Babatha's Orchard

The Yadin Papyri and an Ancient Jewish Family Tale Retold

Philip F. Esler

Applies the new historical methodology of archival ethnography.
Advances the study of the Nabataean legal texts in their social context.
Examines the earliest four documents of an archive of the Jewish woman Babatha found in the Cave of Letters by the Dead Sea in 1961-Papyri Yadin 1-4, the first from 94 CE and the others from 99 CE, and all drafted in Nabataean Aramaic.
Explains the story behind these papyri, concerning the unusual events by which Babatha's father, Shim 'on, purchased a date-palm orchard in 99 CE.
For the first time, identifies the character of P. Yadin 4 and the names of its two parties.

Babatha's Orchard

The Yadin Papyri and an Ancient Jewish Family Tale Retold

Philip F. Esler

Description

Babatha's Orchard tells a story that has gone untold for nearly two thousand years. It is a story that would have perished with the last person familiar with its details--the Jewish woman Babatha, daughter of Shim'on ben Menahem. Babatha was probably killed or enslaved by Roman soldiers at the end of Shim'on ben Kosiba's revolt in 135 CE, when they captured a cave in a wadi running into the western shores of the Dead Sea in which she and other Jewish fugitives had been sheltering. In 1961, a team of archaeologists discovered a cache of possessions that Babatha had carefully hidden before her life or freedom was probably taken by the Romans. Among them were thirty-five legal documents dated from 94 CE to 132 CE, written on papyrus in Aramaic and Greek, relating to Babatha and her family, and the leather pouch in which they had been kept.

In this work, Philip F. Esler examines the first four documents of the archive in chronological order--Papyri Yadin 1-4, the first from 94 CE and the second, third and fourth from 99 CE, and all drafted in Nabatean Aramaic. Although from the land and time of the Bible, they reveal a tale of domestic life. It is the story of how, around December 99 CE, Shim'on, Babatha's father (but probably before she was born), unexpectedly came to acquire an irrigated date-palm orchard in his village of Maoza, on the southern shore of the Dead Sea, in the kingdom of Nabatea. Esler undertakes a close reading of P. Yadin 1-4, with occasional reference to wider contextual issues from the Dead Sea region and other parts of the ancient Mediterranean world.

Babatha's Orchard

The Yadin Papyri and an Ancient Jewish Family Tale Retold

Philip F. Esler

List of Figures
Prologue: Re-telling an Ancient Jewish Family Tale
1. Archival Ethnography
2. Nabatea and the Nabateans
3. Life in Maoza
4. Muqimu Borrows Money from his Wife
5. Archelaus Purchases a Date-palm Orchard
6. Archelaus Rescinds his Purchase
7. Shim"on Purchases a Date-palm Orchard
8. P. Yadin 4: Its Character and Parties
9. P. Yadin 4 and Shim"on's Purchase of the Orchard
10. An Ancient Jewish Family Tale
Appendix 1: The Emended Nabatean Aramaic Text of P. Yadin 4 (with annotations)
Appendix 2: Translations of P. Yadin 1-4 (with annotations)
List of References
Index of Secondary Authors

Babatha's Orchard

The Yadin Papyri and an Ancient Jewish Family Tale Retold

Philip F. Esler

Author Information

Philip F. Esler is Portland Chair of New Testament Studies at the University of Gloucestershire. He is a Higher Education administrator and academic who became the inaugural Chief Executive of the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in 2005, remaining in that role until 2009. From 1995 to 2010 he was Professor of Biblical Criticism at St Andrews University. From 1998 to 2001 he was Vice-Principal for Research and Provost of St Leonard's College at St Andrews. During the years 1999 to 2003 he served as a member of the Board of Scottish Enterprise Fife. From October 2010 to March 2013 he was Principal and Professor of Biblical Interpretation at St Mary's University College Twickenham. He had an earlier career as a lawyer, working in Sydney during 1978-81 and 1984-92 as an articled clerk, then solicitor and barrister.

Babatha's Orchard

The Yadin Papyri and an Ancient Jewish Family Tale Retold

Philip F. Esler

Reviews and Awards

"[The book] should be read and studied by all students of the Second Revolt and the Bar Kokhba materials, and may it inspire many other such close analyses of the surviving written evidence." -- Michael Owen Wise, Dead Sea Discoveries

"In summary, Esler's study represents true and meaningful progress in our understanding of the long-neglected Nabataean documents from the Babatha archive; this volume confirms that, far from being an already exploited source, the archive still has much to say about the economic, social and cultural history of the apparently marginal territory between southern Judaea and northern Arabia, in a period some decades removed from the Bar Kochba uprising." --Dorota Hartman, Annali, Sezione Orientale

"It is truly a masterful feat to transform crumbling agricultural receipts into such a vibrant tale. Esler takes the names of sellers, buyers, and guarantors and transforms them into characters from the past. . . . Most notably, Esler writes with a refreshing ease accompanying an evocative methodology."--Krista N. Dalton, Religion

"Babatha's Orchard is an extraordinary accomplishment. The book has as its focus four legal documents that deal with the sale of an orchard, about as dry as situation as can be imagined, but Philip F. Esler recreates the social and personal circumstances with great imagination and scholarly insight. It is like seeing a tattered black and white photograph turned into a film of the highest quality: what is two dimensional and in poor condition is transformed into a multidimensional narration with many nuances. His book is an inspiring model for scholars, and educated laypeople will find this book an enchanting entryway into a lost world."--Pamela Barmash, Reading Religion

"Esler's book has the twists and turns of a detective story, but its biggest surprise is the people into whose world we have been permitted to peer. Women, at least the upper-middle-class Jewish and Nabatean women of Babatha's circle, turn out to have been major financial players in this world. They bought and sold property, financed ventures from which they stood to gain, and even protected their interests at the risk of legal and marital conflict when things did not go according to plan. Babatha's resourceful foresight, together with Philip Esler's lawyerly scholarship, have granted us a glimpse into a fascinating social world that defies our preconceptions and calls out for further study."--Elizabeth Shanks Alexander, Jewish Review of Books

Babatha's Orchard

The Yadin Papyri and an Ancient Jewish Family Tale Retold

Philip F. Esler

From Our Blog

Ancient legal papyri bring lost world to life

Everyone has heard of the ancient Jewish religious scrolls discovered at Qumran by the Dead Sea in the middle of the 20th century. But who is aware that nearly 100 legal papyri have been found in the same region, or that they allow unparalleled access to the ancient social world of Judea and Nabatea in the period 100 BCE to 200 CE?

Posted on March 1, 2017

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