Biblical scholars employ many methods to interpret the text, but one perspective is often overlooked: reading the Bible as the work of writers. Attending to the authors’ literary and aesthetic choices can illuminate meanings that other approaches miss.
After seeing the divine messenger who announces Samson’s birth, Manoah, his father, fears death. Captured by the Philistines and blinded, Samson seeks death. The parallel is deliberate: where Manoah sees the divine yet fails to understand, Samson loses his sight and only then recognizes YHWH. The reversal is sharpened by the role of prayer in the narrative: Samson’s parents never pray for a child, but Samson himself prays in his final moments, crying out for strength, vengeance, and death.
Through subtle echoes of other biblical narratives, the book of Ruth recasts women not as rivals competing for men, but as partners bound by loyalty and kindness.
Also known as מוקדם שהוא מאוחר בענין, “phrases written out of order,” Rabbi Eliezer’s 31st principle of exegesis helps solve interpretive difficulties, such as: Does Samuel really sleep in the Tabernacle next to the ark? Why is Lot’s property referred to as “Abraham’s nephew”? What does it mean that Pharaoh’s daughter washes on the Nile?
The curtains and screens for the innermost spaces of the tabernacle are made from expensive materials, and their instructions are described in elevated prose. In contrast, the courtyard enclosure is constructed with more common materials and described in more economical prose.
Why are the Books of Ruth and Esther so much alike?
After Sinai, Moses writes down YHWH’s Laws on a scroll and reads it to the people (Exodus 24). Similarly, Moses writes down the Deuteronomic Torah, which will be read to the people every seven years (Deuteronomy 31). Using the literary mirroring technique, mise en abyme, the Torah connects its authority to these ancient scrolls on one hand, and its readers with the ancient Israelite audience on the other.
“I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours” ― Bob Dylan
The Tower of Babel story (Genesis 11:1-9) is not only about the downfall of Babylon or the origin of languages. It is a reflection on how languages work differently, on the limitations of one language to convey the sense of another, and the insufficiency inherent in translation.
The story of Joseph is replete with narrative contradictions. Source criticism has long dominated the quest for textual coherence. But how are we to make sense of the integrated text?
The late British anthropologist Mary Douglas proposed that Leviticus was designed to reflect the structure of the Tabernacle, which in turn reflects the division of space during the revelation at Mount Sinai. In this reading, the two screens or curtains that divide the Tabernacle are represented by Leviticus’ only two narratives.
The Joseph story invites the reader to be transported to Egypt itself through the inclusion of Egyptian words, proper names, and customs; to analyze the unsurpassed use of repetition with variation; and to enter the mind of the character (in this case, especially Pharaoh) through the use of interior monologue.
Is the focal point of the book the Camp or the Tabernacle?
The history and geography of the Judahite clan of Shelah as portrayed in the Bible and in the extra-biblical Sources.
What is the meaning of the literary parallels in Genesis 34–38 and 1 Samuel?
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