Latest Essays

Examining ancient Egyptian papyri, as well as scrolls from animal skins in Levantine sites such as Deir Alla and Qumran, highlights how scribes would add text to preexisting scrolls and showcases the limited size of scrolls intended for regular use.

Each week, twelve fresh loaves of bread were placed before YHWH in the Tabernacle and Temple. What do we know about the practice and its significance?

In pre-exilic texts, לְהַבְדִּיל lehavdil means “to select, appoint, designate.” In the Priestly text, the term is used to refer to physical separation, while in the Holiness Text, it takes on an abstract meaning, to distinguish between objects and people in a cultic sense. The book of Ezra uses a new form of the term, לְהִבָּדֵל lehibbadel, to urge separating from non-Jews, prompting Trito-Isaiah to argue against separating (lehavdil) any faithful person from YHWH and His Temple.

Ancient Near Eastern law collections do not unequivocally prohibit a son from marrying his father's wife, and neither do modern incest laws. And yet, the Bible repeats this prohibition multiple times. Six reasons why.

The belief in the power of an angry or jealous person’s eye to damage others was pervasive in the ancient Near East, in Jewish antiquity, and medieval times. But what does the Bible say?

Song of Songs opens with: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for דֹּדֶיךָ (MT “your loving”) or mastoi sou (LXX “your breasts”) are better than wine.” Why does the LXX translate this way and which version is correct?

Ecclesiastes versus Song of Songs

The earliest biblical traditions describe Israel as sojourners who dwelt in the land of Egypt, and focused on YHWH bringing them up to the land of Canaan. The depiction of Israel as slaves in Egypt, whom YHWH brought out with a strong hand, only developed later.

The woman in Song of Songs wishes to know where her lover will be, asking: “Why should I be like an ʿōṭǝyâ (כְּעֹטְיָה).” Translators struggle with this phrase, and suggest meanings as disparate as “be veiled like a prostitute,” “be as a wanderer,” or even “pick at my nits.” How do scholars use ancient translation, cognate words, and content to translate a word in the Bible whose meaning is so obscure?

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 (1^st cent. C.E.) and Mekhilta (2^nd 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.

When the Egyptians pursue Israel into the wilderness, Moses tells the Israelites to “stand by and witness the deliverance which YHWH will work for you today” (Exodus 14:13). YHWH brings panic upon the enemy, as he does in the battle of Gibeon and the war against Sisera. This is J’s story of Israel’s escape, hidden in the biblical accounts of the escape by the sea.

In Exodus, the daughter of Pharaoh is presented as an empathetic princess who saves the infant Moses after discovering him in the Nile and raises him as one of her own. Late Second Temple and rabbinic writers reimagine her based on their own values, and even give her a name.

At the battle against the Philistines at Michmas, Saul asks Ahiah the priest to bring forward the ark, so that he can consult YHWH. He is not referring to the ark of Shiloh, which was safeguarded in Kiryat-yearim at the time; in the early monarchic period, each worship site had its own priestly family with its own ark.

The small letters, tav, shin, and zayin in the list of Haman’s ten sons (Esther 9), with the combined numerical value of 707, are seen as a “prophetic” code hinting to the future hanging of the ten Nazis convicted at the Nuremberg trials in the year 5707, which Julius Streicher declared as “Purimfest 1946” before he was hanged. What is the origin of these small letters?

Mordechai learns of a secret plot to assassinate King Ahasuerus. He also knows that in a private meeting, Haman tried to bribe the king to kill the Jews. At the same time, Mordechai is able to keep his relationship with Esther a secret.

Although Judea is one of the provinces of the multicultural empire of Persia, the book of Esther never mentions it. Rather, it grapples with the precarious position of Jews scattered throughout Persia, outside their ancestral homeland, and who stand out among the non-Jews in their insistence on keeping to their cultural rules and norms.

The Amalekites in most of the Bible are unremarkable; they are just one of the several tribes which Israel battles. Why then do Exodus and Deuteronomy present them as Israel’s ultimate enemy, whom YHWH has commanded to wipe out?

“Gods of masekhah you shall not make for yourself,” Exodus 34:17 - When the northerners and southerners debated the legitimacy of masks.

The Tabernacle is completed on the first of Nisan (Exodus 40) and is consecrated eight days later (Leviticus 9). And yet, the Book of Chronicles, Biblical Antiquities, and the Rabbis read these accounts as describing the same event. Indeed, the Torah’s final editor may have understood the texts as a continuous narrative, but chose to emphasize different themes of the Tabernacle by separating them.

In a joint venture, the Phoenician King Hiram and King Solomon go to Tarshish to bring back silver—the Levant has no silver deposits of its own. Where is Tarshish? Archaeological science, specifically, the ability to trace the chemical fingerprint of silver, and Phoenician inscriptions such as the Nora Stone, point us to the answer(s).

Using the metaphor of Israel as YHWH’s vineyard, three biblical texts—Isaiah 5, Psalm 80 and Isaiah 27—grapple with Judah’s destruction and the hope for its future recovery.

Northern Israel worshipped El/YHWH in the form of a golden bull. The Bible mocks this graven representation of the divinity by describing it as a calf.

To avoid accidentally showing their genitals, the Torah requires priests to wear underwear. Exodus 20, however, implies that priests don’t wear underpants, which is why they must access the altar via a ramp. Indeed, King David does expose himself when doing cartwheels before the ark, leading his wife Michal to rebuke him.