Latest Essays

The Bible never numbers the plagues of Egypt, but the number ten has been canonized in tradition, and a canonical list of the ten plagues appears in the Passover Haggadah. The 18^th century enlightenment commentator Naftali Herz Wessely breaks free from the number ten, offering a more persuasive structure of twelve miracles.

The biblical authors polemicize against the Mesopotamian Atrahasis epic, not only in Noah’s flood story, but in the account of the exodus as well.

Moses and Horus are hidden in thickets on the Nile by their mothers; Sargon is placed in a wicker basket and cast away on the Euphrates by his. Yet each survives to become a ruler of their people. The Akkadian legend tells of Sargon of Akkad, 3rd millennium B.C.E., but it serves as an allegory for Sargon II the 8th-century king of Assyria. Similarly, Exodus narrates the story of Moses, who freed Israel from Egypt, but serves as an allegory for King Hezekiah of Judah 8th century B.C.E., who struggled to navigate between Egypt and Assyria.

​​In late 2nd century Carthage, Tertullian, the first church father to write in Latin, composed Adversus Iudaeos to argue that Christianity’s interpretation of the Hebrew Bible was better than that of the Jews. While his depictions of Jews deal only with biblical verses, from his comments elsewhere about veiled women, Nazarenes, fasting, etc., he was clearly familiar with Jewish practice of his day.

When God appoints Moses as his spokesman to take Israel out of Egypt, Moses protests that he is כבד פה וכבד לשׁון “heavy of mouth and tongue” (Exodus 4:10). Why, later, does Moses describe himself as ערל שׂפתים “uncircumcised of lips” (Exodus 6:12, 30)?

Moses’ claim that he is “heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue” has been understood as a speech impediment or language difficulty, but his actual concern is about his quick temper.

Goren-haʿatad, at the southwestern border of Canaan, is situated near a crossing point of Abel-Mitzrayim, the Brook of Egypt. It is named Yardan/Jordan Pass, after an obscure village in this region mentioned by Pharaoh Shishak, Josephus, and the Madaba map. A Syriac text describes a battle of Arab armies against Christians, Jews, and Samaritans that took place there in 634 C.E., and which likely ended in the village’s destruction.

Originally, Joseph, the ancestor figure of the northern kingdom, was the hero of an independent story. A suite of editorial additions by southern scribes, however, connects Joseph to the other ancestral stories, subtly positioning Judah as the true heir to Jacob’s legacy.

The medieval Scroll of Antiochus does more than enrich Chanukah with details. It models the holiday after Purim by telling the story in the biblical language and idiom of Daniel, Ezra, and Esther.

Two key accusations against Antiochus IV in 1 Maccabees are that he suspended the tamid, the daily offering, and that he placed an “abomination of desolation” on the Temple altar— either a cultic object or a new, pagan altar. What does the older source, Daniel 11:31, actually tell us about these two accusations and, more broadly, about Antiochus IV’s intervention in the Jerusalem cult?

In the Bible, the Queen of Sheba is an unnamed foreign visitor to Solomon’s court. How did she later become a paradigmatic religious convert, Solomon’s wife, and the mother of Nebuchadnezzar and Menelik I, the founding figure of the Ethiopian royal court? The answer begins in the Qur’an.

Potiphar’s wife sets up her friends to learn about Joseph’s beauty for themselves, the hard way, in a story that appears in both rabbinic midrash and the Quran. Sefer HaYashar, a 16^th century midrashic work, dramatizes this story in a way sympathetic to her character, even giving her the name Zuleikha, borrowed from Islamic sources.

Isaac and Rebecca’s relationship appears close and loving, except when Rebecca directs Jacob to deceive Isaac and steal the blessing meant for Esau. The sages suggest that Isaac knew all along that the man before him was Jacob, disguised as Esau. Is it possible that Isaac and Rebecca were both in on the plan from the start?

The elements of a thanksgiving prayer—praise, description of the crisis, calling on the audience, an acknowledgment of God’s answer, and a concluding thanks—are found in Psalm 30, recited daily in the morning service. The adaptability of this and other biblical psalms helps explain why these Iron-Age prayers are still recited around the world today.

Rebecca’s ruse to secure a blessing for Jacob is misguided and generates suffering for both her and her son.

In protest against the binding of Isaac, Sarah returns alone to Hebron, the site where YHWH promised her a son. This move marks the moment when she stops following her husband Abraham and finds her own path.

Justin Martyr, an early Church Father (c. 100–165 C.E.), interprets the strange appearance of the LORD to Abraham at Mamre as an early instantiation of God the Son, i.e., Jesus. While Rashbam obviously rejected this belief, he learned from this Christian interpretation and suggests that here, the name YHWH refers to an angel, which explains why YHWH speaks about YHWH in this story in the third person.

Is there a common conception behind the “lights” of the Priestly redactors, the “flaming wheels” of the Ionian philosophers, and the “lamps” of the Mesopotamian commentators?

The cedar and cypress, among other trees, occupy a prominent place in the Bible—representing life, sustenance, and wisdom. The prophets draw on their deep knowledge of trees to convey messages of hope and destruction.

After Abram expresses doubt that Sarai will have children and questions how he can be sure his descendants will inherit the land, YHWH establishes the Covenant of the Pieces, lasting 400 years, extending through Israel’s time in Egypt up to their entry into the land. Does this covenant hold lasting significance for later generations, or is it replaced by God’s “everlasting” Covenant of Circumcision?

God promises Abram that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars of the sky, assumed to be uncountable. In 10^th century Baghdad, scholars were well-versed in Ptolemy’s Greek astronomy, including his official limited count of stars. This challenged the Karaite Jewish exegete Ya‘qub al-Qirqisani to reinterpret the meaning of God’s promise.

After Cain is exiled for killing Abel, he founds the first עִיר (ʿir), usually translated as “city.” But the biblical depictions of Shechem and Sodom, and the archaeology of ancient Israel, show that the average ʿir was a “village” or “town” at most.

The Bible consistently points to Aram in Northern Syria as Abraham’s place of origin. However, in a prequel added during the Babylonian exile, a later biblical author introduces Abram as being born in the famous city of Ur, near Babylon in Southern Iraq, from which he then migrates to Aram. When the city of Ur faded from historical memory, readers of the Bible associated the biblical Ur with Urfa in Turkey, aligning it with the Bible’s dominant tradition regarding Abraham’s origins.

On Rosh Hashanah, our judgment is written; on Yom Kippur, it is sealed; and on Hoshana Rabbah, it is sent out to be fulfilled. It is said that on the night of Hoshana Rabbah, those judged to die that year will lose their shadows. Sefer Chasidim relates that, in a final plea for forgiveness, even the spirits of the dead rise from their graves to pray for the living.

The answer depends on the manuscript and tradition we read: Psalms are segmented differently from as early as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint and continuing through the medieval Hebrew manuscripts of the Masoretic Text.