Balaam in Text and Tradition

The figure Balaam has interested exegetes and scribes for millennia. Jonathan Miles Robker examines the different versions of the literary character Balaam as attested in biblical and epigraphic literature. By contrasting the distinct information about Balaam presented in the various sources (the plaster inscription from Deir Alla, Numbers 22-24; 31; Deuteronomy 23; Joshua 13; 24; Judges 11; Micah 6; and Nehemiah 13), the author seeks to trace the development of characterizations of Balaam from the oldest available material to the youngest in the Hebrew Bible. In this way, Jonathan Miles Robker advances discourse about the literary and tradition-historical development of the texts that became the Hebrew Bible. Beyond the text of the Hebrew Bible, he also traces the continued development of Balaam's characterization through the texts of Qumran and the New Testament. To this end, the author contributes discussions of the history of religion in Antiquity.

Born 1980; 1999-2003 studied History and Philosophy, with a concentration in Religious Studies at LSU; 2006 Master of Theological Studies from Duke Divinity School; 2011 PhD from the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the FAU Erlangen, Germany; since 2013 at the Faculty of Protestant Theology of the WWU Münster, Germany; 2018 Habilitation.