187 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXI N° 1-2, januari-april 2004 188

ARAMAICA

LEMAIRE, A. — Nouvelles inscriptions araméennes

d'Idumée, Tome II. Editions Gabalda, Paris, 2002. (24
cm, 285, LXIX planches). ISBN 2-85021-145-1; ISSN
0575-0741.
The publication of the Aramaic ostraca from Idumaea
made a conspicuous progress thanks to a new volume by A.
Lemaire.1) Some twenty years ago, the forerunners of this
large amount of fourth-century Aramaic ostraca began to
appear on the antiquities market. The first specimen of the
series, allegedly found in the region of Yatta, 10 km south of
Hebron, was published in 1985 by J. Naveh.2) A large num-
ber of these ostraca subsequently reached the Israel Museum
and 218 of these were published by A. Lemaire.3) Several
ostraca have been purchased by the Bible Lands Museum,

1
) A. Lemaire, Nouvelles inscriptions araméennes d'Idumée, tome II.
Éditions Gabalda, Paris, 2002. (24 cm, 285 pp., LXIX plates). ISBN 2-
85021-145-1; ISSN 0575-0741.
2
) J. Naveh, “Published and Unpublished Aramaic Ostraca”, in ‘Atiqot.
English Series 17 (1985), pp. 114-121, pls. XIX-XX (see pp. 117-118 and
pl. XIX, No. 7). Cf. A. Lemaire, op. cit. (n. 1), pp. 21-22, No. 22.
3
) A. Lemaire, Nouvelles inscriptions araméennes d'Idumée au Musée
d'Israël (Supplément no 3 à Transeuphratène), Paris 1996.
189 BOEKBESPREKINGEN — ARAMAICA
Jerusalem, and by the Hecht Museum, Haifa, others have
reached some private or communal collections. A volume
containing 201 inscriptions from this group was published by
I. Eph‘al and J. Naveh,4) while other ostraca were presented
in various articles.5) Several hundred ostraca are prepared for
publication by B. Porten and A. Yardeni,6) while 403 items
are presented in the new volume by A. Lemaire. Their total
number is presently estimated at almost 1,500.7)
These ostraca come from Idumaea, almost certainly from
Khirbet el-Qom,8) assumed to be the site of biblical
Maqqedah, about 14 km west of Hebron. This location seems
to be confirmed by the name of Khirbet Beit Maqdum, situ-
ated only 600 metres east-north-east of Khirbet el-Qom and
apparently preserving the echo of the biblical toponym.9)
The bulk of the material dates from the Late Achaemenid
and Early Hellenistic periods. However, two ostraca pub-
lished by I. Eph‘al and J. Naveh were written in the first half
of the 5th century B.C.,10) and this must also be the date of
the large ostracon No. 365 published now by Lemaire. The
beginnings of the abecedaries written much later by another
hand on the free upper and lower edges of the potsherd wit-
ness the reuse of a discarded ostracon.11) And even higher
date is suggested by the jar inscription No. 345, l-rmqws,
which could go back on palaeographic grounds to the late 6th
century B.C. If the Phoenician inscription previously pub-
lished by Lemaire with the ostraca from Idumaea12) really
belongs to the same assemblage,13) the date formula “in
(year) 35 of the king”, without specifying his name, can
hardly refer to Azzimilk, king of Tyre. It could indicate year
35 of Artaxerxes II, i.e. 370 B.C., in the aftermath of the
unsuccessful Persian attempts at invading Egypt, when the
Persian troops were forced to withdraw. The palaeography of
the inscription does not seem to challenge such a higher date.
The earliest dated Aramaic documents are from the 43rd
regnal year of Artaxerxes II, i.e. 362 B.C.14) This date coin-
cides with the preparation of an Egyptian invasion of Pales-
tine. Tachos (363/2-362/1 B.C.), son of Nectanebo I, planned
to reconquer Palestine by force, taking advantage of a rebel-
lion among the satraps of Asia Minor. In 361 B.C., with
Chabrias of Athens commanding the fleet and Agesilaos of
4
) I. Eph‘al — J. Naveh, Aramaic Ostraca of the Fourth Century BC
from Idumaea, Jerusalem 1996.
5
) H. Lozachmeur — A. Lemaire, “Nouveaux ostraca araméennes
d'Idumée (Collection Sh. Moussaïeff)”, in Semitica 46 (1996), pp. 123-142,
pls. 11-14; S. AÌituv, “An Edomite Ostracon”, in Y. Avishur — R.
Deutsch (eds.), Michael. Historical, Epigraphical and Biblical Studies in
Honor of Prof. M. Heltzer, Tel Aviv-Jaffa 1999, pp. 33-37; A. Lemaire,
“Quatre nouveaux ostraca araméennes d'Idumée”, in Transeuphratène 18
(1999), pp. 71-74, pls. XIV-XV.
6
) Specimens of these ostraca are presented by B. Porten and A Yardeni,
“In Preparation of a Corpus of Aramaic Ostraca from the Land of Israel.
The House of Yehokal”, in R. Deutsch (ed.), Shlomo. Studies in Epigra-
phy, Iconography, History and Archaeology in Honor of Shlomo Moussaieff,
Tel Aviv-Jaffa 2003, pp. 207-223.
7
) A survey of the presently known ostraca is given ibid., pp. 207-209.
8
) Grid ref. 1464/1044. This is confirmed by a dealer who reported that
an ostracon certainly belonging to the same group and acquired on March
3, 1997, came from Khirbet el-Qom: B. Porten — A. Yardeni, art. cit. (n.
6), p. 215.
9
) D.A. Dorsey, “The Location of Biblical Maqqedah”, in Tel Aviv 7
(1980), pp. 185-193.
10
) I. Eph‘al — J. Naveh, op. cit. (n. 4), Nos. 200 and 201.
11
) Contrary to the opinion of A. Lemaire, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 182.
12
) A. Lemaire, op. cit. (n. 3), No. 203.
13
) This was contested by I. Eph‘al, rev. in IEJ 47 (1997), p. 291.
14
) A. Lemaire, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 199.
190
Sparta in charge of the Greek mercenaries, the pharaoh
invaded Palestine, but Tachos' nephew, Nectanebo II, seized
the crown of Egypt behind Tachos' back, putting a swift end
to the Palestinian campaign.15) Although a few earlier ostraca
indicate that Khirbet el-Qom was an administrative centre of
the Early Achaemenid period, the expected Egyptian invasion
must have led to a greater concentration of Persian forces in
southern Palestine in 362 B.C. or the year before. In the light
of Tachos' campaign in Palestine, the development of this cen-
tre from 362 B.C. onwards does not favour the hypothesis of
a purely administrative reorganisation of the region. As the
majority of the documents so far published record deliveries
of agricultural products, not sales, we probably deal here with
a mainly military administration. The suppliers are often affil-
iated with a household (“sons of”, “house of”), while the
receiver, when mentioned, does not appear as a payer. He
seems to be a warehouse-keeper, possibly a collector of taxes.
The first chapter of Lemaire's new publication, “The Cat-
alogue” (pp. 11-195), contains the transliteration and trans-
lation of the documents, as well as a short discussion of their
contents and of the proper names. The arrangement of the
ostraca follows a chronological order according to years
(Nos. 1-101), months, when the year is not indicated (Nos.
102-145), days, when no year and month dates are given
(Nos. 146-153). Ostraca with personal names alone form the
next group (Nos. 154-164), followed by those mentioning
also commodities (Nos. 165-257). Special sections group ter-
rain documents (Nos. 258-283), miscellaneous and incom-
plete inscriptions (Nos. 284-335), inscriptions on jars (Nos.
336-364), writing exercises (Nos. 365-377), illegible (Nos.
378-384), palaeo-Hebrew (Nos. 385-390), and some other
inscriptions (Nos. 391-403).
All the documents — except No. 245 — are illustrated by
photographs (pls. I-LXIX), the majority of which are at least
partly in a relatively good state of legibility. No photograph of
No. 245 is reproduced and No. 245 of pl. XLI is an ostracon,
which does not appear in the catalogue. It was published as
No. 49 by I. Eph‘al and J. Naveh. Besides, No. 2 of pl. II cor-
responds to No. 3 of the catalogue, while No. 3 should be cor-
rected there into No. 2. There is a confusion in the description
of Nos. 327 and 337. The inscription of upper No. 327 on pl.
LV can possibly be read hby, but the photograph is not clear,
why lower No. 327 of pl. LV can certainly be read qws; this
ostracon is described as No. 337 in the catalogue. Some ostraca
(Nos. 59, 83, 89, 112, 142, 160, 227, 237, 246, 255, 287) have
been published previously by I. Eph‘al and J. Naveh.16)
The second chapter of Lemaire's book, “General Inter-
pretation” (pp. 197-233), deals with the provenance of the
documents, their date, the vocabulary, the spelling, the proper
names, the economy, the administration, and the political his-
tory of the period. A list of abbreviations is followed by a
concordance and a very useful index (pp. 243-285), which
also contains the words and names appearing on other pub-
lished ostraca from the same site.
The use of italics in the transliteration is misleading,
because it indicates either the Author's doubt in the inter-
pretation of some cursive letters or the obliteration of the
15
) E. Bresciani, “The Persian Occupation of Egypt”, in I. Gershevitch
(ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran II, The Median and Achaemenian
Periods, Cambridge 1985, p. 502-528 (see p. 524-525).
16
) I. Eph‘al — J. Naveh, op. cit. (n. 4), Nos. 70, 106, 111, 155, 157,
158, 160-161, 162, 170, 183, 184.
191 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXI N° 1-2, januari-april 2004
signs, barely visible on the photographs. For instance,
QWSRM in No. 4, 1 and P‘LYN in No. 114, 2 signify that
the readings rm, ‘ and y are uncertain because of the cursive
character of the letters. But Lemaire does not seem to hesi-
tate in reading “Qôsram” and translating “ouvriers”. A
palaeographic table of the letters would be helpful in such
cases, but it is wanting in the volume and one can just hope
that somebody will achieve the work by providing it, the
more so because several scribal hands can be distinguished
on the ostraca. Such a table would have also prevented some
misreadings, like sny for wny (No. 244, 1), a proper name
attested on other ostraca (cf. p. 268) and in North Arabian
inscriptions,17) or kbs’ for wbs’ (No. 260, 5'), occurring in
∑afaitic as well.18) Three ostraca19) written on the same day,
possibly by the same scribe, give an idea of the problems
involved by the publication of the ostraca. The best preserved
one is No. 52, that reads:
b 3+2 l-sywn snt 3+3+1 hyty “On the 5th of Siwan, year 7,
brought
smtw mn ‘bwr rmt’ ‘l yd Sametu from the grain of the
heights, by the hand of
’gr’ l-mÌwz’ a hired man, to the town,
Ì s 10+3+3 q 3+2 w(heat): 16 s(eah), 5 q(ab)”
Sametu, whose name can be safely vocalized in the light
of Sameqov,20) was already active in 361 B.C. (No. 6). Year
7 must refer therefore to the reign of Artaxerxes III, dating
the three ostraca in question to the 8th of June 352 B.C. The
alternative dates in the reigns of Alexander the Great or Philip
Arrhidaeus, proposed by Lemaire, can thus be discarded. The
same conclusion applies to other documents from the
‘archive' of Sametu, including Nos. 6, 52, 54, 59, 100, 179,
180, 186, 196, 205, 207, 229, 310, as well as four other
texts.21) Since one of the three ostraca concerned belongs to
the ‘archive' of Na‘um,22) the latter can be dated to the reign
of Artaxerxes III as well. The town (maÌoza’) mentioned in
line 3 is Maqqedah, for Sametu is said explicitly to be “from
Maqqedah”: smtw mn mnqdh (No. 6, 2). The second ostra-
con (No. 53), only partly preserved, can be restored in the
light of No. 52. The third one was published by I. Eph‘al and
J. Naveh:23)
b 3+2 l-sywn snt 3+3+1 “On the 5th of Siwan, year 7,
hyty n‘wm mn rmt’ ‘l yd Na‘um brought from the heights, by
the hand of
’gr’ l-m[Ìw]z’ Ì s 10+3+3 a hired man, to the town, w(heat):
16 s(eah)”.
The noun ’agir, borrowed from Arabic, is probably no
proper name.
Grgr is a noun occurring at least eighteen times on the
ostraca so far published.24) It is generally used in the plural
17
) G. Lankaster Harding, An Index and Concordance of Pre-Islamic
Arabian Names and Inscriptions (Near and Middle East Series 8), Toronto
1971, p. 651, s.v. WNJ.
18
) Ibid., p. 633.
19
) Nos. 52, 53; I. Eph‘al — J. Naveh, op. cit. (n. 4), No. 90.
20
) H. Wuthnow, Die semitischen Menschennamen in griechischen
Inschriften und Papyri des Vorderen Orients, Leipzig 1930, p. 104, 173.
21
) A. Lemaire, op. cit. (n. 3), Nos. 33, 2; 93, 2; I. Eph‘al — J. Naveh,
op. cit. (n. 4), No. 141, 2 (?); A. Lemaire, art. cit. (n. 5), No. 3, 2.
22
) I. Eph‘al — J. Naveh, op. cit. (n. 4), No. 90, 2; cf. ibid., Nos. 80, 2;
121, 1; 129, 1; A. Lemaire, op. cit. (n. 1), No. 26, 2.
23
) I. Eph‘al — J. Naveh, op. cit. (n. 4), No. 90.
24
) References in A. Lemaire, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 247. Add: B. Porten —
A. Yardeni, art. cit. (n. 6), p. 222, No. 15.
192
and followed by a numeral, never by a measure or the name
of a container, like basket, jar, sac. Therefore it can hardly
designate a ripe olive25) or a rocket (Eruva sativa),26) an
annual used as a salad. In fact, grgr has the appearance of an
onomatopoeic word, like qarqar, “to quack”, and can be
compared with Arabic girgir, “guinea-fowl”, the picture of
which appears in Egypt as a hieroglyph.27) We do not know
when this African gallinaceous bird (Numida meleagris) was
first introduced in southern Palestine, but osteological dif-
ferences between gallinaceous specimens found at Ascalon
in Late Persian and Hellenistic levels indicate that several
poultry breeds were kept there in the 4th century B.C.
The word kpt, appearing in a few texts, cannot mean “gar-
den”28) or “rock-work”.29) Like Late Babylonian kupputtu,30)
it is a measure of capacity of seeds needed for sowing a
ground and corresponds practically to our concept of square
measure or superficies. A translation “yard” seems to fit the
use of this term quite well. We thus find a “yard of AÒila”31)
(No. 258, 8), a “yard of Qossakar” (No. 258, 10), a “yard of
Halapta” (No. 260, 3'), “a quarter of the yard of Hazael”32)
a “yard of Ramaka”.33) The precise seed capacity is indicated
in each case. In addition, there are some very doubtful attes-
tations of the word in question. These ostraca are registra-
tions of fields and orchards.
Lemaire attributes a particular importance to No. 283, in
which a temple of the Arabian goddess ‘Uzza and a temple
of Yahwe are mentioned (pp. 149-156). However, although
the ostracon is complete, Lemaire's translation makes little
sense. The inscription lists three judicial cases concerning
property rights, specifies which sites were involved, and
broadly indicates the solutions which were reached. It is a
brief pro memoria note, by no means an official document
of the court.
The sites involved are a mound, apparently ruined as
implied by the word tl’, and the stonework of the temple of
Yahwe, probably reduced to rubbles as suggested by the term
Ìybl’, which means “ruin” in Jewish Aramaic.34) This is a
particular connotation of Sabaic Ìbl, “course of stones”, and
Ìblt, “terraced field”, “terraced vineyard”35). A terraced
ground, field or vineyard, is indicated further by rpyd’, which
occurs on several ostraca from Idumaea and should be com-
pared with Sabaic rfd, “supporting wall”, “buttress”36).
There is finally rqq, appearing on another ostracon from Idu-
maea, on two papyri from NaÌal Îever,37) and in Syriac
25
) A. Lemaire, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 77.
26
) M. Sokoloff, rev. in IEJ 47 (1997), p. 284.
27
) A. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, 3rd ed., London 1957, p. 469, G21.
28
29
) I. Eph‘al — J. Naveh, op. cit. (n. 4), p. 84, note to No. 185.
) A. Lemaire, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 164-164, etc., without explanation.
30
) AHw I, p. 509a; CAD, K, p. 552a: “one-seah vessel”.
31
) The name ‘Òl’ may correspond to North-Arabian ‘∂l(h): G. Lankaster
Harding, op. cit. (n. 17), p. 424.
32
) I. Eph‘al — J. Naveh, op. cit. (n. 4), No. 189, 4.
33
) Ibid., No. 193, 2.
34
) M. Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and
Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature I, New York 1883, p. 451a, s.v.
Ìibbula’; M. Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the
Byzantine Period, Ramat-Gan 1990, p. 185.
35
) A.F.L. Beeston — M.A. Ghul — W.W. Müller — J. Ryckmans,
Sabaic Dictionary (English-French-Arabic), Louvain-la-Neuve — Beyrouth
1982, p. 65.
36
) Ibid., p. 115.
37
) Y. Yadin — J.C. Greenfield — A. Yardeni — B.A. Levine, The Doc-
uments from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Hebrew, Ara-
maic and Nabatean-Aramaic Papyri (Judean Desert Studies 3), Jerusalem
2002, p. 208, line 5; p. 238, line 27.
193 BOEKBESPREKINGEN — ARAMAICA
which uses it with the connotation “ford” (reqaqa). It is a
low water place, probably a pond. It depends here from the
Persian temple of the Fire-altar, as indicated by the noun kwr.
The latter usually designates a furnace, but its sacral conno-
tation is attested in Sabaic, where it probably means “fire-
altar”38). The structure of Iranian Fire temples in a later
period is better understood at present thanks to the discovery
of a well preserved sanctuary by the Turkmen-Polish archae-
ological Mission at Mele Hairam, Turkestan.39) The presence
of a pond next to the temple of the Fire-altar might confirm
the opinion that the cult of water, of which Anahita was the
personification, was associated with that of fire.40)
The inscription consists of three sentences, the verbs of
which are zbd, “to donate”, frequent in proper names, and
kpr, “to give up”, “to renounce”. The three acting persons
are Zabbay, Gilgul, and Yinqom. Only the second name
appears twice as a patronymic on other ostraca from Idumaea,
but Zabbay is attested in Ezra 10, 28, at Palmyra,41) and
Maresha (Tell ∑andaÌanna).42) Wa†ina and Sa‘iru are not
recorded either on other ostraca, although both names occur
in North Arabian inscriptions.43) No. 283 can be read as fol-
lows:
tl’ zy tÌt mn byt ‘z’ “The mound, which is beneath the House
of ‘Uzza,
wÌybl zy byt yhw and the stonework of the House of Yahwe,
zbd zby rpyd’ zy w†n’ Zabbay has donated. The terraced ground
of Wa†ina
byd s‘rw kpr glgwl in usufruct of Sa‘iru, Gilgul has given up
(claiming).
rqq zy byt kwr The pond of the House of the Fire-altar,
kpr ynqm Yinqom has given up (claiming)”.
Although no Persian name occurs here in connection with
the temple of the Fire-altar, which clearly points to the Late
Achaemenid period when a temple cult of fire was evolved,
a Persian official appears on another ostracon, in No. 324.
We can read there bgbz br gbrw, “Bagabazu, son of
Gaubaruwa”. The first name is attested in Greek as Megába-
hov, while the patronymic is spelt Gwbrw in Aramaic,44) Gu-
ba-ru-’ in Babylonian, and Gwbrújv in Greek,45) with the
contraction au > o, like in Idumaea. The Iranian name
Ramaka, attested at Persepolis and in Sogdian,46) can be read
on one of the ostraca published by I. Eph‘al and J. Naveh.47)
Another Iranian name occurs in No. 255, 5': M†rn,
“Mitrana”,48) attested already on another ostracon.49) It fol-
lows the well-known Babylonian name smsdn, “Shamash-
iddin”. The mention of these two men in No. 255 suggests
38
) A.F.L. Beeston, Sabaean Inscriptions, Oxford 1937, p. 37, translates
kwr in CIS IV, 338 (= Glaser 1209) by “fire-altar”, referring to Hebrew
kur and kir, especially in Lev. 11, 35 and Zech. 12, 6. A.F.L. Beeston —
M.A. Ghul — W.W. Müller — J. Ryckmans, op. cit. (n. 35), p. 80, pro-
pose a less specific translation: “high-place”.
39
) B. Kaim, Un temple du feu sassanide découvert à Mele Hairam,
Turkménistan méridional, in Studia Iranica 31 (2002), p. 215-230.
40
) R. Ghirshman, Iran (Penguin Books), Harmondsworth 1954, p. 315.
41
) CIS II, 3946, 3; 3947, 3, and line 4 of the Greek text.
42
) E.D. Oren — U. Rappaport, “The Necropolis of Maresha — Beth
Govrin”, in IEJ 34 (1984), p. 114-153, pls. 10-18 (see p. 142, No. 3).
43
) G. Lankaster Harding, op. cit. (n. 17), p. 644, s.v. W™N; p. 320, s.v.
S‘R, and pp. 351-352, s.v. S‘R (etymological s‘r).
44
) TAD, C2.1, 76; OIP 91, No. 69, 1,
45
) M. Mayrhofer, Onomastica Persepolitana, Wien 1973, §8.713.
46
) Ibid., §8.1395, §11. 1.8.5.4.
47
) I. Eph‘al — J. Naveh, op. cit. (n. 4), No. 193, 2.
48
) M. Mayrhofer, op. cit. (n. 45), §11.1.8.3.2.
49
) A. Lemaire, op. cit. (n. 3), No. 78, 3.
194
relating another name of this list to cuneiform parallels. Thus
’Ìmh (line 3') seems to be the alphabetic spelling of AÌ-
imme, “His mother's brother”.50) It is a variant of ’Ìymh (No.
348) and of ’Ì’mh.
Given the large number of uncertain readings, question-
able translations, and the lack of an attempt at ordering the
ostraca according to particular ‘archives', the book under dis-
cussion should be used with caution, always comparing the
translations with the photographs. Nonetheless, we should
stress A. Lemaire's courage and skill in publishing these short
but important and difficult texts, that again show how defi-
cient is our knowledge of the early Aramaic vocabulary and
of the history of Palestine in the Persian period.
Brussels, September 2003 Edward LIPINSKI
* *
*
SOKOLOFF, Michael and Joseph YAHALOM — Jewish
Palestinian Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity, Israel
Academy of Sciences, Jerusalem, 1999 (24 cm, VI, 384).
ISBN 965-208-143-4.
Amongst the fragments of the Cairo Genizah there are
poetic texts that have been preserved, in which the common
feature is the use of Palestinian Aramaic. These anonymous
texts may for a large part be considered as part of religious
literature as they comprise a remarkable collection of hymns,
probably all composed with the intention of being recited
publicly at the annual Jewish festivals or personal occasions,
such as the eulogies for weddings and the laments for funer-
als. The poems are undoubtedly very appropriate for the
study of Aramaic dialectology, and they certainly come from
a different sphere which was closer to the daily vernacular
than the literary language of official prayer and reading. In
fact, it is an authentic form of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic
without the distortions of later copyists, as can be observed
in the Jerusalem Talmud or the prayer books following the
Palestinian ritual.
The seventy surviving Aramaic hymns gathered in the pre-
sent study (announced a few years earlier by Joseph Yahalom
in his English article “Angels Do Not Understand Aramaic:
On the Literary Use of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic in Late
Antiquity”, Journal of Jewish Studies 47, no. 1, 1996, pp. 33-
44) display certain influences of the greater field of Aramaic
and Hebrew literary tradition in the sphere of composition.
Some of these characteristics are shared with contemporary
Syriac hymnology and Hebrew liturgical poetry or Piyyut. A
limited number of traditional forms and conventional rules,
such as alphabetical sequences, rhythmic patterns and
strophic partition, are generally employed. However, in man-
ner these hymns are less sophisticated, partly as a result of
the direct and smooth presentation of religious subject-mat-
ter.
The Palestinian Aramaic language and idiom in which
these poems have been composed deserves additional analy-
sis, as it represents a meeting place between Aramaic and
Greek by which glimpses can be gained into the vernacular
of those days. As the language of this type of Aramaic poetry
50
) PNA I/1 pp. 65-66.
195 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXI N° 1-2, januari-april 2004 196

it represents a fully developed Palestinian Aramaic idiom and to have a thorough grasp of the subtleties of the Hebrew
a poetic skill which has no direct parallel in Aramaic litera- translations in relation to the Aramaic original and the anno-
ture, and it unavoidably postulates an early existence of Ara- tations of the editors, it would have been preferable to have
maic colloquial and writing in Palestine and a longer period all the poems faithfully translated into English. Nevertheless,
of flourishing which ends in the age of Islam. In an article the present volume is a most important contribution to the
published in 1975 on Some Aspects of Greek Words in Syr- investigation of Aramaic language and literature and to the
iac, Sebastian Brock expressed his regret that as far as the reconstruction of religio-cultural history of Byzantine Jewry
study of Greek words in Aramaic is concerned, there were before the Arab conquest.
practically no texts in Jewish Aramaic available that exhibit
Greek words. Thus far the Greek vocabulary found in the var- December 2003 Wout Jac. VAN BEKKUM
ious Targums and rabbinic writings appear to have been
treated no differently from the native Semitic. The occasional
occurrence of Greek expressions in these poems represents
proportionally a considerable increase and proves that the
borrowing was to a large extent taking place on a popular
level. Some of the loanwords from Greek are found in rab-
binic sources such as Nimos for the Law of Moses or Qiris
(Kurios) for God; others are rare or unique and only occur
in this collection. For instance, God is addressed as Pitron
(Patron — ‘shield’, ‘protector’) or Tironah (Tirannos —
‘ruler’); the angels are called angeli (angeloi) or tironi
(tironoi) and heaven is called ouranos. Many other more
casual examples occur, such as iskotos (skutos — ‘leather
whip’), anatoli (anatole — ‘east’) and the like. In one of the
qilusim or ‘praise songs’ for the wedding (no. 44*, lines 34-
35) the following verse is written: proteron tehewey u-phron-
imos / be-chakimey kozmos // be-ta‘aney qolmos / u[v]e-
yalphey nomos: ‘You will be prominent (proteros — ‘first’)
and sensible / among the wise men of the world (kosmos), //
among the scribes (‘the bearers of the pen’ — kalamos), and
the scholars of the Torah’. The Greek expressions form a
fairly well defined category of their own and did not quite
naturalize in this Aramaic dialect (see also Michael
Sokoloff’s index in his Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Ara-
maic, Ramat Gan 1990, Index of Aramaic Poems, pp. 811-
814).
These hymns circulated in all probability among the com-
mon Jewish people of Palestine who wished to express their
spiritual sentiments within the cultural context of a Byzan-
tine Jewish community somewhat outside the official ranks
of the highly educated scholars and rabbis. We can thus see
that the composers have produced much in their hymns that
is lively and arresting. They cultivated different types of
poetry, even though they relied heavily on Scripture and
midrashic sources. In many laments reference is made to a
large number of persons in the Old Testament who could not
withstand the angel of death: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Joseph, Judah, Moses, Aaron, David, and Solomon. In
one of the elegies for a deceased woman a long list of female
biblical personalities is offered with the implicit intention to
ask a comforting question: who could ever escape death
when even they could not? A special literary form is the dia-
logue poem, particularly represented in this study by a debate
between body and soul (a topic much favoured in Syriac
poetry) and a dispute of the months in one of the qiddushin,
the ‘blessings’ of the first day of the months. Other poems
are parodies on the occasion of the Purim festival, such as
the ironical lament of Zeresh, the wife of Haman, who
deplores the loss of her husband and sons, and the audacious
comparison of the hanging or crucifixion of Haman with that
of Christ.
Since only a limited number of scholars outside Israel have
a level of competence in modern Hebrew that enables them