Temple Period Research Articles

Prophetic Authority and Scribal Anxiety in the Late Second Temple Period

Prophetic Authority and Scribal Anxiety in the Late Second Temple Period

The Jerusalem pilgrimage road in the second temple period: an anthropological and archaeological perspective

The pilgrimage to the Second Temple included ceremonial elements of strong spiritual significance that elevated the participants to spiritual exaltation. This ceremonial process began with the first steps pilgrims took from their homes towards Jerusalem and concluded when they reached the Temple. This article presents the ceremonial element of the pilgrimage in light of archaeological and anthropological research, integrated with historical sources and with reference to the topography of Jerusalem and its surroundings (including the use of geographic information systems). These tools are used to retrace the path that pilgrims walked and present what the pilgrimage meant for them. The article also investigates whether the physical act of walking can shape the pilgrimage experience and, if so, how this occurs. It is also argued that the main approach to the Temple Mount for Jewish pilgrims led from the south (via the Kidron and Hinnom valleys), and that the construction of this route was designed with geophysical and architectural details meant to enhance the spiritual experience of the pilgrims.

A Jewish Gladiator at Pompeii: Reassessing the Evidence

Abstract This article reconsiders the iconography of a gladiator helmet found at Pompeii, which is decorated with a relief depicting a palm tree on its forehead. New evidence demonstrates that this helmet can be reasonably associated with a Jew from Judea. The first part examines the difference between the palm branch awarded to victorious athletes and gladiators as a prize and the palm tree, which in Greco-Roman art was primarily understood as a geographic indicator. Given the dating of the helmet to slightly after the end of the Great Revolt and the fact that the Iudaea Capta coinage was minted in this period in large quantities, it is quite probable that the palm tree depicted on the helmet was a reference to Judea. The second part focuses on the griffin that decorates the crest. While images depicting animals were at odds with the tendency to aniconism, which became almost dominant in late Second Temple period Judea, a passage of the Tosefta and the relief of the Triumphal Arch of Titus, which depicts similar creatures, raise the possibility that this mythological creature could be associated with a Jew from Judea after all. The third part demonstrates that the owner of this helmet was a gladiator known as a thraex, who was typically armed with the sica. This weapon, in turn, could associate the owner of the helmet with the sicarii, a rebel group active in Judea in the last years of Roman rule and during the Great Revolt. The fact that the term sicarius is associated in Roman law with crimes often related to banditry could suggest that the owner of the helmet was sentenced to become a gladiator because of his activities as a Jewish rebel.

The Theology of Sacrifice as Gift in Ben Sira

Abstract: In this article, I endeavor to advance discussion of the symbolic “meaning” of sacrifice during the Second Temple period by examining the wisdom instruction of Ben Sira. As part of his longest exposition of his views on sacrifice, Ben Sira emphasizes the “gift” aspects of the regular, literal altar service initiated by an individual (35:6–13). Such ritual gifts sought to be “acceptable” (35:9a) and communicated a relationship of gratitude for God’s prior generosity (35:11–13). These gifts may also have aimed, as the contemporaneous Samaritan inscriptions would have it, at “good remembrance” (cf. Sir 35:9b)—perhaps concretely realized as Yhwh’s bestowal of benefits like healing upon his pious dependent (38:9–11). The ritual joy and generosity initiated by the individual participated in a divinely ordained temple cultus by which the cosmos was thought to be properly ordered, and contributed conceptual support for broad circles of reciprocity encompassing God, the pious Israelite, and neighbors who may never have been able to “repay” (35:3–4; cf. 29:8–13).

The Anvil, the Ascent, and Enoch

First Enoch, a pseudepigraphical work from the Second Temple period, contains visions of the natural and supernatural world that cause the visionary, Enoch, to understand anew the beyond-human world. Written during a time of environmental devastation, 1 Enoch can be a resource for helping today’s readers rewild our religious imaginations, our understanding of worship, and our relationship with nonhuman creation. This essay offers a reflection on how the Book of the Watchers in 1 Enoch and the author’s failed attempts to reach a mountain peak helped the author better understand the unseating of humanity as the center of creation as an experience of grace.

Ingestible identity: pigs in pagan ritual in Aelia Capitolina (Roman Jerusalem) between the Second Temple period and early Christianity

Ingestible identity: pigs in pagan ritual in Aelia Capitolina (Roman Jerusalem) between the Second Temple period and early Christianity

Scribal Revelations in Ancient Judaism

Revelations, visions and their interpretations create in themselves authority. In early Jewish Aramaic tradition, however, this is increased by the role of writing. Enoch receives revelations of the secrets of heaven from heavenly tablets by the Holy Watchers. The Fallen Watchers teach the earthly women magic and sorcery from tablets stolen from the heaven. Scribalism in Second Temple period Judaism and Enoch is becoming more and more researched. As is known, Enoch has a Mesopotamian scholarly tradition behind it, which saw the movement of the celestial bodies as a heavenly writing, the transmission of the will of the gods. Enochic scribes had a good familiarity with the Mesopotamian scribal tradition that took place in the sanctuaries from the Persian period onwards and whose purpose was to record astronomical observations, write diaries, prepare astronomical tables and produce almanacs recording events. Scholarly texts were considered as “secret” or “exclusive” knowledge. The omen list Enūma Anu Enlil, based on a 360-day calendar, was the pinnacle of the scribal tradition and the basis of Mesopotamian astral magic. The Mesopotamian revelatory form in Enoch serves to assert the authority of a calendrical system of its own, the 364-day year and the Holy Watchers and other angelic beings who govern it. The scribal form of revelation is known in Daniel 7 (also in Aramaic), in which the books opened in heaven contain a revelation about the fate of the fourth empire. The book-revelation of cyclic and linear time is present together in the book of Jubilees, whose chronology is based on the 364-day year, and in which Enoch keeps a record of earthly events on heavenly tablets.

“Any Outsider Who Encroaches Will Be Put to Death”: Numbers 18:7 and its Interpretation in Second Temple Literature

Abstract In its biblical context, the injunction stipulating that “the outsider who encroaches shall be put to death” seems to apply to any non-priest or non-Levite who tries to participate in the tabernacle services. This interpretation seems to have been adopted during the Second Temple period, as attested to by the Temple Scroll (11QTa). There is no source that states that an unauthorized entrant to the temple is subject to capital punishment, except for a gentile: Philo and Josephus write that a gentile who enters the temple court is subject to the death penalty. Several scholars propose that this punishment derives from a reinterpretation of the biblical injunction, and it seems that this interpretation originated during the Hasmonean rebellion. The claim that Herod innovated the injunction subjecting a gentile who ascended beyond the balustrade to death is difficult to accept.

Unrequited Lust: Potiphar’s Wife and Joseph—Examining Jewish and Christian Views

precis: This essay discusses how the Potiphar’s wife/Joseph interactions described in Genesis 39 are dealt with by sources both within Jewish tradition and from a Christian viewpoint. The Jewish sources begin with examples from the Late Second Temple period and beyond, followed by illustrations from midrashim from the ancient world and commentaries through the present. The events in Genesis 39 are then explored by way of Christian sources from the Patristics (church Fathers) through examples from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries.

Jewish Global Geography: From the Second Temple Period to Rabbinic Literature

Jewish Global Geography: From the Second Temple Period to Rabbinic Literature

Reconsidering 4Q69 (4QpapIsap)

Abstract 4Q69 consists of two small papyrus fragments treating to Isa 5:28–30. Following Raffaella Cribiore’s criterion for identification of scribal exercises, an analysis of the textual variants to which the 4Q69 fragments attest will serve as a platform for exploring why the scribe(s) chose papyrus instead of parchment as his medium, the implications of the scroll’s column width, and the significance of its semi-cursive script and calligraphic traits. Engaging in a holistic assessment of the scroll’s purpose and use, this paper submits that rather than constituting a complete copy of the biblical book of Isaiah, it is a partial copy for use as a scribal exercise of a mid-level student. It thus sheds light on the educational process underlying the production of 4Q69 as the importance attached to the book of Isaiah during the Second Temple period and the book’s distinctive, authoritative status.

Plene Spelling and Defective Spelling in the Hebrew Bible


 
 
 It is commonly accepted that the spelling of the pre-exilic books of the Bible was generally defective like that of contemporary epigraphy, and that the matres lectionis were inserted into the original texts by scribes during the first half of the Second Temple period. This article argues that the orthography of the ancient books of the Bible was from its beginning similar to that of the MT . The difference between the current biblical spelling and the defective spelling of the inscriptions should instead be understood as a matter of different registers .
 
 

A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period: Volume 4: The Jews under the Roman Shadow (4 BCE–150 CE), written by Lester L. Grabbe

A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period: Volume 4: The Jews under the Roman Shadow (4 BCE–150 CE), written by Lester L. Grabbe

Where Have All the Flowers Gone? The Fate of a Jewish “Culture of Flowers” in Two Early Medieval Diasporas

Abstract Flowers and traditions involving flowers tend to be conspicuously absent from early and late medieval Rabbinic literature, with one well-known but controversial exception. In contrast, literature and archaeological motifs beginning from the biblical period and reaching a climax in the late Second Temple period are replete with floral themes. The Madonna lily – lilium candidum – is especially celebrated as a symbol of ancient Israel, and particularly the Temple in Jerusalem, which may have been adorned with them in the late spring. In this essay, we analyze the Jewish culture of flowers in its Greco-Roman context and suggest possibilities to account for its ulti- mate disappearance – in particular, the translocation of Rabbinic scholarship to a Zoroastrian milieu, in which flowers played a central role in worship.

Continuity and innovation in architectural depictions of the Jerusalem Temple

Architectural depictions of the Israelite or Jewish sanctuaries are found throughout ancient Jewish literature, from the tabernacle account in Exodus to the Mishnah. This article examines how and to what extent the attempt to create architectural continuity has influenced some of the depictions of both the First and the Second Temple composed during the Second Temple period. It turns out that similar exegetical challenges underlie the Temple accounts of Chronicles, Josephus and the Mishnah, and their depictions were influenced not only by their historical sources but also by their exegetical and ideological views. The discourse on continuity and innovation in the architecture of the Temple is part of the larger question of the relation to the biblical past, which has preoccupied Jewish authors in the Second Temple period and in the first centuries after the destruction.

Changes in Biblical Orthography Reflecting the Development of the Language

Abstract It is well established in the literature that the vocalization of verbs in the Bible occasionally reflects late linguistic developments, specifically, changes in the Hebrew stem system during the Second Temple period, which affected the vocalization but not the consonantal orthography of the verb. This paper discusses five phenomena involving changes in the tense system, rather than the stem system, during the Second Temple period which are reflected in the orthography itself, namely, in the addition or omission of matres lectionis. I argue that the Second Temple scribes did not consider orthographical amendments involving matres lectionis as actual changes of the biblical text. As a result, they sometimes made such amendments, even in the conservative text of the Pentateuch. The five phenomena discussed here are examples of such amendments, reflecting changes in the Hebrew tense system during the Second Temple period. The reason tense-system developments are evident in the verbal orthography, while stem-system developments are not, is that the latter affected not only the vowels but also the consonants of the verbal forms, which the scribes avoided changing.

Numbers 4:20 and Non-Priestly Viewing of the Holy Vessels in the Second Temple Period

Abstract In discussing the dismantling and transport of the tabernacle and its furnishings, Numbers 4:20 prohibits any viewing of the “holy,” except by Aaron, the priest, and his sons. Philo of Alexandria, as well as several modern scholars, read this as a prohibition on any non-priestly viewing of the sacred, Jewish cultic vessels, including the menorah, the shewbread table and the incense altar. Accordingly, a dominant view in research holds that during the Second Temple period these cultic utensils were concealed from the sight of non-priests. However, this view partly overlooks and partly misinterprets our main source in that respect: Josephus indicates that the Jewish holy vessels were actually displayed to the Jewish crowd gathered in the temple court during the Second Temple period. This is supported by the images on certain Hasmonean coins as well as by later texts, such as P.Oxy. 840 and rabbinic literature.

Heaven and temple in the Second Temple period: A taxonomy

It is a commonplace of ancient Near Eastern worldviews that temples have cosmic significance. This understanding persists and develops in the Second Temple period, with numerous texts witnessing to a widely held belief that the Jerusalem temple reflected heaven or the universe. Scholars have largely been content either to recognize a basic relationship, or to distinguish temple-in-heaven from temple-as-universe, sometimes construing the former as “apocalyptic” and the latter as “Hellenistic.” Jonathan Klawans’ work represents an important articulation of this distinction. This article summarizes his contribution, and critiques it on the grounds that it remains overly dichotomous and does not do full justice to the evidence. Instead, a fresh taxonomy is proposed with four key categories, each illustrated from Second Temple and biblical texts. None of these categories is discrete; rather they demarcate a spectrum or scale of ways that ancient Jewish and early Christian writers conceptualized the heaven–temple relationship.

What Does It Mean to Read New Testament Texts ‘within Judaism’?

AbstractFor centuries, Christians have understood some of the texts included in the New Testament as ‘Jewish,’ in the sense of them being written by (converted) Jews for other Jews. From a historical perspective, a new development in the academy suggests that such approaches do not do justice to the nature of these texts. Indeed, even more recent attempts at understanding the New Testament against the background of Judaism are also found wanting. Instead, placing these texts within the broader context of the diverse ways of embodying Jewish ancestral customs in the pre-rabbinic Second Temple period, this interpretive trajectory, involving scholars from a wide array of backgrounds, insists that Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Revelation etc., should be understood as expressions of Judaism. This article highlights key issues involved in such re-readings of New Testament texts, including ways in which they may or may not relate to normative-theological positions among Christians and Jews today. First, the study looks at how the question is asked in our contemporary setting. Then, moving down historical layers, issues related to history and categorisation are addressed before we, finally, return to the present to consider possible implications of our findings.

A donation list from Elephantine: Judaean and Non-Judaean onomastic characteristics from the Persian period in Egypt

Abstract This study uses quantitative methods in the analysis and comparison of 195 names on a donation list from the Nile island of Elephantine, dated to 400 bce, with Judaean names from the end of the First Temple period. The goal is to shed more light on the origin of the individuals named on the list and their relationship, if any, to Judaeans. The onomastic analysis is based on the distributions of name types, theophoric elements and prefixed/suffixed theophoric elements, as well as on the most popular roots in names and the prevalence of names common to the donors and Judaeans. The results revealed several Judaean onomastic characteristics in Elephantine that help support the claim that the origin of these Elephantine donors is Judaean. At the same time, other onomastic characteristics which differ from those in Judah may be attributed to the influence of the surrounding multi-cultural society, as well as the time gap between the donors and Judaeans.