{"id":11328,"date":"2024-02-25T02:58:53","date_gmt":"2024-02-24T21:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/25\/10-books-that-made-me-rethink-the-bible\/"},"modified":"2024-02-25T02:58:53","modified_gmt":"2024-02-24T21:28:53","slug":"10-books-that-made-me-rethink-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/25\/10-books-that-made-me-rethink-the-bible\/","title":{"rendered":"10 books that made me rethink the Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"


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This is\u00a0not\u00a0my\u00a010 \u201cbest\u201d books list, nor am I suggesting\u00a0these are \u201cmust reads\u201d for everyone (though they are all great books).<\/p>\n

These are books that crossed my path 20-25 years ago, mainly while in graduate school,\u00a0that influenced my thinking in new and heretofore largely unexplored directions, and so opened my eyes to the larger world of the Old Testament, where it came from, and what it means to read it well.<\/p>\n

The first 6 books are from 4 of my Harvard professors, which speaks to their formative influence.<\/p>\n

James Kugel, In Potiphar\u2019s House: The Interpretive Life of a Biblical Text<\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Using the story of Joseph, Kugel lays out the dynamic world of biblical interpretation in the Second Temple and later rabbinic periods, the creative nature of midrash, and biblical \u201cirritants\u201d that drove early Jewish interpreters to do what they did with the biblical text as an expression of expectant reverence for their scriptural tradition. This book also helped me to begin seeing echoes of early Jewish midrash in the New Testament\u2019s likewise midrashic, creative handling use of the\u00a0Old Testament.<\/p>\n

James Kugel,\u00a0Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible As It Was at the Start of the Common Era<\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A\u00a0massive compendium of interpretive traditions on the Pentateuch in Second Temple Judaism. The documented breadth of how Jews and Christians in antiquity read the Hebrew Bible\/Old Testament is staggering, and alerted me to the flexibility\u00a0and legitimate interpretive possibilities of biblical interpretation\u2013and how seeking \u201cone meaning\u201d is not only a specious undertaking, but boarders on disrespect for the very nature of scripture.<\/p>\n

Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence<\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Though God has ordered creation (Genesis 1), chaos survives\u2013which is why \u201cbad things happen\u201d despite the ordered world God has created. \u00a0Israel\u2019s worship in the Temple, the microcosm of the\u00a0created order, was a\u00a0participation in the ultimate redemption of the cosmos (chaos is \u201cneutralized in cult\u201d). Yet, this description hardly does\u00a0justice to this deceptively\u00a0slim, 175 page, book. Along with other things<\/a>\"\"\u00a0Levenson has written, this is a model of blending together historical critical scholarship and one\u2019s theological tradition, and was part of my early motivation for\u00a0seeking similar possibilities for Christian theology.<\/p>\n

Jon D. Levenson,\u00a0\u00a0Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible<\/em><\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Responding to lapses (i.e., latent anti-Semitcism) in Christian biblical theology, Levenson articulates a distinctly Jewish biblical theology focusing on the very elements\u00a0of the Hebrew Bible neglected (or vilified) in Christian theology but that are central to the Hebrew Bible, law and temple, represented by two mountains, Sinai and Zion. Seeing biblical theology done wholly apart from the categories I was accustomed to was a reorienting experience and challenged my assumed\u00a0privileging\u00a0of a Christian (Protestant) reading of the Old Testament.<\/p>\n

Paul Hanson, Dynamic Transcendence: Correlation of Confessional Heritage and Contemporary Experience in a Biblical Mode of Divine Activity<\/a><\/em>\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Mosaic Law (form) was given in conjunction with Israel\u2019s liberation from slavery and was a mark of freedom and a covenant bond with God. Over time it became\u00a0institutionalized to mere ritual and subject to prophetic critique (reform).\u00a0This\u00a0form\/reform pattern in the Old Testament models the means by which a continued deep fidelity to the heart of any faith tradition can be sustained. The Bible, therefore, sets a precedent for the continued need for the church to reflect on\u00a0and reform tradition when called for.<\/p>\n

Frank Moore Cross,\u00a0Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel<\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

My introduction to the seeing the Old Testament as part of its larger environment. The origin of Israelite religion is\u00a0continuous with the\u00a0Canaanite culture from which it emerged. But rather than expressing its own origins through Canaanite\u00a0myth, Israel\u2019s record is best referred to as an\u00a0\u201cepic,\u201d\u00a0which is an interpretation of historical events by means of mythic categories, thus resulting in a tension between the mythic and historical.<\/p>\n

Michael Fishbane Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel<\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Hebrew Bible is not only the foundational document for the exegetical culture of Judaism and Christianity, but an exegetical work in its own right. The Bible is a compendium of \u201cinnerbiblical exegesis,\u201d a movement of recontextualizations of earlier material for different settings, where the authoritative text is both received\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>built upon, all of which continues\u00a0to function as scripture. In fact, for the authoritative text\u00a0to function authoritatively, it\u00a0must<\/em> be adapted to changing circumstances. For me, this was a big moment in seeing why the Bible looks so uneven and thus\u00a0resists simple systematization\u2013the Bible evinces growth and change.<\/p>\n

Gary Anderson, The Genesis of Perfection:\u00a0Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination<\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Bringing together the depth of both Christian and Jewish\u00a0traditions,\u00a0Anderson offers a remarkable exposition of the\u00a0Adam and Eve story that leaves one staggering at its\u00a0complexities and subtleties, and what Judaism and Christianity have creatively done with it.\u00a0This formative story for both faiths is neither simple to understand nor monolithic in meaning, but rather invites imaginative exploration.<\/p>\n

Walter Brueggemann, Texts Under Negotiation: The Bible and Postmodern Imagination<\/a><\/em>\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Without returning to precritical na\u00efvet\u00e9, Brueggemann presents a postcritical critique of historical criticism\u2019s claims of \u201cobjectivity\u201d and unquestioned authority in biblical interpretation. The postmodernism shift recaptures the inevitability of local\/contextual factors in accessing the Bible and the pluralistic interpretations that result (which is not dissimilar from the plurality of precritical and ancient modes of biblical interpretation).<\/p>\n

J. Paterson Smyth, How We Got Our Bible: Thoughts for the Present Disquiet<\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I stumbled on this book I know not how or why, but reading it was deeply affirming. Writing in 1892, Smyth lays out with honesty and pastoral care\u00a0the challenges of modern biblical scholarship and the pressing need for Christians to come to terms with it, not to disquiet the church but to help those already disquieted. \u201cThese are not the days for Christian teachers to hold their peace and risk the faith of one-half of their people by humouring the mistaken views of the other half, through fear of disquieting them\u201d (p. 2). At times dated, the books shows us that addressing constructively and proactively\u00a0historical criticism is not a recent trend.<\/p>\n

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This is\u00a0not\u00a0my\u00a010 \u201cbest\u201d books list, nor am I suggesting\u00a0these are \u201cmust reads\u201d for everyone (though they are all great books). These are books that crossed my path 20-25 years ago, mainly while in graduate school,\u00a0that influenced my thinking in new and heretofore largely unexplored directions, and so opened my eyes to the larger world of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[]},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}