Functional Interpretation and Biblical Theology: Reflections onJudaism as a Civilizationin Relation to Scriptural Hermeneutics

Abstract

n the twenty-sixth chapter ofJudaism as a Civilization, Mordecai M. Kaplan lays out a program for what he calls the of the Bible and other classic Jewish texts. The issues with which Kaplan wrestles in this chapter, and in other passages in this work that contain discussions of the Bible and rabbinic literature, are common to virtually all modern scholars who attempt to read the Bible as scripture rather than as a mere artifact. (By this I mean those who view it not just as a fascinating anthology of Northwest Semitic texts from the Iron Age but as literature that carries weight and perhaps even authority for contemporary religious communities.) In this article I examine Kaplan's program of functional interpretation in light of some work by biblical scholars who hold this concern in common with Kaplan. In so doing I hope to see the ways in which Kaplan's model of functional interpretation does and does not aid a contemporaryJewish reader who wants to reclaim the Bible as sacred without renouncing the critical faculties that separate us from our medieval and ancient coreligionists-that is, those medievalJews who believed (and,