Who Are the Deities Concealed Behind the Rabbinic Expression “A Nursing Female Image”?

Abstract

The Tosefta reads: “If a person found a ring on which was the image of the sun, the image of the moon, the image of a dragon (snake), he should bring it to the Dead Sea. And also a nursing female image () and Sarapis.”tos. ‘Abod. Zar. 5(6):1 (ed. Moshe Shemouel Zuckermandel, 468). The term follows MS Erfurt, while the version in MS Vienna is . The latter is preferable. This passage in the Tosefta almost certainly belongs to the second century C.E. Although this dictum is unattributed in the Tosefta, b. [Abod. Zar. states that R. Judah taught the baraita concerning the nursing female image or Sarapis (see b. ‘Abod. Zar. 43a, and Shraga Abramson, Tractate ‘Abodah Zarah of the Babylonian Talmud [New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America] 77). “R. Judah” is R. Judah bar Ilai, a fourth-generation Tanna, who was active in the Land of Israel in the Usha genera-tion (second century C.E.). Each component of this intriguing passage in the Tosefta deserves close examination; the current article will reexamine the phrase a “nursing female image,” and attempt to identify the two pagan characters repre-sented by this cryptic wording. Saul Lieberman, one of the leading scholars who attempted to answer this question, was of the opinion that this phrase refers to Isis nursing her son Horus (“Harpocrates” in Greek).Saul Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962) 136. Actually, he was not the first to note the connection between the nursing female image and Isis. See Isidore Lévy, “Nébo, Hadaran et Sérapis dans l'apologie du Pseudo-Meliton,” RHR 20 (1899) 373 n. 6; Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (London: Luzac, 1903; repr., Jerusalem: Horev, 1985) 103, s.v. “ ,”; Heinrich Blaufuss, Götter, Bilder und Symbole nach den Traktaken über fremden Dienst (Nuremberg: Buchdruckerei von J. L. Stich, 1910) 19; Jacob Levy, Wörterbuch über die Talmudim und Midraschim (vol. 3; Berlin: Harz, 1924) col. 107a. Because the pair Isis-Sarapis was extremely common during the time of the Roman empire and especially in the second century C.E., the listing of Sarapis after the “nursing female image” probably led Lieberman to conclude that this character can be none other than Isis.Plutarch, De Isi. et Osi. 28.361 and many more. For the affinity between Isis and Sarapis, already in the Hellenistic period, see Robert Turcan, Les cultes orientaux dans le monde romain (2d rev. ed.; Paris: Les belles lettres, 1992) 78–79. Furthermore, Isis nursing Horus (Isis Lactans) is a quite well-known motif in Hellenistic-Roman sculpture.Roger Packman Hinks, “Isis Suckling Horus,” The British Museum Quarterly 12 (1937–1938) 74–75; John Ducey Cooney, “Harpocrates, the Dutiful Son,” Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art (1972) 284–90; Vincent Tran Tam Tinh, Isis Lactans—Corpus des monuments gréco-romains d'Isis allaitant Harpocrate (EPRO 37; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973); idem, “De nouveau Isis Lactans,” in Hommages à M. J. Vermaseren (EPR...