iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 8h

Book Launch (online): The Oxford Commentary on The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Thanksgiving Scroll, October 13, 2026, 4:00pm BST.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

it’s anti-Ephraimite discrimination

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Online conference: Linguistics and Semitic Philology: Semitic Sibilants (via Zoom), November 6, 2026

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

People complain about the lack of jobs in academia but there are actually SO many fulfilling alt-ac careers, such as: 1. Squirrel massage therapist 2. Kidz Bop lyrics censor 3. Mafia underling (New Jersey residents only) 4. Professional baby 5. Dolphin translator

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I must be getting old. Has it really been 25 years since the fall of the Median empire?

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

What’s your favorite classic novel whose plot centrally features the (mis)interpretation of the modality of a biblical Hebrew verb? Mine is East of Eden.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I’ve heard there was a secret chord that Sergei played and displeased the landlord

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A new guide is available for Hill Museum and Manuscript Library’s photographic collections of Ethiopian manuscripts, including information on repositories, digitized and cataloged manuscripts, and how to view the manuscripts. hmml.org/assets/pdf/H...

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

‘Why does mensa also mean O table,’ I enquired, ‘and what does O table mean?' 'O table,—you would use that in addressing a table, in invoking a table.’ ‘But I never do,’ I blurted out in honest amazement." - young Winston Churchill & his Latin teacher

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

🧵New digital resources for Masoretic studies: a megathread. We're living in a golden age of digital tools for the study of the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible. This thread compiles recent resources, several of which have launched just this year.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Herodianea's Weekly Seminar Series (online): The Manuscript Transmission of Greek and Latin Grammatical and Scholarly Texts, 15 October–10 December 2026, 5:45–7:00PM CET www.sns.it/it/evento/he...

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Author copies arrived in the mail today!

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Webinar Series: The Odyssey and the Jews of Antiquity, September 23, October 14, and 21, 2026, 12:00-1:00pm EST. jwst.sas.upenn.edu/EVENTS

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

1. Take pictures with the runes at Norway in Epcot. 2. Tell people I discovered ancient Hebrew inscriptions disproving the Bible. 3. ???? 4. PROFIT $$$$

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

okay, well thanks for trying anyway…

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Ending your Brill academic monograph on the philological identification of stones in Classical Hebrew with the hope that your research may be used to recreate the priestly garments "that they may be used soon in our days" is a bold move.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Conference: The Wording of the Elijah Cycle and Its Early Reception, October 16–17, 2026, Collegium Bobolanum of the Catholic Academy in Warsaw. www.akw.edu.pl/aktualnosci/...

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Seminar mit Exkursion nach Äthiopien.Termin voraussichtlich 20. Juni - 4. Juli 2027, unter der Leitung von Prof. Dr. Jörg Frey und Dr. Moritz Adam, Universität Zürich. Infoveranstaltung am Di., 22. September 2026, 18 Uhr

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Just published: Parallel Paradigms of Bohairic and Sahidic Coptic by Kyrillos Wannes (Coptic Compass: 2026). www.amazon.com/dp/B0H882L1T2

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Idan Dershowitz has just launched two new websites: 1. Etnachta - for biblical cantillation study with syntactic parsing & advanced searches: etnachta.org 2. Masoretica - locate any biblical verse in manuscript images and compare them: masoretica.org

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Historian in the year 4026: "The names Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Miami University of Ohio (supposedly in 'Oxford') are almost certainly unhistorical. The tradition has conflated separate locations."

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

The “curse of Ham” is based on a mistranslation. The earliest reading is actually “cured ham,” which explains why Noah immediately started a deli.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

The Iliad and Odyssey were written by HOMER: Hellenic Oral Memory Epic Reciters

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Haman: rehabilitated✅ Ahasuerus: still an easily manipulated drunken buffoon❌ Thank you, biblical scholars!

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

If you ever worry that you're running out of Homeric adaptations to criticize, simply pick up Philip Young's The Printed Homer which has over 400 pages discussing and listing printed editions and translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey from 1470 to 2000.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Since there’s a new CfP, a friendly reminder that Religions is a predatory journal and many people have reported regret over publishing with them. Please publish your work elsewhere.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Call for Papers: Ephrem Greek, Latin, and Beyond. Oxford Patristics Conference, 2-6 August, 2027. Abstracts due 10 August, 2026.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Song of Songs in Hebrew micrography depicting Solomon, 1819. Codex Levy 45, Carl von Ossietzky State and University Library, Hamburg.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

This is not really how I pictured the Angel of Death would look, but okay.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Call for Papers: Sobria Ebrietas: Transformations of Spiritual Intoxication from Philo to Medieval Christianity, 26–27 November, 2026, University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Yale University Renewed Philology Working Group: The Book of Esther in Modernity, July 7 – 28, 2026.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Workshop: Cairo Genizah, September 2–3, 2026, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Moses coming down from Mount Sinai

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Historically, P has been located in the bladder.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

When writing a book review, it’s important to establish your credibility at the outset by admitting to your most embarrassing unfounded prejudices.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

This volume would make a great textbook for a class on the apocrypha or Septuagint! My contribution on “Problematizing Terms: Apocrypha and Septuagint” shows the difficulties with using these terms when talking about 2nd Temple Judaism and early Christianity.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Someday I hope to make it to the People Will Pay to Go on a Cruise with Me level of biblical scholarship.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

If you’ve been an archaeologist for long enough, they just let you title your lectures whatever you want.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

The tedious, endlessly rehashed debates in my subfield are far more interesting than the tedious, endlessly rehashed debates in your subfield.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Latin phrases for textual emendations/conjectures: emendatio palmaria - palm-worthy emendatio egregia - outstanding acuta coniectura - sharp/clever emendatio felicissima - most felicitous emendatio elegans - elegant coniectura verisimilis - plausible emendatio optima - best

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Reposted by Joshua Alfaro

TeTra | Text and Transmission Research Seminar @tetraseminar.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Come join us on Wednesday 8 April 10 AM (note the different time from usual) for a paper on corrections in Greek and Latin literature by @dareiadareia.bsky.social (KULeuven). If you are not yet on our mailing list, please register w/ @andyhilkens.bsky.social to receive the Zoom link!

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Cours Été 2026 (en présentiel / en distanciel direct / en différé) : La Septante dans le judaïsme et le christianisme naissant, donné par Jean Maurais, mai–juillet 2026, mardi 13h–16h. www.fteacadia.com

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Incredibly ironic that when the studies of the psychologists who authored When Prophecy Fails failed to support their theory, they altered the evidence to confirm it.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Scholars: The Septuagint is the first major literary translation into Greek. Hanno, Berossus, Manetho: Uhhh… we’re literally standing right here.

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Summer school: Old Georgian language, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, 4-14 August, 2026. abelao.be/cours/old-ge...

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

As an editor of biblical studies books, I have saved innumerable readers from having to see the word “booty” when “spoils” is meant.

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