Jewish Curse Tablets?

Abstract

Relatively few curse tablets have been uncovered in the area covering late-antique Syria-Palestine. Among these (with one recent exception from Antioch), none display signs of having been inscribed by Jews: they do not employ the languages associated with Judaism—Hebrew or Aramaic—nor have any of them been uncovered in locations specifically associated with Judaism, for instance in a Jewish tomb. Even though recipes found in Jewish magic manuals indicate that Jews were aware of the use of metal tablets for erotic and aggressive magical ends, the finds from Syria-Palestine (and, incidentally, elsewhere in the Mediterranean), suggest they were not among the producers of such artifacts. Nonetheless, the notion of cursing was not alien to Judaism (intriguing resemblances exist between imprecations in the Hebrew Bible and Graeco-Roman “prayers for justice”), and cursing actions may be encountered in a variety of sources. One wonders, then, whether the typical curse tablets found different modes of expression in the context of late-antique Judaism. Interestingly, several Jewish Aramaic texts (both from Syria-Palestine and from Mesopotamia) display conceptual affinities with the aims of Graeco-Roman curse tablets, seeking, for instance, to induce burning love or obtain social control. Their form, however, is different. My article surveys these texts, and asks whether they can be regarded as an Aramaic counterpart of Greek and Latin curse tablets, and most importantly, whether the difference between the two was only a matter of form or also of essence.