The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt in Demotic Sources

The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt, like any other ethnic group immigrating to Egypt after the Macedonian conquest, belonged to the social class of the Greeks, thus, they are mostly attested in Greek sources. This is well demonstrated by the first volume of the Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum edited by V. A. Tcherikover and A. Fuks, which contains exclusively Greek papyri and ostraca. However, a considerable part of the administration remained in the hands of Egyptian officials, therefore, we may expect some references to Jews in Demotic sources too. Within the framework of the Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum IV project, this paper aims to show which system of criteria can be applied to identify Jews in Demotic sources as well as to give an insight into the nature of the Demotic material attesting Jews or relating to Judaism.