THE DINUR CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN JEWISH HISTORY
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Weinfeld, Moshe 1925-2009

Born 1925, Nowy Sacz (Poland); Ph.D. 1965, Hebrew Univ.; Sen. Lect. 1969; Assoc. Prof. 1973; Prof. 1978; Emeritus 1993; Israel Prize in Bible, 1994.

Research Interests:

Law and covenant in ancient Israel and the ancient Near East. The Land of Israel in the Bible. The Qumran sect: its organization, halakha and divine worship. Social justice in ancient Israel. Psalmodic creation in Israel and in the ancient Near East: new discoveries. Jerusalem: a political and spiritual capital. The crystallization of the Messianic visions during the time of Hezekiah.

Research Projects:

Editing a series of Qumran Hymns ("Barkhi Naphsi") to be published in Discoveries of the Judean Desert, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Abstracts of Current Research:

The settlement of the Israelites in the Land of Canaan in light of the Greek colonization:

This study analyzes the traditions of the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan in the light of data and evidence from Greek colonization, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean. The Greek evidence sheds new light on the narratives about the first ancestors of the Israelites in the Land of Canaan as well as on the stories about the settlement of their descendants in the new land. Evidence shows that in Israel, as throughout the Greek milieu, fixed customs existed in the matter of colonization; colonization traditions grew from literary patterns which developed out of the procedure of actual settlement in new areas: (a) In Greece, as in Israel, settlers resorted to divine oracles before going out to settle a new land; (b) After reaching the new territory, the settlers erected altars and pillars (compare the ceremonies at Gilgal and Mount Ebal), and then built a sanctuary (compare with the Shrine of Delphi); (c) In the shrine they cast a divine lot by which they divided the land; (d) On this occasion, they committed themselves to keep the laws of their deity (Apollo in Greece and YHWH in Shiloh); (e) The settler or the founder played a central role in the settlement in Greece as well as in Israel (Joshua), and in both he was subject to divine guidance by a priest (Elazar) or seer of the sanctuary; (f) In both cultures, the new land was seen as given by divine promise.

The ban (herem) of the Canaanites history vs. utopia:

According to the old legal traditions (Exod. 23:31-33), the Israelites were to expel (gr?) the Canaanites. In the priestly traditions, the Israelites are commanded to dispossess (hwry?) them (Num. 33:52-55), whereas according to the Deuteronomic sources (Deut. 7:2; 20:17-18), the Israelites are commanded to annihilate them (hrym). The order of the traditions as presented reflects their historical development and interestingly also represents a gradual removal from the real historical situation. In reality, the Canaanites were neither totally expelled nor exterminated as may be learned from Judges 1:21-33 and 1 Kgs. 9:20-21. The total annihilation of the Canaanites was a theoretical demand raised by the Deuteronomic school of the seventh century B.C.E. The old erem which was an ad hoc institution accompanied by a vow applied to specific cases of severe enmity such as Arad (Num. 21:1-3), Jericho (Jos. 6:17) and Amalek (1 Sam. 15). In the Deuteronomic literature the erem was applied theoretically to the pre-Israelite population as a whole (cf. Jos. 10:40-41; 11:12-15).

Liturgy and religious customs in Qumran:

This research deals with the liturgy of the Qumran sect in all its appearances. Until now there was no attempt to classify the various hymnic and cultic creations of the sect according to its form and function. The comparison of the Qumran literary heritage with that of normative Judaism helps us to define the various creations of the Qumran sect, e.g., the hymns of the Qedushah type, the morning benedictions, the blessing of the luminaries, the blessing after meals, the supplications (tahanun), the prayer before embarking on the road, the marriage benedictions, and the Shema and decalogue recital.

The crystallization of the "messianic" visions during the time of Hezekiah:

In the book of Isaiah we find three visions concerning the ideal period. In Isaiah 2:2-4 (= Micah 4: 1-4) we find the vision of universal peace following the pilgrimage of all the nations to Jerusalem in order to receive the message of eternal peace. In Isa. 9: 1-6 we encounter the message of the "child born" who will turn into the redeemer. In Isa. 11:1-10 we find the vision of universal redemption following the appearance of the scion of David. At this time there will be no enmity either between man and man, man and animals. These three types of visions were prevalent in the ancient near East Eastern traditions. The motif of peoples streaming in to central shrine (Isa. 2:2-4 a: Michah 4:1-4) is attested to in the hymn to Enlil concerning Nippur, the predecessor of Babylon (see Jeremiah 51: 44, "Nations shall never again stream to her [Babylon]"). The motif of the birth of the redeemer (Isa. 9:1-6) is referred to in the Sumerian literature where we read about the coronation of divine Shulgi. This was continued in the Sybyline oracles and in the fourth Eclogue of Virgil. The coronation of the new born child accompanied by giving five titles is known to us from ancient Egypt and is reflected in Isa. 9:1-6. Finally, the motif of peace between man and man and animal is attested in the Neo-Sumerian epic of "Enki and Ninhursag" as well as in the epic "Enmerkar and the Lord of Arrata." All these predictions found in extra-Biblical sources were adjusted to the faith of Israel adopted by Isaiah and used in connection with the death of the Assyrian Emperor Tiglath Pileser III and the death of Ahaz, King of Judah, who signed a pact with Tiglath Pileser III. The death of both in the same year (727 BCE) and the coronation of Hezekiah at that time signified a new era expressed in the utopian vision of Isaiah and his contemporary Micah (4:1-4; 5:1-5).

Jerusalem a political and spiritual capital:

David and Solomon succeeded to build an empire in the area between the Euphrates and the river of Egypt. After the division of the Davidic Kingdom this empire diminishes; however, in the Hezekianic period Jerusalem again won its domineering position. It expanded to the west and the east and succeeded to influence some of the northern population after the Fall of Samaria to join their brethren in the south (cf. 2 Chr. 30). This was the time when Hezekiah succeeded to initiate a cultic reform. He crushed the bronze serpent which Moses had made in the desert, smashed the pillars and the Ashera and abolished the provincial cultic places of worship (2 Kgs. 18:4). Politically, he succeeded to conquer the Philistine area (2 Kgs. 18:8). He removed Padi, the pro-Assyrian king of Ekron, and imprisoned him in Jerusalem. Hezekiah's prestige can be measured by the story in 2 Kgs 20 (Isaiah 39) about the Babylonian embassy to Hezekiah. The visit of this embassy is to be viewed within the political context of his anti-Assyrian activity (2 Kgs 18:7). It is not in vain that Jerusalem was named "the gate of the nations" (Ezekiel 26:2). This was true not only in the time of Hezekiah, but also in the time of the decline during the days of the last king of Judah: Zedekiah in 594 BCE. In that year, five nations from the surrounding area gathered in Jerusalem in order to plan a rebellion against Babylon (Jer. 27: 1-11). This may explain the boastful statement in Lamentation: "No one of the kings of the earth believed that enemy or invader would enter the gates of Jerusalem" (4-17).

Recent Publications:

Weinfeld, M. (1991) From Joshua to Josiah, Decisive Periods in the History of Israel. Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 280 pp. (Hebrew).
Weinfeld, M. (1991) A Commentary on Deuteronomy, Chapters 1-11. New York, Anchor Bible, Doubleday, 458 pp.
Weinfeld, M. (1991) God versus Moses in the Temple Scroll: "I do not speak on my own but on God's Authority." Sifrei Deut., Sec. 5; John 12:48f." Revue de Qumran (57/58), 15: 175-180.
Weinfeld, M. (1991) The census in Mari, in Israel and in Ancient Rome. In: Storia e Tradizioni di Israele S`ritti in Onore di J. Alberto Soggin, Paideia Editrice Brescia, pp.293-298; Also in Zion, 56: 236-238 (Hebrew).
Weinfeld, M. (1991) "Let us sanctify your name in the World." Sinai, Bi-monthly for Jewish Studies, 108: 69-76 (Hebrew).
Weinfeld, M. (1991) "Semiramis": Her name and her origin. In: Ah Assyria... Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Hayim Tadmor (Scripta Hierosolymitana 33), eds. M. Cogan and I. Eph'al, Jerusalem, Magnes Press, pp.99-103.
Weinfeld, M. (1992) Prayer and liturgical practice in the Qumran sect. In: The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research (University of Haifa, March 20-24, 1988), eds. D. Dimant and U. Rappaport, Leiden, E.J. Brill, and Jerusalem, Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, pp.241-258.
Weinfeld, M. (1992) Grace after meals in Qumran. Journal of Biblical Literature, 111: 427-440; also in Tarbiz, 61: 15-23 (Hebrew).
Weinfeld, M. (1992) The Bible in the reflection of literature. In: Sha`arei Talmon: Studies in the Bible, Qumran and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon, eds. M. Fishbane and E. Tov, Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns, pp.25-30 (Hebrew).
Weinfeld, M. (1992) 'Justice and Righteousness' - mspt wsdqh. The expression and its meaning. In: Justice and Righteousness, Biblical Themes and Their Influence, eds. H.G. Reventlow and Y. Hoffman, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 137, Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, pp.228-246.
Weinfeld, M. (1993) The Promise of the Land, The Inheritance of the Land of Canaan by the Israelites. Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford, University of California Press, xxi + 327 pp.
Weinfeld, M. (1993) Covenant making in Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University (Essays in Honor of Yohanan Muffs), 22: 135-139.
Weinfeld, M. (1993) The phases of human life in Mesopotamian and Jewish sources. In: Priests, Prophets and Scribes, Essays on the Formation and Heritage of Second Temple Judaism, in Honor of Joseph Blenkinsopp, eds. E. Ulrich, J.W. Wright, R.P. Carroll and P.R. Davies, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Suppl. Series 149, Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, pp.182-189.
Weinfeld, M. (1993) Traces of Hittite cult in Shiloh, Beth-El and Jerusalem. In: Religionsgeschichtliche Beziehungen zwischen
Kleinasien, Nordsyrien und Alten Testament, Internationales Symposium, Hamburg, 17-21 M?rz, 1990, eds. B. Janowski, K. Koch and G. Wilhelm, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 129, Universit?tsverlag, Freiburg, Schweiz, G?ttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp.455-472.
Weinfeld, M. (1995) The angelic song over the luminaries in the Qumran texts. In: Time to Prepare the Way in the Wilderness: Papers on the Qumran Scrolls by Fellows of the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1989-90, eds. D. Dimant and L.H. Schiffmann, Leiden, E.J. Brill, pp.131-157.
Weinfeld, M. (1995) Feminine features in the divine imagery of the God of Israel. Beth Miqra, 40: 348-358.
Weinfeld, M. (1995) Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East. Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 300 pp.
Weinfeld, M. (1996) Jerusalem, a political and spiritual capital. Proceedings of the Symposium on Capital Cities, Urban Planning and Spiritual Dimensions. Jerusalem, Bible Lands Museum.
Weinfeld, M. (1996) Scribes and wisemen in the biblical period. Mikhmanim (Haifa), 10: 7-16 (Reuben and Edith Hecht Museum, University of Haifa).
Weinfeld, M. (1996 - in press) The crystallization of the messianic idea during the time of Hezekiah. Zion, : - (Hebrew).