Journal for Semitics

The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice seems to have been intended for communal worship for a group with a strong priestly identity, but ambiguity of terminology with respect to whether angelic or priestly participation is intended is pervasive throughout the text. This article compares examples of ambiguity in terminology for divine beings in the first Song to lexical equivalents in the Hebrew Bible. This introductory Song, 4Q400, appears to be concerned with the establishment of priests to serve in the holy of holies in a context similar to the ancient mythological Divine Council, but the human requirements of repentance, purification, and holiness appear to be central. In view of the multivalent quality of poetry in general, possible alternate readings to those of Carol Newsom are considered. The cumulative effect of various ambiguous indications in the rest of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice is also taken into account. The possibility that the ambiguity is deliberately employed to create fluidity between godlike beings and participants in the liturgy is discussed. The possible significance of such a conclusion is considered in terms of what purpose a deliberately structured fluidity between angelic beings and sectarians could serve, for instance in terms of Fletcher-Louis’s (2002) suggestion that the “theological anthropology” may have ascribed an angelic or divine identity to the righteous.

This article compares the ancient Near Eastern and biblical laws pertaining to delict. Since I offer an in-depth study elsewhere (Peled, forthcoming) of delict-related felonies attested in the different ancient Near Eastern law collections, the present article only touches upon this issue in brief, while focusing on the pertinent biblical laws. The main questions addressed here therefore relate to the manner in which biblical law treated different delicts, and to how similar or different the attitudes to delict were in the extant ancient Near Eastern and biblical legal corpora.

Christianity has often been accused of promoting an anthropocentric worldview that has contributed to the current ecological crisis. Since Lynn White’s accusation that Genesis 1:26–28 is responsible for the crisis, biblical scholars and theologians have been discussing this text. Although Genesis 1:26–28 contains hints of anthropocentrism, it does not represent the only way in which the biblical authors viewed humans and their relationship with nature. This article focuses on Job 38, which presents many phenomena of nature, inter alia water-related phenomena, as surpassing humans’ understanding. The world does not revolve around humans. They are merely part of the natural world. Humans cannot control water-related phenomena, which are depicted as having their own worth.