Bible Review

W.F. Leemans, Ishtar of Lagaba and Her Dress (Leiden: Brill, 1952); Jean Bottéro, “Les inventaires de Qatna,” Revue d’assyriologie et d’Archéologie Orientale 43 (1949), p. 1ff.

William W. Hallo, “Cult Statue and Divine Image: A Preliminary Study,” in Hallo, James C. Moyer and Leo G. Perdue, eds., Scripture in Context 2: More Essays on the Comparative Method (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983), pp. 1–17. Hallo tells us that earrings were “among the typical accoutrements of cult statues by Neo-Sumerian times at the end of the [third] millennium [B.C.E.]” (p. 16).

This interpretation was suggested long ago by the medieval commentator Hizzequni, and more recently by Arnold B. Ehrlich. See Ehrlich, Randglossen zur hebräischen Bibel 1: Genesis und Exodus (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1908), p. 178.

Othmar Keel, “Vergraben der ‘fremden Götter’” in Genesis xxxv 4b, Vetus Testamentum 23 (1973), pp. 306–307, n. 4.

See Ernest G. Clarke, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of the Pentateuch: Text and Concordance (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1984), p. 43; Michael Maher, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Genesis (Aramaic Bible 1B; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992), p. 119. For other expressions of the opinion that the earrings bore idolatrous images, see Menahem Kasher, Torah Shelemah, Talmud-Midrashic Encyclopedia on the Pentateuch 5: Genesis (Jerusalem: Azriel, 1936), pp. 1339–1340 (Hebrew).

In all of Joshua, the only other pedigree this compelling belongs to Manasseh’s great-great-grandson Zelophehad (Joshua 17:3).

The exception is the Gibeonite episode (Joshua 9:18–19), which functions in parallel ways to the Rahab episode. In both cases, “Canaanite” outsiders become part of Israel, the former by expression of faith and the latter by a ruse.