Incantation Bowls Research Articles

On some readings and interpretations in the Aramaic incantation bowls and related texts

AbstractThis study takes a new look at a number of obscure passages in the Aramaic incantation bowls and related texts discussed in Christa Müller-Kessler's article “More on puzzling words and spellings in Aramaic incantation bowls and related texts”, published inBSOAS75/1, 2012, 1–31. Among the words discussed are ברזא ‘wild boar’, מנוביא ‘wailing’, מסחיפתא ‘overthrower (type of demon)’, ספסיפא ‘burning’ and פרהזני ‘protectors’, all new to the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic lexicon, ככא ‘tusk’ and תברי “‘broken’ sounds of theshofar(as a maleficent force)”, which show new meanings for previously attested lexemes, and the new plural form שולניתא ‘maidservants’. Additional evidence for the words or expressions פגיתא ‘attack (a type of demon)’, אידיורא ‘helper’ / אידיורותא ‘help’, חי חי מץ (a divine epithet), מרוביא (a type of demon), נירבא (a hard metal) and שיפורי ‘shofars(a type of demon)’ is also adduced and a preliminary edition of the magic bowl Nippur 12 N 387 is presented.

A Corpus of Syriac Incantation Bowls. Syriac Magical Texts from Late-Antique Mesopotamia. By Marco Moriggi. Magical and Religious Literature of Late Antiquity 3. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Pp. xviii + 278. $163 (cloth).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsA Corpus of Syriac Incantation Bowls. Syriac Magical Texts from Late-Antique Mesopotamia. By Marco Moriggi. Magical and Religious Literature of Late Antiquity 3. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Pp. xviii + 278. $163 (cloth).Aaron Michael ButtsAaron Michael ButtsThe Catholic University of America Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 74, Number 2October 2015 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/682242 Views: 100Total views on this site © 2015 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse a book review in this section, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

“And It Was in the Dwelling of Rabbi Joshua bar Peraḥiah”

Jewish Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowls frequently refer to the notion of exorcising demons by divorcing them. These texts sometimes purport to be anti-demonic divorce writs, borrowing passages directly from the traditional rabbinic certificate of divorce (geṭ). Here I ask how the authors of these texts perceived the bowl amulets to operate and how they understood the concept of divorcing a demon. Some scholars have argued that late antique Jewish magical practitioners regarded divorce bowls as legal devices with the immediate power to expel demons from houses. Other scholars interpret the anti-demonic divorce motif in more metaphoric terms. I argue that divorce bowls were not seen as legally binding documents and that Jewish magical practitioners did not believe themselves capable of applying the rabbinic laws of divorce to demons. Instead, incantation bowls refer to the anti-demonic geṭ in order to allude to a mythological narrative in which Rabbi Joshua bar Peraḥiah exorcises Lilith by divorcing her. I explain the function of this mythological allusion through close analysis of several incantation bowls. I also draw on folkloristic scholarship regarding narrative devices in magical texts.

Scorpion/Demon: On the Origin of the Mesopotamian Apotropaic Bowl

Previous articleNext article No AccessScorpion/Demon: On the Origin of the Mesopotamian Apotropaic BowlDavid FrankfurterDavid FrankfurterBoston University* Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 74, Number 1April 2015 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/679507 Views: 306Total views on this site Citations: 4Citations are reported from Crossref © 2015 by The Journal of Near Eastern Studies. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:David Frankfurter “As I Twirl This Spindle, …”: Ritualization and the Magical Efficacy of Household Tasks in Western Antiquity, Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural 10, no.11 (Mar 2021): 117–139.https://doi.org/10.5325/preternature.10.1.0117Daniel James Waller Transferring performativity from speech to writing: illocutionary acts and incantation bowls, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 82, no.22 (Jun 2019): 233–244.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X19000363Daniel James Waller Curious Characters, Invented Scripts, and … Charlatans? “Pseudo-Scripts” in the Mesopotamian Magic Bowls, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 78, no.11 (Apr 2019): 119–139.https://doi.org/10.1086/702309David Frankfurter The Threat of Headless Beings: Constructing the Demonic in Christian Egypt, (Nov 2017): 57–78.https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58520-2_2

A Study in Conceptual Parallels: Graeco-Roman Binding Spells and Babylonian Incantation Bowls

This article explores the similarities and differences between Babylonian incantation bowls and Graeco-Roman binding spells and ‘prayers for justice’. It does not intend to demonstrate a direct historical link between the two, but rather to examine the conceptual relations between magical texts and artefacts stemming from different cultures.

Possible Psychological Roles of the Aramaic Incantation Bowls: Therapeutic Functions of Belief in Demons and the Practice of Incantations

Markham Geller’s work on belief in ancient Mesopotamian demons draws on Freudian psychology to demonstrate that this belief may have had specific psychological benefits. It offers a promising perspective from which to study the Aramaic incantation bowls with a view to establishing the possible psychological roles played by these texts. This article develops Geller’s work and applies the resulting understanding of belief in demons to the Aramaic incantation bowls. Through a textual analysis it suggests possible meanings for some features of the texts and argues that these incantations may have had empirically effective therapeutic functions.

Jewish Divorce Formulae in Syriac Incantation Bowls

In a series of Syriac incantation bowls published between 1913 and the present day, a peculiar text is documented. It mentions Rab Joshua bar Peraḥya sitting in a court of law and performing an exorcism against demons, devils, liliths and other evil beings haunting the house of the client. This spell is well attested in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic bowls, and it is now clear that a Jewish Babylonian Aramaic model is the basis for what is found in the Syriac bowls. The new edition of the Syriac bowls featuring this formula recently published by the present author, allows for a reconsideration of the theme of the Jewish divorce formula in Syriac incantation bowls, from both the linguistic and cultural points of view.

Jewish Legal Formulae in the Aramaic Incantation Bowls

In the Aramaic incantation bowls there is extensive use of legal formulae known also from rabbinic literature and from archaeological findings. Such formulae can be found in oaths, vows, pronouncements of excommunication and especially pronouncements of divorce. In this article, I shall describe the nature of this common legal language by pointing out verbal parallels in the divorce formulae found in the bowls, the Talmud, and the archaeological findings of divorce documents. I will then suggest what can be learned from these parallels.

The Jewish Babylonian Aramaic authority פלסא פליסא in light of Ge‘ez ፈሰሰ and Epigraphic South Arabian fls3

In this note, we consider the multiple attestations of the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic term פלסא פליסא, which occurs in several Aramaic incantation bowls from late-antique Mesopotamia. After a summary of previous scholarship, the correct reading is confirmed and the meaning of this phrase is considered. It is asserted that currently available definitions are both ill-founded and unsuitable, both philologically and logically, so a new hypothesis is advanced on the basis of Ge‘ez ፈሰሰ and Epigraphic South Arabian fls3.

An Incantation Bowl for Sowing Discord

An Incantation Bowl for Sowing Discord

An Aramaic Incantation Text

Incantation bowls are generally written in a formal standardized literary Eastern Aramaic. The present article publishes a new incantation bowl that is written in Hebrew square characters and is directed against various types of malevolent forces. Its text runs from the bottom of the vessel to the top in spiral form in eight lines. It is part of a collection housed in the Iraq Museum (IM 212092). Its provenance is unknown.

The Reception of Mesopotamian and Early Jewish Traditions in the Aramaic Incantation Bowls

‭This article presents several examples of how the Aramaic incantation bowls from late-antique Mesopotamia receive and use earlier traditions preserved in Mesopotamian cuneiform and Jewish alphabetic sources, with a view to demonstrating the importance of the bowls when discussing the earlier process of ‘Aramaic cultural mediation’. Four ways in which the bowls receive the earlier traditions are discussed (formulaic, terminological, conceptual and methodological), which help us appreciate what we should be looking for in other contexts. The clear reception of motifs from 11Q11 in the incantation bowls allows us to bridge the gap between the earlier cuneiform sources and the later incantation bowls.‬

Yet Again on the Unique Incantation Bowl BM 135563


 
 
 In a recent issue of this journal, Theodore Kwasman and Christa Müller-Kessler have taken issue with several of the present author’s writings, in particular his edition of the incantation bowl BM 135563, and presented serious claims of professional incompetence. The present contribution addresses several of the misleading arguments that they have raised, and demonstrates that they are often based upon misunderstandings, mis-citations, or inaccurate prejudices regarding the use of terminology.
 
 

Divorcing Lilith: from the Babylonian incantation bowls to the Cairo Genizah

One of the striking features of ancient Jewish magic is the disappearance of numerous magical spells and formulae that are known to us from the Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowls; spells that come to be absent from the register of later Jewish magic. In the present paper we present one exception to this general rule, by editing a Genizah fragment (Hebrew Union College 1029) that contains a spell which is well attested in the incantation bowls. The fragment in question was copied in the twelfth century as part of a larger magical recipe book. One of its recipes, entitled ‘A deed of divorce for Lilith’, contains an anti-demonic get (divorce formula) which is attested in several different versions in the Babylonian incantation bowls, produced half a millennium earlier. In our paper, we offer a synopsis of all these versions, and a detailed assessment of the significance of this discovery.

More on puzzling words and spellings in Aramaic incantation bowls and related texts

AbstractThe corpus of Aramaic incantation bowls and their related texts opens a new approach to the lexicographical study of the Aramaic dialects in Babylonia of late antiquity. Some of these texts were copies of “Vorlagen” that the scribes no longer understood. Nevertheless, they are more reliable text sources than one supposes. Errors, garbled spellings, miscomprehensions and misreadings are always feasible, and are typical phenomena of copied texts. In the case of new text variants one can approach the puzzling words and text passages anew. This study deals first and foremost with words that are obvious corrupted spellings or scribal errors caused by text transmissions. There are also cases of the breakdown of standard spellings and orthographic conventions from the dialect of “Vorlage” that hide the lexical assignment of a word. Since one is dealing here with the earliest text material of the late Aramaic period, they can be taken as a significant contribution to the placing of many lexemes in existing dictionaries.

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Incantation Bowl with a List of Deities and Toponyms

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Incantation Bowl with a List of Deities and Toponyms

Job 3,8 – Cosmological Snake-Charming and Leviathanic Panic in an Ancient Near Eastern Setting

The author examines the intriguing mention of »those who curse Yamm« and »rouse Leviathan « in Job 3,8, and tries to relate these expressions to Near Eastern religious history. From this comparison a pattern emerges in which the users of the Aramaic incantations are not themselves »those who curse Yamm« but they, too, refer back to a much larger and more intricate tradition concerning spells powerful enough to bind the chaotic powers of the sea. L'auteur examine les tournures surprenantes: »ceux qui maudissent Yamm« et »ceux qui éveillent Léviathan« en Job 3,8, et propose des rapprochements avec l'histoire des religions de l'ancien Proche-Orient. A partir de ces comparaisons se dégage un modèle selon lequel ce ne sont pas les utilisateurs des malédictions araméennes eux-mêmes »qui maudissent Yamm«, mais qu'ils se réfèrent à une longue et complexe tradition d'incantations magiques au moyen desquelles les forces chaotiques de la mer pouvaient être domptées. Der Verfasser untersucht die überraschende Wendung »diejenigen, die Yamm verfluchen« und »den Leviathan aufwecken« in Hi 3,8 und versucht die Ausdrücke zur altorientalischen Religionsgeschichte in Beziehung zu setzen. Auf Grund des Vergleichs zeichnet sich ein Muster ab, nach dem die Benutzer der aramäischen Beschwörungen nicht selbst die sind, »die Yamm verfluchen«, sondern dass auch sie sich zurück beziehen auf eine lange und komplexe Tradition von Zaubersprüchen, durch die die chaotischen Kräfte des Meeres gebunden werden konnten.

The magic of medicine

There are many wonderful museums in Jerusalem, but one of my favourites is the Bible Lands Museum. Its collection includes historical artefacts from all around the “fertile crescent”—the great swathe...

Middle East Section

•Best MES Student Paper Award: Incantation Bowls and Ritual Community in Sasanian IraqAli G Scotten

Religion and the Aramaic Incantation Bowls

AbstractThe corpus of Late Antique Aramaic incantation texts is defined. The issues in this field are identified as explicating the language of the Aramaic dialects used for these texts, correlating the religious identity of their authors with the dialects and the scripts used for them, the level of the authors’ literacy, and explaining the magic praxis of the bowls and their demonology. The pagan, Judaic, Mandaean, Christian, and Zoroastrian content of these texts is surveyed. It is noted that the nature of this content tends to be explained in terms of syncretism and popular religion.