An overview of rabbinic traditions about Moses, with attention to the absence of the hagiographic traditions typical of earlier and later Jewish literature.

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]