By Jonathan Wright

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian archaeologists have discovered what they say was the ancient headquarters of the Pharaonic army guarding the north-eastern borders of Egypt for more than 1,500 years, the government said on Wednesday (may 28.08). (more..)

This volume presents a comprehensive collection of the royal inscriptions from Assyria and Babylonia that treat the Land of Israel and the People of Israel. Covering a period of just over three hundred years during the first half of the 1st millennium BCE, these texts tell the story of the military encounters - both victories and defeats - between the Mesopotamian empires and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Many of the texts relate to events described in the Hebrew Bible, while others provide information about affairs that were unknown until their discovery in the modern times. All the texts have been newly translated from the original cuneiform documents and are accompanied by a consecutive commentary and select bibliography.

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It’s always a revelation when a world-renowned intellectual attacks religion as silly and juvenile to discover that his or her own personal life might have greatly benefited from a commitment to the “infantile” biblical values they so casually dismiss.  Such was the case recently when the news broke that Albert Einstein’s letter on God, in which he described the Bible as “pretty childish,” sold for more than $400,000.

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Charleston Seminar: Early bird pricing extended to May 28!

with Bart Ehrman and Julia M. O’Brien

June 20-21, 2008
DoubleTree Guest Suites Historic District
Charleston, South Carolina
God, the Bible and Human SufferingImages of God in the Prophetic Books

Bart Ehrman explores perhaps the greatest religious and philosophical issue that anyone can grapple with: the problem of suffering. A specialist in the New Testament and early Christianity, Ehrman will guide you through this complex topic, paying particular attention to the Bible’s viewpoint on the problem. The second focus of the seminar from Julia M. O’Brien will be the many images of God found explicitly and implicitly in the prophetic books of the Old Testament. Many are familiar, such as God as a Father or King. Others are perhaps more surprising: Yahweh is “a garland of glory, and a diadem of beauty” (Isa 28:5-6) and “will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily” (Hosea 14:5). Professor O’Brien will look at several of these metaphors, attempting to understand them in their ancient Near Eastern context and to confront the difficulties they pose for modern readers.View complete information and register now!

Oxford University Seminar

with Bruce Chilton and Ziony Zevit

St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, England
July 21-August 1, 2008

Explore the World of the Bible: The Temple in the Time of Jesus The Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel’s Worldview

Pubblichiamo la lettera di Massimo Pazzini ofm inviata al direttore di Terrasanta.net

Stimato direttore,
sono un cittadino italiano (cattolico) residente in Israele da 25 anni. Ho avuto la fortuna di studiare la lingua ebraica all’Università di Gerusalemme e ora insegno ebraico biblico sempre a Gerusalemme, cercando di trasmettere ai miei discepoli, oltre all’amore per la grammatica, anche l’amore per il testo sacro scritto in ebraico e per il popolo che fu il primo destinatario del messaggio divino.

Nel mese di gennaio 2008, forse anche sotto l’impulso delle celebrazioni legate alla Giornata della memoria, ho avuto modo di vedere che in Italia molte proposte di studio/ricerca/dialogo fra cristiani ed ebrei. Mi fa piacere e dispiacere allo stesso tempo vedere tutte queste iniziative. Mi fa piacere vedere che nel nostro Paese ci sia una buona sensibilità verso la questione. Mi dispiace che si parli sempre a senso unico. Mi spiego.

Qui in Israele la situazione dei cristiani è ben diversa da quella italiana ed europea. Non c’è nessuna sensibilità da parte ebraica circa il dialogo con i cristiani in terra d’Israele; non esiste un punto di riferimento civile e/o religioso con cui si possa dialogare. A Gerusalemme succede non di rado che ebrei religiosi sputino addosso a cristiani. A me è successo più di una volta. Uno di questi sedicenti ebrei religiosi, colto in flagrante e fermato dalla polizia, si difendeva dicendo: «Ma è solo un cristiano!».

In Europa e in Occidente si continuano a organizzare conferenze sull’antisemitismo dei cristiani, mentre qui gli ebrei, quando ne hanno la possibilità, osteggiano i cristiani… Che intanto continuano a fuggire da Israele senza che nessuno se ne voglia assumere la responsabilità.

Nessuna condanna, per esempio, da parte dei rabbini. Certo, i cristiani sono in gran parte arabi, «gli altri». Ma si tratta comunque di un silenzio colpevole!

Non sarebbe il caso di reimpostare la questione del dialogo e delle sue difficoltà chiamandola in altro modo? Ad esempio l’intolleranza o in­ sensibilità di una mag­gioranza (cristiani in Europa ed ebrei in Israele) verso una minoranza (ebrei in Europa e cristiani in Israele) che tende ad emergere?

Un’altra cosa a mio avviso è grave: l’appartenenza a Israele (religione e Stato) è segnalata sul passaporto! Chi non è ebreo non è cittadino a pieno diritto quando si tratta di cercare un lavoro o una posizione nella società civile… I cristiani sono confinati nei loro quartieri e gli israeliani (di religione ebraica e passaporto israeliano) non si mescolano ad essi. Immaginiamo se, per essere italiani, si dovesse essere cristiani, o peggio cattolici. I non cattolici cosa direbbero? Non urlerebbero (giustamente) tutti i difensori dei diritti umani? Io sono qui da 25 anni, ho fatto i miei studi all’Università ebraica (dove mi sono trovato benissimo), ma non sono cittadino israeliano solo perché sono cristiano.

Per questa ragione trovo a dir poco «aggressive» le affermazioni di «dialoganti ebrei italiani» (anche rabbini) che continuano a sostenere che l’Occidente è antisemita. L’Occidente non è più antisemita oggi di quanto l’attuale Israele non sia anticristiano.

Massimo Pazzini
Gerusalemme

Terrasanta.net - Dati articolo attualit�

Secrecy and the Gods is a comparative mythological study of the human reception and treatment of divine secret knowledge in ancient Mesopotamia and biblical Israel.

The human royal council was the social model for ancient ideas about divine knowledge being secret – just as human kings had secrets so too did the gods. Diviners who received this knowledge from the gods in an on-going, ad hoc manner were an essential link between the divine assembly and the human royal council for whom such knowledge was intended.

Scribes eventually adapted the ad hoc divinatory means of receiving divine communications to their culturally significant texts. By discursively asserting a historical connection between themselves and unique mediators with a close divine affiliation (the apkallus and Moses), the scribes constructed myths that legitimated their texts as divine revelation and claimed these were received in history through normal scribal channels. In this manner scribes fixed the secret of the gods permanently among humans in textualized form that valorized their own position within society.

Although the origin of divine secret knowledge was rooted in a common mythological idea of the divine assembly, its treatment was quite distinct. The Mesopotamians guarded divine secret knowledge through various scribal means, including the attachment of a Geheimwissen colophon to certain tablets (treated exhaustively), whereas biblical Israel published it openly. The contrast in treatment of divine secret knowledge was directly related to different mytho-political self-understandings: Mesopotamia’s imperial aspirations versus biblical Israel’s vassaldom. As vassals to Yahweh, the divine imperial king, the kings of Judah and Israel as presented in the biblical material were not to formulate secret orders; they were only to obey them.

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Yom Ha’atzma’ut - Israel’s Independence Day - has come and gone. Together, Jews in North America and Israel joyously celebrated Israel’s 60 years of achievement and success. What Israel has accomplished in its short lifetime is a source of pride to all of us.

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Renowned scholar David Aune, author of a leading commentary on the book of Revelation, here offers twenty studies on apocalypticism, the book of Revelation, and related topics. Several essays on the Apocalypse of John explore contextual relationships of the Apocalypse to apocalyptic literature. Other essays center on aspects of the content and interpretation of the Apocalypse itself by investigating issues such as discipleship, narrative christology, genre, and the problem of God and time. Essays on early Christian prophecy deal with charismatic exegesis in early Judaism and early Christianity, the relationship between Christian prophecy and the messianic status of Jesus, and the prophetic features found in The Odes of Solomon. Originally published in hardcover by Mohr Siebeck, this collection is now available in paperback.

Apocalypticism, Prophecy and Magic in Early Christianity

by David E. Aune

Baker Academic, 2008

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