posted
An inscription from an ancient Jewish temple at Elephantine in Egypt has been interpreted to suggest the presence of a priestess there. The temple was built in the 6th century BC.
quote:A new look at a 2,400-year-old message scrawled on a piece of pottery suggests that it may not only be the earliest example of a popular ancient curse, but also the first direct evidence for female priests in Jewish temples.
quote:What was the nature of ritual in ancient Yahwism? Although biblical sources provide some information about various types of cultic activity, we have thus far lacked any extra-biblical ritual texts from Yahwistic circles prior to Greco–Roman times. This article presents such a text—one that has been hiding in plain sight for almost a century on a small ostracon found on the island of Elephantine. It has variously been interpreted as dealing with instructions regarding a tunic left at the “house of Yhw”—the temple to Yhw(h) that flourished on the island from the middle of the sixth to the end of the fourth century BCE. While there is little debate regarding the epigraphic reading of this text, it has hitherto failed to be correctly interpreted. I present an entirely new reading of this important document, revealing it to be written in poetic form and to match the characteristics of a “prayer for justice” curse ritual. It is, in fact, the oldest known example of this genre; its only known specimen in Aramaic, its unique witness in a Yahwistic context, and the sole record of any ritual performance at a temple to Yhw(h). Significantly, it is administered by a priestess.
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IIRC, even vehemently patriarchal cultures like the Greeks had priestesses serving their goddesses. I also recall the Egyptians, despite not being as sexist as the Greeks, tending to align their priests' gender with that of the deities they served. It could be that the ancient Hebrews allowed women to be priestesses as residue from a polytheistic past when goddesses like Asherah and Astarte were part of their pantheon.
On the other hand, if the evidence for this Jewish priestess comes from southernmost Egypt, indigenous influences on the local Jewish community seem probable to me too.
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Sorry but I lost my NatGeo subscription years ago so I had look for an alternative source for the above finding.
Personally I think these experts are jumping to conclusions as is usually the case.
Part of the issue is also a confusion of terms and terminology. The general definition of 'priest' is simply one who presides over religious or cultic rituals, but the specific anthropological definition is one whose position is to make sacrificial offerings to a deity. Many people ignorant of the bible or biblical tradition assume that because the latter definition is reserved strictly for males that females had no ritual role or function at all. But other than the role of prophet which is appointed by God for either sex, and nazerite which was a vow made by either sex or by the parent of either sex, women in Hebrew tradition also had other roles.
One was that of shrine or temple maiden where young girls would be reared in a shrine and taught sacred dances and musical performance. The term for such a girl is naarah tsaba meaning 'girl who serves or waits upon'. Such girls would hold this position until they wed since virginity is a requirement. They would lead the congregation in song while dancing and playing the timbrel as the founder of their order the prophetess Miriam did according to mishnah (tradition). The male equivalent of the naarah tsaba is the hazzan or cantor which was a young boy to unmarried adolescent male who sings the sacred hymns usually as part of a choir. The role of the naarah tsaba is similar to that of the ishtarit in Babylon (minus the ritual prostitution) and the khener in Egypt. Speaking of the khener, what's interesting is that In Exodus 38:8, we read that the laver of copper and its stand of copper were made “from the mirrors of the women who performed tasks at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting”. This brings to mind of the copper mirrors used by the khener.
Another female role though not as popular is that of minha havah (living offering). This is basically a nun dedicated to the Lord for life. Due to the pledge of celibacy as well as penance via prayer, fasting, and community service, most women who dedicate themselves as such are usually widows and divorcees, especially those who were barren. The prophetess Anna became a minha havah after her husband died (Luke 2:36-38), but the most famous example is Jephthah's daughter (Judges 11). There is a common misconception that Jephthah killed his daughter as a blood sacrifice to fulfill his vow to the Lord, yet not only does the text not state this, but the Lord abhors the blood of man especially as an offering. The ritual laws are clear that if a creature is made as an offering to the Lord but its blood is polluting that creature is to be sold and its profit redeemed OR the creature is to be put in service of the Lord. The creature in this case being human is to serve the God for the rest of its life in the form of penance. Hence the last words in the story of Jephthah's daughter is "she was a virgin"-- meaning for the rest of her life which is why she and her friends mourned her virginity and the fact that she will never marry and have children NOT that she was to be killed. Her father was equally distraught because she was his only child and by law, she was the only chance he had to have an heir to his house via a grandson through her.
Perhaps the most important ritual role women had in temple worship was that of bent kohen (priest's daughter). The Israelite priesthood is comprised of clans from the House of Aaron and while the priests who made the ritual offerings before the alter were men, women of the priestly clans still served other functions of worship, though what those functions exactly were was not made clear in the bible. The ritual laws state that benot kohanim have their share of the sacrificial meals (terumot hakodashim) which was held by priests as well as their sons. In fact certain body parts and organs of the sacrificed animal was reserved for benot kohanim, namely the forelegs, cheeks, and abomasum (reed tripe-- fourth stomach chamber). They were allowed to preside over the women's section of the temple or shrine. According to rabbinic tradition, they had lenient specifications in their preparations for ritual immersion (mikvah); they have above average monetary stipulation in her marriage contract; not least, the firstborn of a daughter of a Kohen or Levite is not redeemed at thirty days the way other Jewish children are. Benot kohanim are also held to a much highest standard of scrutiny for Israelite women and must veil themselves when they go in public and observe strict rules of modesty. If a bent kohen is found guilty of adultery her punishment is to be burned and not stoned like other Israelite women! This is why Judah's daughter-in-law Tamar was a bent kohen because when he thought she was guilty of harlotry he demanded she be burned. Because the office of kohen is patrilineal if a bent kohen marries a non-kohen, then her sons will not be kohen. However, for a priest to be eligible for the position of high-priest his mother must be a bent kohen. The rabbinic belief is that as the male priests play the active role of making offerings to the Lord who receives them, the Lord reciprocates by pouring out his spirit upon the priests daughters who are to receive it. This tradition of priests' daughter receiving the spirit (kabbalah ha kodesh) brings to mind the Virgin Mary herself a daughter of a priest who becomes mother of the messiah by having the Holy Spirit "come upon her and the power of the Most High overshadow her".
We know from historical texts that common Israelite women possessed ritual knowledge, let alone Levite women and especially benot kohanim. So my conclusion is that this curse text from a female in the temple may very well come from a bent kohen instead of a kohenet or priestess.
In fact the Biblical/Hebrew tradition is that the reason why women were barred from actual priesthood was due to 'blood works'. Men are to shed blood before the alter as offering because women already shed the blood of life from their bodies either through menstruation or childbirth. They are instead to receive the Spirit.
What's interesting is that years back I've read several sources showing how in the Levant the title of kohenet (priestess) was more common in the Bronze Age than in the succeeding Iron Age when that title was restricted to goddess cults only like Astarte and Asherah. One source is Susan Ackerman's 2016 paper The Mother of Eshmunazor, Priest of Astarte: A Study of her Cultic Role
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Since the Israelite thread is closed, I'll just make my response here.
quote:Originally posted by Yatunde Lisa Bey: Which passages in Genesis points to the Hurrian origin of Abraham?
Where did I say Abraham had Hurrian "origin"? I wrote that his culture had Hurrian affinities. This is why you need to be precise about what others actually said or what you yourself say lest distortion arises. It's clear Abraham had Mesopotamian origins as Genesis clearly states. His ethnicity is stated to be Hebrew descended from Arphaxad among a family of nations that included Aram, Asshur, and Lud etc. His language was Semitic, but the customs he and his people practiced were not only Mesopotamian but northern Mesopotamian which was best explained by the Nuzi legal documents of the Hurrians. Again, I'm not saying Abraham and his family were Hurrians but that their customs reflect what is written on Hurrian legal practices.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Since the Israelite thread is closed, I'll just make my response here.
quote:Originally posted by Yatunde Lisa Bey: Which passages in Genesis points to the Hurrian origin of Abraham?
Where did I say Abraham had Hurrian "origin"? I wrote that his culture had Hurrian affinities. This is why you need to be precise about what others actually said or what you yourself say lest distortion arises. It's clear Abraham had Mesopotamian origins as Genesis clearly states. His ethnicity is stated to be Hebrew descended from Arphaxad among a family of nations that included Aram, Asshur, and Lud etc. His language was Semitic, but the customs he and his people practiced were not only Mesopotamian but northern Mesopotamian which was best explained by the Nuzi legal documents of the Hurrians. Again, I'm not saying Abraham and his family were Hurrians but that their customs reflect what is written on Hurrian legal practices.
Great! Which passages show these affinities for Hurrian legal practices
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quote:Originally posted by Yatunde Lisa Bey: Great! Which passages show these affinities for Hurrian legal practices
It's all throughout Genesis, and the link to one source was in my previous post. Here are just several examples
Sisterhood- In Hurrian society, sisters hold superior position than wives which is why they had a custom of wives being adopted as sisters so they had more legal rights in the families they marry into. In the case of Abraham, his wife Sarah was already his half-sister. In fact other legal documents from Mesopotamia show that when it came to consanguineous marriages the closest relative one is allowed to marry or have sexual relations with is a half-sibling via the father but NOT the mother since any sibling born of the same womb is incest. What's interesting is that Abraham's sojourn both in Egypt and Canaan he told a lie of omission that Sarah was his sister but failed to say she was his wife. Later Isaac repeated the same lie when he and Rebecca stayed in Gerar. If Isaac was telling the truth, then it means that he adopted her as sister in his family. In fact, Isaac's form of marriage actually reflects this as they are one of 7 types of marriage practiced by ancient Semites, this case the mahr marriage. 'Mahr' means gift or exchange and today refers to a dower or bridal gift offered to the family of the bride, but originally described the type of marriage described in Genesis when Abraham's servant-son Eliezer gave gifts to Rebecca's brother and mother but not her father, because the male guardian in this instance was the brother Laban.
Concubine Surrogacy- The Nuzi texts as well as other legal documents in Mesopotamia say that a wife can use a maidservant or slave in her employment as a surrogate to produce an heir in her stead. By law, the son produced is adopted by the mistress of the house as well as being heir to the master. We see this with Hagar for Sarah and later on with Bilhah and Zilpah for Rachel and Leah respectively. Speaking of which...
Bequeathment of Servants- The Nuzi texts shows that it was a common custom for brides to inherit slave or retainer maids from their households upon marriage as part of their bridal gift. Such was the case with Rachel and Leah from their father Laban.
Teraphim (Household idols)- The tablets from Nuzi show that according to Hurrian custom the head of the house is the possessor of the teraphim or family idols (gods or ancestors?), and that the teraphim are bequeathed to his heir. Usually this heir was his son but if he had no sons his son-in-law would be heir. According to the Nuzi documents, after the death of the head of the estate, the heir was expected to show in court with the teraphim as proof of his inheritance. In the Biblical narrative Rachel was trying to secure all of Laban’s succession for her husband, and Jacob was rightfully indignant at being accused of attempting such an underhanded trick. This makes one wonder if Laban already had sons or a son of his own that he had intended to will his teraphim to.
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In orthodox Jewish society whose practices date back to Israelite times, men and women alike were expected to fulfill ritual roles. Being patriarchal, the male head of the house acted as type of priest for the family cultic rites leading the family prayers etc. but his wife as matron of the house had other duties like lighting the ritual candles like menorah, preparing the ritual meals, and even saying certain prayer reserved for women. Only in instances where the husband is absent may she take over the lead prayers. Such was likely the case of women of most Israelite tribes.
Since the sacred tribe of Levi had more religious responsibilities, so too did the women of that tribe. Levite women were involved in rituals that pertained to women of the community things like presiding over mikvah for women and blessings and purification for girls and women in menstruation, childbirth, blessing households etc. Within the Levite tribe the Daughters of Aaron that is the benot kohanim were responsible for domestic roles in local shrines or the temple itself. They helped tend to the temple flocks and drew water from wells. They cleaned the shrine or temple and helped prepare the ritual meals during holy days. They also wove clothing for the priests as well as tapestries to decorate the shrine or temple. Most of the ritual activities of women in ancient Jewish/Israelite society can only be inferred from archaeological evidence such as the incantation bowls authored by women. Again, it does not mean the women were 'priests' themselves as that role in the Israelite cult was strictly for men. There may have been benot kohanim or women of the priestly family who were involved in ritual activity like blessings and curses but that does not make them priests proper.
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Interestingly, I've come across a few sources in the past indicating that the majority of these kahin were female-- kahina. In fact the Islamic Hadith describe kahina providing service to the Quresh and other tribes.
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quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: IIRC, even vehemently patriarchal cultures like the Greeks had priestesses serving their goddesses. I also recall the Egyptians, despite not being as sexist as the Greeks, tending to align their priests' gender with that of the deities they served. It could be that the ancient Hebrews allowed women to be priestesses as residue from a polytheistic past when goddesses like Asherah and Astarte were part of their pantheon.
On the other hand, if the evidence for this Jewish priestess comes from southernmost Egypt, indigenous influences on the local Jewish community seem probable to me too.
It's funny that you bring up the Greeks considering that the English word 'priest' ultimately derives from the Greek word presbyter via the Romans. Presbyter (f. presbytera) means 'elder' and in Greek and other ancient religions, an elder in a religion simply meant a person knowledgeable and well versed in religious lore and rites to the extent that they may preach to the public and lead them in prayers. This was different from a 'priest proper' in the specific sense of someone who officiates sacrificial offerings to a deity on an altar. The Greek word for the latter is hiereus (f. hierea) and in Latin sacerdos (f. sacerdote). In Greek and Roman religions priestesses made blood offerings of animals just like their male counterparts even slaughtering the animals themselves. This was likely the case with the kohenot in Southwest Asia, though as sources point out the kohenot eventually became restricted to a few goddess cults only. Interestingly in Egyptian texts, there was also a decline in the occurrence of the title hemet-netjer (priestess), although there was increase in other female religious titles. Similarly while the title of kohenet became rarer there was increase in other female religious titles like qadesha.
In Biblical/Israelite religion the priesthood was male and restricted to a hereditary tribe (Levites) and lineage (Aaronic), though as I said women of that lineage took on more collateral roles. Because the priesthood was male, the assumption is that the deity of Israel is male but Jewish and Biblical tradition suggests that God is ultimately genderless though 'he' manifests as a male in human form. The gender role in ritual worship is based on blood and because females bleed in menstruation and in childbirth they are forbidden from the altar from which God receives the blood of sacrificed animals. At the same time males are forbidden from approaching the birthing chair or bench because not only is the blood of birth polluting but also that is where God's Spirit reciprocates by the giving back of life through birth. Only women were allowed including not just midwives but female Levites or even a bent-kohen.
In the New Testament the term priest almost always refers to Jewish kohanim who were opposed to Jesus and the Apostles and only occasionally still needed for certain religious rites. Jesus himself was only called priest in the Letter to the Hebrews, and the terms 'priest' and 'priesthood' were used as a metaphor for Christian believers or the Ecclesia (Church) in general. The term that was used more frequently was 'presbyter' or those elders in the Ecclesia. Protestants try to use this as proof that the priesthood was abolished even though church tradition from the time of the Church Fathers and to Paul himself show a hierarchy within the presbyters with some leading the rites of the priesthood of Melchizedek as the book Hebrews describes it. These sacramental rites are, for the most part, carried out by all the apostolic churches, though the problem with the Roman Catholics is a seeming denial of presbyters outside of those ordained in the priesthood proper which is the opposite problem of Protestants. The orthodox churches especially the oriental orthodox churches preserve both presbyters and the priesthood which stems from the former.
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I don't know how many people have heard this book or the theory it espouses.
Though Savina Teubal is not the first to suggest this theory, she is probably the first to write a comprehensive thesis that Abraham's wife Sarah may have been a nadit (plural: naditu). This was a type of holy woman common in Mesopotamia who had certain privliges but also restrictions. The naditu dedicated to certain deities like the sun god Shamash in particular were to be celibate, while other naditu as part of their services were to perform "sacred marriage" rituals with rulers and can can marry husbands but were not allowed to bear offspring. Hence the Akkadian term nadit means "fallow" as in a fallow field where no seeds are to be sown. In all likely hood they used ancient contraceptives as well as calculated their ovulations. Naditu who married may provide their husbands with children via surrogate concubines.
It is well known from Mishna (Jewish traditions that complimented the Torah) that Abraham's family was steeped in idolatry. His father Terah was an idol maker which meant that the family was involved with pagan cults. So it would be no surprise that his half-sister Sarah by his father would be this type of woman. This would explain why Sarah and Abraham did not have children when they were younger since the scripture was clear she was not able to have children because she was old and nowhere did it say she was ever barren. Also is the fact that Sarah had relations with foreign rulers (the Egyptian pharaoh and the Canaanite/Philistine king) but curiously only God punished them and not Sarah.
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Maybe not fully on topic but related is the thoughts of a consort of Yahweh in early Hebrew religion. The theme is explored by Bible scholar professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou in the TV program Bible's Buried Secrets
quote:Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou examines how archaeological discoveries are changing the way people interpret stories from the Bible.
Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou asks whether the ancient Israelites believed in one God as the Bible claims. She puts the Bible text under the microscope, examining what the original Hebrew said, and explores archaeological sites in Syria and the Sinai which are shedding new light on the beliefs of the people of the Bible. Was the God of Abraham unique? Were the ancient Israelites polytheists? And is it all possible that God had another half?
quote:This week we interview the inimitable Francesca Stavrakopoulou. Author, scholar, and BBC documentary presenter, Dr. Stavrakopoulou discusses some big questions about the God of the Bible. Did He have a body? Did He have a wife? Did He demand child sacrifice?
It's all big questions and some potentially surprising answers on this week's Data Over Dogma!
posted
^ Well if you're familiar with kabbalah, it personifies the Holy Spirit as feminine and being the feminine aspect of Ein Sof that issues from Him but is still part of Him. Ein Sof means 'Infinite One' and is 'God the Father' in the Bible. Despite the title of 'Father' Ein Sof is technically genderless and so too the Holy Spirit, but traditionally they are engendered as such. The Holy Spirit is called Shekhinah meaning 'In Dwelling' and then you have Yinon or the 'Little Yhwh' also called 'Dvar Elohim' meaning 'Word of God' who is that aspect of God that mortals can perceive and touch. He is also called 'Metatron' or the Angel who sits on the throne. So here you have the Holy Trinity.
There are ancient epigraphs that have the phrase 'Yhwh and His Asherah'. There are many scholars who think that means the goddess Asherah but some point to the pronoun "His" suggests something else as Asherah was a title used for other things including sacred pillar like objects.
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In ancient Mesopotamia there were different ranks of holy women or 'priestesses'. The highest had the title of 'en', the second highest had the title of 'nin-dingir', while the third was 'naditum'.
Neo-Babylonian Categories of Priestesses The word naditum means “left fallow,” which is consistent with the evidence that they were forbidden childbearing. We know a good deal about the naditum priestesses of the God Shamash and the God Marduk during the first dynasty of Babylon. They came from the upper levels of society; a few were king’s daughters, most were daughters of high bureaucrats, scribes, doctors, or priests. Naditum of the God Shamash entered a cloister at a young age and stayed unmarried.
The cloister in which they lived with their servants consisted of a large complex of individual buildings within the temple. The cloister in the temple of the town of Sippar has been shown by excavation to have also contained a library and school and a graveyard. The cloister housed up to two hundred priestesses at a time, but the number of naditum gradually declined after the age of Hammurabi.
Naditum brought rich dowries to the temple at the time of their dedication to the god. On their death, these dowries reverted to their families of birth. They could use these dowries as capital for business transactions and for loaning out money at interest, and they could leave the cloister in order to take care of their various business concerns.
Naditum sold land, slaves, and houses; made loans and gifts; and managed herds and fields. We know the names of 185 female scribes who served in the temple of Sippar. From the proceeds of their business transactions the naditum regularly made offerings to the gods on festival days.
Since they could not have children, naditum often adopted children to care for them in old age. Unlike other women of their time, they could will their property to female heirs, who, most likely, were family members also serving as priestesses.
Naditum of the God Marduk were uncloistered and could marry but were not allowed to have children. It is this group of women which is particularly the subject of regulation in the Codex Hammurabi (hereafter referred to as CH). A naditum could provide children for her husband by giving him a slave woman or a low-ranking temple servant called sugitum as a concubine or second wife.
Hammurabic law elaborately provides for the inheritance rights of such children, which may indicate the importance of the naditum in the social order. It could also indicate that their social position had become somewhat precarious during Hammurabi’s reign or that it was undergoing some kind of change...
What is not mentioned in the source that is mentioned by Teubal and the other source I cited was that some Naditu would take part in ritual conjugation with rulers called 'sacred marriage' which was a form of sympathetic magic wherein the nadit would embody a goddess of sovereignty to which the king or prince would have sexual relations. If the king performed well the goddess would bless the king's realm with good fortune. It was obviously also a form of sex magic which also practiced since Sumerian times.
Unfortunately since the 19th century there was a popular belief among Western scholarship or male dominated academia that ritual sex and indeed temple prostitution was common or the norm. It actually was not as scholar Johanna Stuckey explains in her article "Sacred Prostitutes". The majority of holy women were in fact celibate and had closely guarded reputations. The few women who did engage in ritual sex did so under strict circumstances. Perhaps the class that had the most documentation of sexual rites was the ishtaritum named after the goddess Ishtar, but even their primary role was that of temple dancers and musicians not sex workers. There were two other types of female temple servants called kulmashitum and qadishtum whom we don't know much about. However, the latter corresponds to the Levantine (Syrio-Canaanite) title of qadeshot (plural of qadesha) meaning 'holy one'. Interestingly the Bible compares the wages of a qadesha to that of a zonah (prostitute) but all the evidence we have of qadeshot describe them as temple or shrine singers as well as nurses, and wet nurses.
What is known is that even those naditu who were allowed sexual relations were forbidden from having children of their own, and those naditu who serve Shamash were cloistered and vowed to celibacy completely. The fact that these and the higher ranks of holy women were also celibate and that their main functions did not include sacrifice would make the title of 'nun' more fitting than priestess, though the En priestess did perform certain sacrifices.
This makes me wonder about the connection between these functions and those of the priestesses of Archaic and Ancient Greece whose rituals are centered on that of a 'holy virgin mothers'.
Israelite/Jewish religion did not have such institutions. As I already mentioned, there were the banot kohanim (priests daughters) who engaged in rituals of receiving the Spirit but were only expected to be virgins until marriage. However there was the prophecy in Isaiah that the Messiah will be born of a virgin.
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