--- title: "Accusation, Anger, and Defense — Nabulsi 2025" description: "The full text is not in the library (the publisher's page refused access); this card rests on the abstract as indexed by OpenAlex, and its ideas are…" authors: ["Rachel Nabulsi"] year: 2025 venue: "Religions" source: "https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16081013" doi: "10.3390/rel16081013" licence: "CC BY (per OpenAlex/publisher; Religions)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/nabulsi-2025-accusation-anger-defense-rhetorical-questions/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/nabulsi-2025-accusation-anger-defense-rhetorical-questions/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2025](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2025/page/3/) / Accusation, Anger, and Defense: Rhetorical Questions in Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and Judges # Accusation, Anger, and Defense: Rhetorical Questions in Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and Judges **Authors:** Rachel Nabulsi · **Year:** 2025 · **Venue:** Religions 16(8), 1013 **Link:** [doi.org/10.3390/rel16081013](https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16081013) · **Licence:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) [**0** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W4412999989) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14 · [Religions](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/religions/) · published by [Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/multidisciplinary-digital-publishing-institute/) · [licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) - [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16081013) - [PDF](https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/8/1013/pdf?version=1754392417) - [DOI 10.3390/rel16081013](https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16081013) - [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W4412999989) **Authors (1)** 1. [Rachel Nabulsi](https://openalex.org/A5016829978) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7527-2292) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/119622756) · h 2 · 7 citations · 19 works Citations and author metrics: OpenAlex, 2026-10-14; authors with the same name are not always told apart. ## What it is about The full text is not in the library (the publisher's page refused access); this card rests on the abstract as indexed by OpenAlex, and its ideas are provisional. The article reads the rhetorical questions of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers and Judges as carriers of strong emotion, usually anger, and as part of a recurring pattern of accusation and defence; they also appear in negotiations between persons and groups, move the story on, and draw the reader in. One type in particular, "What have you done?" (מַה־זֹּאת עָשִׂיתָ and its variants), accuses the addressee or implies a wrong that calls for justification or restitution. The author argues the form was a long-standing tool of Hebrew speech and writing that typically opens a response: apology, negotiation, or more conflict. ## Ideas - I2. Pair each such question with the next turn of the addressee and label it: excuse, admission, counter-accusation, silence. A small table over the Torah gives the "accusation–defence" sequence as data for the discourse chapter. - I3. Add the formula to the manual's list of questions that do not ask: מַה־זֹּאת עָשִׂיתָ, לָמָּה … , הֲלֹא …, each with its Torah verses and count. ## For Mova - I1. A `prag` rule: מַה + זֹּאת/זֶּה + qatal of עָשָׂה addressed to a second person (Gen 3:13, 4:10, 12:18, 20:9, 26:10, 29:25, 31:26, 44:15; Ex 14:11, Num 23:11 …) → act = accusation (indirect), polarity negative, not a request for information. Measure against the JPS reading and the current `rhetorical` rule, which is off. I1 is a candidate rule in `tools/macula/src/prag.rs` (it overlaps the existing, switched-off `rhetorical` rule; measure both with `--with`). I2 is a count on the Torah trees for [languages/hbo/09-discourse.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/09-discourse/) (direct speech, participant tracking). I3 goes into `08-syntax.md` (questions) and `09-discourse.md`. ## Institutions Also on the byline: [Point University](https://ror.org/01e249g49). 📚 Shelves 4[Arts and Humanities · 7,418 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · [Language and Linguistics · 7,357 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · [Philosophy · 152 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/philosophy/) · [Religious studies · 203 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/religious-studies/) 🧭 Topics 2[Hebrew & Aramaic · 474 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/hebrew-aramaic/) · [Biblical Hebrew · 254 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/biblical-hebrew/) ## Cite Cite as Rachel Nabulsi. 2025. Accusation, Anger, and Defense: Rhetorical Questions in Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and Judges. Religions. The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.3390/rel16081013](https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16081013) ```bibtex @inproceedings{nabulsi2025accusation, title = {{Accusation, Anger, and Defense: Rhetorical Questions in Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and Judges}}, author = {Rachel Nabulsi}, booktitle = {Religions}, year = {2025}, doi = {10.3390/rel16081013}, url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16081013} } ``` - [← previous A-SEA3L-QA: A Fully Automated Self-Evolving, Adversarial Workflow for Arabic Long-Context Question-Answer Generation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/wang-2025-sea3l-qa-fully-automated-self/) - [next → AI-Driven Generation of Old English: A Framework for Low-Resource Languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/alva-2025-ai-driven-generation-old-english/) - [↑ back to papers of 2025](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2025/page/3/) Updated 23 October 2026