The significance of wine to the residents of ancient Palestine is demonstrated by the large number of archaeological sites where a wine making installation has been identified and the role wine plays in the Hebrew Bible, the major work of literature to survive from ancient Palestine. The role of wine in the Hebrew Bible has generated a large volume of material, although this has been partly driven by the ongoing temperance debate. Despite this there has been little or no thorough research as to which words and thus passages should be investigated to comprehensively examine wine in the Hebrew Bible. In addition those studies which do exist do not demonstrate any in-depth knowledge of wine production and its implications in translating and interpreting the Hebrew Bible. This work aims to address these two issues. The origin of wine demonstrates that wine was known in Palestine during the Biblical period. Agriculture and Diet provide information as to the value and context of wine production. Semantic tools detail the linguistic information for examination of the ancient Hebrew words related to wine. The styles and production methods of wine and other alcoholic beverages in the ancient world set limits for the identification of beverages. All other information must be considered in the light of these four areas. The core of this work is an examination of the key words related to wine: the likely members of the ancient Hebrew semantic field of wine the key words for grape, vine and vineyard and three words identified as installations used in wine production. It is only after such detailed examination that any in-depth study of wine in the Hebrew Bible should be considered.

The significance of wine to the residents of ancient Palestine is demonstrated by the large number of archaeological sites where a wine making installation has been identified and the role wine plays in the Hebrew Bible, the major work of literature to survive from ancient Palestine. The role of wine in the Hebrew Bible has generated a large volume of material, although this has been partly driven by the ongoing temperance debate. Despite this there has been little or no thorough research as to which words and thus passages should be investigated to comprehensively examine wine in the Hebrew Bible. In addition those studies which do exist do not demonstrate any in-depth knowledge of wine production and its implications in translating and interpreting the Hebrew Bible. This work aims to address these two issues. The origin of wine demonstrates that wine was known in Palestine during the Biblical period. Agriculture and Diet provide information as to the value and context of wine production. Semantic tools detail the linguistic information for examination of the ancient Hebrew words related to wine. The styles and production methods of wine and other alcoholic beverages in the ancient world set limits for the identification of beverages. All other information must be considered in the light of these four areas. The core of this work is an examination of the key words related to wine: the likely members of the ancient Hebrew semantic field of wine the key words for grape, vine and vineyard and three words identified as installations used in wine production. It is only after such detailed examination that any in-depth study of wine in the Hebrew Bible should be considered.

My dissertation analyzes the passages related to the priesthood, cult, and temple in the Aramaic Scrolls from Qumran. The Aramaic Scrolls comprise roughly 15% of the manuscripts found in the Qumran caves, and testify to the presence of a flourishing Jewish Aramaic literary tradition dating to the early Hellenistic period (ca. late fourth to early second century BCE). Scholarship since the mid-2000s has increasingly understood these writings as a corpus of related literature on both literary and socio-historical grounds, and has emphasized their shared features, genres, and theological outlook. Roughly half of the Aramaic Scrolls display a strong interest in Israel’s priestly institutions: the priesthood, cult, and temple. That many of these compositions display such an interest has not gone unnoticed. To date, however, few scholars have analyzed the priestly passages in any given composition in light of the broader corpus, and no scholars have undertaken a comprehensive treatment of the priestly passages in the Aramaic Scrolls. My dissertation fills these lacunae. After a brief introduction to the dissertation in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 gives an overview and assessment of earlier treatments of the Aramaic Scrolls. Chapters 3 through 5 offer analyses of the passages related to the priesthood, cult, and temple found in fourteen of the approximately thirty Aramaic Scrolls, dealing with each composition in turn. In Chapter 6, I synthesize the material in the previous three chapters, and show that the Aramaic Scrolls reflect a remarkably consistent conception of Israel’s priestly institutions. By way of conclusion in Chapter 7, I situate the Aramaic Scrolls in the context of broader scholarly proposals concerning the history of the Second Temple Jewish priesthood, and demonstrate how this corpus can shed new light on an otherwise poorly documented period in Jewish history, namely, the pre-Hasmonean, Hellenistic period. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / My dissertation is a literary analysis of themes related to the Jewish priesthood in the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls. It uses the results of this literary analysis to understand better the history of the Jewish priesthood in the Second Temple period.

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This thesis aims to compare the words and governing ethical pattern of thought in the catalogue of virtues and vice in Colossians 3:5, 8, 12-17 to Greco-Roman and Jewish texts that are antecedent to, or contemporaneous with the writings of the apostle Paul and the Epistle to the Colossians. In carrying out this study, I will interact with and critique the arguments of scholars who have proposed that Paul and the author of Colossians are operating from a Stoic, Cynic or Aristotelian governing ethical pattern of thought. I will demonstrate that such positions are called into question in light of the lack of both central Greco-Roman ethical terms, and the lack of essential ethical concepts in both the generally agreed upon genuine Pauline epistles and in the Epistle to the Colossians in particular. Lastly, I will combine the results of the comparative studies of Colossians and the Greco-Roman and Jewish sources with an exegesis of Colossians in order to propose that: (i) the ethical terms of Colossians - while incidentally and peripherally influenced by the various Hellenistic ethical schools of thought - are most directly influenced by words found in the texts of the Jewish traditions, (ii) several of the ethical terms used by the author of Colossians are largely absent from and certainly uncommon in the Greco-Roman sources surveyed but widely attested in the Jewish sources, and that (iii) the author of Colossians presents his ethical material through an inherited binary format derived from the Jewish Two Ways tradition that is driven by a governing pattern of thought which focuses on Christlike transformation through the enactment and reception of cruciform love.

L’identité juive n’a cessé de faire l’objet d’un questionnement, depuis la découverte des premiers témoignages archéologiques attribués aux « proto-Israélites » de l’Âge du Fer jusqu’aux discussions récents sur l’attribution de la nationalité dans l’actuel État d’Israël. L’élément commun de cette histoire plurimillénaire réside dans le nom « Israël ». Conçue à rebours d’une lecture statique du texte biblique, la thèse propose donc une histoire des différents ethnonymes du peuple élu (Israël, Juifs/Judéens, Hébreux). Menée à partir de sources archéologiques, épigraphiques et littéraires, l’enquête vise à évaluer l’apport de la tradition juive à la construction des notions de peuple et d’appartenance, qui, à travers l’héritage chrétien, conduirons à l’élaboration du concept moderne d’État-nation. La Bible, le Livre, ne constitue pas seulement une source à la fois textuelle et historique pour l’orientaliste, mais également une tradition à partir de laquelle on peut interroger le regard des sociétés sur elles-mêmes et les relations qu’elles entretiennent. / Jewish identity has always been a highly disputed topic, at least since the archaeological discovery of the so-called Iron Age “proto-Israelites” until the recent debates about the relationship between being a Jew and an Israeli citizen in the modern state of Israel. Notwithstanding a three thousand years old history, both Ancients and we continue to use the name “Israel”. Adopting a diachronic approach to the biblical text, this thesis retraces the history of the different ethnonyms related to the “chosen people” (Israel, Jews/Judeans, and Hebrews). Encompassing archaeological, epigraphic and literary evidences, the research reassesses the role played by Jewish tradition in the development of concepts such as “peoplehood” and “group identity” that, through the Christian heritage, will result in the modern concept of Nation-State. Thus, the Bible, the Book, can be not only a source for the orientalist but also a useful tradition that may help us to a better understanding of our societies and the relationships they maintain with each other.

Jesus was a healer, but what may not be as obvious is that he started a legacy of healing. He passed on his skills and abilities to his followers at least three times. Though not as frequently, they continued to heal through the Book of Acts. The legacy continued in the Apocryphal Acts and other apocryphal materials spanning the early centuries of the common era. Secondary literature looks at modern scholarship and leans heavily into Rabbinic literature. Up to this point, other English-language works in healing have sorely lacked luster in providing. The exploration of the healing legacy of Jesus shifted to meet the skills and needs of the healers, patients, and communities involved. Further, the healings had a substantive resultant impact on various levels of socioeconomics for the parties, which is explored by reexamining each group type of healings, from lameness and paralytics to possession and resurrection, and more. The hope is that taking a holistic approach to these healings as possible will allow readers a new way of experiencing the early common era and these events that permeated everyone's lives at one time or another.

Scholars such as Jonathan Klawans have distinguished between two types of impurity described in priestly texts: ritual and moral. The former, which denotes bodily pollution, occurs as a result of natural human processes (i.e., birth, death, genital discharge) and can render one temporarily unfit for temple worship, though it bears no clear ethical implications. Conversely, moral impurity refers to the more permanent defilement brought about by ethical transgressions (i.e., murder, apostasy, adultery), and has the capacity to stain the land of Israel itself, in addition to threatening the sanctity of the temple. However, this separation between ritual and moral dimensions of pollution are not absolute, as even Klawans allows that these categories are rather “pliable” (and to a certain extent, intertwined.) This thesis explores the concept of purity (both ritual and moral) in early Jewish literature, through a detailed analysis of water and cleansing language. In particular, I emphasise conceptual links between water for a) ritual washing and b) moral cleansing or sanctification. In this way, I highlight the flexibility of scholarly purity categories, demonstrating how purification can often be understood “holistically,” as encompassing both ritual and moral dimensions. I also illustrate how water seems to embody liminal tensions, oscillating between thresholds of purity and pollution, as well as primordial chaos and cosmic order. The thesis is divided into two major sections: Part One focuses on representations of water in the Hebrew Bible, whereas Part Two examines non-canonical texts from the Second Temple period. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Le motif de la couronne, fortement présent dans les corpus iconographiques juifs et chrétiens, a été majoritairement perçu comme une contamination païenne des dits répertoires. Par la même, son interprétation symbolique est jugée secondaire et son emploi serait essentiellement d’ordre décoratif. Par la constitution d’un double corpus sélectif, l’un iconographique et l’autre textuel, notre démontrons que ce motif connaît une signification symbolique profonde et propre aux deux religions. Mes travaux permettent, d’une part, une meilleure compréhension des évolutions iconographiques et religieuses si caractéristiques de l’Antiquité tardive, et, d’autre part, de cerner les interactions entre les groupes religieux juifs et chrétiens du monde gréco-romain. En effet, la prise en compte et la confrontation de l’ensemble des sources textuelles et iconographiques tardoantiques juives et chrétiennes ont tout d’abord montré que le thème de la couronne est omniprésent. Cette omniprésence s’explique dans la mesure où les significations symboliques qu’elle véhicule sont fondamentales et multiples. Attribut de pouvoir (celui du roi celui du prêtre), attribut et sceau divin, attribut christique, angélique et céleste, la couronne est au cœur de la pensée juive et chrétienne de la rétribution. Ce symbolisme puissant s’enracine dans la Bible. C’est à partir des passages bibliques, pourtant peu nombreux, mentionnant la couronne, que les exégèses ultérieures se sont constamment développées ; cela en insistant toujours plus sur la dimension céleste de la signification de ce motif, au détriment de ses connotations terrestres liées historiquement à la royauté davidique et à la prêtrise aaronienne. Le motif de la couronne et son interprétation de plus en plus eschatologique sont présents dans tous les corpus littéraires ou épigraphiques que nous avons étudiés. Les premiers témoins de cet accroissement de la valeur symbolique de la couronne sont les littératures intertestamentaire, pseudépigraphique et qumrânienne au tournant de notre ère, dans lesquelles l’attention se focalise sur le sort des justes. / The motif of the crown, strongly present in the Jewish and Christian iconographic corpus, was mainly perceived as a pagan contamination of the said repertoires. By the same token, its symbolic interpretation is considered secondary and its use essentially decorative. By the constitution of a selective double corpus, one iconographic and the other textual, we demonstrate that this motif knows a deep symbolic meaning specific to both religions. My work makes it possible, on the one hand, to better understand the iconographic and religious evolutions so characteristic of late antiquity, and, on the other hand, to identify the interactions between the Jewish and Christian religious groups of the Greco-Roman world.Indeed, taking into account and confronting all Jewish and Christian late antique textual and iconographic sources initially showed that the theme of the crown is omnipresent. This omnipresence is explained insofar as the symbolic meanings which it conveys are fundamental and multiple. Attribute of power (that of the king that of the priest), attribute and divine seal, attribute Christic, angelic and celestial, the crown is at the heart of the Jewish and Christian thought of retribution.This powerful symbolism is rooted in the Bible. It is from the biblical passages, however few in number, mentioning the crown, that the subsequent exegeses have been constantly developed; With an increasing emphasis on the heavenly dimension of the meaning of this motif, to the detriment of its terrestrial connotations historically related to the Davidic kingdom and the Aaronic priesthood. The motif of the crown and its increasingly eschatological interpretation are present in all the literary or epigraphic corpuses that we have studied. The first witnesses to this increase in the symbolic value of the crown are the intertestamental, pseudepigraphic and qumranian literatures at the turn of our era, in which attention focuses on the fate of the righteous.

La thèse a pour objet d’étudier le phénomène de création festive qui traverse les communautés juives de l’Antiquité à partir du VIe siècle av. J.-C. Ces fêtes nouvelles, de par leur typologie, leur théologie, leurs rites et leurs fonctions, s’écartent du modèle biblique tout en le revendiquant. Leur multiplication à l’époque hellénistique, sensible à travers leur mention dans la littérature juive hellénisée, témoigne d’évolutions qui, même si elles peuvent procéder d’une dynamique interne au judaïsme, témoignent d’interactions avec les communautés religieuses du monde grec puis romain. D’essence essentiellement locale, elles constituent un critère de définition identitaire et sont instrumentalisées pour servir des intérêts variés, notamment en termes de légitimation de l’autorité. Leur caractère récent leur confère une souplesse qui permet une actualisation constante de leur signification au gré des conjonctures, que ce soit à l’échelle locale ou au sein de courants transversaux comme le judaïsme rabbinique. Elles fonctionnent donc comme un révélateur du degré d’intégration ou d’exclusion des communautés juives dans leur environnement politique, social, culturel et religieux. / This dissertation aims at studying festive creativity within ancient Jewish communities from the VIth century B.C. onwards. From a typological, a theological, a liturgical and a functional viewpoint, these new festivals divert from Biblical tradition even though they claim not to. Their increase during the Hellenistic period, a phenomenon made clear in Jewish Literature written in Greek, attest to an evolution which, even though it could, in some cases, proceed from an inherently Jewish dynamic, fall within the category of cultural and religious interactions with other religious communities from the Greek and Roman world. Of an essentially local provenance, they are instrumental to a community’ self-definition and are often used to legitimate their founder or their organizer’s authority. Since they only appeared recently, their meaning can be updated to reflect various situations, either regarding a specific place and time or within such movements as Rabbinic Judaism. New festivals bring light to the place of a Jewish community within its milieu, be it political, social, cultural or religious.