Critics of biblical violence particularly scrutinize the case of Phinehas, the priestly zealot who publicly skewered an Israelite man and his Midianite consort in Numbers 25. Such studies are preoccupied with God’s approbation of this extra-judicial killing, and how later Jewish readers, from Philo through the rabbis, grappled with divine approval…[Read more]

Despite repeated biblical mentions of the sanctity of the Sabbath and numerous imperatives to keep the day holy, there is little in rabbinic writings on the Sabbath reflecting these facets of the day’s observance. In contrast, Jewish writers from the Second Temple period and mem- bers of the Samaritan-Israelites actively sanctified the Sabbath b…[Read more]

Ezekiel 37 is based upon Judean mortuary culture, and the revivification of bones is a reversal of death. Rather than a resurrection event, Ezekiel’s metaphor of Israel as a mass of dry bones is based upon the burial customs that occurred inside the family tomb.

The fourth-century Syriac corpus known as the Demonstrations, attributed to Aphrahat, the Persian Sage, provides a unique window into the early development of Christianity among Syriac-speaking communities. Occasionally these writings attest to beliefs and practices that were not common among other contemporaneous Christian communities, such as…[Read more]