The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, by David Kessler
Today's date is: 5/12/2025
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The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, by David Kessler
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| Our knowledge of this settlement derives from the papyri and ostraca written in Aramaic which were found in its ruins at the beginning of the present century. They were composed in the fifth century BC when the community was already well established and have been compared in importance with the Dead Sea Scrolls, written 400 years later, discovered at Qumran. The documents throw a vivid light on the everyday life of a Jewish community living in the Diaspora a long way from Jerusalem. They depict the domestic scene, including legal contracts and religious observances, and describe a temple of the same dimensions and plan as the Solomonic Temple in Jerusalem, which was erected for the worship of the one God and the practice of Judaism. The papyri can only give a partial picture of life in the garrison town but they demonstrate, among other things, that 'Passover, like the Sabbath, was taken for granted as a regular feature of religious life'. (1) A letter dealing with the observance of Passover can be accurately dated to 419 BC, 'the fifth year of Darius [II]'. There is nothing about the Sabbath in the papyri but, referring to the more personal letters inscribed on ostraca, or potsherds, Porten makes the homely comment that it 'appears to have been honoured more in the breach than in the observance'. (2) At Elephantine the Jews had built their own temple and practiced sacrificial rites in accordance with biblical teaching. Porten has therefore concluded that the community was founded before the promulgation of Deuteronomy in 621, during the reign of King Josiah, (3) which means that it predates the Babylonian Exile and the limitation of the sacrificial cult to Jerusalem.4 This would seem to show that it was already in existence at the time when Zephaniah was speaking about a dispersed community even further south 'beyond the rivers of Cush'. Moreover, documentary evidence proves that the temple had been built prior to the Persian conquest of Egypt in 525, for in one of the papyri it is written that 'our forefathers built this Temple in the fortress of Elephantine back in the days of the kingdom of Egypt and when Cambyses came to Egypt he found it built'. (5) Porten has suggested that the community was established about 650 BC. The erection of a temple (as distinct from a synagogue) and the practice of animal sacrifices was looked at askance after the Exile by the priestly (1)Bezalel Porten, Archives from Elephantine, p. 131. |
| 42 Legend |