Quotes from Adele Berlin

the book of genesis received its English name from the Greek translation of the Heb word toledot, which is used thirteen times in Genesis and is translated as "story" (2.4), "record" (5.1), or "line" (10.1). In Heb, it is known, like many books in the Tanakh, by its first word, bereshit, which means, "In the beginning.

Do not imagine that you, of all the Jews, will escape with your life by being in the king's palace. 14On the contrary, if you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another quarter, while you and your father's house will perish. And who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a crisis.

41Then Moses set aside three cities on the east side of the Jordan 42to which a manslayer could escape, one who unwittingly slew a fellow man without having been hostile to him in the past; he could flee to one of these cities and live: 43Bezer, in the wilderness in the Tableland, belonging to the Reubenites; Ramoth, in Gilead, belonging to the Gadites; and Golan, in Bashan, belonging to the Manassites.

Gilgal is connected to the verb "roll" ("g-l-l"), perhaps to undermine the original connotation of a circle of standing stones, seen as forbidden divine images

23Whenever the [evil] spirit of God came upon Saul, David would take the lyre and play it;a Saul would find relief and feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.

21When Enoch had lived 65 years, he begot Methuselah. 22After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years; and he begot sons and daughters. 23All the days of Enoch came to 365 years. 24Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, for God took him.

28When Lamech had lived 182 years, he begot a son. 29And he named him Noah, saying, "This one will provide us relief * from our work and from the toil of our hands, out of the very soil which the Lord placed under a curse." 30After the birth of Noah, Lamech lived 595 years and begot sons and daughters. 31All the days of Lamech came to 777 years; then he died. 32When Noah had lived 500 years, Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

the books of samuel were originally one book. In the Septuagint (LXX) it was divided into two, owing to its length, and the Christian tradition followed this division. In Hebrew Bibles used by the Jewish community, this division was not accepted until the 15th century, under the influence of the Vulgate. Following a pattern found in some other biblical books, which end with the death of a main character, the division in the book of Samuel was made at the point of Saul's death.

The Protestant view is problematic because it ignores the fact that certain prophetic oracles are very interested in punctilious performance of particular ritual laws (see esp. Jer 17.19–27). Furthermore, a close reading of prophets such as Isaiah or Amos suggests that they are not anti-law or anti-Temple, but are rhetorically emphasizing that ritual behavior alone, without proper moral behavior, is insufficient to assure divine blessing.

24If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, do not act toward them as a creditor; exact no interest from them.

9When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger:

12On that occasion, when the Lord routed the Amorites before the Israelites, Joshua addressed the Lord; he said in the presence of the Israelites: "Stand still, O sun, at Gibeon, O moon, in the Valley of Aijalon!" 13 And the sun stood still And the moon halted, While a nation wreaked judgment on its foes

The relationship of compositional history to religious faith is not a simple one. If Moses is the human author of Genesis, nothing ensures that God is its ultimate Author. If J, E, P, and various equally anonymous sources and redactors are its human authors, nothing ensures that God is not its ultimate Author.

33When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. 34The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt:

Nor is there reference to an exodus in contemporary Egyptian sources. Such a reference is not really to be expected, however: Egyptian royal inscriptions avoided mentioning setbacks and defeats unless they were followed by victories, and administrative records from the time and place of the exodus have mostly perished.

The historical background of this dispute could be the 5th c. bce debate over whether or not the Transjordanians, headed by Tobiah, were a part of the community centered in Jerusalem (Neh. 2.10, 19, 20; 13.1–9). Alternately, the Transjordan community may represent all those who live outside of Israel, and the story aims to teach that in order for them to retain their identity and ties with Israel they must not conduct sacrificial practices elsewhere,

4They set out from Mount Hor by way of the Sea of Reeds* to skirt the land of Edom. But the people grew restive on the journey, 5and the people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why did you make us leave Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread and no water, and we have come to loathe this miserable food.

in the Torah, the word torah never refers to the Torah. In fact, the Torah does not explicitly suggest that it was compiled by Moses himself. (The phrase "the Torah" in passages such as Deut. 4.44, "This is the torah that Moses set before the Israelites," never refers to the complete Torah—there the reference is to [most of] the book of Deuteronomy.)

19You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just.

18 1When [David] finished speaking with Saul, Jonathan's soul became bound up with the soul of David; Jonathan loved David as himself.

35If your kinsman, being in straits, comes under your authority, and you hold him as though a resident alien, let him live by your side: 36do not exact from him advance or accrued interest,* but fear your God. Let him live by your side as your kinsman. 37Do not lend him your money at advance interest, or give him your food at accrued interest.

2No one whose testes are crushed or whose member is cut off shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord. 3No one misbegotten* shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord; none of his descendants, even in the tenth generation, shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord.

5When a man has taken a bride, he shall not go out with the army or be assigned to it for any purpose; he shall be exempt one year for the sake of his household, to give happiness to the woman he has married.

10When the Lord your God brings you into the land that He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to assign to you—great and flourishing cities that you did not build, 11houses full of all good things that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and you eat your fill, 12take heed that you do not forget the Lord who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage.