The Desecrators Jews: On Jews, Temple Desecrators, Antisemitism and the historical meaning of Bucheum Stele 9

• In Event: Realia and Rulers in Jewish Antiquity

Abstract

The Bucheum stele 9, a hieroglyphic stele from 145 BCE, which was found in the Bucheum in Thebes, the burial place of the sacred Buchis bulls, records the life of a Buchis bull that lived from 162 to 145 BCE. This inscription mentions the unusual fact that, at the time of the enthronement ceremony of this bull, “there were no longer any foreigners of Yahu in the temple of Amun.” The “foreigners of Yahu” were certainly Jews, and this means that before 162 there were Jews in the temple of Amun, and therefore no religious ceremony could take place there. What circumstances produced this event? Is the inscription reliable? Why does only Bucheum stele 9 relate this event and not the funerary inscription of the previous Buchis bull? What was the purpose of this narrative-line and how does it reflect on the image of Jews in Ptolemaic Egypt? These issues will be discussed in this lecture.

Author

• noah hacham