Exodus 18’s description of Jethro’s advice to Moses seems disconnected from its context. As Martin Hauge explains (Descent from the Mountain, 252), the story actually anticipates the entire narrative of chapters 19-40:“The story of the second day presents how parts of the Moses . . . . Continue Reading »
Recent studies of the Levitical system have questioned the “facile” links that commentators draw “between its ritual instructions and narratives, its theology, and Israel’s ritual practices” (James Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus, 15).Citing William Gilders . . . . Continue Reading »
James Watts (Ritual and Rhetoric, 87-88) calls attention to the repetitions of Leviticus 4-5, especially of the basic roots, cht (sin, sin offering) and ‘shm (guilt, trespass offering):“the refrain ‘sin that he sinned . . . as sin’ appears eight times (4:3, 14, . . . . Continue Reading »
Andrew Sullivan defends same-sex marriage as a “federalist” who is willing to wait for States to make the change. Not everyone is so patient, or Constitutional.CNN reports today that “Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department will issue a memo Monday that recognizes . . . . Continue Reading »
Lists typically don’t make for electrifying reading. Ancient lists in unknown languages less so. But in House Most High, A.R. George’s compilation of ancient Mesopotamian temple lists, the lists offer multiple insights into the structures of ancient religion.Topographical lists show . . . . Continue Reading »
For two and a half millennia, Mesopotamian cosmology saw the world as a multi-story universe. Wayne Horowitz (Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography) summarizes: “Sumerians and Akkadians understood the universe as consisting of superimposed levels separated by open space. From above to below, the . . . . Continue Reading »
“A tradition of seven heavens and seven earths was popular in the Near East during the later part of the first millennium B.C.E. and the first millennium C.E.,” writes Wayne Horowitz (Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, 217).He elaborates: “Surviving Hebrew and Arabic texts from this . . . . Continue Reading »
Yahweh destroys the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot escapes with his daughters to a cave, where they get their father drunk with wine, and seduce him, giving birth to Moab and Ammon.Late in Judges, Gibeah of Benjamin has become a Sodom, and Yahweh sends the rest of Israel to destroy the tribe of . . . . Continue Reading »
When there’s a famine in the land, people leave for brighter horizons. They find food; they multiply; they get rich.It happens to Abram in Egypt, to Jacob in Haran, to Israel in Egypt. Exile agrees with Israel; they always return with children and treasures.Except Naomi. She goes to Moab . . . . Continue Reading »
The gods fight back chaos and form a universe, and set up an image to mark the boundary of their ordered realm. A god instructs a king to build a temple, who places an image of the God in the inner sanctuary. The zones of ancient cosmology - heaven, sky, earth, sea, underworld - are populated by . . . . Continue Reading »
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