Objections raised to Moses as author: 1. Torah has no direct evidence of authorship – it is not “autographed”2. Different styles of writing are present – repetitive style of Gen. 17 is much different from dynamic style of Gen. 15 (both passages concern the covenant God made with Abraham)3. Use of names and facts from…

Eugene H. Maly provides this outline of Genesis with tentative ascription to the Yahwist, Elohist, and Priestly sources (The Jerome Biblical Commentary, pp. 9-10) I. Primitive History (1-11) (A1) Creation of World and Man (1:1-2:4a) (P)A. Creation of Man and Woman (2:4b-25) (J)B. The Fall (3:1-24) (J)C. Cain and Abel (4:1-16) (J)D. Genealogy of Cain…

Article This depiction of Abraham as an incapacitated golem at the beginning of the apocalyptic section seems deliberate. Having been forcefully uprooted from his previous social and physical environment, he is now “born” to a new life. In this respect, Abraham’s state mirrors an ancient statue’s condition whose process of vivification is often likened to…

Outside of the Jewish apocrypha, Greco-Roman pagan writers frequently refer to Abraham as an astrologer, sage, and philosopher. There are many examples of this. Alexander Polyhistor (1st century BC) says that Abraham discovered astrology, Berossus (3rd century BC) said that he was a sage of celestial bodies, Vettius Valens (2nd century AD) wrote astrology books…

Hoffmeier (1997): Kitchen (2003): Binder (2011): Shupak (2020): https://www.academia.edu/43827640/The_Egyptian_Background_of_the_Joseph_Story_Selected_Issues_Revisited

Article The Temple Structure

Article The text of 1 Kgs 9:11–14 Scholars debate whether 1 Kgs 9:11–14 is based on an actual source from the reign of Solomon preserving historical details, or is more ideology and fiction reflecting much later events or much later editorial/authorial concerns. Finkelstein (2013, 107) says the pericope ‘should probably be interpreted as an etiological…

Isaac Kalimi argues in Writing and Rewriting the Story of Solomon in Ancient Israel (Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 19-93 that much of the narratives about Solomon were probably based on earlier sources and records from his reign and that Solomon was likely a historical figure. Keimer (2020) argues that the biblical narrative of Solomon’s…

Article Various Jewish materials also display familiarity with notions of the heavenly storehouses/treasuries of light (Jer 10:13; 51:16, 4 Ezra 4:41; 7:80, 2 Baruch 21:23), souls (4 Ezra 4:35, 4 Ezra 4:41, 4 Ezra 7:80, 2 Bar. 21:23), blessings (1 Enoch 11:1), books (2 Enoch 22:11), and other phenomena. It is also possible that, in…

Article This article traces the evolution of the archangel Metatron from his inception to his identification with Enoch. It argues that the name Metatron was derived from the term metator, which was used in Palestine to describe the role of the angel of the Lord in Exod 23:20-21. It was only in Babylonia that Metatron…