Hebrew Voices #153 – Sighting the New Moon in the Middle Ages

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Nehemia: So, it’s like 35 or 36 minutes?

Nadia: Something like that.

Nehemia: And that 35 or 36 minutes led to World War Zero between the Jews of Babylon and the Jews of Israel. Is that right?

Nadia: Yeah. So, for the next year, from the following Passover, from Passover 922 until the end of 923, festivals in the Palestinian and in the Babylonian communities fell on different days.

Nehemia: Shalom and welcome back. I'm here once again with Dr. Nadia Vidro of University College, London, and we had an amazing conversation about the Aviv and how it was observed in the Karaite communities in the 10th and 11th century, this aspect of the biblical calendar. And now I want to talk about the new moon, because there's kind of two pillars of, as I understand it, the biblical calendar, what some would call the Karaite calendar, and in this case… I think there's probably even less disagreement in theory between the Rabbanites and the Karaites, and it just comes down to practice. Meaning, in principle, most Rabbanites historically said that, yes, originally it was the sighting of the new moon, and then when the Messiah comes, it'll go back to the sighting of the new moon. I think maybe Sa’adiah Gaon was an exception to that.

Nadia: Exactly. Sa’adiah Gaon was a big exception to that.

Nehemia: He’s a special case.

Nadia: Yeah. He claimed that Jews always calculated the calendar.

Nehemia: Even though in the Mishnah, we have very clear discussions about how you interrogate the new moon witnesses; how you set up the signal fires. There's no question, I think, historically, that at some point in earlier Jewish history, 1st and 2nd century, maybe even a little bit later, they were observing the sighting of the new moon.

Maybe you can give a little bit of background of how we went from that in the Rabbanite calendar to the calculations. I know you said Professor Sacha Stern is the expert on that, and hopefully we'll speak to him at some point, but just give us a quick synopsis of how that happened.

Nadia: So, the new moon observation is an ancient way to set the calendar, to decide the beginning of the month. That was practiced already in Babylonia in the 2nd Millennium BCE.

Nehemia: And you don't mean Jews in the 2nd Millennium BCE, because…

Nadia: No, no, I mean Babylonians.

Nehemia: Babylonians. Non-Jews were using the new moon to sight the beginning of the month.

Nadia: Absolutely.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: And there are cuneiform texts that describe those procedures, letters about new moon observations and setting months by the new moon. So, it's a long-standing Near Eastern tradition, and this was also done… as I said, we see this in the Mishnaic calendar, we see the Rabbinic Jews in the Mishnah doing this, and by the 10th, 11th century also, we see the Muslims did this. So, it's a very long-standing tradition in the Near East.

Exactly how the process of transition between new moon observations and fixed calculated calendar proceeded is still being researched, and Sacha Stern is doing a lot of research on this.

Nehemia: So, the final word hasn’t been written on that?

Nadia: The final word hasn’t been written on that.

Nehemia: Ah, okay.

Nadia: It is clear that in the Amoraic Period, that's in the Talmud, you see the calendar being more and more fixed. The observations are more and more limited by various rules, by various calendrical rules. How many months of 29 and 30 days you’re allowed to have per year, which months are only allowed to be full, that’s 30 days.

Nehemia: 30 days.

Nadia: And which ones are only allowed to be 29 days? So, you see more and more of those calendrical rules coming in. The rules that certain festivals are not allowed to fall on certain days of the week also comes in during the Amoraic Period, and this is a gradual fixing and movement towards a calculated calendar. And at some point, they bring in the calculation of moladot, of “mean conjunctions”, and it's important to mention, sometimes molad is translated as “the new moon” in the sense of the observed new moon, and this is wrong. Molad is only a calculated new moon, which actually is a couple of days before the new moon can be observed.

Nehemia: I've heard the terms used, “astronomical new moon”, meaning the term as astronomers use it, versus the “visible new moon” or the “crescent new moon”.

Nadia: Yeah.

Nehemia: And there's a lot of confusion. I remember when I was a teenager and I was trying to figure this stuff out, and I would look in the Chicago Tribune and it would say “new moon”, and I would go up to a hilltop - there's only one hill in Chicago - I would go to the hilltop, it was called Mount Trashmore because it was built on trash, and I never saw the new moon! I couldn't understand it, it said it in the newspaper, and it was never visible. And I went to the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, and I asked them, and they were like, “No, that's not the visible new moon. That's just how astronomers use it.” They explained, “We don't care about the sighting of the moon, we're interested in…” Basically it’s what we would call “conjunction”.

Nadia: Yeah.

Nehemia: And it wasn't even conjunction, it's what you call “mean conjunction”. Let's start with what a conjunction is, and then maybe tell us what mean conjunction is.

Nadia: Well, conjunction is the state of the moon when it is least illuminated and it can't be observed, and this is because the Earth, the moon, and the sun are in one line, so you can't see the moon from Earth.

Nehemia: Okay. So that's conjunction.

Nadia: That's conjunction.

Nehemia: So, what’s mean conjunction?

Nadia: If you observe the time of many, many, conjunctions and then average it out...

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: …then that's the time of the mean conjunction.

Nehemia: So, the “mean” meaning “average”.

Nadia: Average.

Nehemia: So, it might not be that that's the actual conjunction, because that could be twelve hours before or twelve hours later, but they didn't have the technology or maybe the…

Nadia: Or the interest.

Nehemia: Or the interest, okay, in calculating it that precisely, they're just interested in the average. And so, the Hillel II… what's called the Hillel II calendar, the modern Rabbinical calendar, uses this mean conjunction.

Nadia: It uses this mean conjunction. Mean conjunctions occur every month, so that there's a regular interval between two mean conjunctions. Whereas between two actual conjunctions, the interval is not always the same. The deviation is not very big, I mean, it's not three days, but…

Nehemia: Yeah, but it could be twelve hours.

Nadia: Yeah.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: So, it's not a very convenient measure for a calendar, for a calculated calendar. Whereas the mean conjunction is a simple and convenient and regular measure.

Nehemia: So, if you don't have a computer or a calculator, it's much easier if you're running numbers by hand to do mean conjunction. And then, my understanding of how they figured it out is they had all these… wasn’t it Ptolemy’s Almagest?

Nadia: That is the value that is in the Almagest.

Nehemia: I could be mispronouncing it, alright.

Nadia: So, that's the value that's in Ptolemy’s Almagest, and the current thinking is that the Jewish calendar borrowed it from Ptolemy.

Nehemia: Okay. Even though Maimonides would say it was the other way around. He actually says that. He says that the Greeks took it from the Jews. I’m sorry, he said, “We took it from the Greeks, but the Greeks got it from the tribe of Issachar.” Something like that.

Nadia: Well, that's not the current thinking, let’s say that.

Nehemia: Okay. In any event. So, the Rabbinical calendar gradually goes… and it's not in one moment, you said it wasn't a big bang in the previous conversation.

Nadia: No, it wasn’t a big bang.

Nehemia: It wasn't a sudden shift; it was a gradual shift from actual observation to these calculations. The calculations culminate around the year 921 in a fixing of the Rabbinical calendar.

Nadia: In the early 10th century, the calendar was as we know it today, but there was a slight, slight change; a difference in calculation between Palestinians and Babylonians. In most years, it made no difference whatsoever. I don't know if you want me to go into those technical details.

Nehemia: Sure. It’s something about Tuesday or something. Let's go into those details. Meaning, they're looking at this average and they've got a bunch of rules for postponements.

Nadia: Exactly.

Nehemia: And those rules weren’t identical.

Nadia: One of the rules of postponements was different in the Babylonian and the Palestinian calendar. There's this rule that if the molad occurs after noon…

Nehemia: Meaning after 12:00 noon?

Nadia: After 12:00 noon, it counted from 6:00 PM.

Nehemia: Okay. So, this isn't the Gregorian calendar.

Nadia: No!

Nehemia: Okay, go on.

Nadia: Then you need to postpone the beginning of the month of Tishri, and the medieval pronunciation, by the way, is not Tishrei, it’s Tishri.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: So, then you have to postpone the beginning of Tishri to the following day. That's the rule in the modern calendar, and that was the rule in the Babylonian calendar. Whereas in the Palestinian calendar, the rule was slightly different - you had to postpone a little bit later if it occurred not at 12:00 noon but at 12:00 noon and 641 parts after 6:00.

Nehemia: And there's 1,080 parts in an hour?

Nadia: 1,080 parts in an hour.

Nehemia: Okay. I'm bad at math here, you said 641.

Nadia: Yeah.

Nehemia: Divided by 1,080. Now we do times 60. So, it’s like 35 or 36 minutes?

Nadia: Something like that.

Nehemia: And that 35 or 36 minutes led to World War Zero between the Jews of Babylon and the Jews of Israel. Is that right?

Nadia: Yeah.

Nehemia: That’s incredible. Wow, 36 minutes!

Nadia: In the year 921, they calculated the same molad, the same mean conjunction. But it fell, so that according to the Babylonians, the day had to be postponed, Tishri had to be postponed, and according to the Palestinians, it didn't.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: So, for the next year, from the following Passover, from Passover 922 until the end of 923, festivals in the Palestinian and in the Babylonian communities fell on different days.

Nehemia: So, wait a minute. Let's say in Cairo, where you had Babylonian Jews and you had Yerushalmim - the Jerusalemite Jews - they could have been observing on different days in the same city even. Is that…?

Nadia: I think so.

Nehemia: Wow. So, you talked in the last program about how the Karaites were especially tolerant. Was there a great degree of tolerance here among the Rabbanites over this?

Nadia: Not really. There was a huge polemic, a big controversy. Again, Sacha Stern published an amazing book about this in 2019 called The Jewish Calendar Controversy of 921/22 CE, published with Brill.

Nehemia: We'll throw that up here on the screen.

Nadia: So, there was a very big controversy that was carried out purely by letter and in writing. Both communities stuck to their own dates, but they weren't happy with each other. They weren't really tolerant. In scholarship, there was this idea that if you celebrate on different dates, you can no longer be one people, one nation, one religion. You have to split.

Nehemia: What do you mean in scholarship? In modern academic scholarship?

Nadia: In modern academic scholarship.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: Yeah, people like Ankori and Talmon.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: But what we observe in practice is, there was a big controversy in writing, but they weren't really intolerant to the point of breaking up completely.

Nehemia: So, they didn't split into two communities where they wouldn't speak to each other over this…

Nadia: That's it. That’s correct.

Nehemia: They just disagreed and wrote nasty letters!

Nadia: Nasty letters and tried to convince the other authorities. But in the end, the calendars converged back to the same date.

Nehemia: So, how come this hasn’t happened again since 921?

Nadia: It did happen again, in 927.

Nehemia: What? Wait, I don't know this part!

Nadia: Well, the calendrical difference happened again.

Nehemia: Yeah. But there wasn't a fight over it. Or was there?

Nadia: And there is some evidence that they probably celebrated on different dates, but there wasn't a fight, because they fought…

Nehemia: Wow! I didn't know that.

Nadia: There was a fight only just a few years before, and it didn’t bring anything, so nothing happened.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: And the feeling is that they just didn't fight over it. There wasn't the political will to fight over it.

Nehemia: So, you have these differences within the Rabbinical calendar, which are pretty rare, right?

Nadia: They are.

Nehemia: Extremely rare, once it reaches a certain stage in its evolution. Now talk to me about the Karaite calendar in the 10th, 11th century.

Nadia: So, the Karaite calendar in the 10th, 11th century, and actually in terms of new moon also much later, continued to follow the tradition of new moon sightings. Which, as I said, was an ancient tradition in the Near East. So, they are sort of traditionalists. They fixed beginnings of months, every month…

Nehemia: I’ve got to point out the irony here - that Karaites, who in principle say, “we follow Scripture and reject tradition”, tend to be traditionalists in some ways. I've seen this in my own research. I looked at this 14th century Torah scroll, and it has line fillers. Well, you're not allowed to have line fillers in Torah scrolls, but when you look at the 10th century - even Rabbanite Torah scrolls, they have them. So, you have this Halachah that spread and stamped out putting in line fillers. They said it’s an extra symbol and not allowed, and the Karaites are the ones who are following this traditional scribal practice, maybe not even realizing that, “Oh, we're following something ancient,” just, “This is how I was taught to write.”

Nadia: Very interesting. I didn’t know that.

Nehemia: So, it’s very interesting that it's counterintuitive that Karaites sometimes tend to be traditionalists, but okay. So go on. So, they're following this thing that goes back to ancient times, and certainly in ancient Judaism…

Nadia: And the principle of it is very simple. At the end of 29 days, since the beginning of the previous month, you go out around sunset, and you observe the moon. If you can see the new crescent, then the old month is over. It was 29 days long and you look over the western horizon because this is where you can see the new moon. If you observe it, if you sight it, then the previous month is over, it was 29 days long, and on that evening the new month begins.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: If you do not observe it - and it can be that it just isn't yet visible, or there are clouds in the sky, or dust, something like that - if you don't observe it, then you make the month 30 days long, and the beginning of the month is on the following day. And the Karaites didn't actually observe the moon on the following day, because the idea was that it will definitely be visible after 30 days since the previous new moon.

Nehemia: Okay. So, it was by default the next day.

Nadia: It was by default the next day. So, that's the basic procedure, and it's very simple. And again, it's the same basic procedure as all lunar calendars based on the new moon observation are following, but nature obviously never listens to our basic procedures.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: For a number of reasons, it is difficult to observe the new moon. It's very faint, it's very small, it sets soon after sunset, so you can miss it.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Nadia: You can observe a whiff of cloud and think it's the new moon, or there can generally very simply be clouds, and you can't observe it. And if it happens in one month, that's alright. But for example, if there are clouds there a number of months in a row, you're going to be out widely compared to the new moons. So, Karaites had all sorts of additional rules. They had to introduce additional rules, not just rely on observation only.

Nehemia: So, what are some examples of these additional rules?

Nadia: For example, they had a rule of how many full months of 30 days are allowed in the calendar, and how many months of 29 days are allowed in the calendar. There was a bit of a disagreement.

Nehemia: Okay. I'm shocked! Alright.

Nadia: But I think, if I remember correctly, everybody agreed that there can be no more than four 30-day months.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: But how many 29 days in a row can there be? Some said four, some said three, if I remember correctly. And it is interesting that at least some authorities like Levi ben Yefet and those who followed him, because Levi ben Yefet was really foundational for later legal thinking, and the calendar is part of legal thinking…

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: So, Levi ben Yefet said that if you had four full months in a row, you don’t need to observe the moon after four full months, because…

Nehemia: Oh, wow! Because you assume the next one’s 29 days.

Nadia: Yeah. It's bound to be there, because you are bound to be out.

Nehemia: Wow! This is interesting, I'll tell you why that's interesting. And this is - I'm speaking here from experience of observing new moons - if you have four 30-day months in a row… First of all, you could have four 30-day months in a row with perfect, clear clouds, astronomically that’s possible. Sorry - with perfect, clear conditions without any clouds. Meaning, in ideal observing conditions, you could have four 30-day months, and all it would take was one month with clouds, and three 30-day months is easy, and the fourth one, let’s say, is clouds. So, what could happen at the end of that, is the moon is visible on the 27th or 28th day.

Nadia: There's a discussion about that.

Nehemia: We'll talk about that in a minute. But maybe, I wonder if he's saying you don't need to look, because he doesn't want you to go look. I don't know! I once had a situation where we went - and this is modern times, this is 21st century - where the moon was visible… it was a 28-day month, because there had been clouds, and the next month we went and looked for the moon, and it was what we call nir’ah ba’alil, which is a term specifically that comes from the context of the calendar. Meaning, it was seen blatantly by anybody who… you don't even have to go up to a hilltop to look, you can just see it up high in the sky. So, it was nir’ah ba’alil, it was clearly visible to anybody who looked, and so we ended up with a 28-day month.

And I had a man who flew across the United States to confront me about this. And he was so upset, he said, “You told me there could only be a 29-day month.” And I said, “But we saw it. What did you want me to do?” He said, “You shouldn't have looked.” And he meant it! He felt betrayed that we had looked and seen the moon, when I had been wrong. I thought it couldn't happen, but it happened. So, this is discussed. So, talk about this. This is golden right here! Everybody pay attention! What do they say?

Nadia: This has been discussed. So, after four 30-day months, you don't need to observe. I don't think it's because you're not supposed to see it.

Nehemia: It’s a tirchah, it’s a pain.

Nadia: Exactly. “Why go to the pain of…”

Nehemia: “Why put yourself out?” Okay.

Nadia: Exactly.

Nehemia: Fair enough.

Nadia: But there is a discussion… there's a famous passage in the Babylonian Talmud about Rabban Gamaliel…

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: I think it's in Sanhedrin 20A or B, but don't catch me on that.

Nehemia: We'll put it up on the screen here. Go ahead.

Nadia: Yeah. So, the sky was clouded for a number of months and then the people saw the moon. And here you need to pay attention, because in the printed Talmud, it says “on the 29th day”.

Nehemia: Oh, wow!

Nadia: But in many earlier manuscripts, it actually says “after 27”, not 29, but 27.

Nehemia: Oh, wow!

Nadia: And the people were preparing to sanctify the moon because they saw the crescent, but Rabban Gamaliel said, “No, I have a tradition that a month can only be 29 days-and-a-half, and 793 parts.”

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: And the Karaites discuss this, and say, “Well, of course the moon appeared after 27 days,” because they had a run of 30-day months due to clouds.

Nehemia: Wow!

Nadia: And the actual crescent appeared before the 30 days.

Nehemia: In the previous months, maybe?

Nadia: In previous months.

Nehemia: It just wasn't visible because of clouds.

Nadia: Exactly.

Nehemia: Wow!

Nadia: And they say Rabban Gamaliel didn’t fix the month when the crescent appears for reasons of expediency. That’s what it says.

Nehemia: Who says that? In the Talmud?

Nadia: The Karaites say it.

Nehemia: Oh, okay.

Nadia: They discuss this story and say Rabban Gamaliel didn’t fix it for reasons of expediency.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: But we do it. So, I have an impression…

Nehemia: Wait, back up. “We,” the Karaites of the 10th, 11th century?

Nadia: Yeah, we would do it.

Nehemia: So, if we see it after 27 days, then that 28th day is the beginning of the next month?

Nadia: Yeah.

Nehemia: Wow! We say in English, “Drop the mic and walk away.” That was amazing! What text is this? Is this Levi ben Yefet?

Nadia: So, there’s a discussion in Levi ben Yefet…

Nehemia: Oh, wow.

Nadia: And also his father, Yefet ben Eli, talked about this.

Nehemia: Wow. Wow. This is amazing stuff! So, this was the practical reality of an observable calendar.

Nadia: What do you want to do? The moon is there!

Nehemia: Here's something I don't know anything about. So, the Muslims have an observational calendar of the new moon. What did they do in that situation? Do you have any idea?

Nadia: I know that at least sometimes, the most important for them is the new moon of Ramadan.

Nehemia: Oh, okay.

Nadia: And this is the one that's really waited to observe, sometimes. Sometimes they had a 31-day-long month before Ramadan, because…

Nehemia: Because they’re waiting to sight the moon…

Nadia: Because they couldn’t sight the moon, sometimes.

Nehemia: Interesting. Did the Karaite sources ever talk about a 31-day month?

Nadia: No.

Nehemia: No.

Nadia: I don't think so.

Nehemia: Oh, because by default…

Nadia: Because by default they had fixed it previously, yeah.

Nehemia: Oh, so that's interesting. Okay, that's a big difference between the way Karaites observe the calendar and Muslims.

Nadia: Yeah. I don't know very much about this, but this is what I’ve read.

Nehemia: Okay. And this is a great opportunity, in the comments, if you know something about the Islamic calendar, come and share in the comments, because I don't know either. I know zero about the Islamic calendar, except there are Muslim new moon observers in modern times, and there were issues, especially 20 years ago or so, 30 years ago, where there were certain Gulf States that were offering cash rewards for the first person to sight the new moon. And lo and behold, they would see it two days before the conjunction! Like, “Who could have seen that coming?” So, I think they stopped doing that because they realized, “Okay. We've got a billion Muslims. We don't need to pay people to claim they saw the moon.”

Anyway. So, wow! This is amazing stuff.

So, we talked about with the Aviv, how there were different factions. Did we have that with the new moon?

Nadia: I don't think in the same sense as in the case of Aviv. Observations of the new moon were local.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: So, every town was allowed to carry out their own observation, and obviously they came to different results, because, as they say, there can be clouds in Ramleh and clear skies in Tiberias.

Nehemia: Wait. Wait a minute, hold on a second. So, you're saying if there were clouds in Ramleh, and they saw the new moon in Tiberias, in Tiberias they would observe it on Sunday and in Ramleh they would do it on Monday?

Nadia: Possibly. They also wrote to each other; they did send messages to each other.

Nehemia: So, if they got a message that you saw it in Tiberias…

Nadia: Then retrojectively they would fix the beginning of the month to the previous day.

Nehemia: And that would work with every holiday except for Yom Teruah?

Nadia: There's a discussion about that.

Nehemia: Okay. You're like E.F. Hutton, “What is she saying? I'm listening.” That’s a reference from the 80s, guys!

Nadia: Yeah, I didn't get it.

Nehemia: It’s American culture, yeah. So wait, what would happen if…

Nadia: So, I get the impression that sometimes they did the same with Yom Teruah as well.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: If news arrived during this would-be Yom Teruah, they would celebrate the festival from the time when the news arrived.

Nehemia: Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You're not even talking about Yom Kippur. You're talking about the actual day of Yom Teruah, they're in the middle of the observance, and then they find out… what? That the moon was…

Nadia: Sighted somewhere.

Nehemia: And so, they're like, “Okay. Yom Teruah was yesterday, we don't need to keep Yom Teruah anymore.” Is that…?

Nadia: Yes. Or, if it arrived in the middle of the day, “then from that moment in the day, we’ll observe Yom Teruah”.

Nehemia: Okay, okay. I see what you’re saying.

Nadia: So, it's one of the opinions. I don't know how many people did that.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: Because there's also the opinion that if you're not sure, you should actually keep two days.

Nehemia: For Yom Teruah?

Nadia: For every festival.

Nehemia: For every festival?

Nadia: Until you're sure. You should fast on Yom Kippur for two days.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: That’s Levi ben Yefet, again.

Nehemia: And he promotes that opinion? Or he mentions that, “yesh omerim”, “some say…”

Nadia: No, no! That's his opinion.

Nehemia: Oh, really?

Nadia: That's his opinion.

Nehemia: Wow!

Nadia: I think he's maybe the first, and if you look in later Byzantine sources, like Hadassi and later Byzantine sources, you actually see them repeat this.

Nehemia: Two days of Yom Kippur…

Nadia: If you have to.

Nehemia: In a row…

Nadia: If you have to.

Nehemia: Okay. Alright.

Nadia: But he does acknowledge that until Yom Kippur, you'll probably know.

Nehemia: I see, okay. I guess you could say on some level, you never know for sure, right? If there's clouds.

Nadia: Well, if there’s clouds all the way until Yom Kippur. But for example, if you see it on what may be day two, or may be day one, and you can observe how thick the crescent is, and how bright and how high…

Nehemia: I can tell you from experience, that’s quite dangerous, because what you think is a second- or third-day moon might be a first- or second-day moon.

Nadia: Well, tell Levi!

Nehemia: Okay. Well, this has been an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for joining me.

Nadia: Thank you very much, Nehemia.

Nehemia: Any final words you want to share? Do you want to share maybe about what some of the research you’re working on now is? Or things you have planned for the future? Or whatever you want to share.

Nadia: Maybe instead of what I’m working on now, I would like to say that this Karaite literature from the 10th, 11th century is amazingly interesting, and there’s a huge amount of it, and most of it is still in manuscripts, unreconstructed, unedited, unpublished, so very few people actually get access to it. And it’s very difficult to research it, and it’s very difficult for people who are not researchers to access it at all. So, I think it’s one of the real priorities of research, and also for funders, I’d say, to fund research into those…

Nehemia: Did you hear that, guys?

Nadia: … to fund research into those manuscripts and to just bring them out, to just make them accessible. Because really, as my PhD supervisor says, “Philology is the power room of history.” Without philology, without this philological research of editing texts and making them accessible, available, it’s impossible to do history!

Nehemia: Right. You don’t know what really happened if you haven’t read the text that describes what’s happened.

Nadia: Exactly. And we don’t know what’s there.

Nehemia: Wow.

Nadia: All that is there to discover.

Nehemia: And just to reiterate what we talked about in the first part, in the first discussion, you spent three years researching and reading this literature, and it sounds like you’ve barely scratched the surface - there’s so much more that needs to be done.

Nadia: Absolutely, absolutely. I read those texts, but I definitely didn’t have time to edit them, translate them, and I’m sure I haven’t read all of them.

Nehemia: Wow. Alright, thank you so much for joining us.

Nadia: Thank you, thank you.

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