Palaeoenvironments and Cultural Sequence of the Florisbad Middle Stone Age Hominid Site, South Africa

Florisbad, an open-air spring site with 7 m of strata, has yielded the type assemblage of Middle Stone Age (MSA) fauna, the cranium of an archaic hominid in 1932 and an extensive sequence of MSA artefacts in the 1980s. The cultural assemblages include an early MSA dated broadly to 279,000±47,000 years, a highly retouched form of MSA at 157,000±21,000 years and a minimally retouched, expedient MSA assemblage from a series of occupation horizons at 121,000±6000 years. The latter represents multiple brief visits to a hunting and butchery site on the edge of an active spring pool, where periodic sedimentation gently buried occupation debris in a near-pristine context. Periods of lower spring discharge are represented by organic horizons as swampy vegetation encroached on the springs, while periods of higher spring discharge created pools. Overall the spring sequence indicates low-energy subaqueous environments similar to lakes, ponds or backwater sites. The sequence is characterized by fine sands, silts and clays responsible for the good archaeological preservation.     

The Actions of Abraham: A Life of Ethical Contradictions

ABSTRACT

Taking my point of departure in questions of ethnogenesis within the regions of Yehud and Idumea in the pre-Hasmonean period, I analyze the interrelationship of the themes of conflict and reconciliation in the composition of Genesis. I pay particular attention to perceptions of Idumea in narrative reiterations which tie the Cain story to the narratives about the destruction of Sodom and the Jacob-Esau conflict story in order to raise the question of whether the narrative strategy reflected in these stories might justify a further analysis of the Jacob and Joseph stories as contributions to a larger mnemonic discourse, bearing a utopian trajectory aimed at a realization of Ezekiel 16's reconciliation between Idumea, Yehud and Samaria.     

Samson: The Only Nazarite in the Hebrew Bible and His Women!

Abstract

Since the publication of Eißfeldt's study in 1935, it has been doubted by some scholars that a Hebrew god named Moloch or Molekh has ever existed. Recently, however, two studies have been published, one by George Heider (1985) and the other by John Day (1989), in which the existence of the god Molekh is defended once again. Especially Day's arguments seem convincing. Nevertheless, considering the Carthaginian archaeological evidence (in 1991 gathered by Shelby Brown), and also considering the ideological bias of the biblical passages concerned, the existence of a separate god of human sacrifice in Israel remains uncertain. By a new analysis of the biblical passages, arguments are given that the god Molekh is an invention from the Persian period in an attempt to conceal that Judahite worship of YHWH in the eighth and seventh century B.C.E. also included child sacrifice.     

Six seasons of wild pea harvest in Israel: bearing on Near Eastern plant domestication

Harvest experiments of wild crop relatives are essential for our understanding of the biology of wild plants embodied in the economy of ancient forager communities. Most of the previous experimental harvest reports spanned a single season and therefore are unable to address questions concerning long-term yield potential. Herein we report on six consecutive harvest seasons taking place at four sites in Israel that harbour wild pea populations: three typical Pisum fulvum sites and one typical Pisum elatius site. Three out of the four sites showed no indication of a decline in grain yield as a result of repeated harvest and the removal of a considerable portion of mature seeds. Site-specific factors seem to have a strong influence on the grain yield as no seasonal yield similarity was observed between adjacent and ecologically similar sites harbouring the same wild pea taxon. The erratic year-to-year wild pea yield we observed calls for a reassessment of the presumed role of grain legume species in Near Eastern hunter–gatherers' diet. Combined with published data on cultivation of wild pea, our results are inconsistent with models suggesting protracted domestication of Near Eastern grain legumes or with the preliminary attempts to apply Niche Construction Theory to the study of plant domestication in the Near East.     

Scientific strategists in the period of mamlakhtiyut: Interaction between the academic community and political power centers

In the first decades of the State of Israel an elitist group of scientists and scholars from academic institutions organized itself into a powerful status group. Its members participated in the establishment and development of programs and processes that had a significant impact on Israeli society. The power of this group (which we term “scientific strategists”) derived from personal and institutional cooperation between its members and leading political figures who had a strong influence on its agenda. This interaction was based on mutual trust and loyalty and contributed to establishing the infrastructure for the main political tradition at that time – mamlakhtiyut (the centrality of state interests). The article examines the activities of the scientific strategists, their ability to participate in government institutions without forfeiting their academic bases, and the ways in which political leaders promoted their symbolic status, financially supported their scientific activity, and endowed them with rewards and public recognition.     

Hosea: a Schizophrenic Prophet

ABSTRACT

In this literary analysis of Jer 13,1-11, various suggestions are discussed in regard to the intention of the author, the peculiarity of God’s commands in the story, the identification of Perath, the choice for a linen gir-dle, the relation between the narrative part and the prophecies at the end of the passage, the symbolic meaning of the river Euphrates, and the hidden meaning of the text as a whole. Discarding existing less probable interpreta-tions, the author offers a new reading of the text and clarifies its place within the book of Jeremiah as a literary composition.