Alexander Rofe
Encyclopedia
Alexander Rofé is Professor Emeritus of Bible
at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
(Italy
) in 1932. His father, Gersh Roifer was active in the Zionist
movement and directed the maritime school of the Betar
movement in Civitavecchia
.His mother, Matilde Gallichi, taught classics at high school; she was descended from a family that had lived in Tuscany
for generations. Before his death in August 1938, Gersh Roifer directed his wife to make Aliyah
(immigration to the Land of Israel
) with the children. In the fall of 1939 the family settled in the Land of Israel. Rofe' attended schools in various places in this country and graduated from the Ohel Shem
high school in Ramat Gan. At the Hebrew University he studied Hebrew Bible and the History of Israel
. His teachers in Bible were M.D. Cassuto
, Y. Kaufmann
, I.L. Seeligmann, S. Talmon
, M. Weiss, M. Haran, S.E. Loewenstamm; in History of Israel – B. Mazar
, A. Malamat, A. Shalit; in Assyriology – H. Tadmor
, in Hebrew Language – N. H. Tur-Sinai
, E.Y. Kutscher
, Ben-Haim, S. Morag; in History of Religions – D. Flusser
, R.J.Z. Werblowsky. Rofe' wrote his dissertation under the supervision of I.L. Seeligmann, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1970.
Since 1959 Rofé has taught in the following academic institutions: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Haifa University, University of Pennsylvania
(Philadelphia), Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
(Beer Sheva), Yale University
(New Haven, CT), Università degli Studi di Firenze (Italy), The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, The Humanistic University in Moscow
, Hebrew Union College
in Cincinnati (Ohio), Pontificio Istituto Biblico (Rome, Italy), Studium Biblicum Franciscanum
(Jerusalem), University of São Paulo
(Brazil), Ariel University Center of Samaria, Facoltà Teologica di Sicilia (Palermo, Italy). In addition he offered guest lectures in the following universities: ome, isa, urin, The Catholic University in Milan, Venice
, Catania
(Sicily), Sorbon
(Paris), Marburg
, Goettingen, Tuebingen (Germany), Columbia
(New York), Brandeis
(Waltham, MA), Bloomington
(Indiana).
Rofé taught at the Hebrew University for nearly forty years. He was promoted to full professorship in 1986 and retired in 2000. He had served twice as head of the Department of Bible. He co-edited the series of monographs Jerusalem Bible Studies between the years 1979-1986 and has been editor and coeditor of Textus, Studies of the Hebrew University Bible Project, between the years 1995 – 2009.
Rofé married Esther Kessler in 1954. They have four children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
, history of literature, and history of the Israelite religion. In his research he strives to integrate these fields, because each one of them is advanced by perceptions obtained in the other two.
1. His first book, The Israelite Belief in Angels (Ph.D. dissertation, 1969, Hebrew, published 1979 ) endeavors to clarify how far the belief in angels is an attempt at translating ancient polytheistic traditions into the frame of a monotheistic faith. Thus, e.g. the Canaanite god Reshep, still mentioned in ancient Biblical poems, has been transformed into an envoy of YHWH and named 'the destroying angel'. And the god Bethel, also present in extra-biblical sources, still reveals himself in the site of Bethel, but gradually is defined as an anonymous angel. This was one of the aspects of the ancient biblical angelology in pre-exilic times. The transition from a belief in gods to the belief in angels is evident in the Septuagint to Gen 32: 2-3 and Deut 32: 8-9, 43. The polytheistic origin of the belief in angels explains the anti-angelologic position of D and P, the two great historical and juristic schools; while quoting from former documents they silenced all mentions of angels. This opposition to the belief in angels was inherited by Qoheleth and the Sadduceans
. However, by that time, a full-fledged angelology was developing amidst apocalyptic circles.
2a. The Religion of Ancient Israel and the Text of the Hebrew Bible. Over the years, Rofé has dedicated quite a few articles to the question of how far the development of the Israelite religion affected the transmission of the Biblical text. In the wake of scholars such as A. Geiger
and I.L. Seeligmann, Rofé studied textual corrections due to the following tenets:
(1) the unification of worship in Jerusalem
(2) enhancing the observance of the Torah
(3) obliteration of the epithet SEBA'OT from God's name
(4) rejection of pillars as cultic objects
(5) negation of the possibility that God
hates Israel
(6) deference to Israel's dignitaries and aversion to the wicked.
The study of these corrections contributes to understanding the beliefs of the scribes that transmitted the Biblical books in the first generations after their composition.
2b. Another aspect of textual criticism is its contact with the history of Biblical literature. Rofé emphasized that these two realms are interdependent. Thus he argued, on the basis of literary-stylistic considerations, that in Deuteronomy
5 the shorter text presented by the tefillin from Qumran
should be preferred over against all other textual witnesses. In Joshua
20, arguments derived from higher criticism (i.e., the discipline that defines and dates sundry documents in the Biblical books) proved the superiority of the shorter text witnessed by the Septuagint. Contrariwise, in Judges
6 Rofé opines that the Massoretic Text (=MT) has the precedence while the Qumran manuscript 4QJudg erroneously skipped vss. 7-10; this too is inferred from 19th century higher criticism that identified an ancient Elohistic redaction in the Book of Judges.
2c. In the study of the Biblical text there are no rigid rules. Rofé maintains that the norm lectio brevior praeferenda est has a limited validity. The scribes who first copied the inherited works were rather sophisticated. At times, indeed, they piled additions upon their texts, but otherwise they abridged their documents on literary or ideological grounds. In the story of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17), there are linguistic and literary arguments for the precedence of the MT over against the shorter one represented by the Septuagint (=LXX). In the book of Jeremiah
the situation is more complex: sometimes the shorter text, represented by the LXX, can be considered as a kind of 'first edition', but more often the shorter text derived from editorial interventions of late scribes, who operated according to their literary and theological conceptions. On these issues Rofé differed from the views of his colleague Emanuel Tov
.
2d. The study of theological views in the Bible led Rofé to the identification of secondary, midrashic elements in the textual witnesses of the Hebrew Bible. These elements are evident in short glosses, appended to Exod 2: 3 in a Qumran scroll, 1 Kgs 22:28 in the MT and Ruth
4: 11 in the LXX. But in addition Rofé pointed out midrashic elaborations that affected a whole biblical book. This is the case of the Qumran scroll 4Q51, usually designated as 4QSama . Rofé highlighted the various midrashic elements in this manuscript and thereby inferred that one should not define this scroll as representing the book of Samuel
; rather it is an ancient Midrash Samuel
. Here Rofé differed with F.M. Cross and his students from the Harvard School.
3.The Documentary Hypothesis
and the Composition of the Pentateuch. A study of the religious thought in the Torah entails taking a stand vis-à-vis the Documentary Hypothesis. This happened to Rofé in his study of the belief in angels. In his opinion, there is no reason to contest the existence of the major documents in the Pentateuch – D, produced by the Deuteronomic writers, and P, created in the Priestly school. However, the bulk of the narrative material cannot be subdivided as usual between the four putative documents, J, E, D, P. An instructive case in point is the "Book of Balaam
" in Numbers
22: 2 – 24: 25. An accurate inquiry reveals that the story was not composed by the fusion of the accounts of the documents J and E. Rather, the legend about Balaam grew up gradually and organically. Its beginning was in the speeches of Numbers 24 which presented Balaam as one "who knows the knowledge of the Most High". And the last layer was the burlesque about the angel, Balaam and his she-ass (Numbers 22: 22-35), a story that derides the alien prophet
, because he cannot see what is visible to the she-ass. Also, a study of the Betrothal of Rebekkah (Genesis 24) leads to similar conclusions: the story is not part of the document J, but an independent piece; it is a paradigm composed in post-exilic times in order to teach the people of Judea the proper choice in match-making. See below, at paragraph 6, for further stories of this kind.
4a. The Prophetical Stories: The Narratives about the Prophets in the Hebrew Bible – Their Literary Types and History (Hebrew: 1982, 1986; English: 1988). In the ten chapters of this book Rofé summarized eighteen years of study, between 1964 and 1982. This is a first effort in Biblical research to present a comprehensive description of all the stories about the prophets, defining their genres, such as legenda
, biography
, historiography
, parables, and determining the origin of the genres and their subsequent development. The legenda, for instance, came into being among the admirers of Elisha
, around the end of the Ninth century BCE. The parable appeared when the disciples of the prophets began to discuss the nature of the prophets' mission and of the word of the Lord pronounced by them. This genre was probably created in late pre-exilic and early post-exilic times. The climax of the prophetical stories is the epopee about Elijah and the Lord's fight against Baal. In its last phases, the prophetical narrative described its heroes as martyrs who taught foreigners the omnipotence of the God of Israel.
4b. The theological discussion about the essence of prophecy. The quality of the word of the Lord engaged the disciples of the prophets for a long time in the Sixth and Fifth centuries BCE. Is the word of the Lord always fulfilled? The question was raised and received a positive answer in an addition to the law concerning prophecy in Deut 18: 21-22. The same view transpires from the Deuteronomistic redaction of the book of Kings and is proclaimed by Deutero-Isaiah. The opposite stand was taken by the author of Jonah, by the Deuteronomistic editor of Jeremiah, and an editor of Ezekiel
(Ch. 33). Trito-Isaiah joined them while contesting the views of his master, Deutero-Isaiah. The identification of this divergence led Rofé to define anew the border between the words of Deutero-and Trito-Isaiah. To the former one should attribute chs. 40-53, to the latter – chs. 54-66. Indeed, Abraham Kuenen suggested this as early as 1886.
5. The Introduction to Deuteronomy
: Part I and Further Chapters (Hebrew: 1988) grew out of notes distributed to students of Bible at the Hebrew University in the wake of the Yom Kippur war
(1973), because of the teacher's and the students' absence from classes. This Introduction attempts at describing the contents of Deuteronomy and its structure which mainly consists of two covenants: Horeb (4:44 - 28:68 + 30: 1 - 10) and the one in the Land of Moab (28: 69 – 30: 20). The latter covenant has a clear affinity to vassal treaties, mainly Hittite, of the Second Millenium BCE. Rofés enquiry, however, is principally not comparative, but internal; it seeks to uncover the history of Deuteronomy, especially its legal corpus, by dwelling on its duplications and contradictions. Thus the various layers have been exposed: first, prae-Deuteronomic inherited material, then Deuteronomic legislation that preceded the Josiah
reform of 622 BCE, further an additional, later layer from the time of the reform itself, finally a post-reform layer that supplemented and interpreted the earlier legislation. This kind of work reached into post-exilic times. Rofés study confirms the conclusion, already expressed by former scholars, that the ultimate origin of the Deuteronomic movement was in the ancient holy site of Shechem
, probably in the Tenth Century BCE. A significant portion of this research has been published in English: Deuteronomy: Issues and Interpretation (Edinburgh 2002).
6. The Introduction to the Literature of the Hebrew Bible (Hebrew: 2006, 2007; English: 2009). As usual in books of introduction, this work does not strive for innovations, but attempts at describing the problems brought to light by the discipline and the methods applied to solve them. The particular merit of this Introduction is that it does not merely present the conclusions reached by the Biblical research, but it shows the course that led to them. For instance, Part 3 "The Prophetic Literature" poses some fundamental questions: Did the disciples of the prophets introduce additions into the words of their masters? Did they rework them? What are the proofs to their interventions? How can one distinguish between prophecy and apocalyptic? Part 4, "Psalmody", not only summarized the method of Hermann Gunkel, but also criticized it; the same was done with his main detractor, Meir Weiss. A peculiarity of this introduction is its chapter "Late Narrative" (Part I, Chapter 4). Here Rofé brought together findings from his previous studies. Signs of late composition clearly indicate that the stories about the betrothal of Rebekkah (Genesis 24), the rape of Dinah
(Genesis 34), David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17), the wars with Aram
(1 Kings 20), the vineyard of Naboth
(1 Kings 21: 1-16) were all written in post-exilic times. They reflect problems and expectations of the people of Yehud in Persian times. These findings run against the Documentary Hypothesis in the Pentateuch and the hypothesis of a single Deuteronomistic composition from Deuteronomy 1 to 2 Kings 25. The creation of the Biblical literature was a multifarious process that extended over a longer span than the one usually accepted in Biblical criticism.
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Curriculum vitae
Alexander Rofé was born in PisaPisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
(Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
) in 1932. His father, Gersh Roifer was active in the Zionist
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
movement and directed the maritime school of the Betar
Betar
The Betar Movement is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir Jabotinsky. It has been traditionally linked to the original Herut and then Likud political parties of Israel, and was closely affiliated with the pre-Israel Revisionist Zionist splinter group...
movement in Civitavecchia
Civitavecchia
Civitavecchia is a town and comune of the province of Rome in the central Italian region of Lazio. A sea port on the Tyrrhenian Sea, it is located 80 kilometers west-north-west of Rome, across the Mignone river. The harbor is formed by two piers and a breakwater, on which is a lighthouse...
.His mother, Matilde Gallichi, taught classics at high school; she was descended from a family that had lived in Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
for generations. Before his death in August 1938, Gersh Roifer directed his wife to make Aliyah
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
(immigration to the Land of Israel
Land of Israel
The Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...
) with the children. In the fall of 1939 the family settled in the Land of Israel. Rofe' attended schools in various places in this country and graduated from the Ohel Shem
Ohel Shem
Ohel Shem is an Israeli high school located in the city of Ramat Gan.It has about 1,550 students studying in 47 classes, from Ninth grade to Twelfth grade And about 160 teachers and 40 workers....
high school in Ramat Gan. At the Hebrew University he studied Hebrew Bible and the History of Israel
History of Israel
The State of Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948 after almost two millennia of Jewish dispersal and persecution around the Mediterranean. From the late 19th century the Zionist movement worked towards the goal of recreating a homeland for the Jewish people...
. His teachers in Bible were M.D. Cassuto
Umberto Cassuto
Umberto Cassuto, also known as Moshe David Cassuto, , was a rabbi and Biblical scholar born in Florence, Italy. -Early life and career:...
, Y. Kaufmann
Yehezkel Kaufmann
Yehezkel Kaufmann was an Israeli philosopher and Biblical scholar associated with Hebrew University.- Biography :...
, I.L. Seeligmann, S. Talmon
Shemaryahu Talmon
Shemaryahu Talmon was J. L. Magnes Professor of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He died the morning of December 15, 2010....
, M. Weiss, M. Haran, S.E. Loewenstamm; in History of Israel – B. Mazar
Benjamin Mazar
Benjamin Mazar was a pioneering Israeli historian, recognized as the "dean" of biblical archaeologists. He shared the national passion for the archaeology of Israel that also attracts considerable international interest due to the region's biblical links...
, A. Malamat, A. Shalit; in Assyriology – H. Tadmor
Hayim Tadmor
Hayim Tadmor was a leading Israeli Assyriologist, and a profound influence on many students and scholars of the Ancient Near East throughout the world. A superb teacher and inspiring lecturer, his multilingual wit was known in many countries...
, in Hebrew Language – N. H. Tur-Sinai
Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai
Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai was a Bible scholar, author, and linguist instrumental in the revival of the Hebrew language as a modern, spoken language...
, E.Y. Kutscher
Yechezkel Kutscher
Edward Yechezkel Kutscher or Yechezkel Kutscher was an Israeli philologist and Hebrew linguist.- Biography :Kutscher was born in 1909 in Topoľčany, Slovakia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He studied at the yeshiva in his home town and, later, in Frankfurt...
, Ben-Haim, S. Morag; in History of Religions – D. Flusser
David Flusser
David Flusser was a professor of Early Christianity and Judaism of the Second Temple Period at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.- Biography :...
, R.J.Z. Werblowsky. Rofe' wrote his dissertation under the supervision of I.L. Seeligmann, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1970.
Since 1959 Rofé has taught in the following academic institutions: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Haifa University, University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
(Philadelphia), Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is a university in Beersheba, Israel, established in 1969. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has a current enrollment of 17,400 students, and is one of Israel's fastest growing universities....
(Beer Sheva), Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
(New Haven, CT), Università degli Studi di Firenze (Italy), The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, The Humanistic University in Moscow
Moscow University for the Humanities
Moscow University for the Humanities is an accredited privately operated institution for higher education located in Moscow, Russia. It is a member of the International Association of Universities.The University has six faculties...
, Hebrew Union College
Hebrew Union College
The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism.HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem.The Jerusalem...
in Cincinnati (Ohio), Pontificio Istituto Biblico (Rome, Italy), Studium Biblicum Franciscanum
Studium Biblicum Franciscanum
Studium Biblicum Franciscanum is a Franciscan academic society based in Jerusalem and Hong Kong.They publish the theological journal Liber annuus ISSN 0081-8933 in Latin...
(Jerusalem), University of São Paulo
University of São Paulo
Universidade de São Paulo is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian university and one of the country's most prestigious...
(Brazil), Ariel University Center of Samaria, Facoltà Teologica di Sicilia (Palermo, Italy). In addition he offered guest lectures in the following universities: ome, isa, urin, The Catholic University in Milan, Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, Catania
Catania
Catania is an Italian city on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea, between Messina and Syracuse. It is the capital of the homonymous province, and with 298,957 inhabitants it is the second-largest city in Sicily and the tenth in Italy.Catania is known to have a seismic history and...
(Sicily), Sorbon
Sorbon
Sorbon is a commune of the Ardennes department in northern France.-Population:-Personalities:It was the birthplace of Robert de Sorbon, , who was a chaplain and Confessor to King Louis IX of France, as well as being the founder of the Sorbonne, the University of Paris....
(Paris), Marburg
Marburg
Marburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...
, Goettingen, Tuebingen (Germany), Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
(New York), Brandeis
Brandeis
Brandeis may refer to:* Louis Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court Justice* Things named for Louis Brandeis:** Brandeis Brief, a 1908 document written by Brandeis as a litigator** Brandeis University, in Massachusetts, USA...
(Waltham, MA), Bloomington
Bloomington
Bloomington is the name of some places in the United States of America:*Bloomington, California*Bloomington, Idaho*Bloomington, Illinois** the Bloomington meteorite of 1938, which fell in Illinois, United States *Bloomington, Indiana...
(Indiana).
Rofé taught at the Hebrew University for nearly forty years. He was promoted to full professorship in 1986 and retired in 2000. He had served twice as head of the Department of Bible. He co-edited the series of monographs Jerusalem Bible Studies between the years 1979-1986 and has been editor and coeditor of Textus, Studies of the Hebrew University Bible Project, between the years 1995 – 2009.
Rofé married Esther Kessler in 1954. They have four children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Research
Rofé has contributed to three fields of study in the Hebrew Bible: textual criticismTextual criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...
, history of literature, and history of the Israelite religion. In his research he strives to integrate these fields, because each one of them is advanced by perceptions obtained in the other two.
1. His first book, The Israelite Belief in Angels (Ph.D. dissertation, 1969, Hebrew, published 1979 ) endeavors to clarify how far the belief in angels is an attempt at translating ancient polytheistic traditions into the frame of a monotheistic faith. Thus, e.g. the Canaanite god Reshep, still mentioned in ancient Biblical poems, has been transformed into an envoy of YHWH and named 'the destroying angel'. And the god Bethel, also present in extra-biblical sources, still reveals himself in the site of Bethel, but gradually is defined as an anonymous angel. This was one of the aspects of the ancient biblical angelology in pre-exilic times. The transition from a belief in gods to the belief in angels is evident in the Septuagint to Gen 32: 2-3 and Deut 32: 8-9, 43. The polytheistic origin of the belief in angels explains the anti-angelologic position of D and P, the two great historical and juristic schools; while quoting from former documents they silenced all mentions of angels. This opposition to the belief in angels was inherited by Qoheleth and the Sadduceans
Sadducees
The Sadducees were a sect or group of Jews that were active in Ancient Israel during the Second Temple period, starting from the second century BC through the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. The sect was identified by Josephus with the upper social and economic echelon of Judean society...
. However, by that time, a full-fledged angelology was developing amidst apocalyptic circles.
2a. The Religion of Ancient Israel and the Text of the Hebrew Bible. Over the years, Rofé has dedicated quite a few articles to the question of how far the development of the Israelite religion affected the transmission of the Biblical text. In the wake of scholars such as A. Geiger
Abraham Geiger
Abraham Geiger was a German rabbi and scholar who led the founding of Reform Judaism...
and I.L. Seeligmann, Rofé studied textual corrections due to the following tenets:
(1) the unification of worship in Jerusalem
(2) enhancing the observance of the Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
(3) obliteration of the epithet SEBA'OT from God's name
(4) rejection of pillars as cultic objects
(5) negation of the possibility that God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
hates Israel
(6) deference to Israel's dignitaries and aversion to the wicked.
The study of these corrections contributes to understanding the beliefs of the scribes that transmitted the Biblical books in the first generations after their composition.
2b. Another aspect of textual criticism is its contact with the history of Biblical literature. Rofé emphasized that these two realms are interdependent. Thus he argued, on the basis of literary-stylistic considerations, that in Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy
The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, and of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch...
5 the shorter text presented by the tefillin from Qumran
Qumran
Qumran is an archaeological site in the West Bank. It is located on a dry plateau about a mile inland from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, near the Israeli settlement and kibbutz of Kalia...
should be preferred over against all other textual witnesses. In Joshua
Joshua
Joshua , is a minor figure in the Torah, being one of the spies for Israel and in few passages as Moses's assistant. He turns to be the central character in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Joshua...
20, arguments derived from higher criticism (i.e., the discipline that defines and dates sundry documents in the Biblical books) proved the superiority of the shorter text witnessed by the Septuagint. Contrariwise, in Judges
Book of Judges
The Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Hebrew bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its title describes its contents: it contains the history of Biblical judges, divinely inspired prophets whose direct knowledge of Yahweh allows them to act as decision-makers for the Israelites, as...
6 Rofé opines that the Massoretic Text (=MT) has the precedence while the Qumran manuscript 4QJudg erroneously skipped vss. 7-10; this too is inferred from 19th century higher criticism that identified an ancient Elohistic redaction in the Book of Judges.
2c. In the study of the Biblical text there are no rigid rules. Rofé maintains that the norm lectio brevior praeferenda est has a limited validity. The scribes who first copied the inherited works were rather sophisticated. At times, indeed, they piled additions upon their texts, but otherwise they abridged their documents on literary or ideological grounds. In the story of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17), there are linguistic and literary arguments for the precedence of the MT over against the shorter one represented by the Septuagint (=LXX). In the book of Jeremiah
Jeremiah
Jeremiah Hebrew：יִרְמְיָה , Modern Hebrew:Yirməyāhū, IPA: jirməˈjaːhu, Tiberian:Yirmĭyahu, Greek:Ἰερεμίας), meaning "Yahweh exalts", or called the "Weeping prophet" was one of the main prophets of the Hebrew Bible...
the situation is more complex: sometimes the shorter text, represented by the LXX, can be considered as a kind of 'first edition', but more often the shorter text derived from editorial interventions of late scribes, who operated according to their literary and theological conceptions. On these issues Rofé differed from the views of his colleague Emanuel Tov
Emanuel Tov
Emanuel Tov is Professor in the Department of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, corresponding to Fellow of the British Academy , since 2006.-Biography:...
.
2d. The study of theological views in the Bible led Rofé to the identification of secondary, midrashic elements in the textual witnesses of the Hebrew Bible. These elements are evident in short glosses, appended to Exod 2: 3 in a Qumran scroll, 1 Kgs 22:28 in the MT and Ruth
Ruth
Ruth, Ruth, Rut - in modern Hebrew accent) is a common female given name. It comes from Ruth the Moabite in the Book of Ruth, from the Hebrew for "companion". Ruth can also refer to:-Surname:* Babe Ruth , American baseball player* Earl B...
4: 11 in the LXX. But in addition Rofé pointed out midrashic elaborations that affected a whole biblical book. This is the case of the Qumran scroll 4Q51, usually designated as 4QSama . Rofé highlighted the various midrashic elements in this manuscript and thereby inferred that one should not define this scroll as representing the book of Samuel
Samuel
Samuel is a leader of ancient Israel in the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. He is also known as a prophet and is mentioned in the Qur'an....
; rather it is an ancient Midrash Samuel
Midrash Samuel
Midrash Samuel , a aggadic midrash on the books of Samuel, is quoted for the first time by Rashi in his commentary on I Sam. ii. 30. In his Ha-Pardes Rashi again quotes from this midrash , saying that it is entitled "'Et la-'Asot la-Adonai"; it probably derived this name from Ps. cxix...
. Here Rofé differed with F.M. Cross and his students from the Harvard School.
3.The Documentary Hypothesis
Documentary hypothesis
The documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
and the Composition of the Pentateuch. A study of the religious thought in the Torah entails taking a stand vis-à-vis the Documentary Hypothesis. This happened to Rofé in his study of the belief in angels. In his opinion, there is no reason to contest the existence of the major documents in the Pentateuch – D, produced by the Deuteronomic writers, and P, created in the Priestly school. However, the bulk of the narrative material cannot be subdivided as usual between the four putative documents, J, E, D, P. An instructive case in point is the "Book of Balaam
Balaam
Balaam is a diviner in the Torah, his story occurring towards the end of the Book of Numbers. The etymology of his name is uncertain, and discussed below. Every ancient reference to Balaam considers him a non-Israelite, a prophet, and the son of Beor, though Beor is not so clearly identified...
" in Numbers
Book of Numbers
The Book of Numbers is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible, and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch....
22: 2 – 24: 25. An accurate inquiry reveals that the story was not composed by the fusion of the accounts of the documents J and E. Rather, the legend about Balaam grew up gradually and organically. Its beginning was in the speeches of Numbers 24 which presented Balaam as one "who knows the knowledge of the Most High". And the last layer was the burlesque about the angel, Balaam and his she-ass (Numbers 22: 22-35), a story that derides the alien prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
, because he cannot see what is visible to the she-ass. Also, a study of the Betrothal of Rebekkah (Genesis 24) leads to similar conclusions: the story is not part of the document J, but an independent piece; it is a paradigm composed in post-exilic times in order to teach the people of Judea the proper choice in match-making. See below, at paragraph 6, for further stories of this kind.
4a. The Prophetical Stories: The Narratives about the Prophets in the Hebrew Bible – Their Literary Types and History (Hebrew: 1982, 1986; English: 1988). In the ten chapters of this book Rofé summarized eighteen years of study, between 1964 and 1982. This is a first effort in Biblical research to present a comprehensive description of all the stories about the prophets, defining their genres, such as legenda
Legenda
Legenda, or the MKRC Legenda system, is a Soviet satellite targeting system mated to the SS-N-19 missile. It consisted of the US-P SIGNIT satellites and the US-A Radar Ocean reconnaissance satellites, which were nuclear powered....
, biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
, historiography
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
, parables, and determining the origin of the genres and their subsequent development. The legenda, for instance, came into being among the admirers of Elisha
Elisha
Elisha is a prophet mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an. His name is commonly transliterated into English as Elisha via Hebrew, Eliseus via Greek and Latin, or Alyasa via Arabic.-Biblical biography:...
, around the end of the Ninth century BCE. The parable appeared when the disciples of the prophets began to discuss the nature of the prophets' mission and of the word of the Lord pronounced by them. This genre was probably created in late pre-exilic and early post-exilic times. The climax of the prophetical stories is the epopee about Elijah and the Lord's fight against Baal. In its last phases, the prophetical narrative described its heroes as martyrs who taught foreigners the omnipotence of the God of Israel.
4b. The theological discussion about the essence of prophecy. The quality of the word of the Lord engaged the disciples of the prophets for a long time in the Sixth and Fifth centuries BCE. Is the word of the Lord always fulfilled? The question was raised and received a positive answer in an addition to the law concerning prophecy in Deut 18: 21-22. The same view transpires from the Deuteronomistic redaction of the book of Kings and is proclaimed by Deutero-Isaiah. The opposite stand was taken by the author of Jonah, by the Deuteronomistic editor of Jeremiah, and an editor of Ezekiel
Ezekiel
Ezekiel , "God will strengthen" , is the central protagonist of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Ezekiel is acknowledged as a Hebrew prophet...
(Ch. 33). Trito-Isaiah joined them while contesting the views of his master, Deutero-Isaiah. The identification of this divergence led Rofé to define anew the border between the words of Deutero-and Trito-Isaiah. To the former one should attribute chs. 40-53, to the latter – chs. 54-66. Indeed, Abraham Kuenen suggested this as early as 1886.
5. The Introduction to Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy
The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, and of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch...
: Part I and Further Chapters (Hebrew: 1988) grew out of notes distributed to students of Bible at the Hebrew University in the wake of the Yom Kippur war
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...
(1973), because of the teacher's and the students' absence from classes. This Introduction attempts at describing the contents of Deuteronomy and its structure which mainly consists of two covenants: Horeb (4:44 - 28:68 + 30: 1 - 10) and the one in the Land of Moab (28: 69 – 30: 20). The latter covenant has a clear affinity to vassal treaties, mainly Hittite, of the Second Millenium BCE. Rofés enquiry, however, is principally not comparative, but internal; it seeks to uncover the history of Deuteronomy, especially its legal corpus, by dwelling on its duplications and contradictions. Thus the various layers have been exposed: first, prae-Deuteronomic inherited material, then Deuteronomic legislation that preceded the Josiah
Josiah
Josiah or Yoshiyahu or Joshua was a king of Judah who instituted major reforms. Josiah is credited by most historians with having established or compiled important Jewish scriptures during the Deuteronomic reform that occurred during his rule.Josiah became king of Judah at the age of eight, after...
reform of 622 BCE, further an additional, later layer from the time of the reform itself, finally a post-reform layer that supplemented and interpreted the earlier legislation. This kind of work reached into post-exilic times. Rofés study confirms the conclusion, already expressed by former scholars, that the ultimate origin of the Deuteronomic movement was in the ancient holy site of Shechem
Shechem
Shechem was a Canaanite city mentioned in the Amarna letters, and is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as an Israelite city of the tribe of Manasseh and the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel...
, probably in the Tenth Century BCE. A significant portion of this research has been published in English: Deuteronomy: Issues and Interpretation (Edinburgh 2002).
6. The Introduction to the Literature of the Hebrew Bible (Hebrew: 2006, 2007; English: 2009). As usual in books of introduction, this work does not strive for innovations, but attempts at describing the problems brought to light by the discipline and the methods applied to solve them. The particular merit of this Introduction is that it does not merely present the conclusions reached by the Biblical research, but it shows the course that led to them. For instance, Part 3 "The Prophetic Literature" poses some fundamental questions: Did the disciples of the prophets introduce additions into the words of their masters? Did they rework them? What are the proofs to their interventions? How can one distinguish between prophecy and apocalyptic? Part 4, "Psalmody", not only summarized the method of Hermann Gunkel, but also criticized it; the same was done with his main detractor, Meir Weiss. A peculiarity of this introduction is its chapter "Late Narrative" (Part I, Chapter 4). Here Rofé brought together findings from his previous studies. Signs of late composition clearly indicate that the stories about the betrothal of Rebekkah (Genesis 24), the rape of Dinah
Dinah
According to the Hebrew Bible, Dinah was the daughter of Jacob, one of the patriarchs of the Israelites and Leah, his first wife. The episode of her abduction and violation by a Canaanite prince, and the subsequent vengeance of her brothers Simeon and Levi, commonly referred to as "The Rape of...
(Genesis 34), David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17), the wars with Aram
Aram
-Bible:* Aram, son of Shem, according to the "Table of Nations" in Genesis 10* Aram-Naharaim , the land in which the city of Haran lay* Aram , an ancient region containing the state of Aram Damascus...
(1 Kings 20), the vineyard of Naboth
Naboth
Naboth "the Jezreelite," is the central figure of a story from the Old Testament. According to the story, Naboth was the owner of a plot on the eastern slope of the hill of Jezreel...
(1 Kings 21: 1-16) were all written in post-exilic times. They reflect problems and expectations of the people of Yehud in Persian times. These findings run against the Documentary Hypothesis in the Pentateuch and the hypothesis of a single Deuteronomistic composition from Deuteronomy 1 to 2 Kings 25. The creation of the Biblical literature was a multifarious process that extended over a longer span than the one usually accepted in Biblical criticism.