Jewish Religion in "Talmudic" Babylonia: The Evidence of the Aramaic Incantation Bowls

The Babylonian Talmud is the principal surviving literary source for the Jewish communities in the Sasanian empire. As a result, scholarship has primarily focused on the rabbinic elite represented in and responsible for the Talmud. However, hundreds of Jewish magical amulets written on bowls provide access to the unknown lives and practices of Jews in the very cities in which the Babylonian rabbis flourished. Since their discovery, the magic bowls have largely been relegated to the domain of a “popular” and “syncretistic” culture.

In her talk Avigail Manekin-Bamberger, Postdoctoral Fellow at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will argue that the dichotomy between the world of the rabbis and that of the bowls is artificial and ultimately untenable. Furthermore, the bowls provide a rare vantage point from which to enrich our knowledge of both rabbinic law and practice, ancient Jewish society, and the place of the rabbis within it.

Sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program with support from the Religious Studies Program and Department of Near Eastern Studies.

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