Finding Articles About the Tanakh (Part 2 - RAMBI)

Question: Where can I find articles about a specific passage in the Tanakh?

Answer: [Continued from blog posting Nov 12, 2009 which focused on ATLA/ATLAS]. Another quick way to identify scholarly articles and essays on biblical passages is via the RAMBI Index of Articles on Jewish Studies.

1. Use the SUBJECT option from the drop-down list.

2. Type the name of the Biblical book in either English or Hebrew (with the Hebrew alphabet) like this:
Genesis (Book of) or
(בראשית (ספר

For best results, do not use transliterated Hebrew book names, like “bereshit”, when using the SUBJECT option. Exceptions: KOHELTH, OVADIAH.

3. Type the chapter (or range of chapters) after the name of the book:
Ezekiel (book of): 8
יחזקאל (ספר) ח - יב

Specifying Verses: You can not specify verses using the SUBJECT option. However, if particular verses are mentioned in the title of the article, it is easy to notice those articles when you peruse the listing of article titles.

You can search for articles on specific verses using a KEYWORD SEARCH; they will be in your results list only if that chapter/verse combination happens to be in the title of the article.

General Articles:
Articles on the entire Five Books of Moses are listed under the subjects PENTATEUCH or תורה .
Articles on the entire Tanakh are listed under the subjects: BIBLE or BIBLE: EXEGESIS or מקרא . Additional general articles are listed under: PROPHETS, נביאים , כתובים

Languages: Using English search terms will retrieve a listing of articles in all European languages, including Russian. Using Hebrew will retrieve a listing of articles in Hebrew and Yiddish.

Journals and books included: RAMBI’s unique strength is its emphasis on Jewish and Israeli publications such as: Dine Israel, Dor le Dor, Hebraic Political Studies, Iberia Judaica, Jewish History, Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society, Niv Hamidrashia, Shdemot, and most significantly, the multitude of Hebrew language publications.

RAMBI’s wide range of European-language journals are similar to those in ATLA/ATLAS, from Journal of Biblical Studies to the Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute. In addition, RAMBI includes articles in feschriften and other essay collections.

Batyah or Bityah

The name Batyah is a common Hebrew female given name. The source of the name is the daughter of Pharaoh who drew Mosheh from the water when he was an infant and raised him like a son. The midrash in Vayikra Rabah (chpt.1 , paragraph 3, s.v. ve-eleh bene Bityah) homiletically interprets her name as being composed of two words: “bat” and “Yah” meaning “daughter of God”. God says to Batyah that just as Mosheh was not her actual son but she called him son (and took care of him as one), so too, even though Batyah is not God’s daughter (i.e. she was not born a Jew), He refers to her as His daughter. Rabbi Betsalel Majersdorf, Technical Services Librarian at Jewish Theological Seminary, pointed me to the work Arukh ha-Shulhan by Rabbi Yehiel Mikhel Epstein. Rabbi Epstein opines (Arukh ha-Shulhan, Even ha-Ezer, chpt.129, “shemot nashim”, s.v. [b] Basha) that notwithstanding the common practice (and the homiletic teaching of the midrash) the proper pronunciation of this name is Bityah (with a hirik under the letter bet) and not Batyah (with a patah under the letter bet). He reasons that the only time this name is mentioned in the Bible is in Divre ha-Yamim I 4:18 where it is given as Bityah bat Par’oh. An edition of the Bible based on authoritative Masoretic sources (especially the Aleppo Codex) was printed by Mosad ha-Rav Kuk in 1977 under the editorship of Mordechai Breuer. I examined this edition and found that the reading was, indeed, Bityah.