Officina Magica: Essays on the Practice of Magic in Antiquity (Ijs Studies in Judaica, V. 4)

331 Pages·2005·2.18 MB·English

by  Shaul Shaked (Editor)

OFFICINA MAGICA
IJS STUDIES IN JUDAICA
Conference Proceedings
of the Institute of Jewish Studies,
University College London
SERIES EDITORS
Mark Geller
Ada Rapoport-Albert
John Klier
VOLUME 4
OFFICINA MAGICA
Essays on the Practice of
Magic in Antiquity
EDITED BY
SHAUL SHAKED
BRILL
LEIDEN•BOSTON
2005
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Officina magica : essays on the practice of magic in antiquity
/ edited by Shaul Shaked.
p. cm. — (IJS studies in Judaica ; ISSN 1570-1581 ; v. 4)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 90-04-14459-5 (alk. paper)
1. Magic, Jewish—Congresses. 2. Magic in rabbinical literature—Congresses.
3. Magic, Ancient—Congresses. I. Shaked, Shaul. II. Series.
BF1622.J45O34 2005
133.4’3’089924—dc22
2005042075
ISSN 1570–1581
ISBN 90 04 14459 5
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This Institute of Jewish Studies, privately funded and
dedicated to the promotion of the academic study of all aspects of
Jewish culture, was founded by Alexander Altmann in Manchester in 1954.
Following Altmann’s appointment to the Chair of Jewish Philosophy and
History of Ideas at Brandeis University in the USA, the Institute was
transferred to London, where, while retaining its autonomous status, it was
located at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies of
University College London.
The Institute supports individual research projects and
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one or more major international conferences.
This series is supported by a grant from the
Harry and Abe Sherman Foundation

CONTENTS
Foreword .................................................................................... ix
Form and Purpose in Aramaic Spells: Some Jewish Themes
(The poetics of magic texts) .................................................. 1
Shaul Shaked
Incantations in Southern Mesopotamia—From Clay Tablets
to Magical Bowls (Thoughts on the Decline of the
Babylonian Culture) .............................................................. 31
Joachim Oelsner
Tablets and Magic Bowls .......................................................... 53
Markham J. Geller
Lunar and Snake Omens among the Zoroastrians ................ 73
Antonio Panaino
What is a Magical Text? Methodological Reflections
Aimed at Redefining Early Jewish Magic .......................... 91
Yuval Harari
Drawing and Writing: A Fourth-Century Magical Spell
from Oxyrhynchus ................................................................ 125
Hagit Amirav
(Re)Interpreting Magical Gems, Ancient and Modern .......... 141
Simone Michel
Jewish Mysticism in the Geonic Period: The Prayer of
Rav Hamnuna Sava .............................................................. 171
Klaus Herrmann
Some Observations on the Diffusion of Jewish Magical
Texts from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in
Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah and Ashkenaz ........ 213
Reimund Leicht
viii contents
Understanding Ritual in Jewish Magic: Perspectives from the
Genizah and Related Sources .............................................. 233
Michael D. Swartz
“Watermarks” in the MS Munich, Hebr. 95: Magical
Recipes in Historical Context .............................................. 255
Giuseppe Veltri
The Unwritten Chapter: Notes towards a Social and
Religious History of Geniza Magic ...................................... 269
Steven Wasserstrom
Magic and Human Reason ...................................................... 295
Marcel Sigrist
Index .......................................................................................... 317
FOREWORD
This volume owes its origin to a conference. Most of the essays in
this volume were first delivered at a memorable gathering of scholars
organized by the Institute of Jewish Studies of University College
London at the Warburg Institute in 1999.
The topics discussed in these essays range over a wide spectrum.
They touch upon ancient Mesopotamian magical practices and par-
ticularly discuss the question relating to the survival and continuity
of Mesopotamian culture in the later period, especially as regards
the magic of the Talmud and of the magic bowls. Some of the essays
deal with topics of Jewish magic in various periods: the Aramaic
incantation bowls, the Jewish tradition in Mediaeval manuscripts,
which partly reflects early themes, and the fragments of the Geniza,
which testify to the role played by magic in the life of the period.
One of the contributions to this volume deals with Zoroastrian omen
texts, and two with magical artifacts from Late Antiquity.
Two of the papers deal with the underlying questions of the theory
and method of studying the magical tradition. The work of Yuval
Harari devotes special attention to the situation in Judaism. These
are questions which have already exercised the minds of numerous
scholars, and which are likely to go on occupying a central position
in the scholarly debate on the elusive problems of the definition and
phenomenology of magical practices and their place in society in the
years to come.
The conference of 1999 was conceived with the aim of marking
the conclusion of a period of intensive work carried out under the
auspices of the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University
College London on Aramaic magical texts, chiefly written on earthen-
ware bowls, and deriving presumably from Mesopotamia. Some of
the members of the Department were involved in this effort. The
texts, written in a variety of forms of Aramaic, namely Jewish Aramaic,
Mandaic, Syriac, as well as in a group of artificial scripts, some of
which resemble Pahlavi, presented a serious challenge of decipher-
ment and interpretation, and caused the work to be protracted beyond
what is desirable. Dr. Dan Levene, then a student in the Department,
took an active part in studying these texts, and later presented a
x foreword
Ph.D. thesis on some of those which form part of the Shlomo
Moussaieff Collection (his work was published in 2003 under the
title A corpus of magical bowls. Incantation texts in Jewish Aramaic from Late
Antiquity, London: Kegan Paul). The present editor, with the encour-
agement of M.J. Geller, and with the help of Dan Levene and Siam
Bhayro, has been working for a number of years on the bowls in
the very large Schøyen Collection, and some of these texts are quoted
in his article. This project is not yet finished.
Work on the Geniza fragments of magic, carried out in collabo-
ration between Peter Schäfer, Shaul Shaked, and a team of schol-
ars at the Freie Universität Berlin, resulting in the three volumes
published to date in the series Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza, is
reflected by the articles in this volume written by some former mem-
bers of the Berlin group, among them Giuseppe Veltri (now in Halle),
Reimund Leicht (now in Potsdam), and Klaus Herrmann. Owing to
a regrettable misunderstanding, the essays by Giuseppe Veltri and
Klaus Herrmann were earlier printed in a volume in honour of Peter
Schäfer (Jewish studies between the disciplines, Leiden: Brill, 2003). The
error was discovered too late for correction.
Ms. Ginny Mathias saw the volume through the press on behalf
of the Institute of Jewish Studies. Her meticulous work is clearly
reflected in this volume. We wish to express our heartfelt gratitude
for her expert handling of the volume and for the preparation of
the index. The Director of the Institute, Professor M.J. Geller, was
the organizer of the workshop in 1999, and it is his involvement
in the preparation of the present volume, and his enthusiasm for the
subject, that made the publication of this book possible.