First published Tanach paper!

I'm happy to share that my first Tanach paper has been published and is now available online:

Hoham, King of Hebron, Jewish Bible Quarterly 53:2 (2025), pp. 87-96. It can be found both on the issue's webpage and on academia.edu.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pre-Islamic Arabian Dust Worship

One of my interests is researching idolatrous practices mentioned in Tanach and later Jewish sources. For the last three years or so, I've been conducting an on-and-off search for the possible identity of a deity hinted at in this section of the Talmud, tractate  Bava Metzia 86b : "The Gemara continues its analysis of the verse: “Let now a little water be fetched and wash your feet” ( Genesis 18:4 ). Rabbi Yannai, son of Rabbi Yishmael, said that the guests said to Abraham: Are you suspicious that we are  Arabs who bow to the dust of their feet ?" It is reasonable to conclude that the sages were aware of an Arabian pagan cult that practiced some form of dust worship. Last year I discovered that one of my professors shares this interest in researching idolatry and even wrote his doctorate on idol worship mentioned in Talmudic literature, although he was focused on particular pagan religions (Greece, Rome, and a couple of others) and didn't analyze this quote. But I did...
Read more

Anakim, Rephaim, oh my!

This week's parsha features Bnei Yisrael passing through Edom and the two Emorite countries - Sichon's country and Og's country ( Bamidbar 21:21-35 ). Og was the last of the Rephaim ( Devarim 3:11 ), a race of giants that were wiped out way back during the War of the Four and Five Kings in Beresheet ( 14:5 ). Some midrashim state that Sichon was also a giant, of the antediluvian kind (for example, Devarim Rabbah 11:10 ). Looking through Tanach it occurred to me that giants might be frightening, but they obviously aren't unbeatable. David and his men defeated a number of giants, and, as mentioned already, the four Mesopotamian kings managed to defeat the Rephaim. And yet, two parshas ago, when the spies told Bnei Yisrael that there were Anakim in the Land of Yisrael ( Bamidbar 13:28 ), Kalev and Yehoshua said nothing about "hey, guys, giants are not unbeatable!" Kalev made a more generalized statement, that "yes we can, because we have Hashem!" ( ibid...
Read more

Compilation of names of nameless figures in Tanach

Just sharing a cool resource I came across yesterday: A Hebrew Wikipedia entry that lists suggested names of figures who are nameless in Tanach, along with references to many sources (e.g., the classic Avraham's mother was Amtalai bat Karnevo from the Talmud, but also Kayin's wife was Hoyah according to a list brought in Keter Aram Tzova, and so forth). Of course, they don't have everything (I've come across a few that aren't listed and I'll do my best to add them soon, once I figure out how to navigate that template), but it's still a treasure load of information.  
Read more