During the fourth and fifth century BCE a small garrison of Jewish soldiers served on the Island of Elephantine (Yeb in Aramaic) near modern Aswan in Egypt. Several archives of papyri from this small community survive.
The first document is often called the "Passover Papyrus". A picture of this papyrus is on both the syllabus and the website. The fragmented state of the document make it quite difficult to read. All of the text in brackets is reconstructed. The original aramaic text is on the top of the page. It is followed by an English and Hebrew translation.
Does this document really mention "passover"? What seems to be the context behind its composition?
The second document (as it is quite long I spared you the Hebrew and Aramaic) is a letter from the Jewish garrison at Elephantine requestion permission (and/or funds?) to rebuild their temple. The last line (cut off on our copy) mentions that these Jews not only sent a letter to the high priest in Jerusalem, but also to the Samaritan leadership. The Judeans sent no reply.
Document three is an answer to the letter sent re: rebuilding the temple at Elephantine. It seems to be a memorandum of a conversation which took place between Bagoes, a representative of the Persian king, and Delaiah, son of the governor of Samaria.
Their reply granting permission conspicuously fails to address one of the major concerns spelled out by Elephantine Jews in their letter. Why might Bagoes and Delaiah been reticent to address this issue?
This coin dates from Persian Period Yehud. When it was first discovered, some scholars read the inscription as reading "Yaho," a shortened version of the divine epithet of the Israelite God. It is more likely that the coin simply reads "Yehud"-- the name of the Persian province. But the image on the coin appears to be a figure seated in a fashion generally reserved for deities in Persian iconography. Is this a picture of the Jewish God on a Persian era Jewish coin?
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The "Passover Papyrus", though it does not directly mention Passover or פסח in the actually preserved segments of the papyrus, does mention the dates that have come to be associated with the celebration of Passover/פסח. Furthermore, the transcriber here did conjecture that the text implied a celebration of the Pesach. Based on my own distance from the text, I'll have to hope that the transcriber/translator was correct in assuming that this Papyrus actually did refer directly enough to Passover. The context behind the composition is not particularly clear as the text does not mention much other than what is presumably related directly to Passover.
It is difficult for me to infer why Bagoes and Delaiah would have been reticent to address the missing issue. Possibilities appear to be endless here - as a portion of the story IS missing.
Regarding the image on the coin, the probability of the image being a Jewish deity is 1 out of 2; either, it is a Jewish deity, or it is not. As far as I can tell, the coin does not indicate anything that indubitably deifies or humanizes the icon.
Anyway, those are my two cents - with a non-deified Abraham Lincoln on each coin.
Why are some pieces of the texts italicized? I assume brackets indicate "translation" of parts of the text that we do not have.
Bagoes and Delaiah act logically by not addressing an internal dispute between coreligionists. Why should they get involved in an religious issue that is clearly volatile and does not concern them?
I, like Jonah, see no way to determine if the image on the coin is Jewish or not.
Loen- Are you talking about the italics in document #2?
We actually have two different drafts of this letter. I believe that I gave you the second draft to read. Luckily, some of the text that is missing in one of the drafts of the letter is preserved in the other draft. I think that the italics represent text that is taken from the other draft... but don't quote me on that.
The coin is clearly "Jewish," the question is whether or not the image on the coin is of the Jewish God.
I just looked at the passover papyrus there. I am pretty sure that the italics there represent text that is reconstructed based on a biblical verse- i.e. that the editor borrowed language from the verses describing the passover and the feast of unleavened bread as found in the Torah.
Simone says: the coin could very well represent the Jewish god, because at least in certain parts of the Torah, God is extremely anthromorphized (see Vayera). Although the Decalogue prohibits graven images, the concept may have been less rigid during the Persian period, due to outside influences. But, is there any evidence that suggests definitively it is HaShem? No.
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