Category Archives: Old Codex Blog Posts

Posts from my old Codex: Biblical Studies Blog

“Tell-A-Friend about Codex” Contest Winner

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I apologize that I didn’t get around to announcing this earlier (I’m not sure what I was thinking when I said I would announce the winner on my actual birthday! I ended up being a bit busy!), but I have picked a winner in my “Tell-A-Friend about Codex” Contest.

The way the contest worked is that all you needed to do is either email a friend about Codex: Biblical Studies Blogspot and tell them to visit or post a similar note on your blog, and then let me know about it by carbon copying me the email. The contest closed on my birthday (April 1st). To pick the winner, I wrote down all the submissions on a piece of paper and picked one out of a hat (actually it was a tupperware bowl). Well, enough with the preliminaries… the winner is…

Scott Bailey

As it turns out, Scott, is a student at Taylor University College just entering his second year of studies. He is a bright student with all the makings of a good biblical scholar, so I am delighted to award him a book in the area of biblical studies or Hebrew language.

Now, just in case some skeptical souls in the blogosphere think the fix was in (especially considering the shadow of doubt on my integrity lingering as a backlash to my perfectly excecuted April Fool’s Day joke! :-)), let me assure you that the draw was done above board. Scott had the advantage of having more than one entry because he emailed (spammed?) quite a few people about the contest. Either way, it saves me shipping charges, so I am happy!

40,000th Visitor Contest

While one contest is now over, don’t forget about my 40,000th Visitor Contest. As I have done in the past with my 10,000th visitor (see here), whoever happens to be my 40,000th visitor will also be a winner! There is not much you can do but visit here often and perhaps even read something! Once I have hit the 40,000 mark, I will blog the time and location of the lucky visitor and then they can contact me via email and verify with their IP address.

If I have done my math right, I shoud reach the 40,000 mark within the next few days. To be fair, I have changed my site meter icon so that no one knows how close lucky number 40,000 is.


The Real Seal: Hezekiah Royal Bulla Impression

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The royal seal impression that I used as the basis for my April Fool’s Day post (ain’t Photoshop just amazing?!), is actually an impression of a bulla belonging to Hezekiah king of Judah. The bulla is part of the Kaufman collection and is published in Robert Deutsch, Biblical Period Hebrew Bullae. The Josef Chaim Kaufman Collection (Archaeological Center: Tel Aviv, 2003; Buy from Amazon.com). The image is reproduced with permission:

Hezekiah_bulla.jpg

As can be seen from the image, the black clay bulla is in a very good state of preservation. It measures 13.2 x 11.9 x 3.8-1.9 mm, while the seal impression measures 11.9 x 9.9 mm. On the back of the bulla a papyrus imprint is clearly visible along with a groove left by the chord that tied the scroll. The seal was likely set in a bezel of a ring, as is clear from the groove around the edge of the seal impression.

Hezekiah_bulla_tracing.jpg

The seal, as can be seen from the line tracing above, is dominated by a royal emblem, what Deutsch considers a two-winged sun disk. The inscription is found above and below the emblem and reads:

לחזקיהו ×?×—/×– מלך יהדה

[Belonging to] Hezekiah, [son of] Ahaz, King of Judah.

For those unfamiliar with the script, here is a key from Deutsch’s volume:

HebAlphabet.jpg

The provenance of the seal impression is unfortuantly unknown, though there is no good reason to doubt its authenticity. There are actually four royal bullae beloinging to Hezekiah, impressed by three different seals, in the Kaufman collection.


“David King of Judah” Seal Uncovered (April Fool’s Day 2006 Post)

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N.B. This is a post I wrote for April Fool’s Day 2006 (April 1st). To set the record straight in case anyone was fooled, there was no “David King of Judah” seal discovered from Eliat Mazar’s (note spelling) Jerusalem dig. The actual seal below is a doctored image of a royal seal impression of Hezekiah from the Kaufman Collection. I left a number of subtle (perhaps too subtle for some!) hints that the post was a hoax: (1) the spelling of Haaretz and Mazar’s name; (2) the plene spelling of “David” in the seal; and (the most obvious) (3) the tag “AF’s Day.” If I offended anyone by my April Fool’s Day prank, then I am sorry. I meant it to be a joke and I hope everyone — even those fooled — may take it in the spirit in which it was intended — and I promise to only do it once a year! (and hey, what do you expect? I was born on April Fool’s Day!).

The Israeli newspaper Haarets reported this morning a significant discovery among the Eliat Mazur’s Jerusalem “City of David” archaeological dig (for more on some other discoveries from the same dig, see my posts here, including my posts on the Yehukal Seal also discovered at the site). It appears that a bulla/seal was recently discovered among the excavation remains from last summer. Most significantly, it was discovered among the rubble from the part of the excavation that she has identified as the remains of a 10th century royal palace.

The clay seal impression measures about 12 mm by 10 mm and is in a remarkably good state of preservation. The centre of the seal has what appears to be a two winged sun disk, which is probably some sort of royal emblem. The article has a good image of the seal along with a great line tracing:

David_Bullae.jpg

David_Bullae_tracing.jpg

The inscription is on two lines (above and below the sun disk) and reads in a clear paleo-Hebrew script: לדויד ישי מלך יהדה “[Belonging] to David, [son of] Jesse, King of Judah.”

This find is highly significant for a number of reasons, not least being that it appears to have been found in situ in the building Mazur has been excavating and thinks is King David’s palace (at least it was discovered among the rubble from that part of the excavation). While it is too early to speculate, it seems to me that the so-called “minimalists” will have a hard time denying this clear reference to what must be the biblical David.


Blog Design and Monitor Resolutions

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I received a comment from a reader about having trouble reading my blog due to pictures getting in the way of the text. I assume this is due to my new blog design that includes a sidebar on both sides of the text as well as his or her monitor size and resolution.

I knew the new design would be better viewed with 17′ monitors with higher resolutions, but I figured it would affect few readers. While the vast majority of my readers use monitors with resolutions of at least 1024 x 768, there are still 12-13% who are viewing the blog on monitors with resolutions of 800 x 600. If you are one of those individuals, please let me know how the blog looks and whether viewing it is a problem with the new design. I will seek to rectify the problem as soon as possible.

Any and all comments are welcome!

50th Anniversary Collection of De Mille’s The Ten Commandments

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DeMille_10Commandments.jpgParamount Home Video is releasing a special 50th anniversary collection that includes both of Cecil B. DeMille‘s films about Moses and the exodus from Egypt (Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com). The main attraction is a new transfer of the 1956 classic biblical epic, The Ten Commandments. This special release also includes, for the first time on DVD, DeMille’s 1923 black and white film The Ten Commandments. The special edition will be released on 21 March 2006.

This special release of the classic biblical epic includes a bunch of extras, including a six-part, 37-minute “making of” documentary, hand-tinted footage of the Exodus and Parting of the Red Sea Sequence from the 1923 version, and commentary by Katherine Orrison, author of Written in Stone: Making Cecil B. DeMille’s Epic, The Ten Commandments (Vestal Press, 1999; Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com) on both the 1956 and 1923 versions.

All in all this looks like a great edition. For a detailed review of the release, check out DVD Times here.

For a complete listing of films based on the Hebrew Bible, please see my Old Testament on Film pages.