Of all the eccentricities and diversities of human embodiment, no physical abnormality seems to have captured the imagination of biblical authors so much as sara’at ( צרעת ), “skin disease,” which is accorded detailed treatment in both Priestly legislation and non-Priestly narratives. Scholarly treatments of the condition have tended to view th…[Read more]

Reflections on the overlap between the redaction of the Pentateuch and the production of interpretive meaning.

The idea of stratification in the Pentateuch has come to be considered an essential element of non-Documentary Hypothesis theories regarding the composition of the canonical text. After all, stratification seems to imply the very opposite
of compilation: not independent pieces that have been combined at one go, but rather layers – layers of c…[Read more]

Numbers 15 has long been seen in scholarship as a vaguely haphazard collection of disparate legal elements, with few obvious connections between them. Although some attempts have been made to find a thematic thread linking the various parts of the chapter, there has been little consensus on how best to understand the rationale behind the location…[Read more]

Analysis of the function of the Decalogue in its two pentateuchal instantiations.

The general function of the ritual described in Leviticus 16 is well known: it removes the impurities and the sins – unintentional and intentional – of the Israelites. A number of factors, however, contribute to obscure both some of the details about how the ritual operates and how it is conceived within the broader priestly ideology. This pap…[Read more]

Analysis of the traditions associating Levites with violence in the Pentateuch.

The narrative portions of the Pentateuch (and the Deuteronomistic History) betray a consistent pattern in which commands are fulfilled by the same verb, in the same binyan, in the waw-consecutive, with virtually no intervening text. Because this pattern is uniform across all book and sources, it is shown that when the pattern does not function as…[Read more]

Reflections on the nature of the material preservation of the pentateuchal E source in light of comparative data.

Reflections on the purpose of literary-historical analysis of the Pentateuch.

To begin with my thesis, or with a restatement of the title of this essay: there is no transition between Gen 50 and Exod 1. That is: the transition between Gen 50 and Exod 1 is no more distinctive from a compositional standpoint than the transition between any two chapters of the Pentateuch. That is: the transition between the narrative recounted…[Read more]

The question of the continuity of the non-priestly narrative from the patriarchs to the exodus has been the center of much debate in recent pentateuchal scholarship. This paper presents as fully as possible, in the space allowed, one side of the argument, namely, that the non-priestly narrative is indeed continuous from Genesis through Exodus.…[Read more]

A study of the morpho-syntax of Genesis 12:1-3 with reflections on its translation and interpretation.

Rather than understanding the creation of woman in Gen 2:21-22 as an etiology of some physiological feature, this brief article suggests that the removal of part of Adam’s body to create Eve can instead be seen as parallel to a horticultural process, namely, the taking of cuttings.

The analysis of Exodus 33,1–11 has long been a matter of dispute, with a remarkable variety of readings put forward with little consensus. This paper proposes a new reading of the passage, involving one secondary addition, one text-critical emendation, and one readjustment of the versification, with the result that two coherent units of text emerge.

The common view in classical scholarship that the priestly story of the manna in Ex 16 has been moved from its original location in the priestly source has fallen out of favor in the last fifty years and was even explicitly rejected in an article by Ludwig Schmidt in this journal. This paper provides a new source division for Ex 16; lays out the…[Read more]

In this paper it is argued that the canonical text of Exodus 1-2 is a compilation of three originally independent narratives belonging to the pentateuchal sources J, E, and P. The text of Exodus 1-2 is divided source-critically, and each individual narrative analyzed on its own terms. Each of these stories contains specific narrative claims that…[Read more]

The parallel narratives in Deuteronomy and in Exodus-Numbers have long provided a basis for literary-historical investigations of the composition of the Pentateuch. They also, however, contribute significantly to a canonical reading of Deuteronomy and its place in the Pentateuch. The parallel stories – and specifically the differences between them…[Read more]

Explores some of the nuances of barrenness as disability in the Hebrew Bible, with the fundamental question in mind: what can we know from the biblical material about the reality of barrenness, and the treatment of barren women, in ancient Israel?

1 Thessalonians 4.13-18 has occasioned much scholarly speculation regarding Paul’s conception of the resurrected body, the character of those caught up in Christ, the ultimate fate of those who are caught up in the air, and Pauline eschatology in general. The interpretation of the passage may be illuminated by comparison with rabbinic traditions i…[Read more]