—Kol Nidrei—

It is perhaps the most iconic parts of the Yom Kippur service, often moving congregants to tears.
The words themselves, however—in stilted Aramaic and which most people don’t understand—are quite banal.

So what is its secret?

🧵1/8 Kol Nidrei is a technical declaration annulling vows which a person might make over the coming year.

Halakhah takes vows very seriously, and urges people not to make vows in the first place.

It is legal-technical statement—it holds no deeper meaning.
2/8

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗝𝗲𝘄𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗟𝗮𝘄𝘀 𝗧𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆
—Part II—

In my previous post, I explained how the Jewish purity laws are, for all intents and purposes, no longer kept today.
Why did Jews cease to observe an entire section of Torah law?

A new 🧵
1/14

https://twitter.com/AdlerYonatan/status/1826292836519882826

As I wrote in my previous post, two primary archaeological phenomena are associated with purity observance beginning in the late 2nd century BCE:
(1) ritual immersion pools;
(2) tableware and storage vessels made from chalk (regarded as impervious to impurity).
2/14

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗝𝗲𝘄𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗟𝗮𝘄𝘀 𝗧𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆

There seems to be a lot of confusion out there about how the Jewish purity laws are observed today.

So I thought I'd post a short 🧵 on the topic.

Here goes...

1/15 The Pentateuch includes a large amount of laws relating to the laws of purity.
Most of these are concentrated in Lev 11–15 and Num 19, but there are laws scattered elsewhere.

These include a long list of things which cause impurity, along with…

2/15

Were the Biblical Authors “Elites”?

Were Biblical writers influential, elite members of the societies within which they lived and wrote? Did ordinary people living in their day know who these authors were, and would they have paid attention to what they had to say?
🧵1/6 In speaking of an author as a member of an “elite”, one would seem to imply that the writer wields a certain degree of influence upon the general society within which he or she lives and works.
Would ordinary Judeans or Israelites have known who the Biblical writers were…
2/6

על המונחים "קלף" "דוכסוסטוס" ו"גויל" בספרות התנאית לאור אנליזות מיקרוסקופיות וספקטרוסקופיות של תפילין, מזוזות ומגילות עתיקות ממדבר יהודה.

פורסם היום במחקרי יו"ש.

🧵1/5

academia.edu/121763123/On_t…
מאמר זה מציע פירושים חדשים לשלושה מונחים המופיעים בספרות התנאית בהקשר לסוגי העורות שעליהם כותבים תפילין, מזוזות וספרי תורה: "קלף", "דוכסוסטוס" ו"גויל".

בימי הביניים נפלה מחלוקת בקרב חכמי הראשונים בהבנת המונחים האלה, וגם בתקופה המודרנית נדרשו מלומדים לסוגיה זו...
2/5

Ever since I began translating Tractate Miqva’ot for the new Oxford Annotated Mishnah, I stopped using the term “miqveh”/”miqva’ot” when writing and speaking about the ancient stepped pools we unearth through archaeology.
I now think that this term is inaccurate.

A short🧵
1/8 In translating a text, one has to pay very, very careful attention to words.
And in translating the Mishnah’s “miqveh”, I came to appreciate that the word means “pooled water”.
That is, it always and everywhere is speaking about the water itself…
2/8

A Bar Kokhba era (132–135 CE) hiding complex has been found at Huqoq in Galilee.

The find adds to a growing body of evidence from northern sites relating to the Second Revolt which suggests that the rebellion extended beyond Judea, deep into Galilee.

1/10jpost.com/archaeology/ar… Unlike the First Revolt (66–73/74 CE), for which we have the writings of Flavius Josephus, the textual evidence for the Second Revolt is extraordinarily limited.
2/10

It's been a year since 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘑𝘶𝘥𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘮 was published.

Post Oct. 7, I’d like to discuss a topical matter that I left out of the book: how the hypothesis of a Persian-era emergence of Judaism is deeply indebted to various strains of antisemitism.
A🧵
1/16 The book’s subtitle is: “An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal”.
What’s “reappraised” is the long-standing scholarly hypothesis which locates the origins of Judaism in the postexilic Persian era. The idea dates to the 19th century and has since become virtually axiomatic.
2/16

THE IMPERIAL CULT MEETS JUDAISM

What are Jewish ritual immersion pools doing adjacent to the Augusteum (temple dedicated to the cult of #Augustus) at Samaria-Sebaste?

The 18-month embargo on this article is over today, so I’ve posted it here:
academia.edu/62122869/The_I…
A 🧵 1/10 Excavations conducted in the first half of the 20th century at Samaria-Sebaste uncovered an Augusteum, surrounded by additional Roman-era structures. In 1992, Dan Barag published a compelling hypothesis that these buildings were a royal compound belonging to Herod himself.
2/10

Can a deeply religious Christian or Jewish scholar engage in sound archaeological/historical research which relates in one way or another to the Bible?
My answer is a resolute “YES!”
So long as there is no conflict between the scholar’s beliefs and the subject of the study.
🧵1/9 Religious beliefs which relate to the nature of God, to hierarchies of values, or to how a person should act in the world need not pose any conflict of interest with archaeological and historical questions surrounding times, places and events that relate to Biblical texts.
2/9

Exciting news for those interested in the fascinating phenomenon of ancient Jewish chalk vessels.
They are older than we thought.
A 🧵
1/8 Until now, we’ve thought that chalk vessels first appeared in the second half of the 1st century BCE. Around reign of Herod the Great. This was the time of the earliest, well-dated remains.
2/8