Bible Review

See Harold Brodsky, “Bible lands: the Shephelah—Guardian of Judea,” BR 03:04.

Pronounced Shah-ROWN’ in Hebrew

See “The David and Goliath Saga,” BR 02:04, by Emanuel Tov.

See Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “What the Babylonian Flood Stories Can and Cannot Teach Us About the Genesis Flood,” BAR 04:04.

Before Abraham Was. The Unity of Genesis 1–11 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985) 144 pp., $9.95 paperback

In the Hebrew, “king” (melech) is preceded by the definite article (the, ha), which is used here, as elsewhere, to indicate the vocative.

Some translations, such as the one by the New Jewish Publication Society, translate the l- as “for”: “It is time to act for the Lord.” This seems wrong to me. Acting for the Lord is at least questionable theology, tantamount to chutzpah or hubris.

“Son of David” is a messianic tide referring here to Jesus.

There is, of course, a portion of this scroll, constituted by the fragments 44–59, that stuck together when the remains of this scroll came to the museum. Baillet tried to get to the original order of these fragments, see p. 242 of his edition and plates LXIII–LXV. But his results do not appear to be correct.