The language of being clean or unclean throughout the Scriptures has beget a myriad of theological enquiries throughout the ages. What does it mean to be unclean? Is this a moral indictment or merely a positional one? And as the discipline of systematic theology has grown and evolved over recent centuries, and interacted with texts … Read more
Deut 19:16-21 states that if someone falsely accuses another of a crime, and the falsehood of that accusation is discovered, then the false accuser should receive the same punishment that he or she attempts to inflict on the third party. In Deut 22:20-21, if the groom’s charge against his bride is proven true, her penalty … Read more
Deuteronomy consists largely of the historical Moses’s final sermonic oracles, which he both spoke (Deut 1:3, 5; 4:44; 5:1; 27:11; 29:1[28:69]) and transcribed (31:9, 22, 24; 32:45) on the plains of Moab just prior to his death (32:48–52; 34:1–6). This study argues that the way Moses uses Scripture in this embedded material supports the view … Read more
How should one trace the organization and argument of a prophetic book like Zephaniah? This study seeks not only to identify Zephaniah’s component parts or segments but also to assess how these interrelate to communicate the prophet’s message, which I summarize as: Seek Yahweh together to avoid punishment, and wait for him to enjoy salvation. … Read more
This selective study of Bronze Age Semitic and Early Iron Age Hebrew alphabetic evidence will demonstrate that, while the view that large percentages of ancient Israelites were composing sophisticated literature is a caricature, both the earliest alphabetic West Semitic evidence and later texts bear witness to this medium of scribal activity throughout the second millennium … Read more