James Kugel intends his book How to Read the Bible to be a guide to, and a tour through, the Hebrew Bible. With over eight hundred pages, the book showcases most of what professor Kugel knows about the Bible—and that is a lot! It was a little daunting for me to get through book as I found it almost impossible not to stop here and there to digest its content and to get better acquainted with some ancient interpreter, or conversant with a particular hypothesis of biblical scholarship. This is what the book does: it shows you how the Hebrew Bible was interpreted in the past by both Jews and Christians, and how biblical scholars understand the meaning of the same biblical texts today. Kugel also has a website dedicated to the book worth checking out. And, if you want to know how the book is being received by the public at large, you will probably appreciate the article by David Plotz in the New York Times entitled Reading Is Believing, or Not.

To understand why the “interpretation” of ancient interpreters and modern scholars are almost always divergent, it would be helpful to outline the assumptions that, according to Kugel, ancient interpreters brought to the text:

1) They assume that the Bible was a fundamentally cryptic text: that is, when it said A, often it might really mean B.

4) Lastly, they believe that the entire Bible is essentially a divinely given text, a book in which God speaks directly or through his prophets

The assumption that the Bible is essentially a divinely given text came last because Kugel did not want to give the impression that the other 3 assumptions were just a by-product of it (for example, there is no need to assume that a divinely given text be cryptic). Kugel’s lecture Can the Torah Make Its Peace with Modern Biblical Scholarship? is also helpful in showing the dynamics between tradition and biblical scholarship. In this particular lecture, delivered at the Jewish Theological Seminary, he talks about the reference in the Mishnah to Rosh Hashanah as the “day of judgment” which is not found anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. How this belief came about, and how it became an unquestioned tradition in the Jewish community shows that interpreters were doing much more than just reading the Bible. Kugel says that although the Jewish people are known as the people of the Book, a much better title would be “the people of the interpretation of the Book.” And, I would venture to say, this is no less true of Christians.

Let me show you an example of Kugel’s approach in the book. The passage is Numbers 20:2-13 which recounts the events at Kadesh where the people of Israel once more complained about the lack of resources, and God tells Moses to get water from a rock. At first glance, the account seems to be about a similar miracle as the one back at Meribah in Rephidim. But, what is puzzling about it is that Moses says “these are the waters of Meribah.” Of course, we could look at this assertion theologically and say that Moses is just using a metaphor; in other words, he might be just making an allusion to the waters at Meribah to remind the people that their lack of faith is the same even forty years later. But, how did the ancient interpreters handle this, especially when we keep in mind the four assumptions above? And there is one more thing: there had not been a word about the Israelites lacking water since the book of Exodus.
Read more »

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. (Psalm 23:5)

Even people who may not be too familiar with the biblical text will recognize the phrase “my cup runneth over” as coming from the Bible (and some might even guess it is from a psalm or Psalm 23). But, what does that really mean… my cup runneth over/overflows? Yalkut Shemoni (A haggadic compilation on the books of the Old Testament) has, in my view, an unexpected interpretation:

Said R. Abbaye, “from here we learn that the cup of David in the times to come [Messianic Age] will hold 221 logs [133 liters].”

Now that’s a big cup.

Although here we get no explanation of why David will have such a big eschatological cup in the Messianic Age, we know where the number 221 comes from. Gematria is the calculation of numerical equivalence of letters, words or phrases. For example David in Hebrew is דוד (sometimes also spelled דויד), since each letter has a numerical value we get ד = 4) + (ו = 6) + (ד = 4) = 14). New Testament commentators point out that Matthews’ genealogy revolves around the number 14 which, as we just saw, is David’s number.

The Hebrew word translated as “runneth over” (more literally translated as “satiation” as in JPS’s translation “my cup is full”) is רויה, (ר=200; ו=6; י=10; ה=5) = 221. Therefore, according to this interpretation, the phrase כוסי רויה stands for “my cup is 221″ which is then attributed to David in the future.

This type of interpretation does not seem very promising if we are interested in understanding what it is meant by “my cup is full” without the dubious aid of gematria. But it does put the focus on the very interesting word רויה (satiation).
Read more »

Someone from the audience asked James Kugel after his lecture entitled Midrash Before Hazal: Why It’s Important For Orthodox Jews what Julius Wellhausen would have thought about it. Kugel’s answer was “I’m sure he would say ‘This is interesting
nonsense.’” I thought that was a clever answer not only because Wellhausen would have probably agreed with him, but also because sometimes this is exactly what I am thinking when I read what the early interpreters had to say about some biblical passages. While I want show respect and humility towards the deposit of wisdom given to us by our early (some would say pre-critical) interpreters, every once in a while I want to shout out “this is brilliant nonsense!”

However Jame Kugel thinks that listening to these interpreters shouldn’t be divorced from current biblical scholarship. He says,

“It’s kind of surprising but often people who teach modern biblical scholarship are really uninformed about- now I am speaking again of Christian scholars mostly – what the bible looked like from the standpoint of – even just 100 years ago, not to speak of 1000 – and I think that once you are aware of that context everything looks rather different.”

Unfortunately Kugel does not elaborate on how exactly things look different when you are aware of Bible’s history of interpretation. I am still reading his book How to Read the Bible (which I highly recommend) and it could be that he talks more there about the interplay between how the bible was understood by ancient interpreters and how that bears on modern scholarship. I also wonder if his assessment that Christian scholars are particularly uniformed about ancient (Jewish?) interpretation is correct. If it is, it would be interesting to investigate why.
Read more »

Holmgren, Fredrik C. The Old Testament and the Significance of Jesus: Embrancing Change – Maintaining Christian Identity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1999.

This book is interesting for many reasons. One of them is that the author tries to show the relationship between Christianity and Judaism, both of which share in common what Christians call the Old Testament. He tries to explain the various interpretive methods that Jews and Christians use to understand “their Bibles.” For example, he argues that Christians did not find Jesus by reading the OT but tried to explain their experience of Jesus through the Scriptures. This involved a depth/imaginative interpretation (which I think is his way of referring to midrash). For this reason it is hardly fair for Christians to criticize Jews for not seeing Jesus in their Bible. Of course, the same holds true for Jews who also engage in depth/imaginative interpretation for their own purposes. Jacob Neusner says:

Judaism inherits and makes the Hebrew Bible its own, just as does Christianity. But just as Christianity rereads the entire heritage of Ancient Israel in light of the “resurrection of Jesus Christ” so Judaism understands Hebrew Scriptures as only one part, the written one, of the one whole Torah of Moses, our rabbi” (124).

The author then talks about the meaning of “and it was fulfilled” in the NT. For the author the Greek word for “fulfill” can have the meaning of “corresponds to,” “is similar/analogous to,” or even “reminds one of” (42). Then he tackles the subject of Jesus and the sinaic covenant (in other words, how Christians came to see the law). He attempts to show that the attitude towards Torah in the NT is not unified and failure to understand the different emphases is due to a failure to pay attention to the context within which the subject of Torah is being treated. He then talks about the “New Covenant” in Jeremiah 31:31-34 both in the OT and NT. Read more »

I recommend an article by Rikki Watts called “Immanuel: Virgin Birth Proof Text or Programmatic Warning of Things to Come (Isa. 7:14 in Matt. 1:23)?” in From Prophecy to Testament edited by Craig Evans (Massachusetts: Hendrickson Pub. Inc., 2004) . It is a very thought-provoking article as he discusses the background of Isaiah concerning Immanuel and the different approaches to understanding the function of the name. Is Immanuel, “God with Us,” primarily a good or bad thing? Blessing or judgment? Although Watts recognizes that the term certainly can be used for salvation and blessing, “God with Us” is also used in contexts where judgment is in view. And it is judgment that makes more sense in the Isaiah passage. What Matthew does by citing Isa. 7:14 is to prepare the reader for the Immanuel citation. So “both names – Immanuel and Jesus – set the agenda for the gospel” and “they evoke different aspects of [the original Isaianic setting] – salvation and judgment” (113). Read more »

This was pretty much a survey of the attitude of the Jews towards the Sabbath at the beginning of the Christian era. Rowland talks about the book of Jubilees, the Damascus Document, the Rabbinic tradition and Philo. What I am going to do is just include a few excerpts and let them speak for themselves.

Here are two excerpts from Jubilees that will give you a flavor of the author’s attitude towards the Sabbath.

And He finished all his work on the sixth day -all that is in the heavens and on the earth, and in the seas and in the abysses, and in the light and in the darkness, and in everything. And He gave us a great sign, the Sabbath day, that we should work six days, but keep Sabbath on the seventh day from all work. And all the angels of the presence, and all the angels of sanctification, these two great classes -He hath bidden us to keep the Sabbath with Him in heaven and on earth. And He said unto us: ‘Behold, I will separate unto Myself a people from among all the peoples, and these shall keep the Sabbath day, and I will sanctify them unto Myself as My people, and will bless them; as I have sanctified the Sabbath day and do sanctify (it) unto Myself, even so will I bless them, and they shall be My people and I will be their God. And I have chosen the seed of Jacob from amongst all that I have seen, and have written him down as My first-born son, and have sanctified him unto Myself for ever and ever; and I will teach them the Sabbath day, that they may keep Sabbath thereon from all work.’ And thus He created therein a sign in accordance with which they should keep Sabbath with us on the seventh day, to eat and to drink, and to bless Him who has created all things as He has blessed and sanctified unto Himself a peculiar people above all peoples, and that they should keep Sabbath together with us. And He caused His commands to ascend as a sweet savour acceptable before Him all the days . . . (Jubilees 2:16-22)

Read more »

In his article entitled “Ancient Biblical Interpretation and the Biblical Sage,” James Kugel surveys the development of the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible after the exile and shows the influence that the sages had on its development. The post-exilic condition that ushered in this new wave of biblical interpretation is what Kugel calls the “mode of return” (5). Basically, the dilemma faced by those returning from exile was how to go back to the glorious days.

The interpreters of Scriptures were not only priests or Levites (due the the centrality of the laws) but also wisdom sages. If we read Proverbs, Qohelet, or Job, one of their striking characteristics is that they are quite detached from history. The post-exilic sages, however, went back to the biblical writings and showed how principles of wisdom could be derived from them. Kugel first talks about how previously the sages used the meshalim and then how these teachers of wisdom became teachers of Scripture using Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon as examples of these “transitional figures” (12). Read more »