A Detailed Record of a Roman Court Case Involving Two Judeans

A team of researchers have recently translated an ancient papyrus that describes what one of them terms “the best-documented Roman court case from Judea apart from the trial of Jesus.” Nathan Steinmeyer writes:

The papyrus, which contains 133 lines of preserved text, is the longest Greek papyrus ever uncovered in the Judean Desert, although for decades it had been misclassified as a Nabatean text and practically lost in the archives of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA); . . . the papyrus preserves an incredible snapshot into the Roman legal system and life between two Jewish revolts against the Romans: the Diaspora Revolt (ca. 115–117 CE) and the Bar-Kokhba Revolt (ca. 132–136 CE). The papyrus, which pertains to a legal case brought before a Roman court, contains the prosecutor’s trial notes and a rapidly drafted transcript of the judicial hearing itself.

The case consists of charges of corrupt dealings against two Jewish men, Gadalias and Saulos. Gadalias had a criminal history involving violence, extortion, counterfeiting, and inciting rebellion. Saulos, his collaborator, orchestrated the fictitious sale and manumission of slaves without paying the requisite Roman taxes. To conceal their activities, the defendants forged documents.

Read more at Bible History Daily

More about: Ancient Israel, Ancient Rome, Archaeology, Law

Donald Trump’s Plan for Gaza Is No Worse Than Anyone Else’s—and Could Be Better

Reacting to the White House’s proposal for Gaza, John Podhoretz asks the question on everyone’s mind:

Is this all a fantasy? Maybe. But are any of the other ludicrous and cockamamie ideas being floated for the future of the area any less fantastical?

A Palestinian state in the wake of October 7—and in the wake of the scenes of Gazans mobbing the Jewish hostages with bloodlust in their eyes as they were being led to the vehicles to take them back into the bosom of their people? Biden foreign-policy domos Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken were still talking about this in the wake of their defeat in ludicrous lunchtime discussions with the Financial Times, thus reminding the world of what it means when fundamentally silly, unserious, and embarrassingly incompetent people are given the levers of power for a while. For they should know what I know and what I suspect you know too: there will be no Palestinian state if these residents of Gaza are the people who will form the political nucleus of such a state.

Some form of UN management/leadership in the wake of the hostilities? Well, that might sound good to people who have been paying no attention to the fact that United Nations officials have been, at the very best, complicit in hostage-taking and torture in facilities run by UNRWA, the agency responsible for administering Gaza.

And blubber not to me about the displacement of Gazans from their home. We’ve been told not that Gaza is their home but that it is a prison. Trump is offering Gazans a way out of prison; do they really want to stay in prison? Or does this mean it never really was a prison in the first place?

Read more at Commentary

More about: Donald Trump, Gaza Strip, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict