The Talmud versus the MT

What we call "Judaism" is associated with a Biblical text which descends from the pre-Revolt era. This text supplied all translations of the Middle Ages except for the Greeks', and a few Greek-based translations like the Sahidic and some Syriac. Tradition claims the Masoretes, for this. It was the primary source for the Qaraiya sect of the Jews.

Mainline Jews, famously, use besides their Bible (which is MT) another text: "The Talmud" - specifically, that of Babylonia. This is a difficult text to pin down. It might not have been intended as a final compilation, although it has become one.

The Talmud is aware of the MT but perhaps only as the default Bible. A Karaite would refuse Ben Sira out of hand; the Talmud cites it, and arguably treats it with more respect than (say) Clement was treating "The Gospel Of Thomas". The Talmud is aware of variants in the accepted canon as well, usually ascribed to those pesty Septuagints (in east-Aramaic?) but TheTorah.com cannot rule out old Tanakh scrolls from the Seleucid era. Variants lingered in the Rabbinic tradition even after the Talmud.

It may be that the MT attracted errors which later copyists had to ratchet back - which could end up canonising some errors, rather than fixing them. Similar has happened to the Peshitta which is why Syriac scholars are looking into the earliest Arabic translations.

The Peshitta is, mind, a Christian translation - or has become one. Naturally Jews desired their own Arabic translations. Saadya Gaon created a quick-n'-dirty translation using some Jewish Aramaic lore, which strikes me as creating a Jewish Arabic Peshitta himself. Naturally the Karaites hated it, so redid their own Bible from Ebrea Sola - if I may.

The Cyzicene History

Speaking as a Dyothelete, 'tis nice to see work composed to support the Chalcedon decisions of AD 453. Such is the history of Cyzicus composed a few decades after that. We now have a modern translation and (mostly) commentary. Karl Dahm is reviewing it.

The history's proem seems to note Zeno, chief wimp of Constantinople AD 475-90. He'll be succeeded AD 491 by Anastasius who will outright overturn Chalcedon. The anonymous Cyzicene wrote to "update" prior historians' work to support Chalcedon more firmly, against the Monophysite threats which Zeno was allowing to fester and which will erupt under Anastasius.

Chief of those prior historians was Gelasius of Caesarea. In fact the confusion between the two led some of our late-antique historians to ascribe this latter one to the phantom "Gelasius of Cyzicus". We still don't know who our boy was - except that he lived in Cyzicus, on the south Marmaran coast west of Nicaea.

That this historian tampered with the text is unfortunate, thus forcing us back on other sources for the immediate postNicene era when the Empire was Eunomian. Possibly why Anastasius felt free to dismiss such savants as ahistorical liars and why our historians have mostly dismissed it too.

Pirenne in the Rhineland

A few years ago I linked to this meme on Roman coinage versus late-Antique coinage. O'Neill, he don' like it but the Damascene casbah can't be rocked. Couldn't from Europe and North-Africa, anyway. Instead, the centre of traffic shifted to the Rhineland.

On that topic, Berber S. van der Meulen-van der Veen since wrote a book about Germania Secunda. Craig Davis, one of the best of Bryn Mawr's crew, is reviewing it. The thesis is that this frontier wasn't invaded as such; it was always porous so always involved a negotiation between the Roman army out there (not all of them Italian) and the locals, whom we'd recognise as German since at least the rampage of Germanicus. (I remain unsure where Arminius' Cherusci sat, on this division.)

I could add that, in turn, the Romans retained "embassies" - fully armed - deep beyond the Rhine. As long as they weren't overstepping like Varus overstepped, the Germans tolerated this presence.

This Austrasian borderland got wealthy and powerful enough it could fuel rival Emperors long before Childeric AD 463 "governed" on behalf of... well, it wasn't Majorian. I had to look it up: Libius Severus or "Severus III". Pretty much Ricimer, then. Anyway if Domitian II could be laughed off, Constantine III and Macsen Wledig could not.

This suggests that some "barbarian invasions" might have been viewed, by the barbarians themselves, as Avitus viewed himself: a Roman provincial rebellion then expanding its territory at the expense of other dubiously-Roman "governors" - read, fellow warlords. How well was Ricimer speaking Latin?

BACKDATE 3/20

Not-𝔊967

I learnt about 𝔊967 last week. This is a version of Ezekiel which did not make the Hexapla. Its (Greek) basis had meanwhile made its way into Latin - in the "Wirceburg" parchment copied in the fifth century but assuredly translated before Jerome, who rejected it. (That parchment was subsequently written over, which palimpsest got sent to Wirceburg.) The subset of Biblical scholars who care about Ezekiel (who aren't many) need to deal with it. Tracy McKenzie is dealing with it. It doesn't have Ez 36:23bβ–38.

Even before this (rare) 𝔊967 text was found in these two languages, scholars had noted its minus Ez 36:23bβ–38 as being... different, in our Greek. In 1903 Thackeray called it out as "Theodotionic" - which means late. Was anyone aware of this passage when the rest of Ezekiel was being translated? Johann Lust thought not.

Some scholars think Lust went too far. Absent the minus, which is "plus" in our canon, Ez 36:16–23bα remains as abnormally short for an oracle. Also the full Ez 36 is extant in Masada, along with other MT-like Biblical text.

McKenzie's main argument is a commentary upon MT / Theo Ez 36:23bβ–38. This uses the water-shedding of Numbers 19:13,20 (zrq; usually the Bible would have the shedding be of blood); along with other Ezekielian tropes. She backs up Lust inasmuch the passage be late. Then the question turns to what comes after v. 23bα, if not bβ+.

𝔊967 follows Ez 36:16–23bα immediately with 38:1. McKenzie notes this means the defilement of Israel may be cleansed only by Gog and Magog, whom Lord God YHWH is summoning upon the defilers. The dry-bones of our Ez 37 must await the end of our 38-39. Interestingly McKenzie doesn't like that, either. She follows "Tooman 2010" here, that Ez 38-39 is a floating oracle like so many PseudoEzekiels in Qumran. In that case Ez 37 is where it should be. The (in)famous Ez 40-48 block, by our count, would then follow Ez 37 directly, its own self.

The bibliography fails us for Tooman; I suspect McKenzie refers here to Gog of Magog. Not everybody approves the extremity of Tooman's late date, but even Tooman's harshest critic (pdf) agrees Ez 38-39 were/was fathered upon the prophet by someone else.

A more nagging problem is that we don't own any ur-text. We have 𝔊967 which smells like an apocalyptic rant; and we have our MT (and Jerome, and Peshitta et al.), which like McKenzie would dismiss the apocalypse... but they still have 38-39 too. Why not just refuse 'em? Jeremiah LXX merrily refused a lot of MT additions until the end. On the other-side to this day the Jews refuse the Greeks' Daniel (as they should), as well as Tobit (ditto).

Barbie's world

"Insurrection Barbie" a couple weeks back posted a (long) comment calling out, sigh, Russian Interference. The claim is that Orthodox circles close to Putin have been running an op against American Evangelicals, with the aim to pull them away from the Jews as a people and Israel as a nation-state. This piece has bubbled up to Rafael "Ted" Cruz which kind-of makes it personal, inasmuch as I helped secure his nomination in my state in 2016.

Much of I.B.'s essay (or rant, or screed perhaps) reads like Scott Hahn and Ben Wiker poisoning the well against the Higher Critics. I.B. also distrusts the Higher Critics. As before happened to the elder generation of late-mediaeval Catholics; this younger generation of Protestants has received content critiquing the now-Protestant reading of our shared (Christian) scripture. Leaving this, they swapped one foundation for another;—emdash— in I.B.'s words. That other foundation would be patristic Christianity: either in Orthodox form, or in the form of some of the spicier Catholics like pope Pius X.

To the extent I.B. wants to talk theology - and I say this as a Zionist - she should know that evangelical sola scriptura failed because it was malum in se. Hahn has been derided as "the American Pope" exactly because he heads up a traditionalist wing; he too couldn't refute what the critics were saying in the AD 1200s, so had to cowrite a (long) book with that creationist clown Wiker to attack the critics. This tack is not going to work better for I.B. when anybody can drop in on an Ehrman vid online or, worse, Tovia Singer. And if you don't like Ehrman (or Singer), we Zionists are really going to dislike what's coming from the likes of Vridar and Richard Carrier.

If sola scriptura be no basis, luckily other base-eeze exist. One might even be muscular Singerite Judaism. Now, these Scriptures have problems too. So... come Orthodoxy, whose foundations build from Clement of Rome (or of Syracuse, whatever), and (later) Mark and Ignatius.

In Orthodox teaching, or at least the old Chalcedonian formulae as restrict Orthodoxy to the filioque and pope Martin's Lateran synod, we do have a distinction between the Church and the State, in Martin's days protected by the Empire (Constans II... based outta Syracuse, again). The state however must work in harmony with the Church. IB calls this "integralism", anyway a straw version of this which she credits to Vermeule, Ahmari, Deneen (and to Pappin whoever that is). Deneen shouldn't count and Ahmari is just some dude saying things on the Internet. Vermeule might be serious. Even here I get the impression I.B. relies upon Jason Blakely: Integralism seeks to subordinate temporal power to spiritual power — or, more specifically, the modern state to the Catholic Church. If true, that would indeed entail a resurfacing of Constans' monothelete heresy. But I.B. is writing a polemic, as was Blakely. The purpose is to paint traditionalists like Deneen with Vermeule on the way to run both of them off polite society.

I repeat: I support the preservation of the Jewish state upon the Jewish heartland. But I don't do this from the evangelical standpoint, because that standpoint is rotten and was falling apart even before various tradbros picked up on dubious Catholic teachings (honestly, Hahn wasn't even helping). Overall I do not believe that I must take I.B.'s standpoint. Christians can find (and have found) other arguments. If I.B. wants us to go back to John Hagee sermons, she may succeed in running us off... but many of us may simply conclude that there is nothing for us in any Jewish / Christian alliance.

GRIFTER 7:20 PM MST: I.B. is Irina Pavchinskaya-Cedano. Disbarred from Illinois; and although, you know, blue-state Bar associations generally suck, in this case the disbarment happened because she did a felony.

The intragalactic hegira

A theory was mooted that our sun came from 10000 ly closer coreward than it is now. I wasn't aware of the theory - and it seems not all those aware really thought much of it, because it ran against some dynamical constraints. Maybe not though.

The notion is, so I take it, that our rarified arm of the Milky Way doesn't cook up many highish-metallicity G stars on-up, on its own. Alpha-Centauri aside, mostly around here we got K and M. But there survive "twins", other 4.6Gy stars of more-or-less the same composition headed in the same general orbit. They only go as heavy as F of course because anything more would have red-gianted by now, like Sirius B.

The range chosen was 1000 ly / 300 pc, a reasonable-enough allowance for drift over five billion years. Usually mooted around here are HD 162826 (110 ly, Herculi) and more-so HD 186302 (184, Pavo). They found 6594 "twins" in toto.

Daisuke Taniguchi's team recently calculates the effect to which the central bar of this galaxy might lever smaller stars (than the bar) onto higher orbits. Close to home this might also have affected the higher planetary orbits, from Jupiter to beyond.

Two Temples

Lisbeth Fried discusses two temple plans: one Near Eastern, one Greek. In the Near East, a temple is where the god makes his real home on Earth. This is somewhat the theory behind the Christian martyrion, or merthyr in Welsh. Most Greeks, instead, understood the gods to live in Olympus. Men communicated with those gods via altars in the open. It follows up this piece.

Fried sees the Deuteronomy-based literature and the Holiness Code, and Priestly literature generally, to be classically Near Eastern. If there wasn't a Temple, at least there could be a tent with the Ark set up in the place of glory. This is the tabernacle.

Fried distinguishes between the Deuteronomic / Holiness view; and 1-6 Ezra. Fried thinks 1-6 Ezra / 1 Esdras was Hellenistic. Ezra 3:6 has that Zerubbabel on return to Zion built an altar but did not (re)build the Temple. Supposedly Zerubbabel was a Babylonian who should have just got to building.

I've already asked if the Greek way - permanent altars, with temples as afterthought - be (east)IndoEuropean. Although this might exclude the Persian (and Avestan) respect for fire thus refusal of holocaust.

Either way, it's postExilic. Fried points out the innumerable tales in our Torah where some patriarch sets up an altar and not a temple. These are typically allotted to "J", or maybe sometimes "E". Most would say that this was a means for the Temple societies of king Josiah and certain stray northerners to claim the land but not yet the temples, which temples were inaugurated by the post-Torah kingdoms. Fried thinks that the means which the Torah chooses to lay this claim, be Greek like Ezra (or at least not Semitic).

I get the impression that Arabs, also, preferred the outdoor altar - at first. But then our records cluster around Nabataea, and surrounding Safa and Hisma (once Moab and Edom). The Nabat was quite Hellenised, by the time those Arabs' ancestors trickled through aforementioned Moab and Edom. Not for them, the reactionary record-keeping of the Jews and Samaritans.