Latest Essays

A political strategy and a religious wakeup call to Jews in the Diaspora.

Esther is the most beloved biblical figure among the crypto-Jews of the Spanish Inquisition—the conversos (fem. conversas)—who publicly converted to Catholicism but lived secretly as Jews. Remarkably, she was also upheld as a heroine among the Catholic-majority communities of early modern Iberia (Spain and Portugal), but for very different reasons.

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In 1902, Friedrich Delitzsch argued in his Babel und Bibel (Babylon and the Bible) lecture series that the biblical texts are dependent upon and inferior to those of Babylonia. A key piece of evidence was the Hammurabi Stele, discovered only months before, but traditional scholars responded by maintaining the ethical superiority of Mosaic law.

Julius Wellhausen’s analysis of the Torah is perfused with the anti-Jewish sentiment prevalent in Bismarck’s Second German Reich. This adversely affected the use of the Documentary Hypothesis among Jewish scholars until Yehezkel’s Kaufmann’s introduction of a Jewish variation on the theory.

The Torah’s prohibition against loaning money with interest addresses a culture of subsistence farmers. Later Jews devised halakhic loopholes to enable them to make use of credit instruments such as the suftaja and to participate in market economies.

Rashi’s Torah commentary is largely adapted from classic rabbinic sources, including midrash halakhah. And yet, he often changes their meaning in his revisions. Where does Rashi get the authority to make these changes?

The answer, or lack thereof, teaches us something important about the meaning and limits of divine revelation.

The Book of Joshua describes Israel waging a military campaign against Jericho and other southern cities. The Song of the Sea (Exodus 15), on the other hand, depicts Israel crossing the Jordan, and YHWH bringing them directly to a temple.

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.

Village dogs, guard dogs, scavenger dogs, and dog burials—what archaeology and the Bible can tell us about dogs in ancient Egypt and the Levant, and the significance of their silence during the plague of the firstborn.

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.

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

The story of the ancestors in Genesis serves as a prequel to that of Moses in Exodus. Originally, however, each were self-standing accounts of Israel’s origin. They were combined for the first time by the Priestly author in the post-exilic period.

YHWH’s first revelation to Moses at a sneh סְּנֶה, “bush,” signifies that it is not a future site of worship and foreshadows the revelation at Sinai.

Before his death, David commands Solomon to kill two men: Joab, his loyal general, and Shimei, his enemy, whom he had sworn not to kill.

Esau’s attempt to block Jacob’s burial at the Cave of Machpelah ends in his gruesome death.

YHWH declares to the Davidic king, “You are my son; today I have begotten you” (Psalm 2:7). For the New Testament, this verse is a prooftext for Jesus’s divinity, but what did it mean in its original context, and how did Jewish interpreters understand it?

“I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours” ― Bob Dylan

The historical John, יוחנן, was a thoroughly Jewish religious preacher, who had little if any relation to Jesus and his movement. Here is the story of how John and his central rite, baptism, became part of Christianity.

Before speaking with Pharaoh, Joseph adapts to Egyptian norms by shaving and changing his clothes. When he interprets Pharaoh’s dream, he only uses the generic word for God, Elohim, making no mention of YHWH. Pharaoh, in turn, declares Joseph to be wise and a man with the spirit of God, and puts aside Joseph’s ethnic and socio-economic background, appointing him viceroy to save Egypt from the pending famine.

Jacob berates Joseph when he hears his second dream: “Are we to come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to you?” (Genesis 37:10) Rachel, his mother, was dead. What then did the dream mean?

When Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, he says, “I am your brother, whom you sold into Egypt” (Gen 45:4). Tradition takes for granted that Joseph’s brothers were indeed the ones who sold him. However, as Rashbam and Shadal note, a straightforward peshat reading of events once Joseph is thrown into the pit reveals a different conclusion.

Samson also meets a woman of questionable status in ​Timnah. Why do sexual encounters with foreign women take place in Timna?