Liber Annuus

The present study of Ex 1–18 confirms the distinction of the sources J, E and P(H) and the importance of the criteria for the textual formation of the three sources of Ex 1–18. This is based on a survey of Ex 3:16-18. With respect to the five criteria of Gen 12–50, another criterion is added that underlines the role of the prophetic leadership of Moses for the future social order of Israel. Based on these results, it appears reasonable to hypothesize a social milieu and epoch similar to the genesis of the three sources of Ex 1–18. Ultimately it would not be totally absurd to attribute Ex 1–18 – parallel to Gen 12–50 – to an “author” or a “group of authors”, if Ex 1–18 qualifies as a text written in a “compilation of sources” style.

This article offers a study of the textual development of the pericope concerning the bronze basin among the textual witnesses. Based on a contextual literary analysis made in the context of the Tabernacle sections of Exod 25–30 and 35–40, it turns out that the bronze basin in some texts is not described in the same way. In fact, comparing the descriptions of Exod 30:17-21 (the divine order) and Exod 38:8 (the execution of the order) one can see that there is an obvious quantitative difference. The interesting finding is that Exod 38:8 drastically synthesizes Exod 30:17-21. Moreover, only Exod 38:8a coincides with Exod 30:17-21 and not 38:8b. Where does Exod 38:8b come from? What is the literary relationship between the two descriptions? Is the discrepancy only literary or also textual? The same passage is then described differently, i.e., by Targums, LXX and Vetus Latina.

Through a process of intersection methods such as textual critical study, literary critical study, linguistic-semantic analysis, this paper will try to show that from a linguistic, semantic, and syntactic misunderstanding of MT-Exod 38:8b in the translation and textual transmission, a set of different readings was generated. In the text-critical study especially of Exod 38:8b, one will delve into what is evidenced by the critical apparatus of the Göttingen edition by John W. Wevers (LXX-Exod 38:26), and what is highlighted by some Greek Mss.

The last paragraph of the article highlights the literary elements employed in 1 Kings 7:23-28 and 2 Chr 4:2, 6 to describe the bronze basin and examines whether these have a possible literary connection (Inner-Biblical, or Intertextuality) with the descriptions in the Pentateuch. In conclusion, the literary analysis of these texts shows that it is precisely the descriptions of the bronze basin of the Pentateuch that are the most recent, and that perhaps Lev 8:11 is the last in the editorial process.

After the studies of W.H. Brownlee on the Isaiah Scroll found at Qumran (1964) and the Commentary by J.D.W. Watts (1985-87) studies on Isaiah have slowly abandoned the structure of the book in three parts, dating back to Duhm (1892): Proto-Isaiah (chaps. 1-39); Deutero-Isaiah (chaps. 40-55); Trito-Isaiah (chaps. 56-66), in favor of a different partition which sees the chaps. 1-33 on one side and the chaps. 40-66 on the other. Of particular importance is the final section of the book of Isaiah 56:9–64:11, no longer identified as the work of a third anonymous post-exilic author (Trito-Isaiah), but as a composite poem, which rereads the pre-exilic and post-exilic Isaiah prophecy in light of the situation of Jerusalem during the Persian period. The poem, work of scribes and Levites serving in the temple, is built around the center constituted by the chap. 60 (the celebration of Zion as the city of justice) with an A-B-C-A’-B’ pattern (56:9–58:14 / 59 / 60 / 61–62/63–64).

The final chapter of the Book of Zechariah (14), announces the eschatological future of the new People of God, the eternal Jerusalem that is born from the remnants who survived the battle fought through the nations by the Lord against his enemies. After having been the object of judgement, these are associated with the Holy City and share the same faith. While an absolute, free and eternal salvific future is reserved for Jerusalem, the nations on the other hand find themselves in the same situation in which the Chosen People found themselves before the judgment; that is, under the blessing or the curse, depending on whether they are faithful to the Lord. The text presents itself as a proclamation of universal salvation which is presented beyond traditional schemes. It announces the sanctification of anyone who comes into contact with the Holy City. In this contribution, the author, after having focused on the text of Zech 14, points out some connections with Ezekiel and with the Book of the Twelve.

This essay questions contemporary claims in biblical scholarship that ideas about resurrection were not fully expressed in the early Hebrew Bible until the late post-Exilic era, implying that such ideas were either culturally irrelevant or inexistent prior to that point. This position posits that only later did the pre-Exilic notions of a dark and gloomy Sheol come to take on post-Exilic ideas such as immortality, retribution after death, and bodily resurrection mostly if not entirely due to the effect of ‘foreign’ influences upon Jewish thinking, such as Greek and Persian views. The argument here is that this dichotomized understanding of the historical development of ancient Judaic views about the afterlife widely accepted in biblical scholarly circles today is grossly over-generalized and exaggerated. This essay shows that ideas about resurrection had been vibrant and well-established all along many centuries before Daniel in ancient popular Jewish culture largely in the form of agrarian metaphors and imageries, making it possible for beliefs about bodily resurrection in Christ to be seriously considered by 1st-century Jews. Such ideas were deeply reflected in Jewish prayer books, liturgy, and rituals, and in descriptions of natural processes such as raining, planting, and harvesting. The veracity of this position is demonstrated through a detailed review of death and resurrection ideas before Daniel and beyond, in the Songs of Moses and Hannah, the Elijah and Elisha narratives, the Book of Psalms, the prophecies of Hosea, Ezekiel’s vivid resurrection imageries, and Isaiah’s apocalypse, to name just a few.

The city of Jerusalem plays a major role in each of the canonical gospels. Only in Matt, however, does it receive the titles of “holy city” and “city of the great king”. Although Jerusalem is the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it (Matt 23:37), it will always continue to be the place where the power of the resurrection is manifested (Matt 27:53). The alternation of honorifics and condemnations of Jerusalem is probably an indication of the suffering experienced by the evangelist and his community, which was composed mainly of believers in Christ coming from Judaism.

Modern Lukan scholarship underscores two essential factors that guide two parts of Luke’s work: the emphasis on Jerusalem in the first part and the mission of the apostles to the “ends of the earth” in the second part. In other words, the long and meaningful journey of Jesus to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51–19:46) has its counterpart in the missions of the apostles who depart from Jerusalem and, through Judea and Samaria, reach the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). A close reading of the Third Gospel reveals that it contains some inaccurate geographical references, which cause concern or at least raise questions. It seems that Luke’s geographical knowledge of Palestine is limited if not general, to say the least. Such a limited familiarity with Palestinian geography or even a lack thereof led many modern scholars to the conclusion that the author of the Third Gospel had only second-hand knowledge of Palestine and its geography. The present research takes into consideration the context of the allegedly misleading geographical references to see whether they can shed some light on Luke’s acquaintance with Palestinian geography. It argues that Luke’s familiarity with Palestinian geography could be far more superior than one is led to believe. The study does not have the slightest pretense of analyzing all the geographical data in Luke. It deals only with the most controversial data, often cited to challenge Luke’s awareness of Palestinian geography.

It is known that the commonly shared meaning of Mark 13:30 and parallels (“This generation will not pass away…”) poses problems. An alternative interpretation is proposed, which resolves the hermeneutic difficulties of the text at its root. The turning point is the interpretation of the verb παρέρχομαι, which in the passage in question has the meaning of “go forward / continue” or, in a temporal sense, “last”, “continue to live”. From this perspective, Jesus’ prophecy takes on the coherent meaning of: “This generation will not last until all these things have happened”. The Itala, Vulgate, and Peshitta translations allow for this interpretation. This is also supported by the judgment given by Jesus on his contemporaries: they will not receive any signs regarding the Messiah except that of Jonah and therefore they will not be able to witness the premonitory signs of the parousia.

The article deals with the scriptural background of John 1:14a, καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, against the background of prophetic literature, particularly the so-called “formula of the event or reception of the word” (Wortereignisformel or Wortempfangsformel): וַיְהִי דְבַר־יהוה אֵל , καὶ ἐγένετο λόγος κυρίου πρός. After presenting studies on such a formula, the article provides a lexical and syntactic analysis of John 1:14a. It follows a review of scriptural passages where the Wortereignisformel appears. Finally, considerations on how the lives of prophets, especially of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, are “bodily” involved in the dynamic action of encountering God and his word, are presented, offering an illuminating background to the Johannine passage under discussion.

All four canonical Gospels address the theme of transcending social barriers in the mission and among believers themselves. Three of the four do so by narrating an encounter between Jesus and an anonymous woman from another people: a Syrophoenician in Mark 7:24-30, a Canaanite in Matt 15:21-28, and a Samaritan in John 4:1-42. The parallel Synoptic texts recount a miracle story, while the Johannine pericope narrates a meeting at a well. Nevertheless, these episodes employ parallel narrative and lexical elements as they offer similar responses to similar missionary concerns.

This article concludes the analysis of the participle in the Letter to the Colossians (see LA 62 [2012] 153-172 and LA 63 [2013] 293-317). In particular, we focus on the syntactic and semantic value of the participle, and on its rhetorical function in the brief peroratio (Col 4:2-6). In this pars rhetorica this verbal mood is at the service of the recapitulation of the points of speech (summary), and the emotional aspect upon the audience (pathos). The use of its aspectual and temporal dimensions shows an emphatic amplified style of the Letter to the Colossians. The long syntactic phrases (in particular, 4:2-4) seem well-constructed and held together by the presence of the participle. By using the participle, Paul better defines and describes the prayer of the Colossians (prayer of the thanksgiving and intercession/request), and their conduct in Christ with particular regard towards those outside, and their speech.

בבעו is a Aramaic term that is found in the Targumim. Specifically in the Targum Neofiti it is always in a direct speech. The article tries to explain its use in this Targum, studying the different occurrences trough a text-linguistic approach. This methodology allows to define this term in a new way, analyzing בבעו as Macrosyntactic Sign. It introduces not just a plea or a prayer but also a statement in a polite way. In fact, the speaker uses בבעו to address his words to someone more authoritative.

The article publishes eight fragments of Hebrew parchments which have been preserved in the binding of books from libraries of Franciscan monasteries in Bavaria (Germany). The largest one, a nearly complete page, is from the Sefer Mitsvot Gadol, written by Mose ben Jacob of Coucy. It mostly consists of a quotation of Maimonides’ Mishne ha-Tora (Sefer Nashim, Hilkot Ishut XIX:15-18). Two joined fragments are from the Sefer Avi ha-ʿEzri, written by Eliezer ben Yoel ha-Levi (Rabia). The other ones are small and cannot be identified with known Hebrew texts.

The paper focuses on the status of the text of the Jewish Scripture in its Hebrew and Greek versions in the historical context of the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Christian era. Although there is no evidence for the existence of a definite edition of the biblical text in either Hebrew or Greek, nor of a list of books universally recognised as authoritative, the Jewish Scripture, called the ‘Old Testament’ in the 2nd century, remains a fundamental source for the Jewish communities and for the pluralistic Christian movement.

In 725 CE Willibald bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria visited and stayed overnight at a place called Bethsaida, where he visited a church said to have been built on the location where the house of Peter and Andrew had formerly stood. In 2021 a Byzantine basilica was discovered at the site of el-‘Araj, on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Three Greek inscriptions adorned the mosaic floor of the church, one of which mentions ‘The chief of the apostles and the keeper of the keys of the heavenly spheres’, titles referring to St. Peter. This helps to identify the church with the one visited by Willibald and linked to St. Peter by the tradition the pilgrim heard. Thus it appears that, in the Byzantine period, Second Temple Bethsaida was identified with el-‘Araj. Excavations beneath the church and in other parts of the site have uncovered remains from the Roman period, spanning from the 1st century BCE to the 3rd century CE. The continuity between the Roman and Byzantine phases, despite the two-century gap, supports our identification that this is the location of the fishermen’s village of Bethsaida, which was upgraded to a polis named Julias during the reign of Herod Philip.

This contribution presents the results of the 2023 archeological excavations conducted by a team from the University of Rome Sapienza inside the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, as part of a project to restore the floor of the complex. Investigations covered the areas of the south-eastern Rotunda, the space in front of the Aedicule, and the north-eastern deambulatory. The excavation of the Rotunda was completed and it was possible to reconstruct the chronological sequence of the first phase to monumentalize the venerated Tomb. The apse of the early Christian church was found, beneath which runs a Roman street. These findings contribute to the reconstruction of the archaeological history of the town and the architectural phases of the Holy Sepulchre complex.

This article is devoted to the Early-Byzantine “bowl” capitals, mainly those encountered in the archaeologically testified ecclesiastical context in the Holy Land. Generally, the research continues and summarizes the previous article devoted to the “basket” capitals of the same region (see LA 72 [2022] 189-221). Most of the “bowl” capitals (20 items) were carved from local limestone, and only two of them were from imported marble. For these items, the classification was elaborated implying the separation into three main groups in accordance with the decoration of the calathi: type I with lotus-palmette pattern, type II with double vine scrolls, and type III with acanthus scrollwork. Following the statistical and geographical analysis, the detailed stylistic approach was applied, which revealed some local artistic trends, ideas, and patterns, thus putting the “bowl” capitals apart from their prototypes/parallels from the other Mediterranean regions. Interestingly, the “basket” and “bowl” capitals had many common features, including proportions and ancillary decoration. Their geographical distribution is generally overlapping, being concentrated in Jerusalem and Judea, and in many cases, they were found in the same churches (Holy Sepulchre, Deir Dosi, Qasr el-Yahud etc.). In the conclusion, I offer an interpretation of the special design of the capitals, explanation of their spatial location within the interior near the altar or within it and the symbolical meaning.

Early scholars of the Bar Kokhba Revolt were the first to introduce the question of the role of Galilee with this event. Fragments of historical data that have come to light are not conclusive. Dio Cassius’ reference to Judea as the place where the revolt took place has been interpreted to mean the immediate geographic region of Judea and not the Province of Judea, which included the Galilee. The article provides archeological findings from the Galilee hiding complexes relative to this period. Evidence emerging from studies undertaken of the Galilee hiding complexes provides a valuable, comparative perspective in relation to the Judean hiding complexes that have been dated to the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt.

The Samaritan community expanded from its heartland around Shechem (Neapolis) toward other parts of the country since early days. The process reached its height after the suppression of the Bar-Kokhba war (132-136 C.E.). Rural settlements that participated in the war were destroyed and their population was annihilated. The empty settlements were slowly repopulated under the supervision of the Roman Imperial authorities. Most of the new settlers were pagan gentiles, but also Samaritans participated in the process. The main expansion occurred through the 2nd-3rd centuries C.E., as attested by rabbinical sources and new discoveries by archaeologists.

The new evidence includes dozens of Jewish rural settlements that were deserted after the war, from lower Galilee to Idumea in the south. Since then the Jewish leadership referred to the Samaritans as gentiles. The Samaritan community which rebelled against the Byzantine Christian authorities was nearly annihilated in the 6th century C.E.

Cave 1Q was visited and looted on several occasions between 1947 and late 1948, before official excavations took place in 1949. This caused an upheaval of the archaeological context and a dispersion of the materials from the cave. As a result, we must ascertain the findspot and the subsequent history of acquisition of the archaeological artefacts assigned to the cave: those not coming from official excavations, but also some recorded in the excavation reports, which often omit information about the excavation process, how the archaeological materials were retrieved, and where they were found. In some cases, archival documentation allows us to recover this information and recompose the archaeological context of the cave in a more consistent way. Lamps Q43 and Q44, assigned to Cave 1Q, and belonging to a distinctive type barely attested outside Qumran, represent an interesting case study in this respect; especially if we consider that they have played a key role in the debate on the chronology of the scroll deposit inside the cave. The present work allows us to put forward some methodological considerations, to highlight some shortcomings in previous studies, and to underline the importance of a holistic approach to the investigation of the material context of the Qumran caves.

It has been just 40 years since the completion of the only excavations among the ruins of the historical site of Alexandrium, led by the late Yoram Tsafrir (1938-2015) of Hebrew University. It is documented that the late Virgilio Corbo OFM (1918-1991) of the SBF knew and visited Alexandrium as early as at least 1956, and wanted to start the excavations there, immediately after his 1980 discovery of the Doric peristyle courtyard in the Herodian royal palace of Machaerus, but his request was rejected by the Israeli authorities. Corbo had a very good reason to begin this fieldwork, as the Doric peristyle courtyard of Alexandrium is the closest archaeological and architectural analogy for the Machaerus royal court. In his sharp eyes, there was a serious scientific potential that the two surviving, similar Herodian monumental structures can mutually testify, authenticate, date and verify each other, through their architectural and archaeological legacies. The important academic mission of the comparative in-depth examinations, analyses and inspections was halted for another 40 years, for the next generation, and as it will be clear, provided an extraordinary, fantastic result.

Pottery lamps are frequent occurrences in late antique Levantine mortuary assemblages. This holds particularly true for communal tombs, in which their numbers can sometimes reach up to a few hundred pieces in a single burial space. The present paper distinguishes four major locations where lamps were generally deposited in these mortuary contexts: 1) the outer entrance areas of tombs, including the steps descending to tomb doors, 2) small niches carved into the outer or inner walls of tombs, 3) the immediate proximity of the deceased buried in the loculi or burial troughs of the tombs, including the separating walls and covering slabs of troughs, 4) and the tomb’s central chambers. Based on a database gathered for and presented in the present study, it is argued that while Location 1 lamps were definitely deposited with a commemorative intent, most probably mainly by later visitors to the tombs, Location 2 to 4 lamps reflect a wide array of practical and ritual considerations, from illuminating the dark inner spaces of tombs to providing apotropaic protection for the departed. On the strength of a brief survey of other regions of the Eastern Mediterranean, it is further argued that Location 4 lamp deposits with several dozens to a few hundred lamps attest to a specifically Levantine practice, which can be associated with Christian burial communities. The last section of this paper therefore reviews several early Christian texts to show that church authorities disagreed with the use of artificial light in funerary contexts in given periods and in certain cult settings only, while early Christian light symbolism provided fertile ground for using artificial light and lighting devices in ordinary mortuary contexts.

Paximadi Giorgio, Levitico. Traduzione e commentario in sinossi del Testo Massoretico e della Septuaginta, Cantagalli-Eupress FTL, Siena-Lugano 2022, 1115 pp. (M. Pazzini).

Bonelli Massimo, Un singolare aspetto della synkrisis nell’opera lucana. Tipologia della ricerca fra Gesù e la Chiesa (Studi e ricerche. Sezione biblica), Cittadella Editrice, Assisi 2022, 811 pp. (G.C. Bottini).

Di Segni Leah, An Introduction to Late Antique Epigraphy in the Holy Land (SBF. Collectio Minor 46), TS Edizioni, Milano 2022, 254 pp. (D. Bianchi).