CPJ 1.23, a second-century BCE contract between two Jews for an interest-free loan secured with a house, briefly stirred interest for the possibility that it shows Jews observing their law in the Hellenistic diaspora. Most regard that as unlikely though, and the text has since languished in obscurity among scholars of Hellenistic Judaism. This article reexamines the text in its proper juridical contextâin comparison with other loan contracts from Greco-Roman Egyptâto show that it uses the form for a hypothecated loan to arrange the sale of a house which gives the seller the opportunity to reclaim it within a year of sale according to Leviticus 25:29â30. The article also places this reading of CPJ 1.23 alongside other evidence for Jews using their ancestral norms in handling property matters in Hellenistic Egypt to outline a hypothesis regarding the purpose of this tendency in Ptolemaic-era Jewish legal reasoning.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Adler, Elkan Nathan, J.G. Tait, and Fritz Heichelheim. The Adler Papyri, Greek Texts (London: Milford, 1939).
Baetens, Gert. A Survey of Petitions and Related Documents from Ptolemaic Egypt (Leuven, 2020). https://www.trismegistos.org/dl.php?id=18
Bingen, Jean. âThe Third-Century Land Leases from Thothis.â In Hellenistic Egypt: Monarchy, Society, Economy, Culture, ed. Roger S. Bagnall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 206â212.
Heichelheim, Fritz. Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Altertums vom Paläolithikum bis zur Völkerwanderung der Germanen, Slaven und Araber (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1938).
Honigman, Sylvie. âThe Jewish Politeuma in Heracleopolis.â Scripta Classica Israelica 31 (2002), 251â266.
Hunt, Arthur S., and J. Gilbart Smyly. The Tebtunis Papyri, vol. 3.1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933).
Kugler, Robert. Resolving Disputes in Second Century BCE Herakleopolis: A Study in Jewish Legal Reasoning in Hellenistic Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 2022).
Kugler, Robert. âCPR 18.11 Revisited.â Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 59 (2022), 275â287.
Lee, John A.L. A Lexical Study of the Septuagint Version of the Pentateuch (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983).
Lee, John A.L. The Greek of the Pentateuch: Grinfield Lectures on the Septuagint 2011â2012 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
Manning, J.G. Land and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: The Structure of Land Tenure (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Manning, J.G. The Last Pharaohs: Egypt under the Ptolemies, 305â30BC (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010).
Mélèze Modrzejewski, Joseph. The Jews of Egypt: From Ramses II to Emperor Hadrian (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).
Mélèze Modrzejewski, Joseph. âThe Septuagint as Nomos: How the Torah Became a âCivic Lawâ for the Jews of Egypt.â In Critical Studies in Ancient Law, Comparative Law, and Legal History, ed. John W. Cairns and Olivia F. Robinson (Oxford: Hart, 2001), 183â199.
Niehoff, Maren. âAlexandrian Judaism.â In Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters, 2nd ed., ed. Matthias Henze and Rodney Werline (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2020), 281â304.
Oates, John F., and William H. Willis. Checklist of Editions of Greek, Latin, Demotic, and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca, and Tablets. Papyri.info. Accessed January 11, 2023. https://papyri.info/docs/checklist.
Rahyab, Susan. âThe Rise and Development of the Office of Agoranomos in Greco-Roman Egypt.â New England Classical Journal 46 (2019), 37â61.
Rupprecht, Hans-Albert. Untersuchungen zum Darlehen im Recht der graeco-aegyptischen Papyri der Ptolemäerzeit (München: Beck, 1967).
Rupprecht, Hans-Albert. â5.4.2 Loan Secured against Mortgage (hypothêkê) of a House P. Tebt. III.1 817.â In Law and Legal Practice in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab Conquest: A Selection of Papyrological Sources in Translation, with Introduction and Commentary, ed. James G. Keenan, J.G. Manning, and Uri Yiftach-Firanko (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 253â254.
Rupprecht, Hans-Albert. âÎεβαίÏÏÎ¹Ï und Nichtangriffsklausel in den griechischen Papyri bis Diocletian.â In Beiträge zur Juristischen Papyrologie, ed. Andrea Jördens (Göttingen: Steiner, 2017), 51â61.
Rupprecht, Hans-Albert. âDie «Bebaiosis»âZur Entwicklung und den räumlich-zeitlichen Varianten einer Urkundsklausel in den graeco-ägyptischen Papyri.â In Beiträge zur Juristischen Papyrologie, ed. Andrea Jördens (Göttingen: Steiner, 2017), 75â85.
Rupprecht, Hans-Albert. âDie dinglichen Sicherungsrechte nach der Praxis der PapyriâEine Ãbersicht über den urkundlichen Befund.â In Beiträge zur Juristischen Papyrologie, ed. Andrea Jördens (Göttingen: Steiner, 2017), 137â149.
Rupprecht, Hans-Albert. âDie Eviktionshaftungen der Kautelarpraxis der graeco-aegyptischen Papyri.â In Beiträge zur Juristischen Papyrologie, ed. Andrea Jördens (Göttingen: Steiner, 2017), 62â74.
Rupprecht, Hans-Albert. âVeräuÃerungsverbot und Gewährleistung in pfandrechtlichen Geschäften.â In Beiträge zur Juristischen Papyrologie, ed. Andrea Jördens (Göttingen: Steiner, 2017), 162â172.
Rupprecht, Hans-Albert. âZur Antichrese in den griechischen Papyri bis Diokletian.â In Beiträge zur Juristischen Papyrologie, ed. Andrea Jördens (Göttingen: Steiner, 2017), 119â126.
Rupprecht, Hans-Albert. âZwangsvollstreckung und dingliche Sicherung in den Papyri der ptolemäischen und römischen Zeit.â In Beiträge zur Juristischen Papyrologie, ed. Andrea Jördens (Göttingen: Steiner, 2017), 150â161.
Sänger, Patrick. Die ptolemäische Organisationsform politeuma (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019).
Seidl, Erwin. Ptolemäische Rechtsgechichte, rev. ed. (Glückstadt: Augustin, 1962).
Siebenthal, Heinrich von. Ancient Greek Grammar for the Study of the New Testament (Oxford: Lang, 2019).
Tcherikover, Viktor, and Ernst Fuks. Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum 1 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1957).
Tcherikover [Tscherikower], Victor, and Fritz Heichelheim. âJewish Influence in the Adler Papyri?â Harvard Theological Review 35 (1942), 25â44.
Vandorpe, Katelijn. â5.2.1. Loan Secured against Mortgage (hypothêkê) of a House P. Tebt. III.1 817.â In Law and Legal Practice in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab Conquest, ed. James G. Keenan, J.G. Manning, and Uri Yiftach-Firanko (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 236â237.
Vandorpe, Katelijn. âPersian Soldiers and Persians of the Epigone: Social Mobility of Soldiers-Herdsmen in Upper Egypt.â Archiv für Papyrusforschung 54 (2008), 87â108.
Wolff, Hans Julius. Das Recht der griechischen Papyri Ãgyptens in der Zeit der Ptolemaeer und des Prinzipats, vol. 1 Bedingungen und Triebkräfte der Rechtsentwicklung, ed. Hans-Albert Rupprecht (München: Beck, 2002).
Yiftach-Firanko, Uri. âLaw in Graeco-Roman Egypt: Hellenization, Fusion, Romanization.â In The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, ed. Roger S. Bagnall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 541â560.
Yiftach, Uri. âA Handbook of Greek Formulae in Legal Documents from Ptolemaic, Roman, and Byzantine Egypt: A Pilot.â In Debt in Ancient Mediterranean Societies: A Documentary Approach. Legal Documents in Ancient Societies VII, Paris, August 27â29, 2015, ed. Sophie Démare-Lafont (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2019).
Yiftach, Uri. âExperimenting Security: P.Col. Inv. 497 and the Mortgage Regime in Early Second Century Oxyrhynchus.â Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 201 (2021), 167â182.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 426 | 123 | 13 |
| Full Text Views | 33 | 11 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 155 | 29 | 0 |
CPJ 1.23, a second-century BCE contract between two Jews for an interest-free loan secured with a house, briefly stirred interest for the possibility that it shows Jews observing their law in the Hellenistic diaspora. Most regard that as unlikely though, and the text has since languished in obscurity among scholars of Hellenistic Judaism. This article reexamines the text in its proper juridical contextâin comparison with other loan contracts from Greco-Roman Egyptâto show that it uses the form for a hypothecated loan to arrange the sale of a house which gives the seller the opportunity to reclaim it within a year of sale according to Leviticus 25:29â30. The article also places this reading of CPJ 1.23 alongside other evidence for Jews using their ancestral norms in handling property matters in Hellenistic Egypt to outline a hypothesis regarding the purpose of this tendency in Ptolemaic-era Jewish legal reasoning.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 426 | 123 | 13 |
| Full Text Views | 33 | 11 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 155 | 29 | 0 |