Ancient Jewish magic

Studies in English - 1960-2023
Translations & References
A Selection of Books & Articles
Appendix 1. Jewish Magic--A Selection of Sources in English
Appendix 2. Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur: An Outline of Contents
Appendix 3. The 1982 version of "Notes on the Study of Merkabah Mysticism and Hekhalot Literature"

מהו כישוף? מה היה מקומו בתרבות היהודית בשלהי העת העתיקה? מהי הלשון המאגית? כיצד עוצב הידע המאגי היהודי והועבר מדור לדור? באלו אופנים הוא מומש ולאלו מטרות? מה חשבו חז"ל על כישוף ועל נשים כשפניות? עד כמה נשזרה מאגיה במיסטיקה היהודית הקדומה? כיצד תואר הכישוף בכתבי קראים וגאונים, ומה היה יחסו של רמב"ם אליו? על כל אלה ועל שאלות רבות נוספות מבקש ספר זה לענות. זהו מחקר מקיף ראשון בעברית על הכישוף היהודי בשלהי העת העתיקה ובעת המוסלמית המוקדמת, ועניינו משולש: היצירה המאגית היהודית, הפולמוס עם התרבות שהיא משקפת, והדיון המדעי בכל אלה.
חלקו הראשון של הספר מוקדש לעיון שיטתי בשאלת מהותו של הכישוף בכלל והכישוף היהודי בפרט. דיונים הנוגעים להגדרת הכישוף ולאופייה של הלשון המאגית מובילים אל חלקו השני. חלק זה מוקדש לתרבות הכישוף היהודית עצמה. בפתחו דיון נרחב במקורות שהותירו בידינו בעלי הכשפים: קמעות, קערות לחש, אבני חן וגולגלות מאגיות, מרשמי כישוף וחיבורים מאגיים. בפרקיו הנוספים מצטייר המבט החיצוני אך הסמוך מאוד, שעולה ממקורות יהודיים בני הזמן שאינם מאגיים, על התרבות המשתקפת בממצאים הללו ועל סוכניה. אלף שנים ויותר של עיסוק יהודי בכישוף, בכשפים ובמכשפים.

The corpus of late antique Babylonian incantation bowls comprises a class of double-bowl sets, consisting of two bowls facing each other, fastened together with bitumen. Occasionally, such bowl sets have been found to contain inscribed egg shells or human bones. The double-bowl configuration is highly reminiscent of the double-jar burial practice attested in Mesopotamia from the second millennium to the sixth century BCE. The double-jar (or double-pot) burial involved placing the deceased between two wide-mouthed jars, occasionally joining them with bitumen at the rims. This article explores the double-bowl configuration and suggests a connection between double-jar burials and the later ritual artifacts of the Sasanian period. The double-bowl sets attached with bitumen may have originated on analogy to the ancient burial practice, intending symbolically to bury evil entities or human adversaries.

Writing materials used for ancient and mediaeval Jewish magic include metals, stones, animal hides and bones, papyrus, paper, textiles, pottery and other objects. Inscribed finished products designated for magical purposes like amulets, magic bowls, gems, rings, pendants, seals and even skulls have been found. Moreover, numerous instruction texts are extant describing the process of writing and the producing and use of material artefacts. These instructions are attested in unsorted collections of various instructions as well as in applied manuals arranged in a more systematic manner. First and foremost, the fragments from the Cairo Geniza provide us with thousands of these texts. The question this paper tries to answer is whether there is a relationship between the choice of writing material and the intended purpose of the magical act. Another focus is on the correspondence between material artefacts and instruction texts.

Jewish History (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10835-019-09322-6):
Special Issue on the Cairo Geniza.

The Cairo Geniza has proved to be a fascinating trove of information on all aspects of Jewish life in the medieval and early modern period, magic being one of them. Hundreds of manuscripts, in different states of conservation, testify to the interest of Jews in composing and copying magical manuals, as well as producing amulets, curses, or attempting to harness the supernatural in order to achieve earthly aims. This essay introduces the reader to Geniza magical texts and provides some guidelines for reading these documents.

This article focuses on the social and professional contexts of the producers of Jewish Aramaic incantation bowls. Based on the vast amount of legal terminology deployed in the bowls, as well as a reference to bowl writers as 'writers of books' in bowl AMB6, I argue that bowl scribes were part of a professional guild of scribes (soferim) that engaged in a variety of forms of Jewish writing. Furthermore, I suggest that the scribal context of the practitioners of the magic bowls was different from the professional context of the contemporaneous corpus of Jewish metal amulets. Identifying the unique Sitz im Leben of the bowls reveals that for Jews in Sasanian Babylonia the line between magic, law and religion was not rigid, and perhaps non-existent. Further work on the context of ancient Jewish magic may therefore lead to new perceptions of ancient Jewish society.




https://doi.org/10.18647/3458/jjs-2020

** This is a title page - for full article, email: avigail.manekin@mail.huji.ac.il

This online event is part of the project, “Early Jewish and Christian Magical Traditions in Comparison and Contact” (EJCM), which is funded by the European Research Council (grant agreement no. 851466; Host institution: Ca’ Foscari University of Venice).

Date: Monday 23 May, 2022
Time: 5:00pm–6:30pm (CET)

Schedule:
5:00pm–5:30pm (CET): Marco Moriggi, “Comparison and its limits. A perspective for a new approach to Aramaic magic texts of Late Antiquity in a comparative perspective.”

5:30pm–6:00pm (CET): Ortal-Paz Saar and Mya Castro, “Reading and Writing Magic: The Gendered Use of Magic Books”

6:00pm–6:30pm (CET): Discussion

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Editio princeps of bronze leaf-shaped amuletic pendant with a suspension loop (BNF Schlumberger.190) featuring inscriptions in Greek and Samaritan Hebrew, iconographical elements (the 'Holy Rider' motif; a lion trampling on a snake) and charaktêres.

This study examined 48 secular, civil, legal documents from different caves in the Dead Sea area from before the time of the First Revolt from about 55 CE, to the last documents of the Second Revolt, in about 135 CE. The research suggests that the Aramaic and Hebrew legal documents may contain the earliest examples of the lunar, Babylonian calendar used for Jewish civil purposes and that further study is needed to investigate possible Jewish interest in the hemerologies or an interest in particular days of the month by lay people and rebels.

This chapter provides an overview of practices that may be termed “magical”, employed by Jews in various locations, primarily during Late Antiquity. The practices are divided according to aim (protective or aggressive magic) as well as form (oral, textual, or a manipulation of materials). The chapter provides examples from the rabbinic literature as well as magic manuals, exemplifying magical practices and beliefs common among some Jews in that period.

Le présent article esquisse les grandes lignes d’une histoire doctrinaire et sociale de la guérison surnaturelle au sein des principaux courants religieux, piétistes et mystiques juifs (du IIe au XVIIIe s.).  Souvent indiscernable du fait magique et intimement lié à la question des conversions/apostasies, ce type de thaumaturgie entraîne des positionnements oscillant entre tolérance, méfiance et appropriation polémique. L’acceptation graduelle de la possibilité du ‘vrai miracle’ accompagne l’émergence et le développement d’un piétisme mystique qui se traduit socialement dans le mouvement hassidique, alliant guérison miraculeuse et guérison du monde.

The present article aims at sketching the main lines of a doctrinal and social history of preternatural healing within Jewish religious, pietistic and mystical movements (2nd to 18th centuries). Oftentimes indistinguishable from magic and intimately related to the question of conversion/apostasy, this type of thaumaturgy triggers attitudes that oscillate among tolerance, mistrust and polemical appropriation. The gradual acceptance of the possibility of “genuine miracle” correlates with the emergence and development of a mystical pietism that is socially expressed in the Hassidic movement, with its merging of miraculous healing and universal restoration.

Relatively few curse tablets have been uncovered in the area covering late-antique Syria-Palaestina. Among these (with one recent exception from Antioch), none display signs of having been inscribed by Jews: they do not employ the languages associated with Judaism-Hebrew or Aramaic-nor have any of them been uncovered in locations speci cally associated with Judaism, for instance in a Jewish tomb. Even though recipes found in Jewish magic manuals indicate that Jews were aware of the use of metal tablets for erotic and aggressive magical ends, the nds from Syria-Palaestina (and, incidentally, elsewhere), suggest they were not among the producers of such artefacts. Nonetheless, the notion of cursing was not alien to Judaism (intriguing resemblances exist between imprecations in the Hebrew Bible and Greco-Roman 'prayers for justice'), and cursing actions may be encountered in a variety of sources. One wonders, then, whether the typical de xiones found di erent modes of expression in the context of late-antique Judaism. My article asks whether there are any Jewish counterparts to typical curse tablets, and if so, how they di er from the latter: in form or also in essence? Additionally, can one identify reasons for the absence of Jewish curse tablets and for the preference for other magical means?

This article presents the editio princeps of a Hebrew lamella from the Wolfe Family Collection (Wolfe NA 3), which was prepared for Benenata, daughter of Leontina. The lamella is unique in that it contains independent Hebrew text from start to finish with no sign of Aramaic. The last two lines of the lamella include a set of magical symbols followed by Greek words. An edition of the new text is accompanied by photographs, a hand-drawn facsimile, an alphabetical chart, linguistic notes on peculiar spellings, and cross-references to parallel sources.

Silver magic lamella, 3.94 x 2.60 cm (inv. 30664), in Berlin, acquired in 1917 from the widow of German diplomat in Israel and Syria, Julius Loeytved-Hardegg (1874-1917). Roman period amulet with magic names, moon / stars, including IAREOBAZ, IAO SABAOTH IAIOTH, ... IAIA IAO HO ON ("Iaia Iao, the-One-Who-Is" = Ex. 3:14) + Tetragrammaton IHIH, etc.

Co-authored with Jaime Curbera / Barbara Niemeyer