The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is running a Distinguished Lecture Series in conjunction with its exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

The list includes:

The Dead Sea Scrolls: Controversies and Theories of Early Judaism and Christianity
Eric Meyers

Wednesday, October 1

Women in the Dead Sea Scrolls and at Qumran
Sidnie White Crawford

Thursday, October 16

The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls
Jodi Magness

Thursday, October 30

The Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls
Emanuel Tov

Thursday, November 20

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Christianity
Bart Ehrman

Wednesday, December 10

For more information, see the details here.  Tickets are $25.  For the subject of the Dead Sea Scrolls,
you really cannot beat this line-up of speakers and topics.

HT: Joe Lauer

History Talk:

In conjunction with the exhibit

Imagining the Temple:

The Models of Leen Ritmeyer

Steven Fine on

IMAGINING THE TEMPLE

Sunday, March 30, 2008

2 pm

Ever since the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, Jews and, later, Christians, have tried to picture what the Jerusalem Temple looked like. During the 20th century, this imagining often resulted in three-dimensional models of the Temple. In this talk, Steven Fine, professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University, sets the Ritmeyer models within the contexts of Jewish and Christian conceptions of the Jerusalem Temple. 

Free with Museum admission.

Yeshiva University Museum

15 West 16th Street

New York, NY 10011

HT: Joe Lauer

The Ranieri Colloquium on Ancient Studies

The Dead Sea Scrolls at 60:

The Scholarly Contributions of NYU Faculty and Alumni

March 6-7, 2008

Hemmerdinger Hall, Room 102
Silver Center, 100 Washington Square East

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Matthew S. Santirocco (Dean, College of Arts and Science, New York University) – Welcome


10:00a.m. – Session One: Rewriting the Bible

Erik Larson (Florida International University) – On The Identification of Two Greek Texts of Enoch

Mark Smith (New York University) – “In-between Texts”: Biblical Texts, Inner-Biblical
Interpretation, Second Temple Literature, and Textual Criticism

Moshe Bernstein (Yeshiva University, New York University) – The Dead Sea Scrolls and Jewish
Biblical Interpretation in Antiquity


12:00 Noon – Lunch


1:30p.m. – Session Two: The Dead Sea Sect

Gary Rendsburg (Rutgers University) – Language at Qumran

Shani (Berrin) Tzoref (Hebrew University, University of Sydney) – The Pesharim and the Pentateuch:
Explicit Citations, Overt Typologies, and Implicit Interpretation

Alexei Sivertsev (DePaul University) – Sectarians and Householders


4:00p.m. – Keynote Address

Lawrence H. Schiffman (New York University) – The Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism
and Christianity

6:00p.m. – Reception

Friday, March 7, 2008


9:00a.m. – Session Three: The Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism

Alex Jassen (University of Minesota) – The Contribution of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Study of
Prophecy in Ancient Judaism

Yaakov Elman (Yeshiva University) – Zoroastrianism and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Joseph Angel (Yeshiva University) – The Historical and Exegetical Roots of Eschatological
Priesthood at Qumran

11:00a.m. – Session Four: Judean Desert Texts

Judah Lefkovits (Independent Scholar) – The Copper Scroll (3Q15): A Reconsideration

Baruch Levine (New York University) – Judean Desert Documents of the Bar Kokhba Period:
Epistolary and Legal

Andrew Gross (University of Pittsburgh) – The Judean Desert Formulary: A Case Study in the
Continuity and Innovation of Ancient Near Eastern Traditions

The school’s announcement is here.

HT: Joe Lauer, who says that the event is free and open to the public.  You can confirm attendance
with Shayne Leslie Figueroa at shayne dot figueroa at nyu dot edu.

The Scotsman has an interesting preview of an upcoming lecture by Colin Renfrew.  The article is entitled, “Cemetery Looting Robs Archaeologists of DNA Link to Past,” but I think the more interesting discussion is about other subjects.  For instance:

A greater puzzle is why, after Homo sapiens dispersed from Africa about 60,000 years ago, pockets of human culture developed in different ways at different rates. Urban civilisations developed independently in six or seven locations, thousands of years apart, with no contact between the different groups, from Sumerian culture in 4,000BC, to West African in AD1,000.
“It’s one of the great unanswered problems of the human story,” Lord Renfrew says. “Why did societies working independently in different parts of the world come up with civilisations, including cities, which are in some ways quite similar?
“For a long time, archaeologists assumed there was a diffusion of cultures from one area to another. There was even a theory that everything emerged from ancient Egypt, and wise people from there went over the world and built their pyramids in Mesoamerica. But as we get a much better understanding of the archaeological record, it is clear that there wasn’t sailing over great distances until the time of the Conquistadores and early colonists, although the Polynesians did make some amazing voyages in their canoes.”

You can read the whole here. The lecture is in Scotland on Monday.

HT: Joe Lauer

Readers may find this of interest:

Dear Friends and Colleagues, We are writing to inform you of a new session being proposed for the 2008 ASOR annual meeting in Boston that will focus on the archaeology of Judaism and Christianity in the Roman and Byzantine periods.  The session chairs are seeking papers that present architectural, art historic, inscriptional, or any type of material discussion of synagogues, churches, necropoleis, and/or their associated communities in either Palestine or the Diaspora.  We are also looking for papers that address material evidence for cultural and religious communication among Jews, Christians, and their neighbors.  Reports on field seasons are also encouraged where relevant. This new session has not yet been accepted for the 2008 ASOR annual meeting.  Before it is proposed, we would like to demonstrate the interest in such a session to the Program Committee by assembling a list of possible presenters.  If you are interested in submitting an abstract for this session, please notify us before January 31 by emailing [email protected].  We do not necessarily need abstracts or paper titles by then — only a stated interest and intent to submit an abstract. Please feel free to forward this message to colleagues, students, and others who may be interested in taking part in the proposed session.  Thank you for your support. Sincerely, Steve Werlin and Carrie Duncan