Das religise Leben der Juden von Elephantine in der Achmenidenzeit, by Anke Joisten-Pruschke Das religise Leben der

Juden von Elephantine in der Achmenidenzeit by Anke JoistenPruschke Review by: Ingo Kottsieper Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 72, No. 2 (October 2013), pp. 299-306 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/671436 . Accessed: 04/11/2013 05:57
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Book Reviews F299

Das religise Leben der Juden von Elephantine in der Achmenidenzeit. By Anke Joisten-Pruschke. Gttinger Orientforschungen 3. Iranica, N.F. 2. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008. Pp. 258 + 15 tables. 48 (paperback). REVIEWED By InGO KOTTSIEpER, University of Mnster/Gttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities1 The ndings 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 religious life that contradicts the picture given in the Old Testament, witness religious conicts between the community and their environment, and provide the modern scholar with contemporary juridical documents. 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 specics of ancient Near Eastern societies. Unfortunately, the book under 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 nish in 2007 with Professors Philip G. Kreyenbrock (Iranian Studies) and HansJrgen Becker (New Testament and Jewish Studies) at the University in Gttingen, 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 Elephantine im Spannungsfeld zwischen jdischer Gemeinde und Reichsregierung (pp. 6381) and chapter 2, Das religise Leben der Juden von Elephantine der Achmenidenzeit im Kontext multinationaler und multireligiser Begegnungen (pp. 8395). The latter chapter actually focuses on the question of how the Jews from Elephantine acculturated religiously and developed a syncretism under the inuence 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 aramischen Heiratsvertrge von Elephantine im Kontext der Rechtspraxis gyptens in der Achmenidenzeit (pp. 98123) 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 specic documents. The introduction (pp. 1858) provides the reader with lists of the Aramaic documents originating from Elephantine, and in chapter 4 (pp. 125210) JP presents a re-edition of twenty select 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 author deviates in some respects from the older editions (p. 125). After the notes to the chapters (pp. 21123) the book provides a bibliography and four appendices, including a letter to the author from the Pontical Biblical Institute (cf. note 45) as well as new photographs 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 chapter 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. Grtz.5 Even basic tools such as the
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., Jerusalem, 198699). The texts re-edited by JP are TAD A4.13, A4.5, B2.6, B2.8, B6.15, 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 Relations in the Persian Empire, Biblical and Judaic Studies from the
2

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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 relationship 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 earlier.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 identication 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 identied this Lord with Bagohi, JP takes her assumption as granted (p. 68) and does not even nd 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 delement of the holy re by corpses of animals. Again, JP deems it unnecessary to inform the reader that this solution has been advanced in my article (pp. 17275), 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

then been Zoroastrian.10 The only original additions to this solution that have been provided by JP are references to chapter 46 of the later Nerangestan (edited only in 2003),11 to rituals for the re-purication of the re,12 and to the term in TAD A4.2:6, which designates an official in Thebes and which she takes as worshipper of Mazda.13 This solution is highly signicant 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 JPs scope. Though JP tends to avoid mentioning other scholars and deviating opinions, she discusses at this point (pp. 6970) a recent work according to which (taking up the work of Heidemarie Koch) the Achaemenids disliked all animal sacrices and not just burnt offerings. 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 sacrices were normally not supported 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 subjectof an ongoing debate. 11 F. M. P. Kotwal and P. G. Kreyenbroek, The Herbedestan and the Nerangestan 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 Herbedestanand Nerangestan, as well as to the three volumes of M. Stausberg, Die Religion Zarathushtras: Geschichte Gegenwart Rituale (Stuttgart, 20024) in general. Thus the reader is forced to browse through all these works to nd 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 proposed it long before her, others do interpret this simply as a personal name; see the references given in DNWSI s.v. mzdyzn. 14 The rst article is by M. Handley-Schachler, The LAN Ritual in the Persepolis Fortication 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]), 195204, who argues that the lan-sacrice was not for Ahurmazda. This proposal casts no doubt on Kochs observation that the administration gave no animals out for any sacrice. The second article that presumably conicts with Kochs theory is by S. Razmjou, The LAN-Ceremony and Other Ritual Ceremonies in the Achaemenid Period: The Persepolis Fortication Tablets, Iran 42 (2004), 10317, who mentions animals given out for the lan-ceremony (pp. 1056). But according to the list given on p. 105 this would only

University of California, San Diego 10 (Winona Lake, IN, 2004); S. Grtz, Das Edikt des Artaxerxes: Eine Untersuchung zum religionspolitischen und historischem Umfeld von Esra 7, 1226, 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 Semitic Inscriptions, HdO I/22, 12 (Leiden, 1995). 8 I. Kottsieper, Die Religionspolitik der Achmeniden und die Juden von Elephantine, in Religion und Religionskontakte im Zeitalter der Achmeniden, ed. R. G. Kratz, Verffentlichungen der Wissenschatichen Gesellschaft fr Theologie 22 (Gtersloh, 2002), 15078. 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), 8990.

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Book Reviews F301

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 in l. 4 (pp. 7275).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 external 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, wholike the author16consulted only the second edition of G. R. Drivers editio princeps of the texts in question,17 which lacks the photographs of the text that were printed in the rst 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 Drivers editio princeps (1954), or the drawings in TAD, would have claried 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, Gtter und ihre Verehrung im achmenidischen Persien, ZA 77 [1987], 23978 at 27071). Koch (pp. 26971) had also stressed that the Achaemenid tolerated animal sacrices like the Elamite h.ku-u-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 JPs 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 (Oxford, 1957). 18 Unfortunately, even basic works on this subject, such as D. Schwiderskis Handbuch des nordwestsemitischenBriefformulars, 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 reaction 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 Freis theory of a Reichsautorisation, which JP rejects in favor of the assumption that these had been administrative decisions for local conicts.20 All of the texts adduced by Frei are briey commented on, but again the broad literature about the subject is ignored. On the other hand, JP sometimes proposes her own solutions, which are not very convincing. For instance, she tentatively identies the collection of the Egyptian laws initiated by Darius with the depiction of 650 gods in the Temple of Hibis (pp. 7779). This assumption is based on equating the Egyptian term hp with Persian data; 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 encyclopedic record of the Weltwissen,21 JP deems it possible that this could be the earlier (!) laws of Egypt up to year 44 of King Amasis (!) (ll. 1011 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 rst presents the well-known situation of the Jews living in close spatial and social contact with other ethnicities and religions. She points to the
Cf. already my aforementioned article, pp. 15455. 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 Spannungsfeld gyptischer und persischer Interessen, in Altertum und Mittelmeerraum: Die antike Welt diesseits und jenseits der Levante. Festschrift fr Peter W. Haider zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. R. Rollinger and B. Truschnegg, Orient and Occidens 12 (Stuttgart, 2006), 53747 at 543. It is a pity that JP did not give this correct bibliographic reference in her book, published two years later.
19 20

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302 F Journal of Near Eastern Studies

reconstruction22 of the so-called Aramaic-Quarter in which people of different ethnicities lived side by side (pp. 8586), but argues against its scholarly designation as the Aramaic-Quarter. All nationalities (not only the Aramaeans) serving as soldiers at Elephantine 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 ancient 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 quarter 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 rst clarify whether (and since when) the Aramaic term came to denote Jew as a religious termwhich the author takes for granted (e.g., p. 84)rather than Judean as a term designating a person either coming (originally) from Judah or belonging to a group connected with the province of Judah ( ;)the latter usage would be more in accordance with the etymology of . Only one short paragraph (p. 87) deals with the problem of the reception of the biblical texts at Elephantine. Even though the temple of this community,
She wrongly credits Pilgrim for this reconstruction; Pilgrim only took up the research of Porten and connected it with the results of recent excavations provided by Krekeler, and thus claried the localization of the quarterthe 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 archologischer Befund: Zur Topographie Elelphantines in der 27 . Dynastie, in H. Guksch and D. Polz, Stationen: Beitrge zur Kulturgeschichte gyptens, Mainz, 1998, 48687, 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 Yedaniah archive as a Gemeindearchiv containing documents of the Gemeindearbeit comparable to the work of a leader of a modern religious community or church (hnlich der eines Vorsitzenden der Jdischen Gemeinde oder Kirchenvorstandsvorsitzenden heutzutage).
22

its work on Sabbaths, and the unclear way of celebrating Passover25 do not t the biblical accounts, JP eschews 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. Nevertheless, the author presupposes (without any discussion) that the Jews of Elephantine were original monotheists, 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 monotheismin which the texts from Elephantine have played an important partis completely absent in this book, which supposedly concerns the Jewish life on Elephantine. The author argues for a process of acculturation in two steps: rst, 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 denite 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 evidence 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 blessings. 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

The author does not give any references or further explanations 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 xed. The problem of a Marzeah at Elephantine (D7:29) has escaped the eyes of the author. 26 W. Kornfeld, Aramische Sarkophage in Assuan, WZKM 61 (1967): 916 + Tf. IVIII, cf. esp. p. 16. This different approach is again not noted by the author.
25

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Book Reviews F303

typically had no problem with also evoking foreign gods. JP argues that the texts of the so-called communal 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 16 (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 rst 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 uncommon for ancient scribes. Finally, contrary to JPs interpretation (p. 94), col. VII 16 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 ( ) .
27 I. Kottsieper, Zu graphischen Abschnittsmarkierungen in nordwestsemitischen Texten, in Unit Delimitation in Biblical Hebrew and Northwest Semitic Literature, ed. M. C. Korpel and J. M. Oesch, Pericope 4 (Assen: van Gorcum, 2003), 12161 at 14546. 28 Even on the photographs printed by the author one cannot detect such vertical strokes, which is also true for the excellent photographs published by E. Sachau (Aramische Papyrus und Ostraka aus einer jdischen Militr-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 bers, which are clearly not strokes as esp. the above-mentioned infrared picture shows. 29 The 122 lines (!) of col. IVI name only 118 persons; the lists following the note in col. VII and VIII add ten more.

The relative dating obviously refers to the concrete date given at the beginning of the rst 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. JPs argument that the archive texts otherwise mention only Jahu in expressions like the temple/altar/priest of Jahu (pp. 9192) 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. Seidls short introduction that touches only briey 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 Yarons article about the Aramaic marriage contracts.32 For the Babylonian and other Semitic traditions, JP refers to several other books, but mostly without specic page numbers. Her main result is that the documents formally agree mostly with the Egyptian tradition but in content they are bound mainly to their own, Semitic traditiona 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 themselves, though all extant Egyptian marriage contracts had been translated and edited with a critical commentary 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 fathers house to ask for the bride. On the basis of Yarons short note The phrase [sc. I have come to thy house I.K.] occurs regularly in early Egyptian

E. Seidl, gyptische Rechtsgeschichte der Saiten- und Perserzeit, Agyptologische Forschungen 30 (Glckstadt, 1956). 31 R. Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri (Oxford, 1961). 32 R. Yaron, Aramaic Marriage Contracts from Elephantine, JSS 3 (1958): 139. 33 E. Lddeckens, gyptische Ehevertrge, Agyptologische Abhandlungen 1 (Wiesbaden, 1960).
30

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304 F Journal of Near Eastern Studies

marriage contracts,34 JP assures the reader that this had been a xed element of the Egyptian contracts (p. 106), but this is simply not true. This notion appears only in pre-Persian contracts (Lddekens Ms. 14), but it is absent from later ones, which normally include instead a formula such as Today, I made you my wife (Lddekens, gyptische Ehevertrge, 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 inuence of the Aramaic (or oriental) tradition35 is never touched upon by the author, although this is a crucial point for any discussion of possible Egyptian inuences on the texts from Elephantine. Also in this chapter, JP provides the reader with astonishingly wrong information even about the Aramaic manuscripts. For instance, she presents D3.16 as a fragment of a long marriage contract whose beginning 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+48 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 contract, 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 effective due to the list of witnesses while the Aramaic
Yaron, Aramaic Marriage Contracts, 29f. The reference given by JP (p. 220, n. 15) to Yarons Introduction, p.29ff, is wrong. 35 Most of the documents (Lddekens Ms. 6ff.) are from the Persian period or later, and they show clear differences when compared to documents that can be safely dated to an earlier period (Ms. 14). 36 The information given on p. 214 n. 35, that this text and some others had been edited with a commentary by W. Rllig in TAD, is similarly incorrect. The edition in TAD is based on the cooperation of Rllig, Porten and Yardeni and it contains no commentary. The author misunderstood a note stating that Rllig will edit the texts also with a commentary (TAD 4, p. v).
34

(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 lings 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 binding. 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 Greeneld, and TAD. The inuential 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 hesitations and comments are sometimes not helpful. For instance, no scholar familiar with the script of the documents would mark and in ( TAD A4.5:6) as questionable (pp. 126, 131). More problematic are severe misunderstandings and mistakes like those already mentioned in my comments on the previous chapters. The representation of D7.6 (pp. 206207) is especially full of mistakes. All the lines of this ostracon are complete; their beginnings 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 briey that the Aramaic documents differ from the Egyptian ones by being sealed (ein Unterschied besteht jedoch in der Siegelung) and refers to the same plate in Kraelings edition. Could this be the source for JPs grave mistake? Of course, Seidl himself was well aware of thereal function of such seals (see p. 72). 39 See, e.g., her treatment of A4.5:2 on pp. 125, 127, 130. 40 Documents aramens dEgypte, LAPO 5 (Paris, 1972).

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Book Reviews F305

marks them by square brackets (though her translation assumes complete lines). The last word of l. 5 is clearly ( 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 ]or as JP proposes. The last is written on the small side of the ostracon (demonstrating, 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 renditions and one questionable translation: In ( l. 6), is obviously the subject, and the translation Wenn es gemahlen ist fr ihr Brot (If it is ground for her bread) is impossible. The word ( l. 7; if read correctly, cf. n. 42) would surely be a plural form, and the translation knete (knead) in the singular is wrong. The verb ( l. 9) must be in the 2nd person and it cannot be translated as a 3rd plural. The form ( 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 Elephantin, 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 interpretation can be offered, especially since in l. 9 looks more like a 2nd feminine singular or plural. Normally, the masculine form would be written as at Elephantine. Also the of in l. 7 is written in an awkward way, which allows one to assume that the author intended to write a ( like the one in 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 observations 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 , one would expect . To be sure, skipping over the after a in this area, where the scribe ran out of space and also wrote instead of , would be an easy error to make. in l. 45 would not be an objection since it could either be connected with the or taken as a defective writing of caused by the following object-pronoun . Such a defective writing would also appear with the 2nd feminine singular suffix in , for which parallel cases can be found elsewhere (e.g., TAD A2.1:2, A2:3:2, B2.7:9, D7 .1:11)and shows that the scribe tends to write /i/ defectively. could also have been a name for a woman; cf. , which is normally a mans name but can also be a womans name. See M. H. Silverman, Religious Values in

The re-edition of D7.21 (pp. 20910) similarly contains errors. In l. 3 JP reads instead of as proposed in TAD without commenting on this deviation and its source. The translation of as es wird ihm genht werden (it will be sewed for him) or even und ihm genht 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 ))(when it actually refers to ( l. 4) and the phrasemeans and one/he will sew it. Even though JP deals with the documents in such a supercial way, she does not refrain from denouncing 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 according the standard TAD system as is commonly done in contemporary research. At the end of her introduction (pp. 5862), JP attacks TAD for being what it is, namely a textbook rather than an edition with commentary and (prohibitively expensive) photographs. Still, since TAD always provides the reader with bibliographical references (more than JP employs in her own work!) every interested scholar can nd the commentaries and study the arguments for most of the readings as presented in these publications. Furthermore, JP blames Yardeni for her drawings, since such drawings are nothing but representations of Portens and Yardenis interpretations. However, such drawings encapsulate, in fact, a complete epigraphic commentary, 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 wrongand thus only of very limited value. Just one example: on p. 23 there are eight complete entries (the rst 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 (35468ac) mentioned later. This ostracon has also not been published by Sayce and Cowley, who only mention the existence of these ostraca.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.

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306 F Journal of Near Eastern Studies

as JP assumes for Cairo 35468a (=TAD D7.29). Lidzbarski 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 RS number (1296) though she normally notes them. The same is true for Cairo 35468c (RS 1297), where even the TAD number (D9.4) is missing. JP should also have noted that both ostraca had been published with photographs as nos. 3 and 4 by Aim-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 RS (1295, 1298) nor a TAD number (D7.37, D7.11).45
44 N. Aim-Giron, Textes aramens dEgypte (Cairo: L nstitut franais, 1931). 45 Another example would be the treatment of Aim-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 identication of these fragments with those found by the Ponticio Istituto Biblico in 1918 proposedthough with hesitationsby Kraeling, Papyri, 16, and TAD IV, p. v. She claims that the excavation report mentions only ve fragments, and not ten plus a group of minor fragments published by Aim-Giron, and that the nding 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 lphantine de lInstitut 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 scholarsa hard task given the fact that the author provides only few and often quite general references without specic page numbers. As this is a dissertation, one would have wished that her supervisorswho are renowned experts in their elds of expertise and cannot be blamed for being less experienced in the study of Aramaic texts from Elephantinewould have involved, or at least consulted, an expert for those texts before approving the doctoral thesis and allowing the publication of this book.
blique Pontical en 1918, ASAE 18 [1919]: 17 [7]) presents ve locations where Papyrus et fragments pars had been found and does not number the fragments, and Kraeling only takes it as probable ... that the papyrus fragments are among those published by Aim-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 heresuch a pile of misinterpretations of simple English and French texts is remarkable. 46 H. Lozachmeur, La Collection Clermont-Ganneau: Ostraca, pigraphes sure jarre, tiquettes de bois, Mmoires de lAdadmie 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-rst century. Joel Baden offers a radically simplied documentary approach to the Pentateuch that shows clear continuities with the classical form of the theory but that also incorporates some important methodological renements. Readers familiar with the authors previous book, J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch,1 will not be surprised by the essential elements of the hypothesis he advocates: four continuous documentary sources, a single combination, done by a compiler (a term that Baden prefers to redactor) whose primary 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 (Tbingen, 2009).

however, stands on its own as an intelligible and updated articulation of the Documentary Hypothesis. The book is organized into a series of chapters that systematically describe the methods and sources behind the Documentary Hypothesis, complemented by ve case studies of individual texts. In the introduction (pp. 112), Baden begins with an overview of the history of interpretation of Genesis 37:1836 (the same passage used as in his rst case study) from the book of Jubilees to the present (pp. 412), highlighting 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 1The Documentary Hypothesis (pp. 1333), he lays out the rationale for a documentary

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