Incense offering in rabbinic literature
The priests of the House of Avtinas, who were charged with preparing the incense during the Second Temple period, kept the technique and exact proportions secret, for which the rabbis rebuked them according to the Mishnah, Yoma 3:11.
During the late Bronze Age, the duty of burning incense was performed by the priests in the Tent of Convocation throughout their journeys in the wilderness while en route to the Land of Canaan.
Jewish oral teaching relates that the blend of sweet savors from the compounded incense could be sensed as far away as the mountains of Machaerus (Hebrew: הרי מִכְווָר), in Transjordan.
[9] Some suggest that the command to offer incense was to purify the air and to perfume it, in order to mask the bad odors from the sacrificed animals.
[12] The Zohar (Ki Tisa) states that the purpose of burning the holy incense was to mitigate and render impending judgments less severe.
Philosopher and Rabbi, Maimonides, rationalizes even further and writes: "There is a well-known saying of our Sages, 'In Jericho they could smell the incense [that was burnt in the Temple].'
The incense thus reflects an underlying harmony and inter-connectivity in the universe, as it unites together the core essence of all forces—life, matter, and spirit—according to the recipe prescribed in the Torah.
[44][45] This was the view of S. Muntner who claims that only later, during the late Middle-Ages, the same name al-ʻanbar was applied also to ambergris which is washed ashore and used in perfumery.
[48] Although ambergris is produced in the digestive tract of the sperm whale (Physeter catodon; P. macrocephalus), it was believed by the ancients of Israel to be derived from a "sea-creature" which fed on an underwater aromatic tree, and which later it expectorated and was washed ashore.
They were not to compound the like of which for themselves, but were permitted to burn aromatic incense in their homes to fumigate clothes, or to have the fragrant smell lodge in the upholstery and woodwork, if it did not follow the exact formula used in the Temple service.
The preferred resin is most clear, white, a glassy color and inclining to an azure [blue], fragrant, and smells like terminthos.
This fragrant operculum has also been described in Ulysis Aldrovandus' Natural History (De Testaceis), and in Latin was called by the name of Byzantos or Blatta Byzantia.
However, other scholars believe it to have been the reddish brown resin of Ferula galbaniflua, based on the surmised identification of this plant in Greek sources.
[78] The problem arising from this identification, however, is that Maimonides writes that it is "a tree endemic to the Grecian cities,"[79] whereas Ferula is only an herbaceous plant.
When the thin bark of this wood containing the absorbed oleoresin is pared and laid upon hot coals, it emits a vanilla-like scent.
"[87] The incense gum olibanum, or frankincense (Boswellia), is also endemic to the Dhofar region of Oman[88] and to Ethiopia, where, in the case of the latter, six species are known to grow.
[92] Nahmanides, in his commentary on Exodus 30:23, gives plausible arguments why the mor in the Holy Incense can only be the gum resin myrrh (Commiphora myrrha, syn.
Iris illyrica), as noted by Josephus (aka Yosef ben Mattithiah) and the translators of the Septuagint,[104] from whose dried roots is derived the Orris powder and used in cosmetics.
Isidore of Seville, when describing this aromatic, says that it is a prickly herb, light in weight, golden, hairy, small of ear, very fragrant and resembling galingale.
[127] Pliny informs us that the aromatic "cinnamon" is said to have been native to Æthiopia, and thence sold to the neighboring peoples on the other side of the Erythrean Sea, from whence it made its way to a port city in Gebanitæ, in South Arabia.
Modern scholars are, therefore, disputed as to what this incense might have been, although most would agree that it was not out regular cinnamon (see: infra) even though, in Hebrew, its name is given as "qinnamon.
Researcher Zohar Amar seems to rely upon the 14th century Yemenite Jewish scholar, Rabbi Nathanel b. Yeshaiah, who says: "Qinnamon is the wood that comes from the isles of India, which people use in incense, and whose fragrance is good.
[33] Likewise, we find that Maimonides writes in his Code of Jewish Law[130] that the "qinnamon" is the wood that comes from the isles of India whose fragrance is good, and which men use in incense."
He later gives the specific Arabic name for this one spice, calling it العود = "al-oud",[131] meaning, agarwood (Aquilaria agallocha; var.
The dried stigmas (consisting of the compounds picrocrocin, crocin and safranal), used commercially to produce one of the most expensive food spices in the world, was formerly used as one of the ingredients in the Holy Incense because of its aroma.
The Indian Orris (Saussurea lappa), or Costus, is a fragrant root of an herb of the Aster family of plants native to Kashmir, and growing in the Himalayan mountains.
[149] Maharitz, citing the Kol Bo, says that the purport of using this soap was to whiten the operculum withal, since its natural color was black and tended to darken the other constituents if not cleaned first in this manner.
To these were added myrrh, cassia, spikenard (valerian) and saffron, each consisting of sixteen maneh-weight[164] for a total weight of sixty-four manehs.
[169] Excursus: The following account, taken from Vendyl Jones' Report on the Excavations at Qumran, is based on the work of Dr. Marvin Antelmen, Chemical Advisor at Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot.
In it, Dr. Antelmen cites co-worker and researcher on the chemical analysis conducted by him on the cache of spices discovered at Qumran and believed to have been the residue of holy incense stored-away after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 68 / 70 CE.
