I have heard that there was a story in both Yediot Aharonot and Maariv on Friday 22, 2005, that accuses Hanan Eshel of supporting looting by purchasing the Leviticus fragments. As far as I can tell, this story is not in the online editions of these papers or in the online English edition of Yediot Aharonot. While I imagine the story will eventually appear in the English news, if anyone knows of this story and could let me know if it is available online, it would be greatly appreciated.

Alternatively, if you have read the print edition, send me an email and summarize it for me.

Thank you in advance!

While this has been in the works for a while, a date has just been set to celebrate the inauguration of the Septuagint Institute at Trinity Western University and Associated Canadian Theological Schools (TWU/ACTS). On Saturday, September 17, 2005 there will be a celebration of the formation of the Septuagint Institute at TWU. Two of the world’s foremost authorities on the Septuagint, Professor Emanuel Tov of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Professor Albert Pietersma of the University of Toronto, will speak on the enduring significance of this Bible version and important developments in recent research. The Director of the Septuagint Institute, Professor Robert Hiebert of TWU/ACTS, will also give an illustrated talk.

Here is an excerpt the an announcement I received from Rob Hiebert:

The launch of the Septuagint Institute is a truly historic event, not only for our campus, but also for Canadian and international biblical scholarship. The focus of this new research and information centre, the only one of its kind in North America, will be on the Greek version of Jewish Scripture, which was also the Bible of many early Christians including the authors of the New Testament.

This is truly great news. I, and many others, have been lamenting the slow but steady demise of the Septuagint program at the University of Toronto as they have not replaced John W. Wevers and are not planning on replacing Albert Pietersma. This move is all the more ironic considering the increase of interest in the Septuagint in the last couple of decades. The creation of this Institute will ensure the continued focus on Septuagint studies in Canada for years to come. It is also a bright witness to the legacy of scholars such as Wevers and Pietersma as the Institute’s Director, Robert Hiebert, is a Toronto graduate.

For more information on this important ancient Version of the Hebrew Bible, see my Septuagint section.

The ten biblical plagues (or were there only seven? see Psalms 78 and 105) will be coming to a theatre near you soon! The Reaping is described as a “supernatural tale” about a myth debunker (played by Hilary Swank) who travels to a small, religious town in Texas to investigate occurrences that appear to be the 10 biblical plagues. The film is being produced by Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver’s Dark Castle Entertainment and is set to be released in 2006. (Thanks for the heads up from Peter Chattaway)

For more films based on the Bible, see my Old Testament on Film pages.

I have updated my Step-by-Step Reconstruction of the New Leviticus Fragments based on my interview with Professor Hanan Eshel (see here for a preliminary report on my interview). The primary change I made was to incorporate the smaller fragment at the top of the first column of my reconstruction of the larger fragment (In our conversation Eshel confirmed that the fragments belonged to the same manuscript, even though the pictures released to the media were not entirely clear).