Vol. 34:4

A chronological roster of oddly named Bibles, from the Complutensian Polyglot of 1514 onward: the 'Bug' Bible, whose Psalm 91:5 warns against bugges by night; the 'Breeches' Bible, which clothes Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:7; the Ferrara Bible issued in two dedications for two audiences. An archaism or a printer's error is enough to turn an edition into a collector's item.

Four verses in II Samuel 6 carry a whole drama with three actors: David, Michal, and the Ark itself. Follows the Ark from Sinai through Shiloh, Philistine captivity and Kiryat Yearim to David's new capital, where a fatal accident halts the procession — and asks what kind of dance the word m'karker describes, and why it cost Michal her standing and her children.

The Pentateuch records four killings: Abel by Cain, the men of Shechem by Simeon and Levi, the Egyptian by Moses, and Zimri by Phinehas. Two are judged explicitly, two only by implication. Reads the linguistic and thematic parallels — Cain's brazen reply echoed in Simeon and Levi's, Moses called ish mizri like the man he killed — to infer the verdict in each case and the criterion behind it.

An introduction to Proverbs and to the wisdom teachers who stand behind it — a class apart from priest and prophet, addressing the individual rather than the nation. Examines the mashal as a form and the book's characteristic mode of personal address, 'my son', which sets it beside the wisdom literature of the wider ancient Near East while remaining distinctly Israelite.

Retroversion — reconstructing a Hebrew Vorlage from an ancient translation — is usually treated as a modern critical technique. Shows that Radak and Norzi's Minchat Shai already practised it on the Targum to Jeremiah, inferring the Hebrew text their translator must have had before him, centuries before the method was named.

Creation's six days are called good; only the Seventh is called holy. Holiness in space arrives later and, on one reading, only as a concession after the Golden Calf. The verb v'shamru joins the two: the Levites stand guard over the Tabernacle, all Israel stands guard over the Sabbath. Unlike Eden or the land, the Sabbath is portable and cannot suffer dislocation.

The second part of a study of the sabbatical cycle recorded in Seder Olam. Tests the years 588 BCE and 69 CE — the sabbaticals associated with the destruction of the First and Second Temples — against the chronological evidence, weighing the reconstructions of Whiston, Gordon and Sarna, and asks which cycle the rabbinic and Josephan data actually support.

A report on the 2006 Chidon HaTanakh, televised from Jerusalem on Independence Day with the Prime Minister asking the final question. Fifty-nine students from 34 countries competed in the Diaspora round at Ashkelon; Yisrael Witte of Canada won it, and Israeli student Adi Diamant took the main contest. Poland, Romania, Latvia and Uruguay were represented for the first time.

An assessment of Mossad Harav Kook's Da'at Mikra, completed in 2003 after more than thirty years. Its founding guidelines required a commentary rooted in classical exegesis that would draw on modern scholarship only where the conclusions do not run counter to Jewish tradition. Weighs its achievements — the codex base text, its realia, its influence on Olam ha-Tanakh and Mikra Leyisrael — against that constraint, and asks whether the series merits the designation scholarly.

Most translations render ger as 'proselyte'. Argues that through the First Temple period it meant only 'stranger' — Rashi, Nahmanides and Ibn Ezra read it that way — and that circumcision was required of a male ger only to share in the Passover offering, which is not conversion in any later sense. Traces the consequences for patrilineal descent and for the absence of any conversion rite for women.