BH

The Law of Moses commanded the Jews to write verses from the law onto the doorposts of their houses and on the gates to their yards.

Do archeologists find this in the archeological record, assuming the doorposts were made of rock or stone?

ficino

Josephus apparently says that the Jews had already been putting mezuzahs on their doorposts in his day:

http://www.chabad.org/library/articl...nd-Customs.htm

Edited to add: my apologies. The Josephus reference given on this and several other websites does not show that Jews were using mezuzahs in the first cent. CE, as the website claims, but refers to Moses' giving the commandment about it.

semiopen

Mezuzahs were in use before tefillin, which was discussed here a few months ago.

The evidence for mezuzot preceding tefillin is that the Samaritans use mezuzahs but not tefillin.

The most famous Samaritan mezuzah is the Los_Lunas_Decalogue_Stone

As the Samaritan style has them as engravings in the wall, we can probably assume that teflillin didn't come into use until someone figured out that the words could be written onto little scrolls and these put into boxes.

We get archaeological remains of Tefillin around the time of the dead sea scrolls and before the first century CE. The Samaritan examples of mezuzot are much earlier.

ficino

Among all Jewish people I know, mezuzahs are put on the doorpost of someone's dwelling. Tefillin are attached by leather straps; men put them on themselves to pray.

stephan huller

The Samaritans don't use phylacteries. They don't understand that anyone was supposed to write and tie things to people and objects. Neither did the Jews of the Bar Kochba revolt. This was a new innovation of the proselytes who became Jews in the late second century. In other words, it derives from a misunderstanding.

steve_bnk

I sat next to a Jew on a plane who took out a small block with symbols, tied it to his forehead with straps, and then covered his head with a black cloth.

semiopen

I don't know if your comment was directed at mine but,

the similarity between the two is that they both have biblical verses put into the inside of their respective compartments.

As I mentioned, the Samaritan practice of physically writing the inscription above the door seems to pre-date the concept of writing the verses on little pieces of parchment and putting them into something. Since the technology for doing this is important, we can probably say with confidence that the use of mezuzot became traditional before tefillin.

The commandment to use tefillin is much less clear than the commandment for mezuzot.

One possible criticism of my comment is that I'm not sure any BCE mezuzot have been found, but I'm hoping nobody will notice that.

Stephan makes a comment which surprised me but I'm assuming is correct about Bar Kochba and tefillin. Tefillin have been found in DSS type sites which are pre-CE but it is not clear to me how widespread the custom was.

Duvduv

Does anyone here besides myself actually put on tefillin every morning??
The Karaites evidently inherited a tradition of the Saduccees and/or Samaritans that takes the references to "totafot"symbolically rather than as explicit objects transmitted throughout the generations.
I think I have someone's thesis somewhere that analyzes the tefillin of Qumran, with parchment verses that basically resemble the one's I use, while others are completely different.

stephan huller

Philo took the passage in the Samaritan manner - allegorically:

Philo clearly talks about a tangible ‘mezuzah’, not unlike the ones used by Samaritans to this day. Interestingly one line is taken literally the other allegorically.

semiopen

My impression is that both commandments were not taken literally until second temple times.

The Tefillin commandment

וּקְשַׁרְתָּם לְאוֹת, עַל-יָדֶךָ; וְהָיוּ לְטֹטָפֹת, בֵּין עֵינֶיךָ.

Where the translation of לְטֹטָפֹת as "for frontlets" is hardly obvious.

This word (totafot Strong's H2903) appears only three times in the bible Exod 13:6, Deut 6:8, and Deut 11:18.

By contrast

וּכְתַבְתָּם עַל-מְזֻזוֹת בֵּיתֶךָ, וּבִשְׁעָרֶיךָ.

מְזֻזוֹת appears many times and is door posts. Mezuzah (singular Strong's H4201).

If one is going to take this literally, it is, at least, easy to do.

כְתַבְתָּם Khtavtam - you shall write (or inscribe, engrave) (Katav Strong's 3788) is often taken as inscribe or engrave during sermons, so the commandment seems to make the most sense to write it into the door post as opposed to sticking into a little case, etc.