Latest Essays

The biblical text is unclear as to why Datan and Abiram are rebelling. A careful look at their words shows that they are complaining about the land they are already living in.

How the conflation of Kiryat-arba and Hebron created a new mythic character, Arba, father of the giants.

The conflation of two cities over time

Did Caleb receive the Negev or Hebron? Is he a Judahite, a Calebite or a Kenizzite? The redacted account of Caleb in the Bible reflects the developing realities of southern Judah in the First and Second Temple periods.

Moses refers to the story of the spies in Deuteronomy 1. The details that overlap with Numbers fit only with the (incomplete) J version of the account. How are the two versions connected and what new details can we learn from comparing them?

The Midianite Origin of YHWH and Aniconism

The biblical portrait of Miriam can leave the modern reader with a lingering bitterness, but a closer reading highlights her prophetic role, and her willingness to challenge the social norms and pursue an alternative, redemptive course.

Why was the priestly benediction placed together with the laws of nazir and the laws of sotah? 

Berenice is infamous for being the traitorous lover of Titus and for rejecting the Great Rebellion against Rome, along with her brother Agrippa II. But she was also a pious woman who took a nazirite vow, was attached to her God and her people, and even risked her life to save her fellow Jews from Roman soldiers.

Hittite texts show us that in the ancient Near East, women, including the queen, served as priestesses. The biblical authors, in their fervor for YHWH, monotheism, and centralization of worship through one Temple and one priesthood, strongly objected.

The book of Ruth presents a different model of justice from that afforded by statute, custom, and precedent, one that seeks restorative as opposed to retributive justice.^[1]  

The mistaken exchange of the letter gimel for a vav corrupted the meaning of a key verse in Ruth.

The book of Ruth tells the story of David’s great grandmother Ruth, a Moabite woman who attaches herself to a Judahite family. Could this have been designed as a positive spin for a persistent, problematic tradition about David’s foreignness—a tradition so controversial that it was excised from the rest of the Bible?

A look at Naomi’s theology, as expressed in her poem, and how it carries her through her grief and back into productive engagement.

Jerusalem in the 14th century B.C.E. was a Canaanite city; by the 10th/9th century B.C.E. it was Israelite. The Bible records several different accounts of how it was conquered. What are we to make of these different traditions?

Ancient scribes would write as if Moses was the author, or they would claim that a tradition was originally stated by Moses, but they did not intend to convey a historical fact with this description. Instead, they meant that a given tradition was “authentically” Jewish, or God’s will and that Moses would have approved. I call this phenomenon “Mosaic Discourse.”

Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 are often lumped together, as the two great curses, but their careful comparison reveals some fundamental and surprising differences.

Jeremiah 32 describes the prophet’s redemption of his uncle’s ancestral land. The scribal authors turned this transaction into an oracle. Eventually, the passage was expanded to include a prayer in which Jeremiah invokes the exodus from Egypt and the gift of the land. Taken together, the passage inspires hope for exilic Jews that God will redeem their land as well.

How does the Torah envision that keeping kosher makes a person holy?

The generative relationship between ancient texts and later interpretation can illuminate and revitalize the study of these texts, including the Bible.

Biblical narratives describe the Israelites living in tents in the wilderness and make no mention of sukkot, “booths.” So when and where did God “settle the Israelite people in booths”(Leviticus 23:43)? The answer: Kadesh! Although Israel journeys through the wilderness for forty years, they arrive at Kadesh early on and dwell there for more than thirty-five years.

A set of homilies from the Genizah connects two biblical readings (sidrot) in Leviticus by emphasizing the importance of the mitzvah of orlah as a key to inheriting and remaining on the land.

Deuteronomy commands a man to marry the childless widow of his brother (yibbum). And yet, a close look at the Priestly text of the Torah shows that it did not have the option of yibbum.

Emphasizing the Holiness of Ethics over the Ritual