Judges is a book about God's repeated mercy and Israel's accelerating disorder, not a gallery of uncomplicated heroes.
Set between Joshua and the monarchy, Judges begins with incomplete settlement, tells how God raises deliverers during recurring crises, and ends with worship corruption, sexual violence, civil war, and coerced seizure of women. Its leaders may act courageously, selfishly, faithfully, violently, or in several of those ways at once. The book's movement asks what happens when covenant memory fails, power lacks moral restraint, and each community treats its own judgment as sufficient.[1][2][7][9]
The received work is anonymous. Rabbinic tradition attributes it to Samuel, while modern study generally sees older poems, local memories, and regional stories shaped within the broader literary world of Deuteronomy through Kings. The number and date of its compositional stages remain debated.[3][4][8][10][16]
Judges quick facts
- Traditional author
- Samuel in rabbinic tradition.
- Modern assessment
- An anonymous, layered work preserving older stories, poems, and later theological shaping.
- Likely composition
- Older traditions shaped substantially in late monarchic, exilic, and possibly postexilic periods.
- Story setting
- Between Joshua's death and the rise of Israel's monarchy, broadly in Iron Age I.
- Original language
- Biblical Hebrew, including narrative, poetry, speeches, lists, and a literary fable.
- Major textual witnesses
- Masoretic tradition, 4Q49, 4Q50, two important Greek forms, and later ancient versions.
- Major sections
- Incomplete settlement, deliverer narratives, and religious and social collapse.
- Canonical status
- Scripture in Judaism and all major Christian biblical traditions.
Who wrote the Book of Judges?
Traditional attribution
The Babylonian Talmud preserves the traditional statement that Samuel wrote Judges and Ruth as well as the book associated with his own name. This remains an important witness to Jewish reception, but it does not function as an author line inside Judges itself.[16]
What the received book shows
Judges never names its author. Its prose cycles, poetic Song of Deborah, local traditions, tribal lists, origin stories, anti-idolatry teaching, monarchy refrains, and final narratives do not all read like material composed at one sitting. Major commentaries therefore distinguish traditions behind individual units from the final literary work.[4][5][6][7][8]
Deuteronomistic shaping
Many scholars read Judges within the literary complex often called the Deuteronomistic History. The book repeatedly interprets Israel's suffering through covenant infidelity, foreign gods, prophetic warning, distress, divine compassion, and deliverance. Yet scholars continue to debate whether Judges was always intended as a bridge between Joshua and Samuel-Kings, how many editorial stages are present, and whether some later material resists a simple Deuteronomistic label.[2][3][10]
Responsible conclusion: Samuel is the traditional authorial figure, while the received book is anonymous and literarily layered. A careful study can respect traditional attribution and still examine the evidence for older memories, poetry, written sources, and later theological framing.
When was Judges written?
The stories are set after Joshua's death and before Saul's kingship. That setting broadly evokes the changing world of Iron Age I, including the weakening of older Canaanite city-state structures, growth of highland settlements, Philistine communities along the coastal plain, and shifting regional identities. Archaeology helps illuminate that setting but cannot verify every judge, battle, number, or chronology.[20][21]
The date of the stories is not the date of the final book. Judges likely preserves older oral and local memories, and the Song of Deborah is often treated as early Hebrew poetry, although its precise date and unity remain debated. Most broad compositional models place major shaping in late monarchic and exilic periods, with some proposals allowing postexilic development.[7][22][23]
The most honest date is therefore a range and a process: traditions rooted in Israel's remembered premonarchic past were transmitted and reshaped over centuries before the book reached its received form.
In what language and manuscripts is Judges preserved?
Judges was composed in Biblical Hebrew. Modern critical study compares the medieval Masoretic tradition, earlier Qumran fragments, ancient Greek forms, and later versions. The official Biblia Hebraica Quinta edition presents Codex Leningradensis as its base text and records variant evidence in its apparatus.[11]
Masoretic tradition
The best-known complete Hebrew form comes through the medieval Masoretic tradition represented by Codex Leningradensis. It is the base of many modern Hebrew editions and translations.
4Q49 and 4Q50
The Israel Antiquities Authority catalogs two fragmentary Judges manuscripts from Qumran, conventionally called 4QJudgesa and 4QJudgesb. They preserve earlier Hebrew evidence without supplying a complete book.[12][13]
Greek Judges
Judges has an unusually complex Greek textual history. Vaticanus-related and other forms reflect translation and recensional development, including revisions associated with the kaige tradition. Researchers therefore avoid treating every Greek manuscript as one uniform Septuagint text.[14][15]
Later versions
Old Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and other translations preserve later reception and may contribute textual evidence when evaluated in relation to their Hebrew or Greek sources.
No surviving witness is both complete and early enough to settle every reading. Textual criticism compares the witnesses rather than pretending that one manuscript makes all transmission questions disappear.
Summary of Judges
After Joshua's death, Israel's tribes experience incomplete settlement and recurrent conflict. A theological introduction explains how later generations abandon the covenant, suffer oppression, cry out, receive a divinely raised deliverer, and return to infidelity after that leader dies. Othniel, Ehud, Deborah and Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, and shorter-noticed leaders respond to regional crises, but the leadership stories increasingly expose fear, rivalry, ambition, reckless vows, appetite, and vengeance. Abimelech murders his brothers in a failed bid for kingship. The final chapters leave the normal cycle behind and depict corrupt worship, abuse, civil war, massacre, and the seizure of women, ending with Israel morally fragmented and without stable, faithful rule.[1][2]
How is Judges organized?
1. Incomplete settlement
Judges 1:1-2:5 describes tribal campaigns, communities that remain in the land, forced labor, and a divine rebuke at Bochim.
2. Theological introduction
Judges 2:6-3:6 looks back to Joshua, describes generational forgetting, and introduces the recurring pattern of infidelity, oppression, distress, deliverance, and rest.
3. Early deliverers
Judges 3:7-5:31 presents Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Barak, Jael, and the Song of Deborah.
4. Gideon and Abimelech
Judges 6-9 moves from Gideon's call and victory to retaliation, the ephod, dynastic pressure, Abimelech's murders, and Jotham's fable.
5. Jephthah and later notices
Judges 10-12 records renewed oppression, Jephthah's leadership and disastrous vow, conflict with Ephraim, and three shorter judges.
6. Samson
Judges 13-16 follows a promised Nazirite whose Spirit-enabled conflict with Philistines is entangled with desire, vengeance, deception, capture, and death.
7. Corrupt worship
Judges 17-18 narrates Micah's shrine, a Levite's employment, and Dan's seizure of Laish and its cult objects.
8. Violence and civil war
Judges 19-21 records the abuse and death of an unnamed woman, war against Benjamin, massacre, and the coerced seizure of women.
This three-part movement from incomplete settlement, through deliverer stories, to religious and social collapse is widely recognized, although scholars propose additional patterns within it.[2][10]
What are the central themes of Judges?
Covenant memory and forgetting
A generation that does not know the Lord or remember divine action turns to rival gods. Memory is presented as a communal and intergenerational responsibility.
Judgment and compassion
Oppression is interpreted as covenant consequence, yet God repeatedly responds to distress and raises deliverers. Mercy continues even as the people and leaders deteriorate.
The Spirit and flawed leaders
The Spirit empowers several leaders for particular acts of deliverance. That empowerment does not certify every motive, vow, relationship, or act as morally approved.
Women, agency, and harm
Deborah and Jael act decisively, while Jephthah's daughter and the women in the final chapters suffer from male vows, violence, war, and political repair. The book requires attention to both agency and victimization.
Tribal solidarity and fracture
Regional deliverance can become common memory, but rivalry repeatedly grows into lethal conflict. The final war nearly destroys Benjamin.
Power and kingship
Abimelech's violent rule and the repeated no-king refrain raise questions about leadership. Judges exposes anarchy but does not offer a simplistic endorsement of every monarchy.
Idolatry and distorted worship
Baal worship, Gideon's ephod, Micah's shrine, hired religious authority, and Dan's cult show worship distorted by convenience, fear, power, and private ownership.
A downward moral trajectory
The recurring cycle becomes less orderly as deliverers and communities grow more compromised. By the end, Israel acts like the violent outsiders it condemns.[9]
Who are the major figures in Judges?
Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar
The opening deliverers establish regional rescue stories: Othniel provides the clearest cycle, Ehud uses deception and surprise against Moab, and Shamgar receives only one compact notice.
Deborah, Barak, and Jael
Deborah is prophet and judge, Barak commands Israel's force, and Jael kills Sisera. Judges 4 and 5 remember their conflict in related but non-identical prose and poetry.[22][23]
Gideon
Gideon moves from fearful calling to victory, but his story ends with vengeance, an ephod that becomes a snare, many wives, and a son named Abimelech seeking power.
Abimelech
Abimelech murders his brothers and becomes ruler at Shechem. He is a violent would-be king, not a successful deliverer, and Jotham's tree fable critiques his rise.[29]
Jephthah
Jephthah is expelled, recalled as a warrior, and victorious against Ammon, but his reckless vow destroys his daughter and conflict with Ephraim brings further killing.[25][26]
Samson
Samson is a Nazirite from before birth and an enemy of Philistine domination, yet appetite, revenge, secrecy, violence, and exploitation shape his story. Reception has often emphasized strength while overlooking its moral instability.[24]
Short notices also name Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon. Counts of the judges vary because interpreters differ over Shamgar, Barak, Abimelech, and what qualifies a figure as a judge.
Popular and important passages in Judges
Judges 2:6-23
The theological introduction explains generational forgetting and the recurring movement from infidelity and oppression to divine compassion and deliverance.
Judges 4:1-24
Deborah commissions Barak, Israel confronts Sisera, and Jael brings the conflict to its unexpected conclusion.
Judges 5:1-31
The Song of Deborah celebrates deliverance, preserves tribal and regional memory, and challenges readers with vivid war poetry.
Judges 6:11-24
Gideon's call addresses fear, divine presence, questioning, commission, and the tension between weakness and responsibility.
Judges 7:1-25
Gideon's reduced force emphasizes that victory cannot be credited simply to military numbers.
Judges 9:7-21
Jotham's fable of the trees warns against Abimelech and shows Scripture using an overt fable for political and theological critique.
Judges 11:29-40
Jephthah's vow and his daughter's death expose the destructive power of reckless religion, patriarchal authority, and tragic silence.
Judges 13:1-25
Samson's birth announcement establishes divine initiative, Nazirite identity, parental questions, and a calling that Samson will embody imperfectly.
Judges 16:23-31
Samson's death brings vengeance and a final blow against Philistine leaders while leaving moral and theological tensions unresolved.
Judges 17:1-13
Micah's shrine and hired Levite reveal private ownership of worship and religious confidence detached from covenant fidelity.
Judges 19:1-30
The abuse, death, and dismemberment of an unnamed woman mark the book's most severe exposure of social and gendered violence.
Judges 21:25
The closing refrain summarizes Israel's lack of stable rule and the moral danger of treating individual judgment as sufficient.
What difficult questions surround Judges?
Content note: Judges 11 and 19-21 include a father's lethal vow, sexual violence, murder, dismemberment, massacre, civil war, and coerced seizure of women. Study these chapters without graphic embellishment, without blaming victims, and with care for readers whose lives have been affected by abuse.
History, archaeology, and early Israel
Judges places many localized conflicts in the remembered era before monarchy. Archaeology shows a changing regional landscape at the end of the Late Bronze Age and during Iron Age I: Egyptian control receded, older city-state systems weakened, highland settlement expanded, and Philistine material culture developed along the coast. These patterns provide context, but they do not prove each narrative episode or allow ancient social labels to be mapped directly onto modern peoples.[20][21]
Deborah, Barak, and Jael
Deborah is explicitly a prophet and judge; Barak is a military leader; Jael kills Sisera. Their portrayals have generated debate about gender, leadership, honor, warfare, and the relationship between the prose account and poem. Responsible interpretation should neither erase women's agency nor turn the violent death and war song into uncomplicated slogans.[22][23]
Gideon's fleece and moral decline
Gideon's signs answer a fearful leader within a specific narrative. The fleece is not presented as a universal method for making decisions. His later retaliation, ephod, household, and dynastic legacy also prevent readers from treating victory as proof of complete moral maturity.
Did Jephthah sacrifice his daughter?
Reception history includes attempts to understand the daughter's fate as lifelong dedication rather than death. The dominant narrative reading and major modern scholarship, however, understand the story to say that Jephthah carried out a human sacrifice. God never commands the vow. The daughter speaks, grieves, and becomes the focus of women's commemoration; she should be named as the victim of her father's reckless promise, not blamed for it.[25][26]
Samson's strength and character
Samson is set apart before birth and repeatedly empowered for conflict with the Philistines. The same narrative portrays desire, manipulation, vengeance, violent escalation, and exploitation involving women. Calling, charisma, and physical strength must not be confused with consistent wisdom or character.[24]
The unnamed woman in Judges 19
Judges 19 echoes Genesis 19, but intensifies the indictment by moving violence inside Israel and making an unnamed woman suffer abuse, death, and dismemberment. Her body is then used to mobilize men and tribes. Interpretation must resist making her only a symbol of national disorder; she is a person harmed by the men and structures around her.[27]
Marriage by capture in Judges 21
After civil war and massacre, the tribes attempt to preserve Benjamin by transferring women from Jabesh-gilead and permitting the seizure of women at Shiloh. Calling these actions marriage without qualification hides coercion. Anthropological comparison can clarify the social logic of capture, but it does not morally excuse the violence.[28]
Does the book promote monarchy?
The refrain that there was no king in Israel may prepare readers for Samuel, critique disorder, point toward faithful rule, or evoke God as Israel's true king. Yet Abimelech already demonstrates murderous kingship, and Samuel will warn about royal power. The refrain therefore cannot prove that any monarch, government, or modern political system automatically cures violence.
Ethical reading guardrail: Divine use of a leader is not blanket approval of that leader. Judges must never be used to excuse abusive authority, reckless vows, violence against women, ethnic hostility, or modern warfare. Historical and literary explanation helps readers understand the text; it does not turn every narrated act into a command.
Key points to remember
- The Hebrew title means judges, but many central figures function as deliverers and regional leaders rather than modern courtroom officials.
- Samuel is the traditional author; the received book is anonymous and literarily layered.
- The story setting in Iron Age I must be distinguished from the centuries-long process by which traditions and the final book developed.
- The recurring cycle reveals both covenant consequence and repeated divine compassion.
- The leaders become increasingly compromised; empowerment does not equal moral perfection.
- Deborah is prophet, judge, and leader, while Barak and Jael also carry distinct roles in the deliverance story.
- Jephthah's daughter and the women in Judges 19-21 must be recognized as victims, not reduced to illustrations.
- The final no-king refrain raises a leadership question but does not make monarchy an automatic cure.
- Archaeology illuminates a changing regional world without proving every narrative detail.
- Ancient people labels in Judges must never be weaponized against modern communities.
Passages that deserve deeper study
Judges 1 and Joshua 13-19
Compare coordinated fulfillment, land allotment, incomplete settlement, forced labor, and continuing communities.
Judges 2 and Deuteronomy 6-8
Trace covenant memory, generational teaching, forgetting, rival worship, consequence, and compassion.
Judges 4 and 5
Compare prose and poetry, Deborah's roles, Barak's command, Jael's action, tribal memory, and the ethics of war song.
Judges 6-8
Follow Gideon from call and signs through deliverance, retaliation, kingship language, the ephod, and family legacy.
Judges 9 and 1 Samuel 8
Place Jotham's fable and Abimelech's rule beside Samuel's warning about royal power.
Judges 11 and Numbers 30
Study vows, authority, responsibility, silence, sacrifice, the daughter's voice, and reception history.
Judges 13-16 and Numbers 6
Compare Samson's calling with Nazirite instruction and distinguish consecration, charisma, wisdom, and character.
Judges 17-18 and Deuteronomy 12
Examine private shrines, images, religious employment, stolen cult objects, and worship shaped by possession.
Judges 19 and Genesis 19
Trace narrative echoes while centering the unnamed woman and asking how Israel has become like the society it condemns.
Judges 20-21
Study collective outrage, failed inquiry, civil war, vows, massacre, coerced capture, and morally disastrous problem solving.
Judges 21:25 and Samuel-Kings
Follow the leadership question into Saul, David, royal warning, failed monarchy, and the continuing claim of divine kingship.
Judges and Hebrews 11
Ask how later Scripture remembers Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah without requiring approval of every narrated deed.
Connections with other biblical and early writings
Deuteronomy and Joshua: Judges inherits covenant, land, idolatry, blessing, and consequence language while opening with incomplete settlement and fragmented tribal action. Its contrast with Joshua's national fulfillment summaries is literarily important.
Genesis: Judges 19 deliberately recalls Genesis 19, but places the horrific failure inside Israel. Family, blessing, sibling, and land traditions also echo Israel's ancestral stories.
Ruth: Ruth begins in the days of the judges. Its immigrant-centered story of loyalty, provision, protection, and family continuity offers a striking canonical contrast to the social disintegration at the end of Judges.
Samuel and Kings: Judges prepares leadership and monarchy questions that continue in 1 Samuel. The later narratives respond to disorder but also warn that royal power can exploit, divide, and fail.
Psalms and prophets: Later biblical writings remember oppression, deliverance, the Spirit, tribal identities, and enemies differently. They continue debate about faithful rule, worship, justice, and communal memory.
Hebrews and Acts: Hebrews 11:32 names Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah among remembered figures of faith; Acts 13:20 recalls the era of judges. Later remembrance does not declare every action of those figures exemplary.
Jewish and Christian reception: Interpreters, artists, preachers, and political writers have repeatedly reshaped Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, and the no-king refrain. Reception history reveals both insight and dangerous uses, especially when interpreters ignore victims or convert ancient conflict into modern authorization.[30]
Which communities receive Judges as Scripture?
Judges belongs to the Former Prophets in Jewish Scripture. It is also part of the Old Testament in Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Ethiopian Orthodox biblical traditions. Official Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Ethiopian Orthodox records all include it, though ordering, translations, lectionary use, and interpretation vary.[17][18][19]
Frequently asked questions
Who wrote the Book of Judges?
Rabbinic tradition attributes Judges to Samuel. The received book does not name an author, however, and most modern scholars understand it as a layered work that preserves older stories and poetry within later literary and theological shaping.
When was the Book of Judges written?
The stories are set between Joshua and Israel's monarchy, broadly in the world of Iron Age I. The book likely preserves older local memories and poetry, while major literary shaping is commonly placed in late monarchic, exilic, and possibly postexilic periods. The exact stages remain debated.
What is the cycle in the Book of Judges?
Judges 2 describes a recurring movement from covenant infidelity to oppression, distress, a divinely raised deliverer, and temporary rest. The pattern is not mechanically repeated, and it deteriorates as leaders and communities become increasingly compromised.
Was Deborah a judge and a prophet?
Yes. Judges 4 presents Deborah as a prophet and as one who was judging Israel. She summons Barak, communicates divine instruction, and participates in the deliverance remembered poetically in Judges 5.
Did Jephthah sacrifice his daughter?
Interpretive alternatives have appeared in reception history, but the dominant narrative reading and major modern scholarship understand Judges 11 to say that Jephthah carried out his vow and his daughter died. The text never commands the vow, and the daughter should be recognized as its victim.
Was Samson a hero?
Samson is a divinely empowered opponent of Philistine domination, but the narrative also portrays appetite, vengeance, deception, violence, and repeated harm involving women. His calling and strength do not make every action morally exemplary.
Does Judges argue that monarchy would solve Israel's problems?
The repeated statement that Israel had no king can prepare for monarchy, but the book also exposes violent would-be kingship and leaves room for critique of human rule. Scholars debate whether the refrain supports monarchy, divine kingship, a bridge to Samuel, or several ideas at once.
Which communities receive Judges as Scripture?
Judges belongs to the Jewish Former Prophets and to the Old Testament of Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Ethiopian Orthodox traditions. Its placement, translation, and interpretation vary among communities.
Sources and scholarly bibliography
- Judges. Primary biblical text. References use chapter and verse rather than reproducing a copyrighted modern translation. See also the USCCB text.
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. "The Book of Judges." Official introduction, outline, historical orientation, and theological cycle. Official introduction.
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. "Introduction to the Historical Books." Official overview of Judges within the Deuteronomistic History. Official introduction.
- Boling, Robert G. Judges. Anchor Yale Bible 6A. Yale University Press, paperback edition published 1992. Publisher record.
- Sasson, Jack M. Judges 1-12: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Yale Bible 6D. Yale University Press, 2014. Publisher record.
- Sasson, Jack M. Judges 13-21: A New Translation with Commentary. Anchor Yale Bible. Yale University Press, 2025. Publisher record.
- Matthews, Victor H. Judges and Ruth. New Cambridge Bible Commentary. Cambridge University Press, 2004. Official sample and front matter.
- Niditch, Susan. Judges: A Commentary. Old Testament Library. Westminster John Knox Press, 2008. ISBN 9780664220969. Bibliographic record.
- Webb, Barry G. The Book of Judges. New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Eerdmans, 2012. Publisher record.
- Beal, Timothy K. "Judges." In The Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology, 227-242. Oxford University Press, 2009. DOI record.
- Fernandez Marcos, Natalio, ed. Biblia Hebraica Quinta, Fascicle 7: Judges. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2011. Official critical-edition record.
- Israel Antiquities Authority. "4Q Judges" (4Q49 / 4QJudgesa). Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library. Manuscript record.
- Israel Antiquities Authority. "4Q Judges" (4Q50 / 4QJudgesb). Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library. Manuscript record.
- Fernandez Marcos, Natalio. "Joshua and Judges." In The Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint, 207-220. Oxford University Press, 2021. DOI record.
- Bodine, Walter Ray. The Greek Text of Judges: Recensional Developments. Harvard Semitic Monographs 23. Scholars Press, 1980; Brill e-book edition, 2019. Publisher text and record.
- Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 14b. Rabbinic discussion of the Prophets' order and traditional attribution of Judges to Samuel. Sefaria text record.
- Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. "The Canonical Books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church." Official canonical list.
- Vatican. Catechism of the Catholic Church, section 120. Official canonical list.
- Orthodox Church in America. "Canon of Scripture." Official church Q&A.
- Yasur-Landau, Assaf. "Introduction." In The Philistines and Aegean Migration at the End of the Late Bronze Age. Cambridge University Press, 2010. DOI record.
- Matthews, Victor H. "Settlement and Competition in Iron Age I Canaan: An Archaeological, Political, and Social Perspective." In The History of Bronze and Iron Age Israel, 64-97. Oxford University Press, 2018. DOI record.
- Wright, Jacob L. War, Memory, and National Identity in the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge University Press, 2020. Open-access publisher text.
- Echols, Charles L. "Deborah (Judges 4, 5)." Oxford Bibliographies in Biblical Studies, 2022. DOI record.
- Murphy, Kelly J. "Samson in Reception History." In The Oxford Handbook of the Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible, 466-482. Oxford University Press, 2020. DOI record.
- Exum, J. Cheryl. "Jephthah: The Absence of God." In Tragedy and Biblical Narrative. Cambridge University Press, 1992; online 2009. DOI record.
- Stiebert, Johanna. "The Sacrificed Daughter." In Fathers and Daughters in the Hebrew Bible, 72-101. Oxford University Press, 2013. DOI record.
- Barry, Jennifer. "Athanasius Pulled Apart: Heresiology and the (Dis)membered (Fe)male Body." Harvard Theological Review 116.4 (2023): 514-532. DOI record.
- Southwood, Katherine E. Marriage by Capture in the Book of Judges: An Anthropological Approach. Cambridge University Press, 2017. DOI record.
- Whitman, Jon. "Fable and Fact: Judging the Language of Scripture (Judges 9:8-15) from Antiquity to Modernity." Harvard Theological Review 113.2 (2020): 171-203. DOI record.
- Gunn, David M. "Judges." In The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible, 89-103. Oxford University Press, 2011. DOI record.