The Scrolls of the Torah: Material, Compositional and Interpretive Perspectives

This volume brings together twenty-four contributions from leading scholars that address enduring questions about the composition of the Pentateuch in the first millennium BCE across its various cultural settings, including the southern Levant, Mesopotamia, and possibly Egypt.
The first part offers a new assessment of the scribal cultures behind the Pentateuch, examining the material and sociological dimensions of scroll production in ancient Israel, Judah, and beyond. It underscores the importance of exploring the composition of the Pentateuch in light of broader ancient Near Eastern scribal cultures, while also attending to the particularities of Israelite text production in the Iron Age and Persian and Hellenistic periods. The volume then presents a series of case studies and methodological reflections that explore the literary history of the Pentateuch and the dating and interpretation of its texts. Particular attention is given to the interrelationship of narrative and legal materials, illustrated through case studies drawn primarily from Genesis and Numbers.
Together, the contributions offer a fresh assessment of how the Pentateuch reflects the scribal strategies, socio-political challenges, and the literary and theological debates that shaped textual production in the first millennium BCE. The volume concludes with two reception-historical studies that offer new insights into current scholarly discussions concerning the formation of the Pentateuch.