Inner-biblical Interpretation, Scribal Culture and the Rise of Monotheism

Ancient Israelite culture gave rise to new ways of producing and interpreting authoritative texts. In the Hebrew Bible itself we find early traces of this remarkable development, and in post-exilic Judah the concept of ‘scriptural interpretation’ finally became a powerful paradigm that transformed the YHWH-religion, shaped ancient Judaism and has been at the core of Judaism ever since. A wealth of biblical and Hellenistic Jewish texts witnesses to that momentous transformation in the history of religion. What led to the rise of the new paradigm? In what ways did Israelite scribal culture further the concept of ‘scriptural interpretation’? And, most importantly, are the rise of scriptural interpretation and the rise of Israelite monotheism intertwined? The Pentateuch, the Prophets and a number of key texts in the history of Hellenistic Judaism provide particularly interesting clues which might contribute to answering the questions just sketched – questions that are at the heart of the current dispute over the reconstruction of the history of the Israelite religion and the literature it produced.