Hebrew

Hebrew Alphabet Soup – OSU Library

Tonight we had a great dinner on the 11th floor of the newly renovated Ohio State University library. As you enter you walk over a very cool metal “sculpture” of the English alphabet mounted in the floor. While waiting for the elevator I noticed that they had the paleo-Hebrew alphabet! Very cool! No, wait…

You see the problem? The letters are correct, but they are “reading” from left to right instead of right to left. No, wait…not quite.

It is fine until you get to tet and then it’s silly. I am not sure who the two letters are after the yod, samech and tsade are missing and what are the last two letters?

This one at least had most of the letters in mostly the right order, if left to right. When I got to the 11th floor and looked at the elevator door, well, see for yourself.

The Greek alphabet was also confused. I saw at least a dozen other languages, presumably all just as mangled. A nice idea, poorly executed.

משלי אדם – On reading handwritten Hebrew MSS

May 22nd, 2012

by Christian Brady.

1 comment

What a great set of posts and resources! Thanks for sharing this, it is very useful and I wish I had some guidance like this 20 years ago when I started reading manuscripts.

So You Want to Read Handwritten Hebrew Manuscripts, part II.

This post is a continuation of two earlier blog entries here and here. Its purpose is to help facilitate the reading of handwritten Hebrew manuscripts for intermediate students of the language. Psalm 113 serves as the subject of this comparison.

Read them all here: משלי אדם.

PhD position Hebrew Bible, early Judaism and Dead Sea Scrolls

Apr 13th, 2012

by Christian Brady.

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Passing along an announcement from the Qumran Institute.

PhD position Hebrew Bible, early Judaism and Dead Sea Scrolls

The Qumran Institute of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Groningen offers a four-year PhD position (0,9 fte) in Hebrew Bible, early Judaism and Dead Sea Scrolls as of the next academic year. This PhD position is financed by a grant of the SNS/Reaal Fund.

Research proposals should fit the research profile of the Faculty and of the Qumran Institute, which is aimed at studying the Hebrew Bible, early Judaism and the Dead Sea Scrolls from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective within their ancient cultural contexts (ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman). For examples of the Institute’s research profile, see the two conferences in 2008 (Authoritative Scriptures in Ancient Judaism) and 2010 (The Jewish Revolt against Rome: Interdisciplinary Perspectives).

Candidates with a degree in Biblical Studies, early Jewish Studies, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, or Ancient History are encouraged to apply.

Contact:

In case you have any questions about the compatibility of your prospected research with the Faculty’s and Institute’s research profile and for further information, please contact the Institute’s director: Mladen Popović (m.popovic@rug.nl)

Deadline: May 22th, 2012

Please include with your application:

- a curriculum vitae, including academic qualifications, grades, a list of publications (if applicable), two letters of academic recommendation from professors who can write knowledgeably about your personal and academic qualifications and your suitability for the chosen field of study

- a letter explaining your motivation, your interest in the project, and your competence in the research field

- a proposal of max 4 pages describing how you intend to conduct the project you are applying for

- your MA thesis

Send your application by email before May 22th, 2012 to:

gradschool.thrs@rug.nl

Additional information

Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies

Qumran Institute

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Mladen Popovic

Old Testament and Early Judaism

Director Qumran Institute

Hebrew, with vowels, on iPad

Jan 2nd, 2012

by Christian Brady.

2 comments

The December (or is it January?) Biblioblog Carnival is up and through it I discovered that Chris Heard had this great post on using Hebrew with vowels on the iPad.

Until recently, iPad-using Hebraists had no good options for typing Hebrew with vowels on the aforementioned iPads. Apple provides a Hebrew keyboard for the iPad, but it does not include the נְקֻדּוֹת. Recently, however, third-party developer Žiga Kranjec released Unicode Maps, an app with an unattractive name but a very attractive function. Unicode Maps allows you to look up and copy any Unicode glyph available on the iPad. Even better, you can create your own customized keyboard and type—but only on a notepad within Unicode Maps—using that keyboard.

Go to his site for the whole rundown.

Sacred Techs is up!

Jan 2nd, 2012

by Christian Brady.

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I am very pleased to announce that the first post and podcast of Sacred Techs are now up! (The podcast is even available via iTunes.) This site is a collaboration between myself and Dr. Robert Cargill. We describe the site as, “posts and podcasts relevant to the study of things ancient using things very modern.”

With “Sacred Techs” we wanted to bring together information focused upon using technology in the real of biblical and ancient studies. It will be periodically updated, on a monthly basis at the least, with articles and interviews on various topics around this general theme. We are very hopeful that others will be willing to contribute to the site, there are many within the world of online ancient studies who are very (and more) adept in these areas, many who are creating the very technology that we will be reviewing, citing, and discussing. This is particularly true if you use something other than Apple products and MacOS, iOS, or Android software. It is not that we are prejudiced against other platforms, but the reality is that Robert and I both tend to use those products and platforms. If you are interested in contributing please drop us a line or leave a comment!

So welcome to Sacred Techs and stay tuned for what we hope will be a great year. First up on the podcast (see below!) is an introductory discussion and then we will follow up with a few interviews from 2011 SBL. Be sure to let us know whom you would like to hear us interview and what products you would like reviewed or compared.

Please do send us your suggestions so that we can make this site as useful as possible for everyone. @bbib already sent a great one via twitter: