FORMTEXT This study examines the Pentateuchal account of Israel’s preparations for entering Canaan, appearing within the concluding section of the Book of Numbers. Literary-critical analysis reveals that each of the passages that comprise this account is the product of several stages of composition, with each literary stratum reflecting the ideological tendencies of the authors responsible for its creation. It emerges that ideological disputes that raged in Judea of the Persian period, when these texts were composed, manifested themselves in historiographical accounts describing a much earlier time – that just prior to the entry into Canaan. The wilderness period, seen as decisive for Israel’s past, and the notion of the Mosaic Torah believed to have been given during this formative era, along with the obvious parallel to these Judean authors’ own days, those of the return from exile, led them to depict the events at the end of Moses’ time in ways that addressed the burning questions of Yehud of the Persian period. The textual and historical analysis reveals that a previously unrecognized substratum, running throughout the account, has been augmented by several editorial additions. This recognition in turn sheds new light on the Pentateuch’s formation and on the historical circumstances reflected in its composition . FFFFFFFF000100000000060054006500780074003200300000000000000000000000000000004E00D605D4052000D405D805DB05E105D8052000E905D905D505E405D905E2052000D105EA05D905D005D505E8052000D405E105E405E8052000D105D005EA05E8052000D405D005D905E005D805E805E005D8052E002000D105E805D905E805EA052000D405DE05D705D305DC052000D405D905D0052000D405DB05D905EA05D505D1052000E205DC052000D205D1052000D405E205D805D905E405D40500000000000000000000

Table of Contents: Ariel Kopilovitz Ezekiel's Theology of Holiness and Impurity as a Key to Understanding the Description of the Departure of the 'Glory of YHWH' from the Temple (Ezekiel 8-11) Nadav Na'aman The Story of the Exodus between Historical Memory and Historiographical Composition Gideon Bohak A New Genizah Fragment of the Aramaic Levi Document Binyamin Katzoff Blessings over Mitzvot in Eretz Israel and in Babylonia: Further to David Rosenthal, 'Tefillin Blessing in Eretz Israel and in Babylonia' Yacov Fuchs MS Mantova 30 Itamar Kislev 'Exegesis in Perpetual Motion': The Short Commentary of Ibn Ezra as a Source for Rashbam in his Commentary on the Pentateuch Aviram Ravitsky The Doctrine of the Mean and Asceticism: On the Uniformity of Maimonides' Ethics Moshe Idel Sefer Yetzirah: Twelve Commentaries on Sefer Yetzirah and the Extant Remnants of R. Isaac of Bedresh's Commentary Maoz Kahana How did the Hatam-Sofer Seek to Trump Spinoza? Text, Hermeneutics, and Romanticism in the Writings of R. Moses Sofer

Table of Contents: Alexander Rofé - Text-Criticism within the Philological-Historical Discipline: The Problem of the Double Text of Jeremiah Jonathan Ben-Dov - Hebrew and Aramaic Writing in the Pseudepigrapha and the Qumran Scrolls: The Ancient Near Eastern Background and the Quest for a Written Authority Itamar Kislev - The Commentaries of Ibn Ezra and Rashbam and the Dispute over the Ingredients of the Altar Incense Yair Lorberbaum - Changes in Maimonides’ Approach to Aggadah Rami Reiner - ‘A Tombstone Inscribed’: Titles Used to Describe the Deceased in Tombstones from Würzburg between 1147–1148 and 1346