Ancient Wisdom Today » Midrash

How to Read the Bible

Maer — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:49:03 +0000

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.

Ishmaelites, Midianites and Literary Criticism

Maer — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:30:13 +0000

There are different approaches that one can use to understand the complexities of the Pentateuch. I have been thinking about two approaches in particular, source criticism and literary criticism, after reading James S. Diamond’s book Stringing the Pearls: How to Read the Weekly Torah Portion. Dr. Diamond teaches in the Program in Judaic Studies at Princeton University and this book grew out of his two-year intensive Tanakh course sponsored by the Hebrew College of Boston. Although the aim of the book is to introduce the Jewish reader to the Torah portions (there are 54 portions or parashyiot which are read throughout the year covering the entire Torah), it covers a whole range of topics making it a great introductory short book on the Torah from a Jewish perspective.

Rabbinic Parables

Maer — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 03:31:10 +0000

I recently read a fascinating book entitled They Also Taught in Parables: Rabbinic Parables from the First Centuries of the Christian Era by Harvey K. McArthur and Robert M. Johnston. The first part is a collection of selected parables of the תנאים (tannaim – the Rabbinic sages in the Mishnah from approximately 70-200 CE) and the second part comprised of essays on the nature of their parables and some comparisons with the parables of Jesus.

The rabbinic word for parable(s) is mashal/meshalim, and, to mark a literary item as a narrative mashal, the authors chose the following elements:

Explicit label. Often the introductory formulas to the items explicitly label them as meshalim. Some typical introductions are: “A parable”; “A parable: It is like unto . . .”; and “They parable a parable. Unto what is the matter like? It is like unto. . . .”

Blessing and the Beginning of Torah

Maer — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:41:40 +0000

John Goldingay talks about blessing as one of the aspects of “God speaking” in creation. God’s speech is life-giving. He mentions something Genesis Rabbah says concerning the fact that Torah does not start with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, ‘aleph. And what does that have to do with blessing? Here is what he says,

“Thus blessing “is not simply a friendly wish” but “a bestowal of life-force… an act whereby the power-for-life monopolized by Yahweh generously is transmitted to Abraham and his descendants” (Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997], p. 165) — and here to humanity as a whole and to other living creatures. God shares power-for-life with the animal world. The prominence of the blessing theme makes for a pointed contrast with the gloomy vision of other Middle Eastern stories of the origins or the world and humanity, as well as with the troubled experience of Israel in; for instance, the exile. Genesis Rabbah 1:10 (on Gen 1:1) sees here another significance in the fact that Scripture begins with a bet, not an ‘alep, the second letter of the alphabet rather than the first, since b is the first letter of the word for blessing (whereas ‘aleph is the first letter of the word for curse). “Bless” has the first word in Scripture” (Israel’s Gospel, 54).

Interesting Nonsense

Maer — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:07:49 +0000

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,

A Time to Cast Away

Maer — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 20:00:50 +0000

We often hear of the power of stories, but sometimes it is good to see a specific example of how stories can help us make sense of what could be difficult to grasp in the abstract. They can also stimulate our imagination through their style, play on words, humor, cleverness, ambiguity, etc.

For this reason, I have often wondered what it would be like to transform Qohelet into a narrative. If you think that such a task is impossible or even ludicrous, the Rabbis didn’t think so. Let me show you an example. In chapter 3 Qohelet starts his “catalogue of times” and in verse 6 he says:

[a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away (ESV)]

The Seed: Four Theologians’ Quest to Understand Paul

Maer — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:57:03 +0000

One of the passages used to illustrate the NT use of the OT in Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament was Galatians 3 concerning Paul’s use of the word “seed.” I was especially interested in this passage because I remember being quite impressed with N. T. Wright’s treatment of it in The Climax of the Covenant a few years ago. In this post, I would like to do three things: 1) summarize each author’s understanding of this passage; 2) bring N. T. Wright into the conversation and explain, in broad strokes, his exegesis; and 3) ask which of the three views best reflects N. T. Wright’s approach.

Since Peter Enns chose the “seed” passage as one of his examples and elaborated on it in his essay, we get a fuller picture of Enns’ approach related to this particular issue. Kaiser and Bock merely responded to Enns so there will be some inevitable reading between the lines. But since I am only interested in the approach and not a full exegesis of the text, I believe each position can be fairly outlined (at least I will attempt to do that).

The Passage

The Old Testament and the Significance of Jesus

Maer — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:41:32 +0000

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:

Immanuel

Maer — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:24:47 +0000

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).

The Sabbath at the beginning of the Christian Era

Maer — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:38:41 +0000

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)