What is meant by attributing texts to Moses in Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism? The answer depends not only on the history of texts but also on the history of concepts of textuality. This book criticizes the terms "Pseudepigraphy" and "Rewritten Bible," which presuppose conceptions of authentic attribution and textual fidelity foreign to ancient Judaism. Instead, this book develops the concept of a discourse whose creativity and authority depend on repeated returns to the exemplary figure and experience of a founder. Attribution to Moses is a central example, whose function is to...

The essays in this Festschrift honor James L. Kugel for his contribution to the field of biblical studies, in particular early biblical interpretation.The essays are organized in three roughly chronological categories.The first group treats some part of the Tanakh, ranging from the creation and Abraham stories of Genesis to the evolving conception of sacred writing in the prophetic literature.The second set of essays focuses chiefly on the literature of Second Temple Judaism, including Qumran and extra-biblical literature.The last group concerns the scriptural imagination at work in rabbinic...