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Melilah is an interdisciplinary electronic journal concerned with Jewish law, history, literature, religion, culture and thought in the ancient, medieval and modern eras.

Language: Hebrew.

Language: Hebrew. The book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Torah, is also known as “the Repetition of the Torah.” It is essentially a lengthy speech that Moses delivered to the Israelites on the Plains of Moab just before they entered the land of Canaan. But the book is not simply a review of the four preceding books. It sometimes adds to what they say or presents their contents from a different perspective, or even presents a contradictory version of what they say. According to 2 Kings chapter 22, the book was found in the course of renovations to the Temple during the reign of Josiah, king of Judah, in 622 BCE. Deuteronomy contains the most fully developed expression of the Torah's concern for law and justice and for the welfare of the poor and disadvantaged. What is unique about Deuteronomy is its absolute demand for centralization of worship in the Temple in Jerusalem, that is, the abolishment of all local places of worship elsewhere – a demand that would be the equivalent of abolishing all synagogues and limiting the worship of God to single central synagogue in Jerusalem. A truly revolutionary demand! Jewish scholars throughout the generations sought to resolve the contradictions between the commandments and ideas of the first four books of the Torah and Deuteronomy. This kind of harmonizing exegesis is already found in the Bible itself, in the book of Chronicles, from the end of the Persian period. The present commentary deals with these contradictions, evaluates the traditional explanations, explains the contradictions in the light of modern critical scholarship, and explains how the laws of Deuteronomy developed in later Jewish tradition. The commentary deals with the historical background of Deuteronomy, its language and literary form, and explains the text in accordance with its peshat, or original/intended, plain meaning. Prof. Tigay's commentary is a must for all who wish to study the book of Deuteronomy and deepen their understanding of it. This new commentary benefits from Biblical research that has taken place during more than 20 years since the first edition of this commentary (by the same author) published in English by the Jewish Publication Society of America as the final volume of their Torah Commentary, and it deals with numerous additional matters of interest to Hebrew readers. Volume one starts with chapter 1 verse 1 and continues through chapter 16 verse 17; volume two starts with chapter 16 verse 18 and continues through the end of the book, chapter 34 verse 12.

The book Human Choice: Biblical Narrative and the Drama of Choice suggests, in contrast to the dominant position in the field of theology, that humanity and not God stands at the heart of biblical narrative. Underpinning many biblical narratives is a theology that may be termed a “theology of choice”, a theology predicated on the belief that human's central task is to choose between good and evil. Theology of choice leads to biblical narratives'focus on the internal conflicts of characters, their struggles and the choices that they must make. The principle that a person's choices determine one's destiny lies at the foundation of biblical narrative and is one of the basic tenets of Israelite belief. In contrast to the belief in a predetermined destiny characteristic of idolatrous culture as evident in many ancient mythologies as well as Greek tragedy, the outlook underlying many biblical narratives is that a person is a free being and is responsible for one's actions and one's ultimate destiny.

An engaging collection of essays in honor of Professor Rimon Kasher Zer Rimonim includes papers of interest to Professor Kasher in the areas of the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East and Jewish interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. Contributors from a variety of Israeli universities include Yairah Amit, Elie Assis, Jonathan Ben-Dov, Joshua Berman, Gershon Brin, Hezi Cohen, Tmima Davidovitz, David Elgavish, Brachi Elitzur, Yitzhaq Feder, Joseph Fleishman, Gershon Galil, Tova Ganzel, Isaac Gottlieb, Edward L. Greenstein, Jonathan Grossman, Mayer Gruber, Jair Haas, Jonathan Jacobs, Bustenay Oded, Yosef Ofer, Jordan S. Penkower, Yosi Peretz, Frank Polak, Meira Poliak, Moshe Rachimi, Ayelet Seidler, Yael Shemesh, Shimon Shtober, Nili Shupak, Uriel Simon, Miriam Sklarz, Yechiel Tzeitkin, Shmuel Vargon, Eran Viezel, and Yair Zakovitch. Features: Essays in modern Hebrew Coverage of topics related to the Hebrew Bible, key rabbinic interpreters, and Karaitic and Byzantine interpretations English table of contents, front matter, and abstracts

This volume incorporates all the articles and reviews published in Volume 11 (2011) of the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures.

Appended to this thesis is a short work, which stood in place of a proposed work on the precise topic of Stevens'thesis. The shorter piece, by Professor Paul Haupt focuses specifically on Psalm 130.