The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship

by Frederick E. Greenspahn

Overview

In April of 2001, the headline in the Los Angeles Times read, “Doubting the Story of the Exodus.” It covered a sermon that had been delivered by the rabbi of a prominent local congregation over the holiday of Passover. In it, he said, “The truth is that virtually every modern archeologist who has investigated the story of the exodus, with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all.” This seeming challenge to the biblical story captivated the local public. Yet as the rabbi himself acknowledged, his sermon contained nothing new. The theories that he described had been common knowledge among biblical scholars for over thirty years, though few people outside of the profession know their relevance.
New understandings concerning the Bible have not filtered down beyond specialists in university settings. There is a need to communicate this research to a wider public of students and educated readers outside of the academy. This volume seeks to meet this need, with accessible and engaging chapters describing how archeology, theology, ancient studies, literary studies, feminist studies, and other disciplines now understand the Bible.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814731888
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	12/01/2007
Series:	Jewish Studies in the Twenty-First Century , #4
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Frederick E. Greenspahn is Gimelstob Eminent Scholar in Judaic Studies emeritus at Florida Atlantic University. He has written or edited eighteen books, including When Brothers Dwell Together: The Preeminence of Younger Siblings in the Hebrew Bible and Judaism and the Bible. He is a former president of the National Association of Professors of Hebrew and was, for five years, editor of its journal, Hebrew Studies.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations
Preface
Part I The Bible and History
1 Israel Without the Bible
Gary A. Rendsburg
2 Bible, Archaeology, and the Social Sciences: The Next Generation
Elizabeth Bloch-Smith
Part II New Approaches to the Bible
3 Literary Approaches to Biblical Literature: General Observations and a Case Study of Genesis 34
Adele Berlin
4 Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible
Esther Fuchs
Part III Ancient Practice
5 The Laws of Biblical Israel
Raymond Westbrook
6 The Study of Ritual in the Hebrew Bible
David P. Wright
Part IV Judaism and the Bible
7 By the Letter?/Word for Word? Scripture in the Jewish Tradition
Leonard Greenspoon
8 From Judaism to Biblical Religion and Back Again
Ziony Zevit
9 Jewish Biblical Theology
Marvin A. Sweeney
Epilogue: Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom: Some Reflections on Reading and Studying the Hebrew Bible
Peter Machinist
About the Contributors
Index
Index of Biblical Passages

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This superb collection written by scholars for non-specialists should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the most important issues in the contemporary study of the Bible.”
-S. David Sperling,author of The Original Torah

“An excellent supplementary textbook for survey courses on the Hebrew Bible or on biblical scholarship.”
-John J. Collins,Yale University

“This collection admirably bridges the gap between biblical scholarship and lay readership, allowing laypeople to engage in the 'conversations' that have been ongoing for decades in academic circles and to 'reach their own conclusions.”
-Choice

,

“The goal of the present book is to try to introduce lay Jewish audiences to some of the results of modern biblical research.”
-Journal of Jewish Studies

Editorial Reviews

"This collection admirably bridges the gap between biblical scholarship and lay readership, allowing laypeople to engage in the ‘conversations’ that have been ongoing for decades in academic circles and to ‘reach their own conclusions."

Choice

This collection admirably bridges the gap between biblical scholarship and lay readership, allowing laypeople to engage in the ‘conversations’ that have been ongoing for decades in academic circles and to ‘reach their own conclusions.”
• Choice

“The goal of the present book is to try to introduce lay Jewish audiences to some of the results of modern biblical research.”
• Journal of Jewish Studies

“An excellent supplementary textbook for survey courses on the Hebrew Bible or on biblical scholarship.”
-John J. Collins,Yale University

“This superb collection written by scholars for non-specialists should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the most important issues in the contemporary study of the Bible.”
-S. David Sperling,author of The Original Torah

From the Publisher

"This superb collection written by scholars for non-specialists should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the most important issues in the contemporary study of the Bible."

S. David Sperling

"An excellent supplementary textbook for survey courses on the Hebrew Bible or on biblical scholarship."

John J. Collins

"The goal of the present book is to try to introduce lay Jewish audiences to some of the results of modern biblical research."

Journal of Jewish Studies