Ionic conductivity of the anion exchange membranes

The Jewish military garrison at Elephantine suffered under the hate of the Egyptian priests of Khnum. TAD A4.3 (late 5th cen-tury) states, ‘To you it is known that Khnum is against us since Hananiah has been in Egypt until now.’ This Hananiah was prob-ably the sender of the so-called Passover letter TAD 4.1, dated in 419 bce. Since this letter is a reply to an earlier letter from Elephantine asking for precise instructions on how to observe the Passover/Mas.s.ot rites, it is likely that Hananiah had visited Egypt before 419. Another conflict with the priests of Khnum is documented by A4.5 (p. 62, dated 410 bce or slightly later). It is a draft petition intended for Vridanga’s superior(s) asking for the demolition of a wall which had been built in the middle of the fort, apparently at the instigation of the priests of Khnum, and which had stopped up a well which would have served the garrison in case of a siege. TAD A4.7 (pp. 68-71, dated 25 November 407 bce), is a first draft of a letter of recommendation to the Persian-named bgwhy ph. t yhwdh, ‘Bagavahya, governor of Judah’, from Jedaniah and his colleagues, the priests.⁵⁷ The Egyptian priests of the god Khnum had bribed the interim Persian commander Vidranga to order the temple of Yhw to be removed from Ele-phantine. This was contrary to an earlier agreement with the

Persian name appears to have a Semitic father called Eli (No. 10), but the latter may just as well be a non-Jewish Semite.

55For other indications that most inhabitants of Yehud remained loyal Yahwists, see Trotter, Reading Hosea in Achaemenid Yehud, 145-149, with bibliography.

56Vanderhooft, ‘New Evidence’, 231.

57TAD A4.8 (pp. 74-5) is a second, almost identical draft of this petition, dated the same day.

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Persians, because Cambyses had allowed the Jews of Elephant-ine to keep their temple and continue the worship of their God Yhw.⁵⁸ Nevertheless, the Egyptians now destroyed the Jewish temple on Vidranga’s orders. The whole episode reminds one of the hatred Diaspora Jews sometimes encountered from certain Persian officials, according to the Book of Esther.

The destruction of their sanctuary caused the Jews at Ele-phantine deep sorrow. For three years on end they tried to move their God by prayer, mourning and fasting. They stopped of-fering the meal-offerings, incense and holocaust. All in vain. A request for help sent to Jehohanan the High Priest in Jerusalem and other religious and political authorities in Yehud remained unanswered. This too must have been a bitter disappointment to the Jews of Elephantine. We can only guess at the reason for the silence of the Jerusalemites, but it may well be that the rebuild-ing of the temple in Jerusalem that had started some 12-15 years earlier (Hag. 1) made it difficult for them actively to support a request to rebuild a Yahwistic temple outside Jerusalem.⁵⁹

The letter seeking help for the restoration from Bagavahya, the governor of Judah, would also be sent to the sons of San-ballat the governor of Samaria. We do not know whether the latter reacted but, according to TAD A4.9 (p. 76), Bagavahya reacted positively, instructing the Jews at Elephantine to inform the Egyptians that the temple had to be rebuilt and that offering could be resumed, albeit it is hardly accidental that he mentions only meal offerings and incense. Presumably animal victims were

58This argument cannot have been invented pour besoin de la cause, be-cause in that case it would have backfired. Both Jews and Persians must have been convinced that Cambyses had allowed them to build their temple, although it is unlikely that this was sanctioned by an official decree. Cf. I.

Kottsieper, ‘Die Religionspolitik der Ach¨ameniden und die Juden von Ele-phantine’, in: R.G. Kratz (ed.), Religion und Religionskontakte im Zeitalter der Ach¨ameniden (VWTG, 22), G¨utersloh 2002, 150-78 (160, 168). Also Bri-ant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 55, considers this information reliable, despite Cambyses’s destruction of other temples in Egypt.

59Cf. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 586. Modrzejewski, The Jews of Egypt, 42, has a different explanation: ‘For the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, the sack of the Elephantine temple could be readily interpreted as a form of divine justice, a fit punishment for their dissident coreligionists. It was hardly surprising that the pressing letters from Elephantine went unanswered.’ The weakness of this idea is that it does not take into account that earlier (419 bce) Jerusalem did answer a request from Elephantine.

henceforth forbidden, perhaps in order not to irk the priest of the theriomorphic god Khnum⁶⁰, or to please the Persians who were not in favour of bloody sacrifices,⁶¹or by way of compromise with the Judahite priesthood which claimed exclusive sacrificial rights for the temple in Jerusalem (cf. Deut. 12:11, 13-14). Did Bagavahya’s influence really extend as far as Egypt? We do not know. In any case, TAD A4.10 (p. 78) is a declaration by several Jews at Elephantine that they were willing to pay for the res-toration. However, apparently no contributions from Jerusalem or Samaria came forward, or they would, no doubt, have been recorded in this document.⁶²

The Aramaic documents cited thus far may create the impres-sion that the Jews at Elephantine were zealous followers of Yhw, but, in reality, at least some of them appear to have retained or adopted a mild form of syncretism.⁶³A Jewish man called Hosea wishes that ’lhy’ kl, ‘all the gods’, will seek the welfare of a lady Shalwah (letter dated in the last quarter of the 5th century, TAD A3.7, p. 40). A certain Shewa son of Zechariah wishes that ‘all the gods’ will seek the welfare of his lord Islah. (letter dated 399 bce, TAD A3.9, p. 46). Similar cases are TAD A4.2, p. 56 and A4.4, p. 60. A4.3 (dated late 5th century bce) seems to prove that the sender, Mauziah son of Nathan, equated yhw lh , ‘Yhw the God’, with lh ˇsmy , ‘the God of Heaven’, who had helped him in a conflict with the Persian commander Vidranga and the Egyptian officer H. ornufi.⁶⁴One document from Elephantine even points to an assimilation of Yhh = Yhw to the Egyptian god Khnum, the very deity whose priests brought about the destruc-tion of Yhw’s temple (TAD D7.21, p. 172, first quarter of the 5th century): ‘I bless you by Yhh and Khnum’. The speaker is a

60So B.E.J.H. Becking, ‘Joods syncretisme in Elefantine?’, NedThT 56 (2002), 216-32 (223).

61So Albertz, ‘The Thwarted Restoration’, 15, n. 58; Kottsieper, ‘Die Re-ligionspolitik der Ach¨ameniden, 172-5.

62Despite Isa. 19:19-22, which testifies to a different, possibly later, attitude towards Jewish sanctuaries in Egypt. Cf. J. Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AncB, 19), New York 2000, 318-9.

63With Becking, ‘Joods syncretisme in Elefantine?’, 216-32. See also E.A.

Knauf, ‘Elephantine und das vor-biblisch Judentum’, in: Kratz (ed.), Religion und Religionskontakte im Zeitalter der Ach¨ameniden, 179-88.

64See also TAD A4.7 (pp. 68-71), where Yhw is called dwn hˇsmym, ‘the Lord of Heaven’.

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certain Gdl, possibly a hypocoristic for Gedaliah. In TAD D7.30, p. 178 (first quarter of the 5th century) a certain Yarh.u wishes his brother well in the name of four Babylonian gods. It is not certain, however, that this man was a Jew. In 440 bce the un-doubtedly Jewish woman Mibtahiah swore an oath by the Egyp-tian goddess Sati to satisfy her EgypEgyp-tian opponent in a lawsuit (TAD B2.8).⁶⁵Her choice of a female deity may well have had to do with a certain longing for a goddess as a cultic ‘Gegen¨uber’

in her litigation with a man. According to TAD B7.3 (pp. 146-7, late 5th century), a Jewish man called Menah.em took an oath by the deities H. erem and Anath-Yhw.⁶⁶

A long list of Jewish persons who spent money for the temple of Yhw, dated 1 June 401, surprisingly ends with the dry ob-servation that only 126 shekels went to Yhw, but 70 shekels to Eshembethel and 120 shekels to Anathbethel (TAD C3.15, pp.

226-34). The latter deity is also known as a Phoenician god-dess.⁶⁷ This summation is not in accordance with the heading of the list, which names Yhw as the sole intended recipient. It seems likely that the organisers of the collection deliberately kept the true destination of the money from the spenders. It is pos-sible that the lines mentioning the true destination of the silver were appended to the document only later on.⁶⁸This would seem the most logical conclusion since the summation was written on a fresh page, and only afterwards were some late benefactors added below it.

Why would they do that? If polytheism was their normal re-ligion, why not mention Eshembethel and Anathbethel in the heading too? In my opinion the Jewish community at Elephant-ine was in a period of spiritual transition. On the one hand they felt compelled to follow the strict monotheistic guidelines they re-ceived from Jerusalem. The so-called ‘Passover letter’ TAD A4.1 (p. 54, dated 419 bce) shows remarkable conformity with the rules laid down in the Priestly Code for Passover and the Fest-ival of Unleavened Bread (Lev. 23:5-8), but at the same time

65Note the disbelief expressed by B. Porten, The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of Cultural Continuity and Change, Leiden 1996, 189, n. 14.

66Cf. Porten, The Elephantine Papyri in English, 266, n. 7.

67Cf. Becking, ‘Joods syncretisme in Elefantine?’, 227-30.

68The lines in question have been written between two horizontal lines. See TAD III, foldout No. 32, Col. 7.

indicates that earlier the Jewish priests in Elephantine had been uncertain about the date and correct celebration of these fest-ivals. Also, according to TAD D7.6 (p. 158, first quarter of the 5th century), there was uncertainty among the Jews at Elephant-ine about the time when the Passover rites should be observed.

The sabbath too was observed at Elephantine (TAD D7.10, p.

162; D7.16, pp. 168-9). The threats a man has to utter to urge his wife to violate the sabbath would seem to indicate that it was already supposed to be kept rigorously, but that this command-ment could be transgressed for purely economic reasons.

All this points on the one hand to a tendency to conform to the strict rules dictated by the Jerusalemite priesthood. The emphasis on monolatry or monotheism may well have been the reason why the Jews at Elephantine came into conflict with the priests of Khnum.⁶⁹ This is one side of the coin. On the other hand, other Jews at Elephantine apparently did not see much harm in polytheism and secretly transferred most of the money collected for the temple of Yhw to other deities. However, they did not dare to collect money openly for a polytheistic purpose.

What this means is that they were torn between two incompatible belief systems.

Bezalel Porten dates the founding of the Jewish temple in Ele-phantine around 650 bce, assuming that priests fled Jerusalem because Manasseh had defiled the temple on Zion with a cult im-age of Asherah.⁷⁰ If this is true, the original community at Ele-phantine must have been fairly monolatric or even monotheistic.

However, evidently their polytheistic surroundings in Egypt, the inexplicable destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and the lack

69Compare once again TAD A4.3 (late 5th century) stating, ‘To you it is known that Khnum is against us since Hananiah has been in Egypt until now.’ This Hananiah had been trying to enforce strict observance of the Priestly Code in Elephantine.

70B. Porten, ‘Settlement of Jews at Elephantine and Arameans at Syene’, in: Lipschits, Blenkinsopp (eds), Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, 451-70. On the historical reliability of the essential parts of 2 Kgs 21:1-18, see P.S.F. van Keulen, The Manasseh Account (2 Kings 21:1-18) and the Final Chapters of the Deuteronomistic History (OTS, 38), Leiden 1996, 207-12.

Another possibility has been suggested on the basis of Greek sources. The Jewish garrison would have been established under Psammetichus II (595-589 bce), i.e. after Josiah’s reform. Cf. Modrzejewski, The Jews of Egypt, 23-6. For my argument above this would make little difference.

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of support from Jerusalem when they themselves were confron-ted with the destruction of their own temple must have led to serious doubt as to the viability of a continued concentration on the worship of Yhw alone. It seemed much more reasonable to assimilate slowly to their environment and accept the polytheism of the Egyptians and Arameans with whom they had to deal on a daily basis. The Papyrus Amherst 63, which is slightly younger than the Jewish documents from Elephantine, seems to indic-ate that soon afterwards at least some Jews in Egypt decided to adopt a syncretistic form of polytheism.⁷¹ The violation of the sabbath mentioned earlier and also the adaptation to Egyptian law with regard to a woman’s right to initiate a divorce,⁷²a right she did not have in ancient Israel,⁷³ point to an eroding sense of loyalty to traditional values.