WORKSHOP at Brown University on 13-14 February: Ancient Religion, Modern Technology . This workshop will explore the intersection of ancient religion and the digital humanities. Can digital tools not only allow us to do our work faster and more thoroughly but also enable entirely new kinds of research? How might different digital data (e.g. Read More »

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION at Discovery Times Square is being refreshed: NYC’s Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit has 10 new scrolls (AP). Lots of interesting variety in the new collection.Background here and links. Read More »

TU B’SHEVAT , the New Year for Trees , begins tonight at sundown. Read More »

THE BRITISH NEW TESTAMENT SOCIETY has issued a call for papers for its 2012 meeting on 6-8 September at Kings College London. As ever, Darrell Hannah and I are chairing the NT & Second Temple Judaism Seminar .UPDATE: I haven’t forgotten my promise last week to link to the Society of Biblical Literature call for papers, but they keep putting it off. Read More »

DOROTHY LOBEL KING has been on this story too, and she too saw problems when it was coming out some years ago: Rabbi admits Torah tales were a fraud .Background here . Read More »

DANIEL B. WALLACE, of Dallas Theological Seminary, has announced (in a debate with Bart Ehrman, reported on Professor Wallace’s blog, Parchment & Pen) that numerous very early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark, including one from the first century, are soon to be published: Ehrman vs Wallace: Round Three . Read More »

Another in PaleoJudaica’s series on ancient bling: A golden exhibit for Spain February 4, 2012 • Lead, Sevilla • 4 Comments ( The Olive Press )IT has been kept locked away for years, with the public only having seen it five times since it was first discovered. Read More »

A SUPERCILIOUS REVIEW by Jenna Weissman Joselit in The Forward , which emphasizes the elements of tourist tackiness in the exhibition: Thou Shalt Suspend Disbelief: Dead Sea Scrolls Come to Times Square Tourist Land . Read More »

THIS IS SAD. And strange. And annoying. ‘Jewish Indiana Jones’ faces jail for $1m fraud after lying about daring trips to save ancient Torah scrolls Claimed he was ‘beaten up, thrown in jail, and [went] $175,000 into debt’ to rescue relics Said he Read More »

CONGRATULATIONS TO GEZA VERMES: Emeritus Fellow Geza Vermes celebrates Dead Sea Scrolls golden jubilee 2 February 2012Professor Geza Vermes Wolfson College was honoured to welcome Emeritus Fellow Geza Vermes and Penguin Books on 23rd January for the Read More »

THE BIBLIOBLOG CARNIVAL FEBRUARY 2012 has been posted by Amanda MacInnis at the Cheese-Wearing Theology blog. Read More »

CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT: The Canadian Society for Syriac Studies (CSSS) will hold its annual Symposium XII entitled Studies on Syriac Manuscripts: Texts, Illuminations, and Collections, on Saturday November 10, 2012, 9 am to 5 pm. The CSSS welcomes a limited number of speakers to present papers related to this theme. Read More »

NEW BOOK from Wipf and Stock: Laws in the Bible and in Early Rabbinic Collections The Legal Legacy of the Ancient Near East By Samuel Greengus-Book DescriptionThe remarkable discovery of ancient Near Eastern law collections or “codes,” beginning with Read More »

CONSTANTINA KATSARI: Redundancies at the Foundation of the Hellenic World .Possibly cross-post under “Higher Education Bubble,” although this sounds more like a side effect of the Greek economic disaster in general. Read More »

POLLEN from a Persian-Period garden has yielded up some surprises: Jerusalem dig uncovers earliest evidence of local cultivation of etrogs Pollen reveals ancient palace grew the citrus in its garden. Read More »

ALIN SUCIU has found yet another venerable Coptic resource online: A. Kropp, Ausgewählte koptische Zaubertexte .The Coptic magical texts draw on a great many Jewish traditions. You can find lots of them in English translation in Marvin Meyer and Richard Smith (eds.) Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power . Read More »

LINA BROYDO visits the Dead Sea Scrolls online with Google and on site in Israel: Google Offers Stroll Through Dead Sea Scrolls ( The Epoch Times ). The Discovery Times Square exhibition is also mentioned in passing, but not reviewed. Read More »

CAN’T MAKE IT UP: Blooming Prairie couple design, build cave for Vatican .Posted: Jan 31, 2012, 10: 10 amBy John WeissThe Post-Bulletin, Rochester MNBLOOMING PRAIRIE — Once the 800-square-foot cave replica was shipped to the Vatican, Chris and Linda Beech were able to take a deep breath and get back to their usual jobs of writing computer games. Read More »

ADAM MCCOLLUM has a post on Translating into and composing in ancient languages at the hmmlorientalia blog. Read More »

ALIN SUCIU: P. Lacau, Fragments d’apocryphes coptes . Downloadable as a pdf file. They include apocryphal gospels (?), the Acts of Pilate, and an Apocalypse of Bartholomew. Read More »