The Jewish Study Bible:
A Modern Reading of the
Ancient Scriptures
[Written in 2011, for Protestants for the Common Good.]
Judaism has had its Rabbinic Study
Bible since the second generation of printing in Europe
(1516). Most recently, for
English-language readers, The Jewish
Study Bible presents the Jewish Scriptures as the product of Israelite
times but also as reverently set in the long history of Jewish life and
liturgy.
Outline of the Review
From
Hebrew to English
Earlier
Study Bibles: Hertz
Cohen
Plaut
The
New JPS Version
The
Jewish Study Bible (2004)
Marc
Brettler
Adele
Berlin
Goals
of the Study Bible
Contents
Arrangement
of the Biblical Books
Transitional
Introductions
The
Biblical Books
The
Contributors and the Books
The
Essays
The
Ages of Jewish Interpretation
The
Bible in Jewish Life and Thought Biblical Backgrounds
The Gem of the Essays: The Religion of the Bible
Conclusion
The Rabbinic Bible, the Miqra’ot Gedolot (the Great Readings), was first printed in Venice in 1516, giving the Hebrew text of the Bible surrounded by the Aramaic translation (the Targum) and the Medieval commentaries of Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and others. A second edition was published in 1525. These were the Hebrew Bibles the Reformers and early Protestant scholars read and used in place of the Latin Vulgate to translate the Old Testament into the colloquial languages of Europe.
The picture below shows a page from
a Rabbinic Bible printed in Poland
in 1907, shown on page 1875 of The Jewish
Study Bible.
From Hebrew to English
The Hebrew-Aramaic Great Bibles have
continued as the mainstay of Jewish Bible study through the Guttenberg era. (The Miqra’ot
Gedolot I purchased at Hebrew Union College in 1960 is a 10-volume work from
Pardes Publishing House in New York dated 1951.) The main texts are in the Semitic languages
because Jewish worship and study is in Hebrew, though other languages of the
people have also accompanied Hebrew since the days of Aramaic and Greek. Thus, in time the need came for English-language
versions of the Jewish scriptures to accompany the Hebrew and Aramaic. Here’s how Max Margolis described that time
(somewhat dramatically), in his Preface to the 1917 translation of the
Masoretic Text:
The greatest change in the life of Israel
during the last two generations was his [Israel’s]
renewed acquaintance with English-speaking civilization. [The Jews had been banned from England
in the 14th century.] Out of
a handful of immigrants from Central Europe and the East
who saw the shores of the New World , or even of England Providence Israel Russia
(The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text, Jewish
Publication Society, 1917, “Preface,” p. vi.)
As Jews settled into American
culture, the ubiquitous King James Version (KJV) of the Bible came along with
the language they learned. Soon,
however, an alternative to the Christian version of the scriptures was needed,
and by the middle of the nineteenth century there was published a Jewish
translation of the Bible that became very popular in the United States,
published by an immigrant from Germany named Isaac Leeser. He put out a Hebrew-English Torah in 1845,
and the Twenty-Four Books of the Holy Scriptures in the 1850s.
These were basically just Jewish
adaptations of the KJV, and by the end of the century American Jewish scholars
wanted a more current English version.
After some false starts, the Jewish Publication Society finally released
in 1917, The Holy Scriptures According to
the Masoretic Text, the work of a seven-man editorial board that had spent
seven years on the project. (See
Margolis’ account in the “Preface,” and the Jewish
Study Bible article, “Jewish Translations of the Bible,” pp. 2013-14.)
Earlier Study Bibles: Hertz. In the course of the twentieth century, the
JPS translation of 1917 provided the English text for Jewish study Bibles. The Soncino Press in London Israel Egypt
Rabbi Hertz’s commentaries were
conservative in their Biblical scholarship, and reflected the popular piety and
morality of Britain
Cohen. In the 1950’s,
Soncino found it appropriate to issue an alternative edition of their
Pentateuch, called The Soncino Chumash,
ed. Dr. A. Cohen, 1956. (“Chumash” is a
nick-name for “the five fifths” of the Torah, thus penta-teuch, five-scroll
work.) This work had the same format as
Rabbi Hertz’s, but instead of having commentary from the Chief Rabbi, the
commentaries were selections from the classic Medieval Jewish commentators, Rashi
(11th century French), Abraham Ibn Ezra (12th century
Spanish), David Kimchi (12th century Spanish), Rashbam (12th
century French), Nachmanides (13th century Spanish), and Obadiah ben
Sforno (16th century Italian).
The result is a large volume of
succinct samples of Jewish interpretation of the Torah by its great classical
commentators.
Plaut. More recently, after
the Jewish Publication Society had published its new Torah and Nebi’im translations,
the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (Reformed Judaism) has published The Torah:
A Modern Commentary (1981), ed. W. Gunther Plaut. The format is the same as the Hertz and Cohen
volumes, Hebrew text with English translation arranged in weekly Torah units, accompanied
by running commentary and little essays on special topics.
This edition has two noteworthy
additions: Each Torah unit is followed
by a section called “Gleanings,” which are little quotations or vignettes of
homiletic relevance to the topic of that reading. Also, enhancing the scholarly value of the
work, there are five essays written by William W. Hallo of Yale University, one
on each book of the Pentateuch, examining its ancient Near Eastern background: “Genesis and Ancient Near Eastern
Literature,” and so on. These are excellent
essays.
(It should be mentioned that in
the Plaut Torah, the book of Leviticus receives completely different treatment
from the other four. It is introduced
and commented on by a separate specialist in the sacrificial and holiness
systems, Rabbi Bernard J. Bamberger, deceased at the time of publication.)
The New JPS Version.
Beginning in 1953, the Jewish Publication Society projected an entirely
new English version of the Hebrew scriptures.
(The Christian world had just come out with the Revised Standard
Version.) It was a slow process,
involving different groups of scholars on each of the three parts of the Jewish
Bible: the Torah coming out in 1962, the Prophets
(Nevi’im) in 1978 (though a few books were published separately earlier),
and the Writings (Kethuvim) in 1982
(though Psalms and Job had earlier separate editions). Finally, a revised complete work appeared as Tanakh (Torah-Nevi’im-Kethuvim) in 1985,
supplemented by minor revisions in 1999.
In 2000, JPS issued the very convenient JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, printing the leading scholarly Hebrew
text (the Leningrad
Broadly, the NJPS translation
occupies a middling position on the spectrum of translation styles: it is less word-for-word that traditional
English versions, but not so idiomatic as to be paraphrastic. It is only a little more thought-for-thought
than the Revised Standard Version or the New Revised Standard Version. Mostly, this translation makes no
accommodation for inclusive gender, such as turning masculine singulars into
plurals, as in Psalm 1:1 (“Happy is the man...” NJPS; “Happy are those who...”
NRSV).
This version has a generous use of
the footnote, “Meaning of Heb. uncertain,” which is unfortunate in that it
doesn’t even suggest the nature of the problem—such as divided testimony among
versions, as some other recent English versions do.
The Jewish Study Bible (2004)
The Jewish Study Bible is published by the Oxford University Press—not
the Jewish Publication Society, which brought out the various editions of the
NJPS translation. The Study Bible was a
project of Oxford Oxford
Marc Z. Brettler.
Marc Brettler is a fixture of Brandeis
University Waltham ,
Massachusetts
His doctoral dissertation was
published in revised form as, God is King: Understanding an Israelite
Metaphor (SJSOT, Sheffield, UK, 1989), and later works continued presenting ancient Israelite writings to
modern, historically-conscious, readers.
In the late 1990s he was appointed Associate Editor for Old Testament
(excluding Prophets and Apocrypha) of the Third Edition of the New Oxford Annotated Bible (Michael D.
Coogan, editor, 2001), and continued in that role for the Fourth Edition in
2010. This OAB editorial work involved
him in presenting serious Biblical interpretation at a popular but academically
demanding level. It also qualified him
preeminently for editing a Jewish Study Bible with standards comparable to
those of the OAB editions.
Between the two editions of the
Oxford Annotated Bibles, Marc published a work aimed particularly at Jewish
readers who wanted a critically based introduction to the Jewish
Scriptures. This was How to Read the Bible (Jewish Publication Society, 2005),
which was then republished by Oxford
Marc Brettler’s most recent continuation of serious Study Bible
editing is a joint venture with Amy-Jill Levine, of Vanderbilt
University Oxford Oxford
University
Adele Berlin. Marc Brettler
is only the Co-Editor of The Jewish Study
Bible! In alphabetical order, as
listed on the title-page, the first Co-Editor is Adele Berlin.
If Marc Brettler is a fixture of Brandeis
University University of Maryland University
of Pennsylvania University
of Maryland
Early publications were Poetics
and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative (Sheffield ,
1983), The Dynamics of Biblical
Parallelism (Indiana
Serving as an elder statesman for the Study Bible project was the Consulting Editor, Michael Fishbane, who had served on the Brandeis University faculty from 1969 to 1990, and since then has been Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. An early landmark publication was Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, Oxford 1985.
Goals of the Study Bible. The overall goal of the Study Bible is to present a full and academically responsible reading of the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings interpreted by Jewish scholars. In their Introduction the editors state two goals more specifically:
Serving as an elder statesman for the Study Bible project was the Consulting Editor, Michael Fishbane, who had served on the Brandeis University faculty from 1969 to 1990, and since then has been Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. An early landmark publication was Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, Oxford 1985.
Goals of the Study Bible. The overall goal of the Study Bible is to present a full and academically responsible reading of the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings interpreted by Jewish scholars. In their Introduction the editors state two goals more specifically:
The first goal is to convey the
best of modern academic scholarship on the Bible, that is, scholarship that
reflects the way the Bible is approached in the university. This desire comes from a strong conviction
that this approach does not undermine Judaism, as leading figures of previous
generations had argued, but can add significant depth to Jewish belief and
values.
The second goal is to reflect, in
as broad a fashion as possible, the range of Jewish engagement with the Bible
over the past two and a half millennia.... [The contributors to the Study
Bible] employ state-of-the-art scholarship and a wide range of modern
approaches; at the same time, they are sensitive to Jewish readings of the
Bible, to classical Jewish interpretation, and to the place of the Bible in
Jewish life. In this respect they are
actually quite “traditional,” in that Jewish interpreters have a long history
of drawing on ideas and methods from the non-Jewish world in which they lived
and incorporating them into Jewish writings.
(Pages ix-x.)
To some extent, the second goal—to
keep the Bible focused within Jewish life—is carried out in all parts of the
work, with interpretation of particular Biblical passages constantly referring
to post-Biblical Jewish traditions and practices. However, this goal is especially served by the series
of Essays at the back, of which more below.
Contents
The book is organized into two
parts, the Biblical books, with their introductions and running annotations,
and twenty-four Essays on the Bible in Jewish history and other background
materials.
Arrangement of the Biblical Books.
The editors make a point in their
Introduction that the Jewish Bible is not just a shortened version of the
Christian Bible. The Jewish Bible is
complete in itself, has an integrity of its own, and it is that integral Jewish
Bible that the contributors always have in view. That Jewish Bible consists of three
parts: Torah, Prophets (Nevi’im), and Writings (Kethuvim). The common acronym for the Bible in Hebrew is
TaNaK, which is the unity of these three parts.
By the time of Rabbinic Judaism
(first century of the Christian Era), the Scriptures were judged to consist of twenty-four scrolls. (Greek-speaking Judaism in Egypt
(A Note on Scrolls. “The Scriptures” in New Testament and early
Rabbinic times consisted of a large collection of scrolls, requiring
considerable cabinet space in which to store the separate scrolls, arranged
according to the preferences of the custodian of each particular library. For the size and character of these scrolls,
see pictures of the big Isaiah scroll from Qumran , 1QIsaa. NOTE: See the Isaiah Scroll in an
unroll-it-yourself presentation at: Isaiah Scroll .)
People used to the traditional
Protestant Bible will have some re-orienting to do. The prophets are in the middle of the book,
not the end. The Psalms are in the last
third, not the middle. Ruth is toward
the back, in the Five Scrolls, not after the book of Judges. Daniel (not originally a prophetic book)
stands between Esther (last of the Five Scrolls) and Ezra, appropriate to its
actual Second Temple
Transitional Introductions (by editors)
While introductions to the
Biblical books are written by individual contributors, the larger units of the
Bible—and sometimes special units in it—are introduced by Marc Brettler and
Adele Berlin. The Torah (7 pages), the
Nevi’im (11 pages), and the Kethuvim (5 pages) have general introductions by
Marc Brettler covering matters concerning the larger unit.
For example, the Torah
introduction has sections entitled,
Terminology, Contents, and Traditional
Views of Authorship;
Modern Source Theories;
Compilation and Redaction of the
Torah.
The introduction to the Nevi’im
has sections on,
Terminology and Content;
The Historical Books and
Historiography [sacred histories];
The Former Prophets and the
Deuteronomistic History;
The Historical Books and
Historicity [sources for historians];
The Latter Prophets and Their
Order;
The Nature and Composition of the
Prophetic Books;
The Phenomenon of Prophecy.
The introduction to the Kethuvim
contains the following comments.
Kethuvim has no central theme or
idea, in the way that the Torah (or Hexateuch) might have the land promise and
its fulfillment as its center, or the Prophets as a whole might illustrate the
significance of heeding the mediated divine word. In fact, with the exception of Psalms and the
five scrolls, which have significant liturgical uses, Kethuvim has not received
much attention within Jewish tradition.
(Page 1279.)
Song of Songs, read on Passover in
April;
Ruth, read on Shavuot (Weeks,
Pentecost) in May-June;
Lamentations, read on the Ninth of
Av (Fall of Jerusalem) in July-August;
Ecclesiastes, read on Sukkot
(Booths, Tabernacles) in September-October;
Esther, read on Purim (March).
The Biblical Books
The Contributors. The
twenty-four books of the Bible (Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Ezra-Nehemiah
are each single books for interpretation purposes) are introduced and given
running commentaries by twenty-one scholars.
The credentials, institutional bases, and particular religious affiliations
(Conservative, Reformed, Orthodox) are not given in the Study Bible. There is no List of Contributors; they are
identified simply by name—no titles—at the end of each Introduction to a book,
and in the Table of Contents attached to their respective books. Many of these are prominent scholars, likely
to be recognized by people relatively familiar with current Biblical
scholarship at large.
At considerable risk of important
omissions, the present writer will single out a few contributors and the books
they have written about.
Genesis. Jon D. Levinson,
Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies at Harvard
Divinity School
Because the action of the primeval
story [Creation to Abraham] is not represented as taking place on the plane of
ordinary human history and has so many affinities with ancient mythology, it is
very far-fetched to speak of its narratives as historical at all. In the case of the succeeding three large
sections of the book, the matter is more complicated... At best, we can speak
of accurate local color, although this may mean only that the Israelites knew
something about the lands in which they placed their legendary forebears...
Negative evidence, however, is not necessarily evidence of a negative, and
historians are likely to continue examining the reports of Israel
Exodus. Jeffrey H. Tigay, Emeritus A.M. Ellis Professor of Hebrew and
Semitic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania Penn.
On the structure of the Exodus narrative, Tigay makes the first major
break in the book at 15:21 —as is common in modern treatments of the
book. This seems particularly
unfortunate in a work especially attentive to Jewish tradition, because it is
clear that the ancient text made the big break at Exodus 13:17. The narrators completed their summary of the
sojourn in Egypt 13:17 , and at 13:17 the characteristic actions of the wilderness
period begin (guidance by cloud and fire, murmuring that the exodus was a bad
thing). Most of all, in the context of
the Jewish Study Bible, the break for Sabbath reading comes at 13:17 ! Both
the original editors of the text and the later liturgists saw the major break
in the narrative at 13:17 .
On the other hand, the traditional Hebrew text makes no special break at 15:21 at all.
The only traditional ground for breaking there is to include the Red Sea victory in the story of the Exodus, thus
keeping it in the Passover Haggadah.
Leviticus. Baruch J.
Schwartz, A. M. Shlansky
senior lecturer in Biblical History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
noted for his work The Holiness Legislation (Jerusalem: Magnes Press,
1999), emphasizes the interpretation of Leviticus, with the Holiness Code as a
separate stratum of the Priestly work, in the context of the whole narrative
structure of the Priestly Work, Exodus 25-Numbers 10.
Deuteronomy. Bernard M. Levinson (who also did Deuteronomy
in the New Oxford Annotated Bible, 3rd
and 4th eds.) holds the Berman Family Chair in Jewish Studies
and Hebrew Bible and is also Professor of Classics, Near Eastern Studies, and
Law at the University of Minnesota
Historical Books. Among
those treating the historical books are Carol Meyers (Joshua), Grace Wilson Professor of Religion at Duke University
Yairah Amit, Professor of Biblical Studies at Tel Aviv University, Israel,
does Judges. Professor Amit is prominent
for her treatment of literary criticism and Biblical narratives.
Ziony Zevit, Distinguished Professor of Biblical Literature and
Northwest Semitic Languages at the American Jewish University (University of
Judaism), Rockville, Maryland, does the book of Kings. Prof. Zevit is noted for his mammoth The Religions of Ancient Israel
(Continuum. 2001). He views Kings as a
work originally created in the age of Josiah (640-609 BCE), the deposit of a
major religious revolution in Israelite religion, but updated by later writers.
Prophetic Books. Marvin A.
Sweeney, Professor of Hebrew Bible, Claremont School of Theology, did two major
prophetic books for the Jewish Study
Bible, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. (He was
later to do Isaiah for the New Oxford
Annotated Bible, 4th ed.)
He had already published King Josiah of Judah: The Lost Messiah of
Israel (Oxford University Press, 2001), developing at length the
historical context of the two books he treats here, and more recently he has
written a major commentary on the book(s) of Kings for Westminster John Knox
(2007).
The Scroll of the Twelve, titled
in the JSB, “The Twelve Minor Prophets,” is treated by a single contributor,
Ehud Ben Zvi, Professor
in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta
The Psalms. The
book of Psalms has been reserved by the editors to themselves for introduction
and commentary. This is particularly
appropriate because one of Adele Berlin’s specialities has been the treatment
of Israelite poetry. (See her
publications listed above.) She also
contributed the Essay on “Reading Biblical Poetry,” on pages 2097-2104. Their Introduction is straightforward, with
numerous references to later Jewish traditions about the Psalms. They are appropriately reserved on the topic
of genre, which was a mania of late twentiety-century Psalm study.
One comment seems questionable, however.
“Praise is the quintessential nature of psalms, and hymns of praise are
the most common type of psalm in the Psalter” (page 1283). By any usual count, laments far outnumber
hymns in the Psalms. It is true that
laments often have elements of praise in them (“In You our fathers trusted; /
they trusted, and You rescued them,” Psalm 22:5, Hebrew verse numbering), but
these are only rhetorical elements in an intense complaint and outcry for
deliverance.
Other Kethuvim. On
other books, this reviewer was disappointed in the treatments of Daniel and
Chronicles.
One is not likely to question orthodox scholarly orientations in the
annotations of a study Bible, and thus Daniel
is still treated with the first literary chop being between chapters 1-6
and chapters 7-12. Just
phenomenologically, if one can escape the genre-mania for a moment, the major
literary chop in Daniel is that between Hebrew and Aramaic languages, that is,
chapters 2-7 and 1 + 8-12. The Aramaic
Daniel is an integral and balanced composition with an A-B-C-C’-B’-A’
structure, matching up pairs of episodes according to major issues in Second
Temple religious life:
A and A’. The Four Ages leading up to Israel
Nebuchadnezzar’s Four-Metal Statue,
Daniel 2,
Daniel’s Four-Beast Political
Decline, Daniel 7;
B and B’. World Kings Who Violate God’s Boundaries,
Daniel’s Three Friends in the Fiery
Furnace, Daniel 3,
Daniel in the Lions’ Den, Daniel 6;
C and C’. World Kings Overcome by Arrogance,
Nebuchadnezzar’s Madness, Daniel 4,
Belshazzar’s Feast, Daniel 5.
In the case of Chronicles, one could wish for more
clarity on the structure of the work, given in six short lines at the end of
the Introduction (page 1717). The
genealogies of I Chronicles 1-9 are clearly minor preliminaries to the great
block of David materials in I 10-29.
David is clearly important as Preparer of the Temple
The Essays
Much in the
treatments of the Biblical books is not unique to the JSB. The contributors present the best academic
work current in the discipline, as taught and published by Jewish
scholars. The Essays, however, in part
at least, present major topics that are distinctively Jewish. The blocks of Essays are,
Jewish Interpretation of the Bible,
pages 1827-1919.
The Bible in Jewish Life and Thought, pages 1920-2020.
Backgrounds for Reading the Bible, pages 2021-2104.
The ages of Jewish Interpretation begin
with the Bible itself, “Inner-biblical Interpretation” (Benjamin D. Sommer),
where, for example, Daniel 9 contains a re-interpretation of verses in Jeremiah
25 and 29. There is then “Early
Nonrabbinic Interpretation” (Hindy Najman), that is, such works as Jubilees,
the Greek translations, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, and Josephus. Then Classical Rabbinic Interpretation
(Yaakov Elman), Midrash and Midrashic Interpretation (David Stern), Medieval
Jewish Interpretation (Barry D. Walfish), Post-medieval Jewish Interpretation
(Edward Breuer), and Modern Jewish Interpretation (S. David Sperling). These are substantial essays, averaging 13
pages each, and provide significant orientation for readers unfamiliar with
general Jewish history.
The Bible in Jewish Life and Thought
contains eight essays, the last of which is the history of Jewish translations
of the Scriptures into the local languages of Judaism down through the ages,
with special emphasis on the new translation used in the JSB (Leonard J.
Greenspoon, 16 pages). Other essays
cover the Bible in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Esther Eshel), the Bible in the
Synagogue (Avigdor Shinan), The Bible in the Liturgy (Stefan C. Reif), The
Bible in the Jewish Philosophical Tradition (Hava Tirosh-Samuelson), The Bible
in the Jewish Mystical Tradition (editors and Elliot R. Wolfson), the Bible in
Israeli Life (more below), and Jewish Women’s Scholarly Writings on the Bible
(Adele Reinhartz).
Here the
Essay on The Bible in Israeli Life,
by Uriel Simon, is particularly interesting.
(This is a shortened version of an article published in Hebrew in 1999
and republished in the journal Modern
Judaism, 19.3, also 1999.) The
article discusses with some urgency how the use and interpretation of the
Scriptures have shifted since the creation of Israel
in 1948.
The essay
begins, “The Bible, once at the center of the cultural scene in Israel,
has become marginalized; its magic has faded” (page 1990). The sections of the essay have the following
titles:
Early
Days: The Holy Scripture of Secular
Zionism
Method of
Interpretation: Derash Claiming to Be Peshat
[“plain” meaning]
The Crisis of
Secular Zionism Undermines the Validity of the National Midrash
Existential Peshat as a Possible Response to Current
Needs
Here are two
significant quotes from the appeal in the final section:
[The historical
interpretation of the Bible by secular Zionism] can protect us from the
fundamentalism that uncritically embraces biblical norms (such as political
violence) in utterly changed circumstances....
[On the other
hand:] The time of arrogant peshat, professing to be the supreme,
exclusive, scientific truth, is over; the time has come for peshat which, though conscious of its
advantages—rigorous discipline, rationality, consistency, independence,
immediacy—is also acutely aware of the attendant disadvantages—clinging to the
past, exclusive attention to the rational, and aversion to ambivalence. This [new] peshat, far from disdaining midrash, recognizes its contribution. (Page 1999.)
Biblical
Backgrounds
Nine Essays
provide broad information about the historical backgrounds of the Biblical
writings. As the editors explain in the
introduction to this section, several of these are revised versions of essays
included in the New Oxford Annotated
Bible, 3rd ed.
(It should be
mentioned here that the JSB also contains at the back Tables and Charts for
Timelines, Rulers, Weights and Measures, Calendar, Table of Biblical Readings,
and lists of differences between chapter and verse numbering that differ from
common Christian Bibles.)
The editors
themselves have provided the main historical essay, “Historical and
Geographical Background to the Bible.”
The view of the historicity of Israel
Other “Background”
Essays deal with Concepts of Purity in the Bible, Languages of the Bible,
Textual Criticism, Canonization, the Development of the Masoretic Bible, and
Modern Study of the Bible, largely adapted from the NOAB.
The Gem of the Essays: The Religion of the Bible
Stephen A. Geller (not to be confused with an M.D. of the same name) is the Irma Cameron Milstein Chair of Bible at The Jewish Theological Seminary in
The basic viewpoint of Geller's essay is stated at the beginning: "Biblical religion was a minority, dissident phenomenon, always at odds, as the Bible itself states, with the actual religions of the small kingdoms of Israel and Judah" (page 2021). The whole essay is too complex to easily summarize, but here is its outline:
Israelite-Judean Religion [pre-“Biblical” religion], 6 pages.
Biblical Religion,
4 pages
Revolution or Reform?
1. Monotheism
2. Centralization of worship
3. Myth vs. history
4. Individualism
5. Text religion and canon
6. Forms of piety
The
Development of Biblical Religion: From
Prophecy to Text , 1 page
Deuteronomic-covenantal
Religion, 2 pages
Priestly-cultic
Religion, 2 pages
Other
Traditions of Biblical Religion, 4 pages
The Liturgical Tradition [Psalms]
Prophetic Tradition in Biblical
Religion
The Wisdom Tradition
Conclusions
and Synthesis, 2 pages
Conclusion
This review
has been mainly descriptive, with only a few evaluative comments along the
way. In case it hasn’t become clear, it
is this reviewer’s assessment that this is a superb piece of scholarship and as
fine an introduction and reading companion to the Jewish Bible as can be
found. Christian readers can get a
better presentation of their own “Old Testament” here than in most books
offered by their own confessions.
That
assumes, of course, that one is open to a historical-critical reading of the
Scriptures. As the Essay on the Bible in
Israeli Life indicated in passing, literalist-fundamentalist readings of the
Bible are apt to end up praising violence and warfare as having divine
sanctions—because many Biblical texts present God as commanding and sanctioning
death and slavery to non-elect human groups.
The Jewish Study Bible, on the contrary, is a beacon of hope because it shows that top-level scholars in all sorts of institutional and religious settings are presenting Biblical traditions in humane, compassionate, and religiously sensitive ways. It expresses the profound conviction that historical truth is ultimately supportive of the deepest grace and blessing of the God who chose and keeps
