The figure Balaam has interested exegetes and scribes for millennia. Jonathan Miles Robker examines the different versions of the literary character Balaam as attested in biblical and epigraphic literature. By contrasting the distinct information about Balaam presented in the various sources (the plaster inscription from Della, Numbers 22-24; 31; Deuteronomy 23; Joshua 13; 24; Judges 11; Micah 6; and Nehemiah 13), the author seeks to trace the development of characterizations of Balaam from the oldest available material to the youngest in the Hebrew Bible. In this way, Jonathan Miles Robker advances discourse about the literary and tradition-historical development of the texts that became the Hebrew Bible. Beyond the text of the Hebrew Bible, he also traces the continued development of Balaam's characterization through the texts of Qumran and the New Testament. To this end, the author contributes discussions of the history of religion in Antiquity.

The Zechariah Tradition and the Gospel of Matthew is a comprehensive study of the ways Matthew utilizes Zechariah texts and traditions. Against the background of materials from Qumran, and apocryphal and deuterocanonical writings Matthew’s explicit citations of Zechariah are examined; the influence of Zechariah elsewhere in the First Gospel is identified; and the extent to which Matthew alludes to characteristic Zechariah themes, alone or in combination with other prophetic traditions, is explored. Zechariah traditions appear in Matthew’s distinctive materials, as well as in texts Matthew has transmitted, or altered, from Mark and Q. The impact of Zech 9-14 is not limited to the Passion Narrative but extends through Matthew’s Infancy and Galilean healing narratives, as well; important concepts from Zech 1-8 are also discerned in the Infancy and Passion Narratives. Moss works through the canonical order of Matthew; this enables readers to appreciate the cumulative effect of Zechariah’s influence at each stage of the Gospel story. Two appendices, one arranged according to Zechariah and the other to Matthew, list possible references to Zechariah in Matthew. This monograph is useful for Matthean studies and it is an insightful investigation of how one set of Old Testamental traditions are appropriated in one canonical Gospel and in the New Testament.

Though many Old Testament scholars prefer no longer to speak of the Elohist source in the Pentateuch, Gnuse seeks to defend the existence of this pentateuchal tradition by responding to scholarly critics, isolating texts belonging to the source and offering a theological assessment of these texts. Dream reports in ancient Near Eastern texts from the seventh and sixth centuries BCE bear striking familiarity with the biblical dream reports in the Elohist. Prophetic narratives in the books of Samuel and Kings appear to have inspired the subsequent creation of the Elohist narratives in the Pentateuch. Thus, Gnuse situates the Elohist tradition in the seventh century BCE after the fall of the state of Israel in the north in 722 BCE, which is a later date than scholars have attributed to this source in the past. Because of this setting the Elohist texts may be assessed differently than they have been in the past. The texts might have spoken to exiles from the northern state with themes that bespeak devotion to one God, hope of restoration, and absolute obedience to a transcendent deity who is revealed through dreams, fire, and prophets. The author also ponders what these texts say to our modern age.

Serious Bible readers, including biblical scholars, Sunday Bible teachers, laypersons of church, and even the Sunday school kids, ask the question, "Is Balaam a good or bad person?" or "Is Balaam a prophet of God or a pagan diviner?" However, nobody has provided a relieving answer for the question up to this day. Then, what does the Balaam story in the passage of Num 22-24 tell us about the character of Balaam? More fundamentally, what does the passage want readers to know? This book suggests a new way for Bible reading, especially the Old Testament. The Old Testament readers can discover a proper strategy to understand the intention and message of every single passage of the Old Testament through the ways that are suggested in this book.

The book concerns the inscription written on wall plaster discovered in 1967 at Deir cAlla in the Jordan Valley, and published in 1976. Using new data and the discussions about the text available to date, it deals with six different aspects of study of the text, namely the archaeological context, the palaeography, the general interpretation as well as the interpretation of several separate passages, the language used, and its relation to Old Testament studies.

In The “God of Israel” in History and Tradition, Michael Stahl examines the historical and ideological significances of the formulaic title “god of Israel” (’elohe yisra’el) in the Hebrew Bible using critical theory on social power and identity.

Celebrate the contributions of David T. Runia The Studia Philonica Annual is a scholarly journal devoted to the study of Hellenistic Judaism, particularly the writings and thought of the Hellenistic-Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria. More than fifteen scholars from around the world offer contributions to this special edition of the Annual in honor of Professor David T. Runia on the occasion of his 65th birthday and retirement from his post as Master of Queens College, University of Melbourne. Professor Runia is internationally recognized as one of the world's foremost experts on Philo of Alexandria. As founder of The Studia Philonica Annual, he has been editor or coeditor for twenty-seven years. He initiated a Philo Bibliography project prior to the Annual and incorporated the bibliography into the Annual from the outset. It serves as the primary bibliography for Philonic studies worldwide.

This book is the fruit of the first ever interdisciplinary international scientific conference on Matthew's story of the Star of Bethlehem and the Magi, held in 2014 at the University of Groningen, and attended by world-leading specialists in all relevant fields: modern astronomy, the ancient near-eastern and Greco-Roman worlds, the history of science, and religion. The scholarly discussions and the exchange of the interdisciplinary views proved to be immensely fruitful and resulted in the present book. Its twenty chapters describe the various aspects of The Star: the history of its interpretation, ancient near-eastern astronomy and astrology and the Magi, astrology in the Greco-Roman and the Jewish worlds, and the early Christian world – at a generally accessible level. An epilogue summarizes the fact-fiction balance of the most famous star which has ever shone.

We think of the Hebrew Bible as the Book--and yet it was produced by a largely nonliterate culture in which writing, editing, copying, interpretation, and public reading were the work of a professional elite. The scribes of ancient Israel are indeed the main figures behind the Hebrew Bible, and in this book Karel van der Toorn tells their story for the first time. His book considers the Bible in very specific historical terms, as the output of the scribal workshop of the Second Temple active in the period 500-200 BCE. Drawing comparisons with the scribal practices of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, van der Toorn clearly details the methods, the assumptions, and the material means of production that gave rise to biblical texts; then he brings his observations to bear on two important texts, Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. Traditionally seen as the copycats of antiquity, the scribes emerge here as the literate elite who held the key to the production as well as the transmission of texts. Van der Toorn's account of scribal culture opens a new perspective on the origins of the Hebrew Bible, revealing how the individual books of the Bible and the authors associated with them were products of the social and intellectual world of the scribes. By taking us inside that world, this book yields a new and arresting appreciation of the Hebrew Scriptures.

The Jewish culture of the Hellenistic and early Roman periods established a basis for all monotheistic religions, but its main sources have been preserved to a great degree through Christian transmission. This Guide is devoted to problems of preservation, reception, and transformation of Jewish texts and traditions of the Second Temple period in the many Christian milieus from the ancient world to the late medieval era. It approaches this corpus not as an artificial collection of reconstructed texts--a body of hypothetical originals--but rather from the perspective of the preserved materials, examined in their religious, social, and political contexts. It also considers the other, non-Christian, channels of the survival of early Jewish materials, including Rabbinic, Gnostic, Manichaean, and Islamic. This unique project brings together scholars from many different fields in order to map the trajectories of early Jewish texts and traditions among diverse later cultures. It also provides a comprehensive and comparative introduction to this new field of study while bridging the gap between scholars of early Judaism and of medieval Christianity.