Wednesday, October 02, 2024

A Judeo-Egyptian in the third century BCE?

GREEK EPIGRAPHY: A Judeo-Egyptian Complains to King Ptolemy About His Neighbor. First record of ethnic identifier 'Judeo-Egyptian' revealed on petition to King Ptolemy. Could this papyrus fragment be the earliest extant petition in Greek to any ancient Egyptian king from a Jew? (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).
Long story short, apparently Palous' village was near the paleolake Moeris, separate work suggests, and he and a fellow villager were engaged in an argument – involving sheep – bitter enough to be brought before the mightiest one in the land. How was the dispute resolved? We do not know.
The underlying article in the current issue of the Journal of Jewish Studies (75.2) is behind the subscription wall: A Ptolemaic petition from a ‘Judeo-Egyptian’ (Ἰουδαιοαιγύπτιος). The abstract is free.

This papyrus intriguingly contains a very early use of some form of the Greek word for "Jew," ioudaios. I wrote some comments on the nuances of the word ioudaios some years ago here. And for more on that subject, see Paula Fredriksen's review of Steve Mason's recent book, Jews and Christians in the Roman World, noted today here.

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