Sula Benet

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Wikipedia

Sara Benetowa, later known as Sula Benet (23 September 1903 – 12 November 1982), was a Polish anthropologist of the 20th century who studied Polish and Judaic customs and traditions.

Biography

Born in Warsaw, then part of the Russian Empire, Benet was fascinated with Polish peasant culture from her early youth. This interest eventually led her to enroll as a student of literature and philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities in the University of Warsaw, graduating with a degree in anthropology in 1935. She then attended graduate school at Columbia University, where she received her doctorate in 1944. Also at this time (1936) she first made known at a seminar in Warsaw her theory that "calamus" in the Bible is hemp.[1] Benet died in New York in 1982.

Cannabis research

Sulah Benet's claim that the biblical "kaneh" was hemp has found little support in the academic community among lexicographers and botanists. The standard reference lexicons of Biblical Hebrew, and reference works on Hebrew Bible plants by scholars such as University of Jerusalem botanist Michael Zohary mention Benet's suggestion, while others argue the word refers to an either different species of hemp or a different plant entirely.[2] Royle identified the "sweet cane" (A.V.) of Scripture (Is. 43:24; Je. 6:20) with the Andropogon calamus, a plant extensively cultivated in India, from which an oil, deemed to be the famous spikenard of antiquity, is extracted. According to Boissier (Flora Orientalis), "kaneh" was the common marsh reed, Arundo donax L. Some biblical scholars and botanists believe that the qaneh is probably sugarcane. The Tel Arad temple finding of Cannabis reported by CNN on May 28th 2020 confirms its presence and use in the region, but for which rituals and practices (prescribed or otherwise) has not been discerned.[3]

Works

  • Konopie w wierzeniach i zwyczajach ludowych (1936)
  • Song, Dance, and Customs of Peasant Poland (1951)
  • Festive recipes and festival menus (1957)
  • Riddles of many lands Carl Withers, Sula Benet (1956)
  • Early Diffusion and Folk Uses of Hemp (1967)
  • Abkhasians: the long-living people of the Caucasus (1974)
  • How to live to be 100: the life-style of the people of the Caucasus (1976)

References

  1. ↑ Sula Benetova 1936 Le chanvre dans les croyances et les coutumes populaires. In: Comtes Rendus de Séances de la Société des Sciences et des Lettres de Varsovie XXVII.
  2. ↑ Sinai Scholars Society - Daniel Weissman "a finding that Sula Benet first mentioned in the 1930s3. Since then, much has been written on the subject, but no great evidence beyond the linguistic similarity has been found. This, along with the fact that other cognates of keneh bosem (like sweet calamus) are more accepted, leads one to believe that the “marijuana is in the Torah” argument is purely speculative and most likely false."
  3. ↑ Rogers, Kristen (2020-05-28). "Cannabis was used for religious rites at a biblical site, study finds". CNN. Retrieved 2025-06-11.

Sula Benet's papers in the New York University archives.

Further reading