Latest Essays

Several biblical and non-biblical texts describe encounters with flying venomous snakes in the Sinai and Arabian deserts. Egyptian iconography helps clarify what is being pictured.

Bringing Parashat Vayechi to Life

Why was Jacob’s funeral procession across the Jordan?

God tells Jacob, “I Myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I Myself will also bring you back” (Genesis 46:4), a reassurance intended to speak to readers in the exilic period.

מזמור שיר חנכת הבית לדוד, “A song of the dedication of the Temple of David”

Biblical concepts about the Second Temple, its purification, and dedication strongly inform the development of Chanukah’s earliest customs and symbols.

Why the rabbis ended Parashat Miketz with a cliffhanger (in both the Babylonian and the Eretz-Yisraeli traditions), and what the Ancient Near Eastern legal context of “evidence law” can clarify for us about the background of the story.

The historical symbolism of the twelve tribes and the geographical significance of the tribe of Benjamin.

The Significance of the Rabbinic Choice of Haftarah for Shabbat Chanukah

Torah Mi-Sinai and other dogmas compelled me to reconsider my place within the Orthodox world.

The Joseph story provides a compelling case for the use of source-critical methods for unraveling intertwined stories in the biblical text.

The story of Joseph as a young man (Genesis 37-40) is full of contradictions and doublets, and is interrupted by the story of Tamar and Judah (Genesis 38). Beyond that, hovering in the background is the question: how can the spoiled youth, his father’s favorite, become the prudent leader and savior of his family?

An intertextual reading of the Dinah story highlights how it polemicizes against marriage with non-Israelites, even those willing to take on Israelite practices. Some rabbinic counter-readings of the text, however, express a more positive notion of incorporating converts to Judaism into the community.

Who gets to name the child? Priestly and non-Priestly texts give two different answers.

How ancient scribes dealt with a confusing story — a textual critical analysis

Does the Supplementary Hypothesis explain the existence of a fourth son that found his way back into Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer and the Quran?

An introduction to the Diatessaron, and its significance to biblical studies, particularly the Documentary Hypothesis.

When geography makes or breaks a storyline