I argue that three broad avenues for seeking miracles can be identified in Palestine, and indeed across the ancient Mediterranean world: person, place, and object. People were believed to transmit cures by their own intrinsic power or through the use of prescribed words and actions; sacred places hosted incubation rituals where the sick and injured awaited healing in their dreams; and objects inscribed with powerful texts and images were attached to the body as amulets to ward off present and future ailments.As the essay notes, most of the published late-antique amulets from Palestine are unprovenanced (cf. here). As I've said many times, my methodological principle is that we should assume an unprovenanced artifact is a forgery unless someone makes a credible positive case for its authenticity.
In the case of these artifacts, we should draw initial conclusions based on the minority of amulets that come from controlled archaeological excavation. It is a judgment call on what to do with the unprovenanced ones, but if they are going to be used, their evidence should generally be given less weight than the provenanced ones.
With that out of the way, read the esssay, which takes a sophisticated cross-cultural contextual approach to the data. I have noted a review of Professor Nutzman's book, Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine, here.
Outside the scope of this essay and her book, but the late-antique Hebrew magical tractate Sefer HaRazim includes ritual healing spells for generic healing, recovery from stroke, protection during childbirth, and curing migrane headaches and cataracts. It seems to have been composed roughly in the Talmudic era. Its provenance is unknown, but Egypt or Palestine are plausible.
Sefer HaRazim was translated by Michael Morgan in 1983 (details here). I have translated it again, forthcoming (April 2025!) in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, More Noncanonical Scriptures, volume 2, drawing on much more manuscript information than was available to Morgan.
For addition posts on Sefer HaRazim see here and follow the links from here. Note also today's post here.
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