Ron Hendel | University of California, Berkeley (original) (raw)
Books by Ron Hendel
Anchor Yale Bible 1A; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2024.
Anchor Bible Reference Library; Yale University Press, 2018.
All royalties are donated to the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. If you’... more All royalties are donated to the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. If you’d like to donate, go to https://www.icmec.org/.
Papers by Ron Hendel
Jewish Studies on Premodern Periods: A Handbook, ed. Carl S. Ehrlich and Sara R. Horowitz (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2023), 63-76.
Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of P. Kyle McCarter Jr., eds. Christopher A. Rollston, Susanna Garfein, and Neil H. Walls (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2022), 107-36.
unpublished
Often an object placed in one class on account of one or more of its properties may reappear in a... more Often an object placed in one class on account of one or more of its properties may reappear in another class because of other properties. Jean d'Alembert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia 1 Some twenty-five years ago I published a modest proposal about the semantic axes of the verbal system in classical biblical Hebrew. 2 The model I proposed made sense to me then and still mostly does now, but I will add refinements to improve it. At the time I was attempting to synthesize the sturdy philology of Northwest Semitic historical linguistics with the categories of general linguistics, mostly gleaned from the crisp prose of the Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics (especially Bernard Comrie's books on tense and aspect). 3 I was dissatisfied with the treatment of tense and aspect in Bruce Waltke and Michael O'Connor's otherwise superb 1 J. d'Alembert, Discours préliminaire (1751): "Mais souvent tel objet qui par une ou plusieurs de ses propriétés a été placé dans une classe, tient à une autre classe par d'autres propriétés."
Journal of Jewish Studies (Shandong) 18 (2022): 43-61.
Biblical Archaeology Review 47/4 (2021): 39-46.
THE SHAPIRA SCROLLS, WHICH PURPORTEDLY RECORD Moses' s last words, are 19th-century forgeries, as... more THE SHAPIRA SCROLLS, WHICH PURPORTEDLY RECORD Moses' s last words, are 19th-century forgeries, as scholars have long maintained.* We will show this with new evidence, which has been sitting in a box fi rst in the British Museum and then in the British Library for 140 years. How can you tell whether a document is genuine or forged? Th e answer is both simple and diffi cult. You act like a detective-examine all the evidence meticulously and look for clues. As Sherlock Holmes says, you must "observe the small facts upon which large inferences may depend. " Th e clues, and the inferences based on them, combine to form a clear picture. We will explore the evidence that proves the Shapira Scrolls are forgeries. 1 But fi rst we have to give some background, beginning with some curious events in the 1870s. Th at decade was, as the late biblical scholar and epigrapher Frank Moore Cross remarked, "a season of monumental forgeries. " 2 In the years after the publication in 1870 of the ninthcentury B.C.E. royal stele known as the Moabite Stone,** the antiquities market in Jerusalem was fl ooded with fake Moabite inscriptions and artifacts. Th ese were available for purchase at Moses W. Shapira' s shop at what is now 76 Christian Quarter Street in Jerusalem' s Old City. Shapira sold most of his "Moabite" artifacts (some 1,700 items) to the Royal Museum in Berlin in 1875 for the princely sum of 22,000 thalers-nowadays around $250,000. Soon
Chapter 1 of Steps to a New Edition of the Hebrew Bible (2016)
The concept of the "definitive text" corresponds only to religion or exhaustion.-Jorge luis borge... more The concept of the "definitive text" corresponds only to religion or exhaustion.-Jorge luis borges, "The homeric Versions" every edition is a theory.-bernard cerquiglini, In Praise of the Variant 1. Moshe h. Goshen-Gottstein, "The textual criticism of the old testament:
ZAW 133 (2021): 225-30.
The Shapira manuscripts, putatively precursors of Deuteronomy, have many indications of forgery, ... more The Shapira manuscripts, putatively precursors of Deuteronomy, have
many indications of forgery, particularly in the orthography, which mixes the writing conventions of the Mesha stele and the Hebrew Bible. Notably, the consistent use of waw, instead of he, to mark final ō is an anachronism. These problems were not perceivable by the text’s nineteenth century critics (or its forgers), but in hindsight are clear marks of the forger’s art.
With the Loyal You Show Yourself Loyal: Essays on Relationships in the Hebrew Bible in Honor of Saul M. Olyan, eds. Tracy M. Lemos, Jordan D. Rosenblum, Karen B. Stern, and Debra S. Ballantine (Atlanta: SBL, 2021), 129-47.
Émile Durkheim observed that every mythology "is a morality and a cosmology, even as it is a hist... more Émile Durkheim observed that every mythology "is a morality and a cosmology, even as it is a history. " 1 The mythology of Gen 1-11 embodies a moral code, or perhaps better a double version of a moral code, with different emphases in the Priestly text and the Yahwistic text. These representations of morality are richly connected to the domains of sex, honor, and civilization. I will explore the interconnections of these domains as they figure in the moral relationships in the stories, and in their different configurations in the two source texts. First I address some preliminaries about myth and morality. Myth is an apt literary form to articulate the practices and sensibilities of a moral community, since it embeds them in the behaviors of particular individuals and sets them in an era when the world and its distinctive traits were gradually crystallizing into their present form. 2 Like all narrative, myth focuses the audience's attention onto the protagonists' moral emotions through a subjective form of engagement. In this respect, the moral code of Gen 1-11 is expressed through action and dialogue rather than explicit rules, with the occasional exception of God's prescriptions about morality. The picture of the moral world that develops in these stories is constructed from an assemblage of practices and personal relationships, together with their motivations and consequences. They exemplify what Bernard Williams calls "thick" moral concepts, that is, concepts that are embedded in a particular social world and are not 3.
Collective Identity and Collective Memory: Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History in Their Context, eds. Johannes U. Ro and Diana Edelman, BZAW 534 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2021), 263-88.
Mighty Baal: Essays in Honor of Mark S. Smith, eds. Stephen C. Russell and Esther J. Hamori (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 119-37
Vetus Testamentum 69 (2019), 567-93.
A plea for the complementarity of Literarkritik and literary criticism in biblical scholarship , ... more A plea for the complementarity of Literarkritik and literary criticism in biblical scholarship , with a partial genealogy of recent developments, followed by a detailed study of Abram's journey in Gen 11:27-12:9 in the non-P and P texts. Particular attention is paid to stylistic repetitions and implicit links to other texts, yielding a nexus of foreshadowings and backshadowings in each of the component texts. Conclusions include the viability of this non-P text (formerly known as J) and the P text as continuous sources in the Pentateuch, each with a distinctive poetics.
Anchor Yale Bible 1A; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2024.
Anchor Bible Reference Library; Yale University Press, 2018.
All royalties are donated to the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. If you’... more All royalties are donated to the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. If you’d like to donate, go to https://www.icmec.org/.
Jewish Studies on Premodern Periods: A Handbook, ed. Carl S. Ehrlich and Sara R. Horowitz (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2023), 63-76.
Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of P. Kyle McCarter Jr., eds. Christopher A. Rollston, Susanna Garfein, and Neil H. Walls (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2022), 107-36.
unpublished
Often an object placed in one class on account of one or more of its properties may reappear in a... more Often an object placed in one class on account of one or more of its properties may reappear in another class because of other properties. Jean d'Alembert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia 1 Some twenty-five years ago I published a modest proposal about the semantic axes of the verbal system in classical biblical Hebrew. 2 The model I proposed made sense to me then and still mostly does now, but I will add refinements to improve it. At the time I was attempting to synthesize the sturdy philology of Northwest Semitic historical linguistics with the categories of general linguistics, mostly gleaned from the crisp prose of the Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics (especially Bernard Comrie's books on tense and aspect). 3 I was dissatisfied with the treatment of tense and aspect in Bruce Waltke and Michael O'Connor's otherwise superb 1 J. d'Alembert, Discours préliminaire (1751): "Mais souvent tel objet qui par une ou plusieurs de ses propriétés a été placé dans une classe, tient à une autre classe par d'autres propriétés."
Journal of Jewish Studies (Shandong) 18 (2022): 43-61.
Biblical Archaeology Review 47/4 (2021): 39-46.
THE SHAPIRA SCROLLS, WHICH PURPORTEDLY RECORD Moses' s last words, are 19th-century forgeries, as... more THE SHAPIRA SCROLLS, WHICH PURPORTEDLY RECORD Moses' s last words, are 19th-century forgeries, as scholars have long maintained.* We will show this with new evidence, which has been sitting in a box fi rst in the British Museum and then in the British Library for 140 years. How can you tell whether a document is genuine or forged? Th e answer is both simple and diffi cult. You act like a detective-examine all the evidence meticulously and look for clues. As Sherlock Holmes says, you must "observe the small facts upon which large inferences may depend. " Th e clues, and the inferences based on them, combine to form a clear picture. We will explore the evidence that proves the Shapira Scrolls are forgeries. 1 But fi rst we have to give some background, beginning with some curious events in the 1870s. Th at decade was, as the late biblical scholar and epigrapher Frank Moore Cross remarked, "a season of monumental forgeries. " 2 In the years after the publication in 1870 of the ninthcentury B.C.E. royal stele known as the Moabite Stone,** the antiquities market in Jerusalem was fl ooded with fake Moabite inscriptions and artifacts. Th ese were available for purchase at Moses W. Shapira' s shop at what is now 76 Christian Quarter Street in Jerusalem' s Old City. Shapira sold most of his "Moabite" artifacts (some 1,700 items) to the Royal Museum in Berlin in 1875 for the princely sum of 22,000 thalers-nowadays around $250,000. Soon
Chapter 1 of Steps to a New Edition of the Hebrew Bible (2016)
The concept of the "definitive text" corresponds only to religion or exhaustion.-Jorge luis borge... more The concept of the "definitive text" corresponds only to religion or exhaustion.-Jorge luis borges, "The homeric Versions" every edition is a theory.-bernard cerquiglini, In Praise of the Variant 1. Moshe h. Goshen-Gottstein, "The textual criticism of the old testament:
ZAW 133 (2021): 225-30.
The Shapira manuscripts, putatively precursors of Deuteronomy, have many indications of forgery, ... more The Shapira manuscripts, putatively precursors of Deuteronomy, have
many indications of forgery, particularly in the orthography, which mixes the writing conventions of the Mesha stele and the Hebrew Bible. Notably, the consistent use of waw, instead of he, to mark final ō is an anachronism. These problems were not perceivable by the text’s nineteenth century critics (or its forgers), but in hindsight are clear marks of the forger’s art.
With the Loyal You Show Yourself Loyal: Essays on Relationships in the Hebrew Bible in Honor of Saul M. Olyan, eds. Tracy M. Lemos, Jordan D. Rosenblum, Karen B. Stern, and Debra S. Ballantine (Atlanta: SBL, 2021), 129-47.
Émile Durkheim observed that every mythology "is a morality and a cosmology, even as it is a hist... more Émile Durkheim observed that every mythology "is a morality and a cosmology, even as it is a history. " 1 The mythology of Gen 1-11 embodies a moral code, or perhaps better a double version of a moral code, with different emphases in the Priestly text and the Yahwistic text. These representations of morality are richly connected to the domains of sex, honor, and civilization. I will explore the interconnections of these domains as they figure in the moral relationships in the stories, and in their different configurations in the two source texts. First I address some preliminaries about myth and morality. Myth is an apt literary form to articulate the practices and sensibilities of a moral community, since it embeds them in the behaviors of particular individuals and sets them in an era when the world and its distinctive traits were gradually crystallizing into their present form. 2 Like all narrative, myth focuses the audience's attention onto the protagonists' moral emotions through a subjective form of engagement. In this respect, the moral code of Gen 1-11 is expressed through action and dialogue rather than explicit rules, with the occasional exception of God's prescriptions about morality. The picture of the moral world that develops in these stories is constructed from an assemblage of practices and personal relationships, together with their motivations and consequences. They exemplify what Bernard Williams calls "thick" moral concepts, that is, concepts that are embedded in a particular social world and are not 3.
Collective Identity and Collective Memory: Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History in Their Context, eds. Johannes U. Ro and Diana Edelman, BZAW 534 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2021), 263-88.
Mighty Baal: Essays in Honor of Mark S. Smith, eds. Stephen C. Russell and Esther J. Hamori (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 119-37
Vetus Testamentum 69 (2019), 567-93.
A plea for the complementarity of Literarkritik and literary criticism in biblical scholarship , ... more A plea for the complementarity of Literarkritik and literary criticism in biblical scholarship , with a partial genealogy of recent developments, followed by a detailed study of Abram's journey in Gen 11:27-12:9 in the non-P and P texts. Particular attention is paid to stylistic repetitions and implicit links to other texts, yielding a nexus of foreshadowings and backshadowings in each of the component texts. Conclusions include the viability of this non-P text (formerly known as J) and the P text as continuous sources in the Pentateuch, each with a distinctive poetics.
Biblica 100 (2019), 60-83.
Psalms In/On Jerusalem, eds. Ilana Pardes and Ophir Münz-Manor, Perspectives on Jewish Texts and Contexts 9 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019), 1-10.
Not all the psalms of Jerusalem are in the book of Psalms. One of the most eloquent is a prayer b... more Not all the psalms of Jerusalem are in the book of Psalms. One of the most eloquent is a prayer by the wayward prophet Jonah in Jonah 2:3-10. After being swallowed at Yahweh's command by a "big fish," Jonah utters a psalm of thanksgiving from the belly of the beast. By the end of the psalm, however, Jonah seems to be in Jerusalem, offering a thanksgiving sacrifice at the temple. According to the rhetoric of the psalm, he is "semiotically" in Jerusalem, even as the fish turns to vomit him out at Nineveh. The situation of the speaker complicates the temporal and spatial dynamics (what Bakhtin calls the "chronotope") of this psalm of Jerusalem (Bakhtin 1981, 85-258).1
The Politics of the Ancestors: Exegetical and Historical Perspectives on Genesis 12-36, eds. Mark Brett and Jakob Wöhrle, FAT 124 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 11-34.
Freud and Monotheism: Moses and the Violent Origins of Religion, eds. Gilad Sharvit and Karen S. Feldman (New York: Fordham University Press, 2018), 157-76.
Found in Translation: Essays on Jewish Biblical Translation in Honor of Leonard J. Greenspoon, eds. James W. Barker, Anthony Le Donne, and Joel N. Lohr (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2018), 155-78.
The Hebrew Bible, Vol 1B: Pentateuch, Former and Latter Prophets, eds. Armin Lange and Emanuel Tov (Textual History of the Bible; Leiden: Brill, , 2017), 59-72
Reading the Bible in Ancient Traditions and Modern Editions: Studies in Memory of Peter W. Flint, eds. Andrew B. Perrin, Kyung S. Baek, and Daniel K. Falk (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017), 245-67.
The point is that this is how we play the game. There are also rules, but they do not form a syst... more The point is that this is how we play the game. There are also rules, but they do not form a system, and only experienced people can apply them right.
The Origins of Yahwism, eds. Jürgen van Oorschot and Markus Witte (BZAW 484; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 239-66
![Research paper thumbnail of The Sayings of Chairman Tom (or) The Phantom of the Surface Structure [Adages of Thomas O. Lambdin]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/63287885/thumbnails/1.jpg)
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Journal of Religion 100 (2020): 511-13.
Jewish Journal, December 12, 2018
The Bible and Interpretation (https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/), 2024
Hebrew Bible. In my view, such postmodern disavowals of universal conceptsincluding knowledge, em... more Hebrew Bible. In my view, such postmodern disavowals of universal conceptsincluding knowledge, empathy, tolerance, equality, and inalienable human rights-are symptoms of something deeper, a reaction to the uncertainty of the modern world and the decline of the humanities. We need not retreat into all-or-nothing thinking and esoteric governmental conspiracies. To paraphrase a Renaissance author who had his own issues, the fault is not in Orientalism, but in ourselves.
TheTorah.com, 2023
Select volumes from the Anchor Bible and the JPS Torah and Bible Commentary series riting a comme... more Select volumes from the Anchor Bible and the JPS Torah and Bible Commentary series riting a commentary on a biblical book is often seen as the ultimate challenge, a scholarly equivalent of climbing Mount Everest. It takes years of research and writing, and obsessive attention to myriad details.
