Tanach Thoughts

According to Shmuel 1:10:21 , Shaul's family was part of a clan called Matri (Matrites). Curiously, in aggadic descriptions of Shaul's full genealogy all the way to Binyamin, Matar or Matri or Matari or something similar is nowhere to be found (see here ). Little is otherwise known about this clan. Ze'ev Erlich thought  that the Matrites lived in what is now known as Khirbet Rimnah, as nearby there's a later site called Khirbet al-Matari - evidently preserving the name of the Matrites. Both sites are located in the vicinity of the Gibdeonite cities, and since it's known that Shaul's family came from that region, this suggestion is quite plausible. The name of the forefather of the family, Matar or Matari or Matri, shares the root of MTR (מט"ר), 'rain' (often referring to abundant rain). However, a few days ago I came across another possibility: This article by Norbert Nebes (p. 19, line 3) mentions that in Ethio-Sabaean, a 1st millennium BCE Semiti...

A few weeks ago, one of my papers was accepted for publication by the Jewish Bible Quarterly! It's a paper on Hoham, king of Chevron (Hebron) during the time of the Israelite conquest of Canaan in Sefer Yehoshua. Yep, my favorite: Writing about details in Tanach no one thinks about twice. In this case, the most anyone's done is suggest etymologies for his name. One scholar suggested an Anatolian etymology for his name, from " ẖuẖ(ẖ)a " , meaning ‘grandfather’, with an added Hebrew suffix of " (-a)m " . In the paper I suggest a biblically-rooted etymology, which connects him to various giants mentioned in other books of Tanach, and then propose some background for this otherwise obscure figure. I won't spoil much, but I'll definitely link it here once it goes online (should be in about half a year)! In other news, tomorrow I'll be delivering a lecture on my Levitical Cities paper. I'm super nervous about it. But, in other other news, a non-Tan...

Last time I updated here on my Levitical Cities paper, it had just been rejected from a fairly prominent Israeli Tanach journal, and I was planning on moving on to a lower tier Tanach journal which is more conservative in its positions, as it's a Dati-founded-and-run journal. However, since then my academic advisor recommended trying at another fairly prominent journal, one which we (well, technically he) had decided originally would reject it. But after many subsequent edits to the original draft, he now thought it might have a chance. That chance started in May when I sent it in. I had hoped that the fact that it took them just over two months to get back to me meant that it had a very good chance, but unfortunately earlier today I was informed that it had been rejected yet again. So on to the Dati journal (basically because there aren't a lot of journals in Israel, and essentially only three that focus on Tanach). I feel let-down because I had too high-hopes that it had a g...

Sadly my Levitical Cities paper was rejected once again from the first journal it was sent to. To recap, I first sent it during winter of last year. It was summarily rejected but I was given the option of improving it and sending it in again. It took an entire year, but I finally managed to send it in a little over a month ago. But it has now been rejected once again. Still, largely it went better than last time. Last time it was rejected on the doorstep by the editor. This time it was at least passed along to peer reviewers, so I received a copy of their reviews. Probably mistakenly the editor also passed along a slightly corrected copy of the paper which showed who one of the reviewers was. I always blow out some air with a "pssshh" when I recognize a name. And yes, I recognized the name of the reviewer. He actually complemented me, despite thinking that the paper wasn't a good fit for that particular journal. He thought it should be sent to a different journal, which i...

It's no secret that things have been utterly crazy here in Israel for the last month, what with the massacre and the war and all that. While waiting to be drafted to the reserves, I spent some of my time working on various research projects and I'm pleased to say that on Tuesday I finally got the okay from my professor to send in again my paper on the Levitical cities, almost a year since it was rejected with the caveat that I could send it in again if I fixed it. So, a few minutes ago I finished editing it and sent it in. I hope it'll get accepted this time. If not, I'll have to find a different journal.

A couple of months ago I posted that I had sent in for the very first time an essay I wrote to an academic journal. Well, the editor has finally replied. She sent me a long list of comments. Some of the comments are technical, regarding writing form. But most of them are about the essence of the essay, and I'm not really sure what to make of them. The professor who assisted me in the research and writing suggested we find a time to sit and look over everything, so that's good. In other, but related news, I will be presenting a poster at the archeology department's young scholars conference this Thursday, on the same topic (the Levitical Cities of Yissachar). What that means is that I spent a week designing a poster and then refining and refining. All of this will culminate in about half an hour of me standing next to my poster, pretty much just hanging about (and answering questions should they come about). Kind of like a science fair... I was also asked to design a poster...

Big news! Last week I emailed out an academic-level essay that I had been working on for nearly a year (!!!) to an academic-level Tanach-studies journal in Israel. This is the first time that I've attempted to get one of my essays published outside of my yeshiva's monthly journal, which is only handed out in the yeshiva and it's also the first time that I'm trying to get published in an academic, peer-reviewed journal. This essay deals with the subject of the Levitical Cities and I offered up a theory of mine based on analyzing archeological findings of the cities in the territory of one specific tribe. Right now I'm not going to say too much on the theory because I'm holding out for the paper being published (whether in that journal or another one if it gets rejected). B"H I'll update on what happens - whether it gets accepted or is rejected and I'll be turning to a different journal.

Never mind now what animal the Tanachic Re'em was (my favorite opinion is Rabbi Ahron Marcus's, that it was the elephant, but I am aware that the popular opinion is that it was the Aurochs) , Re'em is usually spelled in Hebrew ראם, but there are some variants: רמים (sing. רם - Tehillim 22:22), ראים (Tehillim 92:11), רים (Iyov 39:9-10). Re'em appears to be connected to the word רם - Ram, great (in size). In other words, we are talking about a large animal. I noticed something interesting a couple of days ago. There are two cities in Tanach said to have been called Ramot - ראמות: One is Ramot in the Gilad ( one of the cities of refuge and a Levitical city - Devarim 4:43, Yehoshua 20:8, Chronicles 1:6:65) and the other is Ramot in the territory of Yissachar (later a Levitical city - Chronicles 1:6:58). Anyway, there's no huge chiddush here, I just find it interesting that the root ראם exists also in the names of cities that were likely high up, topographically-speaking...

*For those anxiously anticipating the continued adventures of the Danites (not) at sea, that will be B"H a later post, some time.  Besides for exams, I also need to hand in my first academic paper, for my academic writing course. The topic I'm researching is whether the Levitical Cities may have also been border-defense cities. Naturally, part of the research includes attempting to identify the locations of the cities and examining any archeological evidence uncovered so far. Which brings me to the topic of this post: The list of the cities appears in two places: Once in Yehoshua 21 and once in Chronicles 1:6 . The lists are not exactly the same and there are many theories on why this is so, which we won't get into now. My focus in this paper is the cities given by the Tribe of Yissachar. The list in Yehoshua reads :  Kishyon, Dovrat, Yarmut and Ein Ganim, while the list in Chronicles reads : Kadesh, Dovrat, Ramot and Anem. Once again, there are different theories on the ...