Biblical Archaeology Review

Bruce K. Waltke, review of Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10–31 (Anchor Yale Bible), in Review of Biblical Literature (http://bookreviews.org/pdf/7219_7855.pdf).

Quoted in William B. Ashworth, Jr., “Catholicism and Early Modern Science,” in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds., God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Christianity and Science (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), p. 143.

Professor Cotton also cites in support of her contention J.B. Frey, “Les Juifs a Pompei,” Revue Biblique 32 (1933), p. 365. Frey makes similar arguments to that of Curtis. Moreover, he is unwilling even to admit that there were Jews in Pompeii or even that the quotation from Pliny demonstrates that the Jews had a special kosher garum. His argument decisif is that “aucune garantie donee par des paiens n’aurait suffi a des Juifs, car en pareille matiere la parole des Gentils ne pouvait faire foi” (at p. 373).

We have posted the full text of Professor Curtis’s response to me online at www.biblicalarchaeology.org/e-features.

Masada II, The Latin and Greek Documents, (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1989), p. 166.

Mary Beard, The Fires of Vesuvius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2008), p. 24. See also p. 302.

I am indebted to Philip King for these translations from the Latin.

Natural History, Book XXXI, pp. 931ff.

Another more ambiguous inscription was also found in the destruction of Pompeii, in Region 9, Insula 11, House 14, reading in Latin letters “Poinium Cherem.” Cherem could mean “excommunication” or “destruction” if the first letter is a het in Hebrew. But even cherem with a het could also mean consecrated to God, or holy.

See Carlo Giordano and Isidoro Kahn, The Jews in Pompeii Heculaneum, Stabiae and in the Cities of Campania Felix 3rd ed., Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, trans. (Rome: Bardi Editore, 2003), pp. 75–76.