Features

7 vs 8
The battle over the holy day at Dura-Europos By Stephen Goranson

When the remote Roman fortress of Dura-Europos, overlooking the Euphrates, came under attack in the mid-third century C.E., the residents hastily fortified the city’s vulnerable western wall. They piled up a massive dry-fill buttress that covered the numerous buildings directly inside the wall, including a house-church and a synagogue. But their desperate efforts were […]

The Son of Man
Who was he? By Bruce Chilton

Who is the “son of man”? And who is the “one like a son of man”? And who is “the Son of Man” (in capital letters)? What’s the difference in meaning from one phrase to the other? And how do these terms apply to Jesus? Until quite recently, it was widely agreed that the […]

Ruth
Big theme, little book By Adele Berlin

In different Bibles, the Book of Ruth is put in different places. In Christian Bibles it is slipped in between Judges and Samuel, among the historical books. In the Hebrew Bible it’s in an entirely different place, in the third section, known as the Writings. It does not seem to fit neatly into the […]

Departments

Retrieving the World of Ancient Judaism
For the historian of religion, the closing of the canon was an unmitigated disaster, leading to the loss of a rich literature. By John J. Collins
A Husband’s Pride, A Mob’s Prejudice
The public ordeal undergone by a suspected adulteress in Numbers 5 was meant not to humiliate her but to protect her. By Jacob Milgrom