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Plagues

I (God) and Not an Angel: The Haggadah Counters Jesus and the Arma Christi

The Haggadah’s insistence that God, without an intermediary, saved the Israelites from Egypt is a veiled retort to the Christian belief that God relied on Jesus as an agent of redemption. Moreover, the midrash replaces the Arma Christi tradition of recounting the weapons Jesus used to save humanity during the Crucifixion with its own distinctively Jewish arsenal of redemption: pestilence, a sword, the Shechinah, the staff, and blood.

Prof.

Steven Weitzman

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Locusts: YHWH’s Army

Be it against Egypt or Israel, YHWH unleashes locusts as a divine retribution. Scientifically, grasshoppers metamorphose into locusts as a response to environmental disruption.

Dr. Rabbi

Laura Duhan-Kaplan

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Punishing Egypt Measure-for-Measure

The plagues and the drowning of the Egyptians were designed to showcase YHWH’s power throughout the world (Exodus 9:16). Both the Wisdom of Solomon (1st cent. C.E.) and Mekhilta (2nd cent. C.E.) develop systematic interpretations of the plagues, showing how the details were measure-for-measure punishments, they differ on the meaning of the lesson when it comes to non-Jews.

Prof.

Ishay Rosen-Zvi

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We Were Slaves to the Hyksos in Egypt

The Hyksos, the West Semitic rulers of northern Egypt in the late 16th century B.C.E., are the biblical Pharaohs and their lower-class subjects, the Hebrews. Here is the history behind the exodus.

Dr.

Joseph Weinstein

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Weighing Pharaoh’s Heavy Heart

In ancient Egyptian belief, a person’s heart was weighed after death to determine whether they are righteous or wicked. By referring to Pharaoh’s heart as heavy, the exodus story originally expressed the extent of his guilt.

Rabbi

Daniel M. Zucker

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Blood, Frogs, and Impurity

Three curious details in the plagues of blood and frogs show the hand of a post-priestly editor and his concern about purity laws.

Prof.

Christoph Berner

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The Original Reason for Spilling Wine: Protection from the Plagues

R. Eleazar of Worms in the 12th century, defended the practice of spilling wine when reciting the plagues against detractors who disparaged it, by offering a mystical, numerological rationale. This, however, was a post-facto attempt to explain a folk custom, whose origins lie in the human fear of being struck by these very plagues.

Dr. Rabbi

Zev Farber

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Spilling Wine While Reciting the Plagues to Diminish Our Joy?

The popular Jewish custom to remove drops of wine while listing the plagues goes back to the Middle Ages, but the ubiquitous explanation that we do this out of sadness for what happened to the Egyptians does not. When did this explanation develop and how did it become so dominant?

Dr. Rabbi

Zvi Ron

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The Plague of Dead Fish

The plague of blood developed as a mythological amplification of an older account in which Moses strikes the Nile to kill the fish and make the water stink.

Prof. Rabbi

David Frankel

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Invoking Creation in the Story of the Ten Plagues

Demonstrating God’s control of the world

Prof.

Ziony Zevit

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Some Biblical Perspectives on the Haggadah

Prof.

Marc Zvi Brettler

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The Ethical Problem of Hardening Pharaoh’s Heart

It seems unethical for God to deny Pharaoh free will and then punish him for his actions. Rashi, Nahmanides, and Maimonides all struggle with this problem, and each assumes that even Pharaoh deserves to be treated fairly.

Prof. Rabbi

Shaul Magid

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The Ten Plagues and Egyptian Ecology

Could the story have its basis in natural phenomena?

Prof.

Ziony Zevit

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Ancient Mapping: Israelite Versus Egyptian Orientation

God uses a qādîm “forward” wind to bring the locusts and blow back the sea – but what direction is qādîm? Did Israel and its neighbors answer this question the same way? Can ancient maps clarify this question?

Dr.

David Ben-Gad HaCohen

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Reading the Plagues in their Ancient Egyptian Context

Prof.

Gary A. Rendsburg

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The Death of Pharaoh’s Firstborn: A One Plague Exodus

After commissioning Moses at the burning bush, God commissions Moses again in Midian, and then again on his way to Egypt. In this third commission, God instructs Moses to tell Pharaoh, “Let My son go, that he may worship Me, yet you refuse to let him go. Now I will slay your firstborn son” (Exod 4:22-23). How does this narrative fit into the exodus story?

Prof. Rabbi

David Frankel

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The Missing Speeches in the Plague Narrative and the Samaritan Pentateuch

Before several plagues, God commands Moses to warn Pharaoh. Moses delivers this warning, but his actual words are not recorded. In the plague of locusts, the opposite occurs, and God’s wording is not recorded while Moses’ warning is. The SP fills in these lacunae by recording each instance.

Dr. Rabbi

Zev Farber

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The Three Redactional and Theological Layers of the Plagues

The plague story expanded over time in three main stages: The oldest stage (E) has Moses perform 3 plagues on his own; this was revised to create a story of an all-powerful God performing 8 plagues (J), utilizing Moses as a mouthpiece. Finally, the Priestly redactor revised this into our familiar narrative of 10 plagues, in which God uses the miracles to announce himself to Egypt and the world.

Dr. Rabbi

Tzemah Yoreh

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YHWH’s War Against the Egyptian Sun-God Ra

Reading the plagues of locust, darkness, and firstborn in their ancient Egyptian context.

Prof.

Gary A. Rendsburg

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Source Criticism: It’s in the (Plague of) Blood

An inductive approach.

Prof.

Marc Zvi Brettler

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The Torah’s Exodus

Weighing the historicity of the exodus story entails more than addressing the lack of archaeological evidence.

Dr. Rabbi

Zev Farber

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Why Pharaoh Went to the Nile in the Morning

YHWH tells Moses to go see Pharaoh in the morning by the Nile (Exodus 7:15). Why was he there? Did Pharaoh take a daily stroll by the Nile? Did he use the Nile as a privy, or worship it? Perhaps a literary approach may be more fruitful.

Prof.

Scott B. Noegel

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Taking Control of the Story: God Hardens Pharaoh’s Heart

Exodus narrates three distinct conceptions of God’s relationship to Pharaoh’s stubbornness: God was surprised, God knew beforehand, and God was the direct cause.  The final conception reflects the Priestly redaction of the Torah, whose authors were unwilling to leave the destiny of the plagues up to Pharaoh’s own heart.

Prof. Rabbi

David Frankel

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