Pub Date : 2023-11-16DOI: 10.30965/21967954-bja10053
Haggai Olshanetsky
The ostracon O.Ka.La. Inv. 228, recently added to the CPJ, received little attention, even though this ostracon may offer unique perspectives on social relationships in Roman-Egypt, particularly Roman-Jewish ones. In the ostracon, the Jews’ bread rations had to be replaced with wheat, possibly due to Passover. The current article shows that there are two other options, although only one is equally as probable as the Passover one. This other option emphasizes unique procedures implemented by the Roman army to allow Jews to keep their religious practices. It also raises the possibility that the bread stamps used by the Roman army to prevent theft also enabled minorities to easily serve while keeping their religious practices. The article stresses the importance of this ostracon and the implications it has on our understanding of Roman-Jewish relationships and the Roman attitude towards minorities, in general, throughout the Principate.
{"title":"A Re-evaluation and Analysis of CPJ V 638 and Its Implications for Understanding Social Relationships in the Roman Empire, and the Roman-Jewish Relationship in Particular","authors":"Haggai Olshanetsky","doi":"10.30965/21967954-bja10053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-bja10053","url":null,"abstract":"The ostracon O.Ka.La. Inv. 228, recently added to the CPJ, received little attention, even though this ostracon may offer unique perspectives on social relationships in Roman-Egypt, particularly Roman-Jewish ones. In the ostracon, the Jews’ bread rations had to be replaced with wheat, possibly due to Passover. The current article shows that there are two other options, although only one is equally as probable as the Passover one. This other option emphasizes unique procedures implemented by the Roman army to allow Jews to keep their religious practices. It also raises the possibility that the bread stamps used by the Roman army to prevent theft also enabled minorities to easily serve while keeping their religious practices. The article stresses the importance of this ostracon and the implications it has on our understanding of Roman-Jewish relationships and the Roman attitude towards minorities, in general, throughout the Principate.","PeriodicalId":41821,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Judaism","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139270711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-13DOI: 10.30965/21967954-bja10050
Sarah E. G. Fein
Abstract This article explores the presentation of the Mother of Seven Sons in 2 and 4 Maccabees and her reception in some rabbinic literature. It uses as a framework queer theory, particularly Lee Edelman’s concept of reproductive futurism. Ultimately, it argues that the texts’ simultaneous emphasis on the Mother’s maternal body and her masculine behaviors constructs her as a queer figure. This queerness enables her to effectively resist the physical and cultural violence of the Roman imperial project.
{"title":"A “Queer” Mother of Nations: Reproductive Futurism and the Maccabean Mother of Seven","authors":"Sarah E. G. Fein","doi":"10.30965/21967954-bja10050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-bja10050","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article explores the presentation of the Mother of Seven Sons in 2 and 4 Maccabees and her reception in some rabbinic literature. It uses as a framework queer theory, particularly Lee Edelman’s concept of reproductive futurism. Ultimately, it argues that the texts’ simultaneous emphasis on the Mother’s maternal body and her masculine behaviors constructs her as a queer figure. This queerness enables her to effectively resist the physical and cultural violence of the Roman imperial project.","PeriodicalId":41821,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Judaism","volume":"24 7","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136348508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-13DOI: 10.30965/21967954-bja10052
James Nati
Abstract Jubilees 32:21–26 tells the story of Jacob’s third divine encounter at Bethel, in which heavenly writing is revealed to him. Interpreters have tried to understand this writing as Jubilees’s Heavenly Tablets, but the description of the writing and its revelation do not square well with the other mentions of the Heavenly Tablets in the book. This article explores the many problems with this reading and suggests, instead, on the basis of the Ethiopic and Latin terms used for this writing, that Jacob reads a scroll. It is suggested that the terminology in this passage refers not to tablets, but to papyrus or parchment sheets, or columns of writing – or both. This understanding of the materiality of the writing allows us to fully appreciate the claim put forward in the episode, which has to do not with the Heavenly Tablets, but with the particularities of early Jewish scribal practice.
{"title":"What Did Jacob Read at Bethel?: Scrolls and Scripture in Jubilees 32:21–26","authors":"James Nati","doi":"10.30965/21967954-bja10052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-bja10052","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Jubilees 32:21–26 tells the story of Jacob’s third divine encounter at Bethel, in which heavenly writing is revealed to him. Interpreters have tried to understand this writing as Jubilees’s Heavenly Tablets, but the description of the writing and its revelation do not square well with the other mentions of the Heavenly Tablets in the book. This article explores the many problems with this reading and suggests, instead, on the basis of the Ethiopic and Latin terms used for this writing, that Jacob reads a scroll. It is suggested that the terminology in this passage refers not to tablets, but to papyrus or parchment sheets, or columns of writing – or both. This understanding of the materiality of the writing allows us to fully appreciate the claim put forward in the episode, which has to do not with the Heavenly Tablets, but with the particularities of early Jewish scribal practice.","PeriodicalId":41821,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Judaism","volume":"25 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136348644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-16DOI: 10.30965/21967954-bja10032
Michael Economou
Abstract The Aramaic inscriptions from Hellenistic Mount Gerizim have been the object of intense scholarly interest since their publication almost 20 years ago. Research has particularly focused on the ways that the inscriptions can inform our understanding of the emergence of a Samaritan group identity which was distinct from that of the Jews. This article seeks to contribute to these discussions by addressing 2 interrelated issues. Firstly, drawing on research by other scholars, it tentatively suggests that these inscriptions can be divided into two groups which represent different phases of production. Secondly, it explores the reasons for the apparent introduction of a sense of place in the later inscriptions, considering the broader political and administrative history of the district of Samaria in the 2nd century BCE .
{"title":"The Aramaic Inscriptions from Mount Gerizim: Production, Identity, and Resistance","authors":"Michael Economou","doi":"10.30965/21967954-bja10032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-bja10032","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Aramaic inscriptions from Hellenistic Mount Gerizim have been the object of intense scholarly interest since their publication almost 20 years ago. Research has particularly focused on the ways that the inscriptions can inform our understanding of the emergence of a Samaritan group identity which was distinct from that of the Jews. This article seeks to contribute to these discussions by addressing 2 interrelated issues. Firstly, drawing on research by other scholars, it tentatively suggests that these inscriptions can be divided into two groups which represent different phases of production. Secondly, it explores the reasons for the apparent introduction of a sense of place in the later inscriptions, considering the broader political and administrative history of the district of Samaria in the 2nd century BCE .","PeriodicalId":41821,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Judaism","volume":"77 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136142399","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-26DOI: 10.30965/21967954-bja10051
Matthew L. Walsh
Abstract Scholars have long-noted the association of the Hebrew/Aramaic noun גבורה (power, strength, might, etc.) with divine wisdom and knowledge, but comments have been brief and intermittent. This study will elaborate upon previous investigations of the sapiential sense of גבורה and discuss texts that have hitherto been overlooked or received scant attention. After examining “biblical” and early Jewish texts of non-sectarian or proto-sectarian provenances, compositions penned by the Yaḥad movement will be addressed to shed light on the contribution גבורה made to sectarian identity. It will be demonstrated that גבורה aided the sect in asserting the conviction that, as the true Israel, the revelation of divine wisdom and knowledge was evidence that God was uniquely and powerfully at work among them.
{"title":"Divine Wisdom and Knowledge on Steroids: גבורה in Biblical Tradition and at Qumran","authors":"Matthew L. Walsh","doi":"10.30965/21967954-bja10051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-bja10051","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Scholars have long-noted the association of the Hebrew/Aramaic noun גבורה (power, strength, might, etc.) with divine wisdom and knowledge, but comments have been brief and intermittent. This study will elaborate upon previous investigations of the sapiential sense of גבורה and discuss texts that have hitherto been overlooked or received scant attention. After examining “biblical” and early Jewish texts of non-sectarian or proto-sectarian provenances, compositions penned by the Yaḥad movement will be addressed to shed light on the contribution גבורה made to sectarian identity. It will be demonstrated that גבורה aided the sect in asserting the conviction that, as the true Israel, the revelation of divine wisdom and knowledge was evidence that God was uniquely and powerfully at work among them.","PeriodicalId":41821,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Judaism","volume":"2012 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135719494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-22DOI: 10.30965/21967954-bja10049
Shana Strauch Schick
In a homiletic cluster expounding upon the first two chapters of Exodus, Bavli Sotah 12a–b includes a tradition describing light filling the house upon Moses’s birth. While this appears to be a standard trope of the heroic nativity, this motif is uncommon. It is found only in Second Temple accounts of Noah’s birth, and in depictions of the birth of Zoroaster and apocryphal infancy gospels that were popular among Syriac Christians (and later concerning the birth of Muhammed). After examining the textual evidence pointing to the uniquely Babylonian provenance of this talmudic tradition, I explore the variations on the motif in these other birth narratives. I argue that these similarities suggest a desire on the part of the rabbis to depict the focal hero of the rabbinic imagination in cosmological and even divine terms similar to those of competing religions, though it deviates from the usual midrashic depictions of Moses.
{"title":"A House Filled with Light: The Birth of Moses in Late Antique Contexts","authors":"Shana Strauch Schick","doi":"10.30965/21967954-bja10049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-bja10049","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In a homiletic cluster expounding upon the first two chapters of Exodus, Bavli Sotah 12a–b includes a tradition describing light filling the house upon Moses’s birth. While this appears to be a standard trope of the heroic nativity, this motif is uncommon. It is found only in Second Temple accounts of Noah’s birth, and in depictions of the birth of Zoroaster and apocryphal infancy gospels that were popular among Syriac Christians (and later concerning the birth of Muhammed). After examining the textual evidence pointing to the uniquely Babylonian provenance of this talmudic tradition, I explore the variations on the motif in these other birth narratives. I argue that these similarities suggest a desire on the part of the rabbis to depict the focal hero of the rabbinic imagination in cosmological and even divine terms similar to those of competing religions, though it deviates from the usual midrashic depictions of Moses.","PeriodicalId":41821,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42794977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-26DOI: 10.30965/21967954-bja10047
M. Zahn
Although the Temple Scroll’s divinely-commanded temple plan has frequently been described as “utopian,” there has been no sustained attempt to analyze the scroll in light of other texts that have been described as utopias/utopian, or in connection with utopian studies. This article aims to start that conversation, considering what insights about the purpose and function of the Temple Scroll might be gained from approaching it as a utopia. Such an approach demonstrates that the scroll’s temple is best understood not as a concrete plan for direct reform, but as an imagined counterfactual world, constituted through legal discourse, through which the composers sought to reflect on and respond to their current realities.
{"title":"The Utopian Vision of the Temple Scroll","authors":"M. Zahn","doi":"10.30965/21967954-bja10047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-bja10047","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Although the Temple Scroll’s divinely-commanded temple plan has frequently been described as “utopian,” there has been no sustained attempt to analyze the scroll in light of other texts that have been described as utopias/utopian, or in connection with utopian studies. This article aims to start that conversation, considering what insights about the purpose and function of the Temple Scroll might be gained from approaching it as a utopia. Such an approach demonstrates that the scroll’s temple is best understood not as a concrete plan for direct reform, but as an imagined counterfactual world, constituted through legal discourse, through which the composers sought to reflect on and respond to their current realities.","PeriodicalId":41821,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46405196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-26DOI: 10.30965/21967954-bja10048
Daphne Baratz
This article analyzes an ancient tradition related to the story of the exodus from Egypt, which combines a plague of pestilence (dever) with the final plague, the plague of the firstborn (makkat bekhorot). In the first sections, I trace the sources in which this tradition appears and attempt to identify the biblical origins of this tradition and the exegetical difficulties it tackles. In the final section, I aim to show how this tradition sheds light on an abstruse passage in the Passover Haggadah. By completing the different parts of this inquiry, it becomes possible to delineate the evolution of the link between the plague of the firstborn and pestilence as stemming from key issues within the biblical exodus tradition that preoccupied exegetes in antiquity.
{"title":"Pestilence (דֶבר) and the Plague of the Firstborn: A Study of the Origins of an Ancient Exegesis","authors":"Daphne Baratz","doi":"10.30965/21967954-bja10048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-bja10048","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article analyzes an ancient tradition related to the story of the exodus from Egypt, which combines a plague of pestilence (dever) with the final plague, the plague of the firstborn (makkat bekhorot). In the first sections, I trace the sources in which this tradition appears and attempt to identify the biblical origins of this tradition and the exegetical difficulties it tackles. In the final section, I aim to show how this tradition sheds light on an abstruse passage in the Passover Haggadah. By completing the different parts of this inquiry, it becomes possible to delineate the evolution of the link between the plague of the firstborn and pestilence as stemming from key issues within the biblical exodus tradition that preoccupied exegetes in antiquity.","PeriodicalId":41821,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45871088","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-26DOI: 10.30965/21967954-bja10043
Årstein Justnes, Ludvik A. Kjeldsberg
Since 2002, more than 100 “new” Dead Sea Scrolls fragments have surfaced on the antiquities market. They were launched with great stories and soon became big business. In this study, we analyze the market for post-2002 fragments. After a detailed chronological overview of the sales over the last 20 years, we discuss some of the most essential questions related to these sales: How did a market arise for Dead Sea Scrolls in the twenty-first century? What made some fragments especially attractive? How much money has been spent in total? Where did these new fragments come from? We argue that the post-2002 “saga” reads first and foremost as a story about Christian Dead Sea Scrolls.
{"title":"“Much Clean Paper for Little Dirty Paper”: The Market for Dead Sea Scrolls in the Twenty-First Century","authors":"Årstein Justnes, Ludvik A. Kjeldsberg","doi":"10.30965/21967954-bja10043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-bja10043","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Since 2002, more than 100 “new” Dead Sea Scrolls fragments have surfaced on the antiquities market. They were launched with great stories and soon became big business. In this study, we analyze the market for post-2002 fragments. After a detailed chronological overview of the sales over the last 20 years, we discuss some of the most essential questions related to these sales: How did a market arise for Dead Sea Scrolls in the twenty-first century? What made some fragments especially attractive? How much money has been spent in total? Where did these new fragments come from? We argue that the post-2002 “saga” reads first and foremost as a story about Christian Dead Sea Scrolls.","PeriodicalId":41821,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49176501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-19DOI: 10.30965/21967954-bja10045
Jonathan Klawans
This article surveys and categorizes problematic arguments that recur in academic authentications of suspicious objects, especially biblically-related forgery cases (often arising from antiquities markets). Academic authenticators are often attracted to the “allure of significance” promised by unprovenanced objects purportedly related to biblical people or places. Authentication often displays a “cooption of creativity”: freely imaginative reconstructions of ancient origins are propped up by preclusions of the possibility of forgery. Combining these two moves into a third, authenticators spin inconsistencies to their advantage, arguing that what is unparalleled in the suspicious object provides evidence of new, important, unattested phenomena. Authenticators highlight the “drama of discovery,” even if the drama must be invented. Finally, authenticators slip into the language and legalities of crime-solving: if an alleged forger cannot be proven guilty, then the object should be considered authentic. Such arguments appear in failed authentications of the past, resurfacing in present controversies.
{"title":"The Magic of Forgery: Patterns of Distraction in the Authentication of Suspicious Objects","authors":"Jonathan Klawans","doi":"10.30965/21967954-bja10045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-bja10045","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article surveys and categorizes problematic arguments that recur in academic authentications of suspicious objects, especially biblically-related forgery cases (often arising from antiquities markets). Academic authenticators are often attracted to the “allure of significance” promised by unprovenanced objects purportedly related to biblical people or places. Authentication often displays a “cooption of creativity”: freely imaginative reconstructions of ancient origins are propped up by preclusions of the possibility of forgery. Combining these two moves into a third, authenticators spin inconsistencies to their advantage, arguing that what is unparalleled in the suspicious object provides evidence of new, important, unattested phenomena. Authenticators highlight the “drama of discovery,” even if the drama must be invented. Finally, authenticators slip into the language and legalities of crime-solving: if an alleged forger cannot be proven guilty, then the object should be considered authentic. Such arguments appear in failed authentications of the past, resurfacing in present controversies.","PeriodicalId":41821,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Judaism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44358765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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