The Vow-Curse in Ancient Jewish Texts

Uttering a vow was an important and popular religious practice in ancient Judaism. It is mentioned frequently in biblical literature, and an entire rabbinic tractate, Nedarim, is devoted to this subject. In this article, I argue that starting from the Second Temple period, alongside the regular use...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bamberger, Avigail Manekin (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge Univ. Press [2019]
In: Harvard theological review
Year: 2019, Volume: 112, Issue: 3, Pages: 340-357
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Pledge / Curse / Mesopotamia / Judaism / Paul Apostle / History 600 BC-70
IxTheo Classification:AG Religious life; material religion
HB Old Testament
HD Early Judaism
KAB Church history 30-500; early Christianity
TC Pre-Christian history ; Ancient Near East
Further subjects:B Rabbinics
B Ancient Magic
B Second Temple Literature
B Damascus Document
B Paul
B Aramaic incantation bowls
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
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Description
Summary:Uttering a vow was an important and popular religious practice in ancient Judaism. It is mentioned frequently in biblical literature, and an entire rabbinic tractate, Nedarim, is devoted to this subject. In this article, I argue that starting from the Second Temple period, alongside the regular use of the vow, vows were also used as an aggressive binding mechanism in interpersonal situations. This practice became so popular that in certain contexts the vow became synonymous with the curse, as in a number of ossuaries in Jerusalem and in the later Aramaic incantation bowls. Moreover, this semantic expansion was not an isolated Jewish phenomenon but echoed both the use of the anathema in the Pauline epistles and contemporary Greco-Roman and Babylonian magical practices.
ISSN:1475-4517
Contains:Enthalten in: Harvard theological review
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0017816019000154