This study explores the materiality of writing in the Deuteronomic composition, which—the book argues—adapts the media aesthetics of ancient treaty tablets and monumental inscriptions to a Hebrew narrative that is itself transformed into an artifact of the past.

Acknowledgements List of Figures List of Tables Abbreviations Introduction: Deuteronomy and the Book  1 Trajectories in Book History  2 Media Aesthetics and the Reading Experience  3 Deuteronomic Style and Textuality in Critical Biblical Scholarship  4 Deuteronomic Textuality in Early Modern Europe  5 Textuality, Materiality, and the Deuteronomic Composition 1 From Discourse to Artifact  1 Entextualization  2 Internal Self-Reference and Labeling in the Deuteronomic Composition  3 The Deuteronomic Composition as tôrâ  4 The “Words of tôrâ” as Inscribed Text  5 Enacting Repetition of the tôrâ  6 Deuteronomy 28:58 within and beyond the Deuteronomic Composition 2 Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty as Text and Object  1 Writing a ṭuppi adê of Succession  2 Conceptual Whole  3 Component Parts  4 Circulating the Will of Esarhaddon  5 Text-Artifact  6 Media Aesthetics of the EST Tablets  7 Conclusion 3 Monuments and Interaction: The Case of Kulamuwa’s Portal Orthostat  1 Monuments as Interactive Media  2 Kulamuwa’s Orthostat at Iron Age Zincirli  3 Pragmatic Features of Kulamuwa’s Orthostat Composition  4 Media Aesthetics of Kulamuwa’s Orthostat  5 Kulamuwa’s Performance of Kingship  6 Portal Orthostat as Interactive Object  7 Pragmatic Paradigms of Zincirli’s Iron Age Inscriptions  8 Conclusion 4 The Material Imaginary of the Deuteronomic Composition  1 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 Conclusion 5 Textual Landscapes and the Poetics of Proximity  1 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 Literature  5 Conclusion Epilogue: The Deuteronomic Composition and the Movement of Culture Bibliography Index of Passages Index of Modern Authors Topic Index