What do you think?
Rate this book
Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible As It Was at the Start of the Common Era
James Kugel's The Bible As It Was (1997) has been welcomed with universal praise. Here now is the full scholarly edition of this wonderfully rich and illuminating work, expanding the author's findings into an incomparable reference work.
Focusing on two dozen core stories in the Pentateuch--from the Creation and Tree of Knowledge through the Exodus from Egypt and journey to the Promised Land--James Kugel shows us how the earliest interpreters of the scriptures radically transformed the Bible and made it into the book that has come down to us today. Kugel explains how and why the writers of this formative age of interpretation--roughly 200 B.C.E. to 150 C.E.--assumed such a significant role. Mining their writings--including the Dead Sea Scrolls, works of Philo and Josephus and letters of the Apostle Paul, and writings of the Apostolic Fathers and the rabbinic Sages--he quotes for us the seminal passages that uncover this crucial interpretive process.
For this full-scale reference work Kugel has added a substantial treasury of sources and passages for each of the 24 Bible stories. It will serve as a unique guide and sourcebook for biblical interpretation.
Focusing on two dozen core stories in the Pentateuch--from the Creation and Tree of Knowledge through the Exodus from Egypt and journey to the Promised Land--James Kugel shows us how the earliest interpreters of the scriptures radically transformed the Bible and made it into the book that has come down to us today. Kugel explains how and why the writers of this formative age of interpretation--roughly 200 B.C.E. to 150 C.E.--assumed such a significant role. Mining their writings--including the Dead Sea Scrolls, works of Philo and Josephus and letters of the Apostle Paul, and writings of the Apostolic Fathers and the rabbinic Sages--he quotes for us the seminal passages that uncover this crucial interpretive process.
For this full-scale reference work Kugel has added a substantial treasury of sources and passages for each of the 24 Bible stories. It will serve as a unique guide and sourcebook for biblical interpretation.
1080 pages, Hardcover
First published January 3, 1999
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 6, 2011
In this massive volume, Kugel aptly demonstrates the role of interpreters between c. 200 BC and the first century AD in shaping the way that the Bible has been handed down. As he claims at the start, biblical interpretation is an ancient practice, which "goes back virtually as far as the oldest texts within [the Bible]" (2)--and these interpretations became one of the ways that the Bible has been shaped by cultural receptions. The 24 chapters that make up the bulk of this study lay out the many interactions between the basic texts and the interpretations they accumulated. In doing so, Kugel has singled out the most important motifs of exegeses on the stories of the Torah (Pentateuch), and has provided a vast sampling of how these traditions manifested within the works at the beginning of Jewish and Christian literature.
Kugel's introduction discusses the basis of his work, "The World of Ancient Biblical Interpreters," in an accessible and clear manner, as well as his approach, sources, and aims. This introduction alone, in fact, stands as a well crafted study of and introduction to the role of exegesis in Jewish and Christian history. For Kugel, it is apparent that scholars have long overlooked the fundamental role of interpretation in biblical scholarship, and his work aims to correct the lack of study. As he emphasizes, early biblical interpreters created what has become known as "The Rewritten Bible," or the Bible retold with interpretations inserted, that was "the most popular transmitter of biblical interpretation among ancient writers" (23). Furthermore, the traditions of this Rewritten Bible created what Kugel later calls "a kind of second authorship" (898), which have fundamentally influenced the transmissions and receptions of the Bible as we know it--perhaps as much as the texts themselves.
For example, Kugel observes four basic assumptions of interpretation that guide the writers that he discusses; namely, these are that the Bible: 1) "is fundamentally a cryptic document" (15); 2) "is a fundamentally relevant text" (15); 3) "is perfect and perfectly harmonious" (17); and 4) "is somehow divinely sanctioned, of divine provenance, or divinely inspired" (18). As he also demonstrates, these four assumptions and the ways in which they manifest in the interpretations have certainly shaped Western receptions of the Bible. Indeed, all four became the basic assumptions of both Judaism and Christianity in their understandings of the Bible as their guiding text. For historians, literary scholars, and theologians, the need to understand the bases of these assumptions is clear--and Kugel allows for a starting point.
It should be noted that this book is an expansion of his earlier work, The Bible as It Was (Harvard UP, 1997), and is intended as a guide for scholars seeking more, as the first volume was intended to reach as wide an audience as possible. In Traditions of the Bible, Kugel has provided a deeply erudite work for scholars--including laudable notes, directions for further reading, a glossary of terms and sources, a massive bibliography, and excellent Indexes (one for Subjects, and another for ancient sources--both encompassing almost 75 pages together). What should also be noted, however, is that the core of this work may be better consulted as a reference, rather than read as an analytical study in its own right. Each chapter provides a useful survey of the interpretations for a specific biblical story, but these sources often are pulled together as lists of samples rather than presented as Kugel's own analyses of the interpretations. Indeed, it is not his goal to offer analyses, but to offer demonstrations of the motifs he wishes to point out as the most fundamental to traditions of the Bible. In this, he achieves his goal, and he presents a valuable compendium for consultation by scholars interested in biblical narrative, theology, history, and the general development of biblical exegesis.
Kugel's introduction discusses the basis of his work, "The World of Ancient Biblical Interpreters," in an accessible and clear manner, as well as his approach, sources, and aims. This introduction alone, in fact, stands as a well crafted study of and introduction to the role of exegesis in Jewish and Christian history. For Kugel, it is apparent that scholars have long overlooked the fundamental role of interpretation in biblical scholarship, and his work aims to correct the lack of study. As he emphasizes, early biblical interpreters created what has become known as "The Rewritten Bible," or the Bible retold with interpretations inserted, that was "the most popular transmitter of biblical interpretation among ancient writers" (23). Furthermore, the traditions of this Rewritten Bible created what Kugel later calls "a kind of second authorship" (898), which have fundamentally influenced the transmissions and receptions of the Bible as we know it--perhaps as much as the texts themselves.
For example, Kugel observes four basic assumptions of interpretation that guide the writers that he discusses; namely, these are that the Bible: 1) "is fundamentally a cryptic document" (15); 2) "is a fundamentally relevant text" (15); 3) "is perfect and perfectly harmonious" (17); and 4) "is somehow divinely sanctioned, of divine provenance, or divinely inspired" (18). As he also demonstrates, these four assumptions and the ways in which they manifest in the interpretations have certainly shaped Western receptions of the Bible. Indeed, all four became the basic assumptions of both Judaism and Christianity in their understandings of the Bible as their guiding text. For historians, literary scholars, and theologians, the need to understand the bases of these assumptions is clear--and Kugel allows for a starting point.
It should be noted that this book is an expansion of his earlier work, The Bible as It Was (Harvard UP, 1997), and is intended as a guide for scholars seeking more, as the first volume was intended to reach as wide an audience as possible. In Traditions of the Bible, Kugel has provided a deeply erudite work for scholars--including laudable notes, directions for further reading, a glossary of terms and sources, a massive bibliography, and excellent Indexes (one for Subjects, and another for ancient sources--both encompassing almost 75 pages together). What should also be noted, however, is that the core of this work may be better consulted as a reference, rather than read as an analytical study in its own right. Each chapter provides a useful survey of the interpretations for a specific biblical story, but these sources often are pulled together as lists of samples rather than presented as Kugel's own analyses of the interpretations. Indeed, it is not his goal to offer analyses, but to offer demonstrations of the motifs he wishes to point out as the most fundamental to traditions of the Bible. In this, he achieves his goal, and he presents a valuable compendium for consultation by scholars interested in biblical narrative, theology, history, and the general development of biblical exegesis.
Displaying 1 of 1 review