Divorce Document of Shelamzion Daughter of Joseph

This document, found in Naḥal Se’elim in the Judean desert, appears to be a divorce decree given by Shelamzion daughter of Joseph to Eleazar son of Hananiah, although some scholars understand it as an acknowledgment by Shelamzion of having received her ketubah money. If the former interpretation is correct, this is a rare piece of evidence that Jewish women sometimes initiated divorce before the restriction of that right to men became standard. It is notable that this document is written in Aramaic and seems to have been executed in a Jewish court of law. The contract is dated to “year three of the freedom of Israel,” that is, three years after the onset of the Bar Kokhba revolt, or 135 CE, and refers to Bar Kokhba as “the Nasi [prince] of Israel” (see Bar Kokhba Letters and Archaeology).