Stern

Biographic Data

ID26441
NAMEStern
FAMILY NAMEStern
SIGNATURESTERN
AFFILIATIONSUniversity College London
ORCID0000-0002-1216-5860
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS36
TOTAL CITATIONS13
AUTHOR COUNT36
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1993
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX2

  • What Made the Rabbanites Rabbinic

    Stern, Sacha SternARTICLEJewish Studies Quarterly2025

    The purpose of this essay is to open up a fundamental conversation about the concept of rabbinization, together with the adjective rabbinic, principally as a qualifier of Judaism. I shall follow these terms and concepts through the first millennium CE, from rabbis of the Roman period to early medieval Rabbanites. The title I have chosen refers to the Rabbanites, but the essay covers equally the earlier period, and it could equally have been entit…

  • An Easter cycle in Hebrew from c . 725 ce

    SternARTICLEJournal of Jewish Studies2025

    A fragmentary manuscript from the Cairo Genizah (T-S NS 98.51) contains a description in Hebrew of the Julian calendar, how to calculate its dates, and a 19-year Easter cycle, all in the Byzantine tradition of calendar computation. The Easter cycle is presented in this document as a list of (Christian) Passover dates, and can be dated precisely as starting in 725 ce ; this provides an approximate date for the text's composition. Palestinian prove…

  • Difficult Days, Bad Days: Daily Life Recipes

    Stern, Sacha SternARTICLEThe Jewish Quarterly Review2023

    Contribution to the essay forum "The Jewish Recipe

  • The ‘oldest dated document of the Cairo Genizah’ (Halper 331): The Seleucid era and sectarian Jewish calendars

    Open AccessEve Krakowski, SternARTICLEJournal of the Royal Asiatic…2021References: 3

    Halper 331 is the fragment of a codex that has been styled the ‘oldest dated document of the Cairo Genizah’. It preserves the opening of a Jewish legal document dated to the year 1182 (Seleucid era), which appears to have been copied into this codex, probably as a formulary, not long after this date, in the late 9th century. In this article, the text of this fragment, in Aramaic and Hebrew, is edited, and its identification as the beginning of a …

  • Note of further research

    Open AccessEve Krakowski, SternARTICLEJournal of the Royal Asiatic…2021

    Our article in this issue, “The ‘oldest dated document of the Cairo Genizah’ (Halper 331): The Seleucid era and sectarian Jewish calendars,” examines a fragment of parchment bearing a short text dated to the year 870/1 ce . One of the article's arguments concerns the protective formulas that appear in this fragment—“With a good sign for us and for all Israel, at a good hour, with an upright horn, (under) a high constellation, (so) may it be for u…

  • Calendar, Jewish

    Open AccessStern, Sacha SternCHAPTERThe Encyclopedia of Ancient History2019

    The function of Jewish calendars in antiquity was mainly to determine the dates of biblical and other Jewish festivals; in Judaea/Palestine, they were also used for more general purposes. Jewish calendars were always lunar, except for the short‐lived, schematic calendars of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The lunar calendars were diversely reckoned among Palestinian and Diaspora communities. In Late Antiquity, they gradually turned into fixed schemes.

  • New light on the primitive rabbinic calendars: JTS Ena 1745

    SternARTICLEJournal of Jewish Studies2018Cited by: 1

    Cairo Genizah fragment JTS ENA 1745 sheds new light on the primitive rabbinic calendars, tentatively dated to the eighth century, which have been recently identified and analysed on the basis of T-S K 2.27 ( JJS 67:1, 2016, pp. 68–90). The text of ENA 1745 is in Hebrew, rather than Aramaic, and perhaps a partial translation of the Aramaic version in T-S K 2.27. One of its calendars, unlike the Aramaic version, is sufficiently accurate for Jews to…

  • The Jewish Aramaic tombstones from Zoar

    Stern, Sacha SternARTICLEJournal of Jewish Studies2017

    This article discusses the Jewish Aramaic tombstones from the cemetery of Zoar in the light of the new collection published as Yiannis E. Meimaris and Kalliope I. Kritikakou-Nikolaropoulou, in collaboration with Sebastian P. Brock, Inscriptions from Palaestina Tertia , volume Ic: The Jewish Aramaic Inscriptions from Ghor Es-Safi (Byzantine Zoora) . Meletemata, 73; Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2016. 110 pp. + XXVIII plates. ISBN …

  • Christian Calendars in Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts

    SternARTICLEMedieval Encounters2016References: 1

    The phenomenon of Christian calendars in Hebrew has largely been ignored in modern scholarship; yet it points to an important dimension of Jewish-Christian relations, and more specifically Jewish attitudes towards Christianity, in late medieval northern Europe. It is also evidence of transfer of religious knowledge between Christians and Jews, because the Hebrew texts closely replicate, in contents as well as in layout and presentation, the Latin…

  • A primitive rabbinic calendar text from the Cairo Genizah

    SternARTICLEJournal of Jewish Studies2016

    A hitherto unnoticed fragment from the Cairo Genizah, T-S K2.27, describes two methods for calculating the calendar that ignore the molad and differ in further ways from the later, fixed rabbinic calendar. These 'primitive' rabbinic calendars, which I would date to the eighth century at the latest, are based on calendar rules attested in the Palestinian Talmud but also attempt, not very accurately, to turn the Jewish calendar into a fixed cycle. …

  • The Astrological and Calendar Section of the Earliest Maḥzor Vitry Manuscript (MS ex-Sassoon 535)

    Stern, Stern Stern et al.ARTICLEAleph2015

    The earliest known Maḥzor Vitry manuscript, MS ex-Sassoon 535, includes a section with astrological and calendar texts that are the oldest found in any extant manuscript from Franco-Germany. An edition of the text of this section, whose main part constitutes an almost complete treatise on the Jewish calendar, is offered, along with an annotated translation. The introduction includes a description of the manuscript, a summary of the contents, and …

  • In Memoriam Geza Vermes

    Morris Goodman, Martin Goodman et al.ARTICLEJournal of Jewish Studies2013

  • Compulsive libationers: Non-Jews and wine in early rabbinic sources

    SternARTICLEJournal of Jewish Studies2013Cited by: 2

    The rabbinic prohibition on non-Jewish wine is grounded on the assumption that non-Jews were compulsive wine libationers, who offered wine libations at any time and in any place, unpredictably, compulsively, and almost completely undetected; and that the mere contact with wine was sufficient for libations to pagan divinities to be performed. These assumptions, however, do not reflect the pagan practice of wine libation as known from Greek and Rom…

  • Calendar, Jewish

    Open AccessStern, Sacha SternCHAPTERThe Encyclopedia of Ancient History2012

    “Jewish” calendars are best defined in terms of their common, main function in antiquity, that is, determining the dates of biblical and other Jewish festivals. The use of distinctly Jewish calendars for more general purposes, for example, for dating inscriptions and documents, seems always to have been restricted to the Jews of Judaea/Palestine (Stern 2001: 24–7).

  • Sects and Sectarianism in Jewish History

    Stern, Sacha SternBOOKSects and sectarianism in Jewish…2011

    Sects and sectarianism are popular themes in Jewish history, but the meaning of these terms is elusive, often raising more problems than solutions. This volume, drawing on the expertise of a wide range of scholars, examines several Jewish groups from Antiquity to the present day that have been traditionally identified as ‘sects’ or as ‘sectarian’, including most famously the Qumran community and the Qaraites. It questions whether ‘sect’ and ‘sect…

  • Messiahs and resurrection in ‘The Gabriel Revelation’

    SternARTICLECulture and Religion2010

    Israel Knohl, London and New York, Continuum, 2009, xv +122pp., (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-8264-2507-2 The discovery of an ancient religious text is always greeted with excitement, especially when it

  • An Astronomical Table by Shabbetai Donnolo and the Jewish Calendar in Tenth-Century Italy

    Stern, Piergabriele MancusoARTICLEAleph2008

  • Shabbetai Donnolo and the Jewish Calendar: Corrigenda

    Stern, Piergabriele MancusoARTICLEAleph2008

    3. Ibid.: if Donnolo's calendar had followed the principles of the rabbinic calendarwith the only difference that, in 946 CE, he called the month that was reckoned in the rabbinic calendar as his month of Elul would have begun on Monday, August 31 (and not on Sunday, August 30, as argued in the article). This is because the rabbinic molad of his Tishri occurred on Monday, September 28, at about 5:00 p.m.; and, following the rule of molad zaqen (s…

  • An Astronomical Table by Shabbetai Donnolo and the Jewish Calendar in Tenth-Century Italy

    Stern, Piergabriele MancusoARTICLEAleph2007

    The astronomical table published for the first time in this article appears in a single manuscript (the oldest) manuscript of Shabbetai Donnolo's Sefer Ḥaḵmoni, Oxford MS Heb.e.26, from the Cairo Geniza. It contains solar, lunar, and planetary ephemerides for the period of one lunar month identified as (Jewish) Elul and (Muslim) Safar, 4706, which corresponds approximately to September 946 CE. This table not only provides important evidence of Do…

  • Index of References Dealing with Talmudic Literature (CD-Rom) Index of References Dealing with Talmudic Literature (CD-Rom)The Saul Lieberman Institute of Talmudic Research, Jewish Theological Seminar…

    Stern, Sacha SternARTICLEJournal of Jewish Studies2007

  • The Sol and Evelyn Henkind Talmud Text Databank, version 5 (CD-Rom) The Sol and Evelyn Henkind Talmud Text Databank , version 5 (CD-Rom)The Saul Lieberman Institute of Talmudic Research, Jewish Theolo…

    Stern, Sacha SternARTICLEJournal of Jewish Studies2007

  • Megillat Ta‘anit: Versions, Interpretation, History (mgylt t‘nyt: hnwsḥym, pshrm, twldwtyhm)NoamV. Megillat Ta‘anit: Versions, Interpretation,History (mgylt t‘nyt: hnwsḥym, pshrm, twldwtyhm) Yad Ben-Z…

    Stern, Sacha SternARTICLEJournal of Jewish Studies2006

  • Rachel Elior on Ancient Jewish Calendars: A Critique

    SternARTICLEAleph2005

    Rachel Elior on Ancient Jewish Calendars:A Critique Sacha Stern (bio) Rachel Elior's new book The Three Temples. On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004), first published in Hebrew in 2001, purports to trace the origins of Jewish mysticism through a broad, interpretative study of ancient Judaism. It focuses on Apocryphal, sectarian, and early mystical literature, including the books of Ezekiel, E…

  • The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud

    SternARTICLEJournal of Jewish Studies2004Cited by: 4

    or Mandaic

  • The Concept of Time in the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls

    Stern, Sacha SternARTICLEJournal of Jewish Studies2003