The figure Balaam has interested exegetes and scribes for millennia. Jonathan Miles Robker
examines the different versions of the literary character Balaam as attested in biblical and
epigraphic literature. By contrasting the distinct information about Balaam presented in the
various sources (the plaster inscription from Deir Alla Numbers 22-24 31 Deuteronomy 23
Joshua 13 24 Judges 11 Micah 6 and Nehemiah 13) the author seeks to trace the development
of characterizations of Balaam from the oldest available material to the youngest in the Hebrew
Bible. In this way Jonathan Miles Robker advances discourse about the literary and
tradition-historical development of the texts that became the Hebrew Bible. Beyond the text of
the Hebrew Bible he also traces the continued development of Balaam's characterization through
the texts of Qumran and the New Testament. To this end the author contributes discussions of
the history of religion in Antiquity.
