“The Lord Is One”: How Its Meaning Changed
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Footnotes
Gabriel Barkay, “The Riches of Ketef Hinnom,” BAR 35:04.
Hershel Shanks, “Magic Incantation Bowls,” BAR 33:01.
See Paula Fredricksen, “Gods and the One God,” Bible Review 19:01.
See Marvin A. Sweeny, “The Nash Papyrus—Preview of Coming Attractions,” BAR 36:04.
Endnotes
See Joan Goodnick Westenholz, ed., The Jewish Presence in Ancient Rome (Jerusalem: Bible Lands Museum, 1995), pp. 106–107.
Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1–11, Anchor Bible, vol. 5 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), pp. 341–343; Moshe Weinfeld, The Decalogue and the Recitation of “Shema”: The Development of the Confessions (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2001), pp. 141–143 [Hebrew].
The text of the Mulvius Inscription reads as follows:
Marcus? Mulvius … / … Of the house of the Jews, … years of age / businessman, is buried here, Marcus Mulvius Ama… / …stus and Marcus? Mulvius Pro… /…s M… Marcus? Mulvius…
M.?] Mulviu[s – – -] / [- – – ] domo Iudaeus an[norum – – -] / [ne]gotians h(ic) s(itus) e(st) M(arcus) Mul[vius – – -] / [- – -]s et M(arcus) Mulvius Ama[- – -] / [- – -]stus e[t (M)arcus?] Mulvius Pro[- – -] / [- – -]s M[- – -] M(arcus) Mulviu[s – – -]
When Mulvius uses the phrase domo Iudaeus, he merges two uses of the Latin word domus. In inscriptions it often points to the province of the Roman Empire the deceased comes from. The province Iudaea is never mentioned in the preserved Latin inscriptions in this way though. The domo Iudaeus renders hence most probably the phrase bet yehudah (house of Judah) which was still used in Rabbinic literature to describe the Jewish people (see, e.g., Seder Olam Rabbah 26:20–25). Both the Vulgate (2 Samuel 2:7, 10, 11; 1 Kings 12:21; 2 Kings 19:30; Isaiah 22:21, 36:3, 37:31; Jeremiah 3:18, 5:11, 11:10, 17, 12:14, 13:11, 31:27, 31, 33:14; Ezekiel 4:6, 8:17, 9:9, 25:3, 8; Hosea 1:7, 5:12, 14; Zephaniah 2:7; Zechariah 8:13, 15, 19, 10:3, 6, 12:4; 2 Chronicles 11:1) and the Old Latin (Hosea 5:12, 14; Micah 1:5; Zechariah 8:15; Jeremiah 11:10, 17, 36:3; Baruch 2:26; Ezekiel 4:6, 8:17) translations of the Hebrew Bible render bet yehudah with domus Iuda or similar phrases.
Translation according to Heinrich Walter Guggenheimer, The Jerusalem Talmud, First Order: Zeraim, Tractates Peah and Demay (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2000), pp. 40–41.
Cf. Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia and Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), p. 76; Tigay, “Excursus 10: The Shema (6:4),” Deuteronomy, pp. 438–441.
See J. Gerald Janzen, “On the Most Important Word in the Shema (Deuteronomy vi 4–5),” Vetus Testamentum 37 (1987), pp. 280–300; see also John A. Emerton, “New Light on Israelite Religion: The Implications of the Inscriptions from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 94 (1982), pp. 2–20.
LXX:
Nash Papyrus:
An ancient saying sheds light on this matter: “There is one (
For more on the Halbturn amulet, see Esther Eshel, Hanan Eshel and Armin Lange, “ ‘Hear, O Israel’ in Gold: An Ancient Amulet from Halbturn in Austria,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 1 (2010), pp. 43–64; and Nives Doneus and Armin Lange, eds., Golden Words: An Ancient Jewish Amulet from Austria and the Jewish Presence in Roman Pannonia, the theme issue of Journal of Ancient Judaism 1.2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2010). For the archaeology of the Halbturn Amulet, see Nives Doneus, “The Roman Child and the Jewish Amulet,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 1 (2010), pp. 146–153.