Summer School course: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: Texts, Traditions, Text Cases, Open Questions, Paris Lodron Universität Salzburg, July 1-4, 2026.

New article from @isaactsoon.bsky.social and myself on some Jewish Babylonian warlords in Josephus’ Antiquities. Hopefully will be of interest, it gets into questions around masculinity, orientalism and physiognomy in Josephus. Open access: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Book Cover: Job Unveiled and Reimagined. Edited by JiSeong James Kwon and Tobias Häner. FAT II/172, Mohr Siebeck

I received this book in the mail today! Very excited that this amazing collection of essays on Job is now out.
I contributed an essay on "Old Greek Job as Ancient Jewish Literature: Literary and Theological Perspectives". I review intertextual translations with other LXX books as well as... 1/

Great work that's being done here in Vienna at the @etf-univienna.bsky.social! Take a look! (And it's open access!)

Earlier this week a liberal commentator accused Pastor Pete of being so fond of war because he read too much of the Old Testament. Today Pastor Pete is calling people Pharisees. It's a rhetoric that has a home on all parts of the political spectrum.

Please, let's not get into a Pharisee-name-calling mud slinger. Leave the Pharisees out of this, even if you're a Christian with a very different political view. This has nothing to do with Pharisees. It has everything to do with the Christian habit of slurring their opponents as "Jews".

where Pss 114+115 are read as a single psalm in Aleppo codex

Aleppo Codex has 149 psalms, as do many medieval psalters (although they range from 143-170). The most common segmentation reads Pss 114+115 as a single composition (what we call 115 begins at לא לנו יהוה לא לנו in the middle of this picture).

www.mohrsiebeck.com/buch/job-unv...

@mohrsiebeck.bsky.social

...key theological issues: notably, the theme of divine oversight/ἐπισκοπή in combination with concepts of angels as divine agents in the Old Greek.

The editors JiSeong J. Kwon and Tobias Häner have put together a very strong volume, so if you are interested in the book of Job, do give it a look!

Book Cover: Job Unveiled and Reimagined. Edited by JiSeong James Kwon and Tobias Häner. FAT II/172, Mohr Siebeck

I received this book in the mail today! Very excited that this amazing collection of essays on Job is now out.
I contributed an essay on "Old Greek Job as Ancient Jewish Literature: Literary and Theological Perspectives". I review intertextual translations with other LXX books as well as... 1/

Researchers Discover Long-Lost Words of Ancient Greek Philosopher After 2,000 Years Newly discovered verses of Empedocles provide original insight into his philosophy and influence on later thinkers, reshaping understanding of early Greek thought.

Researchers Discover Long-Lost Words of Ancient Greek Philosopher After 2,000 Years
scitechdaily.com/researchers-...

Keep an eye out for Dr. Hanna Tervanotko’s new book, Signs and Meanings: Divination and the Production of Knowledge in Jewish Antiquity, which comes out later this year with University of California Press!

www.ucpress.edu/books/signs-...

Bei langer Endsilbe kann der Akut leider maximal auf der vorletzten Silbe stehen

*die **öffneten

Die Verbindung von den Wächtern der Unterwelt findet sich übrigens wörtlich auch bei Euripides im Herakles. Eine von wenigen Stellen, an der Einfluss klassischer Literatur auf die Septuaginta nicht unplausibel ist (MT hat "Tore der Finsternis" שערי צלמות)

Karsamstag: u.a. im sog. "Dated creed" von Sirmium 359 wird Jesu Abstieg in dir Unterwelt mit Hiob 38,17LXX gefüllt: "Öffnen sich dir in Furcht die Tore des Todes und die Wächter des Hades, erschraken sie als sie dich sahen?"
ἀνοίγονται δέ σοι φόβῳ πύλαι θανάτου πυλωροὶ δὲ ᾅδου ἰδόντες σε ἔπτηξαν;

Avis aux intéressés! J'aurais le plaisir d'enseigner un cours sur la Septante cet été. Cette traduction ancienne de l'Ancien Testament a joué un rôle important tant dans le monde juif que chez les premiers chrétiens. Le cours proposera un survol de ces questions et du canon de l'Ancien Testament.

I don’t know, stop using AI to write your papers?

As an editor of biblical studies books, I have saved innumerable readers from having to see the word “booty” when “spoils” is meant.

Drawing of a cuneiform tablet that is 17 lines long. At the bottom is the identifier GCBC 766, copyright Raymond P. Dougherty. At the top are the numbers 406. The penultimate line 16 is encased in a box to highlight it

The penultimate line of this cuneiform medical commentary from ancient Uruk reads:

shitti = zû

It zooms in on the word shitti (used in the 12th tablet of the diagnostic manual known as Sa-gig), and then clarifies it with a synonym, zû.

The translation of the commentary is:

"excrement = faeces"

The Historical Talmud — ANCIENT JEW REVIEW We may, in fact, be approaching a moment when historical literacy—much like philology—ought to be regarded as a basic expectation of rigorous scholarship on the Talmud. If so, the question before us i...

For anyone interested, a historiographic retrospective on the state of the historical study of the Babylonian Talmud, @ancientjewreview.bsky.social :

www.ancientjewreview.com/read/2026/3/...

Other contributions focus on Achaemenid Persia as remembered in Daniel, Nehemiah, in the Dura Europos synagogue wall panels, and in cuneiform texts. Editors: Kristin Joachimsen and Jason Mokhtarian

jhsonline.org

I argue that the depiction of the Persian court is consistent with that of Greek sources, that the king's power is depicted ambivalently, and that Zerubbabel in 1Esd navigates debates about just and effective rule - and thus advances the dormant temple rebuild.

Very happy to see the JHS special issue "Ancient Jewish Memories of Achaemenid Persia" is now published! In my article, I revisit how Persian rule and kingship are portrayed in 1 Esdras, a Hellenistic period narrative of the temple rebuilding.

jhsonline.org/index.php/jh...

Beide auch mit breitem Blick für Qumran und plurale Textüberlieferung

Nicht Literaturgeschichte im engen Sinn, aber Molly Zahn, Genres of Rewriting in Second Temple Judaism sowie Eva Mroczek, The Literary imagination in Jewish antiquity haben meine Perspektive auf antike jüdische Literatur sehr geformt

Hatten wir so vor ca. vier Jahren auch

Call for Fellowship Applications: Person-Centered Messianism and Emergence, Käte Hamburger Center for Messianic Studies (CEMES), University of Würzburg. Applications due May 15, 2026.

Opening for two PhD positions at the University of Würzburg !!!
🔎 The project explores anti-Jewish discourse in Hellenistic, Roman, and early Christian sources, as well as its later reception in modern scholarship (1870–1920).
www.theologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/fileadmin/01...

Artikeltitel: Maximilian Häberlein, König oder Priester? Die Frage nach dem Gesalbten in Ps 132 als Spiegel judäischer Machtdiskurse Erscheint in: Sigrid Eder/Agnethe Siquans/Kathrin Gies u.a., Psalmen und Macht, Göttingen 2026.

Korrekturfahnen abgeschickt - proofs sent!