Some favorite books of Bible scholarship

If you’re looking for some books that are well written and researched and are filled with fascinating information, insights and perspectives, here are some of my favorites from the recent past.
Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible, by Karel van der Toorn: Through a comparison with scribal culture in adjacent ancient Near Eastern contexts, this book describes the making of the Hebrew Bible in the workshop of an elite class of Temple scribes.
The Jewish Bible: A Material Guide, by David Stern: a historical overview of the physical Torah that Jews have read from and studied, and the changes to the Torah’s physical form over the centuries.
The Natural History of the Bible: An Environmental Exploration of the Hebrew Scriptures, by Daniel Hillel: A prominent environmental scientist, Hillel describes the different kinds of landscapes and ecosystems in Israel that informed and shaped biblical stories.
The Biography of Ancient Israel: National Narratives in the Bible, by Ilana Pardes: A rewriting of the Bible as a psycho-biography of the nation of Israel.
Three excellent biographies of particular characters: Moses: A Human Life, by Aviva Zornberg, weaves her potent mix of midrashic and psychological insight; Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch by Yair Zakovitch employs tools of biblical scholarship and literary analysis; The Beginning of Politics: Power and the Book of Samuel by Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes looks at the story of David as the first to describe the inner workings of a state.
Beasts of the Field: The Revealing Natural History of Animals in the Bible, by Michael Bright: A biologist and BBC filmmaker surveys a menagerie of biblical creatures, describing them in both their ancient habitations and their incarnations in various (mis)translations.
Two books by Jon Levenson fundamentally changed the way I understood the Bible: Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Divine Drama of Omnipotence, about the ongoing battle between God and the gods of chaos; and The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity, a book that turns our understanding of the Akeidah upside down.
More recommendations to come in future posts.