Thursday, July 18, 2024

William M. Schniedewind on the Ketef Hinnom Amulets

  

Ketef Hinnom Amulets

 

One of the most striking priestly inscriptions are two amulets excavated in a tomb on the shoulder of the Hinnom Valley (in Hebrew, Ketef Hinnom), just outside the ancient city of Jerusalem. Ketef Hinnom was a family tomb complex, and archaeologists identified one tomb repository with the skeletal remains of at least forty-three people in the tomb dating to the late Iron Age. But the most sensational find was the silver amulets dating to the end of Judean monarchy (ca. 600 BCE). The location of the tomb is also instructive—namely, it was a new tomb cut during the seventh century and far away from the Temple Mount. Normally, the dead are buried immediately outside the city. So, for example, the early tombs of Iron Age Jerusalem were located on the slopes of the Kidron Valley and near the City of David—that is, where settlement began.

 

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The amulets made a sensation by their apparent quotation of the Priestly Blessing: “May Yahweh bless you and keep/protect you, may Yahweh make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, may Yahweh lift up his face upon you and grant you peace” (Num 6:24–26). This would make them the earliest known biblical quote in an inscription. In truth, the picture is more complicated. First of all, it is not an exact quote. It is a paraphrase. At the same time, the similarities between the amulets and the Priestly Blessing are certainly striking, and there can be little doubt that the amulets and Num 6:24–26 come from a shared ritual tradition. In his book, The Priestly Blessing in Inscription and Scripture, Jeremy Smoak points out that the blessing in the amulets and the Book of Numbers fits with the so-called “Holiness Code” in the Bible. The biblical Holiness Code is identified with ten chapters in the Book of Leviticus (chs. 17–26). These chapters form their own section with priestly literature, but holiness is not limited to a few chapters of Leviticus. It is a broader theme that can be associated with priests that had been working at rural sanctuaries and then came to Jerusalem.

 

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The amulets were certainly made in a priestly scribal setting, but who bought the amulet? Was it a priest? A Levite? It is hard to know, and the tomb artifacts do not yield any further direct clues to the identities of those buried there. The location of the tomb itself is fairly remote from the Temple in Jerusalem, and it was a family tomb—as mentioned, archaeologists identified at least forty-three people in the tomb remains. It seems unlikely that it belonged to an old priestly family directly affiliated with the Temple because it was so remote from the Temple. The oldest burial ground in Jerusalem is Silwan, just across the Kidron Valley and close to the Temple Mount and the City of David. This is where the old families of Jerusalem would have been buried. Still, the Ketef Hinnom tomb is very nicely cut and elaborate, so the family had some financial means. Maybe the tomb belonged to a family of peripheral priests? Hard to be certain, but that is how I imagine the family. Priestly refugees from a small village in the Judean foothills who came to Jerusalem in the early seventh century. In any case, the content of the amulets certainly reflects priestly writing, even though the owners of the amulets and the tomb remain a mystery. (William M. Schniedewind, Who Really Wrote the Bible: The Story of the Scribes [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2024], 187-88, 189, 190-91)