C
Crumpy
Guest
How to Read the Bible, Marc Zvi Brettler, Jewish Publication Society, 2005,
Philadelphia, 276 pages with Afterword and Notes.
The author is a Ph.D. in biblical and Near East studies and is a professor of same
at Brandeis University.
This is the Jewish version of an introduction to the Jewish Bible from the historical critical perspective.This approach is a “scientific”
one which treats the Bible as an ordinary book,
not divinely inspired, and studies it for its contents, its authorship, the value
of the book as history, etc. The historical critical approach is well known for
ripping the Bible to shreds, casting skepticism about it as history.
It can be very discouraging and perhaps even insulting to a lot of people of
Jewish and Christian faiths. The author declares himself, though, to be a devout
Jew, and thereby a man of personal faith.
This approach looks for all the clues that show how most of these books of the
Bible were written by multiple authors, display conflicting theological and
ethical viewpoints, were written long after the lives of the people they describe
and the events they portray.
But, some of these difficulties are embedded in scripture itself. When the Torah
(the “instruction” – the first five books of the Bible) gives conflicting
commands, you can read how a later writer simply chose one of the interpretations
to follow.
He closes with a short chapter on the origin of the Bible (i.e. the Jewish Bible).
He can’t find evidence that the Jewish Bible was closed until the first century
A.D. (or C.E. “the common era” as Jews like to say now). And, even then, there
were variant texts of the Bible, so that a single reference Bible was not agreed
on by Judaism until about 1000 A.D. (Although he doesn’t mention it, other JPS
books point out that a generally accepted English translation, the latest which
was to eliminate gender biases, was not completed until just a couple decades
ago.)
The evidence of all the different sources in scripture reveals a lot of diversity
of belief, hardly a monolithic set of beliefs in Biblical times, that many people
would like to assume.
In the book, the author takes a tour of the individual books (briefly) to
illustrate the results of historical critical analysis, for especially one
purpose, to unwrap the meaning of scripture.
One of his case studies is the book of Ruth. Ruth is a Moabitess who eventually
migrates to Bethlehem, marries a guy by the name of Boaz. She is not only a
gentile, but being a Moabitess (the book never describes her conversion to
Judaism, because there was no process of conversion in the supposed timeframe of
the story), she becomes an ancestor of the great king David (and, in the Christian
belief, an ancestor of Jesus).
Deuteronomy 23:4ff no Moabite should be admitted into the congregation of Israel
and that Israelites should not be concerned about their welfare or benefit as long
as they lived.
So, the story in Ruth shows a much more kindly treatment of Ruth than the
unequivocal command in Dt would seem to allow. So, this is an example of how
things “changed” or how differently they were viewed within Israel. This becomes
an object lesson for Judaism in a very big way. At one point Brettler says that
there is no official Jewish interpretation of any verse in the Jewish Bible.
Jews consider the book of Ester not only to be fiction, but comedy at that. It was
written to explain the Jewish celebration of the already-existing feast of Purim,
which is a very joyous feast. Elsewhere I read something about if the Jews were
not enjoying the feast of Purim, then they weren’t drinking enough wine.
There’s a lot of juicy things to read in here. He thinks that the Song of Songs
was a piece of popular literature that just got swept up into the Bible by
tradition. Perhaps only later, after the development of rabbinic Judaism, did
anybody try to rationalize that the book was an allegory of the relationship of
God and Israel.
Brettler is a co-editor of The Jewish Study Bible. I don’t have that. I may pick
that up to kill some time until the Ignatius Study Bible (Old Testament) comes
along.
Philadelphia, 276 pages with Afterword and Notes.
The author is a Ph.D. in biblical and Near East studies and is a professor of same
at Brandeis University.
This is the Jewish version of an introduction to the Jewish Bible from the historical critical perspective.This approach is a “scientific”
one which treats the Bible as an ordinary book,
not divinely inspired, and studies it for its contents, its authorship, the value
of the book as history, etc. The historical critical approach is well known for
ripping the Bible to shreds, casting skepticism about it as history.
It can be very discouraging and perhaps even insulting to a lot of people of
Jewish and Christian faiths. The author declares himself, though, to be a devout
Jew, and thereby a man of personal faith.
This approach looks for all the clues that show how most of these books of the
Bible were written by multiple authors, display conflicting theological and
ethical viewpoints, were written long after the lives of the people they describe
and the events they portray.
But, some of these difficulties are embedded in scripture itself. When the Torah
(the “instruction” – the first five books of the Bible) gives conflicting
commands, you can read how a later writer simply chose one of the interpretations
to follow.
He closes with a short chapter on the origin of the Bible (i.e. the Jewish Bible).
He can’t find evidence that the Jewish Bible was closed until the first century
A.D. (or C.E. “the common era” as Jews like to say now). And, even then, there
were variant texts of the Bible, so that a single reference Bible was not agreed
on by Judaism until about 1000 A.D. (Although he doesn’t mention it, other JPS
books point out that a generally accepted English translation, the latest which
was to eliminate gender biases, was not completed until just a couple decades
ago.)
The evidence of all the different sources in scripture reveals a lot of diversity
of belief, hardly a monolithic set of beliefs in Biblical times, that many people
would like to assume.
In the book, the author takes a tour of the individual books (briefly) to
illustrate the results of historical critical analysis, for especially one
purpose, to unwrap the meaning of scripture.
One of his case studies is the book of Ruth. Ruth is a Moabitess who eventually
migrates to Bethlehem, marries a guy by the name of Boaz. She is not only a
gentile, but being a Moabitess (the book never describes her conversion to
Judaism, because there was no process of conversion in the supposed timeframe of
the story), she becomes an ancestor of the great king David (and, in the Christian
belief, an ancestor of Jesus).
Deuteronomy 23:4ff no Moabite should be admitted into the congregation of Israel
and that Israelites should not be concerned about their welfare or benefit as long
as they lived.
So, the story in Ruth shows a much more kindly treatment of Ruth than the
unequivocal command in Dt would seem to allow. So, this is an example of how
things “changed” or how differently they were viewed within Israel. This becomes
an object lesson for Judaism in a very big way. At one point Brettler says that
there is no official Jewish interpretation of any verse in the Jewish Bible.
Jews consider the book of Ester not only to be fiction, but comedy at that. It was
written to explain the Jewish celebration of the already-existing feast of Purim,
which is a very joyous feast. Elsewhere I read something about if the Jews were
not enjoying the feast of Purim, then they weren’t drinking enough wine.
There’s a lot of juicy things to read in here. He thinks that the Song of Songs
was a piece of popular literature that just got swept up into the Bible by
tradition. Perhaps only later, after the development of rabbinic Judaism, did
anybody try to rationalize that the book was an allegory of the relationship of
God and Israel.
Brettler is a co-editor of The Jewish Study Bible. I don’t have that. I may pick
that up to kill some time until the Ignatius Study Bible (Old Testament) comes
along.
