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The God of Old: Inside the Lost World of the Bible

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James Kugel assured his place as a giant of biblical studies with his opus, The Bible as it Was, which examined various secondary texts to understand the way Israelites read the Bible during the Second Temple Period. Here, Kugel examines a subject that, in his own words, is far thinner. Looking at the Bible, particularly the Five Books of the Torah, he tries to gain insight into how Israel perceived G-d in the Biblical period. He does not disappoint. Examining the occasions when individuals encountered the divine or His messengers, Kugel builds a persuasive case that ancient Israelites understanding of the divine stands as remarkable different from what modern readers seek to project backwards through time.

Some may take offense at some of Kugel's assertions, that the ancient Israelites saw G-d as corporeal and did not embrace monotheism as early as modern interpreters argue. However, the modern quirk projecting back modern concepts as far back as possible, while a comforting fiction, bellies our attempts to truly understand our ancestors. The development of Monotheism, easily one of the greatest and most impactful achievements of human history, should not be taken for granted as something that came in a preverbal flash.

Kugel does a wonderful job presenting complex material in an accessible format. His sensitivity to the potentially controversial thesis he espouses only further coxes the reader along for this fascinating journey. People interested in this subject should also read Kugel's other work and consider reading the works of Bill Dever and Baruch Halperin, both also excellent.

A few years back, James Kugel wrote a wonderful book called The Bible as It Was, which dealt with how people in ancient times interpreted the Bible. With The God of Old, Kugel once again takes up to pre-Christian times and gives us new insight as to the meanings of certain items in Bible.

In this brief book, Kugel has assembled what is essentially a collection of a half dozen essays around a common theme: how did the people in Old Testament times actually view God. Dealing with topics such as divine justice, the nature of angels and the existence of the afterlife, he shows that God was an evolving figure in history and the ancient concept is often quite different from the modern one.

Kugel has written a clear, thoughtful work with the occasional bits of humor. Sometimes - as he himself admits - his interpretations may be stretches, but they are all thought-provoking. As any book dealing with religion, this book will definitely have its detractors; nonetheless, if you are open to new ways of viewing an old book, this will be a good read.

Few people can write as well as Kugel. In discussing the starkness of Psalm 90, Kugel compares the summation of one's life to a painting:

"This canvas is the only thing of our existence that endures. To be sure, it does not endure in any tangible way, since nothing tangible endures in any case. [...] But it is no less real for being intangible--that is the essence of the stark world--in fact, it is only thanks to its intangibility that it does endure, and it is the only thing that matters. [...] when it is done it is ours forever--it is all that is ours, on into howling eternity."

If "on into howling eternity" doesn't conjure up an image of starkness for you, I doubt any words can.

The God of Old examines how our modern concept of God differs from early biblical descriptions. The God of Old will be of interest to anyone who has contemplated this question. An in-depth knowledge of the Old Testament is not required or assumed. It is not excessively long or difficult to read, however you may find yourself re-reading some paragraphs to fully absorb the meaning. If you have any interest in the subject matter, you will enjoy this well-written book.

I can recall the experience of afternoon Hebrew school and the small group of us being urged to pontificate on the nature of God - we had several choices, namely, the Watchmaker, the Unmoving Mover, the Captain of a large ship, etc. My utter disappointment in myself at not knowing the correct answer is of course part of this lucid memory. I still retain a certain faith in the nature of right answers but now I appreciate how these right answers can vary, dependent on the multiple realities inherent in them.

Kugel's book attests to the fact that the interaction with and perception of God varies by time, by region, and by the individual. It thereby reveals different versions of the same reality, namely the concept of God, or the sense of the numinous, common to all cultures. Evidentially, Kugel supports his thesis. He states that the relationship of man with God has varied and then he describes ways in which it has. In some cases he attempts to explain the experience through the use of analogy. For example, he compares the experience of a young girl taking care of her dolls and her concept of the true nature of what those dolls represent to the worship in a temple and the creation of another sort of representative reality.

Kugel presents an egalitarian viewpoint whereby one gets the impression that man's relationship with God has changed not improved over time. Far from claiming the greater authenticity of any given interaction with God, Kugel encourages the reader to consider the veracity of them all. Readers are likely to relate more than one of the experiences of God that Kugel describes. There is a youthful version of us, very much dependent on our parents. In this mindset we might imagine a God as a true to life deity presenting itself unawares-initiating requests (i.e. clean your room, lead your people to the promised land). There is perhaps a later version of ourselves when, having much more control over our environment but hoping that 'this can't be it, if so, what then?' This might be much like the medieval worshipper seeking out a response from God hoping he will answer and raise him to a more spiritual level. There is also a reflective version of us, forced to make a major decision in life and thereby reduce things into their mere black and white components. This notion Kugel describes as 'starkness', accounts which omit much of the richness of detail and ambiguity of real life (or what Kugel referes to as the sun world).

All in all, I found this book to be an invitation to use one's imagination. Kugel shows. he does not tell or preach and he does so engagingly. This was a fascinating and revealing book and I look forward to reading more of Kugel's work.

I didn't find this as enthralling as some other reviewers did, but it still had some nice little words of Torah. The early part of the book was most interesting; Kugel explains that while we think of God as very abstract and very far away, the Bible sometimes shows him suddenly appearing in human form as an angel, going out of its way to blur the distinction between God and other beings. By contrast, later texts tend to more sharply distinguish God and angels from each other and from beings with bodies.

Kugel also explains that while moderns think of man searching for God, the Bible shows God in search of Man (to use R. Heschel's phrase) - often without any indication that the human being contacted has sought such contact. (Though many Midrashim try to show otherwise, indicating some discontent with the idea of unsought prophecy).

As Kugel points out, "As the biblical period goes on, God becomes bigger and more remote (p. 61). . . ungraspably big and far off (p. 63). What changed?

"Whether the God imagined in the oldest imaginings that the Bible has preserved for us to read is preferable to God as he was later imagined is itself a matter for either aesthetic judgment or theological preference or some blend of both." Jack Miles



The trouble with God:
"The trouble with God these days, according to Keith Ward, Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford, is not that God's existence has become untenable, but rather that God has become boring. The problem stems in large part from taking traditional images of God too literally. God is seen as a supernatural person who can do absolutely anything. The irony here is that this rather grand vision of God has led to God's seeming irrelevance." Joseph Pagano

Kugel & Biblical Scholarship:
In a compelling analytical and critical review of, 'Whose Bible is it,' professor Kugel, wrote, "Was Scripture really full of hidden teachings or subtle allusions to future events? What if what the Bible seemed to be saying was all that it ever meant to say? Such questions were asked, particularly among Jews, as early as the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But a veritable revolution in biblical scholarship began toward the end of the Renaissance among a group of Christian Bible scholars in Western Europe. On the model of leading classicists, who sought to revive a knowledge of the language and literature of ancient Greece and Rome, these scholars began to learn Hebrew and Greek and to consider the Bible from a similarly philological perspective. It took less than a century for them to cast off much of the early interpretive tradition, and to proceed from timidly questioning ancient teachings about the text to the flat-out assertion that such teachings were mistaken.
Much of the impulse for this activity was channeled into the nascent Protestant ... So the Protestant denominations became the leading sponsors of a new movement to read the Bible with unblinking eyes, rejecting all past traditions about what it meant (though this turned out to be harder than they thought) and reckoning only with the words of Scripture themselves. Unwittingly, they thus helped create modern biblical scholarship, which has ended up casting doubt on the veracity of much of Scripture and has highlighted various contradictions, conflicting sources and other human touches that have undermined its traditional authority. The result is what some modern scholars have called a crisis in biblical theology, one that the present generation of scholars has hardly managed to resolve.

Kugel's God of Old:
Kugel's God ''of old'' is not the God of Kugel's Bible 'as it was.' The period that concerned Kugel in the earlier book lasted from about 200 B.C. to A.D. 200. God as he was worshiped then was the normative God for that book. In a strange way, he remains normative in this new book as well, yet the author is determined to explore early 'deviations' from what would later become the theological norm. ... ''The God of Old'' deals with only a modest selection of passages. No matter; when the hunter knows the woods this well, it takes little to bring the old fox to bay. Jack Miles

"In recent biblical studies, the line between a biblical text and its interpretation is dimmed. ... That was just as true for ancient biblical interpreters as it is for us today."



Kugel, Then & Now:
Under the title, "Major Factors that Shaped Early Scriptural Interpretation," the reviewer was in full agreement with Arthur Dewey's characterization, "Kugel shows how, when the Jewish past turned into present problematic, scriptural interpretation became a religious activity (which Kugel calls now, the Project). Refining past tendencies and presaging future doctrinal debates, ..." reflecting in conclusion that, "Biblical interpreters interaction with the text is a dynamic changing one, rather than the ancient process of probing a static text to discover its meaning, literally or allegorically as have been the case with the Antiochene and Alexandrine traditions that prevailed since the Apostolic Fathers, and dominated late antiquity." This was my impression on his book, 'Early Biblical Interpretation', co-authored with Rowan Greer. What developed since, in less than a decade in Kugel's biblical text and its interpretation, is hard to crystallize in this amorphous exegesis, which he denied himself the tools he prescribed.

The God of Old:
The best part of Kugel's pobing "inside the 'lost' world of the bible, is the title which he declined to pursue with his own previous trend. The title persuaded John Cakars, "I bought the book, because I found the subtitle to be interesting." So I was motivated to evaluate what the book may have reflected into Amazon reviews, and only A. Valasek may have hit the ball, "The author has obviously written this book as a personal study and contemplation of a difficult subject. ... There is no conclusion drawn, only that doubt is raised as to whether God has really changed his tacts, or have we caused the rift. Interesting thoughts that may never be answered to anyone's complete satisfaction."

Kugel's 'Lost World of the Bible:
The book's first third, included Kugel's 'Moment of confusion', and, 'Not searching for God'. I gave up reading, since I was disappointed not to learn anything on Hebrew Bible themes, than when I started my journey, when I was twelve, in the Old church of Alexandria, and went to the book's 'Bibliographical and Other Notes,' this is the interactive part of the book which renewed my lost zeal. My disappointment, due to my great respect for the Harvard scholar, and failed expectations (based on his book, 'The Bible as it was'), could be summarized as follows:
a. As a professor of Hebrew literature, he declined to explain why did he include Jewish Apocrypha, pseudo-Epigrapha but stopped just before Matthew, and all his fellow Jews who wrote the New Testament, conveying the Jewish hope of a Messiah, and a daring new vision of God, the all loving Father. (Kugel only quoted the Book to the Hebrews (pp. 12), in relation to its view of Abraham). I am not sure why he declines mentioning any of Jesus, the greatest Hebrew Rabbi, illustrations of the Lord God, who sought Israel's salvation.
b. While Kugel mentioned Origen, the greatest ancient student of the Hebrew Bible (Hexapla) twice, and Philo, his great Jewish Alexandrine master of allegorical interpretation, he avoided even touching that venue.
c. There are many cases, where he behaved as a classicist not an Orientalist, avoiding any mention of parallels, from archeology. I would here mention only one, as an example, Balaam's donkey. The author should have mentioned the parallels in Anubis and Bata, or the motif in the stories of Balaam in Deir Allaa, discovered in 1967 by H. Franken, in the Jordan valley.

From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Intellect in Quest of Understanding, Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox, Volume 2
Old Testament Parallels: Law and Stories from the Ancient Near East

I really liked this book. Kugel is smart, interesting, original and unafraid to take risks. I know very little about the Bible, but had no trouble understanding his ideas. Conversely, I am quite sure I would have gotten just as much out of it even if I were an expert on the Old Testament.

Kugel is one of the world's foremost Bible scholars. In this work he makes an effort to understand what he calls , "The God of Old". He distinguishes between the conception of God created in the Babylonian Exile in which God is omnipotent and omniscient. With this he contrasts the "God of Old" Who is in a sense a more limited God appearing at certain times and not appearing at others.
As Kugel sees it the world in which the Bible was created did not have a separate spiritual and material realm. The two realms were mixed. In his first chapter Kugel talks about the conception this world had of angels. He makes the argument that angels were not in this world what we ordinarily think of them as being 'messengers of God'. But rather they were in some sense the 'faces' of the direct manifestation of God. He makes some very interesting readings of the whole Balaam- Balak story, the Jacob wrestling with the angel story, the story of the announcing to the parents of the prophet Samson that a child would be born to them.
I found Kugel's analysis of the way God appears in 'Psalms' of special interest. He in this chapter talks about how God searches for Man. He says that modern man is concerned with the subject of searching God. But that 'the Old God' surprises the prophets, appears and announces to them their task. He says that when there is a calling out for God in the Psalms it is not the calling out for some impossibly distant Being whose very Existence is in question. Kugel says the people of Tehillim ( Psalms) believed and knew the Reality of God, and knew too God's times of being absent from them. The call is for God to appear as they knew God could appear.
Kugel also goes on to talk about the afterlife in the world of the Old God. He talks about the meaning of the soul, neshamah, and nefesh, of the going in and out like breath. He compares the Hebrew conception with that of other cultures.
However he also spends a good part of the last chapters of the book digressing into topics I felt not relevant to the book.
Nonetheless on the whole this is a wonderfully instructive book. It contains wonderful selections of Biblical passages and Kugel's intelligent and interesting readings of them.

Professor James L. Kugel's the GOD of OLD- Inside The Lost World of the Bible is a fascinating scholarly look at how God was understood by the ancients.
Kugel, Starr Professor of Hebrew Literature at Harvard University, offers Biblical scholarship for those of us who have never attended the semi-hallowed Crimson halls, let alone read or understood the original ancient texts. Much of what little I know comes from the King James sponsored version of the Bible and what others early on have told me I should take away from the readings.
Like most scholarly works I had to read the book twice because I'd put it down, think about it a bit, leave it for awhile and then come back to it later.
Then when I had finished it I found myself going back to it time and again to appreciate the questions it posed more than the questions it answered.
But hey, isn't that the benefit of any kind of study, to get us interested in learning more and finding our own answers?
If God had sent his Malakh (angels) more frequently in ancient times to tell us what we should or shouldn't be doing more than he does today maybe it's because we expect it to be Instant Messaging or maybe He just got tired of being put on Hold?
I'm not the brightest bulb in the fixture of life but thanks to Professor Kugel I'm more switched on to learning more about the topic. Eh...hopefully Harvard won't be billing me.