Elephantine

...but about the Israelites distinguishing their identity from the Egyptians.

Hate in ancient Near Eastern law, the Torah, and Elephantine ketubot is a legal term. If a man demotes his wife to second in rank for no fault, merely because he “hates” her, he cannot also take away her firstborn son’s right to inherit a double portion.

The real reason Persia’s King Darius II sent a letter to the governor of Egypt that Judean soldiers in Elephantine should keep the festival of Matzot.

As late as the Second Temple period, Passover and Chag HaMatzot were viewed as two separate holidays. What was the final impetus to concretize the synthesis of these holidays into one?

A new look at the “Passover Papyrus” from Elephantine and the nature of the Hebrew calendar in the Achaemenid Empire.

When a Temple of Yahu Stood Near a Temple of Khnum

An overview of Persian history starting from Cyrus the Great’s conquest of Media (549 B.C.E.) until Alexander the Great’s conquest of Persia (334-329 B.C.E.), including related biblical references and Jewish texts.

Two Problems In Parashat Bemidbar 

Egyptologists have long searched the details of the Joseph story for clues to when the story was written. Does the Jewish experience as a diaspora community in Egypt hold the clue to the story’s origin?