Part Two: Excavating the History of the Formation of the Hebrew Bible. Chapter 5: The Hasmonean Period

This chapter starts with a brief historical overview of the Hasmonean monarchy. Next comes a discussion of separate texts that are most likely to be dated to this period (e.g. 1 and 2 Maccabees, Judith) in an attempt to form an initial profile of the sorts of texts being produced then. With this profile established, the balance of the chapter argues that the contours of the Torah-Prophets Hebrew biblical canon were initially fixed in this period as well. In particular, we can see the traces of what may be the “final redaction” of the (proto-Masoretic) Hebrew Bible in several documented late revisions distinctive of the proto-MT (particularly found in Deuteronomy, the former prophets, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Ezra-Nehemiah), revisions likely made during the Hasmonean period.