Workshop for Early Career Scholars in Jewish Studies: July 5-7, 2026, Anne Tanenbaum Center for Jewish Studies, University of Toronto. Applications due January 12, 2026.

PhD scholarship: the Beta maṣāḥǝft Project: Manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea, Universität Hamburg. Applications due January 15, 2026. www.betamasaheft.uni-hamburg.de/news/phdcall...

Call for Papers: Scribes, Transmission, and Bilingual Traditions: A Fresh Examination of GA 629, 10-12 June 2026, Irish College, Leuven. Proposals due Dec 31, 2025.

When you’ve solved all the problems of the Documentary Hypothesis by simply eliminating the Elohist.

In 1896 Nestle, considering abbrevs such as "Mt" not short enough, proposed abbreviating each book of the NT with a single letter of the Greek alphabet: Μμλιπίπιρκγεφκθέττφα "Who can fail to see how much space & time has been gained here without losing the slightest clarity!"

The Old English Gospels translate Mark 6:3 as Hu nys se smið marian sunu, "Is not this the smith, the son of Maria?"

The hottest Israelite historiography album of the 4th century BCE.

I like this neologism I created because it has the suggestion of "mania"

Probably one of the earliest modern uses of papyri in biblical studies: in 1808 Friedrich Wilhelm Sturz cited the word ἀπάτωρ, "father unknown" (used of Melchizedek in Hebrews 7:3) found in the Charta Borgiana, the first papyrus brought to Europe in 1778.

"What is concealed in the name Esther?" (Homicide, 1991).

Cambridge University theological exam from 1884 includes questions on (1) the textual problems of 1-2 Samuel; (2) text from the hexapla, Aquila, and Symmachus; and (3) the translation "revised [!] in 1611" (i.e., the King James Version), and the Complutensian Polyglot.

31 Oct Lyon/online: « Jérôme et les sources juives et chrétiennes de la Vulgate » avec Paul Rodrigue, à 13h au 22 rue Sala, Lyon 2e, 1er étage, cnrs.zoom.us/j/99701628112?… ID de réunion: 997 0162 8112 Code secret: h7VMUv

The majority of biblical scholars know that appeals to “the majority of biblical scholars” so often mask complex debates, crucial assumptions, and the incidental nature of evidence.

Remember the Panbabylonianism of the late 19th/early 20th century? We’re now living in an era of Pan-Persianism, where everyone wants to date everything to the Persian period. I can only express my surprise that more papers aren’t titled “Like a Persian.”

Did you know that if you simply ignore the difference between Classical Biblical Hebrew and Late Biblical Hebrew, you can date a biblical text to any period you want?

At a Coldplay concert reading the 8th volume of Gerhard Kittel’s Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament and shaking my head the whole time so the people who see me on the Kiss Cam know I disagree with it.

Hybrid meeting: Cognitive Linguistic Approaches to Biblical Hebrew, 7 November 2025, 9:30–17:00 (CET), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam/online. Register here: networkinstitute.org/2025/10/03/e...

Call for Papers: 2026 Midwest Regional Meeting for Biblical Studies, March 13-15, 2026 Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN. Submissions due January 9, 2026 mailchi.mp/283c7c7cfe58...

It was an honor to contribute an essay to this festschrift for Robert Hanhart, whose edition of Septuagint Esther has been a constant companion on my desk for many years.

Chiasm-haters need to read Teeter's essay "Biblical Symmetry and Its Modern Detractors," which deals with *why* scholarship became skeptical but also finds that "biblical compositions appear designed to be read and understood as a fractal-like hierarchy of recursively embedded structural levels."

I'll be presenting for the EABS Graduate Seminar on September 18th at 7:00pm CEST on "A More Ethical Esther? Violence in the Versions of Esther 8–9." Message me if you would like the Zoom link.

You: I will write a balanced book review with fair critiques where necessary. Michael V. Fox: Here's a scathing review of a whole academic journal that shouldn't even exist.

🧵(1) Exciting news regarding the Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library (EMML) project, which photographed more than 9,000 manuscripts in Ethiopia from 1973 to 1994 and is the largest repository for scholarly access to texts in Geʻez. hmml.org/collections/...

My #IOSOT2025 book haul is clearly dominated by Georgian children’s books.

Someone at #IOSOT2025 brought their 2013 Munich bag, still in good shape 12 years later. They just don’t make conference bags like they used to.

I got my copy of Speaking to Job in Greek signed by the author! @maxavenariolus.bsky.social @dgb-relbibtheo.bsky.social #IOSOT2025

Biblical scholars love to find an inscription that says “Only the LORD is God” and say “Actually, that presupposes polytheism.”

"wow, you study the Bible, so you must be a pastor or rabbi or something, right?"

Working with high-res medieval manuscript images? Just published our practical IIIF-based solution that's transformed how we handle manuscript fragments in paratextuality research and manuscript studies overall digital.csic.es/handle/10261... #medievalmanuscripts #paratexts #IIIF #codicology #HHDD

Lecture (online and in-person): "Translation as imperialism: Late Greek Poetics and the Hebrew Bible" by Tim Whitmarsh, Durham University, Ritson Room, Department of Classics. 19 June 2025, 5:00pm. Register here: tinyurl.com/43mue34c

Publishers: a very simple thing you can do to sell more books is to put the Table of Contents on the website.

I discovered Esther among the Coca-Cola scrolls. I mean bottles.

"From Giant to Pocket Bibles: The Development of the Size of Biblical Manuscripts," 19 June 2025, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Romero Room, COVE 02.10, Sint-Michielsstraat 4, Leuven

Book talk (in-person and Zoom): The Book of Esther: Themes and Issues, edited by Kristin Joachimsen and Helge Bezold, MF Norwegian School of Theology, May 27, 11:30-12:00 CET mf.no/arrangemente...

Book panel (in-person): Scriptural Vitality: Rethinking Philology and Hermeneutics by Hindy Najman. 6 May, 3:30 Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. Registration: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Free online workshop: Framing Religious Art in UK Collections www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/framing-re...

If you're in Edinburgh, this workshop on epigraphy with Dr Margaret Williams will be great: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/getting-th...

Power and Leadership: Biblical, Anthropological, and Practical-Theological Perspectives, International and Interdisciplinary Symposium organized by Prof. Dr. Veronika Burz-Tropper & Dr. Armin Kummer, June 3-5 2025, KU Leuven, register by May 25 theo.kuleuven.be/en/research/...

Join us this 1st of May if you want to hear a little more on my work on Pamphilus' library at Caesarea !

the moment when you find out that there's a 4th Ezra.

you, a simpleton: Why would there be Greek letters on a product called “Pharaoh’s Revenge”?? me, an historian: It dates to the Ptolemaic era.

I’ll be launching my book The Limits of Erudition in Cambridge on 2 May 2025 with Simon Ditchfield. All very much welcome, whether in person or online! For further details see the poster attached and register for Zoom here: www.hist.cam.ac.uk/event-series... #earlymodern

Book launch event (in-person): Panel discussion of Andrew Danielson's new book Edom in Judah: Trade, Migration, and Kinship in the Late Iron Age Southern Levant (Cambridge University Press, 2024), 5pm–7pm EST, May 5, 2025, Plimpton Room, Barker Center, Harvard University

Lecture series (online & in-person): Let’s talk about Paratexts, 6:00pm Wednesdays 30 April 2025 – 23 September 2026 Chester Beatty Library, Dublin @chesterbeatty.bsky.social chesterbeatty.ie/exhibitions/...

More Kafka + Hebrew: two sets of playing cards I found in Prague years ago, one set featuring Kafka and Milena Jesenská and another with the Maharal of Prague.

Conference (Zoom and in-person): Quale ebraicità di Gesù dopo J.P. Meier? April 4, 2025, 9:00-19:00, Pontificia Facoltà Teologica di Sicilia www.fatesi.it/eventi/quale...

Kafka writing a letter in Hebrew. Note that he didn’t know how to write “Europe” in modern Hebrew, so he wrote it out phonetically and then in brackets wrote “laugh not.” Draft of letter to Puah Ben-Tovim, 1923, on exhibit now at the Morgan Library, NYC.

we found a Complutensian Polyglot Bible (1514-1517) at the New York Public Library.

1513 Ge’ez Psalter, printed for Johann Potken, the first printed Ge’ez book (Morgan Library, NYC).