The Bible often provides explicit motivations for adhering to its laws, raising the question: How do these motivations align with contemporary psychological theories of moral reasoning?

Hezekiah’s centralizing worship in Jerusalem, one altar for one God, failed in part because it created a spiritual vacuum for the average Judahite villager living far from the capital. Less than a century later, Deuteronomy revives the law, adding new provisions—a stipend for unemployed Levites, permission to slaughter animals outside the sacred precinct, and a requirement to make pilgrimage to the holy site three times a year—to address the law’s challenges.

Biblical dietary laws forbid consuming animals that shed the blood of other animals, reflecting an ideal world without violence among humans or animals. But what counts as blood?

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?

The original biblical prohibition before it was interpreted to forbid cooking or consuming meat and milk together.

The festival calendar in Deuteronomy 16 began as a short revision of the calendar in Exodus 23. As it was expanded to clarify and adjust its details, it merged its springtime Matzot festival with the Pesach offering, which was originally connected to the consecration of firstborn animals.

Deuteronomy’s requirement to destroy a city whose inhabitants worship another god and to leave it as an eternally desolate mound, can be understood in the context of ancient Near Eastern vassal treaties. Specifically, Hittite texts describe how kings dealt with rebellious vassal cities, by destroying them utterly and dedicating their land to the gods.

Jews have long understood “the place that YHWH will choose” to mean Mount Zion in Jerusalem, while Samaritans have interpreted it as Mount Gerizim near Shechem. Archaeology and redaction criticism converge on a compromise solution: it refers to a series of places, one place at a time.

Fishbone remains discovered in eight different excavations in Jerusalem, from the Iron age to the early Islamic period, give us a sense of what fish the locals ate, and from where they were imported.

The rabbis claim that a “subverted” or “apostate” city, which Deuteronomy 13:13-18 condemns to destruction, “never was and never will be” (t. San. 14:1). Yet the account in Judges 19-21 of the destruction or ḥerem of Gibeah, its inhabitants, animals, and property, suggests that such “internal ḥerem” was an Israelite practice, and that Gibeah is being presented as a subverted city.

Deuteronomy commands centralizing worship of YHWH at the Temple once peace is obtained. When was this supposed to occur according to the Deuteronomic History, and when did it happen historically?

According to Deuteronomy, a false prophet who has no message from God, and advocates worshiping other gods, can still successfully perform miracles and predict the future.

A classic example of source criticism applied to Torah legislation.

Moses’ first set of laws in Deuteronomy (11:31–12:28) requires the Israelites to destroy Canaanite sites of worship and to centralize sacrifice for Yahweh at the site of His choosing. It also allows them to eat meat without sacrificing the animal, under particular conditions. A close look at the terms of Moses’ speech shows that the text has been supplemented no less than three times.

In Leviticus and Numbers, ma’aser (tithing) refers to a Temple tax; in Deuteronomy, however, it refers either to what must be brought and consumed on a pilgrimage festival or to charity. This dichotomy led the rabbis to design the cumbersome system of the first and second tithes (maaser rishon and maaser sheni).

But Chicken and Egg Remained Permitted

The Torah first describes a world that is created to be vegetarian. It is only after the Flood that humans were allowed to eat meat. Leviticus restricts meat consumption to the sacrificial offerings only, whereas Deuteronomy permits even non-consecrated meat. How do we understand the tension between these approaches?

And the challenges of putting it into practice.

Leviticus requires covering the blood of undomesticated animals; Deuteronomy requires pouring out the blood of slaughtered domesticated animals onto the ground. How do these laws jibe with each other? The Essenes have one answer, the rabbis another, the academics a third.

The Torah states “do not cook a kid in its mother's milk.” What does this phrase mean, and how did it develop into the prohibition of mixing meat and milk?

Deuteronomy’s centralization of worship (in Jerusalem) is commonly seen as increasing the power of the cult. However, it is also part of Deuteronomy’s laicization program, which shrinks the power of priests and Levites, and extends covenantal holiness requirements to all Israel.