April 2015
Vol. 3, No. 4
Welcome to The Ancient Near East Today, Vol. III, No. 4! For the spring holiday season, we go from the world of Jesus to the contemporary antiquities crises in the Middle East.
Joan Taylor looks at the perennial problem of what Jesus ‘really’ looked like. Helen Jacobus examines the intriguing evidence for zodiac calendars at Qumran. Meanwhile, Brice Jones discusses the disturbing phenomenon of online sales of papyrus documents and Michael Kozuh reviews the career of a Mesopotamian schemer. In our Friends of ASOR Podcast this month, we talk to former ASOR President Tim Harrison about the question of who the Philistines were.
Please forward articles from The Ancient Near East Today to family and friends, post links to Facebook, and be in touch with the editor. Remember, being a Friend of ASOR is free!
What did Jesus look like?
By: Joan E. Taylor
Everyone knows what Jesus looks like: he is the most painted figure in all of western art, recognized everywhere as having long hair and a beard, a long robe with sleeves (often white) and a mantle (often blue). But what did he really look like, as a man living in Judaea in the 1st century?
READ MORE
Manager or Miscreant? The Strange Career of Gimillu of Uruk
By: Michael Kozuh
From around 540 to 520 BC cuneiform texts from the Eanna of Uruk, a temple in southern Babylonia, detail the unusual activities of a man named Gimillu, son of Innin-shuma-ibni. Those activities, long known to researchers, include stealing temple’s sheep, fleeing from temple authorities, and continually standing in front of temple tribunals.
READ MORE
Ancient Papyri Online and for Sale
By: Brice C. Jones
Over the last decade, we have witnessed a growing fascination with ancient papyri from Egypt. By now, most people have heard of the Gospel of Judas, published in 2006, the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, which made headlines in 2014, or, most recently, the controversial fragment of the Gospel of Mark that is reputed to have been extracted from Egyptian mummy cartonnage.
READ MORE
Zodiac Calendars and Angelic Teaching in the Dead Sea Scrolls
By: Helen R. Jacobus
Angels are often associated with secret knowledge but not usually with authentic mathematics. In several of the Dead Sea Scrolls there is a complicated network of parallel stories in which angels impart secret knowledge of the calendar, astronomy, astrology and divination to humans before the Flood.
READ MORE
The Ancient Near East Today features contributions from diverse academics, a forum featuring debates of current developments from the field, and links to news and resources. The ANE Today covers the entire Near East, and each issue presents discussions ranging from the state of biblical archaeology to archaeology after the Arab Spring.
