This volume contains the proceedings of the conference entitled
"Halakhah in Light of Epigraphy" held on 29 May, 2008 under the
auspices of the David and Jemima Jeselsohn Center for Epigraphy at
Bar-Ilan University. Epigraphic finds, here interpreted broadly to
include papyri, scrolls, and the like, have immeasurably enriched
our knowledge of the ancient Jewish past while at the same time
posing a challenge to modern scholarship: how does one integrate
old knowledge, based on previously known sources, with new
information? We now recognize that Rabbinic texts are normative:
they tell us how their authors believed life should be lived,
rather than the details of ordinary, everyday, experience. What
weight, then, should be given to traditional halakhic texts in
evaluating the contents of newly discovered written remains? And
what light can be shed by these new finds, especially those
inscriptions and documents that record small moments of ancient
Jewish life, upon the long-familiar normative texts? The conference
on Halakhah in Light of Epigraphy was intended to generate
discussion on these broad issues, as well as to provide a forum for
exploration of specific matters of Halakhah reflected in the
epigraphic sources. The papers in this volume tend to emphasize the
centrality of Halakhah in ancient Judaism. The first section of the
volume is devoted to Halakhah in the Dead Sea Scrolls, with
contributions by Moshe Benovitz, Vered Noam, Eyal Regev, Lawrence
Schiffman, and Aharon Shemesh. These papers examine diversity in
halakhic positions, in terms of both exegesis and practice (e.g.,
festival rituals, dietary laws, and sexual relationships),
exploring evidence of halakhic development over the course of the
Second Temple period, and halakhic variety among different groups.
The second section relates to quotidian documents, and contains
Hanan Eshel's survey of the legal documents found in the refuge
caves; Steven Fraade's examination of the parnas; Shamma Friedman's
analysis of the Jewish bill of divorce; and David Goodblatt's
discussion of dating formulae. The final section of the volume
examines a variety of epigraphic sources, and includes the
following articles: Yonatan Adler on tefillin; Chaim Ben David on
synagogue inscriptions; Tal Ilan on burial practices; Ze'ev Safrai
and Hannah Safrai on an early Christian text; and Guy Stiebel on
food at Masada.
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