A renowned scholar and professor of biblical studies presents this essential introduction and companion to the Bible that combines the controversial discoveries of modern scholarship with the wisdom of ancient interpreters.
Selected passages from the Bible read like poetry. Here, new translations and commentary serve as a companion to the Bible, with examinations of psalms, songs, proverbs, and other sections. Author James L. Kugel is a scholar of the Bible and Hebrew literature, as well as an accomplished poet.
A series of studies on biblical motifs, this title targets the state of the Bible from about 200 B.C. through the end of the first century, when a series of ancient texts and interpretations of these texts began evolving into one work. Kugel argues that the Hebrew Bible evolved the way it did due to midrash--a diverse system of updating, ...
In this study of early biblical interpretation, James Kugel examines a series of exegetical stories that elaborate on the Joseph narrative in Genesis. These stories - which appear in such diverse sources as rabbinic midrash, early Christian writings, liturgical poetry, and the Qur'an - often contain details of whole incidents not found in the ...
This text reviews the history of conventional critical literary methods of studying and teaching the Old Testament. Challenging the received wisdom of recent centuries, it focuses on two literary approaches to the Old Testament - parallelism and metrics - seeking to expose their failings. The author postulates that when the Old Testament began to ...
One of the most noted differences between the Old and New Testaments is God, or at least, what God is. While the Gospels and subsequent text painted God as the Father, the Old Testament's depiction was far more moody. THE GOD OF OLD, from Harvard professor Kugel, here walks readers through the God of the Israelites, breaking down "personality ...
Rife with incest, adultery, rape, and murder, the biblical story of Jacob and his children must have troubled ancient readers. By any standard, this was a family with problems. Jacob's oldest son Reuben is said to have slept with his father's concubine Bilhah. The next two sons, Simeon and Levi, tricked the men of a nearby city into undergoing ...
This text focuses on core stories of the "Pentateuch" - from the Creation and the Tree of Knowledge through the Exodus from Egypt and journey to the Promised Land. It shows how the earliest interpreters transformed the Bible, and explains how and why they assumed such a significant role.
In the beginning, prayers were straight forward, people turned to God and asked for help. This collection of essays seeks to chart the main lines of the Scripturalization of prayer over this entire period.
What should a Jew consider before marrying a non-Jew? What should a Jew know about Hebrew? What does it mean to keep the Sabbath? In the Medieval period, young Jews found answers to their most pressing questions about Judaism in The Book of the Kuzari. That book, written in the form of a dialogue, addressed an array of questions that led from ...
This text is the proceedings of a conference, held at Harvard University, surveying the beginnings of ancient biblical interpretation. Essays include: ancient biblical interpretation and the biblical sage, James Kugel; literacy and the polemics surrounding biblical interpretation, A.I. Baumgarten; garments of skin, garments of glory, Gary Anderson ...
Selected passages from the Bible read like poetry. Here, new translations and commentary serve as a companion to the Bible, with examinations of psalms, songs, proverbs, and other sections. Author James L. Kugel is a scholar of the Bible and Hebrew literature, as well as an accomplished poet.
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