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Yonatan Adler

@yonatan.bsky.social

890 followers 93 following 490 posts

Archaeology and Early Judaism Associate Professor @arieluniversity Author of: The Origins of Judaism (Yale 2022) Between Yahwism and Judaism (Cambridge 2025)

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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · Aug 7

𝗕𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗬𝗮𝗵𝘄𝗶𝘀𝗺 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗝𝘂𝗱𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗺:
Judean Cult and Culture during the Early Hellenistic Period (332–175 BCE)

Expected online publication date: October 9th.

cambridge.org/core/element...

Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 11h

I truly look forward to interacting with these two scholars, both of whose work I hold in very high esteem.
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marginaliareviewofbooks.com

Marginalia Review of Books | deep learning for a digital age

Curated by expert editors and guided by Marginalia's vision of democratizing depth in an age drowning in the shallows, our pages unite the separated silos of the university, arts, science, and culture...

marginaliareviewofbooks.com

Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 11h

Part I of the Marginalia Review of Books' symposium on my book, The Origins of Judaism, has just gone online.

Future symposium contributors include Prof. Steve Mason (University of Groningen) and Dr. Gad Barnea (Haifa University).

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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 1d

Perhaps. That could possibly explain the wine.

In the footnote there, I wrote:
"For a survey of scholarly explanations for why Daniel was portrayed as refusing to eat this food, see J. Collins, Daniel, 141–143".
I don't recall if Collins mentioned this as a hypothesis.

Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 1d

This is what I wrote about Dan 1 in The Origins of Judaism (pg. 42):

Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 2d

No need to trust Josephus.
This is the story he tells, which needs to make sense to his readers.

Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 2d

😅

Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 2d

According to Josephus, yes.

Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 2d

Thanks for making me look this up!🙏

Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 2d

Actually, in Josephus's telling of it (Ant. 10:190 ff.), the issue there seems to be prohibited meats.

This is quite different from what we find in Dan. 1:5-16, where the food is identified as being of the king’s “patbag,” apparently from the Old Persian “patibaga” meaning “portion”.

Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 2d

...the ritual purity laws as a regular part of daily life.
Josephus's account powerfully illustrates just how deep this dedication ran, showing that adherence to these laws extended even to the dungeons of Rome...
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(Photo: 1st century CE Carbonized figs found at Pompeii; Amedeo Benestante)

Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 2d

However, food that had not come into contact with water—like figs or nuts, which tend to be kept dry to prevent spoilage—would have been regarded as unsusceptible to impurity, and hence pure even if obtained from ritually impure people.

By the first century CE, Jews commonly observed...
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 2d

Leviticus 11:34 states explicitly that liquids or solid foods which came into contact with water—like bread—are susceptible to impurity. Accordingly, bread provided by Roman guards would have been regarded as ritually impure.
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 2d

Presumably, the standard fare in a Roman prison would have been some sort of bread—which should not have posed a problem as far as the dietary laws were concerned (i.e., what we call today “kashrut”).

Instead, it seems likely to me that the issue was ritual purity.
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 2d

In his autobiography, Josephus tells of a trip he made to Rome to redeem fellow Jewish priests who had been taken captive (Life 13–16).

He reports that the priests had not forgotten their “piety towards God”, and throughout their captivity supported themselves on figs and nuts.

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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 11d

I just spent a whole day replying to his insightful comments... 🙄

Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 11d

A very happy holiday—חג שמח— to all who celebrate!
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 11d

...that the Torah was not observed widely throughout this time.
I found this to be an interesting example where a fundamentalist approach leads one to insist that the Bible is NOT to be taken literally. There are other examples, for sure, but this one I found particularly intriguing.
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 11d

...to build sukkot from the time of Joshua until the time of Ezra (around a thousand years according to internal Biblical chronology). The good rabbi insisted that the Biblical verse was not to be taken literally—he was convinced that it was a gross exaggeration. He simply could not accept...
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 11d

The rabbi had published something against my book, and I reached out to him as I sensed that he hadn’t actually read the book (he admitted that he hadn’t).

The verse I’ve cited here came up in our back-and-forth. According to the verse, Israelites did not fulfill the Torah’s instruction...
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 11d

“𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗵𝘀 (סֻכּוֹת) 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺; 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗝𝗲𝘀𝗵𝘂𝗮 𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗡𝘂𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗜𝘀𝗿𝗮𝗲𝗹 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘀𝗼.” (Neh 8:17)

I was recently in an email debate with a well-known Israeli rabbi (whom I won’t name).
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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 16d

(2) “Yom Kippur is when my sins are forgiven, and so—if I will anyway act impiously the rest of the year—let me at least observe the one day when my iniquities are absolved”.

Are there other psychological explanations I am missing?

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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 16d

(1) “Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year, and therefore—if there is only one day I am willing to devote to my Judaism—it will be on this day”.

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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 16d

The fact that the same (or a very similar) phenomenon has been with us for millennia raises questions about the psychological drive behind it.
Offhand, I can think of two hypotheses:

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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 16d

...in self-denial and virtue.”
(Philo, 𝘚𝘱𝘦𝘤. 𝘓𝘢𝘸𝘴 1:186)

According to Philo, Yom Kippur was widely observed in the mid-1st century CE—even by Jews who acted impiously throughout the rest of the year. This depiction sounds strikingly familiar to modern ears.

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Yonatan Adler @yonatan.bsky.social · 16d

“On the tenth day is the fast, which is carefully observed not only by the zealous for piety and holiness 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗼 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗲𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲. For all stand in awe, overcome by the sanctity of the day, and for the moment the worse vie with the better...

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