Abstract
The Tosefta reads: "If a person found a ring on which was the image of the sun, the image of the moon, the image of a dragon (snake), he should bring it to the Dead Sea. And also a nursing female image ([np'%1] 7p' i mn-) and Sarapis."' Each component of this intriguing passage in the Tosefta deserves close examination; the current article will reexamine the phrase a "nursing female image," and attempt to identify the two pagan characters represented by this cryptic wording. Saul Lieberman, one of the leading scholars who attempted to answer this question, was of the opinion that this phrase refers to Isis nursing her son Horus ("Harpocrates" in Greek).2 Because the pair Isis-Sarapis was extremely common during the time of the Roman empire and especially in the second century C.E., the listing of Sarapis after the "nursing female image" probably led Lieberman to conclude that this
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