Tanach Thoughts

  (Image from Shay Charka 's נגיד שבבא בתנ"ך (highly recommended)) Ask just about any bible academic, and they'll tell you that whoever authored Chronicles was basically writing pro-Davidic propaganda. Okay, pro-Davidic-- as opposed to what? Pro-Shaulian, of course. That's right, Am Yisrael's first official king (setting aside whatever halachic status Moshe may have held, and also, l'havdil, setting aside Avimelech, son of Gidon), King Shaul, while mentioned in Chronicles, doesn't get that much limelight, certainly nowhere close to that of David (David's kingdom covers almost all of Chronicles 1, and most of Chronicles 2 is dedicated to his descendants' stories). Bible critics are quick to notice this, and generally deduce that this means that the author of Chronicles was anti-Shaul and pro-Davidic, and did everything in his power to reduce Shaul's role in the history of Am Yisrael. Now me, I believe in our sages' tradition that Chronicles ...

 Malbim on Chronicles 1:9:2  writes that ch. 9 is parallelized by chapter 11 of Nechemiah. The two complete one another. Each is based on different info sources that were in front of Ezra (Nechemiah originally being part of the Book of Ezra). Per this, I had an idea earlier today to try and recreate the full list. I did this by first making a chart that compared both chapters (Apologies in advance that it's only in Hebrew at the moment): דברי הימים א' ט' נחמיה י"א וְכָל יִשְׂרָאֵל הִתְיַחְשׂוּ וְהִנָּם כְּתוּבִים עַל סֵפֶר מַלְכֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וִיהוּדָה הָגְלוּ לְבָבֶל בְּמַעֲלָם.   וְהַיּוֹשְׁבִים הָרִאשֹׁנִים אֲשֶׁר בַּאֲחֻזָּתָם בְּעָרֵיהֶם יִשְׂרָאֵל הַכֹּהֲנִים הַלְוִיִּם וְהַנְּתִינִים. וַיֵּשְׁבוּ שָׂרֵי הָעָם בִּירוּשָׁלָ‍ִם וּשְׁאָר הָעָם הִפִּילוּ גוֹרָלוֹת לְהָבִיא אֶחָד מִן הָעֲשָׂרָה לָשֶׁבֶת בִּירוּשָׁלַ‍ִם עִיר הַקֹּדֶשׁ וְתֵשַׁע הַיָּדוֹת בֶּעָרִים. וַיְבָרֲכוּ הָעָם לְכֹל הָאֲנָשִׁים ...

 Warning: This post is at least a little political, so if that's not your thing, feel free to not read. :) As mixed Jewish and Arab cities in Israel continue burning, many people, myself among them, have been thinking about the myth of multiculturalism. A concept pushed by the West, that all cultures can coexist peacefully. I say myth, because I think the last week or so bear evidence that this claim is not true. This eventually led me to wonder what the Tanach says about multiculturalism. Of course, the Torah already tells us "You shall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt where you dwelt, or of the land of Canaan to which I am taking you; nor shall you follow their laws" ( Vayikra 18:3 ). From this verse and surrounding ones we have the halachot of "chukot hagoyim" and "darkei ha'emori"; i.e. t not follow the practices of the non-Jews. But say we don't follow their ways and merely allow them to coexist with us, or say we don't foll...

 Been awhile. But I thought I would put forward this idea suggested by my (new) Tanach chavruta: We started learning Ezra and Nechemiah Wednesday before last. When we reached ch. 2 he suggested that the list of the leadership of Shivat Tzion - Zerubavel, Yeshua, Nechemiah, S'rayah, Ra'alyah, Mordechai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rechum, Ba'anah - corresponds to the sub-groups that came with them to Eretz Yisrael: Families from Yehudah, Binyamin, Levi, Kohanim and the Bnei Netinim - descendants of the slaves of Shlomo who converted. Very interesting theory, but does it hold water? Zerubavel - Yehudah. Yeshua - Kohen Nechemiah - unknown (whether or not this is Nechemiah Hatirshata, author of Nechemiah is unknown, but either way, his tribal identity is, at least according to p'shat, unknown. S'rayah - unknown, some believe this may be S'rayah Hakohen, last KG of the First Temple. Ra'alyah - unknown. Mordechai - likely the  Mordechai, so Binyamin. Bilshan - unknow...

 For about 2.5 months now I've been working nearly non-stop on what is probably one of my most ambitious and crazy ideas ever: creating a family tree for all of the people of Israel mentioned in the Tanach, from the twelve sons of Yaakov all the way down to the last generation of people of the 2nd Temple era mentioned in Ezra, Nechemiah and Chronicles. I would say that about 98% of the names mentioned in the Tanach are now in the tree document I've made. The next phase is working out all of the kinks of calculating who lived when, because the Tanach isn't always 100% clear on that (although, as a friend of mine put it: was it written in a chaotic, confusing manner, or do you simply not understand how the order works?) Right now I'm focusing on the 2nd Temple era. It seems that all agree that Yeshua/Yehoshua the Kohen Hagadol was indeed the direct grandson of the former Kohen Hagadol S'raya, son of S'raya's son Yotzadak/Yehotzadak. However, there are disagree...