Yonatan Adler
Prof. Yonatan Adler is an Associate Professor in Archaeology at Ariel University in Israel, where he also heads the Institute of Archaeology. In 2019โ2020, he held the appointment of Horace W. Goldsmith Visiting Associate Professor in Judaic Studies at Yale University.
Adler specializes in the origins of Judaism as a system of ritual practices, and in the evolution these practices over the long-term. His research in recent years has focused on ritual purity observance evidenced in the archaeological remains of chalk vessels and immersion pools. He has also researched and published extensively on ancient tefillin (phylacteries) from Qumran and elsewhere in the Judean Desert.
He has directed excavations at several sites throughout Israel, most recently at โEinot Amitai and at Reina, two sites in Galilee where Roman-era chalk vessel workshops have been unearthed.
Adler was appointed in 2018 by the Minister of Culture to serve as a member of the Israeli Council for Archaeology.
Adler's forthcoming book, entitled: ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ซ๐ข๐ ๐ข๐ง๐ฌ ๐จ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐๐๐ข๐ฌ๐ฆ: ๐๐ง ๐๐ซ๐๐ก๐๐๐จ๐ฅ๐จ๐ ๐ข๐๐๐ฅ-๐๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐จ๐ซ๐ข๐๐๐ฅ ๐๐๐๐ฉ๐ฉ๐ซ๐๐ข๐ฌ๐๐ฅ, is scheduled to be published with Yale University Press in November, 2022.
Address: Dept. of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology
Ariel University
Ariel 40700
Israel
Adler specializes in the origins of Judaism as a system of ritual practices, and in the evolution these practices over the long-term. His research in recent years has focused on ritual purity observance evidenced in the archaeological remains of chalk vessels and immersion pools. He has also researched and published extensively on ancient tefillin (phylacteries) from Qumran and elsewhere in the Judean Desert.
He has directed excavations at several sites throughout Israel, most recently at โEinot Amitai and at Reina, two sites in Galilee where Roman-era chalk vessel workshops have been unearthed.
Adler was appointed in 2018 by the Minister of Culture to serve as a member of the Israeli Council for Archaeology.
Adler's forthcoming book, entitled: ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ซ๐ข๐ ๐ข๐ง๐ฌ ๐จ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐๐๐ข๐ฌ๐ฆ: ๐๐ง ๐๐ซ๐๐ก๐๐๐จ๐ฅ๐จ๐ ๐ข๐๐๐ฅ-๐๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐จ๐ซ๐ข๐๐๐ฅ ๐๐๐๐ฉ๐ฉ๐ซ๐๐ข๐ฌ๐๐ฅ, is scheduled to be published with Yale University Press in November, 2022.
Address: Dept. of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology
Ariel University
Ariel 40700
Israel
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Books by Yonatan Adler
Throughout much of history, the Jewish way of life has been characterized by strict adherence to the practices and prohibitions legislated by the Torah: dietary laws, ritual purity, circumcision, Sabbath regulations, holidays, and more. But precisely when did this unique way of life first emerge, and why specifically at that time?
In this revolutionary new study, Yonatan Adler methodically engages ancient texts and archaeological discoveries to reveal the earliest evidence of Torah observance among ordinary Judeans. He examines the species of animal bones in ancient rubbish heaps, the prevalence of purification pools and chalk vessels in Judean settlements, the dating of figural representations in decorative and functional arts, evidence of such practices as tefillin and mezuzot, and much more to reconstruct when ancient Judean society first adopted the Torah as authoritative law.
Focusing on the lived experience of the earliest Torah observers, this investigative study transforms much of what we thought we knew about the genesis and early development of Judaism.
The Origins of Judaism: Reviews by Yonatan Adler
<https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/jewish-history/15383/origin-stories/>
My response, together with her thoughtful reply to my response, were published on the JRB website today:
<https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/bible/16463/a-torah-exchange-yonatan-adler-responds-to-malka-simkovich/>
<https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/bible/16466/a-torah-exchange-malka-simkovich-responds-to-yonatan-adler/>
I have posted here the entire exchange.
.
Papers by Yonatan Adler
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the cc by 4.0 license.
throughout the world, primarily by married women who ritually immerse
following their menstrual periods. In earlier times, the practice
was observed more broadly by both men and women. In the
present article, I seek to survey the practice of Jewish ritual immersion
in the longue durรฉe, from its earliest manifestations until today.
I begin with a survey of the legal foundations of the practice found
in the Pentateuch, followed by an examination of how the practice
emerged and spread from the late second century BCE and onward,
through Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Era up until
today. My focus is on how the practice has actually been observed
among ordinary Jews, who observed it, and how this observance has
changed over time. While the evolution of legal thought surrounding
the practice is pertinent and is discussed, my primary focus is on real
practices rather than legal prescriptions or theory. In other words,
I am interested in social history rather than intellectual history. The
incredibly broad scope of this study, covering the span of over two
thousand years and encompassing Jewish communities throughout
the world, necessitates that that it focus on the large picture rather
than on more minute features of the practice. My intention is to seek
breadth of temporal and geographic scale rather than high resolution
of detail.
The present corpus, which derives in its entirety from a small section of the city dump, excavated on the eastern slope of the City of David (Area D3), is comprised of 1003 fragments of various types of chalk vessels: mugs, pitchers, bowls, lids, stoppers, goblets, trays, large kraters, debitage and additional assorted objects. The quantity of fragments in our assemblage is unrivaled by any other published corpus and provides the first opportunity to conduct a statistical analysis of the frequencies of the various chalk vessel types in use in Jerusalem during the 1st century CE.
Throughout much of history, the Jewish way of life has been characterized by strict adherence to the practices and prohibitions legislated by the Torah: dietary laws, ritual purity, circumcision, Sabbath regulations, holidays, and more. But precisely when did this unique way of life first emerge, and why specifically at that time?
In this revolutionary new study, Yonatan Adler methodically engages ancient texts and archaeological discoveries to reveal the earliest evidence of Torah observance among ordinary Judeans. He examines the species of animal bones in ancient rubbish heaps, the prevalence of purification pools and chalk vessels in Judean settlements, the dating of figural representations in decorative and functional arts, evidence of such practices as tefillin and mezuzot, and much more to reconstruct when ancient Judean society first adopted the Torah as authoritative law.
Focusing on the lived experience of the earliest Torah observers, this investigative study transforms much of what we thought we knew about the genesis and early development of Judaism.
<https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/jewish-history/15383/origin-stories/>
My response, together with her thoughtful reply to my response, were published on the JRB website today:
<https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/bible/16463/a-torah-exchange-yonatan-adler-responds-to-malka-simkovich/>
<https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/bible/16466/a-torah-exchange-malka-simkovich-responds-to-yonatan-adler/>
I have posted here the entire exchange.
.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the cc by 4.0 license.
throughout the world, primarily by married women who ritually immerse
following their menstrual periods. In earlier times, the practice
was observed more broadly by both men and women. In the
present article, I seek to survey the practice of Jewish ritual immersion
in the longue durรฉe, from its earliest manifestations until today.
I begin with a survey of the legal foundations of the practice found
in the Pentateuch, followed by an examination of how the practice
emerged and spread from the late second century BCE and onward,
through Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Era up until
today. My focus is on how the practice has actually been observed
among ordinary Jews, who observed it, and how this observance has
changed over time. While the evolution of legal thought surrounding
the practice is pertinent and is discussed, my primary focus is on real
practices rather than legal prescriptions or theory. In other words,
I am interested in social history rather than intellectual history. The
incredibly broad scope of this study, covering the span of over two
thousand years and encompassing Jewish communities throughout
the world, necessitates that that it focus on the large picture rather
than on more minute features of the practice. My intention is to seek
breadth of temporal and geographic scale rather than high resolution
of detail.
The present corpus, which derives in its entirety from a small section of the city dump, excavated on the eastern slope of the City of David (Area D3), is comprised of 1003 fragments of various types of chalk vessels: mugs, pitchers, bowls, lids, stoppers, goblets, trays, large kraters, debitage and additional assorted objects. The quantity of fragments in our assemblage is unrivaled by any other published corpus and provides the first opportunity to conduct a statistical analysis of the frequencies of the various chalk vessel types in use in Jerusalem during the 1st century CE.
The present essay presents a preliminary report on a new, in-progress research project whose goal is the comprehensive scientific analysis and publication of all the ancient tefillin remains found in the Judean Desert. The project uses state-of-the-art technologies to analyze both the inscribed tefillin slips and the casings made to house them, as well as the straps which attached these casings to the body of the tefillin practitioner. The seven specific objectives are to a) physically locate the remains; b) open the folded tefillin slips and thereby obtain new tefillin texts; c) generate new readings of previously published tefillin slips using new imaging technologies; d) prepare graphic reconstructions of the original slips; e) determine the dating of all tefillin manuscripts through paleographic analysis; f) document and characterize the tefillin casings and straps in terms of morphology; g) analyze the skins and stitching material in terms of animal origin and manufacturing processes.
Archaeology and Text: A Journal for the Integration of Material Culture with Written Documents in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near East
Aims and Scope
The study of the human past has conventionally been divided between two distinct academic disciplines depending upon the kind of evidence under investigation: "history", with its focus on written records, and "archaeology", which analyzes the remains of material culture. Archaeology and Text: A Journal for the Integration of Material Culture with Written Documents in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near East aims to bridge this disciplinary divide by providing an international forum for scholarly discussions which integrate the studies of material culture with written documents. Interdisciplinary by nature, the journal offers a platform for professional historians and archaeologists alike to critically investigate points of confluence and divergence between the textual and the artifactual. We seek contributions from scholars working in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. Contributions with a theoretical or methodological focus on the interface between archaeology and text are especially encouraged. By publishing all of its articles online, Archaeology and Text seeks to disseminate its published papers immediately after the peer-review and editorial processes have been completed, providing timely publication and convenient access.
Editors-in-chief:
David B. Small (Lehigh University)
Yonatan Adler (Ariel University)
Former Editor-in-chief (Vol. 1): Itzick Shai (Ariel University)
Beginning with the 19th century Wissenschaft des Judentums movement, scholarship has made great strides in investigating how various aspects of Jewish practice originated and developed over time. Unfortunately, this vitally important field of inquiry has focused its efforts almost exclusively on the evidence provided by written sourcesโmostly late Second Temple period Jewish literature and early rabbinic texts. Material evidence provided by archaeology was unavailable to the earlier researchers, and mostly overlooked by later ones.
Recognizing that archaeology is actually indispensable for a comprehensive understanding of the genesis and early development of Judaism, The Origins of Judaism Archaeological Project seeks to recruit data from archaeology in tandem with textual evidence with the goal of studying how ancient Judaism originated and subsequently developed over time. Archaeology and texts tend to provide very different kinds of information, and if brought together prudently, hold the potential to afford a much more comprehensive and accurate understanding of the genesis of Judaism and the ways it was observed in the ancient past.
Among the most salient topics analyzed under the aegis of The Origins of Judaism Archaeological Project are stepped immersion pools (โmikvaโot โ), chalkstone vessels, ancient tefillin (phylacteries) from the Judean Desert, and archaeozoological evidence of kashrut (dietary law) observance.
The Origins of Judaism Archaeological Project is currently engaged in archaeological fieldwork through the 'Einot Amitai Archeological Project, and has already produced a series of articles on ancient Jewish ritual practices, their origins and their early development. Components of the project have been supported by two generous grants from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), and by a grant from the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS).
For more information, please go to the Institute of Archaeology website for a description of the project: http://archaeology.afau.org/projects/the-origins-of-halakhic-judaism-project/
or contact the project director: Dr. Yonatan Adler: [email protected]
For the project's Hebrew Facebook page, go to: https://m.facebook.com/EinotAmitai2016/
Scroll down to Day 2, "Archaeology and Sectarianism" (minute 26:22 and onward).
ืข"ืฉ ืคืจืืค' ืืืืจ ืคืจื ื"ื
ืื ืืื, ื"ื ืืกืื ืขื ื' ืืืช ืชืฉืค"ื
15-16.12.2020
The question of when the Jewish People first came to know and observe the laws of the Torah lies at the center of my new book, The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal, The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2022). The present essay provides a summary of the main points in this full-length study,
Hebrew inscription discovered on wall of underground chamber beneath Church of St. Philip the Apostle in Syracuse, Sicily, sheds light on local Jewish community on eve of 1492 expulsion of Jews from the island
JUNE 18, 2019
SYRACUSE, ITALY โ Israeli scholars have announced the discovery of a Hebrew inscription on the wall of a medieval Jewish ritual bath located deep underground beneath the Church of St. Philip the Apostle in Syracuse, Sicily. The discovery sheds new light on the Jewish community in Syracuse during the Middle Ages, on the eve of the 1492 expulsion of the Jews from all lands under the rule of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spainโwhich at the time included the island of Sicily.
Medieval Jewish ritual baths, known in Hebrew as mikvaโot (or mikveh in the singular), were regularly built deep below the surface, at the level of the local groundwater. These structures, a handful of which are known from throughout Europe, consisted of a long staircase leading down to a small immersion pool. The pool beneath the church in Syracuse is located over 14 meters beneath ground level, at the foot of a long spiral staircase hewn into the limestone bedrock. Fresh groundwater, once used for ritual immersion by married women after their monthly menstrual period, continues till today to flow into the pool found at the bottom of the staircase.
It was on the wall of this staircase that the Hebrew inscription was recently discovered by Monsignor Sebastiano Amenta, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Syracuse. The ritual bath and its inscription were subsequently studied by Dr. Yonatan Adler, senior lecturer in archaeology at Ariel University in Israel, and a leading expert on ancient and medieval Jewish ritual baths. โThis discovery provides compelling evidence that the structure beneath the church was constructed as a Jewish ritual bath prior to the 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Sicilyโ explained Dr. Adler.
The announcement was made at a conference sponsored by San Metodio Higher Institute of Religious Sciences in cooperation with the municipality of Syracuse. Dr. Adler provided a detailed description of the ritual bath and of the inscription itself, which consists of only six Hebrew consonants: โa-sh-r h-f-tzโ. The letters likely form the name of a medieval Syracusan Jew called โAsher Hefetzโ. Dr. Nadia Zeldes, from Ben Gurion University in Israel and a leading expert on the history of Sicilian Jewry, explained at the conference that the family name โHefetzโ represents the Hebrew version of a prominent Jewish-Sicilian family named โBonavogliaโ, a clan that played an important role in the history of the islandโs Jews.
Sometime after the Jews were forced to leave Sicily at the end of the 15th century, a church named in honor of St. Philip the Apostle was constructed over the site of the medieval ritual bath. Even after the church was built, however, the Jewish remains below were never completely forgotten. A local tradition about an early Jewish ritual bath which lay beneath the church was recorded by the early 19th century historian Fr. Giuseppe Maria Capodieci (1749โ1828). The recently announced discovery confirms the historical accuracy of this tradition.
According to Capodieci, the pool beneath the church of St. Philip the Apostle was not the only Jewish ritual bath in the city; there were two others. One of these, which he referred to as โthe baths of Biancaโ, has been identified some years ago beneath what later became a hotel located not far from the church. The Jewish community of Syracuse was likely quite large, and Dr. Zeldes noted that it was quite possible that there had been โmore than one ritual bath, and perhaps more than one synagogue, in Syracuseโ. The new finds provide the first archaeological evidence of a clear Jewish connection to one of these sites.
The Church of St. Philip the Apostle was closed in 1968 due to structural problems and reopened only in 2010 following complex architectural reconstruction. Since November 2014, the church has opened its doors for daily worship. Don Flavio Cappuccio, the local parish priest, has been highly supportive and encouraging of the archaeological studies conducted by the Israeli scholars on the Jewish remains beneath his church. โIt is a great honor for me to serve as parish priest of this church which enshrines centuries, if not millennia of Syracusan historyโ shared Father Cappuccio. โThe history which Jews and Christians share in this unique site underscores for me the fraternal bonds which unite us all in brotherhood as children of one heavenly Fatherโ.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-stone-age-factory-from-time-of-jesus-surfaces-in-galilee/
(Go there for photos)
ืืืช ืฉืืขืื ืืื
(Hint... have a look at the second item on the list!)
============================================
Top 10 Biblical Archaeology Discoveries in 2014
Check out the archaeological finds that thrilled us this past year
Robin Ngo โข 12/29/2014
From the translation of a Babylonian โArk Tabletโ to the resurfacing of a skeleton from Ur in a museum basement, 2014 was a year full of exciting Biblical archaeology discoveries and new interpretations. As we ring in the New Year, letโs take a look back at the top 10 finds that thrilled us in 2014.
**The stories below are listed in no particular order and are free to read in Bible History Daily**
The Animals Went in Two by Two, According to Babylonian Ark Tablet
An Old Babylonian flood tablet translated by British Museum scholar Irving Finkel describes how to build a circular ark.
Qumran Phylacteries Reveal Nine New Dead Sea Scrolls
Yonatan Adlerโs work revealed new phylacteries containing unopened tefillin Dead Sea Scrolls texts, confirming a continuity of Jewish practice over the past two millennia.
Canaanite Fortress Discovered in the City of David
An enormous 18th-century B.C.E. structure that isolates and protects the Gihon Spring is believed to be the fortress described in the Book of Samuel that King David later conquered.
Huqoq 2014: Update from the Field
Huqoq excavation director Jodi Magness and mosaics specialist Karen Britt discuss a new mosaic that might depict the legendary meeting between Alexander the Great and the Jewish high priest.
Monumental Entryway to King Herodโs Palace at Herodium Excavated
Archaeologists excavating at Herodium National Park uncovered a massive corridor to King Herodโs hilltop palace-fortress.
Coins Celebrating the Great Revolt Against the Romans Unearthed near Jerusalem
Excavations near Jerusalem uncovered a rare hoard of coins dating to the fourth year of the Great Revolt against the Romans (69/70 C.E.).
Oldest Metal Object from the Southern Levant Discovered
The discovery of a 7,000-year-old copper awl at Tel Tsaf suggests that metal was used in the southern Levant several hundred years earlier than previously thought.
Early Bronze Age: Megiddoโs Great Temple and the Birth of Urban Culture in the Levant
Megiddoโs Great Temple is a structure that, according to its excavators, โhas proven to be the most monumental single edifice so far uncovered in the EB I Levant and ranks among the largest structures of its time in the Near East.โ
Skilled Craftsmen, Not Slaves, Smelted Copper at Timna
Scholars suggest that ancient metalworkers in the Timna Valley were not slaves, as popularly believed, but highly skilled craftsmen.
6,500-Year-Old Ur Skeleton Resurfaces in Penn Museum
A skeleton unearthed from an Ubaid-period (5500โ4000 B.C.E.) grave at Ur was recently rediscovered in the basement of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.