This book has proposed that we can distinguish three basic categories of divine cures in ancient Palestine, and indeed in the ancient Mediterranean world more broadly: objects, places, and people. Despite differences in the identity of divine healers and the specific language and images used, the ways in which objects, places, and people served as conduits of healing transcended communal boundaries. The resulting similarities made these rituals the subject of polemical discourse among elite Jewish and Christian authors trying to police collective borders.

Chapters 1 and 2 surveyed the evidence from ancient Palestine for amulets. A variety of visual imagery was combined with Hebrew, Aramaic, Samaritan, and Greek inscriptions. By examining biblical quotations, charaktares, voces magicae, and images, one can see how some details on amulets were used by members of different ethnic, cultural, and religious groups. The prohibitions against amulets among both rabbinic and Christian authors reflect knowledge of a variety of amulets used by both their coreligionists and by outsiders. Christian authors, such as John Chrysostom and Eusebius, rejected all amulets. They took pains to associate amulets with Jews or with “pagans,” but they even condemned amulets whose contents were wholly Christian, suggesting that these were the most insidious type. In other words, some Christian authors rejected not just the contents of amulets, but the form itself. However, they did not necessarily deny the efficacy of amulets and recognized that by eschewing them some people could die from their illnesses. Rabbinic authors, in contrast, were somewhat less rigid in their treatment of amulets. While the rabbis rejected certain amulets and placed limits on the use of others, they were in general more accommodating than Christian authors and seemed to accept the fact that Jews used amulets to ward off diseases. When rabbinic texts did restrict the use of amulets, it often was in order to prevent people from wearing or carrying amulets outside the home on the Sabbath. I suggest that in some rulings it is possible to infer knowledge of Samaritan amulets and their similarities to tefillin, and the rabbis attempted to create boundaries between these Jewish and Samaritan practices.