Publications

This book, on the ancient Near East and ancient Israel, contains analysis of their political, legal, cultural, and economic world. Specific topics include laws regarding marriage, rape, inheritance, and contracts; archaeological reconstruction of battles described in the Bible; analysis of the biblical texts concerning Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon; the family hearth in the ancient Near East; herding as represented in biblical texts; literary analysis of Genesis and the Dumuzi-Inana literature, and several philological examinations.

המשתתפים: גדעון גולדנברג, יהושע בלאו, יוסף יהלום, יוסף עופר, יורם ייבין.

Ten years ago, when Harvard professor James Kugel was diagnosed with an aggressive, likely fatal, form of cancer, “I was, of course, disturbed and worried. But the main change in my state of mind was that . . . the background music had suddenly stopped. . . . the music of daily life that’s constantly going, the music of infinite time and possibilities. Now suddenly it was gone, replaced by nothing, just silence. There you are, one little person, sitting in the late-summer sun, with only a few things left to do.” Despite his illness, Kugel was intrigued by this new state of mind; it seemed to reveal something basic about the religions that he had been studying for years.

In this wide-ranging exploration of religion throughout the ages, interspersed with personal reflection on the course of his illness, Kugel mines a rich store of sources in an attempt to understand mankind’s unending series of encounters with God, from ancient accounts of human meetings with gods and angels, to first-person narratives of religious conversions and the findings of neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists about religious belief. A rigorously honest, sometimes skeptical, but ultimately deeply moving affirmation of religious faith, In the Valley of the Shadow is a powerful meditation on humanity’s place in the world and life’s greatest mystery.

In Created Equal, Joshua Berman engages the text of the Hebrew Bible from a novel perspective, considering it as a document of social and political thought. He proposes that the Pentateuch can be read as the earliest prescription on record for the establishment of an egalitarian polity. What emerges is the blueprint for a society that would stand in stark contrast to the surrounding cultures of the ancient Near East — Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, and the Hittite Empire - in which the hierarchical structure of the polity was centered on the figure of the king and his retinue. Berman shows that an egalitarian ideal is articulated in comprehensive fashion in the Pentateuch and is expressed in its theology, politics, economics, use of technologies of communication, and in its narrative literature. Throughout, he invokes parallels from the modern period as heuristic devices to illuminate ancient developments. Thus, for example, the constitutional principles in the Book of Deuteronomy are examined in the light of those espoused by Montesquieu, and the rise of the novel in 18th-century England serves to illuminate the advent of new modes of storytelling in biblical narrative.

A companion tool to the study of the bible through the provision of the geographic and historic background of each event by means of a full color three-dimensional map and a short explanation of the factors leading up to it.

Analysis of the laws in Exodus and Leviticus that involve the sale of a daughter as a slave, the forced prostitution of a daughter, and a priest's daughter who is a prostitute. Relevant ancient Near Eastern and later Judaic laws are included in the analysis.

This volume contains a collection of prayers, hymns, psalms, and liturgies from Cave 4 at Qumran. Among them, 4QShirot Olat HaShabbat ('Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice') was preserved also in a copy from Cave 11. The other compositions include 4QNon-Canonical Psalms, 4QBerakhot ('Blessings'), 4QApocryphal Psalm, and 4QPrayer for King Jonathan. This collection of texts greatly enhances our understanding of intertestamental poetry, adding a rich continuation to the biblical tradition of praise and worship of God in poetry. Among other things, these compositions reveal more fully the Qumran community's understanding of the link between heavenly and earthly worship and the interaction of men and angels in the praise and service of God.

Using narrative devices such as allusions and free associations, multivalent expressions, and irony, the author of Esther wrote a story that is about a Jewish woman, Esther, during the time of the Persian exile of Yehudites, and the Persian king, Ahasuerus, who was in power at the time. At various junctures, the author also used secret writing, or we could say that he conveys mixed messages: one is a surface message, but another, often conflicting message lies beneath the surface. For instance, the outer portrayal of the king as one of the main protagonists is an ironic strategy used by the author to highlight the king’s impotent, indecisive, “antihero” status. He may wield authority—as symbolized by his twice-delegated signet ring—but he remains powerless. Among all the concealments in the story, the concealment of God stands out as the most prominent and influential example.

A growing number of scholars regard the book of Esther as a “comic diversion,” the function and intention of which are to entertain the reader. However, Grossman is more convinced by Mikhail Bakhtin’s approach, and he labels his application of this approach to the reading of Esther as “theological carnivalesque.” Bakhtin viewed the carnival (or the carnivalesque genre) as a challenge by the masses to the governing establishment and to accepted social conventions. He described the carnival as an eruption of ever-present but suppressed popular sentiments. The connection between the story of Esther and Bakhtin’s characterization of the carnivalesque in narrative is evident especially in the book of Esther’s use of the motifs of “reversal” and “transformation.” For example, the young girl Esther is transformed from an exiled Jewess into a queen in one of the turnabouts that characterize the narrative. Many more examples are provided in this analysis of one of the Bible’s most fascinating books.

פירוש קולח ומפתיע בסגנונו לששת הפרקים הראשונים בספר ישעיהו, כפי שנתפרשו בידי הרב מדרכי ברויאר ז"ל לפני כארבעים שנה. כתב היד נמצא בעיזבונו של הרב ברויאר לאחר פטירתו, ורואה אור בנוסחו המקורי ביזמה משותפת של בני המשפחה והוצאת תבונות. הפירוש נערך בידי פרופ' יוסף עופר, תלמידו של הרב ברויאר, והוא משלים את סדרת כתבי הרב ברויאר הרואה אור בהוצאת תבונות.