The Message of the Covenant Collection: Do Not Abuse Power
Long before the discovery of Hammurabi’s laws—whose stated purpose is to protect the weak from abuses of power—Ibn Ezra intuited a similar principle underlying the Covenant Collection.
Jonathan Ben-Dov
Prof.
Prof. Jonathan (יונתן) Ben-Dov is Professor of Bible and Second Temple Literature at the Department of Bible, Tel Aviv University. He is co-author (with Asaf Gayer and Eshbal Ratzon) of Material and Digital Reconstruction of Fragmentary Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, 2022).
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Books by the Author
Head of All Years : Astronomy and Calendars at Qumran in Their Ancient Context
The Construction of Time in Antiquity: Ritual, Art, and Identity
Ancient Jewish Sciences and the History of Knowledge in Second Temple Literature
Living the Lunar Calendar
Qumran Cave 4: XVI: Calendrical Texts
Social History of the Jews in Antiquity
Afterlives of Ancient Rock-cut Monuments in the Near East
Material and Digital Reconstruction of Fragmentary Dead Sea Scrolls
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Articles by Author
Are There Gods, Angels, and Demons in Deuteronomy?
In Second Temple times, several poetic verses in Deuteronomy were used to support the belief in multiple characters in the divine realm. The scribes of the early Masoretic text, who opposed this belief, sometimes went so far as to revise or excise these references.
The Materiality of a Divine Dwelling
What makes a material suitable for constructing a sacred space, and why, given all of the details and repetitions concerning the Tabernacle, are none of its manufacturing techniques narrated?
An Altar on Mt Ebal or Mt Gerizim? – The Torah in the Sectarian Debate
The textual remnants of a Second Temple religious polemic between Judeans and Samaritans about where God’s chosen mountain lies.
The Moral Quandary of Lulav Ha-Gazul
The Torah and Bavli vs. the Prophets and Yerushalmi
The First Month of the Year
A cornerstone of the Jewish luni-solar calendar or a commandment about the order of months?
