Ancient Jewish and Christian exegeses of the 'Curse of Ham': divergent strategies against the background of ancient views on slavery -- Jacob's double: a reduplicative confabulation of post-biblical literature -- The Holy of Holies or the holiest? Rabbi Akiva's characterization of the Song of Songs in Mishnah Yadayim 3:5 -- The spirit among the sages: Seder Olam, the end of prophecy and sagely illumination -- Blessed be He, who remembered the earlier deeds and overlooks the later -- benedictions, and liturgy in the new rhetoric garb of late Midrashic traditions -- The role of small forms in Pirqei de Rabbi Eliezer -- Inner-Biblical exegesis in Rashbam's commentary on Qohelet.

"This volume contains selected proceedings of the Midrash Section sessions convened during the 2012-2014 meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature. It is comprised of contributions by leading and emerging scholars that share a common focus on Rabbinic biblical interpretation as it intersects with a range of biblical texts and associated fields of study, including: Jewish legal literature; Hellenistic Judaism; post-biblical interpretation; biblical commentary; liturgical studies; and, cultural studies. The contributions explore how the study of Midrash illuminates and informs an array of topics, such as: race and slavery in antiquity; myth and theology in biblical tradition; reason and rationalism in the Hebrew Bible; inner-biblical interpretation; and, literary and form analysis"--