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11 pages, 219 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Why a Cracker? Jephthah’s Daughter as the Unleavened Bread of Passover

by Amanda Walls

Religions 2024, 15(6), 712; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15060712 - 8 Jun 2024

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This article presents a new hypothesis regarding the social and ideological functions of the otherwise unknown festival to commemorate Jephthah’s daughter and the meaning of its symbols and occasions. A unique event in the biblical world, this festival is the only time known to us in which Israelite women were expected to appear together in public assembly. Jud 11:39–40 enjoin “the daughters of Israel” to celebrate it annually. The story of Jephthah’s daughter, summarized in Jud 11:34–39, evokes and develops many themes that intersect with the depiction of and the prescriptions for observing two well-known festivals that share a season: the holiday of Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread, Maṣṣot. A synthesis of the correlations among the holidays will suggest that the festival dedicated to honoring Jephthah’s daughter was an early, long-lasting folk version of Maṣṣot in which the daughter represented the festival’s ritual staple, unleavened bread. Full article

27 pages, 80026 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Wrathful Rites: Performing Shefokh ḥamatkha in the Hileq and Bileq Haggadah

by Elina Gertsman and Reed O’Mara

Religions 2024, 15(4), 451; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15040451 - 2 Apr 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2062

Abstract

This essay explores a remarkable manuscript, the so-called Hileq and Bileq Haggadah (Paris, BnF Ms. Hébreu 1333), illuminated in southern Germany in the fifteenth century. Our focus, in particular, is on the image that accompanies the Shefokh ḥamatkha prayer, an invocation of God’s vengeance upon nonbelievers. Here, we posit the role of the Shefokh ḥamatkha folio within the context of the Hileq and Bileq Haggadah, suggesting that its prominent position and extravagant visual program involve the reader–viewer in a performative scenario that inflects the meaning of the other images in the book as well as the enactment of the Seder ritual itself. The messianic import of the folio is underscored by its enactive language, both visual and oral, and predicated on the emotional communities that coalesced around the Passover ritual in the later Middle Ages. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Devotion Practice and Performative Expression in the Religious Art of Medieval Europe)

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18 pages, 1087 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Pure or Noble Materials for Jewish Ritual Vessels: Passover Meal and the First Eucharistic Chalice (Holy Grail)

by Manuel Zarzo

Religions 2024, 15(3), 321; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030321 - 6 Mar 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2669

Abstract

Very little is known about the chalice used by Jesus of Nazareth at the Last Supper. The first Christians used a cup of blessing for the Eucharistic celebration (1Cor 10:16), which insinuates that Jesus used a ritual cup. An exegetical study of the synoptic gospels reveals that this ritual dinner was celebrated in the home of a wealthy disciple of Jesus, who would have lent him the most valuable cup of blessing owned by the family. Hence, it is unlikely that this cup was made of common and cheap materials, such as ceramic or wood. The only mention of this cup in the early centuries is due to St. John Chrysostom, who states (ca. 395 AD) that it was not made of silver. However, its veracity is not reliable due to the lack of earlier comments. In recent decades, archaeological excavations in the Holy Land have revealed that, at the time of Jesus, the use of vessels carved in limestone was common in Jerusalem for ritual practices in the domestic sphere because they were considered unsusceptible to impurity. This fact suggests that the chalice of the Last Supper might have been a valued cup of carved stone, which is consistent with the use of such bowls in the Hellenistic–Roman period among the aristocratic classes. Full article

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17 pages, 7373 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Our Lady at the Seder Table

by Zsófia Buda

Religions 2024, 15(2), 144; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020144 - 24 Jan 2024

Viewed by 2039

Abstract

This paper discusses a unique miniature in a fifteenth-century Ashkenazi Passover Haggadah. The image represents a young woman holding an open book at a spread Seder table at the opening words of the Maggid, the narrative part of the Haggadah. The image of the woman is reminiscent of Christian representations of female patrons, saints, and the Virgin Mary herself. Having demonstrated this similarity, this article attempts to explain it by exploring to what degree the concept of the ‘ideal woman’ was shared in Jewish and Christian cultures. Since the lady in the Haggadah is clearly interacting with a book, the article also surveys textual evidence of female education in medieval Ashkenaz and women’s participation in religious rituals, to examine to what degree portraying the lady this way could reflect the reality of fifteenth-century Ashkenaz. The findings suggest that the authorship of the Haggadah may have deliberately drawn a visual parallel between the lady in the Haggadah and the Virgin Mary in order to challenge the latter’s unique position in Christianity and counterweight her ever-growing cult. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interfaith Dialogues: Jewish and Christian Connections via Medieval Art and Literature)

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29 pages, 224437 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Illustrated Haggadah for Sefardi Exiles in Istanbul

by Katrin Kogman-Appel

Religions 2023, 14(9), 1192; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14091192 - 19 Sep 2023

Viewed by 2103

Abstract

The first illustrated haggadah of the print era was published around 1505 by David and Samuel ibn Nahmias in Istanbul (henceforth “Istanbul Haggadah”). It was embellished with woodcuts that had been commissioned in 1492 in Naples. This paper approaches the Istanbul Haggadah as a cultural product of the early Sefardi Diaspora. A comparative iconographic method reveals idiosyncrasies in relation to the tradition of medieval manuscript haggadot, which are then contextualized within the cultural ambience of the early Sefardi Diaspora in Naples, where Don Isaac Abarbanel played a central role as a spiritual and communal leader. My analysis is based on three types of information and sources: Abarbanel’s post-expulsion writings, among others a commentary on the haggadah; book-historical data on the early phases of printing; and historical information on the lives of the refugees. Most Sefardi printing projects from the post-expulsion years were aimed at meeting the spiritual needs of the community of exiles. The Istanbul Haggadah, and particularly its illustration program, was a fitting compliment to these endeavors. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Jewish Visual Culture)

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