Latest Essays

But Chicken and Egg Remained Permitted

Malchuyot is a prayer for the coming of God’s exclusive kingship over Israel. In contrast, the psalm of the shofar (Ps 47) offers an alternative approach, to stop waiting for God’s eschatological intervention and start building rapport with other religious groups, all of whom are the “Am Elohei Avraham,” the retinue of the God of Abraham.

Does the Reed Sea pursue the Egyptians?

What are the favorable qualities of the land of Israel, and what is God’s relationship to it?

Today chesed is understood as an altruistic act of kindness. In the Bible, chesed and the parallel term noam refer to a covenantal arrangement between a powerful person or deity and their subject(s).

The Shema has many interpretations, philosophical, eschatological, national, etc. A historical-critical way to understand the Shema is to read it (and Deuteronomy more broadly) against the backdrop of Assyrian domination, when Assyria touted their god Ashur as the supreme master of the world.

Abecedaries uncovered in pre-exilic Israel and Judah suggest that in their Hebrew alphabet, ayin followed pe. This order is attested in a number of biblical acrostics, some of which have been corrected by later scribes to make them fit what eventually became the standard ayin-pe order.

Deuteronomy describes the Israelites camped opposite Suph in the Transjordan. However, the Israelites cross a Yam Suph near Egypt. Moreover, King Solomon builds a fleet of ships on Yam Suph near Eilat. Where is Yam Suph?

In the ancient Near East, laments were written to mourn past destructions or to prevent future destructions. With which type of lament were the authors of Lamentations familiar?

Unlike the other four chapters where the author speaks for the community, the third chapter of Lamentations is written as an individual lament. The chapter begins with “I am the man who has known affliction,” but who is he?

Moses tells the soldiers returning from the Midianite war that they must purify themselves from corpse impurity. Elazar then jumps in with a unique law in Moses’ name about the need to purify metal in fire. Critical and traditional scholars alike—including the scribes of the Samaritan Pentateuch—were troubled by why Elazar and not Moses teaches this law.

The Bible has three different maps of Gad and Reuben’s territory all set in the conquest period: Numbers 32, Joshua 13, and Joshua 21/1 Chronicles 6. How are we to understand these shifting depictions of Israelite Transjordan?

Ancient Jewish interpreters imagined Balaam as the prototypical Gentile seducer. This trope was used by John of Patmos, the author of the book of Revelation and himself a Jew, to polemicize against his rivals among the early Christians.

An ancient quote, preserved in Jephthah’s speech to the King of Ammon, gives us a clue into the methods of the Torah’s redaction and the status of pre-pentateuchal sources.

The Torah describes Moses building a copper serpent to heal the Israelites. According to Kings, Hezekiah destroys it because it was being worshiped. Archaeology and history clarify the religious and political meaning of this image.

And what can we learn by comparing it to another ancient book mentioned in the Bible, Sefer HaYashar (The Book of the Upright)?

Contrary to the biblical account of the Israelite conquest and burning of Heshbon in Numbers 21, the archaeological remains of Tell Hesban (biblical Heshbon) demonstrate that it was not settled until centuries after the conquest and settlement period and not burned until over half a millennium later!

A new analysis of compositional layers suggests that God responds to Korah’s rebellion with patience and beauty—until someone changed the ending.

Understanding the Other Side

Moses’ use of rhetoric to convince YHWH to undo his decree against Israel recasts a namburbu-like ritual intercession in a prophetic hue.

What is it about tzitzit that “recalls all the commandments of God and makes you observe them” (Num 15:39)? While the rabbis emphasize the importance of tzitzit, academic scholarship sheds light on what such a feature would have meant in an Ancient Near Eastern context.

“There is nothing at all, nothing but this manna” (Num 11:6): How the manna tradition overtook the suffering in the wilderness tradition.

A Biography by Prof. Marc Zvi Brettler, and Eulogy (delivered at the funeral) by Prof. Lawrence Schiffman.

Karaism is often characterized by its rejection of the Talmud in favor of a super-literalist interpretation of the Torah. But Karaism is better understood as an alternate, parallel form of Judaism based on the Bible.