Priest, Temple, Jewishness, Redemption? Reflections on the Significations of the Menorah in Ancient Judaism

Doering, Lutz

Abstract

With regard to the signification(s) of the Menorah, not enough consideration has been given to different contexts and developing circumstances. While some early Jewish depictions of the Menorah might indicate a relation of the object marked by the Menorah with priests and their families, there are instances in which the Menorah arguably provides a link with the Jerusalem Temple prior to its destruction, while Jewish authors writing in Greek like Philo and Josephus focus on the cosmological, astronomical symbolism of the Menorah. A different symbolic value is present when, in the centuries after the Temple destruction, the Menorah (sometimes in multiple specimens) occurs together with other objects like the shofar, the lulav, and the etrog as symbols of Jewish worship. Finally, the Menorah came to indicate a person’s ‘Jewishness’, especially in the context of inscriptions; this should probably be seen in some relation with the parallel rise of the cross as emblem in late antique Christianity. This chapter attempts to chart, and to reflect on, the development of the Menorah as a symbol and emblem in ancient Judaism.