Latest Essays

Written by a Jew in the 2nd century B.C.E., The Letter of Aristeas tells how Demetrius of Phalerum advised King Ptolemy II (3rd cent. B.C.E.) that the Library of Alexandria should commission a Greek translation of the otherwise inaccessible Jewish Torah. At the king’s request, Eleazar, the High Priest of the Jerusalem Temple, sends high-quality manuscripts and seventy-two translators—six from each Israelite tribe—who so impress the Hellenistic king and his court with the Torah’s universal wisdom that he offers to pay them to remain in Egypt.

At creation, humans and animals were alike—plant-eating, unclothed, and speaking the same language; God even brings the beasts to Adam to find a fitting companion. Everything changes when Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What kind of story is this? Remarkable parallels with the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh epic show how the biblical author crafted an Israelite wisdom story about the end of humankind’s infancy.

Among Solomon’s many foreign wives, only Pharaoh’s daughter receives individualized attention—but why does her story center on Solomon’s building projects?

The kingdom of Israel was destroyed in the 8th century B.C.E., but the name Israel lived on. During the Second Temple period, who called themselves Israelites, and who were the Jews? A close look at the Bible, Josephus, and other sources reveals a simple answer—and exposes the anti-Jewish bias behind the infamous “insider/outsider” theory.

​Originally, Deuteronomy presented itself as the torah, and even after its incorporation into the Pentateuch, it retains a distinct identity, which is why the Septuagint translates mishneh torah (Deuteronomy 17:18) as deuteronomium, “Second Torah.” At the same time, with the canonization of the Pentateuch, the role of the “second Torah” was claimed by: Jubilees, some Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, early Christians, and ultimately the rabbis, culminating in the composition of the Mishnah. A millennium later, Maimonides presented his Mishneh Torah as the (so-far) complete and final embodiment of that second revelation.

The Yom Kippur ritual included two goats. One was sacrificed to God. What happened to the second one, the so-called scapegoat?

In the Bible, dates are generally by regnal years. Over time, several different counting systems developed, counting from: the exodus, the jubilee or sabbatical years, the building of the First Temple, its destruction, the building of the Second Temple, and its destruction. In postbiblical times, documents were dated according to the Seleucid era, and this remained standard for contracts well into the medieval period. Beginning in late antiquity, counting from creation emerged as one of many options, and only became the consensus in relatively recent times.

The precise origins of the practice of reading from the prophets in the synagogue are unknown, but early evidence can be seen in the story of Jesus visiting the synagogue in his hometown on Shabbat and reading from Isaiah (Luke 4:16–19). Yet the process of making prophetic scripture relevant to a contemporary audience began even earlier, as we see in the second-century B.C.E. book of Baruch.

In ancient Judah, death was a two-step journey: the body was laid in a tomb, and the spirit passed to She’ol. Ancestral spirits were believed to influence the fortunes of the living and could be consulted, as when Saul summons Samuel through the woman of Endor, who exclaims, “I see an ʾelohim coming up from the earth.” Biblical authors rejected these practices and replaced them, establishing communal ancestors entombed in the cave of Machpelah and asserting that YHWH Elohim alone can intervene to ensure fertility, land, and well-being.

The Tikkunei Zohar, a kabbalistic work composed in 14^th-century Spain, offers seventy interpretations of the Torah’s first word, bereshit. This article traces how: The understanding of the Torah as multivocal culminated in its formulation, “the Torah has seventy faces,” in the 12^th-century Numbers Rabbah (Part 1). The Tikkunei Zohar saw this as a key theological principle and applied it programmatically (Part 2). R. Nathan Spira and Ramchal interpreted other words of Torah, and Rabbi Nachman of Breslov wrote his famous stories to prepare readers for the Torah’s seventy meanings (Part 3).

The command to go to war against Sihon, even though his territory lies east of the Jordan River (Deuteronomy 2:24–25), seemingly marks the beginning of the conquest of the promised land and reflects a tradition in which Moses, not Joshua, leads it. But instead, Moses asks to cross the land peacefully (vv. 26–29). The Midrash portrays this choice as disobedience that God ultimately validates. A literary critical approach highlights how Moses’s response is a redaction, an inner-biblical midrash, that reconciles different layers of the text.

“The hidden matters belong to YHWH our God,” declares Deuteronomy 29:28, “but with overt matters, it is for us and our children ever to apply all the provisions of this Torah.” This verse stands in isolation, prompting mystical speculation about the nature of the “hidden” and “overt” matters… until we realize that the passage has been redacted, and that the verse has been detached from its original context, which explained its meaning clearly.

Read in light of the Sumerian King List, Adam’s genealogy (Genesis 5) reveals a gender-neutral line, conceived without a female counterpart. Noah, like the Mesopotamian flood survivor Ziusudra, emerges as the first “son,” inaugurating a new line of gendered humanity.

The command to annihilate the native Canaanites—men, women, and children—calls into question the Bible’s moral authority. Although far from contemporary standards, when examined in its ancient context, it compels us to rethink the nature of morality.

YHWH is a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin… yet “he surely does not erase punishment” (Exod. 34:6–7). To make sense of this seeming contradiction, the Talmud offers a midrashic reinterpretation, and in selichot the verse is truncated. But could this attribute—one of God’s Thirteen—have been misunderstood all along?

Hosea (ch. 11) reveals a poignant portrait of God as a tender parent, swaddling Israel’s feet, lifting him to His cheek, and feeding him, only to watch His beloved child walk away. Yet, in the end, hope prevails as the wayward child returns home. But the chapter’s meaning emerges only through historical linguistics and textual criticism: from obscure Hebrew forms to Septuagint variants.

In a striking departure from prevailing notions of kingship in both the ancient Near East and early Israel, Deuteronomy introduces the separation of powers among distinct branches of government and subjects all political actors—including the monarch—to the rule of Torah. In effect, Deuteronomy provides a blueprint for the modern concept of the rule of law. These principles rest on an even more revolutionary idea: the establishment of an independent judiciary.

After Saul’s failed reign, David might seem like Israel’s salvation. Yet the biblical narrative offers a subtle but pointed critique—signaling that David’s impending rule will be no better than Saul’s.

Slaughtering domesticated animals was always a sacrificial act, and even on the battlefield, King Saul builds an altar so the soldiers can slaughter their animals properly. To work around the limits of centralized worship, Deuteronomy introduces “profane” slaughter—but this did little to change Israelites’ enduring sense of meat as sacred. The rabbinic requirement of ritual shechitah even for wild animals makes all slaughter “quasi-sacrificial.”

The book of Kings recounts how all Ten Tribes were exiled by the Assyrians and replaced by foreigners, and Ezra–Nehemiah rejects them as non-Israelites. Yet other biblical and Second Temple texts, along with the archaeological record, show that northern Israelites continued to live in Samaria well into the Second Temple period. Far from vanishing, the northern tribes maintained a temple and priesthood that cooperated with their southern neighbors and played a role in shaping the Pentateuch.

Flowing through desert sands, the river Hapi—the ancient Egyptian name for the Nile and its god—mysteriously overflowed each year, bringing fertility and life to Egypt’s people. The dependability of the Nile made Egypt a source of food during regional famines, though Deuteronomy reassures that Israel has YHWH to rely on for its rain.

Deuteronomy describes itself as the words of Moses expounding upon revelation. At the same time, it commands that all Israelites—including the king—learn Moses’ words exactly and never add to or subtract from them, even though Deuteronomy itself reworks earlier texts such as the Covenant Collection in Exodus. Despite this attempt to establish final authority, Deuteronomy undergoes the same process it models: it is combined with other texts and reinterpreted by later works such as Ezra–Nehemiah.

Jerusalem’s destruction and the people’s suffering in the book of Lamentations is mostly seen as punishment for sin. But chapter two breaks the pattern: it accuses God not only of abandoning but of actively attacking His people with His own right hand. Perhaps counterintuitively, only by confronting YHWH in raw, honest terms—and with tears that flow like a stream—can the fire of God’s anger finally be cooled.

Was it based on an ancient tradition? Inspired by stylistic similarities? A strategy to give legitimacy to a text with controversial portrayals of God? Or does it reflect a broader cultural shift toward authorial attribution in the Second Temple period? And finally—how does this attribution change how we read the Book of Lamentations?  

Four times in the Bible, Argov clearly refers to a strip of land in the northern Transjordan. But the word Argov also appears a fifth time alongside “the lion” in the story of Pekah’s assassination of King Pekahiah—and there it is not a place. So, what does Argov really mean?