The Structure of the Hebrew Bible

Abstract

In this book, I propose that if we want to understand the ideas the Hebrew Scriptures were written to advance, we should read these texts much as we read the writings of Plato or Hobbes – as works of reason or philosophy, composed to assist individuals and nations looking to discover the true and the good in accordance with man’s natural abilities. I don’t mean that this is the only way to read these texts. Nor do I believe that the understanding that emerges from such readings has to give us the final picture of the biblical authors’ worldview. But for the reasons discussed in the Introduction, I believe that in reading the Hebrew Scriptures as works of reason or philosophy, we come much closer to the teachings the biblical authors meant to place before us than we do if we assume that these works were composed as reports of “revelation” – of knowledge obtained by means of a series of miracles. The last generation has seen a new openness to reading the Hebrew Scriptures as works of reason or philosophy. Quite a few studies of the ethics and political philosophy of the Bible have already raised the possibility that in composing their texts, the biblical authors sought to investigate subjects similar to those treated in works traditionally recognized as philosophy. But the studies that have appeared so far have been noticeably short on systematic reflection as to what we are doing – and why we are doing it – when we set aside the old interpretive framework and begin reading the Hebrew Scriptures as works of reason. In Part I of this book, comprising Chapters 1–3, my aim will be to clarify and expand what I take to be the interpretive principles implicit in some of the recent works examining the philosophical significance of the biblical texts. The result will be a new interpretive framework for reading the Hebrew Scriptures as works of reason – a framework that I hope will be of assistance to both scholars and lay readers who are interested in investigating the Hebrew Scriptures for their philosophical content; and that can serve as a guide to instructors, both at the university level and more generally, who are interested in bringing the study of the ideas of the Bible into the classroom.