The king of demons in the universe of the rabbis

This paper deals with the figure of the king of demons in rabbinic literature.
This figure, known in Palestinian rabbinic texts as Shamdon, and from the
Babylonian Talmud and magic bowls as Ashmedai, is portrayed quite differently in narratives of western and eastern origin. This paper aims to read rabbinic and extra-rabbinic sources (such as Jewish writings of the Second Temple period and Jewish Aramaic magic texts) in a nuanced way, emphasizing previously harmonized differences between these two configurations. Almost every introduction to Jewish demonology makes two claims: first, the demon Asmodeus,1 known from the Book of Tobit, became a prominent figure in the demonology of the Talmud, where his name is Ashmedai.2 Second, he is a king of the demons, who became Solomon’s unwilling helper in building the temple in Jerusalem. However, as I will show, this is an anachronistic generalization, and this demon obtained his royal office and probably his name only in the latest layers of rabbinic literature. I aim to show how the hierarchy of the demonic world was constructed differently by the imagination of Jews of the Land of Israel and the Jews of Sassanian Mesopotamia, according to their different cultural perceptions.