Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible as It Was at the Start of the Common Era

Abstract

Traditions of Bible: A Guide to Bible as It Was at Start of Common Era, by James L. Kugel. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press,1998. Pp. xxii + 1055. N.P. The present volume, an expanded version of more popular work The Bible As It Was (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,1997), is a welcome exception to wearisome truth that much scholarly output is characterized by inconsequential aims and overblown execution. James Kugel pursues objectives that reach well beyond scope of his book, and his execution of agenda within extent of book is enchanting. Kugel's main objective is to offer a sampling of exegetical traditions that grew from early interpreters' reading of Pentateuch so as to give readers a sense of what he calls in book's subtitle the Bible as it was at start of Common Era (from third century scE to first century CE). By this he means Hebrew Bible as Jews and Christians experienced it in days of its gestation and infancy. He insists that those audiences rarely encountered Bible apart from these interpretations and that Bible became scripture for them precisely because of exegetical efforts of early interpreters. Because these interpretive efforts made Bible what it became, Kugel reasons that their fruits ought to be considered with Bible. Kugel also wants to reveal interpretive reasoning behind exegetical motifs that he explores, and to show that interpretation was traditional, that is, that exegetical motifs transcended individual interpreters and their works, being passed from one generation to next. And he wants to show his readers that, in spite of long history of difficulties between Judaism and Christianity, both were.nurtured from birth by same scriptures and interpretive traditions. But Kugel has even loftier goals in mind. In Afterword he bemoans loss of interest since Reformation in the Bible as it was. He blames this diminished regard for Bible's interpretive past on post-Renaissance interest in Bible's prehistory. This abiding fascination with Bible's compositional history severs scripture from interpretive tradition that confirmed its authoritative status and it impoverishes contemporary readers. Consequently Kugel hopes that his efforts will inspire in teachers, scholars, and lay readers renewed appreciation for the Bible as it was, and that their appreciation would show up in their instruction, publications, and faithful use of Bible as God's word. Kugel sets out to achieve his aims through twenty-five chapters that trace exegetical motifs deriving from an equal number of episodes in Pentateuch. Exegetical motifs emerged from early readers' fourfold conviction that Bible is cryptic, relevant, harmonious, and correct in all details, and inspired word of God. Consequently Bible's mysteries required elucidation, its relevance had to be brought to light, its apparent contradictions and errors had to be proven to be harmonious and correct, and its testimony to God's word demanded explication. Kugel culls witnesses to exegetical motifs from an astounding number of texts. His chief sources are 1 Enoch, Septuagint, Jubilees, Wisdom of Ben Sira, Dead Sea Scrolls, Wisdom of Solomon, writings of Philo and Josephus, Targums, and New Testament; but he also consults many lesser known and/or later works such as Cave of Treasures, Genesis Rabbah, and writings of such diverse early Christian writers as Ephraem, Justin, and Augustine. Each chapter begins with a summary of a biblical episode, continues by presenting exegetical motifs that developed from episode, and concludes with a new summary that takes into account exegetical motifs' transformation of biblical episode. …