PhilosopherJay

Hi all,

According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the discovery of the house in the place that some are calling Nazareth.

The evidence I found commonly cited for the idea that chalk vessels are a Jewish identity marker are 1) chalk vessels was mentioned as being ritualistically clean by the Talmud and 2) chalk vessels are not found in Judea after the Bar Kockhbar War (circa 140 C.E.).

However, in the Kalim (Vesels) section of the Talmud, there is no mention of chalk vessels being not susceptible to ritual uncleanliness. In fact, there is no mention of chalk vessels at all.

Perhaps chalk is being considered a part of stone vessels. Again there is no mention of stone vessels in the entire Kalim section.

The most relevant section appears to be Chapter 2

What is clear is that flat vessels are clean, while those that form the shape of a receptacle may be made unclean. What makes a material clean or susceptible to being unclean is not what it is made of, but what the shape is.

There is only one phrase out of the 30 chapters in this tractate that suggests anything like the idea that fired vessels are more susceptible to uncleanliness then stone vessels (from Chapter 4, Mishnah 4):

However, when we look at the sentence in context, it does not say that Earthenware vessels are impure:

What determines if an earthenware vessel is susceptible to becoming impure is the shape. The baking is simply the moment of completion of the object. Compare this to other moments of completion of the object mentioned in the text:

(20:7)
(27:2)
[Cloth] (2:6)
Again, the material is irrelevant. What counts is shape and completion.

The Talmud does not openly state or even appear to support the contention that Jews used stone vessels for ritual purity.

It seems to me that any manufacture of stone vessels in Judea in the First century would have been related to economics rather than ritual purity. I assume that fired vessels would take longer to make and firing the vessels would add to their cost. Therefore poorer families would buy unfired vessels.

If this is the case, then finding fragments of chalk or stone vessels at a site would simply indicate poverty rather than religion.

The disappearance of this type of manufacturing after the 140's could be related to changes in economic circumstances in the area. Probably, the wealth of the area increased with the decrease of population caused by the war. For example, if glazed vessels made up 90% of vessels in use and stone vessels 10% and the population was reduced by 50% due to the war, the the number of glazed vessels would be abundant for the remaining residents and the price would drop accordingly, At a certain point new manufacturers of stone vessels could not compete with the used glazed vessels on the market and would stop making them.

Does anybody have any more information about this?

Sincerely,

Jay Raskin

Toto

Same question on Straight Dope Board

Someone there cites Stone Vessels in the Late Second Temple in Israel (2006)

Toto

Ancient Israel’s Stone Age, Yitzhak Magen, BAR 24:05, Sep/Oct 1998.

Jeffrey Gibson

The problem here is that the tractate you point us to and cite is Mishnaic, not Talmudic. Moreover, chalk vessels were porous, were they not? So why they would be discussed as something not susceptible to uncleanliness is not apparent.


Try Mishnah Betsah 2:3 and Str-B 2:406; Benedikt Schwank, "'Sechs steinerne Wasserkrüge' (Joh 2,6)" Erbe und Auftrag 74 (1998) 241-243.

Jeffrey

PhilosopherJay

Hi Toto,

Thanks. Here are the passages cited Norman Rubin in his article "Stone Vessels in the Late Second Temple in Israel":

MISHNAH 5. [Note the first line "THE MIXTURE MAY BE PREPARED IN ALL KINDS OF VESSELS" directly contradicts the claim that certain materials like stone vessels automatically protect against impurities, while baked vessels do not.]


Oholoth 5:5
Yadayim 1:2
Kelim 10:1
Only the last source seems to support the contention that stone vessels maintain ritual purity. However, the next paragraph makes clear that it is not the material that makes for purity, but the tightness of the covering that makes for purity (10:2):

In order for the contents of a vessel to be clean it must have a tightly fitting cover made out of 1) lime, 2) gypsum, 3) pitch, 4) wax, 5) mud, 6) excrement, 7) crude clay, 8) potter's clay, 9) any other substance used for plastering. One may not use 1) tin, 2) lead, 3) swollen fig cakes, 4) dough kneaded with fruit juice, because these do not make tight fittings. Again it is the shape (tight fitting versus non-tight fitting) that counts in terms of purity. The material does not matter.

The two other examples given in the article (about ovens and benches, not vessels) are also less than clear about how they relate to the hypothesis that stone vessels are protected from ritual impurity.

Rather than prove the hypothesis, these quotes show how thin and ambiguous is the evidence in its favor.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Toto

Hi Jay - are you trying to find some sort of logic behind the rules on ritual purity? I am usually advised that it is impossible to understand the Mishna without years of study and appreciation for the linguistic and cultural quirks.

Your second quote seems clear and is cited in Essays on Purity in Early Judaism at p. 40, ft 38. (There is more there if you search for "vessel.")

I gather this refers to non-priestly purification, and it seems to be well accepted as an archaeological indicator of Jewish practices, along with secondary burial, mikvaot and the absence of pig bones, whatever the requirements in the law. This is based on Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk) (on google books)

I guess the question should be whether non-Jewish households would also have used unfired clay pots, and I don't know the answer.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Toto,

Thanks for the sources. I am not looking for the logic behind the rules of ritual purity, I am only looking for the evidence behind the argument that stone or chalk vessels indicate Jewish presence between 40 B.C.E. to 140 C.E. As you know, in biblical studies, many things are stated as facts, but as soon as you start examining the evidence, you find that the facts are based on ambiguous, contradictory and sometimes even absurd evidence. Naturally, the opposite also occurs, where one finds upon investigation that the stated facts are backed up by clear and quite probable evidence.

In the footnote in "Essays in Purity in Early Judaism," on p40, credit for the idea that non-priestly purity was widespread is given to Eyal Regev and a couple of articles he published in 2000. In his article "The Idea of Non-Priestly Purity in Ancient Judaism,", he states that stone vessels could have been in use "for several decades after the Bar Kokhbar revolt" (pg. 184). This means that even if we accept Regev's idea of stone vessels indicating non-Priest Purity, the fragments of chalk vessels found at Nazareth could have been there from circa 40 B.C.E. to circa 170 C.E.

Regev bases his hypothesis of widespread non-priestly purity in eating vessels basically by combining two facts: 1) archaeological findings of fragment and stone vessels throughout judea and 2) his interpretation of several passages from the Mishna.

The widespread finding of stone vessels and fragments throughout Judea is just as well explained by their cheaper cost, so it is really the interpretation of the Mishna passages that are the crux of the argument.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

PhilosopherJay

Hi Toto,

Here is the second quote cited, Oholoth 5:5
This seems to confirm that vessels of 1) baked ordure, 2) stone, 3) unbaked Earth remain clean if they were clean before and lying over a hatchway. This seems to refer back to Oholoth 5:1, where a man carrying an unclean dead body apparently walks over a house. The statement "If it was a vessel known to be clean for holy things" suggest that if it was not a vessel knwon to be clean for holy things, it would not be clean, regardless of what it was made of. This suggests that these three materials do not have automatic protection from uncleanliness.

This seems to be confirmed by Oholoth 6:1

This seems to suggest that vessels of 1) baked ordure, 2) vessels of stone, or 3)vessels of unbaked Earth can become unclean when in contact with something unclean (in this case a stone). At least there seems to be some serious disagreement about it among Rabbis.

The case that stone vessels protect from impurity seems open to interpretation.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay


____________________

PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

The best article I could find on the subject of stone vessels was by an archaeologist, Andrea M. Berlin, "Jewish Life Before the Revolt: The Archaeological Evidence," Journal for the Study of Judaism, Volume 36, Number 4, 2005 , pp. 417-470(54).

She makes a number of important points and hypotheses and does a good job of clearly laying out the archaeological evidence. On the one hand she does agree that the use of stone vessels is a symbol of Jewish identity. The fact that Samaritans did not use the stone vessels suggests that their use was a way of showing connection with their Judaism. So the archaeological evidence does support the idea of stone vessels being a Jewish identity marker. On the other hand, she notes that the houses of priests and wealthy Jerusalem Jews are often found with a mixture of vessels including expensive Roman ones. Thus the idea that stone vessels were used in observance of Jewish Purity rituals seems unlikely. Rather she says that the use of these vessels was a way for ordinary Jews to reaffirm their Jewish identity, what she calls "Household Judaism." She notes that "‘Household Judaism’ developed outside halakhic or priestly concerns.

For me the most interesting revelation in the article is this statement: "No cemeteries, not even single stray tombs, that date before 70 C.E. have yet been identified from Jewish settlements in Galilee or Gaulanitis."

The question is what happened to all the Jews who died in Galilee before 70 C.E.? My guess is that the bones of Jews who died in Galilee were routinely sent to Judea for burial.

An analogous situation perhaps exists today and has existed for the last half century in Florida. Jews from New York and other northern cities often retire to Florida, but after they die, their bodies are shipped back to their hometowns for burial in family plots. In one heavily Jewish country, Palm Beach County, last year, 22% of the bodies of people who died there were shipped out of state.

We may think of Galilee as having a relationship to Judea that was analogous to the relationship of New York Jews and Florida Jews during the second half of the 20th century, with New York playing the role of Jerusalem and Southern Florida playing the role of Galilee.

If we take Eyal Regev's idea that stone vessels were made for a few decades after the Bar Kokhba War, we can suggest that the fragments of stone vessels found at Nazareth come from this period after 140 C.E.

This fits in with the thesis that the gospels were written in the second half of the Second century. We may suppose that the town of Nazareth was founded by refugees from the Bar Kokhba war circa 140. It would have been known for the dedicated Jewish Christ believers who started it.
Ten or twenty years later, in Marcion's gospel, perhaps, it would have been incorporated into the gospels as the hometown of the Christ.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay