جزییات کتاب
This volume is a dissertation completed at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg under the supervision of Han C. Schmitt. The subtitle indicates the methodology followed by the author. Schorn does not offer a historical analysis of the biblical texts to discern the earliest kernels of Reubenite tribal history. As she notes in her introduction, F. M. Cross has done this ("Reuben, First-Born of Jacob," ZAW 100 [1988] 46-65) in a study she finds more suggestive than persuasive. Instead she reformulates the question of "who (or what) was Reuben" to "how is Reuben presented in the biblical sources?"