Rewriting the Bible: Land and Covenant in Post-Biblical Jewish Literature.

• Author: Attridge, Harold W.

During the period of the Second Temple, the most common way to interpret Scripture was to retell its story. Halpern-Amaru's monograph explores four examples of the phenomenon, with a focus on their treatment of the Pentateuchal themes of land and covenant.

After a brief introduction Halpern-Amaru reviews the biblical data. Different scriptural passages emphasize the importance of the land in different ways. The patriarchal narratives interweave the promise of the land with promises of future blessings and a numerous progeny. For Abraham the promises are emphatic and unconditional (Gen. 12:1, 7; 13:14-17; 15:7, 18-20; 17:7-8; 22:16-18). Later Pentateuchal references to the covenant recall the promise to the patriarchs (e.g,. Exod. 3:6-8, 33:1-3) and focus on the land as the major content of the promise (e.g., Num. 14:22-23, 32:10-11). In some texts the land takes on a special character as sacred to the Lord and thereby achieves a certain personification. It is susceptible to pollution (Lev. 18:25) and stands ready to expel those who defile it (Lev. 20:22). In the context of the Sinai covenant, possession of the land is intimately tied to observance of the stipulations of the covenant. Various passages of Deuteronomy (Deut. 4:1, 8:1, 11:8, etc.) explicitly connect the ability to conquer the land with fidelity to the covenant. The tension between the patriarchal covenant, with its unconditional promise to eternal possession of the land, and the Sinai covenant, with its promise of the land conditioned by adherence to Torah, is resolved through a salvation-historical pattern involving sin-exile-repentance-restoration (e.g., Deuteronomy 28-30) that holds out the hope of a final eschatological resolution. Scripture, then, presents a rich store of possibilities for treating the land as a part of the covenant. The four narratives that Halpern-Amaru explores actualize various of those possibilities.

Jubilees, particularly in chapters 1 and 23, develops an eschatological focus. Building on Deuteronomy 28-30, it invokes the pattern of sin-exile-repentance-restoration, but the final stage of the process is not simply a physical return to the land. Rather, the text holds out the hope of an intimate relationship between God and his people. Jubilees has not abandoned the traditional hope for restoration in the land, and, in fact, devotes its concluding chapters (49-50) to a portrait of Israel's destiny in the land.

The Testament of Moses likewise preserves...