Elisha

Jewish tradition seems to have difficulty with the relationship between fathers and sons. Hence the last verses of Malachi, a coda to the Nevi’im section of Tanakh, imagines ultimate redemption through a metaphor of father-son reconciliation, with the fire and brimstone prophet Elijah its unlikely, antagonistic harbinger. Leave it to the poet Yehuda Amichai to step in and offer a counter-model to rescue the metaphor.

Virtually all biblical scholars—even feminist biblical scholars—consider the Bible and ancient Israelite society patriarchal.^[1] But is that a valid designation?

. . . and the Challenges of Putting it into Practice.

In the Prophets, Israelite leaders such as Joshua, Saul, David, and Ahab use divination to help them make decisions, just as their ancient Near Eastern counterparts did. Why then, does the Torah sidestep the divinatory character of these objects and practices, and instead, emphasize their ritual and religious character?