Abstract: The present essay elucidates the characterization of God, Moses, and their relationship through the literary category of "character zones." A "character zone" can be thought of as a character's sphere of influence or voice which may overlap and infiltrate other characters' zones and which may contain varying degrees of the narrator's zone. This concept is particularly useful for exploring the relationship between Moses and God. The dynamic of an overlapping character zone is explicitly highlighted when God tells Moses that Aaron "shall serve as a mouth for you, and you shall serve as God for him" (Exod 4:16). The co-mingling of God's and Moses's character zones is explicit. As an exploration of this dynamic, the present essay will explore Moses's characterization in Exod 2:11–14 and highlight ways in which Moses's character zone overlaps with God's and contrasts with God. In the process, this essay will highlight the way that characterization can meet theology in biblical narrative.

Abstract: The present study analyzes the love poetry composed in Arabic by the Jewish convert to Islam Ibrāhīm Ibn Sahl al-Isrāʾīlī al-Ishbīlī (1211–1251). Ibn Sahl is considered unique among poets in the Andalusian period. He wrote his poetry in fluent Arabic and was very familiar with the use of Arabic themes and expressions, yet his verses contain allegorical allusions and utterances that hint at a yearning for his Jewish origins and for Hebrew. The discussion will focus on the meanings of Ibn Sahl's love poems, both literal and allegorical, especially the poems devoted to the figure of "Moses" and the various meanings that can be attached to it. A significant question that Ibn Sahl's love poems raise is how to understand the status of the beloved figure of "Moses" ('Mūsā'): Is the poet referring to the Moses the prophet, who serves as a mask behind which Ibn Sahl can express his yearning for the Jewish faith into which he was born, or is his intention to express his ardent love for "Moses", hidden behind a ṣūfī mask, in an imitation of the ṣūfī poets whom he encountered in Andalusia? Another important question is whether Ibn Sahl's use of ṣūfī terminology was a result of his contacts with ṣūfī scholars, headed by the mystic philosopher Muḥyi al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240), a native of Murcia and author of Turjumān al-ashwāq ('Interpreter of Desires'). The present study will attempt to answer these questions.

Abstract: In his analysis of the forty-eighth gate in Yehuda Al-Ḥarizi's Sefer Taḥkemoni, David Simha Segal argued that this story "leaves open the possibility of multiple and even contradictory readings" (The Book of Taḥkemoni – Jewish Tales from Medieval Spain, 2001, p. 622) and proposed alternative interpretations of the story. Segal's argument regarding the nature of this story is in line with my basic assumption that at the core of some of the most fascinating rhymed Hebrew stories from the Middle Ages – in Al-Ḥarizi's Taḥkemoni, but also in the work of his predecessors, Shlomo Ibn Ṣaqbel and Yosef Ibn Zabara – lies uncertainty as a poetic principle. From this perspective, while addressing Segal's interpretation, in this article I propose additional interpretive insights.

Abstract: Fresh analysis of familiar texts has the potential to yield intriguing results. Discourse analysis of Psalm 89 serves as a case in point. Since few scholars have analyzed Psalm 89 using discourse analysis, this article aims to fill a gap in the literature on Psalm 89 by closely analyzing the discourse structure of the final form of the Hebrew text. Moreover, based on the discourse analysis, this article draws attention to the movements of the psalm and to the neglected role of Psalm 89:53 in the rhetoric of the final form of the psalm. The structure of the final form of Psalm 89 suggests that YHWH deserves praise despite his apparent violation of the Davidic covenant.

After hearing about his divinely gifted wisdom, 1 Kings 10 records that the Queen of Sheba travelled, met, and tested King Solomon with hard questions. Solomon answered her riddles correctly, and the foreign queen gifted the Israelite king with large quantities of gold, spices, and precious stones. In 1 Kings 11, Solomon married many foreign women, lost his wisdom and ultimately, dies. The first argument of this article is that the cultural associations behind gold, spices, and precious stones and the damaging implications they have when evoked in a royal Israelite context predict Solomon's death. The second comes from the idea that both gifted wisdom and interacting with foreign women are contrasted with the teachings in Proverbs. As such, this article reads the Queen of Sheba in light of "Woman Strange," a deviant and seductive character in Proverbs. She is a foreigner, the antithesis to "Woman Wisdom" and uses precious materials, like gold, spices, and stones, to conduct her slippery activities. Therefore, the Queen of Sheba, read as the Strange Woman, gifts Solomon harmful materials to purposefully lead him astray.

This paper explores the non-adversarial aspect of two major works by Israeli author Yitzhak Averbuch Orpaz (1921–2015): the novella [inline-graphic 01] (Ants) (1968) and the novel [inline-graphic 02] (Daniel's Voyage) (1969). Both Ants and Daniel's Voyage were written and published over the two years following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and can be read in light of political issues associated with militarism, territorial occupation, and demarcation of borders. Against this background, Orpaz's works present alternative existential modes and a range of unique interactions that deviate from the binary logic characteristic of confrontational situations and breach the hierarchal and patronizing relationship between "Self" and "Other" (both human and non-human). To illuminate the non-adversarial aspects in these works, I draw on three core terms coined by French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari: Becoming, War Machine, and Nomadism.

Many scholars have studied Ezekiel's oracles concerning Egypt and how they relate to the fate of Israel. As has been shown, the language used to describe the exile and restoration of Egypt contains numerous parallels with Ezekiel's language pertaining to Israel's exile and restoration. However, many aspects of the rhetorical particularities of Ezekiel's use of Egypt have yet to be explained. In this article, I examine the rhetorical use of Egypt in Ezek 29. I argue that the rhetoric of Ezekiel not only binds the fate of Israel and Egypt together, but also communicates the judgment against and hope of Israel within the judgment against and restoration of Egypt. I explore the categories of macro-syntax and word choice in order to show how details in Ezek 29:1–21 relate to prophetic rhetoric elsewhere in the book and convey a prophetic argument to Israel.

Symposium on the Encounter Between Saul and the Medium of Endor: Introduction Hilary Lipka The encounter between Saul and the medium of Endor in 1 Samuel 28:4-24 plays a pivotal role in the Saul-David cycle. Saul, desperate for divine guidance before an immanent battle with the Philistines, fails to receive a response from God through any of the traditional, sanctioned means. Lacking any other options, he conceals his identity and goes out under the cover of night to seek an who can summon the spirit of Samuel for him (ironically just after he had expelled all and from the land). What follows is the one account in the Hebrew Bible of an exchange between the living and the dead. Samuel is summoned, and after rebuking Saul for disturbing him, he reveals the terrible truth about what is going to happen in the coming battle. Saul, already weakened from fasting and now bereft of all hope, collapses in despair. The episode concludes with the woman persuading Saul to eat, giving him the strength to return to camp, resigned to the fate that awaits him and his sons the next day. This episode touches upon several broader themes within the Hebrew Bible, including ancient Israelite conceptions of the afterlife, the contrast between licit and illicit methods of divination, the consequences of divine disfavor, and the complex dynamic that often existed between kings and prophets. The first two contributions to this symposium focus on some of these themes. Shaul Bar looks into the meanings of the terms and , how this mode of communication was understood in the Hebrew Bible, and what this episode reveals about beliefs concerning the afterlife and resurrection of the dead in the biblical period. Joseph Scales and Ellena Lyell focus on the description of the appearance of the spirit of Samuel. They identify four key elements of this description, each of which they contend is not only integral [End Page 95] to the identification of the spirit as Samuel's, but also serves to draw a contrast between Samuel and Saul, critiquing, condemning, and foreshadowing the fate of the latter. This encounter has also inspired much in the way of literature, art, theatrical pieces, music compositions, and even philosophical treatises. Shatha Almutawa examines the reception of this narrative within medieval Arabic literature, with a focus on the tenth-century Neoplatonist Iraqi thinkers known as Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' (the Brethren of Purity), who incorporate the story of Saul and the medium of Endor into their epistle on magic. Alinda Damsma discusses the role the narrative plays in demonologists' treatises on witchcraft in the late medieval and early modern period, focusing on King James VI of Scotland's Daemonologie and how earlier traditions of representing the encounter in Renaissance art and literature influenced this work. Rachel Ofer considers ways in which the medium of Endor is depicted in modern Hebrew literature. She approaches the poems, stories, and books she discusses as modern midrash, sometimes creatively filling in details absent from the biblical account, and other times providing psychological insight into one or more of the characters or using the story as a springboard to provide insights that transcend the biblical narrative. These essays approach the encounter between Saul and the medium of Endor from a variety of perspectives, and each illuminates different facets of the text. Some help us understand how this text was understood in its original context, and others give us a glimpse into the myriad of ways this story has been interpreted in different times and places. As a group, they reveal how widely knowledge of this episode has circulated and how broad, enduring, and varied its influence has been. [End Page 96] Hilary Lipka University of New Mexico Copyright © 2021 National Association of Professors of Hebrew