An Unholy Spectacle: The Ordeal of the Accused Adulteress in the Early Synagogue

In this essay a poem embellishing the trial of the accused adulteress (the sotah) from Numbers 5 offers a case study for how Jewish liturgical poets in Late Antiquity drew upon the performative conventions of their day, to gain and sustain their listeners' attention week after week. The biblical account of the sotah, as mediated through the lens of classical rabbinic sources and synagogue literatures, displays how rabbinic writings and non-canonical Jewish sources provided fodder for poets' liturgical and exegetical creativity. At the same time, the dramatic and even incantatory elements of the text reveal how Jews were fully embedded in the complex and dynamic cultural milieu of Late Antiquity. The concluding section explores the ways synagogue ritual was shaped by broader conventions of performance and emerging aesthetic conventions.