Bible Review, February 1988
Features
Michelangelo’s monumental Moses immediately captures the attention of visitors to the church of St. Peter in Chains in Rome. The sculptor has created a vision not merely of the lawgiver, but of Israel’s God as conceived by pre-modern Christendom. The unforgiving stare and the taut, sinewy arms leave no doubt that the subject is […]
The earliest Hebrew understanding of the cosmos grew out of prevailing Mesopotamian and Canaanite mythology. Even before the time of the Hebrews, ancient Semites pictured the world as a three-tiered structure: an upper realm of the gods (heaven), a middle world given by the gods to humans (earth) and a lower domain consisting of […]
When the first Dead Sea Scrolls came to light in 1947, putting their pieces together wasn’t really a problem. Indeed, one scroll, from what is now known as Qumran Cave 1, is almost complete. There was nothing to put together. That was the famous Isaiah Scroll, known to scholars as 1QIsa. The siglum […]
Computers can find patterns hidden in obscure recesses of biblical literature. Knowing what patterns to look for, however, still requires human intelligence. What these patterns mean, once they are identified, is also a matter that requires human, rather than computer, intelligence. Perhaps someday the computer itself will be able to decide what patterns to […]