Tim Mahoney has published a two-part interview with Brian Rickett and me about the work of MIKRA Research Laboratory. In part 1 we discuss the work of MIKRA and our soon-to-be-released app. In part 2, we talk more generally about the work of Hebrew paleography and the history of the Bible. Hopefully this gives some insight into the kind of work we do for those who may be interested.
This blog is intended to be an outlet for research and questions on the textual criticism of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and related issues.
Sunday, January 8, 2023
Wednesday, September 7, 2022
A New First Temple Hebrew Papyrus
The Israel Antiquities Authority has announced the exciting recovery of a fragment of a Hebrew papyrus letter from the 7th-6th centuries BCE, that was presumably found in the Judea Desert. The backstory is quite intriguing and worth a read. The papyrus was supposedly also radiocarbon dated to around the same period, which lends strong support to its authenticity (there's not much blank papyrus from that period floating around in Israel). This is one of only a very small number of Hebrew papyri with a claim to come from that early, and those who helped bring it to light are to be congratulated.
HT Gary Rendsburg
Monday, July 11, 2022
HebrewPal Paleography Database
The HebrewPal database now has a public website established, though it does not yet include many manuscripts. It promises to be quite a useful tool once a greater dataset is input.
The project also has a call out for a postdoctoral researcher to work on paleographic descriptions of medieval and early modern Hebrew manuscripts.
Friday, April 15, 2022
EPHE-PSL Seminars on Ancient Scripts
On the Scriptish mailing list Andreas Stauder announces French-language program of seminars on a wide range of ancient scripts. The recorded sessions are also available on YouTube. See below details from the email.
Cycle « Les écritures dans les mondes anciens »,
de l’Institut des langues rares (Ilara) de l’EPHE-PSL (Paris) :
- Le programme :
https://ilara.hypotheses.org/files/2022/02/Conferences-ecritures-anciennes.pdf
- La prochaine conférence :
« Observations sur les écritures d’Asie Centrale au Ier millénaire de notre ère »,
par Georges-Jean Pinault, le mercredi 20 avril, à 18h30 (inscription gratuite, obligatoire, sur eventbrite) :
- La chaîne YouTube, avec les sept conférences déjà données :
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT__n1OePD2jGdJTR0hNVdUrYYF-Nl3c5
Thursday, June 17, 2021
Paleographic Style and the Forms and Functions of the Dead Sea Psalm Scrolls
My article on the style and function of the Dead Sea Psalm scrolls has now been published as an advance article! By way of background, this is a crucial part of my argument that the forms of the manuscripts suggest possible functions, which in turn helps us interpret their contents.
Drew Longacre, "Paleographic Style and the Forms and Functions of the Dead Sea Psalm Scrolls: A Hand Fitting for the Occasion?" Vetus Testamentum (2021): 1-26.
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
The Scribe(s?) of the Great Isaiah Scroll
Mladen Popović, Maruf Dhali, and Lambert Schomaker have now published their groundbreaking PLOS ONE paper arguing that there are strong paleographic indications that the two halves of the Great Isaiah Scroll were written by two different writers.
More background on the project can be found in their recent presentations here, here, and here.
Digital Palaeography and Hebrew/Aramaic Scribal Culture Recordings Online
I am happy to announce that the recordings from the 2021 Groningen International Symposium "Digital Palaeography and Hebrew/Aramaic Scribal Culture" are now available online. These are great resources for those interested in the current state of digital paleography and the study of Hebrew/Aramaic scripts.
You can find the program and direct links on the conference web page.
The videos are hosted on the University of Groningen YouTube channel on a dedicated playlist.
Thursday, April 1, 2021
Comparative Hellenistic and Roman Manuscript Studies (CHRoMS)
Comparative Hellenistic and Roman Manuscript Studies (CHRoMS): Script Interactions and Hebrew/Aramaic Writing Culture
Longacre, Drew
Writing is an expression of culture and is subject to intercultural influences. In this comparative study, I argue that Egyptian and Judean Hebrew/Aramaic scripts from 400 BCE–400 CE were heavily influenced by Greek and later Latin writing cultures, which explains many previously inexplicable phenomena. Jewish writers in the third century BCE adopted the Greek split-nibbed reed pen, which dramatically changed the appearance of Hebrew/Aramaic scripts. At the same time, the normal size for Hebrew/ Aramaic scripts shrank considerably, the pen strokes became mostly monotone and unshaded, and the scripts became more rectilinear, angular, bilinear, and square.
Each of these features appears to be due to direct imitation of contemporary Greek formal writing. Beginning in the first century BCE, Hebrew/Aramaic writers began to decorate their formal scripts with separate ornamental strokes like those of contemporary Greek and Latin calligraphic scripts. And from the second or third century CE, Hebrew/Aramaic calligraphic scripts seem to be increasingly characterized by horizontal shading, parallel to the contemporary rise of Greek and Latin shaded scripts. Furthermore, in the late Roman period, the traditional Hieratic-derived Aramaic numeral system was replaced by an alphabetic numeral system under the influence of the Greek Milesian alphabetic numerals.
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Digital Palaeography and Hebrew/Aramaic Scribal Culture Conference Program and Registration
Digital Palaeography and Hebrew/Aramaic Scribal Culture
The 2021 International Online Groningen Symposium
6–8 April 2021
13:00–20:00 Central European Summer Time (UTC+2)
Hosted by the
Qumran Institute (University of Groningen)
Bernoulli Institute (University of Groningen)
To register, please email Drew Longacre at d.g.longacre@rug.nl.
A Zoom invitation will be sent to presenters and registered attendees on 5 April.
Tuesday, 6 April
13:00 CET Jouke de Vries (President of the University of Groningen)
Welcome
Mladen Popović (University of Groningen)
Introduction
Session 1 — The Hands that Wrote the Bible: Digital Palaeography
Chair: Eibert Tigchelaar
13:15 Mladen Popović (University of Groningen)
Digital Palaeography for Identifying the Unknown Scribes and Dating the Undated Manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls
13:45 Maruf Dhali (University of Groningen)
Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition Techniques in Analyzing the Dead Sea Scrolls
14:15 Gemma Hayes (University of Groningen)
Digital Palaeography and the Scribes of the Dead Sea Scrolls
14:45 Drew Longacre (University of Groningen)
Data Mining for Writer Identification: The Test Case of the Dead Sea Psalm Scrolls
15:15 Discussion
15:30–16:15 Break
Session 2 — The Hands that Wrote the Bible: Radiocarbon Dating
Chair: Mladen Popović
16:15 Kaare Rasmussen (University of Southern Denmark)
The 14C Dating in the ERC project “The Hands that Wrote the Bible”: Chemical Aspects and the Cleaning of the Samples
16:45 Hans van der Plicht (University of Groningen)
The 14C Dating in the ERC project “The Hands that Wrote the Bible”: Physical Aspects and the Measurement of the 14C Content
17:15 Discussion
17:30–18:15 Break
Session 3 — Hebrew/Aramaic Palaeography
Chair: Drew Longacre
18:15 Michael Langlois (University of Strasbourg)
Deciphering Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic Inscriptions in a Digital World: Potential and Limitations
18:45 James Moore (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
Toward a Systematic Description of the Imperial Aramaic Script and its Meaning for Dating and Writer Identification
PROJECT UPDATES
19:15 Bronson Brown-deVost (University of Göttingen)
Scripta Qumranica Electronica
19:30 Daniel Stoekl ben Ezra (École Pratique des Hautes Études)
eScripta
19:45 Sarah Yardney and Miller Prosser (University of Chicago)
CEDAR/OCHRE
20:00 Conclusion
Wednesday, 7 April
13:00 CET Welcome
Session 4 — Digital Palaeography
Chair: Maruf Dhali
13:15 Lambert Schomaker (University of Groningen)
TBD
13:45 Peter Stokes (École Pratique des Hautes Études)
When is a Scribe Not a Scribe? Some Reflections on Writer Identification
14:15 Nachum Dershowitz (Tel Aviv University)
Computational Paleography
14:45 Discussion
15:00–15:45 Break
Session 5 — Digital Palaeography
Chair: Lambert Schomaker
15:45 Shira Faigenbaum-Golovin (Tel Aviv University)
Algorithmic Handwriting Analysis of Iron Age Documents and its Implications to the Composition of Biblical Texts
16:15 Hussein Mohammed (Universität Hamburg)
Pattern-Recognition Approaches for Handwriting-Style Analysis
16:45 Eythan Levy (Tel Aviv University) and Frédéric Pluquet (Haute École Louvain en Hainaut [HELHa] - Tournai and Ecole Supérieure d'Informatique [ESI] - Brussels)
New Developments in the Scrypt Software for Old Hebrew Epigraphy
17:15 Discussion
17:30–18:15 Break
Session 6 — Hebrew/Aramaic Palaeography
Chair: Gemma Hayes
18:15 Judith Olszowy-Schlanger (University of Oxford)
Hebrew Palaeography Album: A New Online Tool to Study Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts
18:45 Elvira Martín-Contreras (Spanish National Research Council)
Distinguishing Scribal Hands in the Masora of the Medieval Hebrew Bible Manuscripts
PROJECT UPDATES
19:15 Joe Uziel (Israel Antiquities Authority)
IAA projects
19:30 Isabelle Marthot-Santaniello (University of Basel)
D-Scribes
19:45 James Moore (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
Elephantine
20:00 Conclusion
Thursday, 8 April
13:00 CET Welcome
Session 7 — Hebrew/Aramaic Palaeography and Textual Communities
Chair: Mladen Popović
13:15 Eibert Tigchelaar (KU Leuven)
Scribal Culture, Palaeography, and the Scrolls
13:45 Ayhan Aksu (University of Groningen)
Leaving No Scroll Unturned: Opisthographs and Scribal Culture of the Dead Sea Scrolls
14:15 Hanneke van der Schoor (KU Leuven)
Assessing Palaeographic Variation in Informal Manuscripts: The Scribe(s) of the Testament of Qahat and Visions of Amrame
14:45 Discussion
15:00–15:45 Break
Session 8 — Hebrew/Aramaic Palaeography
Chair: Ayhan Aksu
15:45 Nadia Vidro (University College London)
Calendars from the Cairo Genizah as a Dating Tool for Palaeography
16:15 Estara J Arrant (University of Cambridge)
From Scholastic to Scribal: A Developmental Analysis of “Unprofessional” Square Hebrew Script from Cairo Genizah Bible Fragments
16:45 Elihu Shannon (Sofer STaM)
Why My Script is Different from My Teacher's
17:15 Discussion
17:30–18:15 Break
Session 9 — Final Discussion Panels
Chairs: Drew Longacre and Maruf Dhali
18:15 Digital Palaeography Panel Discussion
18:45 Hebrew/Aramaic Palaeography and Scribal Culture Panel Discussion
19:15 Final Open Discussion
20:00 Conclusion