What do you think?
Rate this book
The Book of God: A Response to the Bible
Is the Bible one book or a collection of writings? If it is a book, does it stand as a coherent piece of literature? In this beautifully written book Gabriel Josipovici answers these questions, drawing on his deep knowledge and appreciation of medieval and modern art and literature and on his personal understanding of the possibilities of narrative. His close textual analysis of the Bible not only lifts literary-biblical criticism to a new level but also makes the Bible accessible to our secular age.
"As 'A Response to the Bible,' The Book of God is fresh and energetic, scattering insights in all directions, making original and unexpected connections between the Bible and such modern authors as Proust, casting new light upon such questions as the Bible's place in Western culture and the nature of its authority, the unity and discontinuities of the text, and the need for a perspective that at once transcends and unites historical-theological and aesthetic interpretation." Northrop Frye
"His book is easy, intimate, and direct, partly because he has digested all his learning, partly because his dissatisfaction with his predecessors' solutions never belittles them, and partly because his own readings are those of a cultivated contemporary who, though respectful, is not awestruck. Whatever he turns to, he illuminates." The New Yorker
"Josipovici's insights . . . deserve and need to be pondered by both literary critics and Biblical scholars." John Barton, London Review of Books
"His urbane style, shrewd discernment, subtle humour, and, above all, his passion for words lead us to listen in fresh ways." Walter Brueggemann, Theology Today
"This is a book to be grateful for: thoughtful, deeply felt, and beautifully written." David Lodge, Independent
Gabriel Josipovici is a novelist, literary theorist, critic and scholar. He was Professor of English at the University of Sussex, and Weidenfeld Professor of Comparative Literature at Oxford, and is now research professor in the Graduate School of Humanities, Sussex.
"As 'A Response to the Bible,' The Book of God is fresh and energetic, scattering insights in all directions, making original and unexpected connections between the Bible and such modern authors as Proust, casting new light upon such questions as the Bible's place in Western culture and the nature of its authority, the unity and discontinuities of the text, and the need for a perspective that at once transcends and unites historical-theological and aesthetic interpretation." Northrop Frye
"His book is easy, intimate, and direct, partly because he has digested all his learning, partly because his dissatisfaction with his predecessors' solutions never belittles them, and partly because his own readings are those of a cultivated contemporary who, though respectful, is not awestruck. Whatever he turns to, he illuminates." The New Yorker
"Josipovici's insights . . . deserve and need to be pondered by both literary critics and Biblical scholars." John Barton, London Review of Books
"His urbane style, shrewd discernment, subtle humour, and, above all, his passion for words lead us to listen in fresh ways." Walter Brueggemann, Theology Today
"This is a book to be grateful for: thoughtful, deeply felt, and beautifully written." David Lodge, Independent
Gabriel Josipovici is a novelist, literary theorist, critic and scholar. He was Professor of English at the University of Sussex, and Weidenfeld Professor of Comparative Literature at Oxford, and is now research professor in the Graduate School of Humanities, Sussex.
365 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
1 person is currently reading
171 people want to read
About the author
Gabriel Josipovici
55 books73 followersGabriel Josipovici was born in Nice in 1940 of Russo-Italian, Romano-Levantine parents. He lived in Egypt from 1945 to 1956, when he came to Britain. He read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, graduating with a First in 1961. From 1963 to 1998 he taught at the University of Sussex. He is the author of seventeen novels, three volumes of short stories, eight critical works, and numerous stage and radio plays, and is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement. His plays have been performed throughout Britain and on radio in Britain, France and Germany, and his work has been translated into the major European languages and Arabic. In 2001 he published A Life, a biographical memoir of his mother, the translator and poet Sacha Rabinovitch (London Magazine editions). His most recent works are Two Novels: 'After' and 'Making Mistakes' (Carcanet), What Ever Happened to Modernism? (Yale University Press), Heart's Wings (Carcanet, 2010) and Infinity (Carcanet, 2012).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 22, 2021
The Medium Is Not The Message
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” From its opening sentence in the book editorialised as Genesis, the Bible is flooded with ambiguity, especially in the original Hebrew.* What is it that God has done? Organised a pre-existing chaos or brought into existence the fundamental stuff of the world? And how was it done? Through a divine thought separate from divinity itself? By the utterance of pre-linguistic word? Or perhaps through a command given to nothing to become something?
That opening sentence and its successors all demand interpretation. And according to Josipovici, not to mention history, the Bible is likely unique in the plethora of interpretations that are possible - many highly interesting, provocative and instructive, but none definitive.
The Bible’s ambiguity is not incidental. Uncertainty and fecundity of meaning are its central characteristics. The Bible itself in both its Jewish and Christian versions is the product of numerous re-interpretations of itself by story-tellers, writers, editors, and redactors. It is in effect a reflection of religious thinking about itself, a self-referential and therefore self-contained entity whose unity can only be discerned within itself.
As Josipovici shows, the fragmentary additions, emendations, and substantial alterations to the sacred texts over time have resulted in a rather unexpected unified whole whose parts cannot be understood without an appreciation of this whole. Certainly the narrative subject of this whole is a story of Creation, the Fall into sin, and Redemption. But there is also an abiding meta-narrative of the unintelligibility of divine intention at any moment. The God of the Bible is nothing if not surprising in the apparent range and intensity of his emotions, his frequent contradictory actions, and his essential inscrutability.
This is the point, something the characters of the Bible couldn’t know about, neither the narrators, nor the prophets, perhaps not even Jesus. But the reader cannot but be aware that the God of the Bible is inherently unknowable. This is the message of the whole not its parts, although its parts contribute to the overall meaning. When asked his name by Moses, God answers with a non-answer: Being. Nowhere in the Bible is God described or reasons given for his attitudes which are often vengeful, erratic, and simply cruel. Such descriptive presumptions as are made are recorded as blasphemy. God is hidden, mysterious, beyond any rationale of existence or action. In short God is entirely outside of any language used to recount God, divine actions, or human imperatives implied by these actions. God’s word may be the cause of everything but no one except God is privy to the divine vocabulary or grammar.
In a sense, as most religious authorities are keen to insist upon, revelation of divinity stopped at some point in history - for Jews after the completion of the Writings, for Christians after the death of the Apostles. Revelation perhaps did end when the Bible itself could no longer be pinned down to a specific meaning. What follows then is a virtual infinity of interpretations reflecting the depth and scope of Biblical concerns. God and his revelations, unlike most ancient myth and the conceits of modern science, explain nothing. They prove all explanations inadequate and presumptuous.
In other words, the Bible provides a spiritual and cultural agenda. It is not a “how to” for a life of good but a challenge to identify the good and act accordingly. It is also a warning that the most important aspect of this challenge is the self-serving rationalisations which blind us to the good. We are trapped in our own self-interests and in the very language that we use to determine the good. The Bible’s enduring brilliance is its repetitive insistence that it should not be used for precisely these justifications. As the great 20th century theologian, Karl Barth, noted: God’s word is not Man’s word. And ultimately that is what the Bible is: Man’s word trying to reach beyond itself. When it is taken as more, it fails entirely.
* One of the many facts ignored by biblical literalists (as well as the casual reader) is the relative grammatical paucity of Hebrew. Tense for example is suggested by context, and often even then only incompletely. In addition, the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament contains only word roots - consonants without their accompanying vowels - which may have vastly disparate meanings depending on the vowels attached. Add to that the inherent difficulties (sometimes impossibilities) involved in any translation from one language to another and the silliness of literalists becomes obvious. Paradoxically, the Septuagint translation of the original Masoretic text is in Greek, arguably the most precise and grammatically nuanced language ever developed - perhaps making the translation appear far more definitive than it actually is.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” From its opening sentence in the book editorialised as Genesis, the Bible is flooded with ambiguity, especially in the original Hebrew.* What is it that God has done? Organised a pre-existing chaos or brought into existence the fundamental stuff of the world? And how was it done? Through a divine thought separate from divinity itself? By the utterance of pre-linguistic word? Or perhaps through a command given to nothing to become something?
That opening sentence and its successors all demand interpretation. And according to Josipovici, not to mention history, the Bible is likely unique in the plethora of interpretations that are possible - many highly interesting, provocative and instructive, but none definitive.
The Bible’s ambiguity is not incidental. Uncertainty and fecundity of meaning are its central characteristics. The Bible itself in both its Jewish and Christian versions is the product of numerous re-interpretations of itself by story-tellers, writers, editors, and redactors. It is in effect a reflection of religious thinking about itself, a self-referential and therefore self-contained entity whose unity can only be discerned within itself.
As Josipovici shows, the fragmentary additions, emendations, and substantial alterations to the sacred texts over time have resulted in a rather unexpected unified whole whose parts cannot be understood without an appreciation of this whole. Certainly the narrative subject of this whole is a story of Creation, the Fall into sin, and Redemption. But there is also an abiding meta-narrative of the unintelligibility of divine intention at any moment. The God of the Bible is nothing if not surprising in the apparent range and intensity of his emotions, his frequent contradictory actions, and his essential inscrutability.
This is the point, something the characters of the Bible couldn’t know about, neither the narrators, nor the prophets, perhaps not even Jesus. But the reader cannot but be aware that the God of the Bible is inherently unknowable. This is the message of the whole not its parts, although its parts contribute to the overall meaning. When asked his name by Moses, God answers with a non-answer: Being. Nowhere in the Bible is God described or reasons given for his attitudes which are often vengeful, erratic, and simply cruel. Such descriptive presumptions as are made are recorded as blasphemy. God is hidden, mysterious, beyond any rationale of existence or action. In short God is entirely outside of any language used to recount God, divine actions, or human imperatives implied by these actions. God’s word may be the cause of everything but no one except God is privy to the divine vocabulary or grammar.
In a sense, as most religious authorities are keen to insist upon, revelation of divinity stopped at some point in history - for Jews after the completion of the Writings, for Christians after the death of the Apostles. Revelation perhaps did end when the Bible itself could no longer be pinned down to a specific meaning. What follows then is a virtual infinity of interpretations reflecting the depth and scope of Biblical concerns. God and his revelations, unlike most ancient myth and the conceits of modern science, explain nothing. They prove all explanations inadequate and presumptuous.
In other words, the Bible provides a spiritual and cultural agenda. It is not a “how to” for a life of good but a challenge to identify the good and act accordingly. It is also a warning that the most important aspect of this challenge is the self-serving rationalisations which blind us to the good. We are trapped in our own self-interests and in the very language that we use to determine the good. The Bible’s enduring brilliance is its repetitive insistence that it should not be used for precisely these justifications. As the great 20th century theologian, Karl Barth, noted: God’s word is not Man’s word. And ultimately that is what the Bible is: Man’s word trying to reach beyond itself. When it is taken as more, it fails entirely.
* One of the many facts ignored by biblical literalists (as well as the casual reader) is the relative grammatical paucity of Hebrew. Tense for example is suggested by context, and often even then only incompletely. In addition, the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament contains only word roots - consonants without their accompanying vowels - which may have vastly disparate meanings depending on the vowels attached. Add to that the inherent difficulties (sometimes impossibilities) involved in any translation from one language to another and the silliness of literalists becomes obvious. Paradoxically, the Septuagint translation of the original Masoretic text is in Greek, arguably the most precise and grammatically nuanced language ever developed - perhaps making the translation appear far more definitive than it actually is.
August 1, 2019
The temptation to be inflexible assails us whenever we read a book....p23
When that book is the bible, we have seen where that tendency has led.
Clearly a book is being misread if the reader assimilates it so entirely to himself that he palpably distorts what it is saying in order to make it fit with his needs and desires..... p4
With infinite patience and loving attention to detail, GJ attempts to set the record straight by examining the continual power of the bible and its impact on civilizations. Calling on an unusual assortment of literary and popular commentators, poets and musicians as well as scholars, especially Proust and Wallace Stevens; and by highlighting the elements of rhythm as well as streams of meaning we may have missed, his unusual and creative approach bridges a gap for those with an inclination to dismiss the bible entirely. He also addresses the dangers of hiding within its covers.
In the Hebrew bible...a question is never meant to throw up a decisive answer only another question. p177
By themselves, words are nothing, mere words/ But without words there is nothing either. p158
When that book is the bible, we have seen where that tendency has led.
Clearly a book is being misread if the reader assimilates it so entirely to himself that he palpably distorts what it is saying in order to make it fit with his needs and desires..... p4
With infinite patience and loving attention to detail, GJ attempts to set the record straight by examining the continual power of the bible and its impact on civilizations. Calling on an unusual assortment of literary and popular commentators, poets and musicians as well as scholars, especially Proust and Wallace Stevens; and by highlighting the elements of rhythm as well as streams of meaning we may have missed, his unusual and creative approach bridges a gap for those with an inclination to dismiss the bible entirely. He also addresses the dangers of hiding within its covers.
In the Hebrew bible...a question is never meant to throw up a decisive answer only another question. p177
By themselves, words are nothing, mere words/ But without words there is nothing either. p158
Read
September 14, 2021I didn't learn much from this book. I think the author forced things a bit it trying to make the Bible seem more cohesive than it really is to try to make it pass as a work of literature.
There was an unexpected benefit. The author kept invoking Proust to illustrate the approach of the Bible. I had not read any Proust, so decided to read some of him instead in hopes of understanding the Bible book. It didn't really help. But I got hooked on Proust and am reading Book 3 right now.
There was an unexpected benefit. The author kept invoking Proust to illustrate the approach of the Bible. I had not read any Proust, so decided to read some of him instead in hopes of understanding the Bible book. It didn't really help. But I got hooked on Proust and am reading Book 3 right now.
July 7, 2009
A lovely, cogent look at the Bible as a unity unto itself. Josipovici makes the case for encountering the Bible on its own terms as opposed to simply as a historical document, as literature, or as a book from which to derive constant existential revelation. HIs prose is delightfully lucid, and his treatment of the Bible is kind and fresh (at least to me-- it was written in 1986).
Want to read
June 1, 2021Alan Jacobs mentioned this book in class (Nov. 5, 2013)—we need to see Scripture as a story.
March 6, 2025
Much better than I expected. The Bible is often interpreted in a modern way that misses the way in which the ancients understood reality and the events that occurred in the world. The Bible is unlike any other narrative structure that exists, and it is not like other near-eastern traditions or myths.
March 13, 2014
Just might have been a critical masterpiece wasted on me. But I "did not like it" and still rated it "OK".
June 28, 2008
This author has read a LOT more good books than I have read!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews