The oldest Hebrew Bible is preserved in the Aleppo Codex. What happened to the nearly 200 pages missing from the Aleppo Codex? Photo: David Harris/Ben-Zvi Institute in the Shrine of the Book.

The Aleppo Codex, the oldest Hebrew Bible in existence today, is so named because it was housed for half a millennium in Aleppo, Syria. The codex, also known as the Crown of Aleppo, was written by scribes called Masoretes in Tiberias, Israel, around 930 C.E. The Aleppo Codex is considered to be the most authoritative copy of the Hebrew Bible. While the Dead Sea Scrolls—which are a thousand years older than the Aleppo Codex—contain books from the Hebrew Bible, the scrolls lack vowels (as was the tradition in ancient—and modern—Hebrew) as well as a discussion of different textual problems and their solutions. The Aleppo Codex features both vowel markings and marginal notations.

Appearing in Aleppo, Syria, sometime in the second half of the 15th century, the Aleppo Codex was preserved nearly intact in a synagogue for centuries—until the 20th century. After the 1947 United Nations vote to partition Palestine and create independent Arab and Jewish states, riots broke out in Aleppo, and parts of the Aleppo Codex were destroyed. What remained of the codex was smuggled out of Aleppo and brought to Israel in 1957. The Aleppo Codex is now kept at the Shrine of the Book wing at the Israel Museum.

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Between the 1947 riots in Aleppo, Syria, and the codex’s arrival in Israel in 1957, almost 200 pages of the Aleppo Codex went missing. What happened to the missing pages, which included all of the books of the Torah save for the last 11 pages of Deuteronomy?

In “The Mystery of the Missing Pages of the Aleppo Codex” in the July/August 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Yosef Ofer, Professor of Bible at Bar Ilan University, examines several theories as to what happened to the missing pages of the Aleppo Codex.

In his article, Ofer discusses the conclusions of journalists Matti Friedman and Yifat Erlich, who independently investigated when—and how—the pages of the Aleppo Codex went missing after the riots in Aleppo, Syria.

What happened to the missing pages of the Aleppo Codex, the oldest Hebrew Bible? Were they destroyed or stolen? If the pages were stolen, were they taken from the codex in Syria, during the codex’s journey through Turkey, or after the codex had arrived in Israel? To find out what Yosef Ofer believes to be the most likely answer, read the full article “The Mystery of the Missing Pages of the Aleppo Codex” as it appears in the July/August 2015 issue of BAR.

BAS Library Members: Read the full article “The Mystery of the Missing Pages of the Aleppo Codex” by Yosef Ofer in the July/August 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Related reading in Bible History Daily

The Aleppo Codex Online

A Jewel from the Crown

The Aleppo Codex

Travelogue of the Aleppo Codex

Comparing Ancient Biblical Manuscripts

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

The Shattered Crown

The Aleppo Codex

The Mystery of the Missing Pages of the Aleppo Codex

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Divine love bringing an end to an illicit trust between Cupid and the Devil. An artistic representation of love being corrupted and God bringing it to an end. Divine Love Conquering Earthly Love by Giovanni Baglione. Public Domain.

Sandwiched between the genealogies of Adam’s descendants and the tale of Noah’s flood are a few enigmatic verses that leave many of us scratching our heads and wondering what it’s all about:

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in[a] man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. (Genesis 6:1–4)

More often than not it’s just easier to shrug our shoulders and move on to the story of Noah and his family. But the questions remain all the same: Who are these “sons of God” and their Nephilim children, and why would the author of Genesis choose to mention them at all?

In the text we discover that the “sons of God” (Hebrew Benai-Elohim) succumbed to their passions for the “daughters of Men” and had children with them. These offspring were known as the Nephilim (literally, “the fallen ones”), and they were the “mighty ones of old” and “men of renown.”

Though centuries of rabbinical and church tradition would say otherwise, the audience to whom the text was intended would have understood the “sons of God” to be the members of the divine assembly mentioned throughout the literature of the ancient Near East, including the Bible (see Job 6:1; Job 38:7; Psalm 29:1; Psalm 82). In the biblical texts, the “sons of God” are usually described as lesser heavenly beings in the service of the Most High. In the texts of the cultures that surrounded Israel, like the Canaanite literature found at Ugarit, the “sons of God” similarly appear as divine beings in the service to the king of the gods, El, and his queen, Asherah. They include the likes of Baal, Anath, Astarte, Yam, and Mot. The audience of Genesis would have definitely understood these so-called “fallen ones” to be the offspring of celestial beings and human women. (Coincidentally the root of the word Nephilim is used elsewhere for miscarriages and other strange births. Exodus 21:22)

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The reason the author chose to mention the Nephilim can be found in their description, which translated means something to the effect of “ancient champions who made a name for themselves.” Every society has myths and legends about gods having children with humans who become epic heroes and legendary kings. Many of us in the West are familiar with the exploits of Hercules, Achilles, and Perseus, and the Classical versions of their tales have been told and retold for well over two thousand years. However, many famous Classical stories are merely reimagined from earlier Near Eastern ones. There was a vast corpus of heroic literature available from Babylon to Egypt, including such tales as the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the ancient Israelites would have likely known these stories.

Readers of the Bible will be quick to point out the obvious problems with the Israelites’ enjoying the epic tales of demigods’ slaying monsters—they glorify a pagan culture filled with a slew of gods and goddesses far removed from the one true holy God of Israel. And just as my eighth grade Bible teacher thought my deep love of Star Wars was going to lead me into witchcraft one day, the religious leaders of ancient Israel likely feared the stories of Gilgamesh and other demigods would lead the people into idolatry. Unlike my teacher, however, the leaders of Israel did not threaten school detention. Instead, they chose a much more diplomatic solution to the Israelites’ love of stories about epic heroes. They gave an orthodox explanation for them and wove them into the context of their own narrative.

Instead of denying the existence of famous heroes altogether, the author labels them “the fallen ones” and all but blames them for the utter depravity that fell upon the world and necessitated the flood. As to how they corrupted the world we can only guess, but the concept of “making a name for oneself” is clearly at odds with the worldview found within the pages of the Bible, specifically the Book of Genesis, and calls to mind the human pride and wickedness that began in the Garden of Eden. Just after the flood, in Babel (Babylon), a place with a long association with epic tales and legendary kings, human beings decided to band together and build a tower to heaven to make a name for themselves (Genesis 11:1–9).

Were they trying to create their own legends to cement themselves in history alongside the Nephilim? We can only speculate. What we do know is that it isn’t the son of a god or goddess that steps onto the biblical stage soon after the folly of Babel, but a childless man with no strength or glory to speak of. His gift is not the power given by his divine lineage, but a promise of a future for his descendants. And it is God, not the man, who gives him a new name that will be remembered throughout the generations—Abraham.

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The legacy of the Nephilim did not end with the flood, however, as the biblical texts go on to attribute them as the ancestors of some of the Israelites’ most feared enemies (Numbers 13:33).

Another feared group that was legendary by the time the Israelites settled the land was the Rephaim, who were known to be powerful giants (Deuteronomy 2:11, 20, 3:11; Joshua 12:4, 13:12). It’s unknown if the Israelites originally equated the Rephaim with the Nephilim, but it is clear that by the Intertestimental period (the fourth–first centuries B.C.E.) the Nephilim were thought to be the monstrous giant offspring of fallen angels and humans, as described in the pseudographical Book of Enoch and Jubilees, as well as others found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The authors of the Greek Septuagint even chose to use the word gigantes in their translation of Genesis 6, a word that also invokes the monstrous Titans—the legendary giants that were destroyed by the gods in Greek myth. And like the Titans of old, the legend of the Nephilim only continues to grow in modern times.

To discover more about the “sons of God,” and learn of other interpretations, read Jaap Doedens’s full article “Exploring the Story of the Sons of God,” published in the Summer 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Subscribers: Read the full article, “Exploring the Story of the Sons of God,” by Jaap Doedens in the Summer 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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This story originally appeared in Bible History Daily in July, 2020

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library:

When the Sons of God Cavorted with the Daughters of Men

Did Eve Fall or Was She Pushed?

Hercules in Galilee

Adam Meets the Evil Archon

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2016 was the golden anniversary of Israeli archaeologist Michael Avi-Yonah’s model of Herod’s Temple. The model, originally commissioned for the Holy Land Hotel in Jerusalem and part of a much larger model of ancient Jerusalem, is now housed in the Israel Museum. Photo: Steven Fine.

The year 2016 marked the 50th anniversary of the now-iconic model of Herod’s Temple created by Israeli historian and archaeologist Michael Avi-Yonah. The model, completed in 1966 after four years of construction, was commissioned by Hans Kroch of the Holy Land Hotel in Jerusalem. After 40 years at the hotel, in 2006 the model was restored and moved to its current home at the Israel Museum.

The model of Herod’s Temple is part of a larger model of ancient Jerusalem. It depicts Jerusalem as it was before the Romans destroyed the city—and Herod’s Temple—in 70 C.E. during the First Jewish Revolt against Rome. But just how accurate is the model? In “A Temple’s Golden Anniversary” in the January/February 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Peter J. Schertz and Steven Fine discuss this tantalizing question.

Michael Avi-Yonah used both textual and archaeological sources—including Josephus’s writings, the New Testament, later Rabbinic sources and depictions on artifacts such as Jewish revolt coins, as well as his own extensive knowledge of Herodian, Near Eastern and Roman architectural styles—to create a “highly fanciful and also highly probable” model of Herod’s Temple.

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As with any reconstruction of a long destroyed ancient building, especially one as important as Herod’s Temple, many complications surround Michael Avi-Yonah’s model. Josephus describes Herod’s Temple extensively in his Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews, but each description differs slightly, and neither allows for easy architectural reconstruction. Other elements of Josephus’s descriptions, such as the height of the Temple gate doors—which Josephus lists at 49 feet high and 24.5 feet wide—could be exaggerated, as Josephus was wont to do. However, doors of this size were known to exist in the ancient world. Two examples can be found in Rome itself: at the Pantheon and at the Senate House in the Roman Forum. Thus, Avi-Yonah’s model of Herod’s Temple stays true to Josephus’s description. This is but one of the decisions Avi-Yonah had to make concerning his representation of Herod’s Temple.

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What are some of the other controversies and complications surrounding Herod’s Temple model? For the answer to this question and more, read the full article “A Temple’s Golden Anniversary” by Peter J. Schertz and Steven Fine as it appears in the January/February 2016 issue of BAR.

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This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on January 10, 2016.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

The Temple Mount in the Herodian Period (37 BC–70 A.D.)

Sifting Antiquity on the Temple Mount Sifting Project

What the Temple Mount Floor Looked Like

Herod’s Temple Mount Revealed in Al-Aqsa Mosque Restoration

The Doorways of Solomon’s Temple

Searching for the Temple of King Solomon

Ancient Chisel Unearthed at the Western Wall

Study Investigates Western Wall Erosion

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COURTESY JOHN GREGORY DRUMMOND, BAS

Our model tablet comes from Mari, an ancient Syrian city located along the Euphrates River. Dating to the 18th century BCE, during the reign of King Zimri-Lim, it describes the building of an icehouse in a nearby city. Of course, the original tablet is made of clay, which fortunately has a consistency remarkably similar to that of gingerbread.

Tablet of Zimri-Lim from Mari
Courtesy John Gregory Drummond, BAS

Unless you happen to be an Assyriologist, however, you probably have little idea how to write ancient cuneiform characters. For a tutorial, visit British Museum: How to write cuneiform for a step-by-step guide to making your first cuneiform tablet. Then you’ll be ready to start baking!

A note on this recipe: Lebkuchengewürz is a common spice in Germany that can be purchased in the U.S. either online or at specialty stores. It is easily replaced, however, by combining pinches of cloves, cardamom, mace, and allspice. Lebkuchengewürz is a mixture of around a dozen spices, so it will give you a more complex flavor. Either spice combination works well for this recipe.—J.D.

BAR’s Recipe

3/4 cup honey
1 1/4 cups brown sugar, lightly packed
2 sticks butter
1 cup almonds, ground
3 1/3–4 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 good pinch each of ground cloves, cardamom, mace, and allspice or 2 tsp Lebkuchengewürz
1 tbsp cocoa powder
grated peel of half a lemon
1 egg
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp rum or water

Instructions:

Courtesy John Gregory Drummond, BAS

1. Melt honey, sugar, and butter on stove until sugar dissolves. Take off the stove and allow to cool slightly, then pour into a mixing bowl.
2. Add almonds, 3 1/3 cups flour, spices, lemon, cocoa powder, and egg to the honey mixture. Mix well.

Courtesy John Gregory Drummond, BAS

3. Stir baking soda into rum (or water) until dissolved; knead into the dough.
4. Mix dough at the highest speed until it is no longer sticky and soft. Add extra flour as necessary and mix until dough is smooth and solid.

Courtesy John Gregory Drummond, BAS

5. Leave dough in a bowl, cover, and let sit overnight (or at least 4 hours) in the refrigerator.

Courtesy John Gregory Drummond, BAS

6. Once dough has set, roll out to desired thickness (a slightly thicker dough works better for making the cuneiform).
7. Cut tablet to preferred size and shape, and begin making the cuneiform characters (see photo; a drawing is available in the online tutorial). Repeat for as many tablet cookies as desired.

Courtesy John Gregory Drummond, BAS

8. Once tablets are “written,” bake at 350 degrees for 10–15 minutes, then allow to cool.
9. Once cooled, cookies will be very hard. Place into an airtight container with apple slices until they soften, at least seven days depending on local conditions.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

Biblical Bread: Baking Like the Ancient Israelites

BAR Test Kitchen: Parsnips: Back to Roman Roots

BAR Test Kitchen: Tah’u Stew

Ancient Bread: 14,400-Year-Old Flatbreads Unearthed in Jordan

BAR Test Kitchen: Roman Custard

BAR Test Kitchen: Mersu

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The post BAR Test Kitchen: Tasty Cuneiform Tablets appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Adam and Eve. Eve reaches for the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In this interpretation by Károly Patkó, Adam is also reaching for the fruit, but his head is turned as if unsure of his actions, while Eve looks straight at the fruit.

A single bite of fruit forever heaved the entirety of a fallen and sinful creation onto the shoulders of Eve; through the lens of millennia of patriarchal interpretations of the scriptures, women throughout history have had to shoulder the blame and consequences. From an inferior place in spiritual service, to their place in society as a whole, women have been forced to take a backseat to their male fellows for no other reason than Eve ate the fruit first.

While most would not be surprised to find that modern scholarship and theological interpretations have taken great strides to find new perspectives on the story of the first mother, they would be astonished to learn that forward-thinking and pro-women interpretations of the Garden of Eden have been around for hundreds of years.

1. In Genesis 1, God creates Man and Women at the same time and gives them the same mandate: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground” (Genesis 1:28). Some women have used this to argue that this indicates God made no distinction between the sexes, and neither should society.
2. In Genesis 2-3, the use of the word ‘ezer (“helper”), does not imply subordination. Rather, God himself is described as the helper of the Israelites (Genesis 49:25; Psalm 37:40). Eve serves as the helper to Adam—as God served to the Israelites.
3. Adam did not treat Eve as inferior to him or as his subordinate.
4. According to Genesis 3, Adam was with Eve as she spoke with the serpent. Scholars have asked why he didn’t speak up. Why did he eat the fruit and allow Eve to do the same?

Eve is a complex character. Has she been adjusted to fit societal views and affirm the oppression of women, or does the biblical Eve truly demonstrate that women are made of “inferior stock”? To learn of the different interpretations of Eve by women, read Amanda W. Benckhuysen’s full article “The Gospel According to Eve,” published in the Spring 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Subscribers: Read the full article “The Gospel According to Eve” by Amanda W. Benckhuysen in the Spring 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review

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All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

Did Eve Fall or Was She Pushed?

Was Eve Cursed?

Eve and Adam

Adam and Eve

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This article first appeared in Bible History Daily on April 29, 2020.

The post Four Female Viewpoints on Eve appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

The Ashkar-Gilson Manuscript is a seventh- or eighth-century C.E. manuscript that sheds light on the formation of the Hebrew Bible in the period between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the later codices. Photo: © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Ardon Bar Hama.

What is the oldest Hebrew Bible? That is a complicated question. The Dead Sea Scrolls are fragments of the oldest Hebrew Bible text, while the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex are the oldest complete versions, written by the Masoretes in the 10th and 11th centuries, respectively. The Ashkar-Gilson Manuscript falls in between the early scrolls and the later codices.

In “Missing Link in Hebrew Bible Formation” in the November/December 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Biblical scholar Paul Sanders discusses the role the Ashkar-Gilson Manuscipt had in bridging the gap between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the later Aleppo Codex and Leningrad Codex.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were first discovered by Bedouin in 1947. Over 80,000 scroll fragments that came to be known as the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 11 caves near the Dead Sea site of Khirbet Qumran. The Dead Sea Scrolls date between 250 B.C.E. and 68 C.E. and represent the largest group of Second Temple Jewish literature ever discovered. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain two types of documents: fragments of the oldest Hebrew Bible texts and writings that—most scholars argue—describe the beliefs and practices of a community of Jews living and writing at the nearby settlement of Qumran.

The Aleppo Codex, the oldest Hebrew Bible that has survived to modern times, was created by scribes called Masoretes in Tiberias, Israel around 930 C.E. As such, the Aleppo Codex is considered to be the most authoritative copy of the Hebrew Bible. The Aleppo Codex is not complete, however, as almost 200 pages went missing between 1947 and 1957.

Interested in the history and meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls? In the free eBook Dead Sea Scrolls, learn what the Dead Sea Scrolls are and why are they important. Find out what they tell us about the Bible, Christianity and Judaism.

While the Aleppo Codex is the oldest Hebrew Bible, the Leningrad Codex is the oldest complete Hebrew Bible. The Leningrad Codex dates to 1008 C.E. The scribe who penned the Leningrad Codex actually identified himself in two colophons (an inscription containing the title, the scribe’s or printer’s name, and the date and place of composition) at the beginning and end of the text as Samuel ben Jacob, or Samuel son of Jacob. The colophons also identify the place written (Cairo), the person who commissioned it (Mevorak son of Nathaniel) as well as further sale and donation details.

The Ashkar-Gilson Manuscript was purchased by Fuad Ashkar and Albert Gilson (hence the name Ashkar-Gilson) from an antiquities dealer in Beirut, Lebanon in 1972, and some years later, they donated it to Duke University in North Carolina. Based on carbon-14 dating and paleographic analysis, the Ashkar-Gilson Manuscript was dated to sometime between the seventh and eighth centuries C.E., right at the tail end of the so-called “silent era”— an almost 600-year period from the third through eighth centuries, or the time between the oldest Hebrew Bible fragments (the Dead Sea Scrolls) and the oldest complete Hebrew Bible authoritative Masoretic codices.

Was the Ashkar-Gilson Manuscipt the source of the later, authoritative Masoretic traditions? For the answer to this question and more, read the full article “Missing Link in Hebrew Bible Formation” by Paul Sanders as it appears in the November/December 2015 issue of BAR.

BAS Library Members: Read the full article “Missing Link in Hebrew Bible Formation” by Paul Sanders in the November/December 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

Lawrence H. Schiffman on the Dead Sea Scrolls’ History

Who Were the Essenes?

The Aleppo Codex

Comparing Ancient Biblical Manuscripts

More on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex in the BAS Library:

Seaching for the Original Bible: Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Help?

The Mystery of the Missing Pages of the Aleppo Codex

The Shattered Crown: The Aleppo Codex, 60 Years After the Riots

The Leningrad Codex

This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on November 1, 2015.

The post What Is the Oldest Hebrew Bible? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

What is Latin? This Latin inscription, often called the Pilate Stone, records Pontius Pilate’s dedication of a temple to Emperor Tiberius. Courtesy Photo Companion to the Bible, Matthew.

Although the original biblical texts were written mostly in Hebrew or Greek, there is no denying that Latin was one of the most important languages of the biblical world. Indeed, many Jews and early Christians living within the Roman Empire would have spoken and read Latin, and it would have been familiar to and perhaps the first language of many in the early church. While it does not seem that the Roman Empire shared a single language, Latin was certainly the language of Rome—the language of politicians, administrators, and soldiers. In the eastern part of the empire—the Greek-speaking world—Latin never obtained the dominance it had in the West, but it was still known and read.

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History of Latin

Latin is in the Italic group of the Indo-European language family, first spoken by small tribes of people called the Latini who lived along the lower Tiber River. Called Latium, it was in this area that a small pastoral town in the hills would grow to become the capital of the vast Roman Empire. Rome’s location at the only convenient crossing point close to the mouth of the Tiber—a location valuable for both commercial and strategic reasons—may have helped Rome become the region’s dominant political entity. Whatever the reason, Rome’s political dominance led to the spread of the Latin language. Similar to how Attic Greek became the dominant Greek dialect as Athens gained power, Latin’s prominence rose with the spread of Roman power; first in Italy, then the rest of western and southern Europe and beyond.

Unlike its Greek contemporaries, early Latin literature is fragmentary at best and shows only a rough, accentual native meter called Saturnian, a few comedic skits, and a practical prose used for speeches and administrative documents. However, once the expansion of Roman power brought Latin speakers into the sphere of Greek civilization in the third century BCE, a cultural revolution began as Roman writers started to travel to Greece and were immersed in Greek literature. Greek literary forms, meters, rhetorical devices, and ideas had a long-lasting influence on Latin literature as Roman writing developed its own unique characteristics.

Hawara Papyrus 24, a first-century CE text with a line from Virgil’s Aeneid repeated seven times. This fragment of papyrus is one of the earliest surviving manuscripts of the Aeneid. Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg)/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

The first century leading up to the formation of the Roman Empire was an important time in the history of Latin, as Roman writers perfected their literary arts. The works of the Ciceronian period (80–43 BCE) were produced during a period of civil war, dictatorships, and political unrest. Many great writers, such as Cicero, Catullus, and even Julius Caesar himself, produced great literary works during this period.

During the Augustan period (43 BCE–14 CE), the newly crowned Augustus sought to use literature and the arts as a way to bury the political turmoil of the previous decades and look to the future of his Pax Romana (“Roman Peace”). Under his patronage, the poets Virgil and Horace crafted pinnacles of Latin literature, still read by many today. Also prominent during this period were famous writers such as Livy and Ovid.

The Post-Augustan period (14–138 CE) saw the rise of more political intrigues, as the Julio-Claudian dynasty had its ups and downs with imperial rule. This is well reflected in the writings of Roman literary greats, such as Seneca and Petronius and the later writers Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, and Juvenal.

During the Patristic period (late second–fifth centuries CE), much of Latin literature was written by early Christian leaders known as the Church Fathers. This group included the likes of Tertullian, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine. Many of these men were well educated and fond of the classical authors who came before them. Jerome, in particular, is famous for producing the Latin translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate—named for the “Vulgar Latin” in which it was written. Much like Koine Greek (the language of the New Testament), this was the Latin people commonly spoke, as opposed to high literary Latin.

Opening page of the Gospel of Mark from the Codex Amiatinus, one of the best preserved and earliest complete one-volume Vulgate manuscripts to survive. It was created around 700 CE at the Benedictine Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey in northeast England. Public Domain

Even as the Western Roman Empire crumbled and fell, Latin remained an important administrative and political language in Europe for the next thousand years. Over the following centuries, Vulgar Latin evolved into the various Romance languages spoken across the lands of the former Roman Empire up to this day. These include French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. Latin survived as the language of the church and the intellectual world of the Middle Ages.

Breaking Down Latin

Classical Latin regularly used six cases in the declension (variations in the form of a noun, pronoun, or adjective, which identify its grammatical case, number, and gender) of nouns and adjectives. These cases are nominative, vocative, genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative, with occasional uses of a locative case. Case endings applied to the ends of nouns and adjectives identify which case/number/gender a word should have.

Verbs in Latin exhibit five characteristics: person, number, tense, mood, and voice. Like nouns and adjectives, endings are added to Latin infinitives (conjugated) to indicate person and number, and these endings differ depending on which tense and voice is being used.

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

What Is Aramaic?

What Is Akkadian?

Latin Over Aramaic?

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library:

A Rare Look at the Jewish Catacombs of Rome

Pontius Pilate

Peter in Rome

The post What Is Latin? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Modern tefillin, painted black, being strapped to the arm. Courtesy Emil Aladjem, IAA.

Tefillin, commonly known as phylacteries in English, are Jewish ritual leather cases containing Bible verses written on tiny scrolls, strapped on the forehead and arm during morning prayer. Still worn by religious Jews today, tefillin have roots stretching back 2,000 years into the archaeological record. But how similar were these ancient religious objects to the tefillin of today? Publishing in the journal PLOS ONE, a team of scholars set out to answer just that question.

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Coloring Tefillin

Traditionally (though not exclusively) worn by men, tefillin are often given as gifts once a child (typically male) reaches 13 and completes their bar/bat mitzvah. The oldest-known tefillin were found at the site of Qumran, dating to the end of the Second Temple period (before 70 CE). Rabbinic law requires that tefillin leather be colored black; however, a recent study by a joint Israeli-British research team has shown that 17 of the tefillin from Qumran were not dyed black.

Discovered in the Judean Desert caves at Wadi Murabba‘at and at Nahal Se’eli, the tefillin were subjected to a battery of scientific testing to determine if the leather was dyed black or darkened naturally over time. According to Ilit Cohen-Ofri, head of the conservation laboratory at the Israel Antiquities Authority’s (IAA) Dead Sea Scrolls Unit: “In ancient times, there were two main methods for dyeing leather black. The first method used carbon-based materials—soot or charcoal—to give the leather a black color. The second method was based on a chemical reaction between tannin, a complex organic compound found in many plants, and iron oxides.”

One of the ancient tefillin in the laboratories of the Israel Antiquities Authority, ready to undergo testing. Courtesy Emil Aladjem, IAA.

The arid conditions of the desert allowed for the leather cases to be remarkably well preserved. The researchers tested the leather to find evidence for both dying methods mentioned above, and in all cases, they determined that the dark leather was not due to any ancient dying process, but rather, the natural aging of leather, which could have been hastened due to the leakage of water into the caves. Thus, the team speculates that the rabbinic law to dye tefillin black was not in place during the Second Temple period and that the practice must have developed as a later tradition.

“It is likely that in the beginning, there was no halakhic significance to the color of tefillin,” explained Yonatan Adler of Ariel University, who led the study. “Only at a later period did the rabbis rule that tefillin should be colored black. However, even after this, the halakhic authorities continued to debate whether the requirement to color tefillin cases black was an absolute obligation or merely preferable for aesthetic reasons. It is commonly thought that Jewish law is static and does not develop. Our ongoing research on ancient tefillin shows that the exact opposite is true; Jewish law has always been dynamic. In my view, it is this vibrancy that makes halakhah so beautiful.”

The command to “Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads” found in Deuteronomy 6:8 (also mentioned in Exodus 13:9,16 and Deuteronomy 11:18) is commonly interpreted as the source behind the tradition of wearing tefillin, although it is sometimes debated whether this directive was literal. The word tefillin itself is not found in the Hebrew Bible, and it is unclear exactly what was meant to be tied or bound to the worshipers. By the first century CE, however, many early Jews understood the command to be literal and wore tefillin during their prayers. Jesus himself addresses this practice in Matthew 23:5: “[The Pharisees] make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long.”

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Qumran Phylacteries Reveal Nine New Dead Sea Scrolls

Qumran’s True Purpose Discovered?

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library:

Qumran—The Pottery Factory

Qumran—the Evidence of the Inkwells

The Qumran Settlement—Monastery, Villa or Fortress?

The post What Color Were Ancient Tefillin? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Westward view over the harbor at Fair Havens, on the southern coast of Crete. Before being shipwrecked on his ill-fated journey to Rome, Paul sailed along Crete’s southern coast to avoid heavy winds (Acts 27:7-8).
Photo courtesy of Mark Wilson.

The Pax Romana, or “Roman Peace,” is what many often term the Roman Empire’s unprecedented period of peace and economic prosperity between 27 BCE and 180 CE. It was during this time that Jesus lived and was crucified, and that early Christianity grew and spread. Thanks to the Pax Romana, “The Mediterranean world of the first two centuries, then, was bigger than it had ever been before. So was the volume of movement. The roads and sea ways were now thronged with traders in larger numbers than the Greek world had ever known, with armies, bureaucrats, couriers of the government post, and just plain tourists.”¹ Although some traveled for the same reasons we do today—to see great sights or to escape the heat of the city—others traveled for their health (the sanctuaries of Asclepius, the god of medicine, were very popular healing destinations), to visit oracles, or to see sporting events such as chariot races and the Olympic games.

The peace of the Pax Romana is often associated with the empire’s extensive road system, but well-traveled waterways and the Mediterranean were critical arteries of trade and communication as well. In 31 BCE, the Romans wiped out Egypt’s large navy at the Battle of Actium, almost four decades after Pompey the Great destroyed the last major pirate group in 67 BCE. With these great sea victories, the newly formed Roman Empire controlled the Mediterranean, allowing for safe travel throughout its waters.

One thing Rome could not control, however, was the weather. While it became possible to travel anywhere, passenger ships as we know them today did not exist; instead, travelers would book passage on any vessel that was carrying goods or journeying to the passenger’s ultimate destination. Ships did not sail on set schedules; instead, they waited for favorable winds, calm weather, and good omens. Some scholars even argue Mediterranean storms (and fog) were so unpredictable that ships only regularly sailed between the months of May and September; from October to April, ships would have sailed only out of necessity. This view has been contested in recent years, however, and it very much depended on the type of ship and the route of the voyage.

A mosaic from the Square of the Corporations (west porticus – statio 49) in Ostia depicting two ships approaching a lighthouse. Ostia was one of the major ports of ancient Rome. The city was located at the mouth of the Tiber River and had a population of 100,000 at its peak.
Photo by John Drummond.

Travel by ship was the fastest means of getting to a destination, but it was also more dangerous than overland travel. Storms could pop up out of nowhere and threaten even the largest of vessels with the best of crews. It’s impossible to know how many ancient ships were lost at sea, but based on parallels from more recent periods, a safe guess would be about 3 percent of all ships. Some scholars estimate that one in five ship journeys ended in a wreck. Over a thousand wrecks are known within the Mediterranean alone, from all time periods. Even the first Roman emperor, Augustus, suffered numerous disasters at sea during his lifetime, including a wreck, the loss of two complete ships, and the destruction of an entire fleet.

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As we know from the New Testament, the apostle Paul, too, ran into dangerous Mediterranean weather and was shipwrecked three times (2 Corinthians 11:25–30). Mark Wilson, in his article “‘Under the Lee’ with Paul” in the Spring 2024 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, describes Paul’s voyage to Rome and one of these shipwrecks in great detail, even using his own recent experience of sailing on the Mediterranean for context.

To learn more about Paul’s maritime travels, read “‘Under the Lee’ with Paul” by Mark Wilson, published in the Spring 2024 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Subscribers: Read the full piece, “‘Under the Lee’ with Paul” by Mark Wilson, published in the Spring 2024 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Footnotes:

¹ Lionel Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (Toronto: Hakkert, 1974), p. 127.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

A Road Well Traveled

Roman Construction Site Uncovered at Pompeii

Learn Unknown Facts About Paul Today

2,000-Year-Old Road Unearthed in Bet Shemesh

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

Sailing the Open Seas

Wrecked Ships and a Remarkable Ring

Littoral Truths

Excavating an Ancient Merchantman

This article was first published in Bible History Daily on April 24, 2024.

The post The <em>Pax Romana</em> and Maritime Travel appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

For this Test Kitchen, we are going a bit further afield, to China’s Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368 CE). Founded by Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, the Yuan Dynasty was the successor to the great Mongol Empire founded by Genghis. Our recipe comes from a dietary menu, the Yinshan Zhengyao (“Proper and Essential Things for the Emperor’s Food and Drink”), written by Hu Sihui, a 14th-century dietary physician who served under several of Kublai Khan’s descendants.

Like its Mongolian predecessor, Yuan China was a cosmopolitan civilization. At its zenith, the Mongol Empire stretched from the Sea of Japan to Eastern Europe, bringing together the many diverse cultural elements—and cuisines—that fell within its realm. Indeed, many recipes from Sihui’s text show Near Eastern influences, including these meat cakes, which are very similar to kofta, a dish still popular in the Middle East today. The Mongol’s nomadic way of life, however, permeated Yuan society, and so ingredients typical to the Eurasian steppe were introduced to the recipe.

Two of these ingredients—asafoetida (kasni) and long pepper—are hard to find in most grocery stores today but are readily available from Indian or southeast Asian grocers or online. Asafoetida is a strong spice with a unique odor (its nickname is “devil’s dung”) but it adds a special umami flavor that is hard to replicate; as an alternative, you can add a clove of minced garlic and a pinch of onion powder. Long pepper is from the same family as black and white peppers (think peppercorns, not spicy peppers), so you can substitute with black or white pepper if needed, though the recipe will lose some of its earthy flavor.
For BAR’s recipe, we took Hu Sihui’s ancient version, but added some elements of modern kofta. These delicious Mongolian meat cakes are best when served with hummus and pita, and would be a welcome addition to any gathering! Enjoy!—J.D.

Mongolian Meat Cakes
Ancient Recipe
“Select mutton (10 jin; remove the fat, membrane, and sinew. Mash into a paste), kasni (three qian), black pepper (two liang), long pepper (one liang), finely ground coriander (one liang). [For] ingredients, use salt. Adjust flavors evenly. Use the fingers to make ‘cakes.’ Put into vegetable oil and fry.”^[1]

Samaritan Hummus (BAR’s variation)

Ingredients:

• Ground lamb
• 1 tsp asafoetida or 1 clove minced garlic
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp long pepper or white pepper
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1 tsp cumin
• Dash of cardamom
• Dash of cinnamon
• Handful of chopped parsley
• Salt (to taste)

Instructions:

• • Place all of the above ingredients into a bowl and kneed together.

• • Form golf ball-sized meatballs then gently press into patty form.

• • Pan fry in vegetable oil 5–6 minutes per side, or grill for a healthier alternative.

• Place on a plate and serve with hummus and pita for an added flair.

Notes:

[1] From Paul D. Buell and Eugene N. Anderson, A Soup for the Qan: Chinese Dietary Medicine of the Mongol Era as Seen in Hu Sihui’s Yinshan Zhengyao, Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series, Vol. 9 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), p. 297.

Read more in Bible History Daily:

BAR Test Kitchen: Samaritan Hummus

BAR Test Kitchen: Samosas

BAR Test Kitchen: Babylonian Unwinding Stew

All-Access member, read more in the BAS Library:

Baking Bread in Ancient Judah

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