About

Simeon Chavel is an Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at The University of Chicago Divinity School, with additional roles as Associate Faculty in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He holds a PhD from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research focuses on the genres, techniques, ideas, and history of the Hebrew Bible, as well as the society, religion, and history of ancient Israel and Judea. Chavel's approach integrates archaeology, the ancient Southwest Asian context, early Jewish interpretation, and modern theory. He is the author of the book 'Oracular Law and Priestly Historiography in the Torah,' which analyzes the combination of law and narrative in four 'oracular novellas.' His current projects include a historical study titled 'God in the Eyes of Israel: A History of the Religious Imagination in Ancient Israel & Judea,' a literary project 'Coherence and the Hebrew Bible,' and an art-critical work examining motifs related to gods in media from the period of the Assyrian empire. Chavel also blogs on biblical poetry as 'The Bible Sleuth.' He serves on the boards of the Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies and the CEDAR digital humanities project, is a member of the Core Faculty of The Institute on the Formation of Knowledge, and is the editor of 'Maarav: A Journal for the Study of the Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures.'

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Art
• History
• Literature
• Philosophy
• Psychology
• Classics
• Social psychology
• Theology
• Statistics
• Linguistics
• Mathematics
• Ancient history

Selected publications

• Race and Ethnicity at Genesis 10 and the Idea of “Semites”

  Vetus Testamentum · 2024-09-17 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This paper argues that (1) the segment of text known as Gen 10 is a collation of three separate works; (2) the works have mutually exclusive ideas about the zones and groups of the world; and (3) the zones and groupings illustrate the insight that has come to the fore of late that group identity—ethnic, national, racial, and so on—is a human, cultural product, not a set of natural, biological traits. Specifically, Semitic identity was not an obvious and long-lived category in ancient Israel and Judea, but distinct to a few particular literary works and contradicted by others. Later cultures responded to the collated text at Gen 9–11 and used its terms and concepts selectively to map their own world, which has had a pernicious, bloody afterlife down to our own times. Therefore, (4) the label “Semitic” should not be used for peoples, places, cultures, religions, and even languages.

  PublisherDOI

• The Narrative Context of the Collections

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2024-04-11

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter examines the narrative scheme surrounding each collection and how the god Yhwh is drawn as a character in each source, speaking in an array of cadences and registers that conjure their associated types of speakers. Rather than biblical law making Israelite law into divine speech, biblical literature presents all forms of divine speech as fully compelling law.

  PublisherDOI

• The Cambridge Companion to Law in the Hebrew Bible

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2024-04-11 · 1 citations

  bookOpen access

  This Companion offers a comprehensive overview of the history, nature, and legacy of biblical law. Examining the debates that swirl around the nature of biblical law, it explores its historical context, the significance of its rules, and its influence on early Judaism and Christianity. The volume also interrogates key questions: Were the rules intended to function as ancient Israel's statutory law? Is there evidence to indicate that they served a different purpose? What is the relationship between this legal material and other parts of the Hebrew Bible? Most importantly, the book provides an in-depth look at the content of the Torah's laws, with individual essays on substantive, procedural, and ritual law. With contributions from an international team of experts, written specially for this volume, The Cambridge Companion to Law in the Hebrew Bible provides an up-to-date look at scholarship on biblical law and outlines themes and topics for future research.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Song of Songs 1:1—Text and Paratext

  Vetus Testamentum · 2022

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Literature
  • Linguistics

  Abstract The argument draws upon literary theory to revisit the two clauses that, traditionally, make up Song 1:1. (1) The title evaluates the work as the song-most of songs. I argue that the evaluation refers to the work’s manifold form of simulation—a literary work representing the speech of a dreamer, who speaks from both inside and outside the dream. (2) The scoring in MT , the rubric in LXX (Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus), ancient interpreters and modern all take the first words of the Song of Songs to be a heading, comprising title ( שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים ) and attribution ( אֲשֶׁר לִשְׁלֹמֹה ). I argue that the clause marked and understood as an attribution may be the beginning of the character’s speech.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Yahweh Become a Temple? MT Ezekiel 11:16 מקדש מעט Revisited

  BRILL eBooks · 2020 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Art
  • History
  • Ancient history
  PublisherDOI

• Text- and Source-Criticism of 1 Samuel 17–18: A Complete Account

  Vetus Testamentum · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Literature
  • History

  Abstract This article contributes to the debate about the two versions of 1 Samuel 17–18, the shorter one in the Greek Bible and the longer one in the Hebrew. The majority opinion holds that Vaticanus represents the earlier stage and the MT pluses comprise a second version of the main episode, along with harmonizations and additional material. Several of the pluses in chapter 18, however, have been overlooked in previous studies. Accounting for each plus through the end of chapter 18, this study recovers a complete and independent second story that concludes with David’s successful marriage to Saul’s daughter as the reward promised; it identifies and explains all harmonizing additions; and it categorizes an unusual set of unnecessary interpolations made to enrich the story. The study confirms that parallel stories existed and circulated in written form outside “biblical” scrolls; that scribes meticulously spliced written sources to incorporate perceived parallels; and that scribes inserted material to enrich plot-lines, apart from solving narrative problems.

  PublisherDOI

• Cassuto, Umberto (Moses David)

  Encyclopedia of the Bible Online · 2019-10-17

  dataset1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• PROPHETIC IMAGINATION IN THE LIGHT OF NARRATOLOGY AND DISABILITY STUDIES IN ISAIAH 40–48

  Gorgias Press eBooks · 2019-12-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  In the view favored by so many ancient Mesopotamian and Levantine kings, crafted by their artisans, articulated by their scribes, and evidently affirmed by significant constituencies, gods gloriously embodied and animated in art, architecture, drama, and song, and attended to around the clock by a permanent professional staff, control geopolitical events, and they do so in the guise of powerful humans, those excellent persons whose names they call, whose arms they brace-and who sponsor the gods' glorious earthly presence.Biblical literature makes it clear-in the Psalms, in the prophetic collections, and in the historiographical works-that Israelian and Judean kings and their constituencies did not substantially differ in their conceptualization, projection, and vivification of divine imma-1 This study first took shape as a presentation at the Society of Biblical

  PublisherDOI

• The Utility and Futility of Poetry in Qohelet

  Humanities Commons CORE (Modern Language Association / Columbia University) · 2018-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Argues that Qohelet's famous bit of speech on the seasons at 3:1-8 mimics and mocks proverbial poetry, as part of his larger, prosaic denial that life has discernible and usable rhythms and rhymes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Utility and Futility of Poetry in<i>Qohelet</i>

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2018-09-25 · 15 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

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Frequent coauthors

• J. Blake Couey

  4 shared

• Bruce Wells

  3 shared

• Mira Balberg

  2 shared

• Sarah Shectman

  1 shared

• Sean Burt

  1 shared

• Brent A. Strawn

  1 shared

• Thomas Kazen

  1 shared

• Julia M. O’Brien

  University of the Sunshine Coast

  1 shared

Labs

• Sifk LabPI