How to Read the Bible

A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now

James L. Kugel

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN:
  9781451689099
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Biography

James Kugel’s essential introduction and companion to the Bible combines modern scholarship with the wisdom of ancient interpreters for the entire Hebrew Bible.

As soon as it appeared, How to Read the Bible was recognized as a masterwork, “awesome, thrilling” (The New York Times), “wonderfully interesting, extremely well presented” (The Washington Post), and “a tour de force...a stunning narrative” (Publishers Weekly). Now, this classic remains the clearest, most inviting and readable guide to the Hebrew Bible around—and a profound meditation on the effect that modern biblical scholarship has had on traditional belief.

Moving chapter by chapter, Harvard professor James Kugel covers the Bible’s most significant stories—the Creation of the world, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the flood, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and his wives, Moses and the exodus, David’s mighty kingdom, plus the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other prophets, and on to the Babylonian conquest and the eventual return to Zion.

Throughout, Kugel contrasts the way modern scholars understand these events with the way Christians and Jews have traditionally understood them. The latter is not, Kugel shows, a naïve reading; rather, it is the product of a school of sophisticated interpreters who flourished toward the end of the biblical period. These highly ideological readers sought to put their own spin on texts that had been around for centuries, utterly transforming them in the process. Their interpretations became what the Bible meant for centuries and centuries—until modern scholarship came along. The question that this book ultimately asks is: What now? As one reviewer wrote, Kugel’s answer provides “a contemporary model of how to read Sacred Scripture amidst the oppositional pulls of modern scholarship and tradition.”

Table of contents

• Cover
• Description
• Praise
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgments
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preliminaries
• Chapter 1: The Rise of Modern Biblical Scholarship
• Chapter 2: The Creation of the World—and of Adam and Eve
• Chapter 3: Cain and Abel
• Chapter 4: The Great Flood
• Chapter 5: The Tower of Babel
• Chapter 6: The Call of Abraham
• Chapter 7: Two Models of God and the “God of Old”
• Chapter 8: The Trials of Abraham
• Chapter 9: Jacob and Esau
• Chapter 10: Jacob and the Angel
• Chapter 11: Dinah
• Chapter 12: Joseph and His Brothers
• Chapter 13: Moses in Egypt
• Chapter 14: The Exodus
• Chapter 15: A Covenant with God
• Chapter 16: The Ten Commandments
• Chapter 17: A Religion of Laws
• Chapter 18: Worship on the Road
• Chapter 19: P and D
• Chapter 20: On the Way to Canaan
• Chapter 21: Moses’ Last Words
• Chapter 22: Joshua and the Conquest of Canaan
• Chapter 23: Judges and Chiefs
• Chapter 24: The Other Gods of Canaan
• Chapter 25: Samuel and Saul
• Chapter 26: The Psalms of David
• Chapter 27: David the King
• Chapter 28: Solomon’s Wisdom
• Chapter 29: North and South
• Chapter 30: The Book of Isaiah(s)
• Chapter 31: Jeremiah
• Chapter 32: Ezekiel
• Chapter 33: Twelve Minor Prophets
• Chapter 34: Job and Postexilic Wisdom
• Chapter 35: Daniel the Interpreter
• Chapter 36: After Such Knowledge . . .
• Picture Credits
• A Note to the Reader
• Notes
• Subject Index
• Verses Cited
• About the Author
• Endnotes