Abstract

The engagement with Egypt and the Egyptian gods that transpired in the Hebrew Bible continued into the texts produced by rabbinic Judaism. Rabbinic texts of late antiquity and the early medieval period frequently presented images of Egypt and its religion. One of the critical objectives of these portrayals of Egypt was to set boundaries of Jewish identity by presenting rabbinic Judaism in opposition to Egyptian culture. The Egyptian cultural icons in rabbinic texts also demonstrate that the rabbis were aware of cultures other than their own.1 The presence of Egyptian elements in midrash had previously been noted to a very limited extent by scholars of the Wissenschaft des Judentums (the science of Judaism), and it has not escaped the attention of more recent scholarship.

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