Bohak and Morgenstern - JBA Magic Booklet - Ginze Kedem PDF
Bohak and Morgenstern - JBA Magic Booklet - Ginze Kedem PDF
Bohak and Morgenstern - JBA Magic Booklet - Ginze Kedem PDF
Editor
Y. Zvi Stampfer
Editorial board:
Menachem Ben-Sasson (Hebrew University), Haggai Ben-Sammai (Hebrew University), Robert
Brody (Hebrew University), Y. Zvi Stampfer (Hebrew University and Ben-Zvi Istitute, Jerusalem)
Cover illustration:
Ms. CUL T-S 16.378; reproduced here with the permission of the Syndics of
Cambridge University Library
Printed in Israel
Ginzei Qedem is produced by the Ben-Zvi Institute of Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem on behalf of the Friedberg Genizah Project.
All rights reserved to the Friedberg Genizah Project.
A joint venture between the Jewish Manuscript Preservation Society and the
Friedberg Genizah Project
ISSN 1565-7353
English Section
Editorial Statement 7*
A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the
Damascus Genizah
Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern 9*
Divine Love and the Salvation of Israel
A New Composition for the Seventh Day of Passover
Wout van Bekkum and Naoya Katsumata 45*
English Summaries 98*
Hebrew Section
Documents from Afghanistan in the National Library of Israel
Ofir Haim 9
Geniza Fragments of The Sword of Moses
Yuval Harari 29
The Order of Torah Reading forweekdays and Minchah
of Shabbatfrom the period of the Geonim
Mordechai Dov Weintraub 93
A New Panegyric in the Handwriting of Avraham ben Shlomo
Yaron Lisha 121
A Comparative Discussion of Prophetic
Visions in Jeremiah and Amos
Meirav Nadler 129
The Book of the Law in the House of the Lord is
a Copy (nuskha) Written by Moses: Yefet ben Els
Commentary on 2 Kings 22:1 23:3
Meira Polliack and Ilana Sasson 157
Book Review
Remains of Halakhic Responsa in the Cairo Geniza
Abraham David 193
Editorial Statement
We are pleased to present the tenth volume of Ginzei Qedem, an annual
publication devoted to Genizah texts and studies. The term Genizah here
functions as a collective noun for the Genizot around the world, and the
current volume demonstrates the broad variety of the genre and its
research. An article on the documents of the newly discovered Afghanistan
Genizah is included here, together with texts from the recently
re-discovered Damascus Genizah as well as new texts from the well-known
Cairo Genizah.
The diversity of the Genizah research is displayed in this volume as
well, as it represents many fields, including Biblical studies and exegesis,
Halakha, liturgy, history, magic, and more.
Ginzei Qedems purpose is to provide a specialized venue for the field
of Genizah research, in the hope that research on and publication of
Genizah texts will, in time, enrich both traditional and academic Jewish
studies, as well as Islamic ones.
Genizah research has made great strides in the last decade, mainly
with the establishment of the Friedberg Genizah Project, of which
Ginzei-Qedem is one branch. As part of the effort to serve our readers, the
electronic edition of Ginzei Qedem will be assimilated in the FGP website
and will be synchronized with the images and the bibliographic data of the
FGP database.
Contributions to Ginzei Qedem may be in Hebrew or English. Any
substantial quotations in a language other than that in which the article is
written must be accompanied by a translation, and articles in Hebrew must
be accompanied by an English abstract.
Contributions may be sent to: Ben-Zvi Institute, P.O.B. 7660,
Jerusalem 91076, Israel. Contributions and queries may also be sent by
e-mail to the editor at zvi56@ybz.org.il.
9*
1 For the Damascus Genizah, see the excellent study by C. Bandt and A. Rattmann,
Die Damaskusreise Bruno Violets 1900/1901 zur Erforschung der Qubbet el-
Chazne, Codices Manuscripti 76/77 (2011): 120.
2 For the Christian fragments, see Bandt and Rattmann, esp. pp. 1820; for the Jewish
ones, see ibid., p. 20. See also A. Ashur, A Ketubbah in the Palestinian Style with the
Permission of Matzliah Gaon, from the Damascus Genizah, Peamim 135 (2013):
16370 (Heb.).
Ginzei
Qedem
10 (2014)
10* Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern
elsewhere), good black and white images of some of these fragments have
survived in several different collections. 3
3 For the circumstances under which they were taken, see Bandt and Rattmann, pp.
910, 12, 16, and 18.
4 We are extremely grateful to Amir Ashur and especially to Ronny Vollandt, who is
now cataloguing the Damascus fragments in Berlin, for bringing these texts to our
attention. We are also grateful to Christoph Rauch for the photographs and for the
permission to publish them here, to Cordula Bandt for sharing with us other
photographs of the Damascus Genizah fragments, and to Judith Olszowy-Schlanger
for her palaeographical advice. Dr. James Nathan Ford read the manuscript and
proposed many helpful readings and interpretations, as well as granting us permission
to cite from magic bowls that that he is preparing for publication (cited as JNF).
Professor Shaul Shaked aided us with the Persian material and similarly granted us
permission to cite from his work on the Martin Schyen collection (cited as MS).
5 Unfortunately, the Arabic numerals on the margins of the folios bear no clear relation
to the folios original order. For the circumstances under which these numerals were
added to the original folios see Bandt and Rattmann, p. 13 and Plates 7 and 8. The
same is true of the small etiquettes with sequential numberings which were placed
next to each folio while the pictures were taken, which also bear no relation to the
original order of the folios.
A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah 11*
continuous stretch of text is found in our folios 57, where the spell that
begins in 5b continues into 6a, 6b, 7a, and 7b, ending at the bottom of 7b.
Similarly, there is a clear textual continuity from 1b to 2a and then to 2b,
and from 3a to 3b and to 4a and 4b. On the other hand, some text is
probably missing before 1a, there seems to be a break between 2b and 3a,
and the continuity between 4b and 5a is far from certain. In such cases, one
may either try to re-order the folios in a way that would leave fewer gaps or
assume, as we do, that more folios are still missing in these places,
especially before 1a and between 2b and 3a. How long the original booklet
was we cannot say, nor can we reconstruct the structure of its quires, as
even its bifolia were dismembered before they were photographed.
One additional factor complicating the reconstruction and interpretation
of this set of magical texts is that only three of the recipes bear clear titles:
( for love) in 2b:7, ( lit., for sending a fire, i.e., for
aggressive magic) in 3a:3, and ( for [appearing before] a governor)
in 5a:4. In all other cases, no titles are provided, and it often is unclear
where one recipe ends and the next begins. Unfortunately, the punctuation
marks used by the scribe do not seem to mark the beginnings or ends of the
magical recipes in any consistent manner or to separate the spells from the
ritual instructions that explain how to employ them. These difficulties are
compounded by the fact that a single textual unit may cover more than one
magical aim; for example, the long text that begins in folio 5b sets off
without any title or explanation (the previous recipe was for [appearing
before] a governor and ended at the bottom of 5a) and includes a long
spell for what is usually known as opening the heart, i.e., memorizing the
words of the Torah and the Talmud. But then, in 6b:5, we find the
connecting word , furthermore, followed by a long spell for
protection against all types of demons, and in 7a:5 we move without any
apparent break to a second anti-demonic spell, which begins with
, sealed and counter-sealed, and runs to 7b:6. Only then is the user
instructed to recite this adjuration on three (consecutive?) Fridays before
12* Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern
dusk, to immerse himself in water, and to fast and abstain from sexual
intercourse during these three Fridays. Thus, it seems that the ritual
instructions were applied to a set of three adjurations, one of which was
intended for the memorization of Torah and the other two for protection
against demons. 6 Such mixtures might be due to copying errors or
deliberate editorial activities taken by our scribe or by one of his
predecessors, and they certainly reflect the recipes complex transmission
history and contribute to the difficulties inherent in interpreting magic spell
texts.
Another feature of these recipes, which also reflects their long
transmission history, is that whereas the spells to be recited or inscribed are
consistently given in Aramaic, the ritual instructions are sometimes given
in Aramaic (e.g., 3a:53b:4 and 7b:711), but in other cases are given in
Arabic, here written in a phonetic manner that is also typical of the earliest
Judaeo-Arabic fragments from the Cairo Genizah (e.g., 5a:14). 7 This is an
example of a phenomenon that is well attested in both Jewish and non-
Jewish magical recipe books, namely, that when the society using these
recipes switches from one language of communication to another (in this
case, from Aramaic to Arabic), its spell-mongers often continue
transmitting the spells to be recited or inscribed in the old language, even
though it is no longer fully understood, but gradually translate the practical
instructions into the new vernacular. 8 In this respect, our booklet is a clear
6 As both the ritual instructions and the first of the three spells bear some resemblance
to the Sar Torah rituals of the Hekhalot literature, it is likely that the anti-demonic
spells are a later addition to whatever the original recipe may have contained.
7 For the pre-Saadian methods of writing Judaeo-Arabic, see J. Blau and S. Hopkins,
On Early Judaeo-Arabic Orthography, Zeitschrift fr arabische Linguistik 12
(1984): 927 and more recently J. Blau and S. Hopkins, On Aramaic Vocabulary in
Early Judaeo-Arabic Texts Written in Phonetic Spelling, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic
and Islam 32 (2006): 43371.
8 For this phenomenon, see further discussion in G. Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic: A
History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 220.
A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah 13*
9 See, for example, T-S K1.143, published in J. Naveh and S. Shaked, Magic Spells and
Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1993),
Geniza 18.
14* Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern
recipe book whose recipes are not embedded into any literary structure
and display no thematic unity should make a major contribution to the
study of this branch of the Jewish magical tradition. This is all the more
important since this branch more or less died out in a subsequent period, as
may be seen from the very few parallels between the incantation bowls and
the magical recipes from the Cairo Genizah (or from non-Genizah Jewish
manuscripts, including Oriental ones). 10 In this respect, we may note that
our recipes too find very few close parallels among the published and
unpublished magical texts from the Cairo Genizah and that when such
parallels emerge, they are found in Cairo Genizah recipe books which
display some telltale signs of the Babylonian Jewish origin of at least some
of their recipes (see our notes to 2b:46 and 5a:4-7).
One final feature of our booklet that may be highlighted here is that
while the structure of the individual recipes is not always clear, in many
cases the incantations, including long stretches of voces magicae, seem to
precede the ritual instructions, which often are quite short. In this respect,
these recipes seem to differ from most magical recipes from the Cairo
Genizah, which usually provide the ritual instructions first and then cite the
incantations that are to be inscribed or recited. Whether this is a mere
coincidence or a more typical feature of Babylonian Jewish magic is an
issue that will have to be dealt with elsewhere, and only after more such
texts are discovered and analyzed. 11
10 For these parallels, see especially D. Levene and G. Bohak, Divorcing Lilith: From
the Babylonian Incantation Bowls to the Cairo Genizah, Journal of Jewish Studies 63
(2012): 197217. Two more parallels will be discussed in a forthcoming publication
by James Nathan Ford, but given the availability of hundreds of Genizah fragments
and hundreds of bowls, such parallels clearly are the exception rather than the rule.
11 We note, for example, the occurrence of this phenomenon in the magical recipes of
T-S Misc. 34.22, which displays many other signs of its Babylonian Jewish
provenance (and cf. below, n. 84). The instructions similarly follow the incantations in
Mandaic spells. See M. Morgenstern and T. Alfia, Arabic Magic Texts in Mandaic
Script: A Forgotten Chapter in Near-Eastern Magic, in R. Voigt (ed.), Durch Dein
A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah 15*
Wort ward jegliches Ding! /Through Thy Word All Things Were Made! II.
Mandistische und Samaritanistische Tagung / 2nd International Conference of
Mandaic and Samaritan Studies (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013), 16379, at 164,
where it is noted that the same order is employed in Demotic magic texts.
12 See M. Morgenstern, Studies in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Based upon Early
Eastern Manuscripts (Harvard Semitic Studies 62; Winona Lake: Indiana, 2011), 64.
13 See Morgenstern, Studies, 6668.
14 As noted already by H. L. Ginsberg, Aramaic Dialect Problems II, The American
Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures (1936): 95103, at 96, such
dissimilation is a Mesopotamian Aramaic feature. kauma is also found in Mandaic
(E. S. Drower and R. Macuch, A Mandaic Dictionary [Oxford: Clarendon, 1963] 200
[hereafter MD]), and we may compare also JBA , locust (M. Sokoloff, A
Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods
[Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2002], 586 [hereafter DJBA]).
15 Although the absolute form is retained occasionally following numerals in JBA
(Morgenstern, Studies, 113), there are numerous exceptions in both Talmudic
16* Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern
manuscripts and the magic bowl corpus. The evidence of the magic bowls indicates
that the loss of the absolute in this position is a syntactic rather than phonological
phenomenon, since it also affects forms of the feminine plural. The following are
some representative examples: , seven sorcerers (MS 2053/29:7);
, and seven mbakkelas of the day and the night (MS
1927/21:11); , and behold, four beasts (JNF 259:6; JNF 19:8; JNF
147:5). The same applies to the quantifier : , all
evil spirits and wicked spirits (JNF 317:45); , all vows and
curses (JNF 7:5); , all vows and
bonds and all oaths, curses and devs and liliths (JNF 55:5).
16 See Y. Breuer, The Babylonian Aramaic in Tractate Karetot According to MS
Oxford, Aramaic Studies 5 (2007), 145 at 3132, and M. Morgenstern, Notes on
the Noun Patterns in the Yemenite Tradition of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Revue
des tudes Juives 168 (2009): 5183, at 76.
17 H. Juusola, Linguistic Peculiarities in the Aramaic Magic Bowl Texts (Studia
Orientalia 86; Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society), 87.
18 On the latter, see M. Morgenstern, Linguistic Features of the Texts in this Volume,
in S. Shaked, J. N. Ford, and S. Bhayro, Aramaic Bowl Spells, Jewish Babylonian
Aramaic Bowls, vol. 1 (Brill: Leiden, 2013), 4243.
19 On this form in the Jewish Babylonian magic bowl corpus, see Juusola, Linguistic
Peculiarities, 2069.
A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah 17*
you shall ru[n], (2a:5). , you shall fly and fall, (2a:6). 21 20F
24
bis). 23F
20 See also , I turn (X) into (Y) (4a:1). Note that in both cases, is
written as a separate particle, as is common in the better Babylonian manuscripts. See
Morgenstern, Studies, 17274.
21 2 f.s. participles in the qlyt pattern have been previously found in JBA in the magic
bowl corpus. See Morgenstern, Linguistic Features, 45.
22 S. Morag, Some Notes on the Grammar of Babylonian Aramaic as Reflected in the
Geniza Manuscripts, Tarbi 42 (197273), 6078, at 7073.
23 , a Talmudic form, already appears in a magic bowl text. See Morgenstern,
Linguistic Features, 46.
24 Ibid.
25 Juusola, Linguistic Peculiarities, 175.
18* Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern
-ti affix for 1 c.s. perfect of III-yod verbs: , I conjure (5b:8), the
so-called Onkelos/Jonathan form. 28 27F
Folio 1a
1 BRYNG the dev 29 who disturbed the
28F
heavens with his (???)
31
2 NR WRY DWR NMY. 30F I went up 0
30
the mountains, F29
29 Professor Shaul Shaked has suggested to us that bryng dywh looks like an Iranian
word, but no such word exists in this form. One may think of *brng external or a
similar emendation. Such a word is unknown as the name of a demon, but is at least a
plausible designation for a demon.
30 The following historiola bears a strong resemblance to similar passages in the magic
bowl corpus and Mandaic formularies, e.g., lura -nirig silqit ldaura rba -bit hiia
akaita lmihla pt bil alaha ulmia br uma hiuara, I ascended to the mount of Nirig,
and to the great abode of the House of Life; I found Salt, daughter of the god Bel, and
Oil, son of white sesame (Zarazta -Hibil Ziua, ed. De Morgan 265/20: 4043).
31 We have presented these as magic words as we are unable to propose a coherent
translation. The first two words, may be rendered as Guardian of the
mountains or Guard mountains (imperative). . . . may be either a verb (3 m.s.
or 1 c.s. of "in qal or apil) or a noun meaning pieces of felt, belt coverings
(Sokoloff, DJBA, 755).
32 For this meaning of see M. Kahana, The Importance of Dwelling in the Land of
Israel According to the Deuteronomy Mekhilta, Tarbi 62 (1993) 50114, at 507
(Heb.).
20* Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern
36
and mustard . . . 35F
Folio 1b
1 . . . over (it?) 7 times. This mystery is ] [ ' '
appointed for NN, '
37
2 that he should raise his water pipe and 36F
draw his bucket and drip
Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1964) 1:383, and G. Bohak, The Magical Rotuli from the
Cairo Genizah, in G. Bohak, Y. Harari, and S. Shaked. eds., Continuity and
Innovation in the Magical Tradition (Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture, 15;
Leiden: Brill, 2011), 32140, at 333. , bucket, is also used as a euphemism for
the source of fecundity in a wedding poem in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic:
, may your bucket not be lacking and may you be told good
(tidings), published in M. Sokoloff and J. Yahalom, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic
Poetry From Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Science, 1999), 258, text
44*:8 (in Hebrew).
38 Compare E. S. Drower and R. Macuch, A Mandaic Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon,
1965), 458 s.v. uma, cited from mia anat iha br uma hiuara, The oil you are,
precious, from white sesame (CP no. 23).
39 Cf. Sokoloff, DJBA, p. 674: = butter. The text could also mean oil
boiled with jasmine.
40 For the use of jasmine oil, cf. ' , on
jasmine-oil, whisper seven times and remove your clothes (T-S K 1.162, published in
P. Schfer and S. Shaked [eds.], Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza III
[Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999], no. 61).
41 Derived from older . See M. Morgenstern, Linguistic Notes on Magic Bowls in
the Moussaieff Collection, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 68
(2005): 34967, at 363.
22* Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern
43
8 on the circles of their navels; the troop
F42
Folio 2a
1 of the month and one of its other days,
47
first of all, sa[y] [ ]
F46
54 is paralleled in two of the bowls from the British Museum, 001A:10 and
002A:12 (J. B. Segal, Catalogue of the Aramaic and Mandaic Incantation Bowls in
the British Museum [London: British Museum Press, 2000], 4344):
, and they sent and injured her from clouds of hail.
55 Lit: they call them; is an impersonal 3 pl. participle of the Onkelos type. For the
naming of demons, compare
, They call you the blinder, the smiter, the sightless;
they call you the lame one, the scabeous, the crawler (MS 1927/8:7, in S. Shaked, J.
N. Ford, and S. Bhayro, Aramaic Bowl Spells, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Volume 1
[Leiden: Brill, 2013], 56, with some alterations to the translation).
56 Lege: .
57 For this formula, cf. the bowl (IM 9736) republished by Ortal-Paz Saar, An
Incantation Bowl for Sowing Discord, Journal of Semitic Studies 58 (2013): 24156,
at 242, l. 7: , overturned are Bel and Abel and Nabu
and Borsip. For the reemergence of the old Mesopotamian gods in Aramaic and
Mandaic texts, see C. Mller-Kessler and K. Kessler, Sptbabylonische Gottheiten in
sptantiken mandischen Texten, Zeitschrift fr Assyriologie 89 (1999): 6587; D.
Levene and G. Bohak, A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Incantation Bowl with a List of
Deities and Toponyms, Jewish Studies Quarterly 19 (2012): 5672.
A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah 25*
Folio 2b
1 H W WY YP WYP PNT PNT
2 NBY PNT PNT WP WP WRP
3 WRP. Say over dust from under a '
corpse,
4 and put it in an amulet and hang it on
58
a bird and let it fly F57
5 and say over it: Just as this bird
6 flutters, so shall the heart of (fem.) '
59
NN flutter after
58F
7 NN, A(men) A(men) S(ela). For love: 0 ' '
I have love, it is mine 60 59F
61
8 SSGR MGMR, holy angels who sit F60
58 For binding the text to a bird and letting it fly, see also the Genizah fragment Mosseri
Ia. 26.2, copied by Abraham ibn Yiju (probably during his stay in Aden) and
published in S. D. Goitein and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, India Book III: Abraham
ben Yij, India Trader and Manufacturer (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi, 2010) (Heb.), 421,
][ , and bind the amulet to the leg of a bird and
let it fly, (but in a recipe to cause a person to be exiled from his community). See
also R. Campbell Thompson, The Folklore of Mossoul, Proceedings of the Society
of Biblical Archaeology 1906, 7686, 97109; 1907, 16574, 28288, 32331; 1908,
3033, no. 23.
59 For the double meaning of , which cannot be rendered into English, see the
frequent appearance of in the Babylonian Talmud, as well as
'( '' ''T-S K 1.37, published in P. Schfer and S. Shaked, eds.,
Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza I [Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994], no. 4).
60 Or LY N LY HW.
61 Cf. the angels in the Horvat Rimmon erotic spell and its many parallels,
for which see Naveh-Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, A10 (p. 84) and esp. Joseph
Naveh and Shaul Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late
Antiquity, Jerusalem: Magnes, 1993, G22, 1/9 (pp. 216, 219).
26* Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern
Folio 3a
1 and stick and bind [ ] of flax, [ ]
and bury
2 at the threshold of the house or on the ][
bank
3 of the river. For sending a fire / fever 00
RH DYG?? ..
4 NRWGRWY DNH B?RWN
S?NRYH D?YNGYM ?? 63 62F ..
5 of the town? Write on its 64 forehead 63F
his name [and the name] [ ]
66 65
6 of his mother, and this mystery on
65F F 64
62 Compare in Mandaic: rir daiib upum ptia, his saliva is dripping and his mouth is
open (DC 43E:8 // DC 20: 18-20). DC 43 here provides the better reading but was
erroneously read in C. Mller-Kessler, A Mandaic Incantation against an
Anonymous Dew Causing Fright (Drower Collection 20 and its variant 43 E), Aram
22 (2010): 45357, at 460.
63 The words here look like voces magicae, but one would expect instructions such as
Take mud, fashion a figurine, etc.
64 Presumably the text is referring to the production of a voodoo doll, writing on its
forehead, sticking needles in it, etc.
A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah 27*
Folio 3b
1 on its knees right [to the left, and le]ft ] [
(one) to right
67
2 and put it in a new vessel with its 6F ] [
68
[hea]d below and its legs
67 F
3 above, and bury it in a fresh grave
which is one day old '
4 or two days old. [Y]DR YDR ][00 '
BWKN
5 BD BYK QW QZ 69 On the back of 68F
a lion I ride
6 and the girdle of male sorcerers and
female sorceresses I have fastened to
71 72 70
7 my loins. I go out in the market
70 F 71F F69
places of infant(s),
65 Here and in the next two lines there is a hole in the parchment that was clearly present
before the scribe began writing his text.
66 For , note that in early Babylonian manuscripts the form of the demonstrative
pronoun is , hyi. See Morag, Some Notes, 667 (Hebrew).
67 Here and in the next line, = . Compare Th. Nldeke, Compendious Syriac
Grammar (London: Williams and Norgate, 1904), 21.
68 We take as mittaii, equivalent to , underneath. For placing the
voodoo doll upside down, note, for example T-S Ar. 43.259:
' ' , take a new cooking
pot and put lime in it and take the figurine and cast it upside-down into the pot.
69 It is unclear whether this was once a coherent text or was always magic words.
28* Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern
Folio 4a
1 the streets. 73 I turn wine into vinegar
72F
74
and old wine 73F
2 into ???, 76 white flour into ashes
75F
75
{ashes}, barley F 74
70 There is a hole in the parchment, here and in the next line, that was clearly present
before the scribe began writing his text.
71 , I have fastened, represents the ql li syntagm. Compare the Mandaean
Zarazta d-Hibil Ziua: himiana d-birqa mhilia bhalai, I have fastened a girdle of
lightening to my loins (DC 44: 505-6). For loins, JBA commonly employs ,
pl. ( Sokoloff, DJBA, 484), though the by-form is already found in the Dead
Sea Scrolls (see M. Morgenstern et al., The Hitherto Unpublished Columns of the
Genesis Apocryphon, Abr-Nahrain 33 [1999]: 3054, at 35) and late Mandaic (MD
125) and is the regular form in Classical Syriac (see M. Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon
[Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns], 482). Dr. Y. Z. Stampfer has drawn our attention to
the use of in Geonic citation from b. Gi 78a. See Z. Stampfer, Laws of Divorce
(Kitb al-alq) by Samuel ben ofni Gaon (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 2008), 92.
72 and the following verbs represent 1 f. participle forms, characteristic of the
best textual witnesses of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. See Morgenstern, Studies,
12022, and M. Morgenstern, Rare Forms in Eastern Aramaic, Language Studies
(Heb., forthcoming).
73 For this section, see Shaked, Ford, and Bhayro, Aramaic Bowl Spells, 202, and
additional parallels in M. Morgenstern and M. Schlter, A Mandaic Amulet on
Lead, Martin Schyen Collection MS 2087/1 Eretz Israel, (Joseph Naveh Memorial
volume), forthcoming.
74 is a phonetic spelling of .
75 Dittography?
76 We are unable to offer a satisfactory explanation for the word , which
presumably refers to some acidic substance into which wine may deteriorate.
A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah 29*
Folio 4b
1 seven times in a reed tube and bury ' '
(it) in the inner
2 threshold. 00 SS WWSYS 00
WHWDYH
82
3 WHWDYRYH, send, send against ' F 81
him, NN '
4 the fire of a spell; say (it) over 7 ??? 83 82F ' ' ' :
of ???, and place it in the socket
84
5 of the door. Skull, GPNM 0
F83
WNY?SGP
6 I have adjured you, NWRDPYS the
satan, that you shall go
7 and cast fire upon NN, that it may '][ ''
dance 85 upon you,
84F
8 on him on him on you on you on him
Amen Amen Sela.
Folio 5a
1 Say (it) over the (???) . . . the white son ' ' ] [
of an egg, which
86
2 no chicken has mounted and ??? and
F 85
slaughter/cook
87
3 and put it on the egg(?)/in his hand(?) and F 86
5 RPT TS SDM RGM DRWS A(men)
A(men) S(ela). Say? (it) over '
'
6 straw from a locked gate ???
90 89
7 and place it behind your ear, and write
89F F8
??? amulet(?) .
8 and (it is) good and tried and tested. 00 00
Folio 5b
1 Do (it) for your Name, for the sake of [ ]
[your name]. This amulet
91
2 is appointed for the name of NN, that
90F ' ''
you may open his
conjure
9 you and adjure you,
Bowls in the Istanbul and Baghdad Museums, Archiv Orientln 6 [1934]: 31934, at
321).
92 Sokoloff, DJBA 514, reconstructs the singular of this adjectival form as . On
the merger of the noun marker - and the adjectival/gentilic morpheme -, see M.
Morgenstern, Notes on the Noun Patterns in the Yemenite Tradition of Jewish
Babylonian Aramaic, Revue des tudes Juives 168 (2009): 5183, at 7579, where
evidence is also cited for alternative plural forms , and .
93 For the following set of voces magicae, note a similar sequence in MS New York
Public Library 190 (olim Sassoon 56), p. 77, lines 79:
/ ''' / , and
by this great, precious, and holy name, H(oly), H(oly), H(oly), P (=WH in atbash)
QH WHWH Holy PPWTMY QTNYH Holy QTR NQSSH NSPRH.
94 The series of voces magicae in lines 48 is characterized by the repetitive structure
XXX + Yh qadosh, and if we omit the initial aleph, we may note that the individual
sequences begin with , , , , , ,, which may indicate an earlier attempt at an
acrostic arrangement of this series.
95 There is a hole, or some other irregularity in the parchment, that was clearly there
before the scribe began writing his text.
96 Compare Mandaic smir, well preserved, safeguarded, in MD 333 s.v. SMR.
A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah 33*
Folio 6a
1 and place an oath upon you, 97 that you
96F
will open my heart, me
2 NN, and you will make (it) wise for '
Torah, and you will remove the
foolishness
3 of the 98 heart from the heart of me, I,
97F
99
NN, and you will see/make seen and 98F [''' ]
open
4 my heart , I, NN, like the heart of
Metatron and like the heart of
5 Moses son of Amram, and teach me
100
the six columns of the Tal[mud] 9F [ ]
101
6 in six(?) years, and I will run in them F10
102
like a deer that runs 10F
7 in the desert and guard in my belly all
that I learn, and what I learn
8 from this day and forever, and teach
me words of Torah and wisdom,
Folio 6b
103
1 so that everything that I will hear I will F102
104 105
learn 103F at once. 104F And you shall not
delay
2 this oath and this adjuration, and by the
name of YH HW
3 H WH WH HW HY KYN HYHYH
YH WH YH HH YH YHW
4 HY HH WH HYW HYH YH WH.
Blessed is the name of the honor of
5 his [king]dom forever and ever. ][
Furthermore, I adjure you and decree
6 upon you and place an oath upon you,
106
that you shall deliver me, I, NN, ' F105
7 from all evil demons and from demons,
whether demons of the day
8 or demons of the night, and all demons
and demons which stand
Folio 7a
1 before me, I, NN, smite them '
2 in the name of these letters by
which I adjured y[ou]
107 Lege: ?
108 On the identification of roof demons as demons causing epilepsy, see T. Kwasman,
The Demon of the Roof, in I. Finkel and M. J. Geller, eds., Disease in Babylonia
(Leiden: Brill, 2007), 16072, esp. 16569.
109 This list of demons finds ample parallels in the bowls. For the number sixty-six, cf.,
e.g., , In the name of
idqiyyah who is the chief of sixty-six angels who are appointed over her blood
(Moussaeiff 155:10, published in Levene, Corpus, 111) or
, by the signet ring of Solomon son
of David, the king of Israel, by which are sealed three hundred and sixty six demons
(VA 3854:1518, published in D. Levene, Heal O Israel: A Pair of Duplicate Magic
Bowls from the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Journal of Jewish Studies 54 [2003]:
10421, at 105).
36* Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern
Folio 7b
1 I, will be killed by a great killing, just
110
as were killed 109F
2 the seven daughters of the gods and
the eight daughters of the female
111
3 ishtars. By the name of HY HY HWH F10
HY HH HW HH
4 YH HY HH WH HY HW HH WH
112
YH YHW HY the eternal(?) F1
5 A(men) A(men) S(elah) YHH WYH
YH HH HH YW HW HH WH WH
114 113
6 HW YH WH WYHH KYN 13F M. F12
This adjuration.
7 Say(?) (it) 23 (or, on 3?) Fridays, ' '
115
before dusk 14F
8 just as ??? (when he heats an oven?)
when the day sets and he should
immerse (himself in)
110 On the apocopated form of the 3 m.p. perfect see Morgenstern, Studies, 18689 (with
previous literature).
111 For a partial parallel in the bowls, see
, where there dwell these seven sons of gods who know seven powerful
words (Moussaieff 163:9, published in Levene, Corpus, 122).
112 Lege: ?
113 Lege: ?
114 The sequence WYHH KYN might be construed as garbled Aramaic, but note a similar
sequence in 6b:3.
115 For , compare Mandaic masmikana (dusk), which stands in contrast to
madnaha (dawn): mn madnaha ualma lmasmikana umn masmikana ualma lmadnaha,
from dawn to dusk and from dusk to dawn (Paar Mihla, DC 51: 300302).
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