Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha29 The Oniad Sibyl

Through an investigation of its prophetic literature, The Oniad Sibyl examines the history, historical consciousness, and culture of one Egyptian-Jewish community that participated in a Mediterranean-wide civil war while under Roman rule. The Oniad community was a mercenary and priestly Jewish settlement in Greco-Roman Egypt. This community recognized an exiled high priest of the Jerusalem Temple as its founder and met its end after a Mediterranean-wide uprising that shook the foundations of the Roman Empire. This monograph attributes a group of rather puzzling prophetic narratives—filled with coded language, reused lines from Greek and Jewish literature, and confused historical references—to the Oniads. The thesis of this study is that each prophetic treatise responds to crises experienced by the Oniad settlement and, as a result, evidences its unfolding historical consciousness and hybrid literary culture in distinct phases of its existence.