19-20 April 2018: Judaean Literacy in the Ancient Mediterranean

Language & Literacy in Roman Judaea: A Study of the Bar Kokhba Documents

This will be a summary and discussion of my recent book of the same name (Yale, 2015). I will share with participants the methods and principle conclusions of this study, offering elaboration on the book as the discussion requires. Further, I will consider with participants certain applications of my study to matters involving the Dead Sea Scrolls, in particular the matter of whether the Qumran deposits represent one or rather more than one collection/deposit.

Literary Letters in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism

In this workshop/seminar we study literary letters in Jewish literature from the Hellenistic-Roman period. Some of these take their cue from Jeremiah’s letter in Jer 29 (Ep Jer, 2 Bar. 78–86, cf. Bar LXX), others are administrative or halakhic letters (e.g. 2 Macc 1–2, t. San. 2:6). Inter alia, we shall look at letter form, authorisation, reader expectations and competence, as well as the relationship with Graeco-Roman letter writing. This will bear also on the question of the genre of 4QMMT.

Pesher and Targum: Revisiting an Old Question

In this paper I address the connection between Pesher and Targum. Focusing on the afterlife of the Pesharim in post-Qumranic strands of Judaism and incorporating recent insights from the study of the scrolls, I suggest that certain aspects of the Pesharim are mirrored in the later Targumim.

The Skill of the Scribes of the Aramaic Testaments from Qumran

In this paper I address the criteria that are mentioned by Michael Wise and Eibert Tigchelaar that could be used to assess the skill of scribes, e.g. regularity in the script and spacing, the execution of letter forms, errors and corrections. Through the lens of these criteria I employ the manuscripts of the Aramaic Levi Document, the Testament of Qahat and the Visions of Amram in order to reflect upon the promises and limitations of surveying the manuscripts in this manner.

Revelation of Mysteries and Authoritative Scriptures in Some Qumran Texts

This presentation explores the means by which mysteries were revealed to inspired figures in some Qumran texts and asks what role(s) authoritative scriptures played in the revelatory process. One of the goals of this study is to discern how the writers of some Yahad texts appropriated and adapted concepts found in earlier Aramaic traditions.

Heritage from before the Flood: A Study of Writing as Wisdom within Mesopotamian Scholarly Texts and its Relation to the Decline of Cuneiform Literacy in the First Millennium BCE

The goal of this paper is to discuss the development of the topos of writing as wisdom, in the context of the decline of cuneiform literacy and the rise of the Aramaic language as lingua franca in the Ancient Near East. How can we explain the development of this topos and what does this tell us about the scribal culture of the first millennium BCE?

The Opisthographs and Scribal Practices in Qumran

The Dead Sea Scrolls allow scholars to directly examine the ways in which Judaean scribes interacted with their texts. The opisthographs discovered at Qumran remain relatively unexplored in this regard. In this presentation this small collection of manuscripts will be foregrounded and used as an entry point to investigate the scribal reality of the Qumran community.

Handwriting as a Clue to Literacy in 2 nd -5 th -Century Palestine

Comparison of handwriting samples from the 2 nd century CE with those of the 3 rd -5 th centuries has led some scholars to see a general degradation of writing skills after the Bar Kohkhba revolt. The recent discovery of EGLev, however, suggests the continuation of the calligraphic Jewish bookhand of the 1 st -2 nd centuries into the early Byzantine period. The development of several writing styles in continuity with early trajectories perhaps indicates ongoing, widespread reading and writing competency. Furthermore, these writing styles apparently developed similarly throughout the cultural zone of Egypt and Palestine. The choice of writing style appears to have been related to such factors as education, function, content, and medium, much as in the earlier Dead Sea Scrolls. The evidence for writing in the 3 rd -5 th centuries, therefore, may provide one important clue for scholars studying Jewish literacy in the late Roman and early Byzantine periods.

International relations? Hebrew and Aramaic literacy in late antique Egypt

Dozens of Hebrew and Aramaic papyrological fragments testify to the wide use of these languages in Egypt during the late Roman and/or early Byzantine period (400-700 ce). The self-definition of the Jews in this period has been a matter of debate since the existence of Hebrew and Aramaic papyri written in a largely Greek environment was noted. The current paper explores one of the possible explanations for this phenomenon, namely the close connections of the Egyptian Jews to Palestine. The paper focusses particularly on how these connections manifest themselves in personal and business letters.

Josephus and Second (or Third) Language Learning in First Century Rome (Judaean Antiquities 20.262-267)

This paper will offer some reflections on Josephus’ claim to have learned Greek language and literature in the Judaean Antiquities and similar claims in Graeco-Roman historiography, with special reference to Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Particular attention will be given to the rhetorical underpinnings of such statements in relation to more general claims of the effort of writing history among historians.

Philo on Writing, Memory, and the Mosaic Textbook

Plato famously, and seemingly paradoxically, condemned writing in favor of oral dialectic due to the former’s negative effect on memory. Plato’s position, given in a very written format, has been viewed as both a caution in the transition from oral to literate education and a call for the interplay between the two. In much Second Temple Jewish literature, we find that the act of writing things down—whether mundane wisdom, exegetical insights, or revealed, esoteric mysteries—was viewed as having an explicit pedagogical function, the Mosaic law especially singled out for its writtenness. Philo of Alexandria in particular goes to great lengths to justify the writing down of a necessarily unwritten law. Here we will explore Philo’s argument and motivations for such a drastic move and see how he was engaging with Plato’s critique and taking part in this dialogue on the paideutic benefits and/or detriments of writing .