Babatha: The Life of A Jewish Woman in the Time of Bar Kokhba

Babatha, daughter of Shimon, grew up in Maoza, a date-growing village on the southeastern part of the southern basin of the Dead Sea (modern day Ghor as-Safi). She is the probably the only ancient Jewish woman about whom one could write a book-length biography. Yet she is not mentioned in any historical source. The information about her comes from her archive of 35 family legal documents dated 93–132 CE that she hid in a cave in Naḥal Ḥever, near En-gedi, at the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt. This is the only such archive to survive from ancient Judea and the surrounding area. These papyri could have been tedious legal scripts. But instead, they brightly reveal the eventful life of a woman of great agency, with Babatha outliving two husbands, getting involved in several conflicts leading to litigation and eventually giving her life in the cause of her people’s freedom against Roman rule. The presentation will highlight the course of her life, focusing on the matters of greatest interest.

Lecture by Philip Esler, formerly Chief Executive of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2005–2009), is the Portland Chair in New Testament Studies at the University of Gloucestershire, in Cheltenham. In 2013 he began research into the 100 or so reasonably extant legal papyri from the Dead Sea region in the period 70–135 CE, mainly Jewish but some Nabatean. This led to his publication of Babatha’s Orchard: The Yadin Papyri and An Ancient Jewish Family Tale Retold (2017).  He is currently nearing completion of Babatha: A Biography of a Jewish Woman in the Time of Bar Kokhba, and a related volume, The Jews and Nabateans of Maoza 35–135 CE: Documenting their Dead Sea Community.  He has continually found his 12 years previous career as a lawyer in Sydney very useful in analysing the documents.

Photo over page: Ghor as-Safi, Jordan, site of ancient Maoza. Photo Philip Esler