With a largely overlooked Aramaic papyrus in the British Library (P. BL Or. 106) as its starting point, this article presents an overview of prophetic literature from Persian and Hellenistic Egypt. By placing the Aramaic prophecy in a twofold context, with the Prophecy of Neferti and the Oracle of the Lamb, it argues that a shift from “ex…
Editorial Introduction (JAEI 48)
Joseph, Ahiqar, and Elephantine: The Joseph Story as Diaspora Novella
The possible Egyptian background of the Joseph story has been discussed for decades. While previous research compared the Joseph story to Egyptian texts from the New Kingdom, the present article focuses on material from the 1st millennium BCE. By drawing from the term “diaspora novella,” introduced by Arndt Meinhold in 1975, the present article compares…
Egypt and Israel: The Ways of Cultural Contacts in the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age (20th – 26th Dynasty)
When did literary ideas and Egyptian motifs first find their way to Israel/Judah? The article investigates modes of cultural contact in the Late Bronze and Iron Age (20th – 26th Dynasty). According to archaeological, epigraphic and literary material two ways of cultural contact can be found: an indirect one as a kind of ‘leftover’ of the Egyptian…