BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

BASONOVA—Wandering Arameans in Egypt

New light on the Samarian and Judean diaspora

BAF and BASONOVA Invite You to Join a Zoom Lecture

The Hebrew Bible views Egypt as the location of both slavery and refuge. The “wandering Aramean” ancestor mentioned in Deuteronomy 26:5 was a slave in Egypt, whereas the prophet Jeremiah and others chose to flee there after the fall of Samaria/Israel and Judah. This presentation offers a look at the evidence for diaspora life in Egypt found in Papyrus Amherst 63, a long and difficult text written in Aramaic but using the Demotic Egyptian script.

The many compositions in the papyrus reflect the religious traditions and collective cultural memory of a group of Aramaic speakers in Egypt, including Samarians and Judeans. It contains hymns that praise Yahweh over other deities, and even an idealized description of their arrival in a new land: “I come from Judah; my brother has been brought from Samaria; and now, a man is bringing up my sister from Jerusalem.”

Wednesday, December 2, 2020 at 8 pm EST via Zoom

Wandering Arameans in Egypt: New Light on the Samarian and Judean Diaspora

Tawny Holm, Penn State University

How to Access the Twice Monthly BAF/BASONOVA Zoom Lecture Series

If you wish to subscribe to the lecture series, please access the BASONOVA PayPal portal and use a credit card for a one-year subscription ($35 per family). Go to: http://www.basonova.org/ membership-form.html

It is also possible to access the series one lecture at a time, for $7 per lecture. To reserve your single-lecture Zoom spot, go to: http://www.basonova.org/ next-lecture-reservation.html

Questions: [email protected]

Upcoming BASONOVA Lectures:

Writing on the Wall: Graffiti and the Forgotten Jews of Antiquity
Wednesday, December 23, 2020 at 8 pm EST via Zoom
Karen Stern, Professor in the History Department at Brooklyn College

Egyptian Rule and Canaanite Resistance as Seen from Jaffa
Wednesday, January 6, 2021, at 8 PM EST via Zoom
Aaron Burke is Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology, the Levant and Ancient Israel at UCLA