Latest Essays

God creates life in the heavens and the earth: the first three verses of the Bible explained.

The expulsion from the garden of Eden is not a story about human error or sin. It is the inevitable result of the human desire for knowledge.

Wheat, grapes, citrons, figs, pomegranates, and olives have all been presented as the fruit that Adam and Eve ate, yet the apple, which only entered the scene in the 12^th century C.E., became the most popular candidate.

History according to Rashi, science according to Maimonides. In Maimonides’ view, the Sages knew that hidden behind the allegorical language of the creation account is Aristotelian physics. This knowledge was lost until he (Maimonides) figured out the secret on his own.

By the 1^st century C.E., observance of Torah laws is abundantly evident in Judean society. But how far back does this widespread observance go?

Kohelet, the book of Ecclesiastes, complains about almost everything. The medieval commentator in MS Hamburg 32, however, argues that in his opening discourse, Kohelet is contrasting earth’s permanence with humanity’s transience, presenting the world, if not humanity, in a positive light.

The blessings and curses formulae in Deuteronomy 27–28 reveal a rich, complex and innovative interaction with ancient Near Eastern and Achaemenid parallels.

The ancient Near East, including biblical Israel, tried to come to terms with the horrific realities of war by understanding the destruction it wreaks as an act enjoined by divine command, whether of YHWH, Dagan, Ashur, Marduk, Kemosh, Teshub, etc., who also participated in the battles.

Leviticus 16 describes how the scapegoat ritual on Yom Kippur attains atonement for all of Israel’s sins, even acts of rebellion. Numbers 15, however, states that a person who sins unintentionally can bring an offering and be forgiven, but the person who sins intentionally is cut off from the people.

The book begins with Jonah running away and ends with YHWH rebuking the prophet, but the book is unclear as to whether Jonah ever repents. Why?

The Book of Jonah is unique in describing an Israelite prophet sent to an Assyrian city to rebuke them for their sins and persuade them to repent. Were the Assyrians merely bit players in the divine plan for Israel, or does God really care about the sins of non-Israelites? Radak, Abravanel, and ibn Ezra have very different theological approaches to this question.

After destroying Jerusalem and taking the king captive, Nebuchadnezzar appoints Gedaliah, a former royal steward, as the governor of Judah. But Ishmael, a scion of the royal family, conspires with Baalis, king of Ammon, assassinates Gedaliah, and kills the Babylonian soldiers stationed in Judah. How did Nebuchadnezzar respond?

Seeking a permanent connection with their god, ancient Mesopotamians would place votive statues of themselves in front of their god. Psalm 27 represents the Israelite alternative: the spoken request to see YHWH face-to-face uses words, not statues, to give the petitioner a refuge with God that endures even after departing the Temple.

The book of Samuel opens with the patriarch Elkanah’s annual pilgrimage to Shiloh, but it is his barren wife, Hannah, who emerges as the key figure in the story. Through her clever negotiations with God for a son, Hannah finds a way to transcend the bounds of her role as wife and mother and carve out an honorable niche for herself in the Israelites’ sacred chronicles.

In Deuteronomy, “these words,” “this torah,” and “this scroll” refer not to a specific delimited text, but point instead to the total revelation of YHWH to Israel that cannot be limited to one set of words or texts.

Rosh Hashanah in the Torah is described as a day of teruah, a reference to one of the two types of blasts: a regular horn blast (tekiah) and a teruah blast. Interpreters ancient and modern understand the distinction as differing in sound, length, or pitch, but the biblical description of the shofar blowing during the siege of Jericho implies that the nature of a teruah lies in the people’s response to the blast.

In the ancient Near East and the Torah, covenants were enacted with both a written text and a series of ritual actions.

As the Israelites are about to enter the land, Moses presents them with a covenant. Yet, Israel is already subject to YHWH’s commands since the covenant at Horeb and has already been punished for disobedience, so what choice do they really have?

A woman raped in the field is not punished for adultery, seemingly because rape is like murder (Deuteronomy 22:26). This odd analogy is the result of a misunderstanding of the verse’s use of a rhetorical device, parallelism with alternation.

2 Kings 18:4 describes Hezekiah as having abolished the bamot, worship sites outside Jerusalem. Archaeologists have discovered decommissioned temples and altars from this period in Lachish, Beersheba, and Arad. What do these findings really tell us?

Of all the harsh behavior in warfare known from the ancient Near East, Deuteronomy’s requirement that Israel slaughter all the inhabitants of Canaan is unique. In all likelihood, the law sought to suppress Israel’s inclination to idolatry.

In the ancient world, as now, indiscriminate violence and mass killing in war is explained as a struggle to defend “our” way of life against those who threaten to destroy it.

During the Second Temple Period, scribes improved and embellished the texts they copied. As a result, divergent copies of biblical books existed side by side.

The Bible describes the shock that Ezra and Nehemiah experience upon learning that the Judean locals had married non-Judeans. And yet, from Babylonian marriage documents uncovered in cities near Babylon, we learn that intermarriage was occurring back in Babylonia as well.

The threefold demand to love YHWH with all of one’s heart לְבָבְךָ, soul נַפְשְׁךָ, and “very-ness” מְאֹדֶךָ (Deuteronomy 6:5) is spelled out with specific instructions in the verses that follow.