Deuteronomy and the Material Transmission of Tradition

Mark Lester, Ph.D. (2020), Yale University, is currently Instructor in the Department of Theology at Loyola University Chicago.

"With meticulous research on the written culture across the ancient Near East, Mark Lester scrutinizes the Deuteronomy not simply as a Biblical composition but as the adaptation and appropriation of media aesthetics of the whole region. Problematizing books as both a material object and an idea, Lester’s study expands the geographical and material scope of book history by situating the ancient Judean sense of literariness at the crossroads of transmedia exchange. This groundbreaking work will shift the ways we understand and teach book history." – Honorable mention from the award committee of the 2025 SHARP Book History Book Prize.

• AcknowledgementsList of FiguresList of TablesAbbreviationsIntroduction: Deuteronomy and the Book1 Trajectories in Book History2 Media Aesthetics and the Reading Experience3 Deuteronomic Style and Textuality in Critical Biblical Scholarship4 Deuteronomic Textuality in Early Modern Europe5 Textuality, Materiality, and the Deuteronomic Composition1 From Discourse to Artifact1 Entextualization2 Internal Self-Reference and Labeling in the Deuteronomic Composition3 The Deuteronomic Composition as tôrâ4 The “Words of tôrâ” as Inscribed Text5 Enacting Repetition of the tôrâ6 Deuteronomy 28:58 within and beyond the Deuteronomic Composition2 Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty as Text and Object1 Writing a ṭuppi adê of Succession2 Conceptual Whole3 Component Parts4 Circulating the Will of Esarhaddon5 Text-Artifact6 Media Aesthetics of the EST Tablets7 Conclusion3 Monuments and Interaction: The Case of Kulamuwa’s Portal Orthostat1 Monuments as Interactive Media2 Kulamuwa’s Orthostat at Iron Age Zincirli3 Pragmatic Features of Kulamuwa’s Orthostat Composition4 Media Aesthetics of Kulamuwa’s Orthostat5 Kulamuwa’s Performance of Kingship6 Portal Orthostat as Interactive Object7 Pragmatic Paradigms of Zincirli’s Iron Age Inscriptions8 Conclusion4 The Material Imaginary of the Deuteronomic Composition1 The Tablets of the Covenant (Deut 4:13; 5:22; 9:9–10:5)2 Adornments of Heart and Home (Deut 6:6–9; 11:18–21)3 An Anti-Royal Inscription (Deut 17:14–20)4 A Public Monument (Deut 27:1–8)5 The Scroll (Deut 31:9–13, 24–26)6 The Transcribed Song (Deut 31:16–22, 30; 32:1–44)7 Conclusion5 Textual Landscapes and the Poetics of Proximity1 Centralization and the Materiality of Ritual (Deut 12:2–7)2 Text-Artifacts in the Cultic Landscape (Deut 6:9; 11:20; 31:9–13, 24–26)3 Text-Artifacts in the Judicial Landscape (Deut 17:2–13)4 The Aura of Authenticity and the Making of Literature5 ConclusionEpilogue: The Deuteronomic Composition and the Movement of CultureBibliographyIndex of PassagesIndex of Modern AuthorsTopic Index