Ataroth is an obscure Transjordanian city, referenced only twice in the Bible. Nevertheless, due to modern archaeological discoveries, it has become a central piece of evidence for reconstructing the history of the Moabite rebellion against Israel and King Mesha’s expansion of the Moabite kingdom described in both 2 Kings and the Mesha Stele.
Deuteronomy uses unusual parallel terms “the shegar of your herd and the ashtorot of your flock” to describe the offspring of livestock. These are names of the ancient West Semitic fertility goddess known as Ashtoret or by her less familiar bi-name Sheger. Her consort is (sometimes) the god Ashtor. What do we know about these deities and what do they have to do with livestock?
In the southern Transjordanian Mishor (plateau), an area that changed hands between Israelites and Moabites, there once lived two neighboring tribes, Gadites and Dibonites.
The Mesha Inscription describes Omri’s conquest of the mishor in the Transjordan, and Moab’s subsequent (re)taking of it, in the 9th century B.C.E. Reading Numbers 21 in conversation with archaeological findings confirms much of this and offers us a glimpse at the history of this region before the Omride conquest.
Deuteronomy envisions a king constantly reading torah and limiting his wealth and resources. Is this how kings are described in the rest of the Bible? What was kingship like in the ancient Near East?
A look at the the practice and prohibition of child sacrifice in the Bible and the ambivalence underlying the stories of Jephthah’s daughter, Agamemnon’s daughter, and the binding of Isaac.
Exodus 22:28 commands Israel to give its firstborn sons to God, and makes no mention of redeeming them. What exactly is being commanded?
