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This chapter discusses the political and theological role the ten tribes played in English imagination since the 17th century. It centers around the “Hope of Israel,” the most important book on the ten tribes and their geography written by Manasseh Ben‐Israel, a rabbi from Amsterdam with strong connections to millenarian circles in England wishing to hasten the end of time through finding the ten tribes. The chapter describes the significance of the tribes in English political and theological thinking against the backdrop of political upheavals in England and the English colonization of America. The chapter shows how English theologians developed new programs to convert the Native Americans through using the story of the Ten Tribes. The chapter also presents the rise of two new religious sects: Mormonism and British‐Israelism as a direct result of the earlier theologies.

This chapter discusses the inadequacy of other theories for explaining the similarities between the Covenant Code and the Laws of Hammurabi, including coincidence, the use of common scribal techniques, oral tradition, oral transmission of Hammurabi's text, and the use of an unknown mediating Northwest Semitic/Canaanite text. The chapter outlines in detail the evidence for placing the composition of the Covenant Code in the Neo-Assyrian period, between 740–640 BCE and the opportunity for the use of Hammurabi's Laws. It also discusses the wide attestation of the Laws of Hammurabi as a canonical-scribal text in the Neo-Assyrian period. It discusses the Covenant Code's occasional use of laws from other cuneiform law collections and the attestation of these other collections.

The present form of 2 Kings 21 in the Deuteronomistic History clearly blames King Manasseh of Judah for the Babylonian exile, insofar as it states that YHWH decided to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple because of his great sins. Prior scholarship contends that this chapter has been redactionally reworked to point to the exile, but has been unable to provide a coherent redaction‐critical analysis of the chapter to support this claim. An analysis of YHWH statements concerning Manasseh points to an interest in settling Israel securely in the land if the people would observe Mosaic Torah. This indicates that the oracle may have originally functioned as Huldah's promise of security to Josiah, but that it has been reworked and placed in its present position to justify the Babylonian exile.

Develops the author's argument that the motivation of the priestly editors of the Pentateuch, and in particular of Numbers and Leviticus, was strictly professional and priestly. The author asks why, in the Book of Numbers, does the editor keep listing the names of the twelve tribes of Israel (descendants of the twelve sons of Jacob), and puts forward the thesis that they were using the stories of the patriarchs as an allegory of their own concerns about the unity of the cult of the Hebrew God: their choice to write about fraternal rivalry was not arbitrary. The first section of the chapter looks specifically at the strife between the brothers Joseph and Judah, the founding patriarchs of Samaria and Judah, and the precarious relations between those countries. The following sections look at other aspects of the Pentateuch in the same way – as allegory, and as a way of addressing contemporary problems affecting the editors themselves: editors who believed that all the sons of Joseph were co‐heirs of the Covenant, and that authority rested with the Aaronite priesthood. In this context, the discussion covers the different manifestations of God as angry and forgiving in Numbers and Leviticus, the issue of unity and defection between the brother tribes and brother priests of Israel, and the story of Jacob himself, his favourite son Joseph, and Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.

Continues the argument advanced in the first chapter on the anxiety of the Pentateuch's priestly editors about the solidarity between Judah and the descendants of Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh. It addresses the concept of the Day of Atonement, which in the post‐exilic period was associated with Joseph, and is found in the Book of Jubilees, where the ceremony is described as a sin‐offering of a goat. The different sections of the chapter look at the conflicting meanings attached to the ceremony of the scapegoat (or goats) offering – fraternal reconciliation versus unbrotherly rejection. They discuss: the meaning of the ‘scapegoat’; Greek and Hebrew manifestations of the ceremony; scapegoat rituals around the world, the levitical purification ceremony – including the interpretation of the word Azazal (here viewed as the goat that is chosen to be presented to God alive and is then sent away, in contrast to that chosen as the sacrificial sin‐offering); Aaron's sacrifices of atonement; the need for transfer of the sins of Israel to an animal; the bearing of sin by an animal, the punishment of the sin‐bearing animal by exile; the parallels of the goat rites with the rites of two birds in Leviticus and with the stories of two brothers with uneven destinies (Isaac and Ishmael, and Jacob and Esau) in Genesis; and parallels between the assigning of the scapegoat and the commissioning of the Levites or the commissioning of Joshua by Moses in Numbers. The author argues that not much is left of the idea levitical scapegoating ceremony, and suggests that the priestly editors covered up their deep interest in politics and morals by writing in parables but dramatizing their teaching in vivid rituals.

The Book of Numbers has always been regarded as a serious book. This leads to noticing that the law pertaining to heiresses is not given in the style for laws. In the vivid narrative style of a special encounter with Moses, the uncles of the women complain about the probable effect of the Jubilee on their inheritance. The Numbers list of appointed feasts only deals with the annual cycle, so in Numbers there is no other mention of the Jubilee. The law of Jubilee that the sons of Manasseh are referring to is from Leviticus which calls for the celebration of a sabbatical year when the land shall be left fallow, as in Exodus, and adds a Jubilee in the fiftieth year, which it requires in addition to the seven-yearly release of slaves and remission of debts.

Chapter five is concerned with the psalms, prayers, and odes of the Apocrypha. A number of extra psalms were known in the ancient period, some of which found their way into the various versions of the Old Testament. Treated here are Psalms 151–155 and Psalms of Solomon, and also Prayer of Manasseh. Psalm 151 presents the words and thoughts of a young David. Psalms 152–155 include typical forms of the biblical psalms, such as lament and pleas for rescue. Prayer of Manasseh was an addition to 2 Chronicles. King Manasseh, the last king of Judah before the exile, was blamed for its fall, but in 2 Chronicles he was said to have been rehabilitated, and in some Greek Bibles his penitential prayer is included. Psalms of Solomon may never have been present as a text in an Old Testament, but was placed in an appendix to Codex Alexandrinus along with 1 and 2 Clement. As a result, it is included here. It presents the perspective of a smaller, more sectarian group within Judaism, the “congregations of the pious,” perhaps the Pharisees.

King Manasseh in the book of Kings was presented as an evil ruler, but in Chronicles he was reinvented as having been evil, but through repentance and rehabilitation he had become an exemplary king. In the Persian and Hellenistic Eras he was represented in both wicked and righteous manners, reflecting the continuing influence of both Kings and Chronicles on creative memories of Manasseh. Works in the mode of “The Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah” expanded on the portrayal in Kings to the point of demonizing the king, while “The Prayer of Manasseh” and its successors exhibit only a pious ruler embodying the very essence of repentant prayer. The question concerning how to remember Manasseh extended into spirited debates among the Talmudic rabbis.

This chapter focuses on the period of eastern provincial Romanization of Jewish Babylonia that began in the fourth century, as well as the cultural linkages between the Jews and Christians of late antique Mesopotamia. Focusing on the Ascension of Isaiah, it shows that the literature of rabbis and Mesopotamian Christians formed part of a common cultural sphere. More specifically, it examines the Ascension of Isaiah, the Bavli story of Manasseh’s execution of Isaiah, against the background of Christian, Jewish, Arabic, and Persian literature from the first to the eleventh centuries. It also looks at Iranian and Muslim versions of the legend. The chapter presents evidence showing that the chronological record of the various versions of the tradition is earlier in the Roman East than in Mesopotamia and Persia.

This chapter discusses Reubenites, Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh in the readings of Parashat Matot of Numbers as vanguard troops, who go in front into the battles after the Israelites cross the Jordan. It argues that a person may find himself/herself leading a society towards a new and necessary direction because of his/her identity. For instance, learning and reviving Yiddish as a queer Jew may influence other people. A Jewish theater composed of queer performers may promote queer agenda. These examples imply that the queer Promised Land is Jewishness itself—an engagement with Jewishness that moves beyond convention.

This chapter examines Moses Mendelssohn's thoughts about the Jewish colony. It analyzes Mendelssohn's preface to Manasseh ben Israel's Vindication of the Jews in which he initiated the political discourse of Jewish emancipation on his own terms. It describes how he positioned his plea for the emancipation of Jews boldly at the center of the Enlightenment debate on the modern nation-state and the role of Europe in the age of colonialism with the phrase “Jewish colonists.” This chapter also discusses Mendelssohn's view that the problematic use of the term “colonist” sheds critical light on a principal concern with political philosophy.

This chapter describes events surrounding the Louisiana Purchase. On November 30, 1803, New Orleans passed from Spain to France, along with the entire Louisiana Territory. Spain’s surrender of New Orleans was an expected prelude, anticipating yet another “transfer of sovereignty” from France to America just three weeks later on December 20. However, the legitimacy and logistics of this land deal were questioned, especially by Jefferson’s Federalist foes in Congress. The same day that New Orleans passed to France, New England minister and congressional representative Manasseh Cutler wrote a letter to friend expressing his anxieties. Cutler was bothered by the President’s new powers, which seemed to grant him unlimited sway over all of Louisiana. For Cutler, this vast territory’s transfer transformed Jefferson into a “Grand Turk”—an Oriental despot reigning over Western domains.

The sources presented here reflect voices from various creative strands of Jewish community life between 700 BCE and 135 CE. All of them in varying ways approach divine guidance through communal rereading, reinterpretation, and expansion of scripture. The Qumran community (which produced the Dead Sea Scrolls) took a hierarchical view of guidance, placing discernment largely in the hands of the elders. Pseudepigrapha and expansions of scripture, like the Prayer of Manasseh, used the name of a biblical figure to expand on what the biblical text itself may have mentioned only in passing. Jubilees elaborates on Abram’s crucial but brief encounter with God in Genesis 12 and depicts it as a response to Abram’s request for divine guidance. The Sibylline Oracles (as distinct from the Roman Sibylline Books) attribute Jewish oracles to the pagan Sibyl. 3 Maccabees weaves together human initiative with divine guidance to the Jewish community in Alexandria.