In a book as controversial as Harold Bloom’s The Book of J and Elaine Pagels’s The Gnostic Gospels, David Noel Freedman delves into the Old Testament and reveals a pattern of defiance of the Covenant with God that inexorably led to the downfall of the nation of Israel, the destruction of the Temple, and the banishment of survivors from the Promised Land. Book by book, from Exodus to Kings, Freedman charts the violation of the first nine Commandments one by one–from the sin of apostasy (the worship of the golden calf, Exodus 32) to murder (the death of a concubine, Judges 19:25—26) to false testimony (Jezebel’s charges against her neighbor, Naboth, I Kings 21). Because covetousness lies behind all the crimes committed, Freedman shows, each act implicitly breaks the Tenth Commandment as well. In a powerful and persuasive argument, Freedman asserts that this hidden trail of sins betrays the hand of a Master Weaver or Editor who has skillfully woven into Israel’s history a message to a community in exile that their fate is not the result of God’s abandoning them but of their willful abandonment of God. With wit and insight, The Nine Commandments boldly challenges previous scholarship and conventional beliefs, and appeals to the same audience that has propelled Thomas Cahill’s books and other recent explorations of the history of religion onto bestseller lists across the country.

The Nine Commandments: Uncovering the Hidden Pattern of Crime and Punishment in the Hebrew Bible

Religion & Spirituality

David Noel Freedman

Jeffrey C. Geoghegan

Michael M. Homan

Christian Books & Bibles

Anchor Bible

Knowing when and why Israel s earliest national history (the so-called Deuteronomistic History) was compiled is essential for rightly interpreting that history as well as for tracing the development of Israelite religion and culture. Yet the field of biblical studies has never been more divided over these issues. Some argue that the production of Israel's history belongs to the late preexilic period (sixth seventh centuries BCE), when the monarchy still existed and those responsible had access to authentic and, in some cases, fairly ancient sources. Others argue that Israel s history belongs to the late postexilic period (fifth fourth centuries BCE), when those responsible for its compilation had little or no access to actual sources and much of what they wrote was invented in order to justify political structures and territorial claims in Persian-period Yehud or even Hellenistic-period Syria-Palestine. The present study addresses these important questions by analyzing the phrase until this day, which, like similar formulae used by Greek and Roman historians (most famously, Herodotus), was the biblical historian s way of highlighting archaeological artifacts and religio-political structures that existed during the time of his writing. The outcome of this analysis is not only the identification of when and where the biblical historian carried out this enterprise but also what interests--both political and religious--governed his recounting of Israel's past.

The Time, Place, and Purpose of the Deuteronomistic History: The Evidence of "Until This Day" (Brown Judaic Studies)

Society of Biblical Literature

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jeffrey C. Geoghegan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Jeffrey C. Geoghegan