King Manasseh of Judah is blamed for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile, a heavy mantle to carry. But as a character, Manasseh is boring—he looks like the other ordinary bad kings, even described as a “cardboard cutout,” that Kings has little literary use for. Wouldn’t we expect a more colorful villain? Is there anything in the…[Read more]

Many of the feminist readings of the Dinah story in Genesis 34 in recent years have focused on the question of whether Dinah is raped. The interpretations that perhaps Dinah was not “raped” span the spectrum from a teenage love affair between Dinah and Shechem, to a case of statutory rape, to a marriage by abduction. Guilty of exploring this que…[Read more]

The paper argues that the pesaḥ is a ritual with no origins in the literature we have, from the earliest recoverable fragment, through the first revision that introduces as many problems as it aims to solve, to subsequent extensions in multiple directions, with no arc, no trajectory, no telos, but recurrent hermeneutic expressive engagement.

Argues that Qohelet’s famous bit of speech on the seasons at 3:1-8 mimics and mocks proverbial poetry, as part of his larger, prosaic denial that life has discernible and usable rhythms and rhymes.

Analysis of the story of David and the Gibeonites, argues that two different stories have been spliced together.

Theoretical discussion of law and narrative and their interaction in biblical historiography.

Literary and historical analysis of the passage at Num 9:1–14

Presents a new compositional history of the centralization law.

Applies theory of literature as simulation speech to argue that knowledge of the Lord is not reflected in texts of the Hebrew Bible but created by them.

“God made Himself into a Serpent before Moses”
A Unique Midrashic Tradition on Exodus Chapters III-IV (Parashat Va-Era)
from an Early Tanhuma-Yelammedenu Genizah Fragment

Rachel Neis’ article treats Hekhalot Rabbati, a collection of early Jewish mystical traditions, and more specifically §§ 152–169, a series of Qedusha hymns. These hymns are liturgical performances, the highlight of which is God’s passionate embrace of the Jacob icon on his throne as triggered by Israel’s utterance of the Qedusha. §§ 152–1…[Read more]

Introductory overview of the legal literature in the Bible

Martin Luther (1483-1546), the great religious reformer, re-rooted German culture by turning once again to the Hebrew and the Greek of the Old and New Testaments after a thousand years of relative neglect, and by putting the Bible translated from Hebrew and Greek into the hands of people of every walk of life. Thanks to Luther and Melanchthon,…[Read more]