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The authors of both the first and third Gospels, by insisting on both Jesus' divine paternity and his Davidic descent, pose a conundrum: if Jesus was not Joseph' biological son, in what sense is he the Davidic Messiah? Most modern scholars assume that Joseph must have adopted Jesus in some form or another, thus giving him Davidic status, and many even point to such adoption as a ‘Jewish custom’. This article examines this assumption and shows that adoption was unknown in Jewish law of the period. Furthermore, such adoption was well known in Roman law, especially among the aristocracy. In the case of such emperors as Augustus, whose adoptive fathers had been deified posthumously, this gave them the status of divifilius, ‘son of god’. The inclusion of such a Roman concept into the Gospels may be an indication of the Gentile, rather than Jewish, cultural backgrounds of the evangelists.

The intent of this paper is to examine the story of Nimrod in Genesis x 8-12, offering fresh insight on both the historical background and the literary development of the passage. The article deals first with the passage's literal meaning, syntax and the extant text. The geographic context of the passage is shown to be distinctly Mesopotamian-Nimrod being the "builder" of Babylon, Erech, Accad and other southern Mesopotamian cities and then moving north to Assyria. After surveying previous attempts to identify an "historical" Nimrod, the author then suggests that the biblical figure is modeled after the combined traditions about Sargon of Akkad and his grandson, Naram-Sin. Nimrod is the son of "Cush"; Sargon began his royal career at Kish right after the flood. The Sargon-Naram-Sin traditions reached the Levant during the second millennium BCE, being combined by time and distance into a composite personality. The tradition reached its final form during the reign of Sargon II of Assyria, who added such themes as hunting to the story. The later editors of the Book of Genesis dropped much of the story and the Nimrod tradition was thus lost to later generations, save five remaining verses in the tenth chapter of Genesis.

For several hundred years, from the late Iron Age to the end of the 2nd century BCE, the southern neighbor of Judea was “Idumea”, populated by descendants of Edomites, together with Qedarite and other Arabs and a mix of additional ethnicities. This paper examines the known data on the identity, especially religious identity, of these Idumeans, using a wide range of written sources and archaeological data. Within the Bible, “Edom” is presented as Israel’s twin and its harshest enemy, but there are hints that the Edomites worshipped the God of Israel. While the origins of the “Edomite deity” Qaus remain obscure, as does the process of their migration into southern Judah, the many inscriptions from the Persian period show that Qaus became the most widely worshipped deity in the area, even if other gods, including Yahweh, were also recognized. The Hellenistic period brought heightened Greek and Phoenician influence, but also the stabilization of “Idumea” as an administrative/ethnic unit. Some of the practices of this period, such as male circumcision, show an affinity to the Judaism of the time. This paper also discusses the outcome of the Hasmonean conquest of Idumea and the incorporation of its inhabitants into the Jewish nation.

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