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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler
@yonatan.bsky.social
890 followers 93 following 480 posts
Archaeology and Early Judaism Associate Professor @arieluniversity Author of: The Origins of Judaism (Yale 2022) Between Yahwism and Judaism (Cambridge 2025)
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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · Aug 7
𝗕𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗬𝗮𝗵𝘄𝗶𝘀𝗺 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗝𝘂𝗱𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗺:
Judean Cult and Culture during the Early Hellenistic Period (332–175 BCE)

Expected online publication date: October 9th.

cambridge.org/core/element...
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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 4d
I just spent a whole day replying to his insightful comments... 🙄
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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 4d
A very happy holiday—חג שמח— to all who celebrate!
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 4d
...that the Torah was not observed widely throughout this time.
I found this to be an interesting example where a fundamentalist approach leads one to insist that the Bible is NOT to be taken literally. There are other examples, for sure, but this one I found particularly intriguing.
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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 4d
...to build sukkot from the time of Joshua until the time of Ezra (around a thousand years according to internal Biblical chronology). The good rabbi insisted that the Biblical verse was not to be taken literally—he was convinced that it was a gross exaggeration. He simply could not accept...
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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 4d
The rabbi had published something against my book, and I reached out to him as I sensed that he hadn’t actually read the book (he admitted that he hadn’t).

The verse I’ve cited here came up in our back-and-forth. According to the verse, Israelites did not fulfill the Torah’s instruction...
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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 4d
“𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗵𝘀 (סֻכּוֹת) 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺; 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗝𝗲𝘀𝗵𝘂𝗮 𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗡𝘂𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗜𝘀𝗿𝗮𝗲𝗹 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘀𝗼.” (Neh 8:17)

I was recently in an email debate with a well-known Israeli rabbi (whom I won’t name).
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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 10d
(2) “Yom Kippur is when my sins are forgiven, and so—if I will anyway act impiously the rest of the year—let me at least observe the one day when my iniquities are absolved”.

Are there other psychological explanations I am missing?

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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 10d
(1) “Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year, and therefore—if there is only one day I am willing to devote to my Judaism—it will be on this day”.

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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 10d
The fact that the same (or a very similar) phenomenon has been with us for millennia raises questions about the psychological drive behind it.
Offhand, I can think of two hypotheses:

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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 10d
...in self-denial and virtue.”
(Philo, 𝘚𝘱𝘦𝘤. 𝘓𝘢𝘸𝘴 1:186)

According to Philo, Yom Kippur was widely observed in the mid-1st century CE—even by Jews who acted impiously throughout the rest of the year. This depiction sounds strikingly familiar to modern ears.

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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 10d
“On the tenth day is the fast, which is carefully observed not only by the zealous for piety and holiness 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗼 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗲𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲. For all stand in awe, overcome by the sanctity of the day, and for the moment the worse vie with the better...

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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 12d
The material is so than that it is highly translucent.

For more on the research, see: publications.iaa.org.il/atiqot/vol11...

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Light-Microscopic and Spectroscopic Analyses of the Skin Materials Used in the Tefillin and Mezuzah Slips from the Judean Desert
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls is an assemblage of ancient tefillin and mezuzah slips—ritual artifacts composed of thin animal skins inscribed with passages from the Pentateuch. This paper presents the re...
publications.iaa.org.il
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 12d
...found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Here is the extraordinarily thin skin that Asaf has prepared, by peeling off the thin papillary-dermal layer above from the thicker reticular-dermal layer below.
This is the “qəlāf” (קלף) of early rabbinic halakhah.

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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 12d
In a new project I am working on together with Asaf Timor, a scholar and professional ritual scribe (סופר סת"ם), we are preparing a set of tefillin using exclusively ancient methods and materials.

The work is based on research we’ve conducted in recent years on the Judean Desert tefillin...
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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 15d
Happy third of Tishrei to all who celebrate.

(Photo: Megillat Taanit with scholion; Sankt Paul im Lavanttal, Benediktinerstift, Cod. 39c/4, VDS)
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 18d
Probably something of the sort, I imagine.
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 18d
Very interesting.
I should learn more about this.

I've often wondered if I am more a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew.
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 18d
Very interesting! I should look into this phenomenon.
I assume this was happening on the continent as well?
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 18d
...like “love” by depicting a pudgy baby with wings shooting a bow and arrow, or “liberty” through the image of a robed and crowned woman holding aloft a torch in one hand and a tabula ansata in the other.

Shanah tovah to all those who celebrate, and a delightful autumn to all!
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 18d
None of this necessarily implies a polytheistic worldview. This may have simply been the way that reality was conventionally depicted through art.

Much the same way that today, we often anthropomorphize abstract concepts...
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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 18d
Here she is shown on one of the four corners of the zodiac circle in the Late-Roman-era synagogue mosaic at Hammath Tiberias.

At the center of the mosaic, the sun too is personified—as Helios/Sol, guiding his quadriga (four-horse chariot) across the sky.
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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 18d
Tomorrow evening marks the start of the Jewish new year, the start of the Jewish (lunar) month of Tishrei, and—in the northern hemisphere—the autumnal equinox.

During the Late Roman and Byzantine periods, autumn was personified as a woman—as were winter, spring and summer.

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yonatan.bsky.social
Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · Sep 6
[CL]AVDIA ASTER
[H]IEROSOLYMITANA
[CA]PTIVA

Claudia Aster, captive from Jerusalem.

Epitaph, late 1st century CE.
National Archaeological Museum, Naples

(She was 25 years old when she died. Her Jewish name—before being Latinized to Aster—was probably Esther).
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · Sep 1
that the author of Esther was unaware of the idea that Judeans/Jews formed an integral component of a larger “Israel”?

True, the idea runs as a leitmotif throughout much of the Hebrew Bible.

But that does not necessitate that the author of Esther was at all familiar with these texts.
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · Sep 1
Throughout the book, Jews are known by the ethnonym “יהודים”. The absence of the name “Israel” is striking.

This is in contrast to the Greek versions of Esther, where “Israel” does appear several times.

Has anyone ever raised the possibility...
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