The Book of J [Paperback]

Harold Bloom (Author), David Rosenberg (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 2004

A controversial national best seller upon its initial publication, The Book of J is an audacious work of literary restoration revealing one of the great narratives of all time and unveiling its mysterious author. J is the title that scholars ascribe to the nameless writer they believe is responsible for the text, written between 950 and 900 BCE, on which Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers is based. In The Book of J, accompanying David Rosenberg's translation, Harold Bloom persuasively argues that J was a woman—very likely a woman of the royal house at King Solomon's court—and a writer of the stature of Homer, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy. Rosenberg's translations from the Hebrew bring J's stories to life and reveal her towering originality and grasp of humanity. Bloom argues in several essays that "J" was not a religious writer but a fierce ironist. He also offers historical context, a discussion of the theory of how the different texts came together to create the Bible, and translation notes.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This controversial, bestselling collaboration is a translation of and critical look at text within Genesis, Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy written by an ostensibly female author known only as "J." (Nov.)no PW
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Modern biblical critics have called the author of the oldest texts in the Hebrew Bible J, standing for Jahweh. Bloom and translator Rosenberg, authors of many works of literary criticism and of Jewish and biblical studies, have collaborated on a clear but controversial translation and analysis of parts of the Pentateuch using the term Jahweh. Bloom claims that the author of J was a woman, living in or at the time of the Solomonic court, 950-900 B.C.E., who wrote these selections not as a religious or historical treatise but as a literary work that Bloom compares to Shakespeare. While Rosenberg's translation is both modern and moving, he has made significant changes in the meanings of the Hebrew text. The proofs offered for these theories are no substitute for hard evidence. Nevertheless, The Book of J deserves consideration as a literary work.
- Maurice Tuchman, Hebrew Coll. Lib., Brookline, Mass.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1st ptg. edition (November 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802141919
• ISBN-13: 978-0802141910
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #217,931 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You can call me J..., June 13, 2003

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Book of J (Paperback)

Harold Bloom's 'The Book of J' caused quite a stir when it first was published. The book contains both introductory essays on authorship, a discussion of the theory of different texts being used to make up the books of the Bible (the Documentary Hypothesis), some historical context, and translation notes.

The bulk of the book consists of David Rosenberg's new translation of the J text, that text having been separated and isolated from the other source texts of the Torah (first five books of the Bible).

The concluding section contains essays by Bloom on different characters and themes in the text, as well as some modern theoretical analysis of the text, isolated as it is in this volume from the greater mass of material in the Bible.

There is a brief appendix by Rosenberg with notes specifically geared toward translation issues and difficulties, as well as source materials.

First, for a little background: since the 1800's, much of Biblical textual scholarship and analysis has subscribed to the theory that most books were not first written as integrated wholes, but rather, consist of a library of amalgamated texts, largely put together by a person who goes by the title Redactor, or R, for short. This was (in terms of Hebrew Bible timelines) a relatively late occurrence. Prior to this, there were various sources, including the J (J for Jehovah, or Yahweh, which is what God is called in these texts), but also E (Elohist, which is what God is called in these texts), P (Priestly, which largely comprises Leviticus), and D (Deuteronomist). The separation of these strands is controversial, and will probably never cease to be. But with literary and linguistic analysis, certain traits can be discerned of each of the particular strands.

The most controversial conclusion which Bloom advances in this volume is that J is a woman, who lived in the courtly community of King David, and that her stories are not only a retelling of the ancient stories which would have been known commonly, but is also a satire and indictment of courtly life as she finds it.

'J was no theologian, and rather deliberately not a historian.... There is always another side of J: uncanny, tricky, sublime, ironic, a visionary of incommensurates, and so the direct ancestor of Kafka, and of any writer, Jewish or Gentile, condemned to work in Kafka's mode.'

Bloom's assertion that J is a woman consists of several 'telling' ideas, not least of which that the J text seems to have no heroes, only heroines.

'Sarai and Rachel are wholly admirable, and Tamar, in proportion to the narrative space she occupies, is very much the most vivid portrait in J. But Abram, Jacob, and Moses receive a remarkably mixed treatment from J.'

Also, on the basis of sensitivity to subject and social vision, Bloom argues for a female J. Of course, women in positions of authority (as any courtly author or historian would have to be) were very rare in ancient Middle Eastern culture, but not unheard of; of course, literacy rates for women were incredibly low, and there has always been the unspoken assumption that, naturally, the authors of all ancient texts are men.

Whether or not you subscribe to this (and I must confess, I am less than convinced, clever and interesting and thought-provoking as Bloom's essay may be), both on the person of the author of J, as well as many of his other equally unorthodox views, this text still provides much food for thought, and an interesting side text with which to read the accounts in Genesis and Exodus.

Reading Rosenberg's translation is, likewise, an interesting exercise. I would wish for footnote or some key to be able to follow along in the Bible, but Rosenberg's purpose was to let J stand as its own text, on its own merits, and thus, without interruption, he has done that here. A refreshing look at familiar texts, Rosenberg's new translation will give things to think and argue about for some time.

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There is yet more to learn about those old stories!, May 8, 2005

By 

Randall Helzerman (campbell, ca) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Book of J (Paperback)

If you have a King James version of the Bible, the next time you read Genesis, pay attention to how God is referred to. Sometimes He's called "God" and sometimes He's called "The Lord". The reason for this is that the original Hebrew text uses two different names for God, and the translators were careful to preserve this. When the Hebrew text uses "Elohim" it is translated as "GOD". When the Hebrew text uses "Yahweh", it is translated as "The Lord".

If you carefully read Genesis, you'll notice that when Genesis refers to God as "Yahweh", he seems to be very different than when he is refered to as "Elohim". For example, Elohim is invisible--he never appears to anybody nor can he be seen by anybody--but Yahweh talks face-to-face with people all the time: with Abram, to Jacob, and to Moses and the 40 elders. Elohim seems remote and regimented, whereas Yahweh comes across as mischevious and irrascible. This has prompted some to propose the so-called "Documentary Hypothesis" which posits that Genesis was formed by editing together two or more different books, each book using a different word for God and each book presenting a different picture of who God was and what He was all about.

The book of J is the hypothasized book which used 'Yahweh" as the name of God. Scholars try to reconstruct this book by bringing together all of the passages in the first 5 books of the Bible which refer to God as "Yahweh". The result is startling: the same stories you've heard all your life (The tower of Babal, Joseph going to Egypt, Abram bargaining with God over Sodom and Gomorrah), when read together like this, take on a whole different level of meaning.

This book provides two things in one handy volume: it provides a reconstruction of the book of J, freshly translated by David Rosenberg, and it also provides an extended commentary by Harold Bloom, who is certainly the best reader alive today, and who is uniquely qualified to serve as a tour guide through the experience of reading J. So to review the book I'd like to review each of these seperately.

First, Rosenberg's translation. To illustrate just how good it is at bringing things out of the text which you ordinarly wouldn't notice, I'd like to quote from his translation of the story of the Tower of Babal: "We can bring ourselves together" they said "like stone on stone, use brick for stone: bake it until hard." For morter they heated bitumen.

Notice how this translation brings out the parallelism between the tower of Babal and human society: The tower is made out mud bricks bound by bitumen, and society is made out of people bound by language. But people are also just made out of mud--recall the creation story where Yahweh breathes the breath of life into mud. Baking the mud into bricks is symbolic of the people making themselves hard, and using bitumen for morter is symbolic of them using language and government to organize themselves. Rosenberg's translation makes available to us many of the puns and wordplay which other English translations unfortunately lose.

Now, to review Bloom's commentary. Scholarly types are fond of dising Bloom for his tendency to be speculative, to use his imagination to illuminate the reading of the text. But what they are forgetting is that J is a bunch of stories, written for us to experience! To use an parable of Rorty's, its like a surgion describing your wife as a bunch of tissues and organs vs. describing your wife as warm and loving, important person in your life. Yes, "warm and loving" arn't medical terms, but that doesn't make them a bad description of your wife.

Also, the very greatest literature, such as J is, will admit of more than one reading, more than one interpretation, more than one point of view. Bloom here does us excellent service by showing us his point of view on the text, telling us how the experience of reading the text impacts him. The author of J didn't write J just to chronicle some historical figures--the author of J wrote J so that we could read it, and by reading it, become changed into new people. _This_ is the aspect of experiiencing J which Bloom's commentary helps along, and this is the aspect which critics of Bloom's commentary are missing the most.

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars History or Poetry?, January 31, 2002

By 

Bay Gibbons (Salt Lake City, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Book of J (Paperback)

Harold Bloom has never been shy of making bold assertions, and in his The Book of J we have the boldest - that is that the central core of the Pentateuch is the work of single writer - the J Writer - living during the Davidic or Solomonic dynasty. He speculates that the J Writer is probably of noble birth, of unparalleled education and literary talent and is probably a woman. In a later work (I think in his "The Western Canon"), he further speculates the J Writer to be Bathsheba, the fateful love of David's life. The implications, of course, are that the Books of Moses are of late origin and essentially a work of the imagination arising from the Shadowland of History.

This work must be taken for what it is - a patchwork translation of the Torah by a fine poet with an historical introduction written by a renowned literary critic and Shakespearean authority. I personally am a great admirer of the work of Professor Bloom, but here, I think, he strays into ground where he is (by his own admission) at best an amateur.

Some additional random thoughts:

1. There is considerable weight of authority on the side of Professor Bloom as to the stepwise redaction of the Tanakh by writers and editors in late Old Testament times, though scant authority for his imaginative view of the personal characteristics of the J Writer herself. However, the entire field of Biblical scholarship and criticism is so volatile and fluid at present, that any "authority" on the subject represents only one scholars private opinion at any given time.

2. The current popular view is that the Bible is essentially a profound literary creation assembled by the hands of some late master from early "primitive" narratives. A contrary view is that the Bible as we know it is essentially a "descent from glory" - a miniature and much garbled and mistranslated product which can only approximate a much clearer, earlier and larger corpus of sacred works.

3. Poets might very well make the best translators - though not the most accurate. David Rosenberg's translation I find to be fresh and compelling. Reading it gave me a flood of new insights into a text many of us associate most strongly with the language of the KJV.

4. Bloom's desire for certainty as to the character of the J Writer remind me of his equally vivid but somewhat stretched account of the creation of Hamlet in Bloom's "Shakespeare: the Invention of the Human."