The Jewish Library in Late Antiquity
JLib
The Jewish Library in Late Antiquity (JLib):
Forgotten Texts and Non-Rabbinic Jews
"If we could go back in time, and visit Caesarea, or Tiberias,
or Pumbeditha, any time between the second and the seventh century CE, and ask the local Jews what texts they are reading,
or hearing, and how these texts shape or influence their worldview and their daily behavior – what would they tell us? This is a question that I have always asked myself, a question to which the current scholarly literature provides only a partial answer.
Every student of ancient Judaism knows that this is the period when some Jews composed and transmitted what eventually became rabbinic literature, as well as the Aramaic translations
of the Bible and numerous liturgical texts.
But is this all the literature that was composed and transmitted by Jews in late antiquity?
My own answer is an emphatic No,
and the ultimate aim of JLib is to reconstruct many hitherto neglected Jewish texts of late antiquity, and to incorporate
them into a novel reconstruction of late antique Judaism"
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Prof. Gideon Bohak
Our Mission
Our mission is to identify, edit, translate, and analyze a varied body
of Jewish texts from late antiquity that were not a part of rabbinic literature, and most of which have not received any scholarly attention in the past.
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Some of these texts are found on textual artifacts from late antiquity – such as Jewish amulets and incantation bowls – but many others are found among the Cairo Genizah fragments and in medieval and even modern Jewish manuscripts.
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More specifically, we seek to:
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* Identify and edit many new texts of different genres
(divination, polemics, magic, non-canonical prayers, proverbs and maxims, medical texts, etc.).
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* Highlight the similarities and points of contact between Jewish and non-Jewish texts across many languages (Akkadian, Demotic Egyptian, Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Mandaic, etc.).
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* Analyze the relations between rabbinic and non-rabbinic Jewish
texts in late antiquity, especially those texts that attest to non-rabbinic beliefs and practices (such as angel veneration, astrological determinism, animal sacrifice, etc.).
* Study the transmission of non-rabbinic texts in medieval and modern manuscripts.
