Customer Reviews

The Bible As It Was

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As one who has waded through Genesis Rabbah all the way to Deuteronomy, scratching my head, making marginal notes like Rashi, and looking up almost every word, this book came like a 500 BTU central unit, to a cottage deep in the rain forest.

Dr. Kugel has gathered thousands of lines of commentary from unnumbered sources, but all from a 300 year time period, about 200bce to 100ce-- the same time the gospels and epistles were written, the Mishnah was codified and most of the rabbis of the Pirkei Avot were active.

Kugel quotes standard Jewish commentary, but he also quotes from Christian scriptures, treating them (as Christian scholar Rosemary Reuther suggested many years ago) as midrash upon the Jewish texts. He also uses standard histories of the time, such as Josephus' Antiquities, the works of Philo, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

What makes this extensive work such a relief and a delight are the extensive annotations of the author: accurate citations are always given (I checked); end notes are given, describing all sources, and giving dates, or approximate dates. There is a bibliography of modern sources as well. Most importantly, each time a midrash or other commentary is inserted into the text of the Torah, Kugel gives us a most essential bit of information: he tells us what the problem is with that text that the commentator feels needs explaining.

It is not always obvious to a reader 2,000 years later what a certain rabbi's problem was with a text that prompted him to write the several lines of commentary he left us. The work Kugel has done-- his gift to us, is to climb into the minds of these people in a different place, discover what their concerns were, and deduce what parts of the texts would have caught their attention and for what reason. Since none of his interpretations (at least none I have looked-- and I've looked at most of them) seem forced or overly creative, I believe this is the work of a great scholar. I cherish it, and I thank him much.

This book would be more accurately titled "The Torah As It Was", but this minor complaint aside, I can only say, "What a book!" The extremely informative introduction lays out the plan: Mr. Kugel is giving us a glimpse into how the Torah, or at least a number of major events in it, were interpreted by a wide variety of authorites during the so-called intertestamental period, from approximately 200BCE-100CE. He takes an event, the Flood, say, and martials an array of quotes regarding one or another aspect of the story from a truly dizzying variety of authors. Extra-biblical interpretive strains are indicated by words or phrases printed in boldface type. It is fascinating to witness the process, as ambiguous texts metamorphose into moral instruction via interpretive discussion. The variety of creative, and sometimes mutually contradictory, uses to which the texts are put is amazing. It's also surprizing how many of these interpretations have stuck with us into the modern age. In addition to over 500 pages of well-presented interpretation, the 50-page listing of Terms and Sources, as well as the 30-page Bibliography, and comprehensive Index of sources cited, make this a truly useful and valuable resource for anyone interested in the Bible or the thought of this pivotal period in history. If all this isn't enough, the book itself (and keep in mind that I'm talking about a paperback here!) is a delight: from cover, to paper, to typeface, to engravings and illustrations, everything about this volume gives me pleasure as a reader and owner. Hats off to Harvard/Belknap. Too bad more publishers don't follow suit.

This is a marvelous book. For readers of the Bible who think seriously about it, questions arise constantly. Some of these are old, well-known problems like "Where did Cain's wife come from?" Others may be less familiar like "Why was the Brazen serpent which Moses made to cure snake-bites in the wilderness not a violation of the commandment against making images?" One of the many wonders which Kugel reveals to those unfamiliar with biblical interpretation in antiquity is that such questions are not new. They were occurring to readers of the Bible more than 2000 years ago. Kugel has selected some of the most mystifying passages from the Torah and has collected ancient attempts to interpret these texts and fill in the gaps they create. Often, ancient interpreters, both Jewish and Chrisitan, were attempting to defend the biblical accounts against difficulties and inconsistencies. Some readers, like myself, may find that the ancients were a bit too eager to resolve all the tensions that arise in the Torah. Nevertheless, Kugel's compendium allows us conveniently to read the Bible along with some of the great Bible readers from the period within a couple of centuries on each side of the turn of the eras, and such an opportunity is a delight.

"The Bible as it was" is a wonderful and exhaustive work regarding scriptural interpretation and the first five books of the Bible. Early Jewish tradition was to fill in interpretive information when necessary to resolve items that were ambiguous or unclear. In addition, notes and commentary were often passed along with the texts and over time tended to become a part of the text. As a result, the Bible of today includes a lot of commentary as well as the original texts.
Kugel's purpose is to try to reconstruct the Bible as it was in its original form as closely as possible. While we all know that no copies of the original Bible exist today, the King James version was based on the Textus Receptus which was a Greek translation of the Bible and considered the oldest reliable source at the time. Since then there have been many archaeological finds of manuscripts from earlier points in time and in the original Hebrew language. Many of these passages differ somewhat from current translations. In theory, the older versions should be closer to the original version. Working from the oldest texts he examines some of the differences in the way passages were interpreted and what that could mean. This gets us closer to an original version without all the intervening thoughts and interpretations that earlier writers had added in an attempt to make it more understandable and applicable to the people of their time.
Dr. Kugel thoroughly documents his work complete with quotes, sources and annotations as appropriate.

A fascinating book that sheds new light onto many passages it should be read by anyone attempting a serious and scholarly study of the Bible.

The author shows how Jews living in the years before and after the birth of Christ interpreted the Pentateuch and why they did so. It is amazing how their "spin" is still the accepted explanation among Christians today. It led me to re-evaluate many of my beliefs.

Kugel's lucid text is an important adition to biblical scholarship. By pointing out the many ways that the modern reading of the text differs from the reading in the early rabbinic period he is able to document the ways that our apporach to the text as changed. Most interstingly, he shows how christian and muslim readings of the Hebrew Bible has colored Jewish understandings and thus deeply effected Jewish theology.

Dr. Kugel sets out to produce a mixture of ancient and modern interpretations and does a wonderful job at it. While most of the interpretations are ancient coming from interpreters such as Philo, and others, Dr. Kugel helps explain them more smoothly by writing a brief analysis of each interpretation presented. The Bible as it Was, is truly a great way to learn about different interpretations other than the ones you hear in church. It offers a variety of interpretations, so that the reader can make up his own mind. While this book offers interpretations of the text, it might also offer some hard times to the devoted Christian, if they are not willing to accept that there may be other interpretations of these narratives.

This is a definite must have when studying the Old Testament, in particular the Pentateuch, or first five books. It does not go into later books of the OT, however, with the references provided, if the reader wanted to do more research on their own, then the references that Dr. Kugel lists in the back of the book will allow them to do so. If you are serious about learning the Pentateuch then pick this book up.

f you have studied the Torah along with any major commentary you may note lots of ideas that are not obviously supported by the plain meaning of the text. In this book, Prof. Kugel discusses the historical roots and ideological assumptions underlying these ideas.

To begin with, Kugel notes that the Hebrew Bible (including the Torah, as well as the Prophets and Writings) does not interpret itself. While all texts contain ambiguities, the Bible is especially so because it was originally written in vowel-less Hebrew, without punctuation. Thus, it is not even obvious what words are in the Bible, let alone how they fit together. Moreover, the Bible is hundreds of years older than its first post-Biblical interpreters whose work has survived.

These interpreters disagreed on the meanings of much in Scripture. But they all shared four assumptions: (1) that the Torah is essentially cryptic - that is, that it has meanings that are not obvious from a quick reading of the text, (2) that the Torah, as a Divine document, is eternally relevant, (3) that the Torah is perfect, i.e. not internally inconsistent, and (4) that the Torah is Divinely written or inspired.

Kugel's book has a chapter for each of about two dozen major Biblical episodes. As to each episode, he describes a few ambiguities and then explains how the earliest commentators whose work has survived addressed the issue.

For example, the Torah writes that after the Golden Calf was shaped "Aaron saw, and he built an altar before it" (Exodus 32:4-5). The Hebrew letters for "saw" could also be read "was afraid". So some interpreters suggested that Aaron saw disorder that made him afraid.

Most of Kugel's case studies come from the Torah's narrative portions; however, he occasionally addresses halachic issues, sometimes with fascinating results. For example, most informed Jews know that the "eye for an eye" reference in Exodus 21 has generally been interpreted to require monetary compensation for torts. But shortly after the Second Temple was destroyed, Josephus wrote: "One who mains someone will suffer the same ... unless the one who was maimed is willing to accept money. For the law permits the victim to establish damages for the incident, unless he wishes to be particularly severe." This implies that some physical punishment was allowed in Second Temple times if it was not unreasonably "severe" and that the law later evolved towards a pure reliance on damages. (Because this statement occurs right after Josephus' discussion of kicking a pregnant woman, Kugel suggests that this rule was limited to intentional torts).

What makes this book especially interesting, from a Jewish point of view, is that rather than focusing on medieval commentators he focuses on the very earliest commentators, people such as Philo and Ben Sira who wrote before the Mishna and Talmud (and in some cases, even before the destruction of the Second Temple) and are unknown to most modern Jews. The only thing I didn't like is that this is a pretty long book; I wonder if Kugel could have had fewer case studies and gotten the same issues addressed.

James Kugel states that the purpose of this book is " to offer a detailed look at how the Bible was interpreted in antiquity, to show what the Bible essentially was in that period."
The period in question was the closing century B.C. to the first few centuries A.D.

Most of the material in THE BIBLE AS IT WAS relates to the Pentateuch or Torah. He covers some of the mysterious aspects of those books. Some of those subjects were:
When were angels created? Where was the garden of Eden located?
What was Nimrod? Who buried Moses?
These are some of examples of the many subjects the reader will find in the book.

I found this book to be fascinating and the author did a fantastic job of examining more than one perspective. He used both Jewish and Christian sources to look at various different interpretations of Scripture. He showed some subtle differences between the Septuagint and Hebrew.

Terms and Sources is a helpful resource tool. You can read a description of some interesting, ancient literature.
The 35 page Index of Scripture passages and other literature was another feature that I appreciate.

This is the best Scripture-related book that I have read in a long time. I bought two copies so I could pass one around. I definitely will read it again at some point.

This informtive study of the Hebrew Bible provides a chapter-by-chapter analysis of some of the most important stories of the Bible, describing how these stories were interpreted by various peoples, how its message was understood at the time, and the origins of modern explanations. An outstanding contrast between past and present interpretative methods.