Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds [Hardcover]

Donald Harman Akenson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1998 | ISBN-10: 0151004188 | ISBN-13: 978-0151004188

A book which discusses the Bible and the Talmuds and places them in their political and historical contexts.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Akenson describes his book as a long love letter to the Tanakh, the "New Testament" and the Talmuds. Akenson focuses his study on the formation of four sets of texts that lie behind rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. He argues that the first nine books of Hebrew scripture (Genesis through Kings) are a unified invention in the form of historical writing, the product of a single great mind, gifted at once as an editor and a writer, working between the beginning of the Babylonian exile (598 B.C.) and the return to the Holy Land (550 B.C.). The books of the Bible from Genesis through Kings, Akenson contends, are the foundation upon which both Christianity and modern Judaism are built. He proceeds to examine the creative ferment out of which the "New Testament" and the Talmuds developed in the early decades of the first century A.D. The "New Testament," he contends, is a reinvention of Tanakh in which the books from Matthew to Acts are to Christian scripture what Genesis-Kings is to Hebrew scripture. In Akenson's view, modern Judaism abandons the historical narrative characteristic of Tanakh in favor of a legal document, the Mishnah, which is gradually tempered by narrative in the Babylonian Talmud. Akenson's passion for the texts translates into an eloquent plea to appreciate them as organic wholes rather than to dissect them with progressively sharper scholarly scalpels. Along with the study of texts, Akenson offers a running critical commentary on modern biblical scholarship, as well as an extended discussion of the transformation of anti-Judaism into anti-Semitism. Patient readers will be rewarded with a deeper understanding of the common textual roots of Christianity and modern Judaism.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This is a historian's refreshing account of the "invention" of three scriptures and the subsequent flowering of the religions that emerged from them. Differing from creation de novo, "invention," in Akenson's sense, collates and edits pre-existing materials and unifies them under a new, overarching scheme. Thus, the Judahite ("Old Testament") scripture was invented during the Babylonian Captivity (597-538 B.C.E.) by Judean exiles who hoped to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple as God's dwelling among men. Judeans followed their Temple-oriented faith until the Romans destroyed both temple and faith in 70 C.E. Two new faiths deriving from Judahism, namely Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism, perforce posited a new and immaterial temple where God dweltAthe human heart. In spite of its difficult subject matter, this book is a pleasure to read. Akenson (history, Queen's Univ.; research, Univ. of Liverpool) enjoys his study and shows it in lively prose. Recommended for both academic and public libraries with special interest in religion and history.AJames F. DeRoche, Alexandria, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151004188
• ISBN-13: 978-0151004188
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,868,820 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A knockout--couldn't stop reading!, April 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds (Hardcover)

Akenson's book is easily the most comprehensive discussion of Hebrew and Christian scripture I have read. Especially valuable for me was the middle section of the book, in which he takes the reader through some of the more important religious literature being written during the second temple period and identifies it as the source of many themes that eventually find their way into the Christian gospels. Surpassing Wonder was valuable for me also because it adjusted my perspective. I am used to thinking of the religious literature after Jesus as that of the Christian Bible. Akenson, however, brings equally to the foreground an extensive discussion of the rabbinic literature being written during the same period as the church fathers are formulating and arguing out what will become the traditional beliefs of Christianity. Thus, in Akenson's book, we get an overview (skillfully handled, especially considering the vastness of the rabbinic texts) of the literature of both the major religions that emerged from the tumultuous period of Jesus' life and the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. I would strongly recommend this book as an essential introduction to the writing of both the Hebrew and Christian bible and their historical contexts.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant, original, and highly entertaining book., January 13, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds (Hardcover)

The author is quite upfront in warning off readers who will not profit from this book: i.e. those devoted to the concept of Bible inerrancy or otherwise unwilling or unable to broaden their perspectives. Those readers are missing out on a wonderful ride. In a manner reminiscent of Stephen Jay Gould (another author I wouldn't recommend to the blinkered reader), Akenson combines humor, imagination and scholarship to explore the incredible richness of Biblical texts. I was very impressed with his main thesis, which is audacious yet plausible and cogently argued. The book is more than a satisfying intellectual read. It is an invitiation to share in the author's unquenchable joy as he attempt to answer questions central to our understanding of ourselves.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The longing for God is like no other" (D.H.A.), January 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds (Hardcover)

If you are 'a fundamentalist', fiercely and unconditionally attached to your religious tradition, please skip the rest of this review: this book is not for you. Otherwise, dear Reader, you may find that Akenson's book truly surpasses wonder. It is a witty, enormously erudite exploration of how the leap towards the divinity, first taken by the Hebrew patriarchs of old evolved into a 'Judahist' (yes, with an 'h' in the middle) tradition centered on the Covenant with the One God, and the First Temple, and possibly through the catalytic intervention of a genial editor/historian who put together the writings of 'Y' (more commonly referred to as 'J'), 'E', 'P', 'D', and other biblical authors, into a single historical narrative that became the written backbone of the Yawist tradition over the next few centuries. At the time of the Second Temple there blossomed in that unique region, the antonomastic Holy Land, a rich diversity of trends of religious evolution. The final destruction of the Temple, and the final diaspora led to an evolution, or transformation if you wish, of that tradition into two daughter ones, Rabbinical Judaism (without the 'h' in the middle) on one hand, and the Christianities on the other. The proposed dynamics for this evolution and its projection into the traditions of our own days are presented by the author on bases of biblical and parabiblical texts, i.e. not only those that the triumphant elites eventually canonized in the Tanakh and the Christian Bibles but all the Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Ethiopian etc., manuscripts that have survived or that have been recently discovered (such as the Qumran scrolls). The book provides for a most enjoyable reading, full of compelling argument, rich in history and in language (have your dictionary at hand) and amply annotated. You do need a little background on the basics of modern biblical scholarship. (Interested readers that are new to this matter may find it useful to precede the reading of Surpassing Wonder with "Who Wrote The Bible?" by Richard E. Friedman.)