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Magic, Jewish
YUVAL HARARI
Magic was manifestly forbidden in the Bible as
well as in the later, rabbinical law. However,
practices we may define as “magical” and the
belief in their power to impose one’s will upon
the world seem to have never vanished from
among the Jews in antiquity. Primary,
“insider” evidence that stems from the very
activity of professionals of magic attests to its
wide penetration and role in Jewish cosmol-
ogy. This evidence is further supported by
nonmagical, “outsider” sources – canonical as
well as noncanonical Jewish writings. The dis-
covery and publication in the last decades of
hundreds of Jewish magical texts and artifacts
from (mainly) Late Antiquity allow us to
establish our view basically on them rather
than on nonmagical writings, which in previ-
ous generations served as chief sources for the
study of this issue.
The primary evidence of early Jewish magic
can be divided into three categories, the first
being magical objects, such as amulets and
incantation bowls or skulls that were usually
prepared for certain people for a specific pur-
pose (see AMULETS, JEWISH; INCANTATION BOWLS,
BABYLONIAN). A few dozen ancient metal (and
rarely also clay) amulets were uncovered in
Israel and its vicinity. Others were found also
in Greece, east Europe, Georgia, and Afghani-
stan. They were written in Hebrew, Aramaic,
Greek, and combinations of these languages.
Most of them were produced for healing, pro-
tection against demons, and gaining love, favor
and/or success. About 1,500 Aramaic incanta-
tion bowls were unearthed in Babylonia. Almost
all of them were designated to expel demons and
to protect against them (see DEMONS, JUDAISM).
This seems to have been the motivation also
for the writing of spells on human skulls, also
found in Babylonia. The second category is
lists of magical recipes, apparently compiled
by agents of magical technology. A small frag-
ment of such a list, dated to about 50 BCE, was
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,
and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 4225–4227.
© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah11156
found in Qumran (4Q560). However, most of
this material is known from much later man-
uscripts, found in the Cairo Genizah (see CAIRO
GENIZAH, LATE ANTIQUE JEWISH TEXTS FROM). These
recipes present in full the rituals required for
achieving the desired goals and show how
broad the range of these aims was. The third
category is magical treatises, in which the prac-
tical information is embedded in a theoretical
framework that exposes segments of the mag-
ical cosmology. Sefer ha-Razim and Harba
de-Moshe are the two main examples (see
SEFER HA-RAZIM (THE BOOK OF MYSTERIES) (JEWISH
MAGICAL TEXT); HARBA DE-MOSHE (SWORD OF
MOSES)). This entire corpus attests to a Jewish
belief in human ability to overpower (heavenly)
angels and (earthly) demons, planets and con-
stellations, and rarely even God himself, and to
compel them to fulfill their possessor’s will.
Spells, either spoken or written, were the
core of almost every magical rite. The omnip-
otence of God or the power of archangels,
actualized and activated by the adjurer through
the recitation of their names in the incantation,
served as the inner force of the entire ritual (see
ANGELS, JEWISH). The ceremonial framework was
highly important too, as one can easily realize
from the detailed instructions (in terms of
time, place, materials, manipulations, gestures,
etc.) given in the magical recipes. Upon the
implementation of the ceremony, the desired
goal was expected to be fulfilled immediately.
The scope of aims mentioned in the magical
writings is surprisingly broad. Cure, harm
(including ruin, poverty, sickness, and death),
social success, love, sex and marriage, instigat-
ing wars and winning battles, successful labor
and trade, protection from authorities and
enemies, exorcism and divination are but a
few salient examples. While it seems that mag-
ical technology was employed in almost every
sphere of life, only very rarely do we encounter
an echo of the magical fantasy familiar from
literary writings. The professionals of magic
seem to have been rational and pragmatic.
They sought to use the technology they pos-
sessed, which, as they believed, was handed
2
down to humanity from heaven, almost solely
for those goals that could have been reached by
nonmagical means.
Fantastic actions of a metaphysical kind do
appear in “outsider” nonmagical sources.
In the Bible, Moses and Aaron perform such
acts in Pharaoh’s court, on the sea, and in the
desert, and Elijah and Elisha are described as
wonder-workers. Later some of the rabbis also
proved themselves able to control nature
through means of ritual power. Nevertheless,
none of these figures was referred to as
mekhashef (sorcerer). Being “our” heroes they
were perceived and presented as miracle-
workers, devoted messengers of God’s truth
who manifested his omnipotence on earth. In
the name of this one truth, “other” agents of
ritual power, either foreign or from among
Israel, were delegitimized and rejected, and
even sentenced to death as sorcerers or witches.
In cases of rivalry, they were, of course,
defeated by the “true” legitimate power of
prophets or rabbis.
The nonmagical sources serve not only for
understanding the political matrix of magic.
They also teach a great deal about magical
practices as well as magical aspects of ancient
Jewish cosmology as a whole. In the Bible we
find a rooted belief in the harmful power of
curses, especially when God’s name is invoked
(e.g., Lev 19:14, 24:10–16; 2 Kings 2:24). Some
actual acts undertaken by prophets to perform
miracles are described as well as the detailed
ceremony for testing a (suspected) adulteress
(Num 5:11–31). Literary works from the Second
Temple period teach about the heavenly origin
of magic and its transmission to women, on the
one hand (1Enoch 7:1, 8:3), and the healing,
antidemonic knowledge taught to Noah by
angels, on the other (Jub. 10:10–13). We also
hear of the origin of demons in the sinful inter-
course between women and “the fallen angels”
and of practices to expel them. Josephus
broadens our knowledge concerning exorcism
(AJ 8.45–9; BJ 3.6.3) and the use of pharmaka
(e.g., AJ 15.221–9, 16.61–3; BJ 1.29.2, 1.30.1)
at the very beginning of our era, while in
the following centuries, rabbinic literature
expands further on amulets and their legiti-
macy, on demons and antidemonic incanta-
tions and practices, on the evil eye, on healing
rites, on the power of God’s name, on rabbis’
control over nature and their successful
rivalries with witches and sorcerers, on the
detection of magic as foreign worship (referred
to as “Ways of the Amorite”), and on the
halakhic differentiation between real acts of
magic (possible but prohibited) and mere
trickery. In light of the primary evidence we
now possess we can reassess these sources, dis-
tinguish between descriptive and program-
matic elements, and use them to enrich our
view of the cosmological and sociological
matrix in which magic functioned among
Jews in antiquity.
SEE ALSO: Havdala de-Rabbi Akiba; Pishra
de-Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa (Jewish magical text).
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Blau, L. (1898) Das altjüdische Zauberwesen.
Budapest.
Bohak, G. (2008) Ancient Jewish magic: a
history. Cambridge.
Harari, Y. (2010) Early Jewish magic: research,
method, sources. Jerusalem.
Levene, D. (2003) A corpus of magic bowls:
incantation texts in Jewish Aramaic from Late
Antiquity. London.
Montgomery, J. A. (1913) Aramaic incantation
texts from Nippur. Philadelphia.
Naveh, J. and Shaked, S. (1985) Amulets and
magic bowls. Jerusalem.
Naveh, J. and Shaked, S. (1993) Magic spells and
formulae. Jerusalem.
Schäfer, P. and Shaked, S. (1994–99) Magische
Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza, 3 vols. Tübingen.
Schiffman, L. and Swartz, M. D. (1992) Hebrew
and Aramaic incantation texts from the Cairo
Genizah. Sheffield.
Veltri, G. (1997) Magie und Halakha: Ansätze zu
einem empirischen Wissenschaftsbegriff im
spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Judentum.
Tübingen.