Halakhah in Light of Epigraphy
edited by Albert Baumgarten and Hanan Eshel
This volume contains the proceedings of the conference entitled “Halakhah in Light of Epigraphy” held on 29 May, 2008 under the auspices of the David and Jemima Jeselsohn Center for Epigraphy at Bar-Ilan University. Epigraphic finds, here interpreted broadly to include papyri, scrolls, and the like, have immeasurably enriched our knowledge of the ancient Jewish past while at the same time posing a challenge to modern scholarship: how does one integrate old knowledge, based on previously known sources, with new information? We now recognize that Rabbinic texts are normative: they tell us how their authors believed life should be lived, rather than the details of ordinary, everyday, experience. What weight, then, should be given to traditional halakhic texts in evaluating the contents of newly discovered written remains? And what light can be shed by these new finds, especially those inscriptions and documents that record small moments of ancient Jewish life, upon the long-familiar normative texts? The conference on Halakhah in Light of Epigraphy was intended to generate discussion on these broad issues, as well as to provide a forum for exploration of specific matters of Halakhah reflected in the epigraphic sources. The papers in this volume tend to emphasize the centrality of Halakhah in ancient Judaism. The first section of the volume is devoted to Halakhah in the Dead Sea Scrolls, with contributions by Moshe Benovitz, Vered Noam, Eyal Regev, Lawrence Schiffman, and Aharon Shemesh. These papers examine diversity in halakhic positions, in terms of both exegesis and practice (e.g., festival rituals, dietary laws, and sexual relationships), exploring evidence of halakhic development over the course of the Second Temple period, and halakhic variety among different groups. The second section relates to quotidian documents, and contains Hanan Eshel’s survey of the legal documents found in the refuge caves; Steven Fraade’s examination of the parnas; Shamma Friedman’s analysis of the Jewish bill of divorce; and David Goodblatt’s discussion of dating formulae. The final section of the volume examines a variety of epigraphic sources, and includes the following articles: Yonatan Adler on tefillin; Chaim Ben David on synagogue inscriptions; Tal Ilan on burial practices; Ze’ev Safrai and Hannah Safrai on an early Christian text; and Guy Stiebel on food at Masada.
- Edited by Albert I Baumgarten
- Edited by Hanan Eshel
- Edited by Ranon Katzoff
- Edited by Shani Tzoref
Other Titles in this Series
Light Against Darkness
Dualism in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and the Contemporary World
Volume 2
Social Inequality in the World of the Text
The Significance of Ritual and Social Distinctions in the Hebrew Bible
Volume 4
Gender and Social Norms in Ancient Israel, Early Judaism and Early Christianity
Texts and Material Culture
Volume 28
Between Cooperation and Hostility
Multiple Identities in Ancient Judaism and the Interaction with Foreign Powers
Volume 11
At the Intersection of Texts and Material Finds
Stepped Pools, Stone Vessels, and Ritual Purity Among the Jews of Roman Galilee
Volume 16
Evil Within and Without
The Source of Sin and Its Nature as Portrayed in Second Temple Literature
Volume 9
Between Symbolism and Realism
The Use of Symbolic and Non-Symbolic Language in Ancient Jewish Apocalypses 333-63 B.C.E.
Volume 8
Between Text and Text
International Symposium on Intertextuality in Ancient Near Eastern, Ancient Mediterranean, and Early Medieval Literatures
Volume 6
The Faces of Torah
Studies in the Texts and Contexts of Ancient Judaism in Honor of Steven Fraade
Volume 22
Similar Books
Contesting Labeled Identities
The Sociology of Gentilics in Biblical and Northwest Semitic Literature
Drunk the Potion, No Whit Charmed
The Doctrine of Pure and Perfect Souls from Iamblichus to Damascius
Epigraphic “Shades” from Hellenistic Thrace
Contextualizing Inscriptions in Greek from Thracian Tombs
Epiphanies of the Divine in the Septuagint and the New Testament
Fifth International Symposium of the Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti (CJHNT), 14-17 May 2015, Nottingham
Gold, Silver and Glass: Power Networks, Cultural Identities, Technology Transfers and Agency across the Old World (7th Century BC – 1st Century AD)
Proceedings of a Conference Held at the British Museum, 16–18 June 2023
Language and Power in the Roman Empire and Early India
Hierarchy, Ambiguity, and the Art of Reading the Signs in Cosmopolitan Cultures
Late Antique villae in the Balkans (3rd–7th c. AD): Current Research Questions and Perspectives
HAEMUS Companion to the Late Antique Balkans 1
Volume 4
Nurturing the Elite
Representations of Drinking, Eating, and Religious Vessels in Palmyrene Funerary Iconography
Volume 13
Roman Copies, Collecting, and Culture in the Bay of Naples and Beyond
Papers in Honor of Eugene J. Dwyer
The Compositional History of the Book of Kings
An Analysis of the Evaluative Frameworks in 1 Kings 14–2 Kings 25
Zooarchaeology of Ancient Greek Sanctuaries in Southwestern Sicily
Faunal Analysis from Selinus and Akragas as Evidence of Differences in the Treatment of Animals for Ritual Purposes
