671436(1).pdf

Das religiöse Leben der Juden von Elephantine in der Achämenidenzeit, by Anke Joisten-PruschkeDas religiöse Leben der Juden von Elephantine in der Achämenidenzeit by Anke Joisten-PruschkeReview by: Ingo KottsieperJournal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 72, No. 2 (October 2013), pp. 299-306Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/671436 .

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Book Reviews F 299

The findings from Elephantine, discovered at the end of the 19th century, provided the scholarly world with Aramaic texts dealing with “Jews” (or “Judeans,” in the Achaemenid period. These texts depict a (יהודיאreligious life that contradicts the picture given in the Old Testament, witness religious conflicts between the community and their environment, and provide the modern scholar with contemporary juridical doc-uments. As such, they stirred up an intensive scholarly discussion, including its fair share of controversies. One would welcome any new book that takes up this discussion, adding new insights based on expertise in reading papyri and ostraca, a good knowledge of Aramaic, and an awareness of the specifics of ancient Near Eastern societies. Unfortunately, the book un-der review does not meet these expectations in any respect. Its treatment of the primary sources reveals unacceptable incompetence. Moreover, it does not even provide the reader with thorough information about previous scholarly works, a large part of which do not appear at all, while other parts are referred to in a partial and misleading way.

The book is based on a Ph.D. dissertation, which Anke Joisten-Pruschke (hereafter: JP) began in 1987 under the supervision of the late Old Testament scholar Professor Volkmar Fritz but, due to personal reasons, was only able to finish in 2007 with Professors Philip G. Kreyenbrock (Iranian Studies) and Hans-Jürgen Becker (New Testament and Jewish Studies) at the University in Göttingen, Germany.

Though the title of the book promises a study about the religious life of the Jews from Elephantine during the Achaemenid period, no more than two chapters with a total of only thirty-three pages are devoted to this topic: chapter 1, “Die Juden von Elephan-tine im Spannungsfeld zwischen jüdischer Gemeinde und Reichsregierung” (pp. 63–81) and chapter 2, “Das religiöse Leben der Juden von Elephantine der Achämenidenzeit im Kontext multinationaler und multireligiöser Begegnungen” (pp. 83–95). The lat-ter chapter actually focuses on the question of how the Jews from Elephantine acculturated religiously and developed a syncretism under the influence of

1 I thank my colleague Dr. Noam Mizrahi for having read the drafts of this review and improved my English.

increasing (sic! p. 86) contacts with other peoples and religions. Thus, despite the title of the book, one should not expect a comprehensive discussion of the religious life of the Jews in Egypt. Chapter 3, “Die aramäischen Heiratsverträge von Elephantine im Kontext der Rechtspraxis Ägyptens in der Achä-menidenzeit” (pp. 98–123) promises a discussion of the Aramaic marriage contracts from Elephantine in the context of juridical praxis in Egypt during the Achaemenid period.

The remaining, longest parts of the book deal with specific documents. The introduction (pp. 18–58) provides the reader with lists of the Aramaic docu-ments originating from Elephantine, and in chapter 4 (pp. 125–210) JP presents a re-edition of twenty se-lect texts with commentary and translation.2 These texts were selected because they form the textual basis for the discussion in the other chapters and the au-thor deviates in some respects from the older editions (p. 125). After the notes to the chapters (pp. 211–23) the book provides a bibliography and four appendices, including a letter to the author from the Pontifical Biblical Institute (cf. note 45) as well as new photo-graphs of the Strasbourg Papyrus (TAD A4.5), which are worse than those published by Sachau.

Even a short look at the endnotes shows that the author neglects to refer to most of the literature. Thus, e.g., the groundbreaking work of B. Porten, Archives from Elephantine, is never referred to,3 as is the case with Y. Muffs’ classic study of legal aspects of the texts,4 which would have been important for chap-ter 3. In chapter 1, one looks in vain for, among other things, any reference to recent books such as those of L. Fried and S. Grätz.5 Even basic tools such as the

2 Throughout this review the texts are referred to according to TAD, namely, the standard edition of B. Porten and A. Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt (4 vols., Jeru-salem, 1986–99). The texts re-edited by JP are TAD A4.1–3, A4.5, B2.6, B2.8, B6.1–5, B3.3, B3.8, B7.3, D2.17, D2.20, D3.16, D7.6, D7.21, and D7.24.

3 B. Porten, Archives from Elephantine: The Life of an Ancient Jewish Military Colony (Berkeley, 1968).

4 Y. Muffs, Studies in the Aramaic Legal Papyri from Elephantine (Leiden, 1969), reprinted with a foreword by B. Levine as vol. I/66 of the HdO series (Leiden, 2003).

5 L. S. Fried, The Priest and the Great King: Temple-Palace Re-lations in the Persian Empire, Biblical and Judaic Studies from the

Das religiöse Leben der Juden von Elephantine in der Achämenidenzeit. By Anke Joisten-Pruschke. Göttinger Ori-entforschungen 3. Iranica, N.F. 2. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008. Pp. 258 + 15 tables. €48 (paperback).reviewed bY iNgo KottsiePer, University of Münster/Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities 1



300 F Journal of Near Eastern Studies

bibliography provided by Fitzmyer and Kaufman6 or the standard lexicon of DNWSI7 are not mentioned at all in the bibliography and obviously had not been used by JP.

In chapter 1, after a short overview of the relation-ship between the Persian Empire and the Egyptian temples, JP studies two special cases recorded in the Elephantine texts, which are exactly the same ones discussed in an article I published some years ear-lier.8 First, she deals with the oft-discussed case of the destruction of the Jewish temple on Elephantine and the reasons why its rebuilding was postponed, and later accepted by the Persian administration with the restriction that no burnt offering should take place there. As the reason for the delay, JP assumes that Arsames waited for the result of an inquiry about the revolt. This solution presupposes the identification of the unnamed “Lord” in TAD A4.7:18 || 8:17, to whom a letter about this case was sent by the Jews of Elephantine, with Arsames. Though most earlier scholars identified this “Lord” with Bagohi, JP takes her assumption as granted (p. 68) and does not even find it necessary to inform the reader that this has been argued for in my aforementioned article (p. 163). As a reason for not allowing burnt offerings in the new temple, the author proposes a religious motivation: the Achaemenid rulers, being Zoroastrians, would not accept the defilement of the holy fire by corpses of animals. Again, JP deems it unnecessary to inform the reader that this solution has been advanced in my ar-ticle (pp. 172–75), where I actually took up a proposal already made by Eduard Meyer,9 but was a bit more hesitant in assuming that the Achaemenids had by

University of California, San Diego 10 (Winona Lake, IN, 2004); S. Grätz, Das Edikt des Artaxerxes: Eine Untersuchung zum reli-gionspolitischen und historischem Umfeld von Esra 7, 12–26, BZAW 337 (Berlin, 2004).

6 J. A. Fitzmyer and S. A. Kaufman, An Aramaic Bibliography, Part I: Old, Official, and Biblical Aramaic (Baltimore, 1992).

7 J. Hoftijzer and K. Jongeling, Dictionary of the North-West Se-mitic Inscriptions, HdO I/22, 1–2 (Leiden, 1995).

8 I. Kottsieper, “Die Religionspolitik der Achämeniden und die Juden von Elephantine,” in Religion und Religionskontakte im Zeitalter der Achämeniden, ed. R. G. Kratz, Veröffentlichungen der Wissenschafltichen Gesellschaft für Theologie 22 (Gütersloh, 2002), 150–78. JP has used this article and shares several arguments or insights proposed there, but restricts herself to refer to it only in one minor case in which she disagrees with me (p. 68).

9 E. Meyer, Der Papyrusfund von Elephantine (Leipzig, 1912), 89–90.

then been Zoroastrian.10 The only original additions to this solution that have been provided by JP are ref-erences to chapter 46 of the later Nērangestān (edited only in 2003),11 to rituals for the re-purification of the fire,12 and to the term מזדיזן in TAD A4.2:6, which designates an official in Thebes and which she takes as “worshipper of Mazda.”13 This solution is highly significant for the different ways the Achaemenids, who otherwise tolerated foreign cults and, of course, did not prohibit burnt offerings in all places, could have dealt with different religious groups. But such implications are not treated at all, and were evidently beyond JP’s scope.

Though JP tends to avoid mentioning other schol-ars and deviating opinions, she discusses at this point (pp. 69–70) a recent work according to which (taking up the work of Heidemarie Koch) the Achaemenids disliked all animal sacrifices and not just burnt of-ferings. But, strangely enough, the author gives no bibliographic reference for the work she refers to and even refrains from naming its author. Nevertheless, she blames the anonymous author for not taking into account two other articles published in 1998 and 2004 (which, in fact, do not challenge the observation of Koch that animal sacrifices were normally not sup-ported by the Achaemenids).14 In any case, attacking

10 As is well-known, the time in which Zoroaster lived and the period in which Zoroastrianism evolved is the subject of an ongo-ing debate.

11 F. M. P. Kotwal and P. G. Kreyenbroek, The Hērbedestān and the Nērangestān III, Studia Iranica, cahier 30 (Paris, 2003).

12 For which the author does not even cite certain texts but just hints to all three volumes of the edition of Hērbedestān and Nērangestān, as well as to the three volumes of M. Stausberg, Die Religion Zarathushtras: Geschichte – Gegenwart – Rituale (Stuttgart, 2002–4) in general. Thus the reader is forced to browse through all these works to find the passages JP might have thought of.

13 See p. 71 and especially p. 165. Though JP again takes this interpretation as granted and thus does not refer to those who pro-posed it long before her, others do interpret this simply as a personal name; see the references given in DNWSI s.v. mzdyzn.

14 The first article is by M. Handley-Schachler, “The LAN Ritual in the Persepolis Fortification Texts,” in Studies in Persian History: Essays in Memory of David M. Lewis, ed. M. Brosius and A. Kuhrt, Achaemenid History XI (Leiden, 1998 [not 2004 as given by JP]), 195–204, who argues that the lan-sacrifice was not for Ahurmazda. This proposal casts no doubt on Koch’s observation that the admin-istration gave no animals out for any sacrifice. The second article that presumably conflicts with Koch’s theory is by S. Razmjou, “The LAN-Ceremony and Other Ritual Ceremonies in the Achaemenid Period: The Persepolis Fortification Tablets,” Iran 42 (2004), 103–17, who mentions animals given out for the lan-ceremony (pp. 105–6). But according to the list given on p. 105 this would only



Book Reviews F 301

authors without naming them and their work seems not to be an honest way of scholarship.

The second case that JP discusses in chapter 1 is the so-called Passover Letter of a certain Hananiah (TAD A4.1). She stresses that this document would not be a letter of the Persian administration and inserts at this point a confusing discussion of the meaning of כעת in l. 4 (pp. 72–75).15 As one of her arguments, JP assures the reader that the letters of the satrap used letterheads (“Briefkopf ”) to which a note concerning the subject of the letter was added at the left side. But, as is well known, there are no such things like a letterhead in those documents. JP obviously confuses the exter-nal address that was written after the letter had been rolled up and folded (and thus placed on the back side of the letter) with the modern concept of a letterhead located above the body of the text. Such a mistake could only be made by a person not familiar with the layout of ancient letters, who—like the author16—con-sulted only the second edition of G. R. Driver’s editio princeps of the texts in question,17 which lacks the photographs of the text that were printed in the first edition; Driver presents the external address above the letter itself, though in his notes he clearly hints at the fact that this is the external address (e.g., p. 38). Even a single glimpse of any graphic representation of the documents, either the photographs in Driver’s editio princeps (1954), or the drawings in TAD, would have clarified this point, not to speak about consulting the scholarly literature about letters and letter forms already at hand.18

be the case in two of seventy-six cases. Furthermore, Razmjou refers to a case (p. 106; explicitly mentioned by JP on p. 70) that Koch had already discussed, showing that the cattle mentioned there probably were given out just as a meal for the participants of the ritual (H. Koch, “Götter und ihre Verehrung im achämenidischen Persien,” ZA 77 [1987], 239–78 at 270–71). Koch (pp. 269–71) had also stressed that the Achaemenid tolerated animal sacrifices like the Elamite h.ku-šu-kum. Nevertheless, JP presents both cases as counterarguments against Koch without even mentioning that Koch had already discussed them.

15 The relevance of this issue in the present context is not evident from JP’s discussion, but can be understood in the light of my own article, where (on p. 152) this theme is introduced into the debate. JP, however, does not refer to this.

16 See note 51 on p. 217.17 G. R. Driver, Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century (Ox-

ford, 1957).18 Unfortunately, even basic works on this subject, such as

D. Schwiderski’s Handbuch des nordwestsemitischen Briefformulars, BZAW 295 (Berlin, 2000), have been totally neglected by JP.

Since Hananiah passed an order of the king to his Jewish brethren in Elephantine, and TAD A4.3:7 states that the animosity of the Khnum-priests against the Jews started with the appearance of this man in Egypt, JP expresses the opinion that Hananiah had the extraordinary function of a mediator between the king and the Jews,19 comparable to the function of the Egyptian Udjahorresnet. This is an interesting parallel, but her assumption that the Passover Letter is a reac-tion to a petition the Jews sent to the king (because Arsames had refused an earlier one sent to him) is purely speculative.

The remaining part of the chapter discusses Frei’s theory of a “Reichsautorisation,” which JP rejects in favor of the assumption that these had been admin-istrative decisions for local conflicts.20 All of the texts adduced by Frei are briefly commented on, but again the broad literature about the subject is ignored. On the other hand, JP sometimes proposes her own so-lutions, which are not very convincing. For instance, she tentatively identifies the collection of the Egyp-tian laws initiated by Darius with the depiction of 650 gods in the Temple of Hibis (pp. 77–79). This assumption is based on equating the Egyptian term hp with Persian dāta; though the latter term means “order, instruction” even in a more general sense, JP takes it also to mean “religious knowledge.” Since Sternberg-el Hotabi and Aigner viewed the depiction of the 650 gods in the Temple of Hibis as an encyclo-pedic record of the “Weltwissen,”21 JP deems it pos-sible that this could be the “earlier (!) laws of Egypt up to year 44 of King Amasis (!)” (ll. 10–11 of the text) mentioned as having been collected for Darius. However, Sternberg-el Hotabi and Aigner themselves interpreted this collection far more convincingly as an Egyptian attempt at self-explication when facing the foreign power.

Chapter 2 first presents the well-known situation of the Jews living in close spatial and social contact with other ethnicities and religions. She points to the

19 Cf. already my aforementioned article, pp. 154–55.20 Cf. already my article, p. 176.21 H. Sternberg-el Hotabi and H. Aigner, “Der Hibistempel

in der Oase El Chargeh: Architektur und Dekoration im Span-nungsfeld ägyptischer und persischer Interessen,” in Altertum und Mittelmeerraum: Die antike Welt diesseits und jenseits der Levante. Festschrift für Peter W. Haider zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. R. Rollinger and B. Truschnegg, Orient and Occidens 12 (Stuttgart, 2006), 537–47 at 543. It is a pity that JP did not give this correct biblio-graphic reference in her book, published two years later.




reconstruction22 of the so-called “Aramaic-Quarter” in which people of different ethnicities lived side by side (pp. 85–86), but argues against its scholarly des-ignation as the “Aramaic-Quarter.” All “nationalities” (not only the Aramaeans) serving as soldiers at Ele-phantine would have lived in this area, which makes it a quarter of foreign people. But such modern notions like “nation” or “nationality” are inadequate for an-cient Near Eastern societies, as widely recognized by contemporary scholars. “Aramaic” is not used in this context as a term of nationality but designates those people at Elephantine who used Aramaic at least for their written texts.23 And her description of the quar-ter as one of foreigners does not take into account that Egyptians lived there as well (as she herself states on p. 85).

Her somewhat naive approach to such an ancient society, which is revealed by her uncritical use of late concepts such as “nationality,” is also detectable in her way of depicting the Jewish temple community of Elephantine as a kind of modern Jewish “church.”24 One should first clarify whether (and since when) the Aramaic term יהודי came to denote “Jew” as a reli-gious term—which the author takes for granted (e.g., p. 84)—rather than “Judean” as a term designating a person either coming (originally) from Judah or be-longing to a group connected with the province of Judah (יהוד); the latter usage would be more in ac-cordance with the etymology of יהודי.

Only one short paragraph (p. 87) deals with the problem of the reception of the biblical texts at Ele-phantine. Even though the temple of this community,

22 She wrongly credits Pilgrim for this reconstruction; Pilgrim only took up the research of Porten and connected it with the re-sults of recent excavations provided by Krekeler, and thus clarified the localization of the quarter—the assignment of the houses to the person mentioned in the documents and used by JP as an argument was done only by Porten and not by Pilgrim. Though, of course, Pilgrim himself decently credits Porten for his work (e.g., C. von Pilgrim, “Textzeugnis und archäologischer Befund: Zur Topogra-phie Elelphantines in der 27. Dynastie,” in H. Guksch and D. Polz, Stationen: Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte Ägyptens, Mainz, 1998, 486–87, 497), JP fails to do so, though she even names Krekeler.

23 Such a misunderstanding of the term “Aramaic-Quarter” is surprising, since even the author did realize that the Jews could also be called “Aramaeans” even in the documents themselves (84).

24 See esp. p. 86, where the author describes the so-called Ye-daniah archive as a “Gemeindearchiv” containing documents of the “Gemeindearbeit” comparable to the work of a leader of a modern religious community or church (“ähnlich der eines Vor-sitzenden der Jüdischen Gemeinde oder Kirchenvorstandsvorsit-zenden heutzutage”).

its work on Sabbaths, and the unclear way of celebrat-ing Passover25 do not fit the biblical accounts, JP es-chews any further discussions of such central aspects of the religious life of the Jews in Elephantine, arguing only that the documents from Elephantine belong to different categories than the biblical texts. Neverthe-less, the author presupposes (without any discussion) that the “Jews” of Elephantine were original mono-theists, and thus accepting any other god than Jaho/Jahwe would have been a form of syncretism. The long and substantial scholarly discussion about the age of Jewish monotheism—in which the texts from Elephantine have played an important part—is com-pletely absent in this book, which supposedly concerns the Jewish life on Elephantine.

The author argues for a process of acculturation in two steps: first, non-Jewish elements could be taken over just because people wished to use their design. This would be the case with the sarcophagi, which were not made by Egyptians but imitate Egyptian sarcophagi, including the depiction of Egyptian gods (p. 89). Such sarcophagi have been found at Assuan near the temple of Isis. JP herself concedes this as a questionable example since no definite Jewish name appears on these sarcophagi. But one should also ask whether the fact that the sarcophagi were found near an Egyptian temple does not signal that they were not just a mimic of Egyptian design. Indeed, the scholar who published these sarcophagi took them as clear ev-idence for syncretism.26 On the other hand, JP is surely right in her second observation: that vows mentioning other gods, though given by Jews to non-Jews, are no sign of a syncretism. The second step would be found in private texts in which Jews name other gods, such as Anath-Jahu, in vows given to other Jews or in bless-ings. JP takes this as a clear sign for syncretism, but does not ask herself from which religion Anath-Jahu was taken over. Since the sources for both steps are contemporary, one may also ask whether they do not simply depict a non-monotheistic community, which

25 The author does not give any references or further explana-tions at this point. The case of the temple is obvious in contrast to Dtn 12, the Sabbath is mentioned in D7.16:2 and D7.48:5 both as a day one works on and D7.6:9 shows that the date of the Passover was not fixed. The problem of a Marzeah at Elephantine (D7:29) has escaped the eyes of the author.

26 W. Kornfeld, “Aramäische Sarkophage in Assuan,” WZKM 61 (1967): 9–16 + Tf. I–VIII, cf. esp. p. 16. This different approach is again not noted by the author.



Book Reviews F 303

typically had no problem with also evoking foreign gods.

JP argues that the texts of the so-called “com-munal archive” only mention Jahu, and that this is probably true for the Collection Account for Yahu (C3.15), despite the fact that in col. VII 1–6 (ll. 123–28) it names Eshembethel and Anathbethel besides Yahu as those for whom Yedaniah, the leader of the temple community, got money. The context of this note would naturally support the assumption that three different gods are named, but JP questions this common assumption, arguing that this notion does not belong to the list at all, in part because the sum mentioned in the note exceeds the amount of the list itself. She also argues that the note is separated from the list of 122 people by a frame, which she claims to have detected by herself on the original manuscript. In reality, there are two horizontal lines before and after the note, which were appropriately noted in TAD and discussed in the literature,27 but there are no vertical strokes.28 Also wrong is the number of 122 people.29 JP indeed proposes that first a scribe had written the short note at the beginning of col. VII of an empty scroll, and later, he (or someone else) wrote an unrelated list starting in col. I and ending in col. VIII. But instead of erasing the old note now placed in the midst of the new list, he just “framed” it. Such a procedure would be completely uncom-mon for ancient scribes. Finally, contrary to JP’s in-terpretation (p. 94), col. VII 1–6 does not say that this money was entrusted to Yedaniah to distribute it; it rather clearly states that this money “‘stood’ in the hand of Yedaniah at this day” (קם ידניה יומא הו ביד).

27 I. Kottsieper, “Zu graphischen Abschnittsmarkierungen in nordwestsemitischen Texten,” in Unit Delimitation in Biblical He-brew and Northwest Semitic Literature, ed. M. C. Korpel and J. M. Oesch, Pericope 4 (Assen: van Gorcum, 2003), 121–61 at 145–46.

28 Even on the photographs printed by the author one cannot detect such vertical strokes, which is also true for the excellent pho-tographs published by E. Sachau (Aramäische Papyrus und Ostraka aus einer jüdischen Militär-Kolonie zu Elephantine [Leipzig, 1911], pl. 20) and by B. and K. Zuckerman on InscriptiFact (http://www.inscriptifact.com/) which also include an infrared picture and had been available online long before 2008. The white line left of the column is a break, followed by the margin of a join. The area right of the column is clearly also made up by a join whose right margin is depicted at the right margin of the picture printed on p. 94. Could the author have not realized that she is dealing here with joins? Or did she take as strokes some darker vertical fibers, which are clearly not strokes as esp. the above-mentioned infrared picture shows.

29 The 122 lines (!) of col. I–VI name only 118 persons; the lists following the note in col. VII and VIII add ten more.

The relative dating יומא הו obviously refers to the concrete date given at the beginning of the first list. The note probably gives the current account balance of the temple “at this day.” One should conclude that Eshembethel and Anathbethel belong to the realm of a non-monotheistic community as minor deities accompanying the major god Jahu. That such minor deities are not mentioned in contexts mentioning the temple of a major deity, or referring to his or her priests, is not uncommon in the ancient Near East, since it was the temple of the major deity and the priest served primarily him or her. JP’s argument that the archive texts otherwise mention only Jahu in expressions like “the temple/altar/priest of Jahu” (pp. 91–92) is therefore indecisive.

In chapter 3, JP analyzes the formal elements of the extant marriage contracts and compares them with the Egyptian and Neo-Babylonian tradition. For the Egyptian tradition, her comparison is mainly based on E. Seidl’s short introduction that touches only briefly upon the marriage contracts,30 the short notes given by R. Yaron in his introductory treatment of the legal aspect of the Aramaic documents,31 and Yaron’s ar-ticle about the Aramaic marriage contracts.32 For the Babylonian and other Semitic traditions, JP refers to several other books, but mostly without specific page numbers. Her main result is that the documents for-mally agree mostly with the Egyptian tradition but in content they are bound mainly to their own, Semitic tradition—a result which is very close to the view of Seidl (though this is not admitted by JP). However, JP does not refer to the relevant Egyptian texts them-selves, though all extant Egyptian marriage contracts had been translated and edited with a critical com-mentary as early as in 1960.33 As a result, the data given by JP are sometimes inaccurate or totally wrong. One example will suffice. It is commonly noted in the Aramaic contracts that the bridegroom showed up at the father’s house to ask for the bride. On the basis of Yaron’s short note “The phrase [sc. “I have come to thy house” – I.K.] occurs regularly in early Egyptian

30 E. Seidl, Ägyptische Rechtsgeschichte der Saiten- und Perserzeit, Agyptologische Forschungen 30 (Glückstadt, 1956).

31 R. Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri (Ox-ford, 1961).

32 R. Yaron, “Aramaic Marriage Contracts from Elephantine,” JSS 3 (1958): 1–39.

33 E. Lüddeckens, Ägyptische Eheverträge, Agyptologische Ab-handlungen 1 (Wiesbaden, 1960).




marriage contracts,”34 JP assures the reader that this had been a fixed element of the Egyptian contracts (p. 106), but this is simply not true. This notion ap-pears only in pre-Persian contracts (Lüddekens Ms. 1–4), but it is absent from later ones, which normally include instead a formula such as “Today, I made you my wife” (Lüddekens, Ägyptische Eheverträge, 254), recalling the Aramaic formula “She is my wife and I am her husband from this day and forever,” though JP asserts that such a formula is totally missing from the Egyptian tradition. The scholarly debate about the question of to what extent the parallels between the Aramaic documents and the Egyptian ones could also be explained by an influence of the Aramaic (or oriental) tradition35 is never touched upon by the au-thor, although this is a crucial point for any discus-sion of possible Egyptian influences on the texts from Elephantine.

Also in this chapter, JP provides the reader with astonishingly wrong information even about the Ara-maic manuscripts. For instance, she presents D3.16 as a fragment of a long marriage contract whose be-ginning and end were lost, as also the beginnings of the extant lines (pp. 111, 205). In fact, only the top of the document and the beginnings of l. 1+4–8 are lost, whereas the lower margin of the sheet and the beginnings of the other lines are extant. Moreover, as already noted in TAD, this is not a marriage con-tract, but rather a single list, probably listing items of a dowry. Accordingly, it shows the typical layout of a list, referring to only one item plus a number per line. The dowries mentioned in marriage contracts are listed using a completely different layout, and thus the character of the text as an independent list (rather than part of a contract) is evident by the very layout of the text.36 JP also stresses that a remarkable difference between the Egyptian documents and the Aramaic ones is that the Egyptian documents are legally ef-fective due to the list of witnesses while the Aramaic

34 Yaron, “Aramaic Marriage Contracts,” 29f. The reference given by JP (p. 220, n. 15) to Yaron’s Introduction, p. 29ff, is wrong.

35 Most of the documents (Lüddekens Ms. 6ff.) are from the Persian period or later, and they show clear differences when com-pared to documents that can be safely dated to an earlier period (Ms. 1–4).

36 The information given on p. 214 n. 35, that this text and some others had been edited with a commentary by W. Röllig in TAD, is similarly incorrect. The edition in TAD is based on the cooperation of Röllig, Porten and Yardeni and it contains no com-mentary. The author misunderstood a note stating that Röllig will edit the texts also with a commentary (TAD 4, p. v).

(like the Babylonian) become binding by adding a seal at the end of the document (!), and furnishes this astonishing observation with a reference to pl. XXI in Krae ling’s edition (p. 101 and n. 13 on p. 220).37 The seals depicted there, however, are applied to the rolled up and folded documents, not to their end. This would have been known to anyone familiar with these manuscripts even without looking at the plate, and it is well known that the function of such seals is to secure the intactness of the document and to prevent any later tampering, not to make them legally bind-ing. One wonders whether JP ever checked the plate herself, or why, at the very least, she was not bothered by the fact that none of the other documents with which she dealt had a seal at its end.38

The re-edition of select texts in the last chapter provides the reader with a minimalistic approach that basically abstains from reconstructing the fragmentary texts, though quite often the author concedes that the readings of broken signs and shorter lacunae proposed by earlier editions are quite plausible.39 But the author does not by any means present all the readings and discussions found in previous literature; she restricts herself to the editions of Sachau, Sayce and Cowley, Ungnad, Cowley, Kraeling, Porten and Greenfield, and TAD. The influential translation and comments of P. Grelot is never cited,40 and nearly nothing of the rich information that can be found in numerous articles and more recent collections is included.

Since JP is not a trained epigrapher, her hesita-tions and comments are sometimes not helpful. For instance, no scholar familiar with the script of the doc-uments would mark כ and ן in וכען (TAD A4.5:6) as “questionable” (pp. 126, 131).

More problematic are severe misunderstandings and mistakes like those already mentioned in my com-ments on the previous chapters. The representation of D7.6 (pp. 206–207) is especially full of mistakes. All the lines of this ostracon are complete; their be-ginnings and ends are not lost, contrary to JP, who

37 E. G. Kraeling, The Brooklyn Museum Papyri (New Haven, 1953).

38 Actually, Seidl, in his Rechtsgeschichte, p. 17, comments briefly that the Aramaic documents differ from the Egyptian ones by being sealed (“ein Unterschied besteht jedoch in der Siegelung”) and re-fers to the same plate in Kraeling’s edition. Could this be the source for JP’s grave mistake? Of course, Seidl himself was well aware of the real function of such seals (see p. 72).

39 See, e.g., her treatment of A4.5:2 on pp. 125, 127, 130.40 Documents araméens d’Egypte, LAPO 5 (Paris, 1972).



Book Reviews F 305

marks them by square brackets (though her translation assumes complete lines).

The last word of l. 5 is clearly אחרנן (as already read in the editio princeps of Sayce,41 and agreed upon by all subsequent editors, out of which JP takes into account only TAD), not אחרנ[ן or אחרן as JP proposes. The last -is written on the small side of the ostracon (demon ןstrating, by the way, that the ostracon was not broken after the text had been written)—a fact clearly marked in the drawing included in TAD and observable also on the photograph published by Sayce. JP evidently dared to correct a reading without even checking the available photographs!

The translation of this text, which consists of eleven short lines, contains no less than three wrong ren-ditions and one questionable translation: In גרס הן is obviously the subject, and the לחמהם ,(l. 6) לחמהםtranslation “Wenn es gemahlen ist für ihr Brot” (“If it is ground for her bread”) is impossible. The word would surely be (l. 7; if read correctly, cf. n. 42) לשוa plural form, and the translation “knete” (“knead”) in the singular is wrong. The verb תעבדן (l. 9) must be in the 2nd person and it cannot be translated as a 3rd plural. The form ינקא (l. 11) is in the singular, but one expects the plural, as JP translates without any comment.42

41 A. H. Sayce, “An Aramaic Ostracon from Elephantinê,” PSBA 33 (1911), 183f. + pl. XXVII.

42 By the way, if the common interpretation is correct, then this text would prove that not only women but also men performed childkeeping and prepared food for them. Yet a different interpre-tation can be offered, especially since תעבדן in l. 9 looks more like a 2nd feminine singular or plural. Normally, the masculine form would be written as תעבדון at Elephantine. Also the ו of לשו in l. 7 is written in an awkward way, which allows one to assume that the author intended to write a י (like the one in לי at the beginning of l. 9, according to the published photograph) but placed the second stroke a little bit too high (or later corrected it?). These observa-tions support the assumption that the letter was sent to a woman. If this is correct, then one has to assume a second error in l. 10 where, instead of שלח, one would expect שלחה. To be sure, skip-ping over the ה after a ח in this area, where the scribe ran out of space and also wrote ינקא instead of ינקיא, would be an easy error to make. תוכל in l. 4–5 would not be an objection since it could either be connected with the אחטב or taken as a defective writing of Such a defective .המו caused by the following object-pronoun תוכליwriting would also appear with the 2nd feminine singular suffix in for which parallel cases can be found elsewhere (e.g., TAD ,שלמךA2.1:2, A2:3:2, B2.7:9, D7.1:11)—and גרס shows that the scribe tends to write /ī/ defectively. הושעיה could also have been a name for a woman; cf. הצול, which is normally a man’s name but can also be a woman’s name. See M. H. Silverman, Religious Values in

The “re-edition” of D7.21 (pp. 209–10) similarly contains errors. In l. 3 JP reads חנם instead of חנום as proposed in TAD without commenting on this devia-tion and its source. The translation of ויחטנה as “es wird ihm genäht werden” (“it will be sewed for him”) or even “und ihm genäht worden ist” (“and had been sewed for him”) is strange in taking the suffix as an indirect object (for this the text should have read לה and the (l. 4) לבשא when it actually refers to (ויח(ו)טphrase means “and one/he will sew it.”

Even though JP deals with the documents in such a superficial way, she does not refrain from denounc-ing the masterful work of B. Porten and A. Yardeni, who provided the scholarly community with TAD, an invaluable tool that became (immediately upon its publication) the basic reference for these texts— except for JP, who even declines to cite the texts ac-cording the standard TAD system as is commonly done in contemporary research. At the end of her introduction (pp. 58–62), JP attacks TAD for being what it is, namely a textbook rather than an edition with commentary and (prohibitively expensive) pho-tographs. Still, since TAD always provides the reader with bibliographical references (more than JP employs in her own work!) every interested scholar can find the commentaries and study the arguments for most of the readings as presented in these publications. Further-more, JP blames Yardeni for her drawings, since such drawings are nothing but representations of Porten’s and Yardeni’s interpretations. However, such drawings encapsulate, in fact, a complete epigraphic commen-tary, highlighting both the details seen by the editors as well as their interpretation of such details. Such a critique judges itself.

The long lists presented by JP in the introduction are often incomplete, misleading or just wrong—and thus only of very limited value. Just one example: on p. 23 there are eight complete entries (the first still belongs to p. 22), of which six are not correct. There is no ostracon Cairo 35468, as this number refers to the three ostraca (35468a–c) mentioned later. This “ostracon” has also not been published by Sayce and Cowley, who only mention the existence of these os-traca.43 There exists no such common designation as “Ostrakon Lidzbarski C” (or “A”, “D”, and the like),

the Jewish Proper Names at Elephantine, AOAT 217 (Kevelaer and Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1985), 74.

43 A. H. Sayce and A. E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyry Discovered at Assuan (London, 1906), 34.




as JP assumes for Cairo 35468a (=TAD D7.29). Lidz-barski always used these letters to number the different sections in his many articles, but they have never been used in this way as a common designation of a certain text. For Cairo 35468b (=TAD D7.45) JP does not provide an RÉS number (1296) though she normally notes them. The same is true for Cairo 35468c (RÉS 1297), where even the TAD number (D9.4) is miss-ing. JP should also have noted that both ostraca had been published with photographs as nos. 3 and 4 by Aimé-Giron.44 The last two ostraca mentioned on this page have never been kept in Strasbourg but rather in Munich, and again the author provides neither an RÉS (1295, 1298) nor a TAD number (D7.37, D7.11).45

44 N. Aimé-Giron, Textes araméens d’Egypte (Cairo: L’Ìnstitut français, 1931).

45 Another example would be the treatment of Aimé-Giron 76–86 = D2.35, 3.35, 38, 45; 5.46, 52 on p. 41. The author, who again does not give the TAD numbers, doubts the identification of these fragments with those found by the Pontificio Istituto Biblico in 1918 proposed—though with hesitations—by Kraeling, Papyri, 16, and TAD IV, p. v. She claims that the excavation report mentions only five fragments, and not ten plus a group of minor fragments published by Aimé-Giron, and that the finding list mentioned by Kraeling does not actually exist, as she understands the letter of the Istituto printed as an appendix to her book to state. Actually, the excavation report (A. Strazzulli, P. Bovier- Lapierre, and S. Ronzevalle, “Rapport sur les fouilles à Éléphantine de l’Institut Bi-

In addition, the long-awaited edition of the collection of Clermont Ganneau, which had been published in 2006,46 has been totally ignored by JP.

In conclusion, whoever wishes to make use of this book must be aware that every detail must be rechecked to see if it is correct, disputed, or already proposed by other scholars—a hard task given the fact that the author provides only few and often quite general references without specific page numbers. As this is a dissertation, one would have wished that her supervisors—who are renowned experts in their fields of expertise and cannot be blamed for being less expe-rienced in the study of Aramaic texts from Elephan-tine—would have involved, or at least consulted, an expert for those texts before approving the doctoral thesis and allowing the publication of this book.

blique Pontifical en 1918,” ASAE 18 [1919]: 1–7 [7]) presents five locations where “Papyrus et fragments épars” had been found and does not number the fragments, and Kraeling only takes it as “prob-able . . . that the papyrus fragments are among” those published by Aimé-Giron, and the letter clearly states that “the information reported by E. G. Kraeling is correct. . . . In any event, we have no record to the contrary here”—such a pile of misinterpretations of simple English and French texts is remarkable.

46 H. Lozachmeur, La Collection Clermont-Ganneau: Ostraca, épigraphes sure jarre, étiquettes de bois, Mémoires de l’Adadémie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 35 (Paris, 2006).

The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis. By Joel S. Baden. The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2012. Pp. x + 384. $65 (cloth).reviewed bY josePh lam, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

This book can aptly be described as a “reboot” of the Documentary Hypothesis for the twenty-first century. Joel Baden offers a radically simplified documentary approach to the Pentateuch that shows clear conti-nuities with the classical form of the theory but that also incorporates some important methodological re-finements. Readers familiar with the author’s previous book, J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch,1 will not be surprised by the essential elements of the hy-pothesis he advocates: four continuous documentary sources, a single combination, done by a “compiler” (a term that Baden prefers to “redactor”) whose pri-mary concern was to preserve the source materials in their entirety while maintaining chronological (but not necessarily logical) coherence. The present book,

1 Joel S. Baden, J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch, FAT 68 (Tübingen, 2009).

however, stands on its own as an intelligible and up-dated articulation of the Documentary Hypothesis.

The book is organized into a series of chapters that systematically describe the methods and sources be-hind the Documentary Hypothesis, complemented by five “case studies” of individual texts. In the intro-duction (pp. 1–12), Baden begins with an overview of the history of interpretation of Genesis 37:18–36 (the same passage used as in his first case study) from the book of Jubilees to the present (pp. 4–12), high-lighting the narrative discontinuities in the story and the challenges that they have posed to readers both ancient and modern. This is an important emphasis because, for Baden, it is narrative consistency more than any other consideration (style, vocabulary, etc.) that serves as the basis for the delineation of sources. In “Chapter 1—The Documentary Hypothesis” (pp. 13–33), he lays out the rationale for a documentary

