1 I presented this paper at the University of Tartu on June 1, 2015, at the invitation of Professor Urmas Nõmmik and the Faculty of Theology, in conjunction with the Estonian Society for the Study of Religions. I am especially grateful to Professor Ain Riistan and Dr. Anu Põldsam for their gracious hospitality and for the tour of their beautiful city and university. I also benefitted from comments and suggestions at Asbury Theological Seminary's Biblical Seminar on April 22, 2015. Special thanks go to Lawson G. Stone, Stephen P. Stratton, and Brent A. Strawn, for several helpful critiques and suggestions.

2 Articulated most thoroughly in his monumental Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), repeated frequently in many venues, including the popular version in Moshe Weinfeld, “Deuteronomy's Theological Revolution,” BRev 12 (1996): 38–41.

3 For the quotations in this paragraph, see Weinfeld, Deuteronomic School, 190, and for his arguments for “demythologization” and “secularization” see all of Part Two, 190–243.

4 Beginning almost immediately in Jacob Milgrom, “The Alleged ‘Demythologization and Secularization’ in Deuteronomy,” IEJ 23 (1973): 156–61, to which Weinfeld responded in the same journal, Moshe Weinfeld, “On ‘Demythologization and Secularization’ in Deuteronomy,” IEJ 23 (1973): 230–233. See also Norbert Lohfink, “Opfer und Säkularisierung im Deuteronomium,” in Studien zu Opfer und Kult im Alten Testament (ed. Adrian Schenker; FAT 3; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1992), 15–43, esp. 17–19. The issues have not been entirely resolved in more recent research, even resulting in monographic-level treatment; e.g., see Peter T. Vogt, Deuteronomic Theology and the Significance of Torah: A Reappraisal (Winona Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns, 2006). While I am sympathetic to much of Vogt's criticisms of Weinfeld, I find his distinction between sacrifice and worship untenable, and his emphasis on sovereignty so broad as to be unhelpful.

5 Bill T. Arnold, “Deuteronomy 12 and the Law of the Central Sanctuary noch einmal,” VT 64 (2014): 236–248, an article critiquing the most recent attempt to deny that Deuteronomy has a centralizing agenda; Frederick E. Greenspahn, “Deuteronomy and Centralization,” VT 64 (2014): 227–35.

6 As always, Deuteronomy is pivotal in the study of religious expression generally: “The connecting link between old and new, between Israel and Judaism, is everywhere Deuteronomy”; Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1994), 362; repr. of Prologomena to the History of Israel (trans. J. Sutherland Black and Allan Enzies, with preface by W. Robertson Smith; Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1885), trans. of Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (2d ed.; Berlin: G. Reimer, 1883).

7 All translations in this article are my own. The deuteronomic phraseology, “rituals and norms,” occurs also in 12:1 and 26:16, and has been much investigated as a framing device for both the parenesis of Deut 5–11 and the legal core of Deut 12–26. See, e.g., Georg Braulik, “Die Ausdrücke für Gesetz im Buch Deuteronomium,” Bib 51 (1970): 39–66; and Norbert Lohfink, “Die ḥuqqîm Ûmišpātîm im Buch Deuteronomium und ihre Neubegrenzung durch Dtn 12,1,” Bib 70 (1989): 1–29.

8 Already discussed by Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 33–34.

9 I take the “warnings against heresies” (Deut 12:29–31) as a general introduction to the laws of sedition in chapter 13, and therefore not relevant to the current investigation.

10 The contrast is especially highlighted in two of the paragraphs (vv. 5 and 14) by the compound restrictive adverb kî ‘im, “but rather,” to mark adversitivity, and to exclude all options appearing in the preceding material; Bill T. Arnold, “Adversative: Biblical Hebrew,” in Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (ed. Geoffrey Khan; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013), 1:53.

11 Using the solitary definite article to denote “the place,” as unique and distinctive from all other places and worship practices; Bill T. Arnold and John H. Choi, A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), § 2.6.4; and Arnold, “Law of the Central Sanctuary,” esp. 238–244.

12 The third of the four paragraphs, vv. 13–19, is probably the oldest pericope of the chapter, based among other things, upon the short form of the sanctuary election formula in v. 18, and some have assumed it served as the foundation for others in this chapter; Horst Dietrich Preuss, Deuteronomium (EdF 164; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1982), 133. Others have taken vv. 20–28 as the earliest text; Simeon Chavel, “The Literary Development of Deuteronomy 12: Between Religious Ideology and Social Reality,” in The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research (eds. Thomas B. Dozeman, Konrad Schmid and Baruch J. Schwartz; FAT 78; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 303–26. Thomas Römer traces a chronological succession of the first three versions of the law of centralization in the first three paragraphs, which he believes reflect three main redactional layers within the Deuteronomistic History, corresponding to three distinct contexts: Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Persian; Thomas Römer, The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical, and Literary Introduction (London: T & T Clark, 2005), 56–65. Alexander Rofé has proposed two strata of laws in vv. 2–12, the first (vv. 8–12) from the eighth or seventh centuries originating in the southern kingdom, and the second (vv. 2–7) from the late seventh century coming from the northern Shilonite tradents and/or priests from Anathoth; Alexander Rofé, “The Strata of the Law about the Centralization of Worship in Deuteronomy and the History of the Deuteronomic Movement,” in Deuteronomy: Issues and Interpretations (London & New York: T & T Clark, 2002), 97–101. This chapter also presents us with an interesting example of Deuteronomy's unique interchange of singular and plural forms of second person verbs and pronouns, the so-called Numeruswechsel. Verse 1 has both singular and plurals, and was therefore harmonized in LXX, Syr., Tg. Ps.-J., and Tg. Neof.; see Carmel McCarthy, Biblia Hebraica Quinta: Deuteronomy (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2007), 39. Otherwise, the chapter is relatively consistently divided, with vv. 2–12 using plural forms and vv. 13–28 singular (with a few exceptions). This may indicate a redactional function for the Numeruswechsel in chapter 12 that it does not consistently suggest elsewhere in the book; see Duane L. Christensen, “The Numeruswechsel in Deuteronomy 12,” in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, division A: The Period of the Bible (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1986), 61–68, repr. in A Song of Power and the Power of Song: Essays on the Book of Deuteronomy (ed. Duane L. Christensen; SBTS 3; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1993), 394–402.

13 Anson F. Rainey, “Who is a Canaanite? A Review of the Textual Evidence,” BASOR 304 (1996): 1–15. There are five additional “dispossessed” peoples elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, but the ones included in Deut 7:1 were considered the indigenous inhabitants of the promised land; see Edwin C. Hostetter, Nations Mightier and More Numerous: The Biblical View of Palestine's Pre-Israelite Peoples (BIBAL Dissertation Series 3; North Richland Hills, Tex.: BIBAL Press, 1995), 29–31 and 111–13.

14 HALOT 2:627; DCH 5:460; J. Gamberoni, TDOT 8:532–44, esp. 539–43. On the history of religion in Canaan, see Jonathan M. Golden, Ancient Canaan and Israel: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 173–205.

15 Ziony Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London/New York: Continuum, 2001), 247–52; John S. Holladay, Jr., “Religion in Israel and Judah under The Monarchy: An Explicitly Archaeological Approach,” in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (eds. Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Paul D. Hanson and S. Dean McBride; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 249–99.

16 Zevit, Religions of Ancient Israel, 251. See Hos 4:13, 1 Kgs 14:23; 2 Kgs 16:4; Jer 2:20; Isa 57:7 and 65:7. It is not clear that the “mountain heights” and “hills” are synonymous with the “high places” (bāmôt) condemned elsewhere in the Old Testament (but cf. 1 Kgs 14:23, etc.); J. A. Emerton, “The Biblical High Place in the Light of Recent Study,” PEQ 129 (1997): 116–23; Humphrey H. Hardy II and Benjamin D. Thomas, “Another Look at Biblical Hebrew – – ‘High Place’,” VT 62 (2012): 175–88. The bāmôt do not occur in Deuteronomy except in archaic poetic forms in 32:13 and 33:29; Elizabeth C. LaRocca-Pitts, “Of Wood and Stone”: The Significance of Israelite Cultic Items in the Bible and Its Early Interpreters (HSM 61; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2001), 127–159.

17 Nathaniel B. Levtow, Images of Others: Iconic Politics in Ancient Israel (Biblical and Judaic Studies from the University of California, San Diego 11; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2008), 143–153, and esp. 148–49 for the Israelite and Canaanite “way.” See also Reinhard G. Kratz, “The Idea of Cultic Centralization and Its Supposed Ancient Near Eastern Analogies,” in One God, One Cult, One Nation: Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives (eds. Reinhard G. Kratz and Hermann Spieckermann; BZAW 405; Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010), 121–144, esp. 125–126, and on the role of centralization in Israelite identity formation and the need for “spatial proximity,” see Carly L. Crouch, The Making of Israel (VTSup 162; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014), 132–137.

18 Saul M. Olyan, Asherah and The Cult of Yahweh in Israel (SBLMS 34; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1988); and LaRocca-Pitts, “Of Wood and Stone”, 5.

19 DCH 6:725–26 and HALOT 3:948–49, and for – –, DCH 5:363 and HALOT 2:605; the pesel was occasionally also theriomorphic. We should probably think of ancient Israel as having a de facto tradition that officially practiced an “empty-space aniconism” as illustrated by the presence of cherubim in Solomon's temple as a throne of the invisible Yhwh, while on the other hand, many in earliest Israel also seemed to have tolerated a “material aniconism” in which Yhwh was perceived by means of material representation at local cult shrines in … ô -pillars; Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, No Gaven Image? Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context (ConBOT 42; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1995), 135–197. If this is correct, the pillars banned here were not only Bronze Age Canaanite idols, but had been used for centuries by Israelites in worship of Yhwh. Deuteronomy's ban against Canaanite idolatry was also a ban against the Israelite practices of serving Yhwh with vestiges of Canaanite customs (Hos 3:4; 4:13; 8:4–6; 10:5–6; 13:2; 14:9 [Eng 14:8]; Amos 2:8; Mic 5:13–14).

20 Thorkild Jacobsen, “The Graven Image,” in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (eds. Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Paul D. Hanson and S. Dean McBride; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 15–32, esp. 22–23 and 28–29.

21 Levtow, Images of Others, 147–148 for the imagery of erasure and reinscription of divine and royal names on ancient statuary.

22 Some would say this is a liberalizing tendency, against the natural conservatism of ancient Near Eastern religions, which had an ability to retain older religious features while adding new ones; H. W. F. Saggs, The Encounter with the Divine in Mesopotamia and Israel (Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion 12; London: Athlone Press, 1978), esp. 182–188.

23 Arnold and Choi, Guide, §3.2.2,d.4. The first verb, “seek out,” is imperfect, and the rest are perfects with waw-consecutive.

24 Literally, “you and your households,” assuming here a waw of accompaniment; DCH 2:596; HALOT 1:258; Joüon-Muraoka §151a. This clause is followed by an ambiguous relative clause, which/because Yhwh your God has blessed you, denoting either Israelite households are the results of Yhwh's blessing, or more likely, the agrarian blessing that makes possible the sacrificial offerings listed in v. 7.

25 On the irregular form of the plural with long – in a closed unaccented syllable, here however without meteg, see GKC §96, Paul Joüon and Takamitsu Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (2nd ed.; SubBi 27; Roma: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2006), § 98f 17; and Hans Bauer, Pontus Leander and Paul Kahle, Historische Grammatik der hebräischen Sprache des Alten Testamentes (Olms paperbacks Bd 19; Hildescheim: G. Olms, 1965[1922]), §78i.

26 Lawrence E. Stager, “The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel,” BASOR 260 (1985): 1–35, esp. 20–22; Oded Borowski, Daily Life in Biblical Times (SBLABS 5; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 22; Carol L. Meyers, “The Family in Early Israel,” in Families in Ancient Israel (eds. Leo G. Perdue, Joseph Blenkinsopp, John J. Collins and Carol L. Meyers; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 1–47, esp. 19.

27 The incremental movement from biological children to male and female servants, distinguished from but bound by the enclitic pronouns to the patresfamilias, reflect also the decalogue (Deut 5:13–15), which continues the concentric circles to livestock, and finally to the “immigrant” (gēr); Mark A. Awabdy, Immigrants and Innovative Law: Deuteronomy's Theological and Social Vision for the גר (FAT 67; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 44–45. The move to include the Levite in Deut 12 associates him with the familiar personae miserae, already expanded in Deuteronomy's triad to include the immigrant in the ancient Near Eastern orphan-widow dyad; ibid., 30–35. Levites are apparently included because, like other personae miserae, they did not own property in Israelite or Judahite territory; ibid., 115.

28 So, e.g., we cannot be dogmatic about opinions that distinguish priests who served at altars from Levites who did not; for which, see Raymond Abba, “Priests and Levites in Deuteronomy,” VT 27 (1977): 257–267, or for the view that Levitical priests and Levites were simply equated in Deuteronomy; see John A. Emerton, “Priests and Levites in Deuteronomy: An Examination of Dr. G. E. Wright's Theory,” VT 12 (1962): 129–138.

29 Occurrences in the legal core: Deut 12:12,18,19; 14:27,29; 16:11,14; 18:1,6; 21:5; 26:11,12,13, with an additional five occurrences of the plural: 17:9,18; 18:1,7; 24:8. Outside the legal core, Deuteronomy has an additional eight occurrences of “Levite/s”: 10:8,9; 27:9,12,14; 31:9,25; 33:8.

30 So, “gates” in these occurrences refers to towns and villages by means of synecdoche; that is, these are the cities and towns enclosed by such gates. The phrase occurs 27 times in Deuteronomy with this meaning, all but six of which are in the legal core (the exceptions are 5:14; 28:52[2x],55,57; and 31:12). See Daniel A. Frese, “A Land of Gates: Covenant Communities in the Book of Deuteronomy,” VT 65 (2015): 33–52. At v. 15, the translator of LXX appears to have understood “gates” as “cities” and translates accordingly throughout the rest of Deuteronomy; cf. McCarthy, Deuteronomy, 86*. See also Avraham Faust, The Archaeology of Israelite Society in Iron Age II (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2012), 100–109.

31 Richard D. Nelson, Deuteronomy: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 230–31. Alternatively, a Levite could remain in his home village, in which case he would be dependent upon the tithes stored away in that village, along with other landless personae miserae (see Deut 14:28–29; 18:1–2; 26:12); see Robert R. Wilson, “Deuteronomy, Ethnicity, and Reform: Reflections on the Social Setting of the Book of Deuteronomy,” in Constituting the Community: Studies on the Polity of Ancient Israel in Honor of S. Dean McBride, Jr (eds. John T. Strong and Steven Shawn Tuell; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 107–123, esp. 117–118.

32 The preposition ʾ–, “with,” carries here a connotation “without, apart from”; DCH 1:452.

33 Awabdy, Immigrants and Innovative Law, 227–250.

34 For comparisons with iconographic and administrative records from the ancient Near East on banquets and their role in power relations and ideological devotion, as well as the potential significance of the scarcity of meat in eighth- and seventh-century Judah, see Peter Altmann, Festive Meals in Ancient Israel: Deuteronomy's Identity Politics in Their Ancient Near Eastern Context (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 2011), 78–107 and 241–244. The ritualistic nature of such festivals seems to have been common across the ancient Mediterranean, including commemoration of a theophany from long ago, offerings and sacrifices, feasting at the festival, and relaxation and enjoyment; see Walter Burkert, “Ancient Views on Festivals: A Case of Near Eastern Mediterranean Koine,” in Greek and Roman Festivals: Content, Meaning, and Practice (eds. J. Rasmus Brandt and Jon W. Iddeng; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 39–51.

35 Gottfried Vanoni, TDOT 14:142–157, esp. 149.

36 Arnold and Choi, Guide, §3.5.2,c.

37 Georg Braulik, “The Joy of the Feast: The Conception of the Cult in Deuteronomy, the Oldest Biblical Festival Theory,” in The Theology of Deuteronomy: Collected Essays of Georg Braulik (North Richland Hills, Tex.: BIBAL Press, 1994), 27–65; trans. of Georg Braulik, “Die Freude des Festes: Das Kultverständnis des Deuteronomium – die älteste biblischer Festtheorie,” in Leiturgia, Koinonia, Diakonia: Festschrift für Kardinal Franz König zum 75. Geburtstag (eds. Raphael Schulte and Georg Braulik; Vienna: Herder, 1980), 127–179. For the idea that emotions can and should be commanded, see Bill T. Arnold, “The Love-Fear Antinomy in Deuteronomy 5–11,” VT 61 (2011): 551–569.

38 The term “handiwork” (literally: “the extending of one's hand”) occurs only in Deuteronomy (12:7,18; 15:10; 23:21; 28:8,20; cf. DCH 5:540).

39 A similar point is made by Mark E. Biddle, Deuteronomy (Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary; Macon, Ga.: Smyth & Helwys, 2003), 217–218.

40 So, Deut 21:8; 26:3–10,15; cf. Weinfeld, Deuteronomic School, 32–45. And yet it is certainly an overstatement to assert that the religious vacuum caused by cult centralization was filled by liturgy or “formalized prayer” creating “a new means of worship,” in which prayer replaced sacrifice preparing the way in Second Temple Judaism for a religion of prayer and confession instead of religious cult; Ibid., 44.

41 As claimed famously by Gerhard von Rad, “Deuteronomy's ‘Name’ Theology and the Priestly Document's ‘Kabod’ Theology,” in Studies in Deuteronomy (Chicago: Regnery, 1953), 37–44, esp. 37. See similarly Patrick D. Miller, Jr, Deuteronomy (IBC; Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990), 16–17; and consider the idea that Deuteronomy “has had greater consequences for human history than any other single book” and that its continuing influence today “is one of the major forces shaping the future of humanity”; Bruce K. Waltke, with Charles Yu, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2007), 479. See also Thomas Römer, “Deuteronomy in Search of Origins,” in Reconsidering Israel and Judah: Recent Studies on the Deuteronomistic History (eds. Gary N. Knoppers and J. G. McConville; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2000), 112–138, esp. 113–114.

42 Plato, Theaet. 186D. For discussion of Plato's quote, and more of what follows in this paragraph, see Bernhard Lang, The Hebrew God: Portrait of an Ancient Deity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 167–169.

43 Ibid., 159–169.

44 For Deuteronomy's recurring and distinctive phraseology on the good life, see Weinfeld, Deuteronomic School, 345–346.

45 Lang, Hebrew God, 168.

46 Ibid., 168.

47 Lang is here dependent upon Leo Gorssen for the concept of the “radical limitations” of happiness, and its transfiguration; Leo Gorssen, “La cohérence de la conception de Dieu dans l'Ecclésiaste,” ETL 46 (1970): 282–324, esp. 321.

48 Lang, Hebrew God, 169. He relies most especially on the work of Hjalmar Sundén, Die Religion und die Rollen: Eine Psychologische Untersuchung der Frömmigkeit (Berlin: Töpelmann, 1966).

49 Jörgen L. Pind, “Figure and Ground at 100,” The Psychologist 25 (2012): 90–91. Recent research has suggested that both mindfulness meditation (Buddhist tradition) and contemplative prayer (Christian tradition) promote the brain-based ability to maintain “open monitoring,” which is the capacity to remain open to features of the perceptual field without being fixated on only part of it. A distorted perception of reality occurs when the brain becomes preoccupied with some aspect of the preceptual world, concentrating only on the figure and losing the ground of existence. See Stephen P. Stratton, “Mindfulness and Contemplation: Secular and Religious Traditions in Western Context,” Counseling and Values 60 (2015), 100–118.

50 Lang, Hebrew God, 169; “[o]nce the shift occurred, the Israelites were well content with themselves and with their divine lord.”

51 Weinfeld, Deuteronomic School, 212.

52 Ibid., 212–213. Weinfeld further states that this understanding of sacrifice in Deuteronomy, along with its other laws related to the cult and ritual are “conceived more rationally” than in the earlier priestly sources; Ibid., 213.

53 Levtow, Images of Others, 148–149.

54 Moisés Silva, Biblical Words and Their Meaning: An Introduction to Lexical Semantics (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1994), 130–132.

55 Perhaps the distinction is between a vision of worship defining and preserving an identity boundary between Israel and Canaan (Deuteronomy) as opposed to an identity boundary internal to Israel itself in Leviticus 1–16, a view suggested to me by Lawson G. Stone.

56 Weinfeld, Deuteronomic School, 245. This quote relates specifically to his treatment of Deut 1:9–18, but reflects in general his conclusion that Deuteronomy “was influenced by the ancient sapiential ideology that found expression in the book of Proverbs and the wisdom literature of the ancient Near East”; Ibid., 297, and generally, pages 244–319 for arguments.

57 The concept of holiness in D and H may also be contrasted as the difference between imperative and indicative, D stressing that Israel is holy and H stressing that they must be holy (e.g., see Deut 14:2,21 and Lev 11:44; 19:2). Holiness in D is the basis for the laws, whereas in H, holiness is their result. While these differences between H and D are irrefutable, Knohl has shown the similarities between them are greater than their differences; Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 183, n.43. In this way, D and H together show more differences from P when it comes to conceptions of holiness, because for P, the fundamental demarcation was between holy priests and cult, as distinct from all Israel.

58 This is a distinction made especially clear by Lohfink, who shows that holiness in Deuteronomy distinguishes Israel from the nations rather than functioning as a line of demarcation within Israel itself (between priest and laity); Lohfink, “Opfer,” 35–38.

59 He speaks of Deuteronomy taking a step in the direction of a new “Weltsakralisierung” rather than a Säkularisierung; ibid., 42–43.

60 Ian Wilson, Out of the Midst of the Fire: Divine Presence in Deuteronomy (SBLDS 151; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1995), 161–197 and 204–205. The use of this phrase “is consistent with a belief in the Deity being localized in the immediate vicinity of the worshipper, but is antithetical to a concern to emphasize his absence from the earthly sphere”; page 204. See also Lohfink, “Opfer,” 31–32.

61 For the data and interpretive options, see Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth: Studies in the Shem and Kabod Theologies (ConBOT 18; Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1982), 54–56.

62 For recent discussion and challenge of the consensus view, see Stephen L. Cook, “God's Real Absence and Real Presence in Deuteronomy and Deuteronomism,” in Divine Presence and Absence in Exilic and Post-Exilic Judaism (eds. Nathan MacDonald and Izaak J. de Hulster; FAT 61; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 121–150; Roberto Ouro, “Divine Presence Theology versus Name Theology in Deuteronomy,” AUSS 51 (2014): 5–29; Sandra L. Richter, The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology: lĕšakkēn šĕmô šām in the Bible and the Ancient Near East (BZAW 318; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002); and Sandra L. Richter, “The Place of the Name in Deuteronomy,” VT 57 (2007): 342–366.

63 The probable connotation of the preposition is the precise locus of Yhwh's presence rather than a statement concerning God's face, and may perhaps best be understood as “Yhwh in person”; Adam S. van der Woude, TLOT 2:995–1014, esp. 1012.

64 Weinfeld, Deuteronomic School, 179–189, esp. 183–184. Weinfeld goes on to say that, while the deuteronomic perspective of the royal scribes was founded on religion and divine faith, the distinction was between a distinctly “religious-theocentric orientation” of the priests and that of the “religious-anthropocentric orientation” of the authors of Deuteronomy (185).

65 Ibid., 188.

66 Wilson, “Deuteronomy, Ethnicity, and Reform,” 117.