Abstract There are several ways of speaking about an inner personal self in the Hebrew Bible and Hellenistic Jewish texts, yet according to Charles Taylor’s influential distinction between ancient and modern selves, inwardness is more characteristic of modern cultural developments within which individuals are socially “disembedded.” Taylor himself noted an ancient exception in Plato’s account of self-mastery, but this concession raises a question as to why ancient Jewish literature was excluded from his philosophical discussion. This paper reexamines a range of texts that have emerged in recent debates, considering the ways in which a “legal self,” conscience, and the Priestly imitatio Dei reflect different modes of ancient subjecthood. The biblical literature is overwhelmingly sociocentric, and in this respect Taylor’s modelling is still defensible, even if his historical accounts have significant gaps.

Abstract In recent decades, there has been a broad scholarly debate on the purpose behind the writing of the Exagoge . In this article, we argue that the Exagoge was an effort by the Jewish Hellenistic tragedian Ezekiel to depict the founding Jewish story of Exodus as part of the Ptolemaic imperial history. Ezekiel’s Moses is the founder of the royal authority of the Ptolemies. Ezekiel’s endeavor in this regard is consistent with the efforts of Pseudo-Eupolemus or Artapanus to present key figures in Israelite history as those who stood at the foundation of Egyptian and Greek cultures. It will be shown that an essential feature of Ezekiel’s approach is his careful attention to the cultural interactions among the Greek, Egyptian, and Hebrew worlds. Using this strategy, Ezekiel sought to promote loyalty to the ruling Ptolemaic king by the same means as the latter was promoted as pharaoh in Egypt.

Abstract Around 124 CE, a group of unusually-named Judeans promised funds for the construction of a palm grove complex in the Western Anatolian city of Smyrna. An inscription, IvSmyr 697, names “those former residents of Judea” (οἱ ποτὲ Ἰουδαῖοι) alongside several elite individuals from the Roman polis who together donated capital to build a φοινικών (palm grove complex) in the city. This paper focuses on the strategies employed by these elite Judeans in the shadow of the Flavian subjugation of Judea and the diaspora rebellions of the early second century CE. What material and social conditions shape this act of patronage? What strategies are at work among these Judeans in their political moment, and how might their actions have been received in Roman Smyrna? Expanding upon an at times limited spectrum assigning Judeans to positions of assimilation, resistance, or ambivalence toward Roman imperial culture writ large, this paper draws on Religious Studies scholarship on imperialism and religion to analyze IvSmyr 697 to suggest a more diverse and multivalent social history of Judeans in the Roman diaspora.

Abstract This article analyzes the proclamation of Antiochus III concerning the temple and city of Jerusalem, quoted in Ant. 12.145–46, in light of three sets of evidence: Greek comparative materials from the broader Mediterranean world; biblical and Second Temple writings; and archaeological remains from Hellenistic Jerusalem, especially those that attest to the presence of non-sacrificial animals in the city. The evidence suggests that Ant. 12.145–46 preserves traces of an authentic proclamation, written in the style of a Greek ritual norm and probably with royal backing. We should not conclude from this, however, that the proclamation reflects the reality of how all Jews in Jerusalem conceptualized the purity of the temple and their obligations when butchering and tanning their animals within the city. I rather argue for a more complex interpretive approach that views royal edicts as fueling local debates surrounding temple purity, the sacred economy, and priestly prerogatives in Hellenistic Jerusalem.

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: "Brill". See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.

Abstract This article analyzes an ancient tradition related to the story of the exodus from Egypt, which combines a plague of pestilence (dever) with the final plague, the plague of the firstborn (makkat bekhorot). In the first sections, I trace the sources in which this tradition appears and attempt to identify the biblical origins of this tradition and the exegetical difficulties it tackles. In the final section, I aim to show how this tradition sheds light on an abstruse passage in the Passover Haggadah. By completing the different parts of this inquiry, it becomes possible to delineate the evolution of the link between the plague of the firstborn and pestilence as stemming from key issues within the biblical exodus tradition that preoccupied exegetes in antiquity.

Abstract This article analyzes the expression dad la-kior (female breasts for the [Temple’s] laver) for its spigots (t. Yom. 2:2, m. Yom. 3:10), which so far has received no scholarly attention. The Temple’s laver has no taps/spigots in any attestation from the Bible to Josephus. The laver is an essential item in rabbinic imagery of the Temple and choreography of human-Divine communication. The term dad is used figuratively also for the Divine as nursing infant Israel through the manna (t. Sot. 4:3, Sif. Num. 89). The complete dependency of Israel on the Divine in the desert and of the infant on the breast parallels the laver as the crucial point on which Israel’s atonement depends. Ben Qatin (cf. Latin catīnus [basin]), who offers the laver, and other diasporic donors’ dependency on a literary Temple and rabbinic identarian normativity about handwashing are strengthened through a female image. This marks breastfeeding as a topos for exegetical competition.

This special issue of the Journal of Ancient Judaism offers distinctive approaches and innovative assessments of texts associated with a historical season often designated the second temple period. Five articles explore the engagement of priests, scribes, and interpreters with Torah and sacred texts, though they employ diverse methodologies in taking up this common theme. Readers of this issue will learn about ancient Judaism from the vantage of: (1) the history of scholarship on textual traditions that are ripe for reevaluation; (2) paleographic study and its import for understanding scribal transmission; (3) reconstructions of texts and new conceptional examinations; and (4) intertextuality and interpretations within texts labeled pseudepigraphal.