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In Potiphar's House: The Interpretive Life of Biblical Texts
In this illuminating study of early biblical interpretation, James Kugel examines a series of exegetical stories that elaborate on the Joseph narrative in Genesis. These stories--which appear in such diverse source as rabbinic midrash, Christian writing, liturgical poetry, and the Qur'an--often contain details or whole incidents not found in the Bible itself. In tracing the development and function of these tales, Kugel reveals a dynamic interpretive the living, changing significance of texts through generations of discussion, analysis, and application.
296 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 11, 2020
This is probably the best introduction to Midrash out there. The word "Midrash" in Hebrew comes from the word that means "to seek or inquire," and it fittingly describes the long and convoluted tradition of Jewish exegesis of texts, often thought to be "fanciful" due to them taking Biblical stories and stringing them out into all sorts of Biblical "what-if" scenarios. For example, in one story Potiphar's wife has a bunch of Egyptian ladies over for lunch and gives them a bunch of fruits and knives to cut with, and just as they are about to cut their luscious fruits, Potiphar's wife summons Joseph. Dazzled by his appearance, the women all miss and cut themselves and Mrs. Potiphar says, "If you are so dazzled by him that you cut yourselves, imagine what it must be like for me since I behold him every day." It's a fun story and Kugel looks at different versions and makes a plausible, but carefully measured case that the story is a mixture of earlier stories meant to ask a question about the Biblical story: for instance, why does Potiphar's wife talk to the women about Joseph and tell them that Potiphar sent a slave to mock them? Why does the text tell us Joseph was handsome before introducing Potiphar's wife? Kugel argues that the story was playfully answering these kinds of questions.
Obviously, this means that there is a LOT of work that can potentially be done to better understand Jewish exegesis, so this book very much daunted me in a lot of ways. However, the work is very rewarding since in two fascinating instances, the book clearly shows that Jewish exegesis was already at work at the time of Jesus and that Jesus in fact played off this tradition. For instance, there was already a verbal question about Jacob's ladder which John clearly riffed off of, and there were different ways of reading the command to not hate one's brother in Leviticus, some of which limited it to Jews. Dr. Edwards, professor of Hebrew at NSA, told me afterwards that he thinks the scribe asking Jesus about "who is my neighbor?" though definitely trying to justify himself was also asking a genuine exegetical question!
What this means, for me, is that we need to be slow to judge ancient sources, and that as Christians, we should be particularly patient with the way the Old Testament is interpreted in the New Testament. This also means that there's a lot more room for Grammatical-historical interpretation than I thought, since exegesis that seems to be mysterious may actually be exegesis, albeit by a more circuitous route than we thought. This is the one thing I would fault Kugel for (he calls the distinction between exegesis and eisegesis a pseudo-distinction, which would make hay of his own work in trying to know what Rabbinic exegesis was about.) Otherwise, this book helped me grow stronger in my faith and really exposed me to a wide and fascinating and fun world.
Obviously, this means that there is a LOT of work that can potentially be done to better understand Jewish exegesis, so this book very much daunted me in a lot of ways. However, the work is very rewarding since in two fascinating instances, the book clearly shows that Jewish exegesis was already at work at the time of Jesus and that Jesus in fact played off this tradition. For instance, there was already a verbal question about Jacob's ladder which John clearly riffed off of, and there were different ways of reading the command to not hate one's brother in Leviticus, some of which limited it to Jews. Dr. Edwards, professor of Hebrew at NSA, told me afterwards that he thinks the scribe asking Jesus about "who is my neighbor?" though definitely trying to justify himself was also asking a genuine exegetical question!
What this means, for me, is that we need to be slow to judge ancient sources, and that as Christians, we should be particularly patient with the way the Old Testament is interpreted in the New Testament. This also means that there's a lot more room for Grammatical-historical interpretation than I thought, since exegesis that seems to be mysterious may actually be exegesis, albeit by a more circuitous route than we thought. This is the one thing I would fault Kugel for (he calls the distinction between exegesis and eisegesis a pseudo-distinction, which would make hay of his own work in trying to know what Rabbinic exegesis was about.) Otherwise, this book helped me grow stronger in my faith and really exposed me to a wide and fascinating and fun world.
December 4, 2017
Helpful book, read for my Early Jewish Studies minor. Does a great job defining midrash and positing theories about how it may have come about.
June 27, 2022
This book had a big impact on how i see Torah study. I learned a lot and think if it’s lessons often.
July 5, 2012
Kugel provides a very interesting case study on how later literature develops ideas and themes from a biblical story.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews