The Elephantine “Passover Letter” (TAD A4.1)

The letter was excavated on the island of Elephantine in 1906–1907, and the museum’s record assigns it to the archive of Jedaniah. The writer, Hananiah, addresses Jedaniah and his colleagues, the Jewish garrison, as his brothers and says that in this year, the fifth of King Darius, something has been sent from the king to Arsames, whose name is partly lost. The museum’s record converts the date to 419/418 BC.

The papyrus is incomplete on both sides, and much of each line is lost. What survives tells the readers to count, and speaks of the days from the fifteenth to the twenty-first, of being pure and taking heed, of work, of not drinking, of anything leavened, of sunset and the twenty-first day of Nisan, and of sealing something up during those days. Cowley’s edition and the museum’s translation both fill the gaps with wording about Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and it is on that restoration that the papyrus is called the Passover letter. The word “Passover” is not among the preserved words. The museum’s record notes that recent scholarship disputes whether the letter refers to Passover at all. See the Judean Temple at Elephantine.