Biblical Archaeology Review is the flagship publication of the Biblical Archaeology Society. For more than 40 years it has been making the world of archaeology in the lands of the Bible come alive for the interested layperson. Full of vivid images and articles written by leading scholars, this is a must read for anyone interested in the archaeology of the ancient Near East.
Hannah M. Cotton, “The Archive of Salome Komaise Daughter of Levi: Another Archive from the ‘Cave of Letters,’” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 105 (1995), pp. 171–208. Now published in Hannah M. Cotton and Ada Yardeni, Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek Documentary Texts from Nahal Hever, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert 27 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. 158–237.
See Yadin, “Expedition D,” IEJ 11 (1961), pp. 38–52, for preliminary publication of some passages and a description. Yadin (Bar-Kokhba, chaps. 10, 12) describes the contents of the letters; Fitzmyer (Manual, nos. 53–60) provides translations for the Aramaic letters. For a list of all the documents from the Bar Kosiba war, see Millar, The Roman Near East, 31 B.C.–A.D. 337 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1993), app. B., pp. 545–552.
Flavius Josephus (The Jewish War, 3.3.5) lists the Roman province of Arabia among the toparchies just before the war with Rome. For other references, see Emil Schürer, Geza Vermes and Fergus Millar, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, 4 vols. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1973–1987), vol. 2, pp. 190–194.
See Yadin, Greenfield and Yardeni, “Babatha’s Ketubba,” p. 94. The other, Galilean custom, allows the widow to remain and be maintained in her late husband’s house unless she remarries. The Palestinian Talmud, Ketubbot 4.15 (29a), approves of the Galilean practice as honorable and disdains the Judean as mercenary.
