The Pentateuch: Exodus–Deuteronomy

Abstract

The PentateuchExodus–Deuteronomy Christopher T. Begg, Fred W. Guyette, Thomas Hieke, David Leiter, Paul R. Redditt, and John Thomas Willis 1126. [Exodus–Deuteronomy] John Kurichianil, "Moses the Servant of the Lord (Part II)," ITS 54 (2017) 153-77. In this second installment of a two-part article, K. continues his survey of the biblical presentation of Moses as Yhwh's servant in its various dimensions. In so doing, he focuses, in turn, on five additional features of the multifaceted depiction of Moses's person, life, and ministry in the Books of Exodus–Deuteronomy: (a) Moses's life-long suffering (above all at the hands of the people); (b) Moses who survives as a person and a leader thanks to his constant prayer; (c) the ever-greater intimacy Moses attains with God through this prayer; (d) Moses's final failure in trust and obedience to God in his striking the rock twice rather than simply speaking to it as enjoined by Yhwh (see Numbers 20) with the result that Yhwh condemns him to die outside the land; and (e) God's ultimate display of solicitude for Moses in showing him the land before his death and then burying him with his own hands once he does die (see Deuteronomy 34).—C.T.B. 1127. [Exodus; Deuteronomy; Temple Scroll; Jubilees] Dominik Markl, "Sinai: the Origin of Holiness and Revelation in Exodus, Deuteronomy, the Temple Scroll, and Jubilees," Holy Places, 23-44 [see #1510]. Sinai's hermeneutical role in early Jewish literature has attracted considerable interest in recent scholarship. The innerbiblical relationship between Sinaitic law and Deuteronomy has triggered a discussion about legal hermeneutics in the Pentateuch. Against the backdrop of these discussions, in this paper I will attempt to show that both Jubilees and the Temple Scroll derive their authority from their reception of the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy, albeit in clearly different ways. The article will unfold in three phases, moving from the stage of Sinai/Horeb as the origin of law in Exodus and Deuteronomy, to hermeneutical transformations of its role in the Temple Scroll and Jubilees before arriving at a conclusion (pp. 23-24, adapted).—C.T.B. 1128. [Exodus] Francis Nataff, "Shemot's Missing Names," JBQ 45 (2017) 193-99. The first two chapters of Exodus are not very forthcoming with the names of its characters. Consider Moses. If anyone should be introduced at birth, it is he. And yet we only hear his name after he is brought into the house of Pharaoh (Exod 2:10). A similar anomaly is found in the case of Moses's family. Though we eventually find out the names of Moses's parents (Exod 6:18-20), they are initially introduced to us with striking anonymity: "And a man of the House of Levi took to marry a daughter of Levi" (Exod 2:1). Moses's sister, Miriam, who plays a significant role in the story, watching over her brother and serving as the go-between between Pharaoh's daughter and Moses's parents, is not named until chap. 15. By contrast, two minor characters, the midwives Shifrah and Puah, [End Page 387] are named in Exod 1:15. Why? It may be because they disobeyed Pharaoh and showed basic human decency. The Israelites came into Egypt as men of stature, with names they could be proud of. But later on, the Hebrew slaves were treated as a faceless crowd, as people who had no names at all.—F.W.G. 1129. [Exodus: P] Konrad Schmid, "Taming Egypt: The Impact of Persian Imperial Ideology and Politics on the Biblical Exodus Account," Jewish Cultural Encounters, 13-29 [see #1524]. S. argues that the Priestly texts in Exodus evidence the notion of Egypt standing outside the divine world order. This notion seems to reflect the peaceful world order of the Persian Empire at a time around 525 b.c.e. when it included the whole Near Eastern world except for Egypt. In this instance, a particular political and cultural context, that of the early Persian Empire, may help us understand the impact this had on the shaping of literary or religious traditions, the...