Bowling for the Bowls

Day two the conference took an archaeological turn. Siam Bhayro (Exeter) discussed certain aspects of Jewish divorce documents in the Judaean desert, Gaonic descriptions, the Cairo geniza, and the Aramaic incantation bowls. A well known law expressed by Abaye at b. Gittin 85b discusses some funny orthographic requirements for divorce documents.

אמר אביי: האי מאן דכתב גיטא, לא לכתוב ודין דמשמע ודין אלא ודן, ולא לכתוב איגרת דמשמע איגרת אלא אגרת, ולא לכתוב לימהך דמשמע לי מהך, ולא לכתוב למחך דמשמע כי חוכא, דיתיהוייין דיתיצבייין תלתא תלתא יודי"ן דמשמע תהויין ותצביין, ולורכיה לוי"ו דתירוכין ולוי"ו דשבוקין דמשמע תריכין ושביקין, ולורכיה לוי"ו דכדו דמשמע וכדי, ולא ליכתוב לאיתנסבא דמשמע לא יתנסבא אלא להתנסבא.

Bhayro discussed three of these: The requirement to write ודן instead of ןדין, to write אגרת instead of איגרת, and to elongate the wuw in תירוכין and שבוקין. Abaye's statement is obviously prescriptive, and Bhayro tested whether this was followed at various stages in Jewish history. An interesting linguistic discussion ensued from his discussion of a related document from the Judaean desert, Murabba'at 19, which Milik transcribes as having בדין, and understands as ב + דין. The problem is that a temporal adjective is not suited for a legal document of this sort. One would expect something like "hereby." More problematic is the fact that Milik's reading is a reconstruction to begin with. In other words, the old case of a reconstruction that then creates problems which need to be solved. Bhayro suggested כדין which is performative, fits the context much better, and means something like "I hereby (lit., thus), in according with this... In other words כ the preposition and דין a demonstrative pronoun. Even though this is not identical to the rabbinic ודין, it still seems to relate to the rabbinic conception of the document.

The march of history: Geniza gittin show a mixture of observance and neglect of these principals. So T-S 19J2.5 r. 15-17 (11th century Fustat, Egypt) has them, while T-S 10J2.2 r. 14-16 writes כדין. However, the absence of witnesses makes one wonder if it was ever used. Still, T-S 10J2.31 r. 11-13 was validated with witnesses, and like T-s 10J3.7 r. 7-9 has כדין, with a yod.
This brings us to bowls, which were sometimes conceived of as a divorce document with which to banish certain demons (particularly our old friend , Lilith). You see, demons did not simply invade the home or body, but actually contracted a certain kind of marriage, perhaps in the rabbinic mind effected through relations (m Qiddushin 1:1). And the only way to terminate the marriage is through death or divorce. And indeed, some bowls followed divorce document requirements. The precise dates in some bowls (mentioned by Shaked) points in this direction, as does the lengthened wuw in תירוכין in Schoyen 1927/39:8, and 2053/165:9-10. Still there is little consistency, and one of the latter retains the yod in איגרת.
The provocative point that was made is that not only were rabbis "consumers" of the bowls, as we learned from Shaked, but rabbinic scribal culture seems to have been connected with bowl production culture as well. References to rabbinic literature in the bowls are well known, but less known is the scribal artistic level of some bowls. This makes it likely that rabbinic scribes, schooled in the rabbinic scribal arts, were moonlighting as bowl producers.
Discussion following the paper involved M. Geller advancing a fascinating possibility - that Abaye's discussion of funny orthographic requirements moves in the opposite direction - from the world of magic where this kind of precision is need to divorce documents. Abaye is associated with magic in the Bavli, and even seems to push back against proto-rationalism [b. Hullin 105b, see Y. Elman, "The world of the "Sabboraim" : cultural aspects of post-redactional additions to the Bavli," in J. Rubenstein, ed. Creation and Composition (Tuebingen, 2005)]

With the audience energized after a coffee break, Naame Vilozny (Hebrew U) kept the ball rolling with a fascinating discussion of the iconography of the bowls - a sorely understudied aspect of the bowls. Part of the value of the two main pools of Jewish Babylonian archaeological remains is the iconagraphy in the seals and in the bowls. The bowls contain many pictures of demons, and some parallel talmudic passages. Bowls contain:
1.) human images mixed with angelic characteristics, which corresponds to b. Hagigah 16 and efforts (b. Gittin 66a) to compare and contrast demons and humans.
2.) Pictured with bird feet. Here there is some correspondence to the text of bowls - like דקריא כלילי כי (גבר) מידמיא להון כבני אינשא. And this seems to be a holdover from ancient conceptions - like Lamashtu amulets. This are numerous talmudic paralels, like the b. Berakhot recipe for seeing demons, and the b. Gittin version of Solomon and Ashmedai. In the bowls the most common way this is done is with three straight lines pointing downwards.
3.) Long tangled hair (also a feature of Lamashtu), and Iranian conceptions as well. Lilith, of course, is depicted as having long hair (b. Eruvin) and a Sasanian amulet from the 5th century held in the Met is a good example of this.
4. Goat horns and animal ears. Goats and demons have been together for millennia. Goatmen and horned Shahmaen are depicted in remains from 3000BCE, and this is true in ancient Iranian texts (not as old) and in Phoenician conceptions (Pazzuzu) as late as the 6th century BCE. The biblical scapegoat may point in this direction and there are other references in the Bible. Incredibly, there is a close textual link between a Dead Sea Scroll passage (11Q 11) which describes horned beings פניך פני [שו]ר? וקניך קרני חט[ו]ם. This line more or less shows up in magical texts from the geniza and in the bowls as well. The horns also corresponds to b. Gittin description of the קטב ישוד צהרים.
5.) Bound figures appear in the bowls. This motif already appears with the binding of Nuzi. We're talking about shackled legs, hands crossed over the chest and bound - iike depictions of Assyrian prisoners of war and also some female figurines from Egypt. Cf. Ashmedai (again, b. Gittin 61a-b) where Ashmedai is bound by the name of God.
6. The bowls have figures holding weapons (left hand) and palm branches. These seem to be depicting the sorcerers instead of the demons. They are not bound, and do not have any of the above characteristics. The palm was an important symbol in Assyrian art, but here it's use is reminiscent of the waving of the lulav (Sukkah 35b) which restrains evil spirits. These images can be found in bowls in the Penn collection and the Schoyen collection.
As expected, the images sometimes match up with talmudic conception, and sometimes do not. More work needs to be done on the bowls, but oh boy, do they create an impression. The ooh's and awww's were frequent during this talk.
In the Q+A Saint John asked about non-magical figures in some Mandaic bowls, and again, the Derekht Eretz principle ruled the day. Others suggested parallels with the Greek Magical Papyri. Naama agreed that there were similarities, but in her assessment the most significant influence on the art is from ancient Babylonia. This suggests that the bowls continue a very old, indigenous tradition now inscribed on new objects, with new magical heroes (i.e. R. Yehoshua b. Qarha). The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Naming Names

A few years ago when "Matt and Judy" were under extreme pressure to start "naming names" in the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation, Shaul Shaked delivered a paper at Hebrew U where he too set out to do just that - in other words, name certain rabbis as clients and "targets" in the Aramaic Incantation bowls. I was out of town at the time and when I returned, I begged for the transcript, but to no avail. The paper was not yet ready for circulation, and I would have to wait, which I did, but patiently, which I did not. Four years later at the UCL conference there was an encore performance which did not disappoint.

In fact, Shaked was interested in more then merely naming names in the bowls. He began with a discussion of the few dozen Sasanian Jewish seals in collections around the world, which he has published and which have recently been (re)analyzed in Daniel M. Friedenberg's somewhat pretentiously titled Sasanian Jewry and Its Culture (University of Illinois Press, 2008) A well known example is the seal of Huna b. Natan in Haifa University's Hecht collection. The seal depicts the usual lulav and etrog, but also an object in the center that Shaked identified as an incense shovel. Decades ago it was suggested that the seal was that of our very own Huna b. Natan [though this is questioned in Geoffrey Herman's dissertation on the exilarch (Hebrew University, 2005)], and Shaked used his discussion about the Huna b. Natan seal and others similar to it in order to advance the following argument: We can't be completely sure that the owners of the seals are to be connected with the names familiar to us from rabbinic literature - especially when the names are common, like Huna and Natan. Still there is something to be said for the fact that only somewhat important people would have had seals to begin with. This narrows the pool significantly. A similar kind of argument can be made for the bowls. Of course the bowls were owned by virtually everyone. Rich, poor, mighty and meek. But the title "rabbi" that appears before certain names limits the number of possible "matches" significantly. In amoraic Babylonia, it does seem that R. meant more than simply teacher. The challenge however with names in the bowls is that as in most healing contexts, we usually have the mother's name instead of the patronymic, while in rabbinic literature it is the father's name that rules that day.
On to the main event:
1. R. Aha b. Rav Huna is named in a bowl in the Schoyen collection as a neighbor that abutted the field of the bowl's client. There are a couple of amoraim of this name, one in the 4th century and the other in the 6th. So this revelation is not so exciting, as it merely shows that rabbis lived next to people who used magical bowls.
2. Rav Dimi Bar Sarah appears in a few bowls. Again, 4th or 6th centuries.
3. Rav Sehora b. Immi appears in Dan Levine's archive.
4. BM 040A. Mar Zutra b. Ukhma was misidentified by Segal in his collection of British Museum bowls as merely a pejorative for the person who was being "targeted" by this aggressive bowl ("Mr. Small the son of Black)" This is highly unlikely (a) because Mar does not simply mean Mr. in Aramaic but someone of importance, (b) because magic requires precision, and there is no way a nickname would have been used, (c) because these names are common anyway - not unlike Klein and Schwartz! Just as Schwartz is not a pejorative but a real last name, so is Ukhma. In this case, the name is extremely common and there were numerous Mar Zutra's in rabbinic literature throughout the generations. This raises the possibility that it is just some important Zutra out there, but no one in rabbinic literature.
5. Rav Ashi b. Mahlafta (Tarshish bowl JA1). A Rabbi of this name appears in the Bavli and seems to have lived at the end of the fourth to early fifth centuries. Incidentally, he was a contemporary of Huna b. Natan. This case is probably the most significant, since Ashi is not a common name, and only one person in rabbinic literature, of extreme importance for talmudic history, carries the title.
The text of the bowl is itself fascinating. Typical beginning:
אסו[תא] מ[ן שמיא תהוי לר]ב אשי בר מחלפתא...
but things quickly get interesting. There is a visionary, hekhalot poetic section about God:
"? is his name, ש is his name, Amotz is his name, rwy is his name, Raziel is his name....King of king of kings is his name, kzyh is his name, which burns he repairs (it) above and over the highest heavens, in the palace of fire and hail, including its chariots and the heaven..."
There also is a very long section about the splitting of the sea which is midrashic in nature. Shaked suggested that the bowl's client, Rav Ashi, may have had input in the decision of what to include in the bowl. The text ends with אשבעית וא[...]מית ואומיתי על רוחא בישא דשלטה בה ברב אשי בר מחלפתא דתיעידי ותיזח ותיקפץ ותיגלי מן רב אשי בר מחלפתא מן יומה דין ולעלם אמן אמן סלה
6. Finally, we have a Rav Yosef b. Imma de-Immah in a bowl which seems to have come from Borsippa, Iraq. This bowl was published by Harviainen, "Syriac Incantation Bowl in the Finnish National Museum: A Specimen of Eastern Amamaic Îkoineâ," Studia Orientalia 51 (1982), but Shaked offered a new reading and translation. Harviainen had read Jesus into the divine names in this bowl, but Shaked considers this highly speculative. Unfortunately, there was not enough time to look at this bowl in detail.

The drama of it all derived primarily from the supposed revelation that rabbis were engaged in magic. This is not news, especially after Gideon Bohak's recent book. But there is something sublime about coming into "contact" with the rabbis that we engage in study - their names now engraved in real objects that they (may) have left behind. The irony here is that we have almost nothing of that sort in Roman Palestine, maybe even including this blog's banner (See Steven Fine's recent discussion). The sense was palpable that the enormous number of bowls which still have not been published hold tremendous potential. Michael Morony wrote just a few years ago that the data contained in the bowls is valuable for everyone - not only "magician colleagues". Shaked alluded to other fascinating features in some of these bowls - including dates which could have been included because some of the bowls were seen as divorce documents (more on that, later).

Fear not, the requisite skepticism was voiced in the Q and A. But these small findings are, at least for me, of great importance. What now needs to happen is for Talmudists to get involved and go over the material carefully, in concert with scholars of the bowls. Any volunteers?

UPDATE: There seem to be more "Ravs" in the bowls. Just came across a Rav Mari b. Mamah in British Museum 024A-024b. This bowl is a divorce document and even features four (! - a kohen?!) witnesses: Rav Rivay b. Marti, and Tzeruiah b. Shiltay, Barbe'ammeh b. Mesharshetana and Qanyah b. Nahlat.