Julia Rhyder

Winner – 2021 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise. Reviewed in:
Vetus Testamentum, 72, no. 2 (2022): 348–350.
https://brill.com/view/journals/vt/72/2/article-p348_13.xml
Review of Biblical Literature (05/2022):
https://www.sblcentral.org/API/Reviews/13524_72038.pdf
Review of Biblical Literature (03/2022):
https://www.sblcentral.org/home/bookDetails/13524
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 45, no. 5 (Book List 2021) :
https://doi-org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/10.1177/030908922110017
Rivista Biblica Italiana 69, no. 2 (2021), 277–82
https://www.academia.edu/77359238/Recensioni_03_Bianchi_J_Rhyder_Centralizing_the_Cult_The_Holiness_Legislation_in_Leviticus_17_26_FAT_134_Mohr_Siebeck_T%C3%BCbingen_2019_
Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 83, no. 1 (2021): 131–33.
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/781558
Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 133, no. 2 (2021): 288–89.
https://doi-org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/10.1515/zaw-2021-2007
AJS Review, 44, no. 2 (2020): 414–16.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0364009420000148
Old Testament Abstracts, 43 (2020): 885–86.
Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtgeschichte 26 (2020): 321–24.
https://doi-org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/10.13173/zeitaltobiblrech.26.2020.0321

This work provides new insights into the relationship between the Holiness legislation in Leviticus 17–26 and processes of cultic centralization in the Persian period. The author departs from the classical theory that Leviticus 17–26 merely presume, with minor modifications, a concept of centralization articulated in Deuteronomy. She shows how Leviticus 17–26 use ritual legislation to make a new, and distinctive case as to why the Israelites must defer to a central sanctuary, standardized ritual processes, and a hegemonic priesthood. This discourse of centralization reflects the historical challenges that faced priests in Jerusalem during the Persian era: in particular, the need to compensate for the loss of a royal sponsor, to pool communal resources in order to meet socio-economic pressures, and to find new means of negotiating with the sanctuary at Mount Gerizim and with a growing diaspora.

https://books.google.ch/books?id=h_u1DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

This Open Access volume reveals how violent pasts were constructed by ancient Mediterranean societies, the ideologies they served, and the socio-political processes and institutions they facilitated. Combining case studies from Anatolia, Egypt, Greece, Israel/Judah, and Rome, it moves beyond essentialist dichotomies such as “victors” and “vanquished” to offer a new paradigm for studying representations of past violence across diverse media, from funerary texts to literary works, chronicles, monumental reliefs, and other material artefacts such as ruins. It thus paves the way for a new comparative approach to the study of collective violence in the ancient world.

Does "authorship" still have a place in the study of the Hebrew Bible? Historical criticism has long sought to uncover the human authors behind the biblical texts. But how might the "death of the author," so forcefully declared by Roland Barthes over fifty years ago, change the contours of this search? This volume brings together leading experts in the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, cuneiform texts and cognate literature to reimagine the literary and discursive functions of "authorship" in ancient Israel. Bridging the gap between theoretical reflection and exegetical practice, the volume explores key features of biblical texts, from anonymity to divine speech, scribal editing to textual fluidity, to reveal the complex and varied author functions that shaped biblical literature.
Reviewed in:
Catholic Biblical Quarterly 86 (2024): 400–3.
https://doi-org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/10.1353/cbq.2024.a924388
Review of Biblical Literature (03/2024)
https://www.sblcentral.org/home/bookDetails/1002218?search=Rhyder&type=0
Svensk exegetisk årsbok, 88, no. 1 (2023): 225–77.
https://publicera.kb.se/sea/article/view/12895
Theologische Literaturzeitung, 148 (2023): 818–19
https://www.thlz.com/artikel/23769/?recherche=%26o%3Da%26autor%3Drhyder%26s%3D1%23r2
Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 135, no. 1 (2023): 130–31
https://www-degruyter-com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/document/doi/10.1515/zaw-2023-1007/html

This volume maps the conceptual and methodological issues that currently inform the study of text and ritual in the Pentateuch, and offers new insights by contrasting the relationship between text and ritual in ancient Israel with that of other ancient Mediterranean societies. It offers essays written by specialists of the ritual texts of ancient Anatolia, Egypt, Greece, and Mesopotamia, as well as detailed treatments of pentateuchal ritual texts and the evidence of their earliest reception.
Reviewed in:
Review of Biblical Literature, (05/2024)
https://www.sblcentral.org/home/bookDetails/1000888
Vetus Testamentum 72, no. 1 (2022): 168–70
https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-00001147-03
Themelios 42, no 2 (2022): 391–92
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/review/text-and-ritual-in-the-pentateuch-a-systematic-and-comparative-approach/
Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS) 59, no. 2 (2022): 313–19,
https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/auss/vol59/iss2/21

This special issue of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel explores the complex ways in which collective violence was memorialized in Judean narrative traditions from the Iron Age II to the turn of the common era. The issue comprises five articles written by contributors to an international research project, “Transforming Memories of Collective Violence in the Hebrew Bible,” led by Sonja Ammann at the University of Basel. The contributors analyze the processes by which narratives of collective violence evolved in response to historical events and the manner in which, as part of shared cultural memory, they contributed to identity formation and the legitimation of socio-political institutions in antiquity. The contributors especially address the complex issues that surround the agency of groups who experienced and perpetrated acts of violence in ancient Israel and Judah, with the aim of moving beyond simplistic dichotomies such as “victim” and “victor” when describing the literary representation of collective violence in the Bible and related traditions.

For a PDF of the full article, please email me juliarhyder@fas.harvard.edu.
This article analyzes the proclamation of Antiochus III concerning the temple and city of Jerusalem, quoted in Ant. 12.145–46, in light of three sets of evidence: Greek comparative materials from the broader Mediterranean world; biblical and Second Temple writings; and archaeological remains from Hellenistic Jerusalem, especially those that attest to the presence of non-sacrificial animals in the city. The evidence suggests that Ant. 12.145–46 preserves traces of an authentic proclamation, written in the style of a Greek ritual norm and probably with royal backing. We should not conclude from this, however, that the proclamation reflects the reality of how all Jews in Jerusalem conceptualized the purity of the temple and their obligations when butchering and tanning their animals within the city. I rather argue for a more complex interpretive approach that views royal edicts as fueling local debates surrounding temple purity, the sacred economy, and priestly prerogatives in Hellenistic Jerusalem.

Winner – 2021 David Noel Freedman Award for Excellence and Creativity in Hebrew Bible Scholarship.
Highly Commended – 2023 Sophie Coe Prize in Food History.

Please email me for a full PDF (juliarhyder@fas.harvard.edu).
Pig avoidance is among the most famous and well studied of the customs described in the Hebrew Bible. Commonly the ban on consuming pork has been considered evidence of the importance of dietary prohibitions in establishing boundaries between Israel and neighboring groups. I argue, however, that differentiation from other ethnicities by means of diet was not the only function that the pig prohibition served in ancient Israel. In fact, the relevant biblical texts are as much, if not more, concerned with employing the pig prohibition as a device by which cultic norms as well as dietary customs within the Israelite community were standardized. With the accounts of the Maccabean rebellion in the second century BCE, the pig assumes a greater signi cance in identity formation, but even in these traditions, the relationship between pig avoidance and ethnic boundaries is more complex than is o en assumed. Detailed analysis of the references to the pig in Lev 11, Deut 14, Isa 56-66, and 1 and 2 Maccabees, along with the study of archaeological evidence and comparative materials from the ancient Near East and ancient Mediterranean more broadly, reveals the multiplicity of factors that shaped the emergence of pig avoidance as a central custom in ancient Judaism.

For a full PDF, please email me at juliarhyder@fas.harvard.edu.
The temple vision of Ezek 40-48 devotes considerable attention to measuring and describing the various gates and entrances of the temple compound. Previous studies have tended to focus on the defensive function of the gates. However, these structures not only bar entry but also facilitate access to the temple under certain ritualized conditions. Offering a close reading of the references to the gates in Ezek 40-48, in which particular roles and activities are associated with specific entrances, this article shows how these architectural features of the temple map a differential system in which social hierarchies are organized according to the level, direction, and timing of access ascribed to different groups and individuals within the temple compound. The article concludes by exploring the significance of the gates for how we understand the literary genre of the temple vision of Ezek 40-48, and in particular its nature as a social utopia.

Cet article examine le rôle du porc dans les sources anciennes qui relatent le violent affrontement entre Antiochus IV Épiphane et les Juifs au deuxième siècle avant notre ère. En comparant des passages pertinents de 1 et 2 Maccabées, de Josèphe, de la Bibliothèque historique de Diodorus Siculus et de 4 Maccabées, je soutiens qu’il existe une bien plus grande diversité dans la représentation du porc que ce qui a été reconnu jusqu’à présent ; alors que les sources juives plus anciennes insistent sur la question des pratiques sacrificielles et sur la souillure du Temple qui en dérive, les sources d’époque romaine considèrent le porc à travers le prisme du régime alimentaire juif. Cette diversité illustre donc de manière importante les multiples façons dont les animaux impurs pouvaient être liés aux questions d’identité juive dans les anciennes traditions, ainsi que les rôles complexes qu’ils pouvaient joués dans la narration des épisodes violents du passé.

This article explores how the priestly wilderness shrine functions as a monumental space in the sanctuary construction account of Exod 25–31, 35–40. It draws on spatial theory and studies of monumental architecture to identify five features of the tent of meeting that infuse it with monumentality: first, its significance in negotiating the patron-client relationship between Yhwh and Israel; second, the collective energy and material resources required to construct it; third, its ingenious design as a mobile shrine; fourth, the manner in which its construction pattern mirrors monumental temple building projects described in royal inscriptions; and fifth, its role in commemorating the imagined time of socio-cultic unity of the Israelites at Sinai. The article concludes by exploring the link between monumentality and centrality, and by examining how the image of the priestly wilderness sanctuary might have re- inforced the need for the centralization of collective attention and resources in the Yahwistic cult of the post-monarchic period.

This article analyzes the nexus between collective violence, temple violation, and military glory in 1 and 2 Maccabees by comparing two festivals established in the context of revolt and guerilla warfare; namely, Hanukkah and Nicanor’s Day. It argues that the accounts of the origins of these two festivals in 1 and 2 Maccabees reinforce the close connection between the violation of the temple cult and violence against the community in the memories of the Maccabean rebellion that the authors of these books promote. The article further suggests that the annual celebration of Hanukkah and Nicanor’s day was intended to provide sophisticated mnemonic legitimation of the Hasmonean claim to exercise both military and cultic agency as kings and high priests in Judea.

In this introduction to the issue of the journal Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel entitled "Transforming Memories of Collective Violence", we aim to offer a definition of collective violence, before turning to address the main theoretical issues that pertain to the memorializing of collective violence in Judean narrative traditions. Then, following a brief description of the contribution of each of the articles in this issue, we conclude by outlining the key areas of future research on collective violence that the present issue identifies.

This article reviews the textual transmission of the ban on local butchery in Leviticus 17:3–4. It explores the importance of the manuscripts from the Dead Sea, in particular 4QLevd and 11Q19, for interpreting the plus at verse 4, attested in the Septuagint and in the Samaritan Pentateuch, as well as the change in address in v. 3, which is found in the Septuagint. In contrast to certain recent studies that treat these textual variants as evidence of ancient attempts to tone down the totalizing ban on local butchery, this article concludes that the plus in verse 4, as well as the gloss in verse 3, reinforces the ban on slaughter outside the sanctuary.

This article examines the innovative focus on sabbath observance that characterizes the Holiness legislation (“H”). By comparing H’s conception of the sabbath with what is known about this sacred time from other biblical and extrabiblical sources, the article demonstrates that H creatively blends two aspects of the sabbath that were not always connected; first, the idea, already present in the Decalogue and Gen 2:2–3, that the sabbath is a time of cessation held every seventh day, and second, more traditional associations of sabbath with sacrificial rites at the shrine. The article concludes by assessing the implications of H’s dual requirements of the sabbath observance—that is, both the cessation of labor and the accompanying sanctuary rituals—for contextualizing the H materials in the history of ancient Israel. It suggests that the prominence of sabbath in Lev 17–26 may not reflect H’s origins in the “templeless” situation of the Babylonian exile, as is often argued. H’s distinctive concept of sabbath may rather reflect a Persian period context, when collective obligations to the cult were renegotiated to ensure the success of the Second Temple.

This article examines the instruction regarding the wood offering and the festival of new oil in fragment 23 of 4QReworked Pentateuch C (4Q365), and in particular its setting at a future temple (‫בית‬) in the land. It argues that while 4Q365 23 represents a departure from earlier versions of Leviticus, it should be considered nonetheless as part of an authoritative version of this book. In introducing the new temple and its rituals, the addition develops notions already present within priestly ritual legislation concerned with the community's obligations towards the wilderness sanctuary. 4Q365 23 therefore has the potential to progress the present debate concerning the priestly traditions of the Pentateuch and cult centralization. In projecting the ritual obligations established at the wilderness shrine onto a future temple, the fragment throws new light on the way in which ritual legislation was used to promote a centralized cult in ancient Israel.

Full text available at http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/15685179-12341425

This note examines Lauren Monroe’s recent suggestion that a Holiness (H) substratum can be detected in the ritual and cultic elements of Josiah’s reform in 2Kgs 23. Critical review of Monroe’s arguments suggests that she is correct that the extent of non-D language evident in 2Kgs 23 is an issue requiring re-examination. However, the specific connections she identifies between 2Kgs 23 and H are ultimately uncompelling.

Early Jewish writings are replete with narratives of warfare and collective violence. Yet relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to how these accounts of violence affected the way Jews structured their festal calendar. This essay examines the festivals described in 1 and 2 Maccabees that serve to commemorate the most impressive military victories of the Maccabean revolt in the second century BCE—namely, Hanukkah, Nicanor’s Day, and Simon’s Day. Paying attention to the similarities and differences between the festal texts of 1 and 2 Maccabees, I argue that the two books employ a common commemorative strategy to foster a positive collective memory of the violence of the Maccabean revolt that could both legitimize the founding figures of the Hasmonean dynasty and compete with the commemorative cultures of other Hellenistic communities. This evidence of commemorative creativity and cultural adaptation by the authors of 1 and 2 Maccabees sheds valuable light on how the memorialization of violence in the ancient Mediterranean was shaped not simply by the ideologies and institutions of discrete societies but also by their intersections and cross-cultural borrowings.

This essay revisits three texts that have long proved key to scholarly reconstructions of Deuteronomy’s influence and innovation in regulating the location of sacrifice; namely, Deut 12, Exod 20:22–26, and Lev 17. Scholars continue to place heavy weight on the question of the relative chronology of these three passages. The dominant assumption remains that, if it can be proven that Deut 12:13-18 (at least) predates the latter two texts, this would necessitate reading Exod 20:22–26 as a critical reaction to D, and Lev 17 as a modified acceptance of its commands. Alternatively, should it be accepted that Deut 12:13–18 critically appropriated the altar law of Exod 20:24, then this would effectively end the debate about how many locations of sacrifice could be permitted in later legislation. This essay argues, however, that we should not fall into the trap of assuming that centralizing discourses developed in a linear way after the composition of Deut 12:13–18. Nor should we imagine that all later texts that dealt with the question of the location of sacrifice and slaughter were always referring back to D. Following a brief discussion of the development of centralization as a legislative theme in Deut 12, the essay offers a fresh evaluation of the degree to which D’s centralization mandate shaped how later scribes approached laws dealing with centrifugal or centripetal sacrificial practice. A brief conclusion then addresses the implications of the analysis for the study of Deuteronomy and its influence on other pentateuchal traditions.

This essay explores the relationship between theology and politics in 2 Maccabees by examining how the book’s depiction of divine epiphanies, battle prayers, and the deaths of pious Jews together serve to reinforce the image of Judas as God’s chosen means of ensuring that the people and temple are defended against harm. Each of these aspects of 2 Maccabees, this essay contends, advances a sophisticated “political theology” that serves to legitimize the military and cultic agency of the Hasmonean dynasty in Judea. A brief conclusion outlines the significance of the essay’s main findings for the study of 2 Maccabees and its possible context of composition.

For a full PDF, please email me at juliarhyder@fas.harvard.edu. What is the significance of the claim made in certain biblical texts and Second Temple traditions that their laws emanated from Israel’s patron divinity? This essay traces the development of the divine voicing of the law from the Covenant Code to its spatial and situational embedding in Deuteronomy, the Priestly traditions, and the divine “tablet texts” of Exodus, and compare these to Ezekiel’s “law of the temple” and later traditions such as Jubilees and the Temple Scroll. While divine authorship remained a constant literary strategy for investing Israel’s legislative traditions with authority from the Iron Age II to the Hellenistic period, there was a rich diversity in how the deity’s role as legislative author was conceived. This, in turn, should prevent us from treating the question of the historical origins of divine voicing as providing a totalizing explanation of Yhwh’s “author function”. Instead, it was the capacity of divine authorship to change over time that enabled it to endure as a literary strategy.

This essay examines three cases in which pentateuchal ritual law is employed in Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles: the Sukkôt celebration in Neh 8:13–18, Hezekiah’s Passover in 2 Chr 30, and Josiah’s Passover, in 2 Chr 35:1–19. These case studies reveal that the scribes responsible for Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles considered the ritual texts of the Pentateuch to offer relevant guides for how ritual action should be ideally configured—a conclusion that broadly affirms the role of pentateuchal texts in setting ritual standards. However, while the scribes responsible for these texts accepted the normative authority of the law, they did not view it in a rigidly prescriptive manner. Ritual laws seem rather to have been understood as providing exemplars of ritual action that were compatible with innovation and able to be negotiated with respect to other authorities, be they written or customary. The ritual law also appears to serve functions that extend beyond that of providing a ritual standard. The essay concludes by exploring what scholars stand to gain if we test our theories about the probable usage of pentateucal ritual materials against early Second Temple evidence. Beyond this, it explores the possible implications of early Second Temple evidence for our understanding of the more general effect of the textualization of ritual, as conceived by ritual theorists.

This essay examines select Priestly texts that describe the roles of leaders from the northern and southern tribes in the wilderness cult: the texts of Exod 25–31, 35–40 that concern the sanctuary artisans Bezalel (from the tribe of Judah) and Oholiab (from the tribe of Dan), chosen to lead the construction of the wilderness shrine; the description in Num 1–10 of the positions assumed by the tribes and their leaders in the wilderness camp; and the reference to the Judean chief Nahshon in the genealogy of Phinehas preserved in Exod 6:13–27. On the basis of this analysis, the essay argues that the Priestly materials preserve subtle evidence of “Judean bias” in the description of the foundational cult, in which southern leaders are subtly affirmed and the north given a secondary role. This finding presents a challenge to recent studies which have argued that Samarian and Judean priestly scribes played equal roles in the shaping of the Priestly materials, or that northern scribes were principally responsible for their composition. It rather suggests a reduced influence of cultic leaders from Gerizim on the formation of the Priestly materials when compared to scribes from Judah, even in very late stages of their development. The essay concludes by considering the significance of this finding for reconstructing the possible scribal interventions by both Samarian and Jerusalem authorities in different pentateuchal traditions, and for interpreting the Pentateuch as the common scriptures of diverse groups of Yhwh-worshippers in the Persian period.

https://www.thetorah.com/article/israel-be-holy-a-command-for-religious-conformity
The sanctification of all Israel in Leviticus 17–26—expanding the obligation to be holy from the priests to a collective requirement for all Israelites—further elevates the priesthood to a hegemonic social position.

The emergence of Judaism and Samaritanism in antiquity is closely linked to the process by which the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) became defined as the Torah of Moses. https://www.bibleodyssey.org:443/passages/main-articles/torah-genesis-deuteronomy

Jewish festivals enshrine memories of the past in ways that fit the changing dynamics and needs of Jewish communities. While most of the festivals noted in the Hebrew Bible originated as agricultural celebrations, they were eventually invested with historical associations by the biblical authors. The festival of Passover, for example, most likely originated as a spring festival, but gained additional meaning as the historical commemoration of the exodus from Egypt. During the Hellenistic period (ca. 323–31 B.C.E), an additional commemorative dimension was assigned to certain Jewish festivals remembering important military victories in Judea, thereby giving war a new prominence in Jewish ritual practice.
https://www.bibleodyssey.org/passages/related-articles/commemoration-of-war-in-early-jewish-festivals

This online seminar series will explore the complex interplay between the depiction of victory and defeat, vanquishing and being vanquished, in historical narratives of collective violence from the ancient Near East and ancient Mediterranean. International scholars will lead the weekly 60-minute sessions, presenting a wide range of case studies that illustrate the diverse strategies by which battles, revolts, and other episodes of collective violence were memorialized in antiquity, and the ideological, religious, and political interests that shaped their commemoration.

All are welcome to join us online! Please register at: https://unibas.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIkf-CupjsiH9BMZGLfRLlS0u3zzwxGAmTb

First Samuel 14:31–35 recounts a curious tale of transgressive consumption at the battle of Michmash. Saul’s troops fall upon the spoil of their enemies, slaughter the animals on the ground, and eat ꜥ al-haddam. The precise activity designated by the expression wayyo’kal haꜥam ꜥal-haddam has long been a matter of scholarly debate. This paper revisits 1 Sam 14:31–35 with a particular focus on the spatiality of the troops’ wrongdoing, paying attention, first, to the claim that they slaughtered ’ārsâ  “groundward” and, second, that they ate ꜥ al-haddam. I argue that the locative ending in ’ārsâ indicates that the troops slaughtered the animals so that their blood would drain into the earth—an action that is broadly similar to chthonic rites known from Greece and other ANE contexts. I then turn to analyze the expression wayyo’kal haꜥam ꜥal-haddam, arguing that the preposition ꜥal should not be understood with the comitative sense of eating meat “with” the blood, but rather with the locational sense of eating “upon” or “over” the blood. By comparing 1 Sam 14:31-35 with Lev 19:26 and Ezek 33:25, where the expression occurs in in texts denouncing divination or other non-Yahwistic cultic practices, I conclude that the troops ate “over the blood” to solicit oracular messages from the dead or other chthonic powers. This interpretation, in turn, suggests that 1 Sam 14:31–35 was integrated into the account of Saul’s disastrous battle oath (1 Sam 14:24–30, 36–46) because it advanced the narrative theme of how transgressive consumption, on the one hand, and divination, on the other, contributed to the events that unfolded during the king’s conflict with the Philistines.

One of the most important questions in the scholarly discussion surrounding theocracy is the extent to which the biblical traditions promote the extension of priestly authority beyond cultic practice to include civic matters. In her seminal 2000 monograph Zadok’s Heirs, Deborah Rooke insists that the high priest, while clearly an important figure in the Bible, was never invested with authority beyond the cultic sphere. Rooke’s argument largely aligns with the studies of Lisbeth Fried, from 2004, and Jeremiah Cataldo, in 2009, who insisted that there is no historical evidence to suggest that the Jerusalem priesthood enjoyed significant power in the government of the province of Yehûd in the Persian period, and thus no evidence of an operative theocracy. This discussion has offered an important corrective to earlier models that tended to assume a rather direct transfer of political authority to the high priest of Jerusalem following the demise of the Davidic dynasty. However, some of these recent approaches rely on a rather false distinction between “cult” and “politics,” and a somewhat narrow focus on the evidence (or lack thereof) of a priestly government when assessing the types of priestly authority that were promoted in the Persian period. The challenge is to determine whether the biblical materials might evince a range of strategies used by Persian-period elites whereby priestly power over communal matters was not only consolidated, but also expanded into extra-sanctuary domains: put another way, strategies that might not promote a form a priestly government that we might recognize as “theocracy” in a strict sense, but rather attest to the wide range of discursive tactics that served to consolidate priestly power in a centralizing manner. In this paper, I argue that the promotion of centralized standards of ritual and communal behavior provides one valuable, and yet rarely studied conceptual lens for interrogating how the Priestly legislative texts normalize not only the concentration of cultic power into a hegemonic priesthood, but also the expansion of priestly power beyond the sanctuary. Even if these texts do not go so far as to explicitly advocate for a type of priestly government that might be indicative of a “theocracy,” in the sense of a direct form of leadership of cultic elites over civic matters, this standardizing discourse arguably provides the conceptual scaffolding for the gradual expansion of priestly power into economic and political domains.

The inscriptional evidence from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud has played a central role in the debates that surround Yhwh’s geographical origins. Much of the discussion has focused on the inscriptions that mention “Yhwh of Teman” and “Yhwh of Samaria.” However, recent scholarship has turned its attention to a fragmentary text (KA 4.2) written on plaster that features a poetic description of a theophany. It has been suggested that the language of KA 4.2 finds its closest parallels in biblical passages that ascribe a southern origin to Yhwh, and may therefore constitute a specifically southern theophany tradition. This paper, in contrast, by comparing the poetic language employed in KA 4.2 with a variety of biblical poetic texts, shows that the “theophany” inscription cannot be reduced to an allegedly southern theophany tradition. The inscription rather echoes with a variety of biblical theophoric texts, while also employing terms that have no clear parallel in biblical theophanies. Moreover, it is argued that the references to the gods El and Baal alongside Yhwh in KA 4.2 further complicates the attempt to directly correlate the inscription and the so-called “southern theophanies” of the Bible. The paper concludes by exploring the extent to which the pluriformity of the religious ideas expressed in KA 4.2 may illustrate the broader complexities of using the Kuntillet ‘Ajrud inscriptions to bolster the biblical texts that allegedly prove Yhwh’s historical origins in the south.

Winner of the 2021 David Noel Freedman Award for Excellence and Creativity in Hebrew Bible Scholarship.

Pig avoidance is among the most famous and well-studied of the customs described in the Hebrew Bible. Commonly this prohibition on consuming pig has been considered evidence of the importance of dietary prohibitions in establishing boundaries between Israel and neighbouring groups. However, this paper argues that differentiation from other ethnicities by means of diet was not the only function that the pig taboo served in ancient Israel. In fact, the relevant biblical texts are as much, if not more, concerned with employing the pig prohibition as a device by which cultic norms as well as dietary customs within the Israelite community were standardized. Within the accounts of the Maccabean rebellion in the second century BCE, the pig assumes a greater significance in identity formation, but even in these traditions, the relationship between pig avoidance and ethnic boundaries is more complex than is often assumed. Combining detailed analysis of the references to the pig in Lev 11, Deut 14, Isa 56–66, and 1 and 2 Maccabees with the study of material evidence and comparative materials from the ancient Mediterranean, this paper advances Hebrew Bible scholarship by revealing the multiplicity of factors that shaped the emergence of pig non-consumption as a central custom in ancient Judaism. Moreover, it underscores the benefits of scholars’ differentiating between the origins of biblical customs involving unclean animals and the uses of dietary norms in later periods. Their significance and meaning at each stage of Jewish history can thereby be appreciated more fully and subtly.

In scholarly discussions of the influence of Deuteronomy on the Priestly traditions and their attitude towards centralization, the relationship between two texts, Lev 17 and Deut 12, has long been a key issue. In view of thematic parallels and a series of verbal overlaps between them, especially in Lev 17:11, 14 and Deut 12:23, the majority of scholars has interpreted Lev 17 as a response to Deut 12. Lev 17, it has been argued, accepts D’s call to a centralized cult but rejects its concession of local butchery. However, recent developments in the study of Deut 12 have raised a challenge to this interpretation, by suggesting that the verses, Deut 12:20-28, that share by far the strongest verbal overlaps with Lev 17 constitute a late addition to Deut 12 which post-dates and responds to H’s ban on local butchery (Römer 2004; Rüterswörden 2009; Otto 2016; cf. Rofé 1988). The implications of this interpretation for the study of centralization in Lev 17 have not yet been fully explored. This paper argues that if Deut 12:20-28 post-date H, there is insufficient evidence to support the view that Lev 17 depends on Deut 12; and the assumption that H assumes D’s centralizing logic becomes unsustainable. The paper does not conclude, however, that we should assume from this that Lev 17 lacks any centralizing impulse. On the contrary, this paper argues that Lev 17 advances its own call for the centralization of slaughter and sacrifice on the basis of the potency of the ritual disposal of blood. In particular, Lev 17 illustrates the capacity of Priestly texts to articulate distinctive concepts of cult centralization, ones which do not necessarily look to D but rather promote centralization through mandating ritual practices which oblige the Israelite community to defer to central authorities.

This paper examines the centralizing logic of the festal calendar of Lev 23. This chapter of the Holiness legislation (Lev 17–26) has so far received little attention in the scholarly discussion of cult centralization. However, a few studies have suggested that H’s distinctive interest in the festal activities that take place בכל מושׁבתיכם “in all your settlements” (Lev 23:3, 14, 17, 21, 31) might reveal H’s preference for a local cult, in which the Israelites offer festal sacrifices at multiple sanctuaries in the land (e.g., K. Weyde). This paper argues, in contrast, that H’s interest in the settlements reveals its concern to ensure collective conformity with a centralized means of time reckoning. The expression בכל מושׁבתיכם, the paper shows, is never used by H to refer to sacrificial activities, but only when commanding that certain domestic rites (e.g., food prohibitions or work bans) be observed by the Israelites in their local context. By assigning to the settlements new domestic activities that can be performed without requiring a shrine, H’s festal calendar has the effect of denying the need for local sanctuaries, and disallowing the de-centralized worship and splintering that such sites entail. It also entrenches the expectation that the Israelites will conform to a fixed calendrical scheme, in which the entire community, irrespective of geographical location, is expected to celebrate the same מועדי יהוה “fixed times of Yhwh” on the same day each year. On the basis of these findings, the paper concludes that Lev 23 throws valuable light on how H uses ritual standardization as a means of discouraging the variation that is inherent to de-centralized worship in favor of the compliance with centralized calendrical authority that the centralized cult requires.

https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/135945

Course Description:
How did ancient people decide what to eat, and what not to eat? And why do the ancient texts of the Bible continue to shape the way many people think about diet and identity today? This course will explore the importance of diet in establishing social bonds and ethnic boundaries in the ancient Near East, as well as the role food played in mediating relationships with God, animals, and the environment, according to the Hebrew Bible (Jewish Tanakh/Christian Old Testament).

This course is highly interactive. We will visit the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to see how food featured as part of burial rituals in ancient Egypt; we will explore the archaeology of food and everyday life at the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East; and we will even try cooking some ancient recipes together. Students will also be introduced to anthropological approaches to food, diets, and commensality, and learn to reflect critically on how such theoretical lenses might be applied to the study of ancient dietary patterns, biblical interpretation, and contemporary dietary practice.

No prior knowledge of the Bible or ancient history required.

https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/135949

Course Description:
The Israelite deity, with an unpronounceable name, may seem to have no history, having simply existed from the beginning of time. Yet, closer examination of the biblical evidence reveals a complex story of how a deity associated with storms and warfare gradually emerged as the one God of Israel. This course analyzes key texts of the book of Psalms that, in extolling the qualities of the Israelite deity, reveal different aspects of his character: his nature as a storm god and warrior; his eventual preference for the city of Jerusalem; his adoption of the traits of a sun god, connected to the domains of law and justice; and his emergence as the head of the heavenly council and creator of the world.

The course presumes basic proficiency with Biblical Hebrew.