Bible Review

See the bibliography in Crump, The Anthropology of Numbers.

For a survey of philosophical theories of number, see R.M. Wilson, “Number,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Macmillan and Free Press, 1967), vol. 5, pp. 528–530; and Thomas Crump, The Anthropology of Numbers (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990), p. 6.

Karl August Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven, CT. Yale Univ. Press, 1957).

A. Ben-Menahem, A. Nur and M. Vered, “Tectonics, Seismicity and Structure of the Afro-Eurasian Junction—The Breaking of an Incoherent Plate,” Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 12 (1976), pp. 1–50.

Isaac Schattner, The Lower Jordan Valley (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1962), p. 15; see also, Barbara Kreiger, Living Waters (New York: Continuum, 1988).

This interpretation differs from that offered by Nelson Glueck (The River Jordan [New York: McGraw Hill, 1968], pp. 80–81). Glueck was impressed with archaeological finds of settlements along the sides of the Jordan Valley. He concluded that the Jordan Valley “may also have been the richest and most prized part of the Land of Promise,” and that Lot “was certainly right in his appreciation of the Jordan Valley.”

Jericho lies within the Jordan Valley, but it is located about six miles from the river. Jericho is an oasis whose water supply depended largely on springs that issue at the base of the Judean Highlands. The Bible is not clear about the location of Sodom and Gomorrah. Some traditions favor a location south of the Dead Sea, others place the cities farther north.

Colbert C. Held, Middle East Patterns (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989), pp. 42–43.

Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad; or the New Pilgrims’ Progress, 1869.

In the scrolls we also find evidence of the falling out that was to separate the Pharisees from the Hasmonean dynasty as the Hasmoneans became progressively Hellenized. In this respect, the scrolls confirm evidence found in Josephus and in rabbinic literature.