Papers by Nathan Kreider
Greek Influence on Jewish Worship: Divine Honours and the Septuagint Psalms in Egypt
Book Reviews by Nathan Kreider
Journal for the Study of Judaism, 2026
The history of scholarship on the Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt has historically been dominated by lite... more The history of scholarship on the Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt has historically been dominated by literary sources, with documentary sources only coming into prominence with their discovery in the early twentieth century. Zsuzsanna Szántó's book seeks to highlight how the papyri shed light on the various aspects of Jewish life in Ptolemaic Egypt, and she organizes her chapter s accordingly. Szántó begins with a brief overview of the history of Jews in Ptolemaic Egypt, from Alexander the Great until Ptolemy xii and Cleopatra vii (15-28), and integrates both literary accounts of this history (including Philo and Josephus) with records from the papyri. This overview is helpful, as it allows us to align the papyri with the larger political chronology in Egypt until it was conquered by the Romans in 30 bce. The survey acclimates the reader to the times in Egypt when life was more favorable for the Jewish community there, for instance under Ptolemy vi Philometer (180-145 bce). Following the brief chronology, Szántó helpfully gives a robust overview of Jewish life in various settlements across Ptolemaic Egypt (29-52). This section highlights both the larger cities such as Alexandria, as well as the smaller areas like Oxyrhynchus. The geographic sweep of nomes, cities, and villages promises to be a helpful reference tool for anyone interacting with Jewish papyri from one of these locations, as is evident from its usefulness for the remainder of the book. In Chapter 2, Szántó studies Jewish onomastics. Such a task is of great importance, especially given the fact that the ethnic label 'Jew/Judean' is used rarely in the papyrological record from the period (53). So, Szántó seeks to highlight how studying names in the papyri can help us locate Jewish authors and figures mentioned in the documents. Considering geopolitical influences is extremely important for this task. For instance, within the documents of Elephantine, over 50 Hebrew and semitic names are recorded-most of which are common to the Persian period, while a few are not attested, such as Shimeon (56-57). Many of these names are found in other contemporary Jewish settlementssuggesting interaction between various communities in Upper Egypt (59). Next, Szántó turns to Hellenized lower Egypt. In this region, Jewish onomastics took on a completely different form. She shows how, despite the rise of popular Hasmonean names in Palestine, the impact of this was not felt in Ptolemaic Egypt, and Egyptian Jews frequently took Greek names, Greek names that sounded like biblical names (72-73), or biblical names more broadly (88-96).
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Papers by Nathan Kreider
Book Reviews by Nathan Kreider