An Ancient Temple to YHWH in Egypt
Posted by Bronwen Manning on January 26, 2009 under Biblical Hebrew | 
2 Comments to Read
Jewish Migration
There are several ideas that seek to understand how the Jews arrived and settled in Egypt in the first place, but all agree that at the end of the 5th century BCE, there was a Jewish Temple operating in the country of Egypt.
The Daily Correspondence Uncovered
What can be reconstructed of this Jewish community comes from a wealth of papyri generated by members of the community and archaeological confirmation. Before the papyri began appearing on the Egyptian market for sale in the early 19th century- no one knew of its existence, a Temple unchronicled in the Biblical narrative.
A Temple like Jerusalem
The findings in the papyri generated enough interest for an archaeological investigation to be made on the Nile island of Elephantine. There they uncovered the communal archive of the Jewish leader by the name of Yedaniah ben Gemariah. From this archive we learned that the sanctuary they built was not like a synagogue but rather a fully established Temple with animal sacrifices and incense and grain offerings as in Jerusalem. Furthermore we learn that when the Temple was destroyed by Egyptian priests of Khnum in 407 BCE (who jostled for power on the same island), the Temple authorities in Jerusalem gave permission and possibly also provisions to rebuild the Egyptian Jewish Temple.
When was this Temple Established?
The antiquity of the Elephantine Temple is mentioned in a letter “Now 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. They (the Persians) knocked down all the temples of the gods of Egypt, but no one did any damage to this temple.” This indicates that the Temple had already been established before the Persian’s took control of Egypt in 525 BCE. It is supposed that Elephantine was a military colony for Jewish soldiers and their families and that they were brought out of Judah to support Pharaoh Psammetichus in his regional and border wars that we know occurred around 650 BCE. This may be the beginning years of this Jewish Temple.
Persecuted Priests Build a New Home?
The report by the Jewish historian Josephus that a Temple to YHWH was established in 164 BCE in Leontopolis Egypt by persecuted Jewish priests in the time of the Hasmoneans’, has led to circumstantial conclusions that the Temple of Elephantine was established in a similar way. Along with the idea of a Jewish military base, it has been hypothesized that persecuted priests from the reign of the Judean King Manasseh, fled for their lives to Egypt and helped set up the religious life of the already existent community of military Jewish soldiers.
Biblical Significance of Two Temples
One of the characteristics of the worship of Yhwh was its prohibition against the worship of other gods, and the injunction to sacrifice to Yhwh at only one place, Jerusalem (Deuteronomy 12). The fact that at Elephantine they carried out sacrificial worship and were known by the Jerusalem establishment may lead to some new perspectives on the commandments in the Bible. However it has been duly noted that when Jerusalem responded to the plight of the Egyptian Jews and gave them consent to rebuild their Temple, they stipulated in their letter that the rituals of grain and incense offerings were permitted, but they made no mention of animal sacrifices! This then may confirm the biblical stipulation that sacrificial offerings were for Jerusalem alone, and though communities such as those in Egypt also carried out sacrificial offerings, it was done without the authorization of Jerusalem.
