Showbreads

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Baked goods that are offered to a god are referred to as showbread in the historical sense of religion .

Word imprint

The word showbread comes from the Luther Bible ; it is Luther's interpretive translation of the biblical term לחם הפנים lechem haPanim ; interpretive because the word coining would like to exclude the idea of ​​god feeding. Luther's formulation entered the English Bibles through Tyndale ( shewbread, showbread ).

History of religion

In the ancient Orient (Mesopotamia and Egypt) feeding the deities was an important duty of man, especially of the king. The usual pattern is not the burning of gifts, as in the Greco-Roman area, but their offering, which will be described below. The presence of the deity in their cult image is assumed.

“The meals were presented to the gods. The deities were asked to accept the sacrifices, to sit down to eat, to rest and to calm down. ”The food was placed on a table in front of the cult image, drinks poured out in front of it. Alternatively, food could be swirled ritually (the "weaving") so that the deity could appropriate it by looking at it. It was a special privilege to be able to eat the leftovers from the table of the deity.

Reconstructed ensemble of table, bread and incense ( Timna Park )

Judaism

The Hebrew word lechem haPanim (לחם הפנים) literally means: bread of the face , d. H. Bread that is before God (hence also translated as: bread of presence ). The showbreads were considered covenant signs for Israel, as was circumcision and keeping the Sabbath.

Hebrew Bible

The ritual of loaves is described in Tora for the tent sanctuary ( Mischkan arranged) so: 12 unleavened bread cakes from wheat flour , according to the number of the 12 strains of Israel , are for each Sabbath newly prepares and holy on the spectacle bread table together with incense as offering be placed . The old loaves were part of the priests' supply of food.

The text is interpreted to mean that it was semolina loaves placed in two rows next to each other.

Septuagint

The Septuagint presents the ritual of the showbread (Leviticus 24: 5-6) somewhat differently than the Masoretic text :

“And you should take fine flour and process it into twelve loaves of bread; The single bread should be two tenths (heavy). And you are to put them in two piles , one pile of six loaves each, on the clean table before the Lord. And you should put pure frankincense and salt on the stack, and they will become bread, a memory that lies before the Lord. "

One has wanted to conclude from 1 Chronicles 9:32 that the production of the showbread was the responsibility of a certain priestly family; The details are given by the different reading of the Septuagint: “ And Banias, the Kaathite of her brothers, was (responsible) for the sacrificial loaves in order to prepare them Sabbath after Sabbath. "

Josephus

As a member of the Jerusalem priestly nobility, Josephus had the relevant specialist knowledge and is therefore a valuable witness for dealing with the showbread:

“On the eve of the Sabbath, bread is baked from every two Assaron flour; but on the morning of the Sabbath the loaves are placed on the holy table, six and six opposite each other. Then two golden bowls full of incense are added, and they remain there until the next Sabbath, when they are exchanged for others and given to the priests for food. But the incense is burned in holy fire and replaced by new ones. " (Antiquitates 3.10.7)

Mishnah

After the destruction of the Second Temple, there was hope of being able to rebuild it in the foreseeable future ( there were preparations under Emperor Julian ); For this reason alone, the professional knowledge of the priests about the correct form of the rituals had to be recorded as meticulously as possible:

  • The baking process. “ The showbreads were kneaded individually, but two were baked. They were put into a mold, and when they were removed from the oven they were put into a mold so that they would not be damaged . ”(Mishnah Menachot XI.1)
  • The shape of the showbread. They were rectangular in shape with horns at the corners, similar to the horns on the altar. “ The showbreads were ten fingers long, five wide, and their horns seven fingers high. "(Mishnah Menachot XI.4)
  • The arrangement on the table. It is controversial whether the incense is placed on top of the bread or next to it. Each loaf " was placed lengthways across the breadth of the table, two hand's breadths were turned on each side, and two hand's breadths of space was left in the middle so that the wind could blow between them ." (Mishnah Menachot XI.5)

Reenactment?

The Temple Institute in Jerusalem, whose activities are controversial, carried out a kind of reenactment of the priestly bakery in 2016.

"According to the research, each show bread loaf was made from approx 4 kg of coarse wheat flour, resulting in some 6 kg of dough. This, multiplied by 24, equals 144 kg of dough. Furthermore, the loaves themselves were large, some 60cm long by 40cm wide, and 8cm thick, with 'walls' of 10 cm at the two ends, to make a “ chet ” shape. The Institute decided that the showbread should be kneaded for 40 minutes and baked for 40 minutes ... In a one-loaf capacity kneading machine and oven, this would therefore require 16 hours of continuous production. "

At least according to this understanding of the relevant sources, the showbreads were amazingly large. The report also makes it clear that some of the information required for baking is missing and has been updated in a modern way.

Ancient Greece

Baked goods that were offered as offerings on the altars of the Olympic gods in ancient Greece were also referred to as showbread in older research . The introduction of this bloodless form of sacrifice is attributed to the legendary Attic king Kekrops II .

Biblical evidence

  • Exodus 25 : 23-30 (provision for the table of the showbread)
  • Leviticus 24: 5-6 (provision for preparation and use)

literature

Ancient texts

Secondary literature

  • Friedhelm Hartenstein: "Loaves" and "Table of the face". On the logic of symbolic communication in the temple ritual. In: Johannes F. Diehl et al. (Ed.): "Make an altar of earth for me ...". Festschrift for Diethelm Conrad on his 70th birthday. Small works on the Old and New Testament , Vol. 4. Waltrop 2003, pp. 107–127.
  • Angelika Berlejung : At table with God. Cultic meals in the ancient Orient and in Palestine / Israel, in: World and Environment of the Bible 1/2017, pp. 11–19.
  • Volker Wagner: Profanity and sacralization in the Old Testament, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2005. ISBN 3-11-018463-X .
  • Keung-Jae Lee: Symbols for rule and royalty in the stories of Saul and David: The stories of Saul and David and in the environment of Israel, Kohlhammer Verlag 2016.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Angelika Berlejung: At table with God . S. 14 .
  2. ↑ Angelika Berlejung: At table with God . S. 14-15 .
  3. ↑ Volker Wagner: Profanity and sacralization . S. 84 .
  4. ↑ Lechem Hapanim reenactment and Repast. Retrieved December 17, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Vollmer's Mythologie aller Völker , Stuttgart 1874, under: Cecrops - Greek Mythology (accessed: December 3, 2016)

See also