Vol. 36:1
Applies the rabbinic axiom that the Torah's narratives are not always in chronological sequence to the Book of Joshua, arguing that departures from historical order in Chapters 1-2, the covenant ceremony at Gerizim and Ebal, and the placement of Chapter 24 at the Book's close are deliberate literary choices that highlight Joshua's initial fear, the nation's growing initiative, and the unique freewill covenant that concludes the Book.
Argues against Maimonides' reading of Genesis 18 as an entirely internal prophetic vision, showing through recurring textual cues that God remains an active, present participant throughout Abraham's hosting of the three visitors, the annunciation to Sarah, and the negotiation over Sodom, and drawing out the lesson that the palpable presence of the shechina can be evoked through moral action, not only through prayer and study.
Traces how Amos, a herdsman with no prophetic pedigree, is compelled to deliver a message of covenantal justice, examining his confrontation with the priest Amaziah, his rhetorical strategy in the oracles against the nations, his vocabulary for describing the poor (evyonim, anavim, tzadik, dallim), and his five visions of judgment, and contrasts the Bible's 'thick' relational conception of justice with 'thin' contractual, retributive, compensatory, and distributive accounts of justice found in liberal public philosophy.
Reads Phinehas's killing of Zimri and Cozbi (Num. 25) through the lens of Israelite camp geography and ancient royal-marriage politics, arguing that a lasting union between a Simeonite prince and a Midianite princess would have exposed Israel's southeastern flank, undermined Moses' authority, and set a precedent for tribal factionalism, making Phinehas's act a political rescue of Israel's unity and security as much as a religious zealotry.
Surveys instances where Torah law and later rabbinic legislation accommodate rather than suppress natural human drives and desires — permission to eat meat after the Flood, the demand for meat in the wilderness, the law of the blood avenger, the sacrificial system, marriage to a captive woman, and unforbidden polygamy — alongside rabbinic devices such as the sale of hametz, pruzbul, and relaxed testimony for an agunah, arguing that both Torah and Sages consistently balance moral education against the practical limits of human nature.
Untangles the grammatical ambiguity of Genesis 15:6 - whether Abram counted God's promise as righteous, or God counted Abram's faith as righteous - through the shifting views of Samuel David Luzzatto (Shadal), showing that his 1858 Italian translation silently reversed his own earlier published commentary, and that a rediscovered 1858 letter reveals Shadal came to align with Rashi and Onkelos against his own decades-long position, apparently in reaction to the Christian doctrine that faith alone constitutes righteousness.
Surveys the long history of rabbinic and scholarly attempts to translate the notoriously obscure phrase ha'achashtranim bnei ha'ramachim in Esther 8:10 - a phrase the Talmud itself calls untranslatable - covering readings that identify the animals as mules, horses, camels, riders, or runners, an eight-legged folkloric creature, and the modern Persian-derived understanding of achashtranim as 'royal' steeds.
Popularizes and extends Y. Honigwachs's theory of 'Shared Principles' - five paired themes drawn from aligning the two tablets of the Ten Commandments - arguing that these principles explain the sequence of the Five Books of Moses, the internal division of each Book into five parts, and even the subdivision of parts into five sections, offering a structural answer to critics who see the Torah's organization as arbitrary evidence of composite, non-Divine authorship.
Connects the Hyksos invasion and rule of Egypt to the biblical account of Joseph and the Israelite sojourn, and applies basic population-growth mathematics to the Exodus census figure of 603,550 men, concluding that natural increase alone from Jacob's household of seventy could not plausibly account for that number and that immigration, or a smaller historical population, must be part of the explanation.
Examines what provokes Sarah's demand to banish Hagar and Ishmael after seeing Ishmael metzahek with Isaac (Gen. 21:9-10), weighing explanations ranging from Ishmael as ethnic Other and rabbinic accusations of sexual misconduct to a more benign reading of Ishmael as an overly influential older sibling, and situates Sarah's reaction within her broader, complicated biography as a woman who endured humiliation, barrenness, and the wife-sister deception before becoming matriarch of Israel.
Two letters responding to prior JBQ articles: Pinchas Kahn challenges a comparison in 'Self Effacement in the Bible' that implied man could become 'part of God,' and Dan Vogel acknowledges an earlier essay on Shylock he had overlooked while writing 'Balaam, Shakespeare, Shylock.' Followed by news of the Jewish Bible Association, including a members' trip to Megiddo and the welcoming of new Deputy Editor Mark Elliott Shapiro.