.

Vi a notícia no blog do Jim West e vim parar aqui, onde se diz:

The sad news reached me today that Prof. Bruce J. Malina died yesterday, Aug. 17, at dawn, US time. Malina was professor emeritus at Creighton University, Omaha, USA. Prof. Malina will probably be remembered by most as one of those who introduced Social Anthropology, or Cultural Anthropology as he called it, into New Testament studies.

E aqui:

Malina, Dr. Bruce J. Oct 9, 1933 – Aug 17, 2017. Dr. Bruce J. Malina, Creighton professor of New Testament for 48 years, died at his home in the early hours of Thursday, 17 August. Health issues had necessitated his retirement four years earlier as he approached his 80th birthday. The World Herald had featured Malina in an article 26 June, 1994, “Scholar Finds Niche in Bible,” as he began to gain global recognition for a new approach to Biblical studies. Bruce’s method emphasized interpretation of the New Testament from the cultural perspectives in which the Gospels and Epistles were written. Bruce was born in Brooklyn (Williamsburg), NY, 9 October 1933. He was the first of nine children born to Joseph and Mary Malina.

Leia Mais:
O discurso socioantropológico: origem e desenvolvimento
Leitura socioantropológica da Bíblia Hebraica
Leitura socioantropológica do Novo Testamento

Livro em homenagem a Israel Finkelstein

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LIPSCHITS, O. ; GADOT, Y. ; ADAMS, M. (eds.) Rethinking Israel: Studies in the History and Archaeology of Ancient Israel in Honor of Israel Finkelstein. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2017, 520 p. – ISBN 9781575067872.

LIPSCHITS, O. ; GADOT, Y. ; ADAMS, M. (eds.) Rethinking Israel: Studies in the History and Archaeology of Ancient Israel in Honor of Israel Finkelstein. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2017

Israel Finkelstein is perhaps the best-known Israeli archaeologist in the world. Renowned for his innovative and ground-breaking research, he has written and edited more than 20 books and published more than 300 academic papers. He has served as the director of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology and is the Jacob M. Alkow Professor of Archeology in the Bronze and Iron Age at Tel Aviv University. For the past two decades, he has been co-director of the Megiddo Expedition and is currently co-director of the Mission archéologique de Qiryat-Yéarim.

His work has greatly changed the face of archaeological and historical research of the biblical period. His unique ability to see the comprehensive big picture and formulate a broad framework has inspired countless scholars to reexamine long-established paradigms. His trail-blazing work covering every period from the beginning of the Early Bronze Age through the Hasmonean period, while sometimes controversial, has led to a creative new approach that connects archaeology with history, the social sciences, and the natural and life sciences.

Professor Finkelstein is the recipient of the prestigious 2005 Dan David Prize for his radical revision of the history of Israel in the 10th and 9th centuries BCE. In 2009, he was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, and in 2010 received an honorary doctorate from the University of Lausanne. He is a member of the selection committee of the Shanghai Archaeology Forum, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. In 2014, his book The Forgotten Kingdom was awarded the esteemed Prix Delalande-Guérineau by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris.

This volume, dedicated to Professor Finkelstein’s accomplishments and contributions, features 36 articles written by his colleagues, friends, and students in honor of his decades of scholarship and leadership in the field of biblical archaeology.

Leia Mais:
Israel Finkelstein

O Antigo Testamento na arqueologia e na história

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EBELING, J. et alii (eds.) The Old Testament in Archaeology and History. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017, 680 p. – ISBN 9781481307390.

EBELING, J. et alii (eds.) The Old Testament in Archaeology and History. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017, 680 p.

One hundred and fifty years of sustained archaeological investigation has yielded a more complete picture of the ancient Near East. The Old Testament in Archaeology and History combines the most significant of these archaeological findings with those of modern historical and literary analysis of the Bible to recount the history of ancient Israel and its neighboring nations and empires.

Eighteen international authorities contribute chapters to this introductory volume. After exploring the history of modern archaeological research in the Near East and the evolution of “biblical archaeology” as a discipline, this textbook follows the Old Testament’s general chronological order, covering such key aspects as the exodus from Egypt, Israel’s settlement in Canaan, the rise of the monarchy under David and Solomon, the period of the two kingdoms and their encounters with Assyrian power, the kingdoms’ ultimate demise, the exile of Judahites to Babylonia, and the Judahites’ return to Jerusalem under the Persians along with the advent of “Jewish” identity. Each chapter is tailored for an audience new to the history of ancient Israel in its biblical and ancient Near Eastern setting.

The end result is an introduction to ancient Israel combined with and illuminated by more than a century of archaeological research. The volume brings together the strongest results of modern research into the biblical text and narrative with archaeological and historical analysis to create an understanding of ancient Israel as a political and religious entity based on the broadest foundation of evidence. This combination of literary and archaeological data provides new insights into the complex reality experienced by the peoples reflected in the biblical narratives.

Histórias do Antigo Oriente Médio: alguns recursos online

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Para entender o motivo dessa publicação, clique aqui.

BDTNS – Database of Neo-Sumerian Texts
The Database of Neo-Sumerian Texts (or BDTNS, its acronym in Spanish) is a searchable electronic corpus of Neo-Sumerian administrative cuneiform tablets dated to the 21st century B.C. During this period, the kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur built an empire in Mesopotamia managed by a complex bureaucracy that produced an unprecedented volume of written documentation. It is estimated that museums and private collections all over the world hold at least 120,000 cuneiform tablets from this period, to which should be added an indeterminate number of documents kept in the Iraq Museum. Consequently, BDTNS was conceived by Manuel Molina (CSIC) in order to manage this enormous amount of documentation (…) The work on BDTNS began, therefore, in 1996 at the Instituto de Filología (now Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo y Oriente Próximo) of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Madrid. Six years later, in 2002, it appeared online.

CDLI – Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative
The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) represents the efforts of an international group of Assyriologists, museum curators and historians of science to make available through the internet the form and content of cuneiform inscriptions dating from the beginning of writing, ca. 3350 BC, until the end of the pre-Christian era. We estimate the number of these artifacts currently kept in public and private collections to exceed 500,000 exemplars, of which now more than 320,000 have been catalogued in electronic form by the CDLI.

In its early phases of research, the project concentrated on the digital documentation of the least understood archives of ancient cuneiform, those of the final third of the 4th, and of the entire 3rd millennium BC that contained texts in Sumerian, in early Akkadian and in other, still undeciphered languages. For despite the 160 years since the decipherment of cuneiform, and the 110 years since Sumerian documents of the 3rd millennium BC from southern Babylonia were first published, such basic research tools as a reliable paleography charting the graphic development of archaic cuneiform, and a lexical and grammatical glossary of the approximately 120,000 texts inscribed during this period of early state formation, remain unavailable even to specialists, not to mention scholars from other disciplines to whom these earliest sources on social development represent an extraordinary hidden treasure. The CDLI, directed by Robert K. Englund of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Jürgen Renn of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, is pursuing the systematic digital documentation and electronic dissemination of the entire cuneiform text corpus bearing witness to 3500 years of human history. Collaboration partners include leading experts from the field of Assyriology, curators of European and American museums, and computer specialists in data management and electronic text annotation. The CDLI data set consists of text and image, combining document transliterations, text glossaries and digitized originals and photo archives of cuneiform.

CDLI Literary 002718 (enuma elish) - Akkadian - Neo-Assyrian (ca. 911-612 BC)

CDLI:wiki
Directly linked to the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative and born with it, cdli:wiki is now a collaborative project of members of the French CNRS team ArScAn-HAROC (Nanterre), and staff and students in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford, with contributors in several different countries, involved in researches in history of the ancient Near East. The cdli:wiki is currently funded by the Cluster (LabEx) Pasts in the Present through the project AssyrOnline: Digital Humanities and Assyriologie.

ETCSL – The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL), a project of the University of Oxford, comprises a selection of nearly 400 literary compositions recorded on sources which come from ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and date to the late third and early second millennia BCE. The corpus contains Sumerian texts in transliteration, English prose translations and bibliographical information for each composition. The transliterations and the translations can be searched, browsed and read online using the tools of the website. Funding for the ETCSL project came to an end in the summer of 2006 and no work is currently being done to this site or its contents.

KeiBi – Keilschriftbibliographie
The International Keilschriftbibliographie (KeiBi) was first published by the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome in the journal Orientalia in 1940 (Orientalia N.S. 9). It became an essential tool for the study, research, and teaching of Ancient Near Eastern Studies. The search for entries, though, proves quite cumbersome – a weakness that all bibliographies issued over a substantial period of time share. To enable better access we hereby present the KeiBi online Database, where all issues already published can be searched simultaneously. The KeiBi online is made possible with the support of the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the project „Propylaeum“ – Virtual Library Classical Studies. It was developed as part of the Propylaeum module Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University Library Tübingen, with the support of the Institute of Ancient Near Eastern Studies (IANES), University of Tübingen. Prof. Dr. Hans Neumann, in cooperation with the Institut für Altorientalische Philologie und Vorderasiatische Altertumskunde, University of Münster, provided the KeiBi entries from volume 57 (Orientalia N.S. 69, 1999) onwards. Earlier issues were scanned and digitally processed.

CDLI Literary 002873.05 (Gilgamesh epic 05) - Akkadian - Neo-Assyrian (ca. 911-612 BC)

Oracc – The Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus
The Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus (Oracc) is an international cooperative which provides facilities and support for the creation of free online editions of cuneiform texts and educational ‘portal’ websites about ancient cuneiform culture. Created by Steve Tinney, Oracc is steered by Jamie Novotny, Eleanor Robson, Tinney, and Niek Veldhuis. See The Oracc Project List.

Leia Mais:
Histórias do Antigo Oriente Médio: uma bibliografia

Betsaida foi encontrada?

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A cidade dos 3 apóstolos? – Por Reinaldo José Lopes 08/08/2017 11:29 – Darwin e Deus

Betsaida, a antiga cidade judaica na qual teriam nascido três dos 12 apóstolos (Pedro, André e Filipe), perto de onde Jesus teria realizado o célebre milagre da multiplicação dos pães e dos peixes, foi identificada nas margens do mar da Galileia, segundo um grupo de arqueólogos israelenses liderados por Mordechai Aviam, da Faculdade Kinneret.

As informações são do jornal israelense “Haaretz”. Segundo Aviam, a peça do quebra-cabeças que faltava para identificar Betsaida acaba de ser desenterrada por sua equipe: restos de uma casa de banhos do período inicial do domínio do Império Romano na região (do século 1º ao século 3º d.C.), bem como cacos de cerâmica dessa época e algumas moedas, entre elas um denário de prata datado do reinado do imperador Nero (em torno do ano 65 d.C.). Ironicamente, a tradição cristã diz que Nero foi o responsável por ordenar a execução do próprio Pedro em Roma.

A informação de que Betsaida era a cidade natal dos irmãos Pedro e André e também do apóstolo Filipe vem do Evangelho de João; por outro lado, a associação entre o local e o milagre da multiplicação dos pães aparece de forma mais clara no Evangelho de Lucas.

Acredita-se que a cidade, originalmente um vilarejo de pescadores, teria ganhado obras públicas, como a casa de banhos, durante o governo de Filipe, filho do temido rei Herodes, o Grande. Para homenagear a esposa do imperador romano Augusto, Filipe teria rebatizado a cidade, dando-lhe o nome oficial de “Julias”.

A identificação do local com a Betsaida dos apóstolos só não é 100% segura porque há algumas divergências entre as informações do Novo Testamento e as trazidas pelo historiador judeu Flávio Josefo. É que os evangelistas da Bíblia localizam Betsaida na região da Galileia, terra onde Jesus cresceu, do lado oeste do mar, enquanto Josefo considera que a cidade pertencia à Gaulanítide, do lado leste do mar da Galileia. É concebível que existissem duas localidades com o nome de Betsaida naquela época.

 

The Lost Home of Jesus’ Apostles Has Just Been Found, Archaeologists Say – Noa Shpigel and Ruth Schuster: Aug 08, 2017 10:45 AM – Haaretz

Archaeologists think they may have found the lost Roman city of Julias, the home of three apostles of Jesus: Peter, Andrew and Philip (John 1:44; 12:21). A multi-layered site discovered on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, in the Bethsaida Valley Nature Reserve, is the spot, the team believes.

The key discovery is of an advanced Roman-style bathhouse. That in and of itself indicates that there had been a city there, not just a fishing village, Dr. Mordechai Aviam of Kinneret College told Haaretz.

None other than the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius – in fact the only source describing this city’s existence – wrote that the Jewish monarch King Philip Herod, son of the great vassal King Herod, transformed Bethsaida, which had been a Jewish fishing village, into a real Roman polis (Ant. 18:28. Though whether it was built on Bethsaida, or by it, remains unknown.)

Philip flatteringly renamed the city “Julias” after Livia Drusilla, who after marriage would become known as Julia Augusta, the mother of the Roman Emperor Tiberius.

“Josephus reported that the king had upgraded Bethsaida from a village into a polis, a proper city,” Aviam says meticulously. “He didn’t say it had been built on or beside or underneath it. And indeed, all this time, we have not known where it was. But the bathhouse attests to the existence of urban culture.”

Leia Mais:
Bethsaida Controversy

Manuscritos do Mar Morto: simpósio em Jerusalém

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An International Symposium: The Dead Sea Scrolls at Seventy: “Clear a Path in the Wilderness”

Date: 29 April–3 May, 2018

Conveners: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Vienna, New York University, the Israel Antiquities Authority, The Israel Museum

Venues: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and The Israel Museum

To mark seventy years since the initial discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, an international symposium will be held in Jerusalem, April 29–May 3, 2018. The overarching symposium theme will be “The Wilderness”—as a real place; as the location of biblical episodes, most notably during the formative years of Israel’s wandering from Egypt to the Promised Land; as a motif; and as a concept (sometimes idealized, sometimes demonized).

The wilderness figures prominently in biblical texts and in the literature of the Second Temple, rabbinic, early Christian, and early Islamic periods. It was also a place of habitation by various groups during these periods, which have left us archaeological sites, artefacts, documents and the more than 1500 Dead Sea Scrolls. Conference papers may address any aspect of the wilderness as it relates to Qumran; other Judean Desert sites; the Dead Sea Scrolls; and the associated late antique literatures, cultures and religions—particularly, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Papers may focus on such topics as the reception of biblical figures (e.g., Moses, Aaron, Phineas, Miriam, Balaam), events (e.g., the giving of the law, the sin of the golden calf, the building of the tabernacle, covenant ceremonies), and themes (e.g., revelation, law, covenant, rebellion against God, sanctuary, water, and manna) connected with Israel’s time in the wilderness; relevant textual and philological analyses; the use of the relevant biblical passages in shaping later texts; the influence of the desert climate, flora, and fauna on the ancient texts and their state of preservation.

The conference will feature invited lectures; open sessions; and two public lectures.

Papers will be accepted for the open sessions in accordance with the relevance of the topic to the overall program. Please send a proposal of no more than 250 words to the Orion Center email address (orioncenter@mail.huji.ac.il). Deadline for receipt of proposals is September 20, 2017; responses will be mailed by October 31.

Symposium organizers:

  • Esther Chazon, Director, The Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem;
  • Armin Lange, Professor of Second Temple Judaism and Director of the Institute for Jewish Studies, University of Vienna;
  • Lawrence H. Schiffman, Judge Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University;
  • Pnina Shor, Curator and Head of Dead Sea Scrolls Projects, The Israel Antiquities Authority;
  • Adolfo D. Roitman, Lizbeth and George Krupp Curator of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Head of The Shrine of the Book, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

Leia Mais:
Manuscritos do Mar Morto: 70 anos
Manuscritos do Mar Morto

Mês da Bíblia 2017: Primeira Carta aos Tessalonicenses

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Com o tema “Para que n’Ele nossos povos tenham vida” e o lema “Anunciar o Evangelho e doar a própria vida” (1Ts 2,8), o Mês da Bíblia 2017 traz como proposta de estudo a Primeira Carta de Paulo aos Tessalonicenses.

Mês da Biblia 2017: Para que n'Ele nossos povos tenham vida: Primeira Carta aos Tessalonicenses

:: Mês da Biblia 2017: Para que n’Ele nossos povos tenham vida: Primeira Carta aos Tessalonicenses. Brasília: CNBB, 2017, 96 p.

:: CENTRO BÍBLICO VERBO Para que N’Ele nossos Povos tenham vida: “Anunciar o Evangelho e doar a própria vida” (1Ts 2,8). São Paulo: Paulus, 2017, 136 p. – ISBN 9788534945684.

CENTRO BÍBLICO VERBO Para que N'Ele nossos Povos tenham vida: "Anunciar o Evangelho e doar a própria vida" (1Ts 2,8). São Paulo: Paulus, 2017, 136 p.

:: SAB Mês da Bíblia 2017 – Para quem n Ele nossos povos tenham vida – 1ª. Carta aos Tessalonicenses. São Paulo: Paulinas, 2017, 64 p. – ISBN 9788535642797.

SAB Mês da Bíblia 2017 - Para quem n Ele nossos povos tenham vida - 1ª. Carta aos Tessalonicenses. São Paulo: Paulinas, 2017, 64 p.

Leia mais sobre o Mês da Bíblia e sua história aqui.