28 Mar 90 JUDAIC STUDIES #37 2 Nisan 50 BS"D To send a note to this listserv on any issue of common interest, address it to judaica@taunivm Edited by Y. Greenbaum CONTENTS 1) Studies in Philo and Josephus 2) Electronic Tanach 1) Studies in Philo and Josephus From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Date: Thursday, 22 March 1990 2001-EST A few years ago, as I was discussing various computer-oriented aspects of research, an ebullient young interlocutor blurted out (with a mild apology for bluntness) the question: "Are you ever going to become a scholar again?" I think I handled the situation with sufficient good humor, although it hadn't occurred to me at the time that I had stopped being a scholar! In any event, to anyone interested I offer an electronic copy of the new (scholarly) paper described below, which will ultimately appear in some form in hard copy. Comments, corrections, and suggestions are most welcome! Tiberius Julius Alexander and the Crisis in Alexandria according to Josephus: Towards Redating Philo's Literary Activities by Robert A. Kraft, University of Pennsylvania version of 9 March 1990 This examination of Josephus' treatment of Tiberius Julius Alexander, nephew of Philo and a significant Roman political figure in his own right, aims at following up on some of the suggestions made in my paper on "Philo and the Sabbath Crisis" (January 1990). The conclusion is that a case can be made for identifying Philo's allusion to a religio-political crisis in Egypt (On Dreams 2.123ff) with the rioting involving Jews in Alexandria at the start of the governorship of Tiberius Julius Alexander around the year 66 ce (described by Josephus War 2.487ff). The evidence is too ambiguous for this identification to be considered compelling, but even as a possibility, it challenges the older consensus, based largely on silence, that Philo's literary activities ceased by the middle of the first century ce. 2) Electronic Tanach From: Stephan Claassen Date: Tue, 13 Mar 90 16:25:28 MET I have been looking for the Tanach on disk, but until now I don't have it. I managed to find Yaakov in the USA who is also looking for it, and he sent me some results of his findings: From: Yaakov Kayman Date: Mon, 26 Feb 90 09:49:56 EST ----------------------------------- From: gyehu@foundation (Gil Yehuda) Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish Subject: Re: Torah Online? Message-ID: <318@spot.wbst128.xerox.com> Date: 1 Mar 90 18:57:04 GMT References: <9002231325.AA11310@decwrl.dec.com> Sender: news@spot.wbst128.xerox.com Reply-To: gyehu@foundation.UUCP (Gil Yehuda) Organization: CIM/KBSCC & USMG/ATG, Xerox Corporation Lines: 25 In article <9002231325.AA11310@decwrl.dec.com> ellis@ultra.enet.dec.com (David E >Does anybody know if an online copy of the Torah is available? >David J Ellis I will be receiving a demo disk from the Davka Corp. in Chicago this week. From my understanding, the disk has the Humash (first five books of the Torah) and allows for searching. Either this disk or another allows for selective counting (ie every 50th letter) and a bunch of Gematria calculations. I will react to the programs when I get them. Until then you may wish to contact them on your own. Davka Corp. c/o Rabbi Alan Rosenbaum 845 water tower place suite 843 (or is it the other way around??) Chicago Ill. ??zip?? they also have an 800 number, which you can find (I regret not having it now) Y. Gil Yehuda gyehu.wbst897ai@xerox.com gyehu@tamhir.xerox.com --------------------------- From: alu@cbnewsk.ATT.COM (Alan Lustiger) Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish Subject: Re: Torah Online? Message-ID: <2166@cbnewsk.ATT.COM> Date: 5 Mar 90 21:00:41 GMT References: <318@spot.wbst128.xerox.com> Reply-To: alu@cbnewsk.ATT.COM (Alan Lustiger) Organization: AT&T Engineering Research Center Lines: 21 Some Kesher bulletin boards have the entire Tanach available for downloading. The Chicago one had it very nicely organized, but it's out of business. These other boards are likely to have it (I don't know firsthand...): Hatzlacha BBS 213-466-3861 Los Angeles CA The BBYO BBS 301-279-9536 Potomac MD Chai Way II 214-239-7607 Dallas TX The original version was available both in IBM ASCII and in a Roman character version that included codes for vowels and trop. A long time ago I played with Bereshis to find codes. I always wanted to post the results to the net but never got it together... You can call thse BBS's at the usual speeds (1200, 2400 baud.) -- Alan Lustiger |_ | | AT&T Engineering Research Center / |( Princeton, NJ attmail!alustiger or att!pruxk!alu