Reconstruction of the (Dead Sea) Temple Scroll

Wednesday, April 26, 2023 | 7 PM at the Social Hall of the Bender JCC

Andrew Gross, Catholic University

The Temple Scroll is the longest of all the Dead Sea Scrolls, with sixty-six columns having been preserved in its most complete exemplar.  It rewrites the Torah by, among other things, harmonizing its discussions of the festival calendar and its laws of ritual purity.  Modern scholars named the composition for its long, detailed description of the Temple precinct.

Five copies of the Temple Scroll, perhaps six, were discovered at Qumran, stemming from three different caves .The most complete manuscript was first published in 1977, and the other manuscripts, which are highly fragmentary, were published in the 1990s.

In recent years, high resolution photography has greatly improved our ability to read the ink on these scrolls and on the scroll fragments.  In addition, highly sophisticated online platforms have made these photographs very accessible and easy to use.  With this technology in hand, the time was ripe to produce a new edition of all the manuscripts of the Temple Scroll.

This presentation will briefly survey the contents of the Temple Scroll, demonstrate how this new technology has aided in producing a new edition, and explain the limitations of this technology.

The Bender JCC is located at 6125 Montrose Road / Rockville/ MD / 20852

The Biblical Archaeology Forum (BAF) begins its thirty-eighth year this autumn. This season we will welcome presentations from evolutionary biologist Ellen Gretak on ancient DNA, Johns Hopkins Egyptologist Betsy Bryan on the 100th anniversary of King Tut’s Tomb discovery, John Ahn of the Howard University Divinity School on the Return from the Babylonian Exile, and several more events which will be listed here as the dates approach

So, please join us for a series of eight scholarly lectures on the latest archaeological research findings and related fields such as history, art, and texts of ancient times in the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean. No reservations.

Fees per lecture are (cash or check only):
free – High school students;
$5 – Residents of CES Life Communities, college students, and co-sponsors;
$8 – BASONOVA & Bender JCC members
$10 – General public.

To subscribe to the entire 8-session lecture series for $48, or for more information, please contact BAF.JCCGW@gmail.com.

How to Speak to Kings in Cuneiform (The Amarna Letters)
Wednesday, May 17, 2023 at 7 pm at the Bender JCC

Alice Mandel, Johns Hopkins University

The Canaanite Amarna Letters are cuneiform diplomatic letters that were sent to the Egyptian royal court on behalf of Levantine rulers in the mid-14^th century BCE.

While the letters present as direct communications between elites, recent developments in the study of the tablets’ clays, paleography, and linguistic features offer insight into the people behind these letters: the scribes who wrote them.

Analysis of the layout, design and the linguistic and meta-discursive features in the letters are informative about scribal education and practice, but they also suggest that the scribes played an important role in diplomacy. This presentation will outline the study of the Amarna Letters, and it will highlight the creative ways that Canaanite scribes used cuneiform to reach out to their scribal peers in Egypt.

The general public is welcome to attend BAF in-person events by paying $10 at the door: cash or check only.

The Biblical Archaeology Forum (BAF) begins its thirty-eighth year this autumn. This season we will welcome presentations from evolutionary biologist Ellen Gretak on ancient DNA, Johns Hopkins Egyptologist Betsy Bryan on the 100th anniversary of King Tut’s Tomb discovery, John Ahn of the Howard University Divinity School on the Return from the Babylonian Exile, and several more events which will be listed here as the dates approach

So, please join us for a series of eight scholarly lectures on the latest archaeological research findings and related fields such as history, art, and texts of ancient times in the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean. No reservations.

Fees per lecture are (cash or check only):
free – High school students;
$5 – Residents of CES Life Communities, college students, and co-sponsors;
$8 – BASONOVA & Bender JCC members
$10 – General public.

To subscribe to the entire 8-session lecture series for $48, or for more information, please contact BAF.JCCGW@gmail.com.

Emperor in Rome, Deity in the Provinces
June 14, 2023 at 8 PM via Zoom

Barbara Burrell

Sheer familiarity has blinded classicists and historians to the oddity of the Roman imperial cult. Countless cultures across the globe had rulers who were either gods (e.g. Egypt and Japan), descended from gods (Shang dynasty China, the Inca), or in some way super-human (the Yoruba, the Aztec). In all these cases, however, the king’s divinity was most clearly recognized within the core region which he ruled, and most strongly manifested in his capital.

The Roman emperor, however, was supposed to be so honored only in the periphery, not in the center. Hailed as a god by provinces, cities, and citizens of his empire, he was allegedly treated as a mere mortal in Italy, and especially in Rome.

This lecture will re-open this question, and examine the material evidence that the living emperor presented himself, if not as a god, at least as a god-to-be in his capital, Rome.

Barbara Burrell is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Cincinnati

The Biblical Archaeology Forum (BAF) begins its thirty-eighth year this autumn. This season we will welcome presentations from evolutionary biologist Ellen Gretak on ancient DNA, Johns Hopkins Egyptologist Betsy Bryan on the 100th anniversary of King Tut’s Tomb discovery, John Ahn of the Howard University Divinity School on the Return from the Babylonian Exile, and several more events which will be listed here as the dates approach

So, please join us for a series of eight scholarly lectures on the latest archaeological research findings and related fields such as history, art, and texts of ancient times in the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean. No reservations.

Fees per lecture are (cash or check only):
free – High school students;
$5 – Residents of CES Life Communities, college students, and co-sponsors;
$8 – BASONOVA & Bender JCC members
$10 – General public.

To subscribe to the entire 8-session lecture series for $48, or for more information, please contact BAF.JCCGW@gmail.com.