he effort to decode the Safaitic texts began in the spring of 1857, when a young Scotsman named Cyril Graham set off from Jerusalem on a tour of Syria.

The art of the biblical narrative, Alter hypothesized, was finalized in a late editorial stage by some unifying creative mind — a figure who, like a film editor, introduced narrative coherence through the art of montage. Alter called this method “composite artistry,” and he would also come to use the term “the Arranger” — a concept borrowed from scholarship on James Joyce — to describe the editor (or editors) who gave the text a final artistic overlay. It was a secular and literary method of reading the Hebrew Bible but, in its reverent insistence on the coherence and complex artistry of the central texts, it has appealed to some religious readers.

The poetic structure dictates its own logic.

Biblical poetry is often made up of line pairings composed of analogous images,

There are several occasions where the massebah is not associated with pagan worship. When the massebah is associated with the worship of Yahweh, the massebah is accepted as a valid expression of commitment to Yahweh.

During the establishment of the covenant between Yahweh and Israel, the people were commanded to destroy the sacred stones of the Canaanites, “You must demolish them and break their sacred stones (masseboth) to pieces” (Exodus 23:24).

Absalom set up a massebah for himself as a memorial for he said, “‘I have no son to keep my name in remembrance’; he called the massebah by his own name” (2 Samuel 18:18).

When Rachel died, Jacob set up a massebah at her grave; “it is the massebah of Rachel’s tomb, which is there to this day” (Genesis 35:19–20).

In the Hebrew Bible, the massebah is generally associated with Canaanite religion.

The only place in the Hebrew Bible where nasab is translated as a pillar is the case of Lot’s wife: “Lot’s wife looked back, and she thereupon turned into a pillar of salt” (Genesis 19:26). The Hebrew word nasab indicates that Lot’s wife was standing in place like a pillar.

The pillars or sacred stones were stones set apart for religious use. The word massebah comes from the Hebrew word nasab, a word which means “to stand.”

(Joshua 4:20).

A special use of the word “stone” = ʼben was to designate a name of the God of Israel: Yahweh is “The Stone of Israel” (Genesis 49:24).

When the people of Israel crossed the Jordan, Joshua commanded the people to set up twelve stones which were taken from the Jordan River as a memorial celebrating that defining moment in the life of Israel, the entrance of the people into the land God had promised to their ancestors (Joshua 4:20). The purpose of those memorial stones was to remind future generations of how the people “crossed the Jordan River on dry ground” (Joshua 4:22).

When Jacob had a vision of God, he used a stone as a pillow, but after he woke up from his sleep, “he took the stone (ʼben) that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar (massebah) and poured oil on the top of it” (Genesis 28:18). That stone became a memorial of Jacob’s encounter with God.

“If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it” (Exodus 20:25).

When the ark of the covenant was returned to Israel, the people of Beth-shemesh set up a large stone upon which they offered burnt offerings and presented sacrifices to Yahweh (1 Samuel 6:14–15).

Saul used a large stone to build an altar to Yahweh (1 Samuel 14:35).

People used stones to carry out the death penalty against people who had violated laws forbidding adultery, apostasy, blasphemy, profanation of the Sabbath, child sacrifice, witchcraft, and soothsaying.

Jacob rolled the stone off the opening of a well to water Rachel’s sheep (Genesis 29:10).

Yet prevail, Baal did not; towns in biblical Israel named after him are gone, while towns named after other gods, including Shamash, the moon god Yarekh, and El, are everywhere.

This day on which Enkidu dreamed came to an end and be lay stricken with sickness. One whole day he lay on his bed and his suffering increased. He said to Gilgamesh, the friend on whose account he had left the wilderness, 'Once I ran for you, for the water of life, and I now have nothing:' A second day he lay on his bed and Gilgamesh watched over him but the sickness increased. A third day he lay on his bed, he called out to Gilgamesh, rousing him up. Now he was weak and his eyes were blind with weeping. Ten days he lay and his suffering increased, eleven and twelve days he lay on his bed of pain. Then he called to Gilgamesh, 'My friend, the great goddess cursed me and I must die in shame. I shall not die like a man fallen in battle; I feared to fall, but happy is the man who falls in the battle, for I must die in shame.' And Gilgamesh wept over Enkidu. With the first light of dawn he raised his voice and said to the counsellors of Uruk

umbaba said, 'Enkidu, what you have spoken is evil: you, a hireling, dependent for your bread! In envy and for fear of a rival you have spoken evil words.' Enkidu said, ‘Do not listen, Gilgamesh: this Humbaba must die. Kill Humbaba first and his servants after

he heavens roared and the earth roared again, daylight failed and darkness fell, lightnings flashed, fire blazed out, the clouds lowered, they rained down death. Then the brightness departed, the fire went out, and all was turned to ashes fallen about us. Let us go down from the mountain and talk this over, and consider what we should do

ough, he had long hair like a woman's; it waved like the hair of Nisaba, the goddess of corn. His body was covered with matted hair like Samugan's, the god of cattle. He was innocent of mankind; he knew nothing of the cultivated land. Enkidu ate grass in the hills with the gazelle and lurked with wild beasts at the water-holes; he had joy of the water with the herds of wild game. But there was a trapper who met him one day face to face at the drinking-hole,

Word

If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? 2 Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4 Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6 But instead, one brother takes another to court—and this in front of unbelievers!

and not lead you to reject the offered olive-branch

stocks and stones,

Rose of Sharon loosened one side of the blanket and bared her breast.

Another oft-overlooked aspect of biblical apocalypse is its (doubly) utopian nature: the triumph of God’s faithful over Lucifer’s followers at Mount Megiddo is to result in Satan being confined to hell, ushering in Christ’s millennial reign on Earth—a period of peace, plenty, and harmony. The devil will then escape for four years before suffering a final defeat, at which time the dead are to be resurrected and the final judgment of souls will take place. Mass annihilation is therefore only the beginning of a process that will allow the righteous to enter into the ultimate, eternal Utopia, heaven, and the unjust to be sent to that dystopia par excellence, hell. Thus apocalypse, even in its scriptural source, is inextricably tied to the concepts of utopia and dystopia

has used annotations (and the related techniques of footnotes and citations) extensively for centuries