Talmud

The first installation to be identified as an ancient Jewish ritual bath (miqweh) was discovered by Yigael Yadin at Masada in 1963–4, and consisted of a stepped pool connected to an adjacent pool via a hole in the wall shared by the two installations. Yadin identified one installation as the immersion pool of the miqweh, and the second as an ’ôṣār (lit., ‘reservoir’), used to ritually purify the water in the immersion pool. Yadin’s explanation regarding the functioning of this double-pool ritual bath has gone unchallenged since it was first suggested almost half a century ago, and set the stage for future identifications of ’ôṣār installations found adjacent to other Second Temple period ritual baths. The present paper argues that the ’ôṣār is an innovation of the modern period, and that the commonly accepted view that an ’ôṣār was employed in ritual baths dating to as early as the Second Temple period is no more than an unqualified anachronism.

The conference aims at discussing the emergence and transmission of gynaecological knowledge from different angles in ancient medical theory and practice. Beside the medical approach, we will consider cultural practices and socio-religious norms that enable and constrain the production and application of gynaecological know-how (e.g. certain taboos on examining or touching the female body, etc.). The role and function of female specialists (e.g. healers, midwives or wet-nurses) as objects and subjects within ancient medical discourses will also be elaborated in further detail.

The Škand Gumānīg Wizār (ŠGW) contains Middle Persian Zoroastrian literature’s most extensive polemic against Judaism. This article explores the ŠGW’s polemic in light of recent scholarship demonstrating the connection between Babylonian rabbinic Judaism and Zoroastrianism in late antique Iran. Taking this connection as a starting point, the article considers the ŠGW’s critique of three angelic citations that are all closely paralleled by passages in the Babylonian Talmud. After demonstrating that the ŠGW citations depict angels as weaker and more oppressed than the rabbinic parallels, the article sets these portrayals of weakened angels in the context of the widespread belief among Jews in this period in Metatron, an angelic coequal to the divine. The article argues that the ŠGW’s depictions of downtrodden angels are not borrowed from rabbinic polemics, found in the Talmud, against this theology, but is an independent reaction to
the same belief in Metatron’s co-regency, a belief that sources testify was still common in the early Islamic period. The ŠGW’s motivating theological imperative to portray Judaism as radically monotheistic, and thus the binary opposite of Zoroastrianism,
underlies the text’s descriptions of angelic suffering and degradation.

Chapters thirteen and fourteen of Mardānfarrox ī Ohrmazddādān’s ninth century theological and polemical treatise Škand Gumānīg Wizār contain the most extensive polemic material against Judaism known in Zoroastrian literature. This polemic is comprised solely of citations from Jewish texts and the author’s rationalist critique of those citations; these Jewish citations are paralleled, more or less exactly, by passages from the Bible and rabbinic literature.

The present article examines Mardānfarrox’s argument against one of these Jewish citations, found in Škand Gumānīg Wizār 14:36-38. The citation describes how the Jewish God creates ninety thousand angels every day to praise him but, with nightfall, destroys them all in a river of fire. In his comments, Mardānfarrox indicts the Jewish God for his injustice and destruction of the angels.

Mardānfarrox’s critique of this citation is best understood not as a response to the content of the citation itself, but rather as contingent on the Škand Gumānīg Wizār’s theory of divine justice that forms a part of its proof of ethical dualism. Moreover, Mardānfarrox, both in the criticism of Judaism and in his rational explication of Zoroastrian theology, is taking up themes and methods prominent in Islamic Mu‘tazilite rationalist theology. In explicating these connections, the article situates the Škand Gumānīg Wizār as a whole as part of the shared intellectual discourse of the ninth and tenth centuries.

Le prêt à intérêt était pratiqué par tous les peuples de l’Antiquité préchrétienne, à l’exception du peuple d'Israël. L'auteur examine d'abord l'interdiction du prêt à intérêt dans l'Ancien Testament. Il expose ensuite la pratique du prêt à intérêt en Grèce, avant de détailler les critiques d'Aristote. Enfin, l’auteur retrace l’évolution du prêt (mutuum) et de la réglementation de l’intérêt à Rome, des origines à Constantin. Il met l’accent sur trois grandes controverses parmi les romanistes modernes (XVIe-XXIe s.) : sur le nexum, sur la centesima et, surtout, sur le mystérieux fenus unciarium, le taux d’intérêt fixé par les Douze Tables : l'éventail des interprétations va de 1 à 100 % par an ! L’auteur recense les opinions de plus de 400 juristes et historiens, discute les plus importantes et propose sa conclusion.

The loan at interest was used by all the peoples of pre-Christian Antiquity, excepting the people of Israel. The author first focuses on the prohibition of lending at interest in the Old Testament. He then explores the use of loans at interest in Greece before examining Aristotle’s criticism. Eventually, the author follows the evolution of loan (mutuum) and interest regulation in Rome, from the origins to Constantine. Three great controversies among modern Roman law scholars (16th-21th centuries) are considered: nexum, centesima and above all, the mysterious fenus unciarium, the interest rate defined par the Twelve Tables, for which the range of interpretations varies between 1 and 100% per year! The author gives an inventory of more than 400 opinions expressed by jurists and historians, discusses the most important ones and suggests a solution.