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With the idea in Genesis 1 that all human beings are created in the image of God - instead of just the king - the Bible formulates an early conceptual prerequisite of egalitarianism, which forms the anthropological foundation of any democracy. Genesis 1 democratizes the traditional ideology of kingship and renders every human capable of (king-like) responsible rule. Important factors in the intellectual history of ancient Israel that prepared the way for the idea of the likeness of all human beings to God can be found: (1) in the subversive reception of Assyrian treaty theology and its transfer to the relationship between God and people; (2) in the criticism of kings within biblical prophecy, which was confirmed as factual by the fall of Judah and Jerusalem in 587 BCE; and (3) in the increasingly critical stance toward slavery in the Torah, which ideally brought the position of slaves ever closer to that of free people.

The book »How Old Is the Hebrew Bible?« by Ronald Hendel and Jan Joosten is an apt introduction to dating biblical texts linguistically. However, this approach is not capable to reliably determine how old the texts and writings of the Hebrew Bible are. Rather, different dating methods need to be balanced against each other in order to get sound results in that respect.

This essay presents a methodological commitment to rethink the presuppositions about compositional practices with respect to the assembly and production of what we have come to call the Pentateuch. Throughout the article the authors present an account of the ancient biblical writers and readers as committed to producing difference—not to produce an overall seamless linear narrative. The textual example focuses on the blood plague but considers the composition of the Pentateuch and biblical composition more generally.

Catastrophes like global pandemics are very prone to generate different interpretations, also in the realm of religion and theology. It might be expected that the most common approach within the history of religion was to think of them as divine punishments for human sins. While this was the case in some instances, a closer look, however, reveals that ancient and medieval theologians were very reluctant to embark on that way of explanations and offered more theologically mature thoughts.

This contribution includes a critical discussion of Joachim J. Krause, »›Writing on the Heart‹ in Jeremiah 31:31–34 in Light of Recent Insights into the Oral-Written Interface and Scribal Education in Ancient Israel,« ZAW 132 (2020): 236–249.

It is impossible to deny the validity of a linguistic approach to dating biblical texts. But at the same time, it is necessary to caution against using a linguistic approach as a clear-cut tool. It should be employed in conjunction with other data and perspectives, such as theological profiles, intertextual links, as well as geographical and archaeological information. But what should one do if linguistic and alternative approaches to dating biblical texts yield seriously conflicting results, as is often the case? This question shall be discussed with some case studies from Jeremiah, doing so in discussion with Aaron Hornkohl’s recent work on the date of the book of Jeremiah.

Protestant Ethics can supply Orientierungswissen as well as Verfügungswissen (Jürgen Mittelstraß). Beyond that it can and must also formulate »Evangeliums«-Wissen, a knowledge about the condition of life that precedes all notions of what we can and should do. There is no reason why this knowledge should not be a fundamental part of the cosmos of sciences. For Protestant Ethics this mode of reasoning is interesting because Protestant Ethics can thus operate in an area of its own while at the same time being more than a pseudo-science of politics, economics or medicine