A More Perfect Torah: At the Intersection of Philology and Hermeneutics in Deuteronomy and the Temple Scroll

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With thanks to James Spinti for telling me about this forthcoming volume.

The historical-critical method that characterizes academic biblical studies too often remains separate from approaches that stress the history of interpretation, which are employed more frequently in the area of Second Temple or Dead Sea Scrolls research. Inaugurating the new Eisenbrauns series, Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible, A More Perfect Torah explores a series of test-cases where the two methods mutually reinforce one another. The volume brings together two studies that each investigate the relation between the compositional history of the biblical text and its reception history at Qumran and in rabbinic literature.

It’s a shorter book (at 120 pages) and that’s just the sort of thing TM Law has been discussing just today.  Given the fact that my own books are on the shorter end of the spectrum (by design) I’m biased- but I think that books should only be as long as they need to be to adequately cover the subject succinctly.  Any more than that is just pomposity.

6 thoughts on “A More Perfect Torah: At the Intersection of Philology and Hermeneutics in Deuteronomy and the Temple Scroll”

  1. Jim,

    Glad you like the look of the inaugural volume. Critical Studies in Hebrew Bible will publish just small monographs, for exactly the reasons you give. We’ve got a couple of other exciting volumes coming later in 2013, and some more in the works.

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    • that’s fantastic nathan. if you guys need a set of proofreading eyes give a yell. i’m right good at it. 😉

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    • for precisely the reasons stated. say what you have to say and move on. i’m not an imbecile, you don’t have to repeat the same thing in 10 different ways for me to ‘get it’. books only need be as long as they must to present the material at hand completely yet succinctly.

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    • we certainly agree on that. it looks like it’s going to be a fantastic series so i’ve got a standing order. nate macdonald is one of the leading lights in ot studies.

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