This volume is a concentrated examination of the varied roles of scribes and scribal practices in ancient Israel and Judah, shedding light on the social world of the Hebrew Bible. Divided into discussion of three key aspects, the book begins by assessing praxis and materiality, looking at the tools and materials used by scribes, where they came from and how they worked in specific contexts. The contributors then move to observe the power and status of scribal cultures, and how scribes functioned within their broader social world. Finally, the volume offers perspectives that examine ideological issues at play in both antiquity and the modern context(s) of biblical scholarship. Taken together, these essays demonstrate that no text is produced in a void, and no writer functions without a network of resources.

From Babel to Babylon explores the literary and historical character of biblical texts in the Torah, Prophecy, and Writings. It considers questions of composition and the writing of history. The book situates biblical texts in their immediate and distant context. It reflects upon their intertextuality and identifies their literary sources. Key events and figures are discussed in light of the politics of the age. Gender issues are explored, with attention to the different social roles of men and women and the character of the interaction. Theology is another important topic, and the character of God keeps changing to reflect the development of historical and prophetic traditions. The books ends with biblical wisdom, with the specific instruction to rely on the experience of the sage, whose superior understanding is greater than our own. This exhortation to listen to the text directs us back to the introduction, where readers are asked to pay attention to the principles the text sets up for its own interpretation.

Scholars typically view Jeremiah 26-45 as a collection of episodes constructed during the Babylonian exile that attempts to prove the authenticity of Jeremiah's prophetic status. But Jeremiah's prophetic legitimacy was already widely accepted during the period of the Babylonian exile. These chapters serve a different purpose, namely, to provide a response by the Deuteronomistic scribes to the rise of the Ezekiel tradition and the Zadokite priesthood that threatened their influence among the exilic population. By subsuming their work within an existing and earlier collection of Jeremianic literature, the ideology and political agenda of the Deuteronomists was fused with the literary legacy of a widely respected prophet, giving rise to a larger literary collection that left a profound and lasting impression on Israel's intellectual and social history.

This exciting new study of the prophet Jeremiah attributes to him a pivotal significance in the historical period of Josiah's reign. He was, so Leuchter argues, one of the central agents of Josiah's propaganda machine and was intimately involved with the king's political agenda. Jeremiah, himself originally a member of the scribal school that composed the Deuteronomistic literature, encouraged the Shilonites of Anathoth to become active in Josiah's programme in the North following the waning of Assyrian power. Dismayed by the Shilonites' rejection of him and Josiah, and by the king's death at Megiddo, Jeremiah came to a radically new understanding of the divine purpose, encapsulated in the famous Temple sermon of Jeremiah 7 and evidenced in the prophet's debates with the political establishment in Jerusalem in the years that followed.

Scholars typically view Jeremiah 26-45 as a collection of episodes constructed during the Babylonian exile that attempts to prove the authenticity of Jeremiah's prophetic status. But Jeremiah's prophetic legitimacy was already widely accepted during the period of the Babylonian exile. These chapters serve a different purpose, namely, to provide a response by the Deuteronomistic scribes to the rise of the Ezekiel tradition and the Zadokite priesthood that threatened their influence among the exilic population. By subsuming their work within an existing and earlier collection of Jeremianic literature, the ideology and political agenda of the Deuteronomists was fused with the literary legacy of a widely respected prophet, giving rise to a larger literary collection that left a profound and lasting impression on Israel's intellectual and social history.

Samuel stands out in many important biblical texts as the figure who facilitated ancient Israel's transition from a tribal league to a monarchic state. On the surface of the text, this transition appears clear and linear, as does Samuel's role in bringing Israel together as a nation and selecting its first kings. Beneath this surface, however, is a far more complicated network of memories, sources and agendas, each presenting a very different picture of Samuel and his social, religious and ideological function. In some sources, Samuel serves as a symbol of Israel's developing priesthood and its system of social ethics, demonstrating the tensions within the priestly ranks. In others, Samuel's prophetic status is utilized to periodize Israel's history into distinct categories, positioning prophets over monarchs as national authorities. Elsewhere, Samuel is recruited to qualify - and disqualify - different forms of political organization in pre-monarchic Israel and systems of social hierarchy. Finally, the Jewish and Christian exegetical traditions return to the figure of Samuel and mine the texts in which he appears to re-structure Israel's national identity and the later communities that claimed descent from it. Mark Leuchter explores how the Samuel of these sources differs from the Samuel of the final form of the text, how the different writers used him to shape their ideas and transmit their messages, and how Samuel functions as a vehicle for the creation of a more elaborate literary superstructure drawn from discreet sources.

Samuel stands out in many important biblical texts as the figure who facilitated ancient Israel's transition from a tribal league to a monarchic state. On the surface of the text, this transition appears clear and linear, as does Samuel's role in bringing Israel together as a nation and selecting its first kings. Beneath this surface, however, is a far more complicated network of memories, sources and agendas, each presenting a very different picture of Samuel and his social, religious and ideological function. In some sources, Samuel serves as a symbol of Israel's developing priesthood and its system of social ethics, demonstrating the tensions within the priestly ranks. In others, Samuel's prophetic status is utilized to periodize Israel's history into distinct categories, positioning prophets over monarchs as national authorities. Elsewhere, Samuel is recruited to qualify - and disqualify - different forms of political organization in pre-monarchic Israel and systems of social hierarchy. Finally, the Jewish and Christian exegetical traditions return to the figure of Samuel and mine the texts in which he appears to re-structure Israel's national identity and the later communities that claimed descent from it. Mark Leuchter explores how the Samuel of these sources differs from the Samuel of the final form of the text, how the different writers used him to shape their ideas and transmit their messages, and how Samuel functions as a vehicle for the creation of a more elaborate literary superstructure drawn from discreet sources.

This volume is a concentrated examination of the varied roles of scribes and scribal practices in ancient Israel and Judah, shedding light on the social world of the Hebrew Bible. Divided into discussion of three key aspects, the book begins by assessing praxis and materiality, looking at the tools and materials used by scribes, where they came from and how they worked in specific contexts. The contributors then move to observe the power and status of scribal cultures, and how scribes functioned within their broader social world. Finally, the volume offers perspectives that examine ideological issues at play in both antiquity and the modern context(s) of biblical scholarship. Taken together, these essays demonstrate that no text is produced in a void, and no writer functions without a network of resources.

At a glance, the Hebrew Bible presents the Levites as a group of ritual assistants and subordinates in Israel's cult. A closer look, however, reveals a far more complicated history behind the emergence of this group in Ancient Israel. A careful reconsideration of the sources provides new insights into the origins of the Levites, their social function and location, and the development of traditions that grew around them. The social location and self-perception of the Levites evolved alongside the network of clans and tribes that grew into a monarchic society, and alongside the struggle to define religious and social identity in the face of foreign cultures. This book proposes new ways to see not only how these changes affected Levite self-perception but also the manner in which this perception affected larger trends as Israelite religion evolved into nascent Judaism. By consulting the textual record, archaeological evidence, the study of cultural memory and social-scientific models, Mark Leuchter demonstrates that the Levites emerge as boundary markers and boundary makers in the definition of what it meant to be part of "Israel."

Priestly functionaries occupy a paramount position in the study of the Hebrew Bible. Despite more than a century of critical research, questions still abound regarding social location and definitions of the various priestly groups, the depictions of their origins, their ritual functions, the role of the laity and family religion, the relationship between prophecy and the priesthood, and the dating of texts. Making use of cross-disciplinary approaches, this volume provides a representative look at the state of current research into various aspects of priesthood in ancient Israel.