@joelbaden.bsky.social just finished this excellent book. As great as it is, the conclusion and introspection at the end was even better and the most impactful to me.

It’s still basically the “debate me, bro” mindset. We shouldn’t play that game.

How do we choose one “theme” over another? Great: kindness to immigrants is definitely a consistent biblical theme. So is slavery. So is religious intolerance. Thematic thinking doesn’t make the Bible more liberal.

Just to make this point again, since it becomes relevant occasionally: if you use Bible verses as prooftexts like this, then you’re also saying that we should have the death penalty, forbid gay male sex, and allow chattel slavery of foreigners. Because the Bible is unambiguous about that, too.

Been reading @joelbaden.bsky.social 's book while my car is getting new tires. The essays on נפש‎ and רוח were insightful. Been a great read so far, even if you're familiar with the Hebrew it gives you moments of pause you didn't consider.

First copies of the latest book:

First copies of the latest book:

Ah - there’s no difference. I don’t have any way of knowing *who* inserted this (or any other later insertion) or *when* it was inserted. I care that it’s not from any of the sources and has to have been done in light of their combination. So anyone from the redactor to Augustine is fine by me.

Sure! The crucial point is that there are two interwoven genealogies here: one from P, which is identifiable because every verse begins with either “these” or “the descendants of x,” and one from J (non-P for the haters), which is everything else. The P genealogy of Shem begins in 10:22-23.

Okay, why not: one like, one verse from the Pentateuch that I think is a post-compilation secondary addition. Let’s get NUTS.

Just received the first printing of my new volume of collected essays:

The whole “AI uses em-dashes so don’t use them if you don’t want it to look like you’re writing with AI” thing is pissing me off. Like - Nazis wore belts, but I still have to keep my damn pants up. If you can only tell the difference between real writing and AI because of an em-dash, try harder.

@joelbaden.bsky.social just binged the rise and fall of ancient Israel course. Outstanding job and I did order that book. Quite eager to dive in to that.

Had the opportunity to speak yesterday with a lovely group of students at Oxford, hosted by the wonderful @katherinesouthwood.bsky.social. Grateful to her and to them. First time in Oxford too, somehow. Looking forward to returning.

Mine has long been “To the best friends money can buy.”

Ives is closer.

What if one doesn’t agree with the source assignment of the base texts on which the model was built?

Snoozing.

In case anyone wanted a copy of my book but balked at the sticker price…

Call back to this moment I experienced a few years ago:

The Doodle in New Haven. If you know, you know.

Definitely right, and the common view for a very long time indeed.

As the kids say, it’s proofs day around here. Looking forward to seeing this in the world (acknowledging that it will be too expensive for most normal humans to purchase, especially in this economy):

You can certainly suggest it - I’ve thought so myself on and off. I’ve decided against it (but I still think it likely, if not definitive, that 32:9-14 is a later addition, borrowed from the D version).

With the country going to hell and my feed being the purest doomscrolling, I thought maybe I’d start a thread of the issues in the Bible that keep me up at night. I don’t have all the answers - I only pretend to. So here are some places where I’m still trying to figure it out. Suggestions welcome!

Review of my book by Steven Friesen out in Pasts Imperfect: "Academia needs studies like this that raise suppressed questions if we are to understand better the ancient texts, their histories of usefulness, our academic disciplines, and our contemporary societal struggles."

"Judeo-Christian" is what people say when they'd like to be racist but know they'd get into trouble if it was too blatant.

Show me a cuter dog. I’ll wait.

Something about dogs in sweaters in the snow…

We need Mylo more than ever now.

I would be posting Bible-related thoughts, but (gestures wildly) it seems absurd.

Daily Mylo:

Today’s daily Mylo:

A new thing from me: a daily Mylo pic, because well, frankly you deserve (but I get him):

On difficult days like this one, I find myself turning for solace to the Bible. Let me share with you the verse that my eye landed on this morning: “Mattithiah, one of the Levites, the first-born of Shallum the Korahite, was entrusted with making the flat cakes.” Don’t you feel so much better? 🙏

On difficult days like this one, I find myself turning for solace to the Bible. Let me share with you the verse that my eye landed on this morning: “Mattithiah, one of the Levites, the first-born of Shallum the Korahite, was entrusted with making the flat cakes.” Don’t you feel so much better? 🙏

Hi Rodrigo! I’d probably respond by saying that anyone who thinks that those are somehow challenged to the documentary hypothesis haven’t the first clue what the documentary hypothesis is. Hope that helps!

The Patriots can’t even lose right. That’s how bad they are. Just jaw-droppingly stupid.

Guys I’m starting to think that all the new accounts following me with no posts and onlyfans links aren’t really interested in the literary history of the Bible.

Someone with a theological/confessional commitment to the idea of the Bible as a locus of continual self-revelation of divine truth might be more predisposed to a model of successive layers. Someone culturally comfortable with discursivity as a feature of scripture might be more okay with that.

I’m suggesting that we should always be able at least to answer the question of why we want to know a given thing. What are we using that knowledge for? What does it do in the world? Otherwise we’re pretending to some ethics-free intellectual life, which isn’t a thing.

And it needs sorting why? What’s the all the way down to rock bottom reason? Let’s say you could actually get the objectively true way that the Pentateuch came together. Then what? To what end?

Ah - and what is the point of achieving greater objectivity? Why is an objective “truth” desirable? To what end?

The thing I find myself thinking about most these days (at least in my work life) is that how one interprets the Bible - and the unavoidable ethics of doing so - is far more interesting than whatever the interpretation itself actually is.

The thing I find myself thinking about most these days (at least in my work life) is that how one interprets the Bible - and the unavoidable ethics of doing so - is far more interesting than whatever the interpretation itself actually is.

When Jackie Vayntrub and I teach our history and methods course and get to the Alters and Sternbergs of the world, we talk less about whether the Bible is such marvelous literature and more about why certain scholars are invested in it being marvelous literature. Which is where the real meat is.

I’m pretty convinced that J, E, and P are all present in Joshua, along with a thoroughgoing Dtr redaction.

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume? Source critic: You’re goddamn right I can.

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume? Source critic: You’re goddamn right I can.

I work with the coolest people.