yaram qat
lum) was a technical term for covenant-making; Held (1970: 33, 34, n. 11); also McCarthy (1978).Citations here refer to author, date of publication, and, where relevant, page numbers within the cited work. For complete bibliographic information, please see www.jameskugel.com.
1. The Rise of Modern Biblical Scholarship
1. An important, and not unrelated, heresy trial had taken place in the previous decade, when the biblical scholar W. Robertson Smith was tried by the Scottish Free Church. For an account of his work and the trial, see Beidleman (1974). Worthy of mention also is the less well known case of Bishop J. W. Colenso of Natal in southern Africa, whose study, The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined (7 vols., 1862–79) was among the things that caused him to be accused of heresy by his superior, Bishop Robert Gray of Cape Town, in 1863. He was convicted the next year but was subsequently acquitted on a jurisdictional ruling. This notwithstanding, the English bishops voted to depose him in 1869; he continued to minister to a dwindling band of followers until his death in 1883. Indeed, Colenso had been mired in controversy in South Africa and England since 1861, not only because of his views about the Bible, but also because of his criticism of British colonial policies with regard to the Zulus, to whom he ministered.
Colenso’s masterwork is well surveyed in Rogerson (1984: 220–37), who calls the book “the most remarkable achievement by a British scholar in the field of Old Testament criticism in the nineteenth century” (232). Colenso’s critique of traditional ideas was based in part on his reading of the work of earlier German and British scholars, and in part on his own careful analysis and original formulations. His seriousness of purpose did not prevent him from adopting at times a somewhat flippant approach to obvious problems in the text. See below, chapter 13, note 6.
2. Much of Briggs’s biography I owe to Massa (1990: 24–52), as well as to Hatch (1969: 21–65) and Ludlow (1891: 7–12). I have also consulted: Smith (1913: 497–508); Waugh (2004: 401–11), and Fogarty (1989: 140–70). My thanks to Professor Gary Anderson for this last reference.
3. Cited in Massa (1990: 28).
4. Ludlow (1891: 11).
5. Briggs (1891: 31; 34–35).
6. Ibid., p. 33.
7. Ibid., p. 37–38.
8. Ibid., p. 38.
9. Reported in the New York Tribune, Nov. 10, 1892; cited in Massa (1990: 104).
10. Many Christian Bibles include a group of biblical “apocrypha” or “deutero-canonical” works, and these include some further representatives of wisdom writing, such as The Wisdom of Ben Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon.
11. I have explained at greater length some of the factors leading up to the rise of these ancient interpreters in Kugel and Greer (1986: 27–51).
12. See on this, Japhet (1989: 395–504).
13. It used to be argued that the Persians initiated their rule of Judea and other captured provinces by demanding a version of local laws, which might then be integrated with elements of Persian law as the province’s legal foundation; this, many scholars argued, might have served as a spur to the final editing of the Pentateuch, Judea’s local “law-code.” See Ezra 7:21, 25–26; E. Bickerman (1988), and Kugel (1998: 8–9). Lately, this line of argument has been contested (Watts, 2001). See below, chapter 21, note 35.
14. For a fuller answer, readers are referred to the introduction to my Traditions of the Bible (henceforth: Kugel 1998), pp. 1–41. The same introduction appears in the shorter version, The Bible As It Was (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 1–49.
15. See Kugel (2001: 1–26).
16. In this connection: the Book of Ben Sira (Sirach), 38:24—30:11.
17. See Nahum 2:12 as explained in the Dead Sea Scrolls text 4Q169 Nahum Pesher.
18. See on this: Simon (1982); Kugel (1990: 45–55).
19. See Kugel and Greer (1986: 27–39); and Kugel (2001).
20. Contrast this with Philo’s explanation in On the Virtues, 156–158, which presents no allegorical reading.
21. This is one reason why, in geographic terms, the allegorical approach was thus primarily associated with the city of Alexandria. As we have already glimpsed, Philo’s method of reading was picked up by Clement of Alexandria and other early Christians. See on this van den Hoek (1988). For the example of Clement’s use of Lev. 19:23 with regard to the development of faith, see pp. 99–100. Alexandrian Christians transmitted a number of Philo’s allegorical interpretations largely unchanged to later interpreters, including the influential Origen (ca. 185–254 CE). For the Alexandrian Christians overall, Scripture was thus a highly symbolic world, a pageant of spiritual and philosophical truths moving along, as it were, in the form of human beings and historical events.
22. If the city of Alexandria was associated with the allegorical approach to Scripture, its opposite number was another center of Christian learning, the city of Antioch (in northern Syria). The interpreters of Antioch are often said to have championed a more literal or historical approach to Scripture, and this is true; but along with this came a certain friendliness to the typological approach. Typology, as generally conceived, stays on the same level of human history; it simply seeks to find in the events described in the Old Testament hints to later historical events or teachings, things that belong to the time of the New. Christian typologists used various terms to describe these Old Testament hints: they were called shadows or pictures or types or figures of their New Testament counterparts—hence our use of words like foreshadowing or prefiguring or typology. How to Read the Bible was not an undisputed subject even in those days, and the fights over interpretive methods were sometimes bitter; in the end, however, both allegory and typology found a place in the Christian interpretative handbook. Indeed, although nowadays we clearly differentiate these two methods—allegory reads concrete things as if they represent abstract ones, while typology reads earlier things as foreshadowing later ones—this distinction was not always clear to early Christians; in fact, both approaches were sometimes simply called “allegory,” or else typology was called “prophetic allegory.” What was important was that both were nonliteral ways of reading, both part of Scripture’s sensus spiritualis. See on this Young (1997: 152–54, 165–85). Young also points out that, while describing typology (as I have) as acting on the “horizontal” axis of history has helped scholars focus on its most characteristic feature, there is more to typology than that. Types can have symbolic quality and “become windows through bearing the ‘impress’ of eternal truth” (p. 156). What was common to all Christian exegetes was the attempt to go beyond the sensus litteralis to some deeper truth. Note also the classic study of Preus (1969).
23. Eberling (1970: 98–109).
24. On the history of this little poem, written around 1260 by one Augustine of Dacia, and similar compositions, see de Lubac (1998: 1–14).
25. Dante’s ideas about allegory, and specifically his distinction in the Convivio between the three-fold “allegory of the poets” and the fourfold “allegory of the theologians,” has been extensively studied by Singleton (1954) and Hollander (1969). See also Cecchini (2000: 340–78).
26. “The Letter to Can Grande,” in Haller (1973: 99).
27. The story of medieval Christian interpretation and the rise of scholasticism has been frequently treated, that of medieval Jewish exegesis somewhat less. In good conscience, therefore, I should at least name some of what is being omitted on the Jewish side—the initial persistence of midrashic interpretation, then the difficulties with it raised by both Arabic philosophy and the rise of Karaism; the response of Se‘adya Gaon and, shortly afterward, the pursuit of biblical exegesis in medieval Spain, spurred on by the above-named forces as well as the development of a far more accurate understanding of Hebrew grammar and biblical lexicography. (Crucial here is the work of the eleventh-century grammarians Jonah ibn Janah, Judah Hayyuj, Dunash ben Labrat, and the lexicographer Meanhem b. Saruq.) In northern France in the eleventh and twelfth centuries there arose a new center of Jewish exegetes, centering around Rashi and his school, some of whose members had direct contact with, and some influence on, the Christian exegetes of the Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris. These contacts—now studied in numerous articles and monographs following Beryl Smalley’s pioneering work, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (1964)—served to arouse new interest among Christians in the sensus litteralis after centuries of relative neglect. Important along the same lines were the Postillae of Nicholas de Lyra (1270–1340), studied by Halperin (1963). Two important synthesists among Jewish interpreters were the Provençal (France) commentator David Kimhi (1160–1235, called in Hebrew RaDaK) and his slightly later contemporary in Catalonia (Spain), Moses Nahmanides (1194–ca.1270, RaMBaN). Both succeeded in fusing traditional Jewish learning with the new philology and other exegetical trends; noteworthy as well are the later medieval commentaries of Joseph ibn Kaspi (1279–1340), Levi b. Gerson (1288–1344; RaLBaG, Gersonides), as well as the commentaries of Isaac Abrabanel (ca. 1437–1508).
28. On Renaissance “humanists”—classical scholars—and their role in this sea change, see the studies of Kristeller (1974; 1979).
29. Conrad Pellican’s De modo legendi et intelligendi hebraeum appeared in 1504, soon followed by J. Reuchlin’s more influential Hebrew grammar (1506); before both a Hebrew grammar had been written by Aldo Manuzio ca. 1500, and other, somewhat sketchier works apparently go back to the end of the fifteenth century. See Weil (1963: 249–52).
30. On the gradual overthrow of Jerome’s ideas about biblical poetry, see Kugel (1982: 218–64). The challenge to Jerome’s auctoritas as a translator began somewhat earlier, perhaps as early as the twelfth century in some quarters, but was not widespread; see Grabois (1975: 613–34).
31. One useful survey is Obermann (1966). See also Kugel (1990b: 146–48).
32. It should be noted that this slogan, or complex of slogans, was not, however, the invention of the Reformers, nor ought the authority that they attributed to Scripture be thought of as a wholly new departure. See Eberling (1970: 96–97); Pfürtner (1977).
33. Luther (1897: 96).
34. Quoted in Eberling (1970: 107).
35. Geneva Bible (1560: iiii).
36. Martin Bucer, “allegedly the most tolerant reformer in the most tolerant Protestant city of the time,” unsuccessfully argued that adulterers in Strasbourg ought to be punished by stoning. Ozment (1980: 367–68).
37. Bredvold (1933: 210).
38. The story of modern biblical scholarship is thus basically a Protestant tale. Individual Roman Catholics had contributed arguments that ultimately supported the Documentary Hypothesis, for example, but they did so principally as a way of undercutting the Protestant reliance on Scripture alone; see below. Catholic scholars felt free to join the historical-critical approach to Scripture only after Pope Pius XII issued his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu in 1943, which encouraged Catholics to enter the field (and even then, their entry was not altogether smooth): see Robinson (1988); also Brown (1990: xix). Indeed, after this pope’s death, a countermovement was launched; some bishops even refused to teach the encyclical, and a few did not believe it authentic, preferring to think it a Fascist forgery.
Jews were, until recently, also a very small part of this scholarly movement. Although the modern, scholarly approach had met with some initial approval in liberal Jewish circles in the nineteenth century, support for it soon waned, in part because of its sometimes undisguisedly anti-Jewish character. See Ran Ha-Cohen, “The Encounter of Wissenschaft des Judentums in Germany with Nineteenth-Century Biblical Criticism” (Ph.D. dissertation, Tel Aviv University, 2003). Thus it was that the Jewish scholar Solomon Schechter observed that the “Higher Criticism” (that is, biblical source criticism and the like) was really the “higher anti-Semitism.” See Schreiner (2003: 140–71). Schreiner concludes, “To this day, Christian and Jewish Bible studies have existed to a large extent on parallel lines.” See also Sperling (1992). Only after the middle of the twentieth century did Jews begin to enter the mainstream of biblical scholarship in any significant measure.
39. To these two names ought to be added a third, that of the French Protestant scholar Isaac LaPeyrère. Now largely forgotten, LaPeyrère published his Prae-Adamitae in 1655. In this study he sought to prove that Adam was actually not the first human being created (a matter that was important to him because it would force a reinterpretation of the Christian doctrine of original sin). This led him to suggest, in Book 4, that the story of Adam and Eve was not the work of the divinely inspired Moses but of later writers (who may have used, he said, Moses’ “notes”). La Peyrère knew Hobbes and may have shown him the manuscript of Prae-Adamitae before Hobbes wrote Leviathan. As for Spinoza, his Tractatus was published only in 1670, but his questioning of traditional attributions of biblical authorship may go back to the 1650, when he was essentially excommunicated by the Amsterdam Jewish community. Spinoza had a copy of La Peyrère’s book in his library—it is not clear when he might have read it. He probably had also read Leviathan by the time he wrote the Tractatus, since he uses proofs and even wording similar to that of Hobbes. For a fine attempt at unraveling the interrelationship of the three men and their works, see Malcolm (2002: 383–431).
40. See ibn Ezra ad Deut. 1:2. Other problematic verses mentioned there are the “twelve,” namely, the last twelve verses of Deuteronomy, which recount in the third-person Moses’ death and burial; Deut. 31:22, which speaks of Moses writing down the song “on that day,” as if it were some time before the writing of the rest; and Deut. 3:11, which asserts that the giant Og’s bed is to be found in the city of Rabbat-Ammon (presumably, it could have been moved from Og’s homeland of Bashan only long after the death of Moses).
41. These and other examples from medieval Jewish exegetes were discussed by Sarna (1983: 22–24); Jon Levenson (1993: 62–81) more correctly assesses their significance in his essay “The Eighth Principle of Judaism and the Simultaneity of Scripture.” See also chapter 36.
42. Among the many biblical scholars involved, mention should be made of the fifteenth-century Spanish Jesuit Tostatus (Tostado), who not only added further examples to those of ibn Ezra’s list but also suggested that the Babylonians had actually destroyed Moses’ Torah and that Ezra rewrote it. Another Roman Catholic, the Flemish priest Andreas Masius, published his commentary on the book of Joshua in 1574. There he suggested that Ezra was the author of the Pentateuch, having collected material from various sources (including the Book of the Wars of the LORD); Ezra edited and rewrote some of this material. (For example, Masius wrote, Hebron is not the old name of the city, but Kiryat Arba.) The Spanish Jesuit Bento Pereira claimed during his lectures in the 1580s that the diaries and annals of Moses were put into shape long after his time by some other hand(s). For all these, see Malcolm (2002: 383–431).
43. Hobbes (1968: 418).
44. See the brief remarks of Finkelstein (1990: 73–77).
45. Spinoza (1998: 90). Hobbes similarly asserted: “The light that must guide us in this question [of the Pentateuch] must be that which is held out to us from the Bookes themselves” (Hobbes 1968: 417).
46. For Spinoza (1998: 90), this language was Hebrew even for the New Testament writers, “since all the writers of both the Old and the New Testament were Hebrews.”
47. Ibid., p. 91
48. “Therefore, the question as to whether Moses did or did not believe that God is fire must in no wise be decided by the rationality or irrationality of this belief, but solely from the other pronouncements of Moses,” Ibid., p. 91.
49. Ibid., 92.
50. Ibid., 93.
51. “We may also discover whether or not it [Scripture] may have been contaminated by spurious insertions, whether errors have crept in, and whether these have been corrected by experienced and trustworthy scholars,” Ibid., p. 92.
52. He deals with prophecy principally in the first two chapters of the Tractatus.
53. Ibid., 13–14.
54. Ibid., 22.
55. Ibid., 24.
56. Feldman, S. (1998: vii).
57. Mention here should be made of Richard Simon, the Catholic author of the Histoire critique du Vieux Testament (1678); he is often cited alongside of Spinoza as one of the seventeenth-century founders of modern scholarship. Simon was indeed a sophisticated Hebraist who put forward a number of arguments against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; in particular, he highlighted internal contradictions within the text (Genesis 1 vs. Genesis 2), unnecessary repetitions, and inconsistencies of style. All this led him to suggest that the Pentateuch was actually a compilation of different sources—a striking anticipation of later theories. At the same time, his stance must be understood in the context of Catholic-Protestant polemics of the seventeenth century; see Malcolm, N. (2002: 414–24); also below, note 60. Somewhat different is the case of another early contributor to the Documentary Hypothesis, Johannes Clericus (Jean Le Clerc, 1657–1736). Clericus was a Huguenot and thus found himself on the opposite side of the Catholic-Protestant divide. A critic of Simon’s book, he nevertheless went on to argue that the Pentateuch had been composed sometime after the Assyrian conquest of Israel in the eighth century. On his life and his somewhat odd theories about biblical poetry, see further in Kugel (1982: 247–51).
58. Hume (1966: 144–45).
59. On Voltaire and the other encyclopédistes vis-à-vis the Bible, see the essays by Schwarzbach and Cotoni in Belavel and Bourel (1986: 759–803).
60. Throughout this period, Protestant scholars were pitted against Catholics in a rather unanticipated way. On the face of things, Protestants ought to have been at the forefront of questioning the tradition of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. After all, their whole movement derived from the questioning of such received traditions. Nowhere in the Pentateuch itself does it clearly say that Moses was the author of these five books, although that is what traditional Jewish and Christian interpretation had long inferred. Deut. 31:9 says: “Then Moses wrote down this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi . . . and to all the elders of Israel” (see also Deut. 31:24). The phrase this law (ha-torah hazzot) is ambiguous; it might refer to the legal corpus of Deuteronomy (frequently referred to as “this law” within that book), or it might refer to the entire Pentateuch, which itself came to be known as the Torah. True, numerous later books refer to the Torah of Moses, though again, the referent is not absolutely clear (Josh. 8:31, 23:6, 24:26, 1 Kings 2:3, 2 Kings 14:6, 23:25, Mal. 3:22, Neh. 8:7, Dan. 9:11, 13; Ezra 3:2, 7:6, 2 Chr. 23:18, 30:16).
Since the Protestant movement was predicated on the overthrow of the Church’s auctoritas, the Mosaic authorship should have been among the first things cast into doubt. But the only Protestant alternative to the Catholic Church’s authority was Scripture itself: by Scripture alone would all matters be determined. In order for that to work, Scriptural authority had to be rock-solid—every word had to be the inspired word of God, the verbum Dei. That meant not only that Moses must have authored every word, but that he must also have communicated the Torah in such a way that all the potential ambiguities of the Hebrew writing system had been resolved by him. In practice, this meant that not only was every letter exactly what Moses had been given, but even the little vowel-points that accompanied the text would have to be authentically Mosaic. See Kugel (1982: 258–64).
Catholics had no such problem—on the contrary, precisely because they held by Church traditions and the auctoritas of earlier figures, they declared (at the Fourth Tridentine Council) that Jerome’s translation, the Vulgate, was the text for Catholics, more reliable than the Jews’ then-current Hebrew text, which, they said, had undergone corruption and whose vowel-points were a later innovation. In this, they were aided by the research of Jewish scholars such as ibn Ezra and Elias Levita, who asserted (in 1538) that the vowel-points were a later invention. See Weil (1963: 315). Some Catholics claimed that Ezra had completely rewritten Moses’ Torah—and that the Protestants were therefore fools to rely on it. Less radical Catholics, such as Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino (1542—1621), maintained that the Hebrew Scriptures, while they contained errors, had not been deliberately tampered with or rewritten—after all, he observed, the Jews did not take out the Old Testament references to Jesus! While the Vulgate was thus the best text, one still needed Church doctrine to complete what Scripture left out or left unexplained.
61. Armogathe (1986: 431–39).
62. Again, see Weil (1963).
63. Mention here should be made of the proposal by F. Masclef in his Grammaire hébraique (1716) that Hebrew consonants be vocalized according to the first vowel in the name of the letter in question: thus, when the letter bet occurred in a word, it was normally to be vocalized as be, while a gimel should be vocalized as gi and a dalet as da. Thus the word consisting of the letters dalet, bet, and resh should be vocalized as daber. In addition, the letters alef, waw, heh, heth, yod and ‘ayin also sometimes functioned as vowel signs, representing, respectively, the vowels a, e, i, u, ai, and â. The name of Moses, written with the letters mem, waw, shin, and heh, should thus be pronounced: Meshi. This nutty system actually won other adherents, including, prominently, Charles F. Hioubigant (1686–1784). See on him, J. W. Rogerson (forthcoming).
64. Since the rise of Christianity, Jews had maintained that ‘almah means only “young woman.” For a reflection of the debate, see Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 84; Hirschman (1996: 31–41, 55–66).
65. J. L. Isenbiehl, cited in Armogathe (1986: 432).
66. Barr (1983: 48) has suggested that such an approach is effectively dyed in the wool in Christianity, a consequence of the very nature of that faith: “Romans is authoritative because St. Paul is authoritative, and still more the Gospels have authority because of Jesus Christ, the person and his life, of which they tell. Christianity as a faith is not directed in the first place towards a book, but towards the persons within and behind that book and the life of the ancient community which was their context and in which they made themselves known” (italics mine). This statement would be true if, in place of “Christianity,” one were to substitute the words “Liberal Protestantism.” Certainly Scripture in early and medieval Christianity (as well as in Roman Catholicism and some Protestant denominations on into far later periods) was predicated on an undifferentiated faith in Scripture and the events it related. It was only with the rise of modern biblical scholarship that a dissonance developed between what Scripture said and the real-life happenings that might presumably stand behind Scripture’s words. It may indeed be (as Barr’s observation suggests) that it was in confronting such a dissonance in the Gospels in particular that many Protestants felt compelled to distance themselves from Scripture in favor of a more credible account of “what really happened.” The Gospels were indeed the make-or-break case; as Barr later observes: “It is the Gospels that are the supreme source and the supreme problem area for historical revelation. It is in them that something is narrated of which one may say that, broadly speaking, if this did not happen, then there is no salvation and faith is vain” (p. 99). Thus, “something” basic referred to in the Gospel narrative had to be maintained as true, even if the narration of that “something” could be shown to have been amplified by human hands and frequently flawed, contradictory, or even unreasonable. It is easy to see how such an approach then came to characterize their reading of the Old Testament as well. For such Protestants, it was no longer the biblical story of Abraham, but the real person Abraham summoned to Canaan, and the reconstruction of the historical circumstances in which his “call” took place, that became the new Scripture. See also chapter 36.
67. This evolution has been explored in detail in Frei (1974).
68. Mention here should be made of the earlier scholars J. D. Michaelis (1717–1791), Johannn Semler (1725–1791), and J. G. Eichhorn (1752–1827) all of whom contributed mightily to the scientific study of the Bible’s history of composition and the attempt to understand it in its historical context; their work helped set the stage for nineteenth-century German scholarship. There were, of course, modern biblical scholars outside of Germany in the nineteenth century. On S. R. Driver, see Emerton (2002: 123–38).
69. This was first recognized by K. D. Ilgen in 1798; see Seidel (1933), but later rediscovered and popularized in Germany by Hupfeld (1853).
70. At first scholars had conceived of two E-writers, designated E1 and E2. This was Hupfeld’s designation, for example (previous note). It was K. H. Graf who came to identify the author of the priestly laws and other passages such as a Genesis 1 (designated by Hupfeld as E1) as a priestly writer, P, who lived after D, not before. That would explain, he said, why D appears unaware of the priestly laws in Exodus-Numbers. (Lately, this conclusion has come under attack; see chapter 19.) There are many summaries of the development of the Documentary Hypothesis; among the best: Hayes (1979: 115–20); Eissfeldt (1965: 158–70); Nicholson (1998: 3–28); and Röhmer (2006: 9–27).
71. Wellhausen first published this work under the title Geschichte Israels, 1 (Berlin, 1878); he renamed it Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels for the second (Berlin, 1883) and subsequent editions. Citations herein are from the translation by W. Robertson Smith (= Wellhausen, 1957).
72. On this: Miller, (1982: 61–73).
73. Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 361.
74. See Brisman (1978).
75. Used in the philosophical sense of ontological simplicity, as discussed in Quine (1981).
76. The Wellhausen four-source approach to the Pentateuch survived long into the twentieth century, but its details have frequently been the subject of controversy. From the beginning, some scholars had found it necessary to hypothesize additional sources or editors to account for J’s complexity: in truth, they said, there are not four major sources but at least five or six. Wellhausen himself had suggested that his J actually represented a complex of different editions (J1, J2, and J3) and the same for E (E1, E2, and E3). Karl Budde similarly distinguished two different authors, J1 and J2: Die biblische Urgeschichte (Giessen, 1883). Rudolf Smend similarly saw two J sources; Die Erzählung des Hexateuch auf ihre Quellen untersucht (Berlin, 1912). For all these see de Pury and Römer (1989: 24–30). Discontent with the unity of J was certainly fueled by the popularity of Gunkel’s ideas, on which see next note and chapter 3. Smend’s J1 became L (for “Lay Source”) in Otto Eissfeldt’s terminology (1965: 194–99) and N (for “nomadic source”) in Fohrer and Sellin (1965: 173–79). See Nicholson (1998: 43–44); Ska (2000). Nor has the multiplication of sources been limited to J and E; again, see below. This complexity has not gone away; on the contrary, it has only been compounded by more recent research. A second priestly source, H (long acknowledged but once considered minor), has been argued by some to have had a major role in the Pentateuch’s final form; on the work of Israel Knohl, Jacob Milgrom, Baruch Schwartz, and others, see chapter 19. Meanwhile other scholars have questioned the very existence of any continuous text by a J or an E, as well as their subsequent combination into a history (JE). Instead, attention has focused on the role of D as a potential editor of disparate materials whose origins and earlier form are basically unknowable. Thus, speaking of J as a source is, these scholars say, an illusion, since the letter J actually stands for a congeries of traditions and texts stretching over a broad chronological range. The latter approach—in some ways descended from Gunkel’s—has been championed in particular by the German scholar Rolf Rendtorff (1977) and his student Erhard Blum (1985; 1990). Despite some similarities in their conclusions, a profound methodological difference separates teacher from student. In particular, Blum has sought to argue, through detailed analysis of different passages, that major elements of the Bible’s first four books are simply a reflection of parts of Deuteronomy and that these follow, rather than precede, Deuteronomy’s composition; they therefore belong to the exilic or postexilic period. Blum had his predecessors; see Van Seters (1979: 663–73). If so, how can one talk about J’s “theology,” as, for example, Gerhard von Rad did? See Rendtorff’s dispute with von Rad and others (1975: 158–66). One refinement of this argument holds that behind the Pentateuch’s history ultimately stand two “rival myths” of Israel’s origins, the first focusing on the stories of Israel’s remote ancestors, the patriarchs, the second on the tradition of the Exodus from Egypt as Israel’s founding event. See Schmid (1999) and Dozeman and Schmid (2006), with essays by Dozeman and Schmid, as well as E. Blum, A. de Pury, T. C. Römer, and others. See also next note, as well as chapter 6, notes 17, 18, and 19. At the same time, numerous scholars have risen to the defense of (more or less) the traditional source-critical view. See in particular the balanced study of Nicholson (1998) as well as Friedman (1998: 350–78).
77. Wellhausen’s ideas were disturbing to traditional belief, but in his view at least some parts of the Pentateuch were fairly old; his younger contemporary Hermann Gunkel (again, see chapter 3) posited an early stage of orally transmitted tales, some presumably going back to the period before David and the United Monarchy (tenth century BCE). In recent years, however, a school of “minimalist” historians has arisen, some of whose members seek to claim that the entire Bible was written during a century or two of the post-exilic period. Thus, the stories of Abraham and Jacob, Moses and the Exodus, and the Sinai covenant—long felt to reflect an early period in Israel’s history (even if they were not written precisely in the period in which these people lived)—are now viewed by members of this school as having been written only in the period of the Babylonian exile (sixth century BCE), or even later, to the period of Persian domination of Israel’s homeland. Two important works in opening this line of inquiry were: Thompson (1974) and Van Seters (1975); see also Van Seters (1994 and 1999). These authors’ first works more or less coincided with the dissertation of Schmid (1976). A similar line is followed by Levin (1993), who argues that J’s depiction of the patriarchs building altars around the countryside is essentially a polemic directed against the centralization of cultic worship advocated by D. On other aspects of the minimalist approach, see below, as well as chapter 6, notes 17 through 19.
Their arguments have not necessarily prevailed—a great many scholars still feel such a late dating is untenable—but they have introduced a new element of uncertainty in a major area of biblical scholarship. “It is doubtful . . . that any theory of the composition of the Pentateuch will again command the kind of consensus enjoyed by the documentary hypothesis in the past” (J. J. Collins (1999: 460) [review of Nicholson]). Note also the recent review of things by R. Rendtorff (2006). About the only thing that scholars are still prepared to agree on is that the traditional view of the Pentateuch’s origin—as the inspired word of God given to Moses after the Exodus—cannot possibly be true and that the text of the Pentateuch is a composite of different sources.
78. Cited in Massa (1990: 37).
79. The formulation goes back to the German historian Leopold von Ranke. Ranke’s historical ideas played a crucial role in the emergence of biblical scholarship in nineteenth century Germany as well as in the “spiritual crisis of the Gilded Age,” as noted by Massa (1990: 3–21).
80. Cited in Hatch (1969: 116).
81. Briggs (1891: 67).
82. Ibid.
2. The Creation of the World—and of Adam and Eve
1. For a longer account, see Kugel (1998: 94–144); Anderson (2001).
2. It is actually quite surprising how many modern scholars persist in referring to this episode as the “Fall of Man” as if that were the plain sense of the text. One rare exception is Westermann (2004: 28): “However else [the idea of the “Fall of Man”] may be supported . . . it is not an exposition of Genesis 2–3. The Primal History portrays human existence as created existence in a sequential narrative that attempts to explain the juxtaposition of positive and negative in humanity, the potential and limitations of creatureliness. It does not speak of ‘Fall.’ Neither, in the Bible, is sin something that can be inherited. The real tragedy in associating Genesis 2–3 with a doctrine of fall or original sin is that once we grasp this doctrine, we think we grasp the narrative or what it intends to convey; we no longer need to hear it.”
3. Of course, all this could be considered a flashback, a more detailed account of the creation of humanity that was mentioned in passing in chapter 1. But if so, a lot of things had to happen on that sixth day—Adam had to be created (Gen. 2:7), then the Garden of Eden had to be planted and its trees grow and bear fruit (Gen. 2:9), then the animals had to be created and named by Adam (Gen. 2:19–20), and, finally, Eve had to be created (Gen. 2:21–22). Not only is this a lot for one day—unless one follows the “thousand-year day” interpretation—but, as will be seen, it contradicts the order of the creation of things set out in Genesis 1.
4. This observation goes back to the very beginnings of biblical scholarship; Wellhausen (1883: 387–90) picked it up to argue on linguistic grounds that Genesis 1 was the product of a priestly writer.
5. Emerton (1988) offers an important examination as well as references to some earlier writings on this specific question. For scholarship on various other aspects of P, see the notes to chapters 18 and 19 below.
6. Although, in the case of Genesis, the priestly author was found to allow a bit more leeway than in later books; see Knohl (1995: 125–26).
7. Von Rad (1963: 47)
8. On the specific lexical resemblances between God’s completion of the world in Gen. 2:1–3 and the sabbath law in Exod. 31:14–17, see Rofe (1999: 36).
9. For some time, scholars sought to connect the creation account presented in Genesis 1 with a Babylonian and Assyrian work known as Enuma Elish (“When, on high . . .”), sometimes referred to as the “Babylonian Genesis.” For a brief description of the discovery of this text and its contents: Heidel (1955: 1–17). The notion that this text was in some way the Mesopotamian equivalent of Genesis 1 was frequently asserted following the publication of George Smith’s pioneering The Chaldean Account of Genesis in 1876. After almost a century, however, scholars began to reject this description; though there certainly are common elements, the equation of the two texts, and even the title “Babylonian Genesis,” are now recognized as misleading. See Michalowski (1990: 381–96). With regard to the end of the priestly creation story, namely, Gen. 2:1–3, it has recently been suggested that verses 2 and 3 are to be attributed to the Pentateuchal source H, since they contain “basic H terms.” See Milgrom (2000: 1344). This may well be so, but it is difficult to imagine that any pre-H form of the text recounted the six days of creation without any mention of the seventh day, the sabbath. Perhaps H rephrased an earlier conclusion which did not speak of God “resting” (too anthropomorphic for P!) but simply of all work ceasing before the seventh day.
10. Nevertheless, some scholars have been reluctant to date this account to any pre-exilic source because, they claim, the representation of YHWH as creator of the world is a strictly postexilic theme: see Vorländer (1978: 267–71). This argument has been aptly rebutted by Emerton (2004: 107–30). Emerton points to the presence of this theme in such pre-exilic psalms as Psalms 89, 93 and 96. Vorländer later suggests that the association of YHWH with creation is dependent on the existence of some sort of monotheism, hence postexilic; but as Emerton notes, creator deities (including El) abound elsewhere in the ancient Near East without being bound to anything resembling monotheism.
11. This is currently a somewhat freighted topic, since the study of these societies has often been marred by cultural and ideological biases of the most blatant sort. One older example is Morgan (1877). More recently, anthropologists have been zealous in their attempts to reexamine hunter-gatherers in more sophisticated and culturally specific terms. On the possibility of understanding past interaction of hunter-gatherers with agriculturalists on the basis of present data, see Spielmann and Elder (1994: 303–23), esp. 315–18. Note also the telling critique of R. B. Lee and others in Shapiro (1998: 489–510); he ends by expressing the hope that hunter-gatherer studies are moving away from “Edenic paradigms” (503). This, however, should not be confused with the opposite operation, understanding Eden via hunter-gatherer paradigms.
12. On the importance of this discovery in the expansion of human populations, with particular reference to the ancient Near East, see Cavalli-Sforza (2000: 92–113).
13. An extensive anthropological literature exists on this subject, written throughout the twentieth century, much of it in reaction to the writings of B. Malinowski (see, inter alia, 1932): see Hartland (1909); Jones (1924: 109–30); Austin (1934: 102–18); Montagu (1939). Read (1918: 146–54) expressed early misgivings about Malinowski’s attribution of ignorance of physiology to the Trobrianders; later, Riesenfeld (1949: 145–55) suggested that the doctrine of asexual reproduction in Melanesia actually reflects motifs brought there by megalithic outsiders. As he and others have argued, such ideas do not necessarily stem from an ignorance of physiology. They may reflect a particular ideology or existing social organization; thus also Merlan (1986: 471–93), Levine and Silk (1997: 375–98). See also the articles on “Theology and Physical Paternity” collected in Man 1938–39; Leach (1966: 39–50); Spiro (1968: 243–61), and the remarks of Powell, Leach, et al. (1968). With regard to Genesis 2–3, one ought to distinguish between the imputation of ignorance and the fact of ignorance; it is really the former that seems to underlie the narrative. As for actual ignorance, however, it must be conceded that a knowledge of the physiology of paternity is hardly an inborn human trait, nor is it a necessity for sexual reproduction to take place; thus, it seems quite impossible that, at some point in the prehistory of all societies, an ignorance of paternity did not exist in fact.
14. As will be seen later, some modern scholars associate the emergence of Israel in Canaan with a change in lifestyle, namely, the “sedentarization” of formerly nomadic shepherds and their adoption of agriculture as a means of living. That change may also have contributed to this story’s speculative reconstruction of humanity’s distant past.
15. Snakes were widely worshipped in the ancient Near East, indeed, apparently in biblical Israel itself; Moses is said to have created the image of a bronze/copper snake for healing purposes (Num. 21:9, 2 Kings 18:4). A copper snake was found at the twelfth-century BCE shrine at Timnah, north of Eilat, and snake images have also been unearthed at Megiddo (Late Bronze IIB), Hazor (Late Bronze IIA and IIB), Gezer (Middle Bronze and Late Bronze IIA) and Tel Meborak (LB IIA). An altar with an engraved serpent was discovered at Beer Sheba (800–700 BCE). See, inter alia, W. Dever, “The Contribution of Archaeology to the Study of Canaanite and Early Israelite Religion,” in Miller et al. (1987: 209–47). Note also R. Steiner’s recent report of an ancient Semitic text, dated to the 25th to 30th centuries BCE, which speaks of a “mother snake.” (Scientific publication of the text has not yet occurred.)
16. Honeyman (1952); cf. Massart (1956).
3. Cain and Abel
1. Note that in this version of things, the phrase “angel of the LORD” refers to the newborn Cain and not his progenitor, but this appears to be a later modification of the original motif. See Kugel (1998: 147, 169).
2. Apparently in the sense of the “book of the beginning,” that is, Genesis.
3. This, of course, did not answer all the questions raised by the Genesis account: Who did Cain marry? Why did Cain visit his anger against God on Abel, who was an innocent bystander? For the answers given by ancient interpreters to these and other questions: Kugel (1998: 146–69).
4. Here we will be concerned with Gunkel’s work on the stories of Genesis (1895); for his form-critical work on the Psalms, see chapter 26. On Gunkel and his influence: Klatt (1969), which contains a detailed bibliography (pp. 272–74). Hempel (1923: 214–25); see also von Rabenau (1970: 433–44). An excellent analysis of Gunkel’s concept of Sitz im Leben in its historical context (including his probable debt to the sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel, who taught in Berlin during the period of Gunkel’s stay there): Buss (1999: 234–44; and 2002).
5. Buss is probably right in connecting Gunkel’s insight into the etiological character of many biblical stories to his interest in Germanics, but it may well be that his enthusiasm for the classics—as Buss also documents—was more relevant here; Buss (1999: 228—32). Gunkel was not quite the first to connect the concept of etiological narratives to the Bible, but he was the one who argued it most extensively and persuasively.
6. Gunkel himself did not treat the story of Cain and Abel in connection with the Kenites; indeed, many contemporary treatments still mistakenly seek to connect Cain’s name with the profession of [metal-]smith, although this has absolutely no basis in the narrative. Similarly misguided are the many attempts to see in the brothers’ rivalry a prototype of the range wars that supposedly have always existed between shepherds and farmers (perhaps true in Wyoming, but quite out of place in the ancient Near East). The analysis of the story presented here is an elaboration of Kugel (1989: 167–90). In general, I refer in the body of this book to “modern scholars” in the plural, mentioning individuals by name only when they have played a particularly significant role in the development of modern scholarship. I have nevertheless tried to acknowledge in footnotes some, if not all, of the scholars who have contributed to the development of a particular explanation or line of thought. Ideas that, as best I know, have not been advanced elsewhere I have tried to tag throughout this work with the words “theory” or “theorize.”
7. See Num. 35:19; the victim’s family would provide a “redeemer of [the victim’s] blood,” who would inflict a compensatory loss on the kinship group of the murderer. It was of course desirable that the victim’s blood be redeemed through the death of the murderer himself, but—especially in early times—this may not have been a requirement: anyone from the same clan or family might do. Note that Lamech boasts that he will kill “a boy” to avenge a bruise; it seems quite unlikely that he means that the boy in question will himself have inflicted the bruise. He will just be a victim—a poor innocent!—of Lamech’s lopsided revenge.
8. On the “Kenite hypothesis,” see chapter 24.
9. Its precise purpose was simply to explain the otherwise unexplained name “Cain” (qayin). Since this name appears to be related to the Hebrew root qnh—which can mean both “acquire” and “create”—Eve appropriately names Cain by saying that she has [be] gotten him. She likely referred to him as an ’ish in the same sentence because, as Eve’s firstborn, Cain was the first begotten human being in history—she herself, along with Adam, had been created by God alone, and not “with the LORD” as Cain was. But it should be stressed that this opening sentence is quite foreign to the original story. The related names Cain and Kenan were clearly connected by ancient tradition with an antediluvian figure (see following note); Gen. 4:1 sought to account for this name by focusing on the theme of human “begetting,” an appropriate subject of wonderment in humanity’s first generation.
10. Scholars point to the similarity of the name Cain to that of Kenan in Gen. 5:9–14 (in Hebrew, the latter name is identical to the former save for the addition of another “n” at the end). Kenan is not the son of Adam and Eve, but of Enosh and his wife. It thus may be that the placement of the etiological story of the Kenites’ founder came to be relocated at the start of human history because of the similarity or the two names.
11. More literally, it says: “And the LORD set a sign for Cain . . .” and as such the text still makes sense. But it has seemed more probable to some scholars that a scribe at some point may have mistaken the last consonants in the word “set it” (wysym[y]hw) for the name “the LORD.” (Just this scribal mistake is attested more than once in the Dead Sea Scrolls.) If so, the original text would have simply read: “And He set it as a sign for Cain.”
4. The Great Flood
1. This initiative came to be credited to the antediluvian Enosh, mentioned in that verse. As S. Fraade (1984) has shown, two quite contrary interpretations arose. The first held that Enosh was an altogether righteous figure, one who called on the name of the LORD as an act of piety. But that would hardly help to explain the advent of the flood! Therefore there arose another tradition that he was the first polytheist, that is, he “began to call by the name of the LORD” the sun, the moon, the stars and other objects of pagan worship. Actually, the verse in question may have nothing to do with any of this. See below.
2. A modern scholar would probably say that all but the last two sentences cited above originally had no connection with the flood story—the preceding sentences concern a race of super-heroes who existed long ago and whose mention has been appended to the great genealogical list of Genesis chapter 5. See Gruppe (1889: 135–55). (The chapter divisions, incidentally, are a medieval innovation; the original text contained only paragraph breaks within each book.) That is, having listed the descendants of Adam and Eve, the text then adds that there were other creatures on earth besides these humans—divine-human hybrids that had special powers and so became great heroes. Why are such super-humans no longer around? Because, as the passage reports, God at one point decided to put an end to such creatures: “My spirit shall not abide in humanity forever, for they are flesh.” From now on He would only allow ordinary human beings, with a normal lifespan of one hundred twenty years, to be created. End of genealogical chapter. The flood story proper really ought to begin only with the next words, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great on the earth.”
3. Angels were sometimes called ‘irin in Aramaic (Dan. 4:10, 14, 20, as well as in the Enoch passage cited and frequently elsewhere). The origin of this word is obscure, but at least at one point it was connected to the Aramaic ‘ir, “awake,” and understood as reflecting the fact that the tireless angels never sleep: see Sokolow (2002: 860) and the incantation bowl text cited there, “angels that do not sleep.” Cf. Sir. 16:28 and Kugel (1998: 76–77). In an earlier phase of English, the word “watch” was used to mean “stay awake” (it is actually from the same root as “wake”)—as in “[night] watchman,” a sailor’s “watch” (that is, nighttime duty), and so forth. Thus, these ‘irin came to be known as the “Watchers” in English.
4. Translation: Foster (2001: 85–90). For the somewhat longer Atrahasis version, on which the above-cited text of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI, is apparently based, see Foster (1993: 160–203).
5. Despite these arguments, some modern scholars have attempted to argue the original unity of the biblical flood story on the basis of its alleged use of chiasmus. These have been refuted by Emerton (1987: 401–20 and 1988: 1–21).
6. In addition to the matter of seven pairs of clean animals vs. one pair, note the length of the flood as specified in 7:4–12 as opposed to 7:24 (not necessarily a contradiction, but certainly a contrasting statement) and the two accounts of Noah’s entrance into the ark with his family (7:7 and 7:13).
7. See Appendix A, “Apologetics and Biblical Criticism Lite” (at jameskugel.com).
5. The Tower of Babel
1. See on this: Kugel (2003: 86–89; 1998: 228–42). Current interpretations of this narrative are still quite varied. See, among others, those of von Rad (1949: 147–52); Cassuto (1964: 229); C. Westermann, Genesis (1987: 79–83); Sarna (1966: 63–77); Di Vito (1992: 39–56); Uehlinger, (1990); Anderson (1994: 165–78); van Wolde (1994: 84–109); Hebert (2007: 29–58). Hebert aptly analyzes contemporary misgivings about the traditional “pride and punishment” reading of the story. In its place, some scholars have proposed a “critique of empire” theme—not exactly the same as that presented here, but one directed against “the imperial suppression of local languages and cultures . . . God’s punishment brings down the empire with its monolithic aims, setting free the local languages and cultures to flourish” (30). Hebert rightly rejects this interpretation, but his own underplays, I think, the rather local nature of this narrative and its fundamental independence from the chapters that precede it. Thus, it is not about “all the earth” in the sense of all of humanity, but all the inhabitants of a specific region, Babel; and what it seeks to do is not to account for the “extravagant array of the world’s cultures” so much as to denounce Mesopotamian urban civilization, including its complicated religious practices.
2. To be sure, the derivation of “Babel” from bab ’ilu is now largely discounted by scholars.
3. Gunkel championed the idea of two originally separate narratives, but this suggestion has not been widely adopted; see Westermann (1987: 80–81).
4. See Kugel (1998: 235–37).
5. The expression “the holy tongue” appears for the first time in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 4Q464 Apocryphonb; see Stone and Eshel (1993: 169–78).
6. See Finch (2000: 60).
7. Hebrew of course developed its own th-sound, an allophone of t, but it is quite unrelated to Proto-Semitic th-.
8. This subject has become one of great significance with regard to the school of “minimalist” historians of the biblical period, some of whom seek to claim that the entire Bible was written during a century or two of the post-exilic period. See, inter alia, Davies (1992); Blenkinsopp (1996: 495–518). Such a claim, however, will not square any better with the linguistic evidence than the traditional attribution of the Pentateuch to Moses; see the detailed evidence amassed by, inter alia, the “Jerusalem School” of A. Hurvitz, M. Weinfeld, M. Haran, S. Japhet, and others. To counter this evidence, some minimalists have argued that the linguistic differences actually reflect two distinct, contemporaneous dialects rather than a long process of linguistic change—but this will not accommodate the ample evidence of gradual shifts: see, inter alia, Hurvitz (1997: 301–15). This is especially demonstrable in the realm of syntax. Note the recent paper of Joosten (2005). See also chapter 19, esp. the section “Whence P and H” and the notes thereto.
9. The term “Israelian” goes back to H. L. Ginsberg and has been popularized by Rendsburg (1990 and 2002).
1. Strictly speaking, many interpreters held him to be the rediscoverer of monotheism, since Adam and Eve obviously must have known God face to face, but that knowledge was lost, interpreters held, after the time of Enosh: Kugel (1998: 266–67).
2. The Qur’an proclaims Abraham, because of his beliefs, “the first Muslim” (awwal al-muslimin 3:60). On the Muslim tradition and some of its pre-Qur’anic roots: Athamina (2004: 184–205).
3. The theme of Abraham going through a series of false gods is found in earlier sources, Apocalypse of Abraham 7: 1–9 and Genesis Rabba 38:13; see on this Kugel (1998: 296–326).
4. The excavation of Ur was jointly conducted by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania and led by the British archeologist Sir Leonard Woolley (1880–1960). For his own account: Woolley (1965).
5. For a recent critical assessment of this school: Long (1997); Davis (2004); note also the recent collection of essays in Hoffmeier and Millard (2004).
6. Albright (1963: 1–2).
7. A problem was that the city was called “Ur of the Chaldeans” in Gen. 11:31 and elsewhere; at the reputed time of Abraham, the Chaldeans were still centuries away from ruling the area. Still, this could be explained as a later writer’s/editor’s gloss of the name Ur.
8. Albright (1968: 57–58).
9. Roth (1989: 245–60). Level-headed summary of some of the pitfalls of using Mesopotamian sources: Selman (1977: 9–16).
10. Abiram appears later as the name of a leader in Korah’s rebellion (Num. 16:1), as well as of another figure in 1 Kings 16:34. See on this Thompson (1974: 22–36).
11. Wright (1962: 40). This was the view imparted to the next generation of biblical scholars. Let the testimony of one speak for many: “When I was in graduate school at Harvard years ago, we studied the patriarchs, who were said to have originated in Ur of the Chaldees, come down from Syria to Canaan and Egypt, and ultimately returned to Palestine, to Canaan. We were taught that this happened ca. 2000 BCE, during the “Age of the the Patriarchs” or MB I period . . . In those days, not only were the patriarchs set in real time, but the focus of much of our graduate work was to study the languages and cultures of Israel’s neighbors in the second millennium in Egypt and Mesopotamia”—Meyers (2006: 256–64).
12. Among other points, scholars have noted that the Philistines of Genesis differed from the later Philistines geographically: the later ones live along the coastal plain, whereas in Genesis they are inland, in the area between Beer Sheba and the Egyptian border. Moreover, the city of Gerar, a Philistine stronghold in Genesis, is never mentioned among the cities held by the later Philistines. The later Philistines are warriors hostile to Israel, whereas the former are basically friendly shepherds. For all these reasons, it has been suggested that the people called Philistines in later times were distinct from the original Philistines; perhaps the old name came to be applied to the later invaders. See Kitchen (1966: 80); Grintz (1969: 99–129); Harrison (1988: 11–19); Hamilton (1990: 94); Drews (1998: 39–61).
13. This is especially true of what was once thought to be the specifically Hurrian character of the laws of Nuzi. See Eichler (1989: 107–19).
14. In fact, the theory of wife-sister marriage cannot be supported on either the Nuzi or the biblical evidence offered by Speiser. See Weir (1967: 14–25); Thompson (1974: 234–48); Van Seters (1975: 71–76).
15. Niditch (1987: 23–69).
16. See Van Seters (1975).
17. See chapter 1, notes 76 and 77. As mentioned there, two important works in the development of this movement were that of Van Seters (previous note) and Thompson (1974). Out of this approach developed the much farther-reaching revisionist (or “minimalist” proper) movement among some historians: See also: Davies (1992); Whitelam (1996); Grabbe (1997); Van Seters (1994; and 1999); Thompson (1999).
Most of the claims of the minimalist school remain highly controversial. Indeed, I think it would be fair to say that the minimalist position is, despite the prolific output (and occasional vehemence) of its supporters, rejected in part or in toto by many, perhaps most, contemporary scholars. See, in addition to the works mentioned throughout this book, the responses of Halpern (1995: 25–47); Dever (1995: 61–80); Japhet (1998); Levine and Mazar (2001); and Day (2004). Specifically in regard to the patriarchal narratives: Frymer-Kensky (1981: 209–14); Emerton (1982: 14–32); Friedman (1998: 350–78); McCarter and Hendel (1999: 1–31).
18. It was Rolf Rendtorff—certainly no minimalist—who opened the way to this analysis by highlighting some of the inconsistencies in the Documentary Hypothesis: Rendtorff (1977). Rendtorff denied that there ever were two lengthy sources, J and E, that were combined into a single work, J-E: the units were shorter, independent, and often contradicted one another even within a single “source” tradition. Important as well was another work from the same time, H. H. Schmid (1976). See also Vorländer (1978). Rendtorff’s student, Erhard Blum (1984 and 1990), subsequently offered a fully developed scheme rejecting the old Documentary Hypothesis. In its place, Blum proposes two basic documents, the “D Composition” (dating from the early postexilic period) and the “P Composition,” from a still later period, which edited and changed elements in the D Composition. He allows that the D Composition had some earlier source material—a patriarchal history corresponding to Genesis 12–50, dating to the Babylonian exile or just before, and a history of Moses and his times, composed shortly after the fall of the Northern Kingdom to Assyria. The history of Israel’s earliest ancestors (Genesis 1–11) was added by the author of the Priestly Composition, although he too relied on some earlier traditions. An excellent overview of Blum’s and other theories against the background of classical Wellhausian source criticism can be found in Nicholson (1998). Note also the review of scholarship in de Pury (1989: 1–80) and Davies (1996: 71–86), and, most recently, the essays collected in Dozeman and Schmid (2006).
19. Thus, it is hard to understand why a later writer would have depicted Abraham as offering sacrifices in ways that violate priestly laws and offering them in places that violate the laws of Deuteronomy, if his stories were composed after these laws were in place—indeed, if they were composed (or even heavily edited) by one of the writers/editors of Deuteronomy and/or the priestly parts of the Pentateuch. And, for the same reason, would not Abraham also have been depicted as keeping the sabbath and observing other ritual practices if these were crucial items for the writers/editors involved? One might of course counter that, by the Torah’s own account, such laws were not promulgated until the time of Moses, generations after Abraham. Still, why should a later writer/editor go out of his way to depict the spiritual founder of Israel (whose God was the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”) doing things that that God would later outlaw? The most obvious answer is that such a writer/editor had no choice: the stories themselves were not vague traditions but actual texts (oral or written) well known by ordinary people. Beyond these matters, many scholars have pointed to other ancient features of the Genesis narratives—see, for example, Grintz (1983) (somewhat outdated but still valuable). From a linguistic standpoint, too, most of the patriarchal narratives seem to represent a far earlier stage of Hebrew than the books that exponents of this line claim preceded them. In addition is the striking fact that none of the people mentioned in the stories of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob has a name formed from the name of Israel’s national deity, YHWH. A few such names appear in narratives relating to the time of Moses and afterwards (Joshua, Jochebed), but even these are somewhat questionable (see chapter 24, subsection “Named for God”); it is really in the time of David that such names become common. This has suggested to many scholars that these Genesis stories—or at least the traditions on which they are based—must go back to a time before, or not long after, this deity had become prominent in Israel. That might point to a date before the tenth century BCE. See McCarter’s treatment of this argument (1999: 19–20). McCarter points out that the absence of YHWH names in texts attributed to E and P would be consistent with their position that the name YHWH was only first communicated to Moses. However, the fact that such names are also absent in J texts—although these texts maintain that the name YHWH was in use throughout the patriarchal period—considerably strengthens the claim that these stories as a whole go back to a pre-YHWH time. Finally, the depiction of God found in the stories of J and E is far more anthropomorphic than in other sources; that too would suggest that they are earlier.
20. Most scholars would probably now agree that assigning a particular date to the material attributed to J and E is simply impossible. To begin with, they say, these never were unified compositions, so there really was no author corresponding to J or E. Indeed, this was the view of Wellhausen, who subdivided J into different constituent sources or editions, (J1, J2, and J3) and did the same for E (E1, E2, and E3); the same was true of Budde, Smend and others. See above, chapter 1, note 76.
21. Indeed, in Genesis 14 Abraham meets King Melchizedek of Salem, who is also a “priest of El Elyon” (El Elyon, scholars now know, was the head of the Canaanite pantheon). In their conversation, Abraham seems to identify his own God, YHWH, with this Canaanite deity, telling Melchizedek, “I have sworn to the LORD [i.e., YHWH], El Elyon, maker of heaven and earth . . .” (Gen. 14:22). A bit later on, Abraham plants a tamarisk tree in Beer Sheba, “and he called there on the name of the LORD, El Olam”—the latter being another name for the same Canaanite deity. These texts seem out to tell us that, although these sites are traditionally associated with the “Canaanite” god (though how exclusively Canaanite he was, and when, are, as we shall see, not questions with simple answers), they actually all go back to the time of our ancestor Abraham, who worshiped YHWH but sometimes called Him by these Canaanite names. On the phenomenon of religious syncretism, see chapter 29.
22. On the contrary, what many modern scholars would say is rather the opposite—that the God who would become Israel’s in later times, known by the letters Y-H-W-H, is out of place in these stories—that there is no indication anywhere that such a deity was worshiped during the time when Abraham would have lived. Moreover, as we shall see, a modern scholar’s account of the emergence of Israel’s religion would be far more complex, and evolutionary, than anything that could be attached to the person of Abraham as depicted in Genesis.
23. Thus at Mari, “to kill a donkey foal” (Akk yaram qatlum) was a technical term for covenant-making; Held (1970: 33, 34, n. 11); also McCarthy (1978).
24. Hillers (1969: 41).
25. Cited in Weinfeld (1972: 103).
26. On this and on covenant in general, see also Tadmor (1982: 127–52). Note that priestly texts refer to “establishing” covenants; Day (2003). Note that “cutting” an agreement also exists in classical Greek, horkia pista tamein.
27. This verse is usually mistranslated, “I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” The idea of God as a shield is hardly foreign to the biblical idiom, and might seem only appropriate after “Do not be afraid.” But the connection between that and getting a great reward is tenuous; it therefore seems more appropriate to read the Hebrew consonants mgn as coming from a verb meaning “grant” rather than the noun for shield. Cf. Cross (1973: 4n). On the time of composition of this pericope there is still some disagreement; while most scholars seem to date it relatively early, see Kaiser (1958: 107–26); Perlitt (1969: 68–77).
28. Scholars have noted the similar act of ratification mentioned in the book of Jeremiah: “And I will give over [to their enemies] the men who have transgressed My covenant, who have not carried out the words of the covenant which they had made before Me, when they cut the calf in two, and then passed between its parts” (Jer. 34:18).
7. Two Models of God and the “God of Old”
1. The text reads “rides in the desert regions,” rkb b‘rbwt, but this seems to be a deliberate alteration of rkb ‘rpwt, “rides on the clouds,” an epithet of Baal known from the writings of Ugarit.
2. As medieval Jewish thinkers liked to say (enlisting a phrase from the Talmud), “The Torah speaks in the language of human beings.” Note that this phrase was originally used in a very limited sense to explain apparent repetitions and pleonasms in the biblical text; it was only in the Middle Ages that it came to be used to explain biblical anthropomorphisms. On this see Harris (1995: 33–43, 109–10).
3. “Penman” reflects the language of the conservative Protestant “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy”; see Achtemeier (1999: 38).
4. A nazirite was a type of ascetic in ancient Israel, one who abstained from wine and haircuts and other earthly comforts; see Numbers 6 and 1 Samuel 1.
5. To be clear, I am not assuming that this story, like the previous one, presumes that angels do not eat. I only mean that his generosity ought not to be interpreted as a sign that he has understood who his visitors’ really were—the point, on the contrary, seems to be that he was gratuitously generous.
6. One such interpreter was the New Testament author of the Letter to the Hebrews, who draws the following lesson from Abraham’s behavior: “And remember always to welcome strangers, for by doing this, some people have entertained angels without knowing it” (Heb. 13:2).
7. For Balaam’s moment of confusion, see Kugel (2003: 25–27).
8. For several decades, brain scientists have been struggling to understand what might be called the brain physiology of religious experience. As might be expected, the results are often highly speculative and sometimes reveal a certain ideological bias, either pro- or antireligious, on the part of the author. Nevertheless, this is an increasingly popular and promising field of study. (One landmark work, interesting but ultimately unpersuasive, was Jaynes 1976.) An excellent introduction to the field is Peterson (2003); note also the collection of essays edited by Block, Flanagan, et al. (1997).
9. For these and other examples, Kugel (1998: 127–28, 153–54).
8. The Trials of Abraham
1. In citing Gen. 15:6, Paul may have been seeking to make a more precise point. As scholars have shown, the word “righteousness” was used by Jews in Paul’s time as a kind of shorthand way of saying “keeping the commandments of the Torah.” Paul’s message was that what counts in the new covenant of Christianity is not keeping the commandments so much as belief in God. Therefore, a verse that said, “Abraham believed in God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” could be interpreted as: “Abraham believed God, and God considered this as good as keeping the commandments.” See further, Kugel (1998: 310–11).
2. The only potential candidate was Samson, who pulls the temple of Dagon down on himself and the Philistine merrymakers (Jud. 16:23–30). But this was hardly an act of martyrdom; Samson himself calls it an act of “revenge” (16:28), and it is done at his personal initiative and not as a religious necessity. Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10) were sometimes said to be martyrs; see Kugel (1998: 745–46, 760)—but they too apparently knew nothing of their fate before their death.
3. Interpreters sometimes stated Isaac’s age as 26 or 37, but there is no solid evidence from the text as to how old he was. See Kugel (1998: 320).
4. On this passage see further Kugel (1998: 323).
5. Indeed, a modern scholar would see multiple sources behind the existence of narrative doublets in Abraham’s saga. Thus, the fact that Abraham concludes two covenants with God, one in chapter 15 and the other in chapter 17, is accounted for in the Documentary Hypothesis by the attributing the first to J and the second to P. Likewise, the banishing of Hagar and Ishmael seems to occur twice, first in chapter 16, then again in chapter 21—here too, critics say, is the same story recounted by two different sources. There are two accounts of Sarah being taken for Abraham’s sister and not his wife—in Genesis 12 and in Genesis 20, attributed to J and E respectively. And so forth.
6. This is certainly implied by the sentence “He dealt generously with Abraham because of her, and he had sheep, oxen . . . ,” etc. Some commentators, however, took a different tack and argued that this sentence actually meant that Pharaoh dealt generously with him although Abraham already possessed numerous sheep, oxen, and so forth. This is a possible, but unlikely, reading of the Hebrew; in either case, Sarah’s contretemps with Pharaoh led to a major increase in Abraham’s wealth.
7. The Hebrew word ‘am later came to mean, more generally, “kinsman” (Lev. 21:1, etc.), but in early texts it seems to mean specifically “father.” Thus, “to be gathered to one’s ‘ammim” and “to sleep with one’s fathers” are parallel euphemisms meaning “to die,” and the Hebrew onomasticon is dotted with names containing the particle ‘am and, in parallel forms, ’ab (“father”). Note also that the Arabic ‘am means, specifically, paternal uncle. The understanding of “kinsman” here goes back to the Septuagint; see Porter (1978: 140, n.5).
8. See further such passages as Jud. 11:29–40, 2 Kgs 3:26–27, Jer. 19:5, Ezek. 20:25–26, Micah 6:7 and the enlightening discussion of all these in Levenson (1993). On Molech worship and passing offspring through fire, see also Heider (1985); Day (1989) and sources cited there.
9. In the aforementioned study, Levenson (as others earlier) have adduced evidence that some Israelites at some point did indeed subscribe to the practice of child sacrifice—but this hardly disproves the etiological character of the story of Abraham and Isaac. At most it proves that its message had not always been the norm in Israel, or that it was not universally accepted until later times. Beyond this is the basic fact that substitution for child sacrifice is reflected elsewhere in the Bible (specifically, in Exod. 34:20). I am among those who find it improbable that Exod. 22:28 was ever understood to enjoin the actual sacrifice of the firstborn—but again, even if that were so, it hardly undermines the etiological message embedded in Genesis 22. See also Milgrom (2000: 1587–91).
9. Jacob and Esau
1. There is a vast literature on this subject, going back to the Russian Formalists and the Prague Linguistic Circle, on which see Erlich (1955). Particularly significant are the writings on genre by M. M. Bakhtin (1981, 1986, and 1990), and Pam Morris (1994). Note also: Lodge (1987); Holquist (1990); Morson and Emerson (1990), and Morson (1991: 1071–92). The continuation of this critical movement among Western European and American critics is a well-known story. Among significant contributions: Barthes, ([1953=] 1967 and 1957); Riffaterre (1970: 188–230); Culler (1975); Eco (1976 and 1981); Derrida (1974 and 1978); Fish (1980); Todorov (2000: 193–209). The application of these insights to biblical interpretation has also been discussed by numerous scholars. On the matter of “literary competence” (as in Culler, 1975: 113–14) see in particular Barton (1984: 8–19); also Kugel (1981: 217–36).
2. A modern scholar’s answer would be that Jacob here is an etiological figure for all of Israel—Jacob dwells in tents in the plural because the people of Israel do. Cf. chapter 3, where God’s decree, “All who kill Cain . . .” envisages a plurality of killers because Cain, too, is not one man but the embodiment of an entire tribe.
3. Most translations read “he maintained his anger perpetually” or the like, and that may well be the safest translation. Perpetually is certainly one sense of le‘ad in Hebrew, and there is no doubt this meaning was intended to resound in the listeners’ ears with the synonym “forever” at the end of the sentence. But it seems there may be a play on words here, with the other sense of ‘ad, namely, “prey” or “game.” Such a meaning would work well with a verb like tarap, usually used of a wild beast ripping apart its captured prey. (The le- part of le‘ad is sometimes the marker of the direct object in Hebrew, as in Aramaic.) Job 16:9 seems to use the same expression, with “anger” again as the subject, not the object. Note also that, in this understanding, both “anger” and “wrath” stand at the head of their clauses and are syntactically parallel.
4. Both this passage from Obadiah and the earlier ones from Amos and Malachi are, in context, talking about the later Edomites, not Esau himself. But this did not stop ancient interpreters from reading these national references as if they referred to a particular individual, Jacob’s brother.
5. In saying this, I realize that I am contradicting what was said above about biblical figures no longer representing later nations in the interpretations of the ancient interpreters. That was generally true—ancient interpreters simply did not think in terms of etiology. But here, for various reasons, the identification of Esau as Rome was nonetheless a rabbinic commonplace. For some possible historical considerations: Kugel (1998: 366–67).
6. I should make clear that my discussion of the etiological side of this story deals with the biblical text as we have it, in which Esau is identified as the founder of Edom. Gunkel, Noth, and some more recent scholars have supposed that the present text is actually a reworking of an old tradition, in which Esau represented either some unknown and unrecoverable ethnic group or is simply “a type of the huntsman in contrast to Jacob who represents the herdsman”—Noth (1972: 96–97). This approach seems to me highly problematic. To begin with, nowhere in the three stories in question (the birth of Jacob and Esau; the birthright sale; the stolen blessing) is Jacob presented as a herdsman; indeed, his father’s blessing specifies that he is to receive “the dew of the heavens and the bounty of the earth, with much grain and wine” (Gen. 27:28). This sounds like the blessing of a farmer, not of a herdsman or a hunter. What is more, it seems most unlikely that, even embedded in Israel’s deepest historic memories, there could have been the recollection of a time when “the hunter” was an actual socioeconomic antitype of the herdsman. Esau’s hunting is part of an overall characterization of him as a somewhat rugged, unreflective outdoorsman. He is certainly not meant to represent hunting as a profession—there was no such thing at that time. But by far the most problematic element in this approach is its systematic ignoring of the central theme of these three Jacob-Esau narratives, which, as will be seen presently, is that of an actual, historic displacement. At one time Esau was superior, these stories say, but “now” he has just been displaced by his previously weaker younger sibling. Noth, no slouch for details, was obviously troubled by the prominence of this theme throughout the stories. At one point he therefore argued that the original version of the oracle in Gen. 25:23 could not have said that the “elder will serve the younger,” since that would indeed be appropriate to the founders of two peoples but not to two types such as he proposed; he therefore suggested that in the original version “the twins were designated differently in the divine oracle, perhaps as ‘the hairy one’ and ‘the smooth one’” (Ibid.). But even that would not solve his problem, since “hairy” (sa‘ir) is clearly an allusion to a particular place, Mt. Seir in Edom, which would again point to these two as ancestor-figures, not types.
It thus seems more likely that the present series of stories is not terribly different, if different at all, from their earliest hypothetical form. Esau (a name of uncertain origin) may at first have been associated with only one of the peoples settled in the region of Mt. Seir who came to constitute the nation of Edom, but at a certain point he evidently began to be thought of as the forefather of all Edomites. (Thus, just as with the name “Jacob,” “Esau” became the founder of a nation whose name was different from his own.) It is in this sense that Esau appears in these three, brief etiological tales. As for the time of their creation, as we shall see, they give every sign of having been composed shortly after David’s rise and the conquest of Edom by little Jacob’s descendants. (On the multiethnic composition of Edom, see next note as well as chapter 9, subsection “The Change of Names.”)
Part of Noth’s line of argument has been taken up and modified somewhat by Hendel (1987). Hendel endorsed the Gunkel-Noth claim that the stories of Jacob and Esau could not have originally stood for relations between Israel and Edom. Instead, Hendel saw the Jacob cycle as a congeries of folkloric motifs paralleled elsewhere in the Bible as well as in the literature of Ugarit and Mesopotamia. Of late, however, Hendel has sought to sharpen his position and distinguish it from that of Gunkel, suggesting that Jacob and Esau are not socioeconomic types but representatives of the conflict between civilization and nature (or barbarism). This is a correct characterization: the two sets of contrasting traits in these two figures are indeed projections of Israel’s self-image (clever, sometimes tricky) and the counterimage it seeks to associate with the Edomites (“dumb jocks”)—but this contrast is hardly the point of the stories. The point is that, thanks to this difference, the originally smaller and weaker Jacob was able to overcome and dominate his older brother. See McCarter and Hendel (1999: 27).
Finally, it should be noted that the encounter between Jacob and Esau in Genesis 33 is altogether separate from these three Jacob-Esau narratives. It is clearly different in style and language, and the utterly changed Jacob who appears in it (pious and altogether deferential toward Esau) attests to its lack of connection with the etiological tales in Genesis 25–27. Genesis 33 is in fact a quite later composition intended to rehabilitate relations between Esau and Jacob in view of the rivalry attributed to them in the original three Jacob-Esau tales. This is another way of saying that Genesis 33 is directly related to Deut. 23:7: The Edomites are now not to be hated—“because they are your kinsman.” Thus, in the story, Jacob is wary of his brother because of what happened in the past, but then it turns out that Esau bears no grudge and there is no bad blood between them—nor, the story is meant to say, should there be any between Israel and Edom now. Indeed, the only reason Edomites and Israelites do not dwell together is that Jacob, still a bit nervous, was reluctant to follow his brother to Mt. Seir and settled instead in the central highlands.
7. No doubt because of the reddish color of the sandstone in that region.
8. Some modern scholars have questioned the historicity of this reference: the genealogical table of Genesis 36 seems to be patched together from originally separate lists, and the archaeological evidence does not seem to support the picture of a unified Edomite kingdom at an early stage. Still, that hardly rules out the possibility of an ancient kingdom in Edom. See Bartlett (1965: 315–27, 1977: 2–27, and 1989). It should also be noted that Edom is mentioned as an enemy in what most modern scholars consider a very early text, Exod. 15:15, and the whole etiological message of the Jacob-Esau cycle is undeniably one in which Edom was perceived as the originally more powerful—though certainly not hated—rival who was ultimately overcome by an upstart Israel. Israel’s self-perception as (1) having started out as Edom’s kid brother and (2) now having overtaken Edom could hardly fit anywhere other than the tenth century BCE. (Israel was hardly the “kid brother,” for example, in the time of Jehoshaphat or Jehoram.) See also next note.
9. Again, it is doubtful that the stories (I am not speaking necessarily of the present texts, but the Jacob-Esau tales as they must have first circulated) could belong to any later period of Judahite dominion over Edom, such as in the reign of Jehoshaphat, since at that point “Jacob” was certainly no younger brother at all but a former ruler of Edom. The Jacob-Esau stories in Genesis are all focused on the moment of transition from younger brother to firstborn, that is, on the moment when Israel first overcame what was perceived as an earlier, more powerful Esau/Edom. That the basic elements of the story of Jacob’s youth were well known in the eighth century is demonstrated by Hosea’s reference to them in Hosea 12. These are clearly allusions to existing material and not new creations, although scholars are divided as to the extent to which the material in Genesis might have existed in anything like their present form at that time. See, inter alia, Weisman (1985: 1–13); Whitt (1991: 18–43).
10. The point has been made eloquently by Propp (1968), as well as by such modern literary theorists as M. Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Stanley Fish, J. Derrida, and T. Todorov. In particular, some contemporary scholars have highlighted the genre conventions of nonliterary genres, for example: Jefferson (1978: 219–48); Walter (1988); and Eggins et al. (1997). One of the most frequently cited essays on the “Bible as literature” is Erich Auerbach’s chapter on the story of Abraham and Isaac in his Mimesis (Auerbach, 1953) The rest of this book—not nearly so often read by biblical scholars—is quite wonderful, but this chapter stumbles on precisely the point we have been making. Abraham and the other figures in the tale are not, as Auerbach claims, “fraught with background”; there is no background! There is only the schematic foreground, in which Abraham’s only “trait” is his willingness to kill his son, and in which Isaac barely exists as a human being at all; he is a mere prop. Indeed, Auerbach’s essay is a fine example of what happens when someone trained as a literary critic tries to read a text that is fundamentally not literature. See further the remarks of Brettler (1995: 14–20), as well as this book’s Appendix 1, “Apologetics and Biblical Criticism Lite,” available on the Web site: jameskugel.com.
11. Note again, in this connection, the contrast suggested by Deut. 23:3–7: “No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD . . . You shall not abhor any of the Edomites, for they are your kin.”
12. Some scholars have suggested, on the basis of Akkadian simmiltu, that sullam (a hapax in biblical Hebrew) is to be translated “staircase” rather than “ladder.” Note, however, that Mishnaic Hebrew sullam is used consistently in the sense of “ladder” (see, e.g., j. Mo ‘ed Q. 1 (end).
13. Kugel (1998: 362–64, 373–76 and 2006: 9–35).
14. Some have argued that this narrative goes back only to Jeroboam’s choice of Bethel as one of his state’s two official cultic sites (1 Kings 12:29); see Blum (1984). This seems unlikely. Jereboam chose Bethel precisely because it was already a well established cultic center (cf. Noth, 1972: 80). Long before that time—going back to the period when emergent Israel was eager to distinguish itself and its origins from “the Canaanites”—this story was created to say that Luz/Bethel had no association with any deity until Jacob happened to spend the night there. See below.
15. Or indeed, perhaps for Israel’s own ancestors.
16. Otto Eissfeldt, W. F. Albright, J. P. Hyatt, and others have all pointed to the existence of a Northwest Semitic deity named Bethel and have sought to connect this deity to Genesis 28 or other biblical mentions, but these efforts are strained and unconvincing. See the brief review of scholarship in E. Dalglish’s entry “Bethel (Deity)” in Freedman (1992).
17. Josh. 16:2 implies that Luz and Bethel were separate locations, which would only strengthen the hypothesis that the real “former name” of Bethel was . . . Bethel! That is, it had always been called Bethel, but this account (along with its twin, Gen. 35:5–8) was out to assert that the name Bethel went back to Jacob, not the Canaanites.
10. Jacob and the Angel
1. Kugel (1998: 382–83).
2. Here too, a modern scholar would recognize an etiological theme: the site is called Gilead because of the “pile of witness” (gal ‘ed) they heaped up there, and the 
that marks the spot is, once again, utterly disconnected from its Canaanite worship function. Some modern scholars have attempted to date the composition of the Jacob-Laban encounter to some specific period in history, for example, the defeat of the Arameans in 2 Sam. 8:3–8. This seems most unlikely; Laban is a national stereotype, a family member, but not a particularly beloved one. Such a characterization might fit in almost any age except one of out-and-out hostility and warfare.
3. Some of these matters were explored by Johnson (1969); Malamat (1973: 126–36), and more fully in Wilson (1977). Sasson (1978: 171–85) argued that genealogies are sometimes artificially constructed to place the significant or positive figure in the seventh (or, sometimes, fifth) position.
4. Most translations harmonize this with the name “Jethro,” but it is distinct in the Masoretic text as well as in the Septuagint.
5. This goes back to Noth (1971). The name Jacob-El (that is, y‘qb ’el) or variations thereon also appears at Ugarit as well as in Egypt during the period of Hyksos rule (1675–1552 BCE). One of the Hyksos kings was named “Y‘qb-HR,” (apparently the Egyptian form of Ya‘aqub-Haddu). In 1969, a scarab inscribed with the name Y‘qb-HR in hieroglyphics was found at the site of present-day Shiqmona, near Haifa, Israel; the scarab has been dated back to the eighteenth century BCE—before the time of the Hyksos king in question. Another scarab, also inscribed with the name Y‘qb-HR and almost identical to the first, had been published in 1930 by Martin Pieper. See the discussion of these items in Kempinski (1988: 42–47, and 1985: 129–37). (I owe the latter reference to McCarter and Hendel (1999.) Kempinski asserts that the two scarabs were almost certainly produced by the same artisan. They thus seem to indicate that someone named Ya‘aqub-Haddu ruled some part of Canaan in the eighteenth century BCE. About a hundred years later, someone with the same name, quite possibly a direct descendant, was one of the Hyksos kings of Egypt. Interestingly, Jacob-El is also known as a toponym (place name), occurring in the list of conquests of Thuthmosis III (ca. 1479–1425 BCE) and other kings. The toponym Y-[‘]-ku-b-r(w) appears on a list of Ramses II: see Weill (1918: vol. 1, 188–91). It may well be that the toponym derives from the name of some real or legendary founder of a city or tribe, perhaps even the Ya‘aqub-Haddu mentioned on the scarabs. This is certainly a matter of great speculation, but one could not rule out the possibility that this same Ya‘aqub-Haddu later came to be thought of as the founder of part of what would eventually be the people of Israel. See also T. Thompson (1974: 45–48), McCarter and Hendel, (1999: 26).
6. Interestingly, although the Bible itself derives the name Israel from a rare word meaning “struggle” or “fight,” ancient interpreters sought to find another meaning in the name. Various translations rendered the angel’s explanation of Jacob’s new name as “you have been great” or “you have been strong” with God. More significantly, Philo explained that the name Israel means a “man seeing God” or “the mind that contemplates God and the world,” an understanding that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. This interpretation was certainly significant in early Christianity’s identification of itself as the “new Israel” (novus Israel), for if one understands Israel to refer to the contemplation of God, then it can readily apply to any human being and not just to members of one particular people. Kugel (1998: 387–88, 396–97).
7. Freud (1980: 311–85).
11. Dinah
1. The text here follows the Septuagint translation of this verse, which, instead of rendering literally the Hebrew “It shall not be done thus,” reads “It shall not be thus.”
2. On the issue of intermarriage in Ezra and later times there is a vast literature; see Kugel (1998: 419–27) and notes there. Eskenazi and Judd (1994) seek to explain Ezra’s ban in terms of the sociology of religion (with analogies to modern-day Israel, based on the studies of S. N. Eisenstadt). For later developments: Hayes (1999: 3–36); Himmelfarb (1999: 1–24).
3. Here, a modern interpreter would surely object: after all, the story itself says nothing against intermarriage per se. The brothers are upset because their sister has been raped—it did not much matter by whom; in all the discussion that follows, the issue of intermarriage is never evoked. Their proposal of a mass circumcision is, as we have seen, a trick, a way of incapacitating the people of Shechem; it really has nothing to do with the fitness or unfitness of Shechem to marry Dinah. If, however, one is looking for some lesson in a story that does not appear to have one—and if one happens to be the author of the book of Jubilees, who believed in nothing so much as the utter separateness of Jews as a people, and consequently, in the absolute horror that intermarriage represented—then the tale of Dinah takes on an entirely new coloring.
4. See Kugel (1998: 408–9; 420–22). This interpretation made great sense, for, after all, if all the brothers had proposed circumcision as a trick, then why did only two of them, Simeon and Levi, end up attacking the city? If everyone was in on it, everyone should have participated. If, however, there was a disagreement among the brothers, then the story makes perfect sense.
5. Numerous studies have dealt with this question. See recently: Sternberg (1973: 193–201 and 1992); cf. Fewell and Gunn (1991: 193–211); Lehming (1978: 228–50); Laffey (1988: 43–44); Geller (1990: 1–15); Exum (1990: 7:45); Keefe, (1993: 79–97); Bechtel (1994: 16–36); Perry (2000); Fleischman (2000: 101–16); and Van Seters (2001: 239–47).
6. What follows is a brief summary of a paper I presented twice in the spring of 1992, first at the Eastern Great Lakes Society of Biblical Literature convention and then at the departmental seminar of the Bible Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I am grateful to both groups for their suggestions.
7. Cf. Van Seters (2001: 239–47).
8. See: S. Lehming (1958). His suggestion that the original story involved the sons of Jacob located at the central amphictyony at Shechem is best abandoned, but he did correctly see this chapter as a historical explanation for Jacob’s cursing of the two brothers in Gen. 49:5–7.
9. It should be noted that the name form “Hamor father of Shechem” does not mean what it might first appear. Elsewhere in the Bible, there is a set pattern for certain names, “X, the father of Y,” where Y is the name of a particular place and no person at all. For example: “Machir, the father of Gilead” (Josh. 17:1, 1 Chr. 2:21, 23); “Shobal, the father of Kiryath Yearim” (1 Chr. 2:50); “Asshur, the father of Tekoa” (1 Chr. 2:24, 4:5); “Salma, the father of Bethelehem” (1 Chr. 2:51). (My thanks to Sara Japhet for this point.) “Hamor, the father of Shechem” fits the same pattern. Indeed, the chapter that just precedes the Dinah story says, “And from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem he [Jacob] bought the plot of land on which he had pitched his tent . . .” (Gen. 33:19). Why does it not say “And from Shechem and the other sons of Hamor”? And why should he be buying the land from the sons and not the father? Obviously, “Hamor the father of the Shechem” is a formulaic way to refer to the leading clan of Shechem, whichever particular Hamorites happened to be in office at the time. If so, even though it cannot be proven, it seems likely that the original story involved some “Hamor the father of Shechem,” and that this phrase itself gave rise (perhaps in the original story, perhaps not) to the notion that a certain Hamor had a son named Shechem. It may well be that the original story was set in the period of the Judges: the lack of social order would fit well with the original portrayal of that period, and the mention of “the men of Hamor father of Shechem” in Judg. 9:28 might solidify this connection. Beyond that, one might guess (though it is only a guess) that the original story had some etiological connection with circumcision: perhaps its original purpose had been to explain why the Shechemites, while not Israelites, nevertheless practice circumcision. The whole thing was the result of a trick played on them by a bunch of Israelites long ago. In this case, not all the Shechemites would have been killed, but only the rapist, or the rapist and his father. In truth, that would explain another inconsistency in the present story, the mention of the killing of Shechem and Hamor after the text had already asserted that all the males in the town had been killed (Gen. 34:25–26); the latter should have been said after, not before, the mention of Shechem and Hamor.
10. Another remnant of the original form of stories is found in the fact that the deceptive proposal that the Shechemites be circumcised was made by “the sons of Jacob” (Gen. 34:13), presumably all of them. But if so, then why is it that, later on, Simeon and Levi alone attack the city? If all the sons had planned the deception, then why did they not all carry it out? The answer is that, in the original story, a bunch of “us” did indeed all go and attack Shechem together. But in seeking a good reason for Jacob’s condemnation of (only) Simeon and Levi in Gen. 49:5–7, the editor had to make these two alone, quite improbably, the sole perpetrators of the massacre.
12. Joseph and His Brothers
1. For this as a parade example of “full repentance,” see Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Sefer ha-Madda‘, Laws of Repentance 2:1.
2. On this passage see Kugel (1990: 94–96).
3. To counter any possible double-entendre, the Onqelos targum translates “to do his work” as “to check the account books.”
4. The idea that it was a sudden vision of his father’s face that saved Joseph from sinning was itself a clever bit of exegesis of Gen. 49:24. See Kugel (1998: 448).
5. Kugel (1990: 98–105).
6. Scholars have long noted the resemblance between the incident with Potiphar’s wife and an episode in the ancient “Story of the Two Brothers” (ANET 23–25), in which the older brother’s wife first seeks to seduce the younger brother and then wrongfully accuses him. But this is indeed a universal theme; see Yohannan (1968).
7. This thesis was advanced by D. Redford (1970), and has been taken up by later scholars. See recently the review of scholarship by J. Van Seters, “The Joseph Story: Some Basic Observations” in Knoppers (2004).
8. One might argue that the story is describing how things were before Benjamin’s birth, and that is certainly possible; still, since notice of his birth precedes this story in Genesis, one would expect some formulation other than “more than any of his other children.”
9. Scholars used to attribute this inconsistency to multiple authorship—it was at one point judged to be a combination of two versions, those of J and E. This thesis has largely been abandoned (and, indeed, Redford’s thesis makes it quite unnecessary). See Coats (1976).
10. This aspect of the story was first highlighted by G. von Rad in his “Josephsgeschichte und ältere Chokhma,” reprinted in von Rad (1965: see esp. 292–300), as well as in von Rad (1972; see 199–200). See also Fox (2001: 26–41), which seeks to distinguish the story’s wisdom from that of the book of Proverbs.
11. Our knowledge of the Hyksos mostly derives from the brief account of Manetho’s Egyptian history contained in the writings of Josephus (Against Apion, 73–105, 227–287) and the attempts of scholars to correlate it with Egyptian records and realia. See Van Seters (1966). Since Van Seters’ study, new information has emerged from excavations at Tell ed-Dab‘a (now definitively identified as the Hyksos city of Avaris) and Tell Mas uta. See Redford (1986: 276–96); Kempinski (1985: 129–37). Assmann (1997: 28–44) reviews the Hyksos material and concludes that some historical memory of this period may underlie the Exodus narrative.
12. Redford (1986: 241–42).
13. Why is an interesting question. Borrowing an idea from scholarship of ancient Greece (and from the writings of his predecessor, Albrecht Alt), M. Noth (1930) popularized the notion that Israel had existed as an amphictyony, with each of twelve tribes taking charge of a central shrine for one month out of the year; hence, the number twelve was unchangeable. More recent scholarship has not been kind to the amphictyony idea: to begin with, there was no central shrine for these tribes to take care of during the period of the Judges, when it was supposed to have existed. For various reasons (including the number of months in a lunar year) the number twelve came to be a conventional unit in Israel and elsewhere; that is probably sufficient to explain its fixity.
14. Many names of people in the Hebrew Bible sound, by their form, more like names of places (toponyms); this would certainly include the name Ephraim (or, for that matter, Judah). Manasseh, on the other hand, seems to be a personal name.
15. For a more detailed treatment of the exegetical history of this incident: Kugel (1995: 525–54).
16. A modern scholar might note that the phrase is a simply a euphemism for a son sleeping with his father’s wife or concubine—but ancient interpreters chose to understand it as a literal description of what happened.
17. Unlike Hebrew, English has no one-word synonyms for “lion,” so I have substituted this common kenning. Similarly, “your brothers” two lines above has been substituted for “your father’s sons.”
18. See Kugel (1998: 371, 497).
19. Moses’ blessing of Reuben (another ancient text) begins, “Let Reuben live and not die . . .” (Deut. 33:6); these words in themselves seem to provide an ancient indication that the tribe had been severely diminished in number. In David’s census, Joab passes through the area previously occupied by the Reubenites, but only the tribe of Gad is mentioned (2 Sam. 24:5). This may be a clue that, by that time, Reuben had been effectively absorbed into Gad and had ceased to exist.
20. Kugel (1995: 525–54). Note that, while it is “Jacob” who is referred to in the sentences preceding and following the insertion, the insertion itself calls him “Israel”—another indication that it is, indeed, an afterthought.
13. Moses in Egypt
1. Tigay (1978) argues, on the basis of Akkadian parallels to these Hebrew expressions, that Moses did indeed suffer from a physical ailment that impeded his speech, as suggested by ancient interpreters (Kugel 1998: 510–11). However, the absence of any confirming specifics in the narrative, the precise wording of Exod. 4:10, and the improbability that a heroic narrative would so portray Israel’s great hero, make all this most unlikely. As the overall narrative of chapters 3 and 4 makes clear, Moses is casting about for an excuse not to go. Having tried “I don’t know Your name” and “They won’t listen to me anyway,” he then says, “Besides, I’m not a good speaker.” Had he said that he had an actual physical impairment, the matter could clearly have been investigated and Moses revealed to be a liar.
2. See on this Iversen (1961).
3. See below, however, as well as Montet (1981); Redford (1987); Halpern (1992 and 1993); the various articles collected in Frerichs and Lesko (1994); Hoffmeier (1997) (an attempted defense of the general historicity of the biblical account, but one that is honest about the problems and lack of archaeological evidence); Redmount (1998); Davies (2004).
4. Against Apion, 1:223, 229–250.
5. See Gager (1972).
6. See Dever (1994), Weinstein (1994). Even before archaeologists expressed their reservations, scholars sometimes appealed to mathematics to cast doubt on the biblical account of the Exodus and the Israelites’ prolonged stay in the wilderness. For example, Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) observed that if the figures for the total number of Israelite adult males at the time of the Exodus is used as a base, then “[m]arching ten abreast, such a number would have formed a column 180 miles long and have required nine days as a minimum to march through the parted Red Sea” (cited in Hayes 1979: 115). Similarly, Rogerson (1984) reports about Bishop Colenso’s The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined (seven volumes, 1862–79): “Perhaps the most amusing parts of Colenso’s first volume are those dealing with the sacrifices, and worship. He pointed out that there were apparently only three priests in the wilderness: Aaron and his two sons Eleazar and Ithamar. These three would have had to perform the following tasks. First, on the assumption that two million people would produce 250 births each day, the two prescribed offerings (Lev. 12:6–8) would amount to 500 sacrifices, which, on the assumption of five minutes for each [sacrifice], would involve nearly 42 hours [of work] a day for the three priests. At the Passover, following the Deuteronomic regulations, it would have been necessary for the blood of some 120,000 lambs (one to every 15 to 20 persons) to be sprinkled, probably in the space of two hours; that is, the lambs would have been killed at the rate of 100 a minute by the three priests” (222).
7. Finkelstein and Silberman (2001: 63). Note also the withering analysis of the Egyptologist D. B. Redford (1992), esp. 257–64; he finds no support for the historicity of the Exodus in Egyptological data (though the last phrase is indeed an important qualification).
8. Dever (1994: 67).
9. Redford (1992: 417); Assmann (1997: 253, n. 20).
10. It must be admitted that this is more an argument from silence than from science: no plausible Hebrew, or even Semitic, etymology has been offered for either name, so perhaps an Egyptian origin, now distorted, is to be conjectured. Of more certain Egyptian origin is “Hophni,” paired with another Phinehas in 1 Sam. 1:3, both of them the sons of Eli, the priest at Shiloh. See on these: Redford (1992: 417–19).
11. The old identification of Per-Atum with Heliopolis/On has been largely rejected. Some archaeologists now suggest that it should be identified with Tell el-Maskhuta or Tell el-Retabeh; see Bleiberg (1992). This identification has been questioned on the grounds that neither site fits with the conventional dating of the Exodus to the late thirteenth century BCE; see Dever (2003: 14); note, nevertheless, the discussion in Davies (2004: 28–30), and the sources cited there. Scholars have also observed that P(r) R‘mss, “House of Rameses,” ceased to be an important site after the mid-eleventh century, suggesting that the reference to it in the Exodus account must be of ancient vintage; see Davies (2004: 28).
12. A somewhat mythic figure by the time of Diodorus, but in some ways perhaps to be identified with Rameses II.
13. Diodorus of Sicily, History 1.56.2.
14. The use of Pharaoh in this sense “does not occur until the Eighteenth Dynasty, sometime before the reign of Thutmose III (1449–1425 BC) . . . From its inception until the tenth century, the term ‘Pharaoh’ stood alone, without juxtaposed personal name. In subsequent periods, the name of the monarch was generally added on. This precise practice is found in the Old Testament; in the period covered from Genesis and Exodus to Solomon and Rehoboam, the term ‘Pharaoh’ occurs alone, while after Shishak (ca. 925 BC) the title and name appear together (e.g., Pharaoh Neco, Pharaoh Hophra)” Hoffmeier (1997: 87).
15. See on this Hoffmeier (1997: 114) and references cited there. Papyrus Leiden 349 similarly refers to ‘Apiru engaged in state service.
16. The ‘apiru/abiru connection with “Hebrew” has been studied by numerous scholars, including Oswald Loretz (1984), who saw ‘ibri in connection with the Bible’s Egyptian narratives as a way of later writers to indicate Israel’s ancestors avant la lettre. Somewhat similar is the position of N. Na’aman, who argues that the biblical term ‘ibri itself underwent a shift in meaning, from its original “uprooted people living on the margins of society”—a usage found in the Mari texts, El Amarna usage, and other ancient Near Eastern references and found in the Bible in reference to certain elements within the future society of ancient Israel—to being a “social ethnonym” used in various stories to apply to Israelites outside of their homeland, and finally a “synonym of the ethnicon ‘Israelite’” in post-biblical writers such as Philo and Josephus: Na’aman (1986: 285–86). See also Na’aman (2000: 621–24). One weakness in this hypothesis is precisely the absence of the term ‘ibri in those passages in Judges and 1 Samuel that depict the ‘apiru-like elements in early Israel; see also below.
17. This is the thesis of M. Greenberg (1955); see also Buccellati (1977) and Bottéro (1980).
18. It may also be, as Na’aman suggests, that in later times “Hebrew” had simply become, for Israelite historians, a contemptuous name to put in the mouth of any foreigner talking about the Israelites, as indeed is the case with Philistines: (1 Sam. 4:6, 9; 13:19; 14:11, 21; 29:3). However, it is to be noted that this does not characterize the way all, or even most, disdainful foreigners refer to Israelites. Thus Balak does not call them Hebrews (Num. 22:5), nor do the ancient oracles of Balaam (Numbers 23 and 24), nor the Ammonite king who opposed Jephthah (Judges 11), and so on. The name is associated principally with pre-Israelite Egyptians and with the Philistines.
19. Note in this connection A. D. Smith (2004), although he misses this aspect of the Exodus story; and the related B. Anderson (1991).
20. See sources cited above, note 3; also K. A. Kitchen (1998). J. C. de Moor (1990) and A. Malamat (1997) have sought to connect other Egyptian evidence with elements of the Exodus tradition, but the argument, like so many on the subject, remains only suggestive; see the treatment in Davies (2004: 34–36). Ron Hendel has cogently suggested that the Israelite “memory” of the period of Egyptian slavery and subsequent liberation may indeed have arisen from the experience of individuals. The Amarna letters give evidence of Canaanites being sent to Egypt as slaves, as well as the Egyptian deportation of Canaanites back to their homeland. See Hendel (2001); also Loprieno (1997). If so, the biblical account’s failure to mention a specific pharaoh may derive, Hendel argues, from the collective nature of this collective memory: no one particular pharaoh was involved.
21. From Foster (1993: 819–20). See also B. Lewis (1980), who argues that the birth legend originated in the time of a much later namesake of the king, Sargon II of the neo-Assyrian empire (721–705 BCE); its purpose would have been “to glorify Sargon II by showing that he was a worthy successor of Sargon of Akkad” (97). Compare Longman (1991: 53–60).
22. Traditionally, the burning plant has been identified as a bush, but the Hebrew eneh might just as easily designate a larger plant, perhaps even a tree. J. D. Levenson has suggested that it might have been an emblem of the God of Israel; note that He is designated as “the one who dwells in the 
eneh” in Deut. 33:16. See Levenson (1985: 20–21), who further suggests a iconographic connection of this deity with the “arborescent lampstand”—complete with branches, almond-shaped cups, calyces, and petals (Exod. 25:31–39)—found in the tabernacle and the temple (1 Kings 7:49). See also C. L. Meyers (1976).
23. In the passage, I have translated Exod. 3:12 as having God say to Moses, “I will be with you; and this is the guarantee that I am the one who is sending you: after you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” “Guarantee” is not a very biblical-sounding word, but the usual translation, “this is the sign that it is I who sent you” misses the point entirely. As was pointed out in chapter 3, an ’ot in biblical Hebrew can be a sign, as in “signs and wonders,” but in the case of the ’ot given to Cain or the ’ot given to Moses here (and to Ahaz in Isa. 7:14), it is more of a verbal undertaking that such-and-such will happen in the future. “I will be with you,” God says to Moses, “and the proof that I am sending you and that you will in fact successfully complete your mission is My guarantee that, after it is all over, you will be back at this same mountain offering sacrifices to Me.” But Moses is not reassured.
24. A confused or dissatisfied silence was indicated by a subtle convention of biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew: the words “he said . . .” were followed by “he said” a second time, when the speaker of both “he said’s” was the same. See Septimus (2004).
25. Modern scholars would point out that the author of this passage (attributed to E) is not the same as that of Exod. 7:7 (attributed to P), which says Moses was fully eighty years old when he appeared before Pharaoh. P’s concern for the overall chronology of the Exodus period caused him to make Moses an old man, since he was only the great-grandson of one of the original Israelite immigrants (Levi); even with the extraordinary longevity of biblical figures, three generations were scarcely enough to justify P’s assertion that the total length of the Israelites’ stay in Egypt was 430 years (Exod. 12:40). For ancient interpreters’ solution to this problem, Kugel (1998: 570–74).
26. Modern scholarly speculation on this question is voluminous; some of it is surveyed in R. Mayer (1958: 26–53) and Cross (1973: 60 n. 60–75 and 61). For the evolution of one particular school on this question: Haupt (1909), Albright (1925) and (1948), Cross (1962), and Freedman (1960).
27. One side-point of interest: unlike many ancient Near Eastern deities, YHWH does not seem to have been widely known elsewhere in the ancient Near East. He does not appear on various lists of gods found that were compiled in ancient times, although the name is attested in the Mesha Stone (see chapter 29) and in an ostracon from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (eighth century) to be discussed later. Still, the relative lack of reference to Him is somewhat surprising, and scholars do not quite know what to make of it. G. Pettinato (1980) claimed that the name YHWH was found in apocopated form at Ebla, but see H-P. Mueller (1981). More recently, S. Dalley (1990) has advanced a similar case for Syria; see van der Toorn (1992).
14. The Exodus
1. Kugel (1998: 518–19, 538–41).
2. On this passage there is a vast scholarly literature, most of it more diverting than enlightening. See the bibliography assembled by Childs (1974: 90). Nevertheless see, inter alia: Wellhausen (1957: 340); Smith, H. P. (1906: 14–24); Kosmala (1962: 14–28); Morgenstern (1963: 35–70); Houtman (1983: 81–105). The theory presented herein was previously presented in brief in Kugel (1998: 517, n.12).
3. Either verb form, qatal or yiqtol, may be used after ’az; the meaning “that was when” occurs with both. Thus, I cannot accept the argument of Rabinowitz (1984).
4. For this interpretation to work, one would have to suppose that the biblical text underwent a slight change in the course of transmission. The present text reads: “that was when people began to call on the name of the LORD.” But “to call” can just as easily be read as “to be called” (involving no change in the consonantal text, just a different vocalization of the letters), and “the name of the LORD” might be understood as “that name,” that is, hhw’ in place of yhwh. The confusion of these two vocables is attested, inter alia, in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Read in this way, the text indeed would be saying that after Enosh’s birth, “that was when it [humanity] began to be called by this name [Enosh].” Otherwise, modern scholars say, the verse seems quite incomprehensible in context.
5. In Islamic tradition, a wide range of ages for circumcision is attested. See Wensick (1979).
6. Note that adult circumcision occurs in Gen. 17:23–24, 34:24, and Josh. 5:1–12, albeit under special circumstances. More relevant here is Ishmael, eponym of the Ishmaelites, who is circumcised at age thirteen (Gen. 17:25); the Ishmaelites were geographically and in other ways close to the Midianites, with whom they are apparently synonymous (or confused) in Gen. 37:25–28. They were also intermarried with the Edomites (Gen. 36:3). It would not be surprising, then, if one or more of these peoples (Ishmaelites, Edomites, and Midianites) circumcised their sons as a rite of puberty, calling them “bridegrooms of blood” on the occasion.
7. Humphreys (2004): For a discussions of potential natural causes in the crossing of the Red Sea, see Segert (1994).
8. See recently: Nof and Paldor (1992).
9. The problem has been poignantly stated—particular with reference to the miracles of the Exodus—in a famous essay of Langdon Gilkey (1961): “When we are asked about what actually happened [at the Exodus] and how revelation actually occurred, all we can say [if we accept the ‘naturalistic’ approach to miracles] is that in the continuum of the natural order, an unusual event rescued the Hebrews from a sad fate; from this they concluded that there must be somewhere a great God who loved them; thus they interpreted their own past in terms of his dealings with them and created all the other familiar characteristics of Hebrew religion: covenant, law, and prophecy. This understanding of Hebrew religion is strictly ‘liberal’; it pictures reality as a consistent world order, and religious truth as a human interpretation based on religious experience. And yet at the same time, having castigated the liberals, who at least knew what their fundamental theological principles were, we proclaim that our real categories are orthodox: God acts, God speaks, God reveals.”
10. Scholars have thus sought to differentiate the account attributed to J, which tends toward scientific “realism,” from that of P. See Noth (1959: 82–83), Childs (1974: 221–22).
11. On this passage: P. Enns (1997: esp. 56–66).
12. Mekhilta deR. Yishma’el (Beshallah 4) (Horowitz-Rabin ed. 1970: 100); cf. m Abot 5:4.
13. Kugel (1998: 588–90).
14. Some scholars have suggested that the Exodus narrative may also contain a historical reminiscence of a (bubonic?) plague that struck the region of Egypt and Canaan during the era of Hyksos rule. Assmann (1997: 27) cites Tutankhamun’s Restoration Stela—“The land was in grave disease; the gods have forsaken this land”—and explains: “According to my theory, the trauma resulting from the events of the Amarna period reflected both the experience of religious otherness and intolerance and suffering caused by a terrible epidemic. Indeed, the Egyptian name for this epidemic was ‘the Asiatic illness.’” See also: Redford (1970). Hendel (2001) assembles impressive evidence of pestilence in Canaan during the Amarna period.
15. For those who fancy this sort of explanation, there is plenty more where these came from—the same approach seeks to explain the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as a seismic event, the Sinai revelation as a volcanic eruption, and Ezekiel’s vision of the divine chariot as a sighting of flying saucers.
16. Kugel (1998: 562–63).
17. On this whole theme: Loewenstamm (1965). For a close analysis of the compositional history of the plagues narrative in Exodus: Propp (1999: 286–354).
18. On the identity of the Red/Reed Sea, see Hoffmeier (1997: 199–215); the Hebrew yam sup may have been the equivalent of the proper name 
“a marshy region in the eastern Delta.”
19. Support for this theory was found in the fact that the song begins in the first person singular, “I will sing,” rather than “Let us sing” or “Sing [plural imperative] . . .” (Both of these exist, however, as textual variants, the first in the Septuagint and various targums, the second in the Samaritan Pentateuch; Kugel (1998: 595). A second argument in favor of this scenario was the fact that the introductory sentence, “that was when Moses and the Israelites sang . . .” uses the singular form of the verb “sang,” as if to imply that there was only one singer at first.
20. If so, that unison would likewise explain the singular form of the verb “sang” (see previous note): they all sang as one man.
21. Cf. Song 5:16.
22. See Kugel (1998: 610).
23. See in this connection Lambdin (1971).
24. Some readers of biblical Hebrew may object that the definite article is found in its elided form in the song, that is, following prepositions, such as bayyam in Exod. 15:1. But it should be recalled that the vocalization (vowel-points) is a later addition; the consonantal text could be equally understood as indicating beyam. That this is actually more likely is suggested by the absence of the definitive article where one would expect it, for example, mayim (and not hammayaim) in Exod. 15:8, ’oyeb (and not ha’oyeb) or shalal (and not hashalal) in the next line, and so forth.
25. Cross and Freedman (1955) and Cross (1974: 112–44). Cross and Freedman’s analysis, based on their joint doctoral dissertation and earlier work by W. F. Albright and others, has been accepted by most modern scholars; see, however, G. Ahlstrom (1986: 46–55) and Brenner (1991).
26. Cross and Freedman (1955: 238–39). Cross later elaborated on the idea in Cross, (1974: 112–44). See also: Wolters (1990).
27. Wolters (ibid.) suggests that “stood up” ought to be read as the niphal of the root 
-b-h “swell,” and that nd be understood (in keeping with the targum tradition) as no’d, “wineskin,” which swells up when filled with liquid—both suggestions in support of the Cross-Freedman reading.
28. Cross (1974: 134).
29. The whole phenomenon of inserted songs is studied in Weitzman (1997).
30. A somewhat different theory: Mark Smith (2001).
31. Many scholars have suggested that the narratives of the Pentateuch represent the transformation of now lost hymnic or epic literature into prose narratives, for example: Cassuto (1975: 1:7–16) and (2:69–109); Albright, (1968: 66–68); and in general, Cross (1973: 166–70); Kselman (1978); Conroy (1980). Methodologically, some of these studies are open to criticism; see Kugel (1981: 85–87). Still, the idea of a prose reworking is not to be rejected. This scenario will not, however, easily account for the inconsistencies contemporary scholars have observed within the J and E collections of texts: they seem clearly not to have stemmed from a single recasting of poetic texts into prose. See above, chapter 1, note 76, and chapter 6, note 18.
32. Still, as scholars have observed, the Exodus seems to have remained a favorite theme of, specifically, the northern tribes for some time. See Davies (2004: 26). Thus, most pre-exilic references to the Exodus are concentrated in compositions with northern connections, such as the prophecies of Amos and Hosea and the book of Deuteronomy, as well as psalms of reputedly northern origin such as Pss. 77, 80, and 81. On their northernness, see Nasuti (1988: 78–93 and 97–102) and Rendsburg (1990: 73–81). True, Jeremiah, who frequently invoked the Exodus tradition, lived just outside of Jerusalem; even he, however, had northern connections (see chapter 31). On the other hand, as Davies observes, Ps. 114 is clearly a psalm from Judah in which the Exodus theme is prominent; it may well be preexilic. The last verses of Psalm 78, 56–72, criticize the north and exalt David and Judah, but this may not mean, as Davies argues, that the psalm is of southern origin; see Nasuti (1988: 93). If Exodus 15 was connected to a southern sanctuary, then it, too, would give evidence of a very early southern adoption of this theme.
15. A Covenant with God
1. If so, it may also have something to do with the word “throne” that appears in the curious last two verses of this episode (not cited above): “And Moses built an altar and called it ‘The LORD is my sign.’ He said: A hand upon the throne [kes] of the LORD! The LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation” (Exod. 17:15–16). But the word kes is otherwise unattested in biblical Hebrew, and in any case, many scholars believe that, in its present form, this verse makes little sense: why would the altar be called ‘the LORD is my sign’ [nes] if the next verse, apparently explaining this name, refers to God’s throne [kes]? Perhaps this kes is to be amended to nes, as was suggested as early as Samuel David Luzzatto (1800–1865). If so, then the verse might be understood as: “. . . and called it ‘The LORD is my sign.’ He said: For it will be known as a sign of the LORD. The LORD’s war against Amalek [will continue] from generation to generation” (k[y] ywd‘ lns yh ml
mh lyhwh b‘mlq mdr dr).
2. See Kugel (1998: 616–20, 630–31) for various ancient interpretations of manna; also Borgen (1981).
3. Indeed, some scholars have suggested that P’s version is a deliberate recasting of E’s story. The latter presents Moses in an altogether positive light: he performs a miracle that gives the people water while at the same time proving to them that their lack of faith is unjustified. In P’s version, Moses does something wrong—it is not clear what—that makes God reprove him and Aaron for a lack of faith: “you did not trust Me enough to affirm my sanctity in the sight of the Israelites” (Num. 20:12). Whether or not the two versions were once independent accounts based on a common tradition or the later is a deliberate recasting of the first, scholars say that it is no accident that E’s exalts Moses and the miraculous while P’s does the opposite; these tendencies are altogether characteristic of the two sources in question. See Friedman (1987: 197–201).
4. The two names are associated by scholars with different sources, Horeb with E and D, Sinai with J and P. Some scholars have questioned whether these two names refer to the same geographic location; see the discussion in Levenson (1985: 16–17). Scholarly literature on the various aspects of the narrative in Exod. 19–20 is understandably enormous. Particularly of interest has been the source-critical analysis. Some important recent works: Zenger (1971); Toeg (1977: 144–59); Mowberly, (1983); Dozeman (1989); B. Schwartz (1996). With regard to Sinai, this last article asserts (among other important points) that for P “Mount Sinai is not the place of lawgiving. It is merely the place where the [glory] of God rested before the lawgiving commenced. The laws were given in[side] the tabernacle [there]; Sinai is simply the site where the tabernacle was first erected” (123).
5. Scholars have argued back and forth about the antiquity of this passage, as well as about the various hands visible in the shaping of the entire Sinai pericope. Many scholars, it would be fair to say, probably still agree with Gressmann’s assessment that in its present form this section presents “an apparently irresolvable tangle” (“einen scheinbar unheilbaren Wirrwarr”—Gressman 1913: 181). Of late, however, and in keeping with his “minimalist” approach (chapter 1, notes 76 and 77), John Van Seters has argued on the contrary that the Sinai pericope and the Covenant Code that follows it actually constitute a single unified composition of J—for Van Seters, J is an exilic author—with only a few priestly touches added later on. See Van Seters (2003). It is difficult, however, to reconcile such a view with the evidence. Scholars over the past century have identified so many internal contradictions, repetitions, and gaps in the Sinai pericope itself (leaving aside for the moment its connection with the Covenant Code) that the assertion that it is nonetheless a single compositional unit has seemed to most rather unlikely. For a review: Levinson 2004: 280–81 and notes there. On the other hand, both B. Schwartz and M. Haran, while rejecting the view of a single author, nevertheless see here “three distinct, readable, consistent and continuous strands” (Schwartz) that can be disentangled in the pericope.
As to Exod. 19:5–6 in particular, some have returned to the suggestion that these words are indeed quite ancient; see in this connection: Cross (1998: 33). To be sure, other scholars have argued that the whole idea of a great covenant between God and Israel is relatively late; see below, note 12. They thus argue that Exodus 19:1–6, since it speaks of a covenant with God (among other reasons), must belong to the time of Deuteronomy or later: Perlitt (1969: 271–75); cf. Zenger (1971: 167–68); H. H. Schmid (1976: 98, 117); Van Seters, (1994: 270–80); Nicholson (1986: 166–67 and 1998: 189–91). For all its recent popularity, the overall line of argument of these studies is still open to criticism. In addition to the source-critical and form-critical arguments that have been adduced (see below), the panhieratic nation envisaged in “a kingdom of priests” seems to bespeak an early period before the existence of an official, hereditary priesthood; such a conception would hardly sit well with the assignment of this passage to D, for example. Nor would this passage seem to suit P: “The occasional suggestion that Exod. 19:3–8 (with its reference to a ‘kingdom of priests and holy nation’ in v. 6) betrays Priestly authorship is rightly dismissed; nothing could be less Priestly than the notion that all Israel is as sacred as a priesthood, even if intended as a rhetorical figure and not as an actual viewpoint”—Schwartz, Baruch (1996: 112). See also: R. Coggins (1995: 135–48); Schearing and McKenzie (1999).
6. Note that the portrait of Hammurabi on his famous law stele shows the god Shamash giving him a scepter and ring, the conventional symbols of justice; the implication is that Shamash has granted the king the right to promulgate the laws on the stele. Still, this is only a granting of authority—the right and duty to create a legal system. This is still significantly different from the claim of divine authorship of laws.
7. This is in fact the first commandment according to the reckoning of most Christians; Jewish tradition sees the first-person statement about God in Exod. 20:2 (“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage”) as the first commandment—a commandment to recognize the existence of God and His role in history. See Kugel (1998: 642–43, 683).
8. Early treatments of the subject include: Mendenhall (1954), who based himself principally on the monograph of Korosec (1931), followed by Baltzer (1960); McCarthy (1963), Hillers (1964); Tucker (1965), Beyerlin (1965); Hillers (1969). For subsequent scholarship, see below.
9. Note in this connection: Altman (2004).
10. Two years after Mendenhall’s ground-breaking article (previous note), D. J. Wiseman (1958) argued on the basis of the recently discovered vassal treaties of Esarhaddon that the basic forms of state treaties attested in the Hittite finds continued to be used, with minor modifications, from the time of the Hittite Empire to the end of the neo-Assyrian empire.
11. As Weinfeld (1972: 67–68) noted, the evidence for this is spotty: of the five Assyrio-Aramean treaties of the first millennium, the opening section (exactly where the historical prologue should be found) is incomplete or missing in three of them; an historical prologue might have been inappropriate with the Esarhaddon treaty, since it is concerned with continuance of the vassal relationship and not its establishment; it is not even clear if the fifth example, the Aramaic Sefire treaties, belong to the vassal treaty type.
12. Some have argued that the very idea of a covenant cannot be dated earlier than Deuteronomy; see the extended discussion in Perlitt (1969); also E. W. Nicholson (1986). Others have rejected this line of argument, for example, Mendenhall (1973: 1–31). Patrick Miller has put it well: “There does not seem to have been any period in Israel’s religious history when the specific recognition of the relation of the deity and tribe or people was not expressed in such a pact, though it took different forms prior to the monarchy and during it, and may have been understood or formulated differently in the North and in the South” (2000: 5). See also Weinfeld (1972: 59–157), and above, note 5.
13. This view actually goes back to Wellhausen, whose evolutionary picture of Israel’s religion precluded anything like a legal, covenant-based connection between God and the people at an early stage. “The relation of Jehovah to Israel was in its nature and origin a natural one, there was no interval between Him and His people to call for thought or question. Only when the existence of Israel had come to be threatened by the Syrians and the Assyrians did such prophets as Elijah and Amos raise the Deity high above the people, sever the natural bond between them, and put in its place a relation depending on conditions, conditions of a moral character”—Wellhausen (1957: 417). See on this P. D. Miller (1982: 61–73).
14. Some scholars seek to date the Decalogue pericopes in Exodus and Deuteronomy (sometimes along with the rest of that book) in the exilic or post-exilic period. See the recent review in Aaron (2006).
15. Even an Israelite from the time of the monarchy who recognized that there had been no actual king at the supposed time of this covenant would certainly have attributed the king’s treaty-making powers to Moses rather than creating this odd, unmediated agreement between the divine suzerain and all the people collectively.
16. There seems little reason to doubt that traditions of ancient treaty conventions exemplified in the Hittite models could have been preserved and passed on in some form long after the Hittite empire had passed from the scene. Indeed, the fullest example of an elaborate historical prologue (held to be a Hittite—as opposed to neo-Assyrian—feature) is found in the book of Deuteronomy. In the end, then, a rigid reliance on the presence or absence of one or another feature does not appear to be a decisive factor in dating the covenant tradition. Indeed, some such features might be expected in any official agreement of this sort. Thus, the Magna Carta (which was produced in four different editions, 1215, 1216, 1217, 1225) contains elements corresponding to some of those in the ancient Hittite treaties, for example: self-presentation of the suzerain (first sentence of the Preamble); brief historical prologue (Preamble); treaty stipulations (articles 1–61); disposition of the “letters testimonial patent” with the archbishops (article 62); oaths (article 63); invocation of God and (human) divines acting as witnesses (Preamble, article 1). I do not think anyone has argued that the Englishmen in thirteenth-century Runnymede were basing the document on Hittite treaty models. To be sure, this list of resemblances is only partial and the order of items is different—still, the resemblances are all the more striking in that this is not a suzerain-type treaty at all.
17. Perlitt (1969) and above notes 5 and 12.
18. Note also the connection of the Ten Commandments with Amos 3:1–2 proposed by Weiss (1985: 67–82).
16. The Ten Commandments
1. Kugel (1998: 638–40). See also Schwartz (1994).
2. Kugel (1998: 636–38, 677); and Schwartz (1994).
3. It is certainly true that “murder” is a bit too narrow to translate the Hebrew root r, as was recently argued by Bailey (2005). I am disturbed, however, that kill errs on the other side. It certainly includes all manner of permitted acts in biblical law, from the slaughter of animals to warfare and capital punishment. On balance, “murder” is still the better translation.
4. Kugel (1998: 638–40).
5. The question of the antiquity of the prohibition of images was first raised by Mowinckel (1930); for the actual text of the Decalogue and this question, see Zimmerli, (1950: 550–63), and more recently, Dohmen (1985). See also Kugel (2003: 71–107) and notes.
6. A small bronze statue of a bull was found at a twelfth-century BCE site, apparently (though this is not certain) in what has been identified as a cultic site; see Mazar (1982 and 1990: 350–51). It is, however, far from clear what deity was thereby represented. See the discussion in Zevit (2001: 176–79, 448–57) and sources cited there. Some scholars have also seen in the various biblical references to seeing God’s “face” in such verses as Exod. 23:15, 34:23–24, Ps. 42:3, and so forth allusions to an actual statue or other plastic representation of Israel’s God that may at one time have been a standard feature in one or more ancient temples. This is a tantalizing proposal, but difficult to accept without further proof. There is hardly another Hebrew word with so many idiomatic and figurative meanings as panim: seeing God’s face could certainly mean coming into His presence or receiving his favor, just as “seeking His face” meant to earnestly request something from Him. Considering the many texts (some of them indisputably early) that speak of God “appearing” (see Kugel, 2003: 99–107) to people, and in light of any archaeological evidence to the contrary, it would seem that—as with some other ancient Near Eastern peoples—the tradition of aniconic worship of Israel’s God goes back very far. At the same time, many scholars distinguish between what they see as the “official” cult in any given period or locale and popular piety as it may have existed in the same place and time. Archaeologists have turned up a profusion of figurines in Judah that apparently represent the goddess Asherah and other deities and date to the eighth and seventh centuries; these include hundreds and hundreds of statues that were discovered in the very shadow of the Jerusalem temple. Such evidence may not be conclusive (see Kugel, 2003: 218–19), but it suggests that, whatever the practices followed within the temple itself, ordinary people continued to worship other gods—and worshiped them through little figurines and statues.
17. A Religion of Laws
1. Some translations read, “draw near to the judges,” and understanding the word ’elohim as “judges” would indeed suit a phrase in the last sentence of this passage, “the one whom ’elohim finds guilty,” that is, “the one whom the judges find guilty.” Still, the usual meaning of ’elohim is “God” or “the gods.” See below.
2. Readers familiar with the Revised Standard Version and similar translations will note that their version of this law differs somewhat from my more literal rendering—for reasons to be made clear presently. Note the somewhat more accurate translation of the Jewish Publication Society (1985: 119).
3. Scholars have speculated about the basis for the Septuagint translation, but in the end it appears to be essentially an attempt to make sense of an otherwise puzzling law. It may indeed be connected with an Aristotelian distinction between the initial period after conception, during which the fetus is not yet “animated,” and later stages—as suggested by Lafont 1994. But such a connection would hardly explain the same view of the fetus being adopted by the Qumran community (see Kugel 1998: 695–98, and notes there). The suggestion that Hebrew ’ason was identified with Greek asoma (bodyless, hence, unformed) is ingenious but flawed. To begin with, would not the Septuagint translators have used this very word if that was the basis for their translation? Moreover, since for the case in which the punishment is merely a fine, the Hebrew reads ’im lo’ yihyeh ’ason, whereas the condition for imposing the death penalty is we’im ’ason yihyeh, the word ’ason cannot be understood to mean “unformed”; if it were, the penalty for causing the death of an unformed fetus is death, whereas the penalty for causing the death of a fully formed fetus is a fine. (One might, of course argue that in the case of the fully formed fetus, the fetus is viable and therefore is presumed to live—but that would still fail to explain why the death penalty is imposed on one who caused an unformed fetus to perish. This certainly goes against the Aristotelian distinction invoked by Lafont, as well as against Philo’s interpretation of the Septuagint text and, for that matter, all documented understanding of this law from Qumran to rabbinic exegesis. See also next note. Equally unconvincing, I am afraid, is the attempt by Westbrook (1986) to distinguish the two cases mentioned in this law as referring to instances in which the perpetrator is known or unknown.
4. It might be asked why such a person was subject to the death penalty when in other cases of accidental death the person responsible was not (see Exod. 21:13, Deut. 19:4–7). The difference, according to rabbinic interpreters, was the matter of intention. In the case described, the man certainly did intend to do harm—he picked up a two-by-four, say, and swung it at the person he was fighting with, hitting the woman by mistake. Without some intent to harm, the accident would never have occurred; his level of guilt is therefore greater than in any accident in which no harm was intended by anyone. To put it in more modern terms, someone who shoots a gun at X and hits Y instead is not found innocent because he missed his intended victim.
5. It should be stated that, although both Roman Catholics and Orthodox Jews interpret the biblical passage in the manner of interpretation #2, neither group has concluded therefore that abortion under any circumstances is permissible; nor do they hold, for that matter, that the whole question of terminating a pregnancy is to be decided solely on the basis of the biblical passage cited.
6. See Kugel (1998: 695–98).
7. It is unlikely that size itself is intended here, but rather strength of vision; that is, removing an eye that is weak or virtually blind (not an uncommon situation in ancient times) would not be a sufficiently severe punishment for the perpetrator; whereas removing his other (good) eye in such a case would be too severe, leaving the person virtually blind.
8. This was done by the Elamite ruler Shutruk-Nahhunte I in the twelfth century BCE; see Roth (1998: 73).
9. It appeared in Scheil (1902).
10. See on this Greenberg (1976).
11. Listed in Levinson (2004: 290).
12. All translations from Roth (1998).
13. Note that both LE ¶37 and LH ¶125 stipulate that the guardian’s house must also have been burglarized for his oath to be credible. This was first hypothesized by P. Koschaker (1917: 26–33); see Greengus (1994).
14. Above, note 1.
15. The other possibility is that this is a frozen expression, “draw near to the gods,” passed on literally from a polytheistic environment and, eventually, no longer understood by Israelites, who may therefore have explained its meaning as “judges” from a relatively early period.
16. See on this Isser (1990).
17. “The significance of this phrase has been much debated. I favor the view that the person is entitled to . . . recover damages from the estate of the perpetrator” (note of H. A. Hoffner, Jr., in Roth, 1998: 238).
18. In the present ordering of the text, it would seem to imply that the Israelites heard all of the Decalogue directly from God, and then Moses received the entirety of “Book of the Covenant” after having entered the “thick darkness” (Exod. 20:21). He then related its contents to the people (Exod. 24:3, 7). At the same time, some scholars find the present account somewhat confusing and suggest it results from the combination of different accounts. Again, see Levinson (2004: 280–81).
19. For the opposite view, proposed by Van Seters: above, chapter 15, note 5.
20. In support of this hypothesis, scholars have pointed to formal differences between the Ten Commandments and these other laws. Thus, while the prohibitions of the Decalogue are relatively straightforward—“Do this,” “Don’t do that”—the laws of the Covenant Code often describe complicated situations, “If so and so should happen and such and such be the case, then . . .” The distinction was first highlighted by Albrecht Alt, who referred to the Decalogue’s simple kind of statute as “apodictic” law and the other laws as “casuistic.” See Alt (1966: 79–132). Scholars have subsequently expressed doubts about the absoluteness of Alt’s distinction; note especially Gerstenberger (1965).
21. On the text’s own distinction between the “words” of the Decalogue and the “ordinances” of the Covenant Code, see Levinson (2004: 281–83).
22. Indeed, even the old model of the Covenant Code’s derivation from “orally transmitted legal traditions” that made their way from second-millennium Babylon to first-millennium Israel has not survived recent scrutiny. Van Seters and others have argued that the resemblances between the two codes are just too close to make this plausible: far more likely is some sort of direct copying from a Mesopotamian text or texts. Van Seters (2003) locates that act of copying in Babylon during the time of the exile; Levinson (2004) argues on the contrary that the period of neo-Assyrian domination is the most likely time for its adoption.
23. Johns (1917: 62).
24. The circumstances and extent of this issue’s emergence is still a matter of debate; see my brief discussion and the sources cited in Kugel (2005: 77–80 and notes).
25. Kugel (1998: 425–27). On Molech worship see Weinfeld (1972), Heider (1985) Day (1989).
26. See Najman (2003) as well as the essays collected in Poffet (2002).
27. Here, the scholarly literature is so vast that citing one or two works would only mislead. See, however, some of the sources cited in Kugel (1998: 704–10)
28. Lull (1986).
29. On which in general: Preus (1969).
30. Kugel (1998: 558–59).
31. Ibid., 841–42.
18. Worship on the Road
1. Possibly, they approach Hur with their request because he is the grandfather of Bezalel, the man who would fashion the desert tabernacle and its appurtenances (Exod. 31:2). If Bezalel possessed the metalworking skills necessary to accomplish that task, it seemed reasonable that he had learned those skills from his own father, and his father from Hur (since, in traditional societies, professions were generally passed on from father to son). Thus, if Hur was murdered by the mob, perhaps the reason was not only that he had been opposed to the idea of making a golden calf, but that he, the master craftsman, had actually refused to lend his knowledge of metal-making to aid in the project’s realization.
2. Kugel (1998: 719–21, 732–35).
3. On the later elaboration of this passage within the Bible and thereafter: Kugel (1998: 721–27).
4. Kugel: (2003: 71–107, 217–34 and sources cited there).
5. See the brief survey in Milgrom (1991: 440–43 and 2001: 2439). In addition to the reasons cited above, Milgrom also mentions that of the shared meal with the god or goddess, designed to “effect unity with the deity.” (On this see next note.) As he notes, however, these explanations are not, for the most part, those most often put forward by biblical texts. Thus, E. Regev (2004) has surveyed the various references to cultic sacrifice within the book of Psalms. Among the reasons given in the Psalms themselves for temple worship and sacrificing are: (1) recognition of the deity’s greatness; (2) payment of a vow; (3) as an expression of the feeling of righteousness and trust in God; (4) as an expression of faith and obedience; (5) sacrifice as a form of prayer; (6) sacrifice as an embodiment of closeness to the deity; and yet others. Among all these, Regev notes, the Psalms contain no explicit mention of the idea that sacrifices are intended for the deity’s well-being or as food, or as expiation for the sacrificer’s sins or as a means to preserving his own life or even as a way of making the animal’s flesh fit for human consumption—all arguments that have been put forward in the past.
6. Particularly important to the modern discussion has been the contribution of structural anthropologists, starting with Lévi-Strauss (1966: especially 225–28); Leach (1976: 81–93). See also Burkert (1983) and Hendel (1989).
7. This argument is associated in particular with the writings of René Girard, especially (1977) and (1986); Girard’s claims have been cogently disputed in the biblical sphere by Klawans (next note).
8. See Klawans (2003); for the argument in full, see Klawans (2005).
9. This famous remark was reported in one of O’Connor’s private letters; on its relation to her fiction, J. Andreas (1989).
10. I owe this citation to Jonathan Klawans.
11. On this see Monson (2000).
12. F. M. Cross (1961); (1974: 36, n. 144; 72, n. 112); and (1998: 84–95), as well as Clifford (1971); Friedman (1980).
13. Haran (1962) and (1978: 199–204); Y. Aharoni (1973); Friedman (1987: 174–87).
14. See the discussion in Milgrom (1991: 600–606).
15. These interpretations are reflected in various retellings of the story by the Bible’s ancient interpreters; see Kugel (1998: 744–45, 760–62).
16. The term first appeared in German (“Das Heiligkeitsgesetz”); see Klöstermann (1877: 401–5).
17. On biblical holiness there is a vast literature. One excellent recent treatment is Jenson (1992: esp. 40–55). See also: Milgrom (1976) and (2000: 1397–1400; B. Schwartz (1999); Knohl (1995: 180–86).
18. This is true, more specifically, of chapter 19 of Leviticus, which scholars since at least the 1930s have identified as a kind of reformulation of the Decalogue: Mowinckel (1937). Moshe Weinfeld (1990), among others, has suggested that, indeed, the Decalogue is the cause of this chapter’s unusual character within the corpus of priestly writings: “A list of commands similar to those laid down in the Decalogue is found in Leviticus chapter 19. This is the only place in the Priestly Code where we encounter an intermingling of cultic and ethical laws, such as we find in the Ten Commandments . . . Leviticus does begin with the Fifth, Fourth, and Second Commandments of the Decalogue.” See further Milgrom (2000), 1600–1602. It would be inexact, however, to suggest that ethical legislation is absent from H apart from this chapter—that is far from the truth.
19. See Kugel (1999: 255–57).
20. My translation departs somewhat from the extant Greek text (the original Hebrew of this section is missing); the latter reads, “Reprove a friend—perhaps he did not do it.” It seems likely, however, that reproving before and after the fact is Ben Sira’s way of reckoning with the “doubled verb” in Lev. 19:17, hokea tokia (that is, the combination of the infinitive absolute with a finite form of the same verb). Though this is simply idiomatic in Standard Biblical Hebrew, by Second Temple times such doubling was seen as carrying extra significance, and was therefore regularly represented in the Septuagint translation (“reprove with a reproval,” in this case). See on this: Lee (1983: 17). Ben Sira’s before-and-after approach thus seems to be one way to account for two verb forms that, morphologically, might be connected respective with past and future events. See further: Kugel (1998: 752–55, 766–68).
21. Kugel (1998: 756–59, 768–70).
22. Here it is clear that the text presents an integrated interpretation of Lev. 19: 17–18. Hatred is altogether forbidden; an offender should be reproached, and if he does not respond positively, he should be “prayed for” but must never be the object of revenge or grudge bearing. One who is, on the contrary, a true friend or neighbor deserves to be loved more than oneself.
23. This is of course somewhat different from the interpretation in Didache 2:7 cited earlier. It may well be that the words “and whatever you do not want to be done to you, you shall not do to anyone else” are a standard gloss, as suggested by Targum Pseudo-Jonathan.
24. Just as another law, Deut. 6:4, was deemed to sum up the “vertical” dimension: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might.” Both commandments began with “You shall love” and were apparently paired from an early period. See Sir. 17:14, 18:13; Rom. 13:8–9. Also Flusser (1990) and Kugel (1998: 768–69).
19. P and D
1. Wellhausen and others believed it was composed only a short while before it was “discovered” in the Jerusalem temple. He dated it even a bit later: “About the origin of Deuteronomy there is even less dispute: in all circles where appreciation of scientific results can be looked for at all, it is recognized that it was composed in the same age as that in which it was discovered,” that is, in the age of Josiah at the end of the seventh century.
2. Inter alia multa, see. Weinfeld (1961); Mettinger (1982: 38–79; 123–32). Note also Zakovitch (1972: 338–40. On the Akkadian roots of this expression see Richter (2002). Richter’s thesis is that the “name theology” attributed to Deuteronomy by modern scholars is the result of a great misunderstanding: the biblical phrase “to cause My name to dwell” is essentially a cognate translation of the Akkadian expression šuma šakānu, which refers to the erection of a “display monument” marking a victory and a claim to the land where the monument is erected. Despite this erudite argument—elements of which are noted in Weinfeld (1972: 193–34)—her critics have rightly countered that Deuteronomy itself offers ample evidence of its far more abstract concept of deity than that of earlier writers. As Richter herself notes (60–88), Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic history contain, beside the Hebrew cognate of this phrase, other noncognate expressions, “to build a house for the name” of God, to “offer praise to the name,” and so forth. These would suggest that, whatever the origin of “to cause My name to dwell,” the idea of God’s “name” as a kind of a divine hypostasis is reflected in these other uses; “name” had been freed from its specific meaning in the original Akkadian idiom. Indeed, her overall argument appears to be based on a misconception, that because a word or phrase meant X in its original language, it will also mean X when borrowed by another language. Reality is full of examples of precisely the opposite. Thus, the French loan-word outrage suggests to most speakers of English an element of anger that is quite lacking in French. The reason is that English speakers unconsciously analyze the word as a combination of out + rage, whereas French speakers, having no morphological out, do not isolate the element rage (indeed, most native speakers will correctly perceive -age as the nominalizing suffix of outre, “beyond” [Latin ultra]). The legal phrase corpus delicti originally meant “the body of the offense,” that is, “the actual facts that prove that a crime or offense against the law has been committed.” But many people (including some lawyers) with a poor grasp of Latin understand corpus in the specific sense of a “(dead) body,” corpse. It is true that in a murder trial, the corpse does constitute the corpus delicti, but the phrase of course has much wider applicability—it can mean the stolen bicycle or the broken storefront window as well. Nevertheless, corpus delicti has actually developed in English the secondary meaning of a dead body—even in some dictionaries. Other examples could be given. Thus, the fact that šuma šakānu had the meaning it had in Akkadian does not guarantee that it ever had the same meaning in Hebrew. (To quote Weinfeld, who notes its use in Amarna Akkadian, the original phrase “had nothing to do with an abstract notion of God; it was the Deuteronomic school that endowed it with a specific theological meaning,” 193.) Indeed, it is not hard to imagine the learned Deuteronomist borrowing this foreign idiom with the specific intention of creating an authoritative-sounding equivalent that would support his new theology. That is, he consciously took over šuma šaknu to help legitimate the idea that God had merely caused His “name,” but not Himself, to dwell in the earthly temple devoted to Him.
3. Cross’s observation (1998: 15) is apposite: “For Wellhausen, the relationship between God and Israel in premonarchical times and in early prophecy was ‘natural,’ spontaneous, free, interior (individualistic). Such language is his inheritance from a philosophic milieu created by idealism and romanticism, borrowed immediately from Vatke, and congruent with Protestant antinomianism.”
4. See further: Weinfeld (1980).
5. The big change of late (as we have already glimpsed) has been the minimalist challenge to the early dating of these sources, especially J and E, and, along with this, the refusal to see in the various narratives attributed to J and E the work of individual authors. Some scholars have, however, sought virtually to eliminate J and E as sources altogether. Again, chapter 1, notes 76 and 77.
6. An apologetic answer is frequently supplied here, the argument of “accommodation”: at first the people of Israel were not ready for such an abstract deity, they needed to be led to it gradually, and/or they needed to be weaned from polytheistic notions. This sort of argument is at least as old as Pauline Christianity; “accommodation” itself is an Augustinian term, and, interestingly, the same argument was taken up (apparently, quite independently) by Maimonides. Despite its distinguished pedigree, exponents of this argument with regard to Israel’s God have always failed to address its main weakness: why? What would have been so hard about Israel accepting a brand new notion of divinity, and how would two or three centuries of divinely given contradictory information improve the situation when the change-over was finally made? See Benin (1993).
7. The complete letter is in M. Ernst (1956: vol. 2, pp. 47 ff.)
8. Hertz (1952: vii).
9. For the dimensions of P and a survey of some recent scholarship: Jenson (1992: 15–26), and the specific references to works by Haran, Knohl, Milgrom, B. Schwartz, and others cited below.
10. Modern scholars are quite divided on the question of whether the P material was ever an actual, independent work or simply a series of editorial insertions in an existing text. See Cross (1973: 294–319); Noth (1972: 234–47) and (1987: 107–47); Cross (1973: 301–25); Rendtorff (1977); Koch (1987: 446–56); Vervenne (1990). More recent theories are mentioned below.
11. This phrase actually means “And God was pleased.” See Kugel (1980).
12. McEvenue (1971: 138–39).
13. On these and other lexical traits: M. Paran (1989: 243–72). For kabod, see below, chapter 32.
14. Some of these are traced in McEvenue (1971), others in Paran (1989).
15. Kaufmann (1937: 113–42); see also Kaufmann (1972: 175–200).
16. For a summary of this school’s arguments, see Krapf (1992: 3–66); Weinfeld (2004).
17. On the antiquity of some of these (based on ancient Near Eastern parallels): Weinfeld (1983).
18. Hurvitz (1974), (1982), and (1988); note also Zevit (1982). Jacob Milgrom (1991: 3–35) summarizes some of the arguments of Hurvitz and others. He notes that Hurvitz point to some ten typical terms of P that are not found in Ezekiel “in contexts in which one would expect to find them”—terms such as rea nioa (and heriah), ‘amit, ledoroteikhem, and so forth. More important, there are certain standard replacements of P’s terminology found in Ezekiel, in which the Ezekiel substitute is a word or form widely attested in post-exilic Hebrew. Thus: P says ’amatayim, while Ezekiel says šetei ’amot; P says heqim while Ezekiel says qiyyem; P says tabnit, Ezekiel says urah; and so forth. Finally, Hurvitz documents the disappearance of some of Ezekiel’s vocabulary in post-exilic books such as Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah.
19. See Milgrom (1991: 3–35).
20. It is true that Moses objects to their taking the adult Midianite women after they had been instrumental and leading the Israelites astray (Num. 31:15–16), but there was no problem with taking innocent young girls (31:18), presumably for purposes of cohabitation. See Milgrom (1990: xxxiv). Milgrom has assembled other arguments for P’s pre-exilic dating as well, starting on xxxiii; see above, note 18; also, Milgrom (2000: 1361–64).
21. On D’s possible reuse of P, see Moran (1966); Milgrom (1976: 9–12); Japhet (1978). On the other hand, D apparently knows nothing of Korah’s role in the revolt of Dathan and Abiram; see as well next note.
22. More recently, the debate seems to have turned in the opposite direction; see the recent review of scholarship and new proposal Levinson (2006). On the general topic, inter alia: Milgrom (1991: 9–13); Perlitt (1988: 65–88); Joosten (1996).
23. Van Seters (1999: 80), an opponent of this view, rejects it as ideologically based: “The problem with this kind of argument is that its primary motivation is ideological, no less so for the Israeli scholars than for those they accuse of anti-Judaism bias [that is, “Wellhausen and his contemporaries”].” But surely sticking the label “ideological” on an argument (a label that in some measure fits a great many arguments in modern biblical scholarship) without addressing any of its specific claims cannot be considered a serious rebuttal. While his is a somewhat slim volume, I nonetheless find it odd that Van Seters fails to cite a single article or book by any of the post-Kaufmann scholars who have elaborated the view he opposes—nothing by Hurvitz, Zevit, Haran, Milgrom, Knohl—nor does he demonstrate much awareness of the actual arguments, linguistic and others, advanced by these and numerous other scholars (Weinfeld, S. Japhet, W. Moran, J. Joosten, et al.).
24. Knohl claims that the H school “originated in the period in the latter part of the eighth century BCE, in the period from the rule of Ahaz to that of his successor Hezekiah; the material in P must go back still earlier, “sometime during the two hundred year period between the construction of Solomon’s Temple and the reign of Ahaz-Hezekiah. This time period also accounts for the many strata in P, which indicate a compilation made over a long period of time” (1995: 220). It was the school of H that, centuries later, undertook “the gigantic task of editing the Pentateuch, which consisted primarily of combining Priestly and popular material” (224). Although he is cautious about stipulating a date for this editing, he points to the early post-exilic period as the appropriate time, both on linguistic grounds (see 103, n. 152) and on the basis of content (p. 202). Milgrom’s dating (2001: 2440–46) is similar, but he is unwilling to date any of H later than the Babylonian exile: “I cannot find any statement by H that postdates the exile . . . [T]he very last layer of the H school, namely, the framework of Leviticus 23, has to be set in the exilic period.”
25. Knohl’s striking demonstration that H came after P is only part of the last half-century’s revolutionary reevaluation of the priestly strata of the Pentateuch. In addition to Knohl’s own teachers—in particular, Menahem Haran and Moshe Greenberg (and, par personne interposée, Y. Kaufmann)—mention must be made in this context of the numerous contributions of Baruch Levine, Jacob Milgrom, Baruch Schwartz, and others. (While acknowledging Knohl’s contributions, Milgrom has also clarified some of their disagreements—see in particular Leviticus 1–16, 13–63; Leviticus 17–22, 1328–44; and Leviticus 23–27, 2440–46.)
26. Knohl (1995: 6–7, 44).
27. Ibid., 3.
28. Ibid., 180.
29. Milgrom (1991: 16) thus scarcely exaggerates when he speaks of the “gaping ideological chasm that divides P from H,” in particular with regard to their very conceptions of God; see below. A similar point against the old, evolutionary view of things is made with regard to D by Levinson (1997: 54–56): “It has long been held that the festival calendar of Deut. 16:1–8 involves ‘a process of growth . . . in the course of which two separate festivals, Passover and Unleavened Bread (Mazzot), have been combined’ [cited from Mayes (1959: 254)]. According to this approach, the text achieves its form as the result of prior cultic or tradition history, which it reflects. Allegedly, the gradual shift from nomadic to settled life leads to the obsolescence of such ancient nomadic customs as the paschal slaughter, and the festival calendar thus mirrors already achieved, de facto, empirical development. Despite its popularity, that hypothesis has no real supporting evidence . . . What is prior is neither Passover nor Unleavened Bread in itself, but rather the innovation of centralization and the historical program of Deuteronomy’s authors. In Deut. 16:1–8, the authors of Deuteronomy construct and sanction an entirely new observance that supplants both the original Passover and the original Unleavened Bread and that is now consistent with the Deuteronomic program.”
30. The point is somewhat obscured in Milgrom’s (1991: 19) rebuttal of Knohl. It is not that such singing did not exist in the pre-Hezekian rite of the Jerusalem temple, but that the P school did not want to acknowledge it, since it did not conform to their own theology.
31. These observations follow Knohl (1995; on prayer see p. 149), although, as Knohl acknowledges, many of them go back to Kaufmann (1937). Thus Kaufmann: “Those acts performed in the temple itself—on the altar, in the sanctuary, and in the Holy of Holies—were all oriented toward one idea: sanctification of the place of God’s name and the symbol of His Word, purification of all who approach Him, expression of the awe of the holy; not material requital nor even supplication for kind gifts—just awe of the holy” (1972: 476). On Milgrom’s reservations about Knohl’s view, see above, note 25. This is not the place to rehash their disagreements; I must observe, however, that some of Milgrom’s objections are unconvincing. On the issue at hand, for example, he writes: “While it is true that there is no explicit statement in the P corpus concerning the hope for ‘blessing and salvation,’ there is scarcely a rite that does not take it for granted” p. 18 (emphasis his). It seems to me that “explicit” is precisely the issue: the reality of the sacrificial cult (the “rites”) existed long before P; the question is rather what P chooses to make of it. That nothing explicit is said about the hoped-for benefits of the rites is a statement in itself. The same is true of the Priestly Blessing (Num. 6:22–24); it now seems clear that this blessing is quite ancient, going back at least to the ninth century. (See on this Yardeni, 1991.) What is crucial is what P chooses to make of it, namely, nothing at all (Lev. 9:23). It was H who inserted the polemical note of Num. 6:27: “They [the priests] shall place My name on the Israelites, but I will be the one who actually blesses them.” This assertion promised that the blessings in this ancient formula would indeed be carried out, and it also displaced the power to carry them out from the priesthood to God.
32. The term bamah (“high place”) does not actually occur in Deuteronomy itself, which refers instead to “altars.” As M. Haran points out (1978:20), “in the Pentateuch the word [bamah] occurs quite rarely with this meaning and then only in the Holiness Code (Lev. 26:30, Num. 33:52). He further observes that the term appears in “pre-Deuteronomistic sources” without negative connotations: it is only in the Deuteronomistic redaction of the book of Kings that the “bamah features more prominently and is considered an absolutely illegitimate, detestable object.” As to the precise physical form of the bamah, scholars continue to disagree. To this day not a single “high place” has been identified with certainty, although the excavations at Megiddo have produced one likely candidate. See Epstein (1965), Finkelstein and Silberman, (2001: 241–42).
33. Wellhausen (1957: 76).
34. Rofe (1985) suggests that Deut. 4:32–40 was originally a short “sermon.” When a historical prologue (Deut. 4:1–31) was added to the original core of Deuteronomy (Deut. 4:44—26:19, and chapter 28), Rofe argues, the interpolator decided to end this historical review with the short sermon. He further suggests that the Masoretic text shows signs of later, tendentious editing when compared to the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint: in the MT, the Israelites are all virtually prophets. On the date of Deuteronomy and various scholarly arguments connected thereto: Nicholson (1967), who favors a seventh-century dating.
35. Contrast Deut. 18:6–8 with 2 Kings 23:9; Josiah deposed the idolatrous priests, killing them and defiling the altars with their bones (2 Kings 23:5, 20); Deuteronomy provides no justification for this, having prescribed only a procedure for dealing with apostate prophets. See Tigay (1996: xx).
36. See on this Cogan (1974).
37. Kugel (1989).
38. Weinfeld (1972: 244–81).
39. Ibid., 333, 336–37.
40. Ibid., esp. 179–90. “Before us, then, are two theological schools, one of which is characterized by its theocentric and the other by its anthropocentric approach. The humanistic vein distinguishing the book of Deuteronomy has its roots . . . in wisdom teaching, which embodied the humanistic thought of the ancient Near East” (189).
41. See above, note 2.
42. See von Rad (1953: 37–44); Weinfeld (1962).
43. This is the theme of Weinfeld (1995). Note also Levinson (2002).
44. My thanks to my student Baruch Alster for this point.
45. See Cross (1973: 198–99).
46. All well catalogued in Schwartz (1996, esp. 123–30).
20. On the Way to Canaan
1. The child’s mention of the different categories of laws, “the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances,” indicates that this is a wise offspring.
2. There is some confusion in the sources, since, although the synoptic gospels seem to connect the Last Supper with Passover, John states that it occurred prior to Passover (John 19:14, 42). This may be a different tradition or an act of deliberate dissociation. See Bokser (1984: 25–26).
3. See further Kugel (1998: 750–52, 764–65).
4. Wellhausen (1957: 76).
5. A general reflection of some current thinking about the festivals: Soggin (2001).
6. Haran (1978: 320–21) and brief review of scholarship there.
7. Ibid. For an account of the transformation of this holiday from its earlier stages to its radical revision in Deuteronomy: Levinson (1997: 53–97), building on earlier scholarship; see Loewenstamm (1965, esp. 84–88).
8. Some scholars have asserted that the word p-s- represents two originally distinct roots that became homonymous, the first meaning to “hop” or “limp,” the second “to protect.” See Otto (1988: 31–35), and the discussion in Levinson (1997: 58), as well as Milgrom (2001: 1970–71). The only evidence for the existence of the second root in Hebrew is the somewhat ambiguous Isa. 31:5. In fact, Exod. 12:13 makes good sense if pasati means “I will hop over”: God will pass through Egypt striking every house (verse 12), but seeing the blood on the lintel, He will jump over the houses of the Israelites; the same understanding is reflected in Exod. 12:27. On the other hand, the presence of hiil in both the latter verse and Isa. 31:5 may support the “protect” thesis.
9. Two verses later, however, the text adds: “You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leaven, and the sacrifice of the festival of the Passover shall not be left until the morning (Exod. 34:25). Scholars thus see 34:18–25 as the combination of different sources.
10. On this passage and its radical refashioning of these holidays—necessitated by the Josianic requirement of the centralization of worship at the Jerusalem temple—see Levinson (1997: 53–97).
11. The connection with booths may derive from the little shelters (sukkot) that farmers customarily built in their fields spring and fall, both as a place to store their harvested crop safely and so as to enable them to do the maximum amount of harvesting before dark (since farmers often lived at some distance from their fields); they could sleep in the booths during the hottest part of the day and again at night and thus not lose time going back and forth to their homes. This may be why dwelling in booths came to be a stipulation of the holiday: “You shall dwell in booths for seven days” (Lev. 23:42). Tur-Sinai and some later writers have argued against this explanation on the grounds that Deut. 16:13 associates the Festival of Booths with the grain and grape harvests; but the grain harvest actually begins in the spring, as we have seen—long before this festival. What is more, this verse seems to be speaking not of harvesting produce, but of processing it once it has been harvested, since it speaks of gathering in from the “threshing floor” and the “vat,” not the field and the vineyard. Thus, the booths that gave this holiday its name cannot have been harvest booths. See Milgrom, (2001: 2048–49); the idea of building booths would instead have developed from the fact that the pilgrims who went to Jerusalem for this festival had to make booths for themselves as temporary dwellings; see Neh. 8:14–16. By contrast, Tigay, while admitting that Deut. 16:13 refers to the processing of earlier crops, has urged that the dwelling in booths is nevertheless connected to the harvest since it “symbolizes the harvest season just completed” (1996: 538).
12. Wellhausen (1957: 92).
13. See Kugel (1998: 667–68).
14. Cited at greater length in Milgrom (1991: 1068). See as well Milgrom’s earlier work on this subject, especially (1983) and (1986).
15. Knohl (1995: 27–34).
16. Milgrom (1991: 628).
17. Here I have simply elaborated on a suggestion of Milgrom (1991: 1061) although he ultimately sees a different purpose in the narrative (pp. 628–33).
18. Ibid., 1011.
19. If so, then Lev. 16:2 may not have been part of the original instructions about purifying the sanctuary but a later addition inspired by the opening words of the procedure itself, “Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place.”
20. Kugel (1998: 524–26).
21. See Heinemann (1970: 142); Kugel (1998: 789–90).
22. These were analyzed by Liver (1961).
23. See Cross (1998: 53–70).
21. Moses’ Last Words
1. See the discussion Hackett (1980), Hoftijzer and G. Van der Kooij (1991); M. Dijkstra (1995); Nuilleumeier (1996).
2. Hackett (1980: 29).
3. Of course the answer was: not necessarily. Scholars were quick to point out that the mention of Balaam’s name at Deir ‘Alla did not prove that there ever was a “real” Balaam, and even if there was, that his name had not simply been taken over by the biblical writer for an utterly fictional tale. See recently, R. P. Carroll (1997: 91–93).
4. Rofe (1979) (Hebrew) reviews previous scholarship and offers its own assessment; see also Moore (1990).
5. Rofe (ibid.) observed that the blessings mention “the LORD” only once, in a stock phrase (24:6), preferring otherwise to speak of divinity in general terms, whereas the prose narrative is all about the dominion of Israel’s particular God. This indicates, he says, that the source of the blessings was different from that of the prose (27–28).
6. Albright (1944).
7. Even if the introductory lines are original, they seem to highlight the disjunction between the blessings in chapter 24 and those of chapter 23: Balaam introduces himself as if he were an unknown quantity. Rofe (1999: 589).
8. Contrast this with Deuteronomy’s account of the incident, where Balaam seems to take a turn for the worse: “No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of their descendants shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord, because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam son of Beor, from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. (Yet the Lord your God refused to heed Balaam; the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loved you)” (Deut. 23:3–5). Unfortunately, this passage is hard to date, scholars say: the parenthetical remark may be an editorial gloss of much later vintage.
9. See on this Vermes (1973: 127–77); Kugel (1998: 799–810; 818–23).
10. “All your heart” was taken by rabbinic interpreters to mean with both the heart’s inclination to good (yeer ha-
ob) and its inclination to evil (yeser ha-ra‘)—see the passage Sifrei Deuteronomy 32 cited next. As for “with all your soul,” this might mean “even at the cost of your soul,” that is, even if you have to give up your life for the love of God. See Kugel (1998: 868–70). That left “with all your might.” The word me’od is rightly translated nowadays as “strength” or “might,” a translation that corresponds to the root meaning of m’d as reflected in Akkadian and Ugaritic. But in biblical Hebrew, me’od is usually an adverb meaning “very much.” Its precise meaning as a noun was thus less obvious to ancient interpreters than might appear nowadays. It is noteworthy while most ancient versions (Septuagint, Vulgate, Samaritan Pentateuch, etc.) render the word as “strength,” the New Testament citations (Mark 12:28, etc.—see below) render it as dianoia (“mind”). Still more striking is the version of Onqelos, which translates it as “wealth”; the same understanding is found in tannaitic commentaries. “Wealth” seems to parallel a secondary meaning of the Greek dunamis (the word used by the Septuagint and rendered in English as “might”); while this word primarily designates strength, it could also mean “wealth” in Hellenistic times. See Bauer (1979: 208). The same understanding is explicitly espoused in the Didascalia Apostolorum; see Kugel (1998: 868–70). It may be that this concrete meaning, “wealth,” was preferred precisely because it was able to be carried out (whereas loving God “with all your strength” seemed an odd assignment): should your love of God require you to sacrifice all your wealth, this interpretation held, then you must do it. (Cf. Song of Songs, 8:7, a rhetorical question.) Indeed, such an understanding would match that of “all your soul” in rabbinic sources as meaning “even if He should require to take your soul [= life].”