How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now

by James L. Kugel

James Kugel’s essential introduction and companion to the Bible combines modern scholarship with the wisdom of ancient interpreters for the entire Hebrew Bible.As soon as it appeared, How to Read the Bible was recognized as a masterwork, “awesome, thrilling” (The New York Times), “wonderfully interesting, extremely well presented” (The Washington Post), and “a tour de force...a stunning narrative” (Publishers Weekly). Now, this classic remains the clearest, most inviting and readable guide to the Hebrew Bible around—and a profound meditation on the effect that modern biblical scholarship has had on traditional belief. Moving chapter by chapter, Harvard professor James Kugel covers the Bible’s most significant stories—the Creation of the world, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the flood, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and his wives, Moses and the exodus, David’s mighty kingdom, plus the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other prophets, and on to the Babylonian conquest and the eventual return to Zion. Throughout, Kugel contrasts the way modern scholars understand these events with the way Christians and Jews have traditionally understood them. The latter is not, Kugel shows, a naïve reading; rather, it is the product of a school of sophisticated interpreters who flourished toward the end of the biblical period. These highly ideological readers sought to put their own spin on texts that had been around for centuries, utterly transforming them in the process. Their interpretations became what the Bible meant for centuries and centuries—until modern scholarship came along. The question that this book ultimately asks What now? As one reviewer wrote, Kugel’s answer provides “a contemporary model of how to read Sacred Scripture amidst the oppositional pulls of modern scholarship and tradition.”

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, History, Theology, Judaism, Christianity, Biblical Studies

852 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 11, 2007

Reviews

[MCOH · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took Kugel's Hebrew Bible class at Harvard as a Freshman, almost 20 years ago. I loved listening to him lecture; I can still remember him chanting and bouncing, almost dancing on stage as he recited Biblical poetry: "He asked for water and she gave him milk, she brought him curds in a lordly bowl..." He was always so animated and absolutely fascinating; he was not only a good scholar (pretty common among Harvard professors), but a good teacher (which was rarer, and a real joy when you happened to find one). His enthusiasm for the material was always on display; he knew the Bible inside-out, loved it, and as an observant, orthodox Jew, he organized his life around its teachings.

This book more or less follows the outline for that class. He makes his way through the Bible (the Hebrew Bible, or what Christians call the Old Testament), and chooses various passages to analyze. Each passage is treated to two types of analysis. First, he discusses the way that ancient interpreters looked at this passage. Each word of the Bible was believed to be intentional and important. If a passage seemed confusing, redundant, or contradicted something found elsewhere in the book, that was a clue that you were hot on the trail of some hidden, divine message. Kugel shows how this view of the Bible led to a vast body of interpretive commentary, some of which is now part of our canonized Bible, and some of which can be found in the Talmud and other extra-biblical writings. These interpreters elaborated on the text in order to harmonize, clarify, expound, and edify, according to their assumptions about the text.

Next, Kugel shows how that same passage of scripture is viewed by modern Biblical scholars. As a general rule, the modern scholars take a more secular approach; they are reading the text less as a divine instruction manual for living and more as a historical artifact. They're interested in how this book came about - who wrote which verses and why, what it meant to them at the time it was written, how the book was assembled, what each passage explained in the surrounding world at the time it was written, how the beliefs and customs of the people changed over time, etc. Here, we get into the documentary hypothesis, archaeological evidence, etiological explanations, and so forth. Kugel does a great job of taking a very complicated body of scholarship and making it accessible to the layperson. I won't say that it was an easy read; it took me a while to get through this long, dense book. But it was fascinating, and he strives to give the non-expert all the necessary background to follow the arguments.

The real question for every religious Jew or Christian, after reading a book like this, is: what does this research mean to me? It's like eating a sausage after visiting the factory - it used to taste so delicious, but now that you know what went into it, you're not sure if you want to bite into another one. What does it mean to say that the Bible is the word of God, after pulling away the curtain to see the messy work of all the scribes/editors/redactors and other anonymous and very human contributors to this collection of books?

The LDS church has an interesting view of the Bible. On the one hand, we don't give the Bible the primacy that it holds in lots of Protestant churches. Rather than sola scriptura, we believe in continuing revelation through modern church leaders, as well as directly to us as individuals. Rather than believing in an infallible Bible, we're taught that the Bible is the word of God "as long as it is translated correctly". And rather than believe the Bible to be literally true in all its particulars, we believe that at least some of it is to be understood figuratively.

On the other hand, we have the Book of Mormon, which presupposes the Bible to be pretty much a straight-forward, historical account of God's dealings with his people. We also have the books of Abraham and Moses, (which I think would strike Professor Kugel as fascinating examples of midrashic commentaries on the Genesis accounts). And we've got plenty of quotes by modern church leaders, referring to Biblical characters and events in ways that don't leave much room for modern Biblical scholarship. So how can we reconcile our religion with the findings of modern academic research?

I'm not sure of the answer, but I thought it was interesting how Kugel answered this question for himself, vis-à-vis his own religion. Kugel says, "Modern Biblical scholarship and traditional Judaism are and must always remain completely irreconcilable. Individual Jews may…seek to speculate about how different parts of the Bible came to be written… but none of this speculation can have any part in traditional Jewish study or worship; indeed, the whole attitude underlying such speculation is altogether alien to the spirit of Judaism and the role of Scripture within it…The texts that make up the Bible were originally composed under whatever circumstances they were composed. What made them the Bible, however, was their definitive reinterpretation, along the lines of the Four Assumptions of the ancient interpreters… Read the bible in this way, and you are reading it properly, that is, in keeping with those who made and canonized the Bible. Read it any other way and you have drastically misconstrued the intentions of the Bible's framers."

I think what I got out of the last few pages of the book is this idea: We believe that there is a God. We want to approach him, to encounter him, to feel a connection to him. We want to serve him and follow his will and thus remain in a relationship with him. But as mere humans, we fumble and guess and wonder; to use a New Testament phrase, we see through a glass darkly. The Bible is a record of people's attempts to follow God, and beyond that, the study and interpretation of the Bible has been, for many, many generations of believers, a way to enter into that relationship with God.

Though the Bible has an awful lot of human fingerprints all over it, it seems that Kugel believes that there is some divine component to it. His last sentences of the book read, "So, while I could not be involved in a religion that was entirely a human artifact, it would, in theory at least, be enough for me if God said what He is reported to have said in Exodus and Deuteronomy: "Do you want to come close to Me? Then do My bidding, become My employees." The fleshing out of that primal commandment takes place in Scripture and outside of Scripture, and it is all one sacred precinct; indeed, the divine presence suffuses every part of it."

[Brent Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is in the wrong bookshelf - not Christianity, but Bible Studies. Kugel is a Jew and the book's focus is on the Hebrew Bible.

What's remarkable about this book is Kugel's status as a conservative, observant Jew, steeped in a tradition of Talmudic studies and commentary. The book is a dualism - giving two parallel readings to key Bible stories. He first gives the classical or "received view" based on internal readings of the text and rabbinical tradition. He then gives a reading based on current Bible scholarship, including text criticism, archealogy, regional history, etc. He shows the value of both readings, and leaves the reader to decide what to make of all of it.

He kind of ducks the question of how to reconcile the two views. But that's okay with me, because I walk that same divide myself in my own faith and understanding. So I have tremendous sympathy for his project. It's a line he may have trouble walking for long - because his own community may set some boundaries and reject his agenda. But for now it's very exciting to see a person appreciating both the conservative and more "progressive" takes on these stories.

I would look first to this book if I were teaching Sunday School on the Old Testament.

[Angie Miale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally I finished this super long book! I learned so much. It’s very dry in parts but I did learn a lot.

[Daniel Chaikin]

73. How to Read the Bible : A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now by James L. Kugel
2007, 777 pages Paperback brick
read Nov 28, 2011 - Nov 17, 2015, read along with the OT
Rating: 4.5 stars

My plan was to use this as advertised, as a guide in how to read the bible. I would read part of the bible and then read the corresponding chapter here. It started out well. He has some nice introductory essays then chapters in order on Genesis 1-3, then on Gen 4, then 6-8, then Gen 11...and so on. But then at some point it started skipping larger and larger sections, with no explanation, and then sections began to be covered out of order, or different non-adjacent books were discussed together, or entire books were barely touched on, or the same book would be split into different, not even adjacent chapters. There is no explanation as to why some things are covered and other things aren't, or as to why the order goes scrambled. Anyway, it's not that kind of a guide in How to Read the Bible.

What this book actually intends is to summarize all the latest biblical scholarship and also to capture the various interpretations of the bible through time. His essays are quite interesting as he covers what the ancient and medieval interpreters thought, then he brings up the ideas of modern scholarship, including many of his own ideas. Some of the best parts of the book are in the end notes - there are 79 pages of them. In many essays he brings up some really interesting problems...and then he stops. No conclusion. The essays just end.

He is very interested in the changing interpretations through time, especially those within the bible itself. Such as how did Song of Songs, a romantic love song, become a biblical book seen as about love of God? It's possible the words never changed as it evolved from one meaning to the other.

For modern scholarship, his guiding lights are Julius Wellhausen who is the originator of the Documentary Hypothesis, Hermann Gunkel, and William F. Albright. In his conclusion he has some very interesting things to say about modern scholarship. It began as a effort to search under the text for an original and now mainly lost meaning. What was found instead is that the bible was written in parts over a long period of time, and has no original meaning or core. But the side effect of all this scholarship was the reducing of the text from a divine to a human creation. There was a entire shift from learning from the bible to learning about it. In the process the loser was the Bible. No longer a sacred emblem, the scholarly insight, while fascinating, remains of interest only to scholars - and everyone else interested in the origins.

What Kugel mentions, but neglects, is the literary criticism of the bible, a different kind of scholarship. In western literature throughout time the bible has kept its divine value. And the text itself has significant literary elements and studying them requires a different but still real reverence. Of course this a different kind of reverence, and not the one the bible once held.

He has few words for fundamentalists and basically says that anyone who has studied the bible and is aware of the biblical scholarship knows better than to see anything within the text other than a complex human creation.

[Michael Nichols · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is a "How-to" in the sense of demonstration, rather than step-by-step instruction. Kugel models historical-critical interpretation, working his way through the Old Testament. I am not sympathetic to this method, but it is popular and important to understand. In that regard, this book is helpful and stimulating. It is important to note this work does not offer an apologetic of the method, so those looking for a defense of historical-criticism won't find it here. Kugel simply proceeds from the presuppositions, then dissolves the supposed purported events and stories with natural, rational explanations (e.g. phenomena like miracles can't happen, so he offers alternate explanations). So he's internally consistent, but not explicit about his presuppositions. Perhaps the most instructive chapter is the introduction, in which Kugel provides a brief history of the rise of historical-critical interp and how it differs from "ancient" interpretive methods.

One of my biggest qualms is the dismissive tone and rhetoric Kugel employs throughout the book. His favorite rhetorical structure is "ancient interpreters thought [X], but now modern scholars know [Y] is true." He ends almost every chapter this way. But the dichotomies--between ancient and modern, interpreters and scholars, theological and historical--are uncharitable at best, and misleading at worst. (Of course ancient interpreters couldn't be scholars in their own right. And it's a good thing historical-critical scholars have stripped away the theological significance to uncover the 'real meaning' of the text for us!)

One telling feature of the book is Kugel's reticence to discard "ancient meaning." At the end of his introduction he tells readers to keep an eye on the ancient interpreters and the meaning they find in the text, then he proceeds to practically mock their primitive ideas every chapter, before closing the book by stating that he can't shake himself of the ancient meanings, even though he "knows" they're wrong. (For example, he still participates in Jewish rituals, which he thinks are predicated on fictions, but are meaningful nonetheless). Like many modern interpreters, he seems haunted by the feeling of transcendence, the sense of more 'out there.' His book works so hard to exorcize the ghost of transcendence out of the machine of a mechanized, natural world. But the transcendence stubbornly abides. I think this reveals just how deeply unsatisfying modern, rationalistic, demythologized theology really is. Kugel--the guy who authored the premier book for those interested in historical-critical scholarship--simply cannot leave the enchanted, legendary world that his scholarship so doggedly eschews.

[Chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

If someone were to tell me that they’re looking for a book that goes through the whole Hebrew Bible; documents (in a fair way) the traditional and critical interpretations of the contents; pauses on occasion to provide the background of the growth of certain types of interpretations; balances Jewish and Christian ideas; is scholarly but readable; serious but humorous at times; and, in the end, offers one possible avenue for traditional believers to appreciate critical scholarship while also not abandoning their faith; then I’d say, Let me tell you about this book by James Kugel.

[Carlo Leroux · Rating 5 out of 5]

nothing could’ve prepared me for how passionate i’d one day be about the field of academic bible scholarship. i’ve been told to read the bible my whole life. it never interested me that much. it does now, because i’ve learned how to read it in a way that is true to me.

now i see it and the study of its creation for its anthropological, sociological, historical, and theological insights, etc. such a fascinating text when you take it for what it really is and what the original authors intended for it to be. for the first time in my life i can quote scriptures that are really meaningful to me. i could tell you about which books are my favorites and why they’re particularly interesting to me. i could point out what i dislike about it. what i think is blatantly wrong and actually harmful for modern day society. i could point out what i think truly does matter and its value to modern day society.

for me alone, it feels really nice. i feel like i actually understand spirituality for once. it just makes me sad sometimes that i can’t share most of my thoughts on God, spirituality, the bible, and religion with most people in my life.

[s · Rating 5 out of 5]

Does a great job of fleshing out the historical depth of the Hebrew Bible and the processes of its composition, compilation, and interpretation, from the deep-time layers of Genesis (the flood myth famously dating back to Gilgamesh) to the present moment of tensions (and agreements!) between modern academic thought and more canonical interpretations of the text. Shows, in a way I had never really encountered before, what a complex and fascinating thing it is to have this depth of transmission for a text with its form, content, and interpretation all receiving the imprints of historical events through that entire duration.

His approach to reconciling his faith in the more-than-human nature of the text with his erudition about its intensely human history is interesting, but ultimately feels like it doesn't quite square the circle and ends up in a position where you're just holding the two things apart. That is however a small underlying thread that does no harm to the historical scholarship that's condensed here.

[Asher Perl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took me four years, but at last I finished it!

[Connor Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

How to Read the Bible was exactly what I was looking for when I wanted to scratch the itch I had to know more about the history of the bible and its people. In fact, it went above and beyond the historically explanatory book I was looking for and fundamentally changed how I viewed the Bible, even as someone who was fairly familiar with the Bible before reading. The best part about the book doesn't have anything to do with the book itself, although there are countless parts that astonished me so much that I'm sure my family got sick of hearing me talk about it. The best part is the way that Dr. Kugel approaches hermeneutics. The definitive claims that are often found in other scholarly works of the bible or religion are nowhere to be found. The text presents the passages, discusses the historical context, language, potential original meaning, and what is understood by modern scholars and then leaves the conclusion making up to you. It's both fantastically refreshing and stimulates an environment where you can learn about the world's most read book with an open mind. The whole time, Dr. Kugel walks the ambiguous line between scholar and religious participant that leaves you wondering why more people haven't considered viewing the Bible in a less binary way all along.

[Souldaddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A treasure for any modern believer of both God and Science. The author's format is well-laid: passage by passage, he first defines how ancient interpretors have viewed Biblical subjects, then runs through the various findings of modern scholarship. Kugel doesn't shy from citing non-Biblical sources or tearing down firm-held believes of, say, fundamentalist Christians. Neither does he ever lose sight of his faith. It's a fine line to tread, and Kugel navigates it masterfully. I'd easily recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject, regardless of their beliefs.

[John Martindale · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this large work, Kugel goes through the Hebrew bible and contrast the ancient interpretations of the scriptures, with those of modern biblical scholars.

The ancients who gathered the text and made it canonical, seemed to interpret their scripture through the following assumptions. Firstly, the bible was considered to be cryptic, when it said A, it often meant B. This of course, assumed the Divine source that hid these truths beneath the surface message. Next, they assumed that though the scriptures do speak about history, it all contained authoritative and God given lessons, and instructions that were relevant in their own day. And finally, they believed the text was perfectly consistent and harmonious, containing no contradictions or mistakes.
This approach to scripture resulted in interpretations that to many of us moderns, seem forced, stretched, out of context and to diverge from the original meaning of the biblical authors.

The modern assumptions of critical scholars couldn't be more different. Every interpretation found in this book that references the contemporary guide to scripture seemed to flow from the following assumptions. 1. God never spoke or acted within history, so all claims of such must have a naturalistic explanation. 2. A biblical book was never written by the one whom tradition claimed to have written it. 3. Historical events in the bible either did not happen, or didn't happen as describe in the text, and all biblical characters are to be considered fictional unless irrefutable extra-biblical evidence suggest otherwise. The ruling assumption here is that the scriptures never can count as a historical source or evidence for any of the claims it makes. 4. The motives of the biblical authors for making up fictitious history and mythical characters was either solely etiological, political propaganda and spin, or were derive for some other nefarious end. 5. The actual biblical authors never had an original idea, but much of what they wrote was plagiarism, stolen from the surrounding nations.

How did such a shift occur?

First, I'll mention how within Judaism, though they embrace the interpretations that resulted from the ancient assumptions that the bible is cryptic, divinely inspired, consistent, and presently relevant, they didn't allow everyone to freely interpret the bible according to these assumptions for themselves, instead tradition was supreme. Christians interestingly held the same ancient assumptions, but their interpretative lens was Christ and Him crucified and their present religious context. Eventually, the church father's interpretations became what the bible meant for future Christians. And kind of like within Judiasm, everyone didn't have the privilege to approach the bible as individuals, instead the tradition of the church fathers carried the highest authority.

But then with the reformation, the questioning of church authority and the cry of “sola scriptura”, modern biblical criticism begin.
As Charles Augustus Briggs expressed so well “Holy Scripture, as given by divine inspiration to holy prophets, lies buried beneath the rubbish of centuries. It is covered over with the debris of traditional interpretation of the multitudinous schools and sects.... Historical criticism is digging through this mass of rubbish. Historical criticism is searching for the rock-bed of the Divine word, in order to recover the real Bible.”

Initially, these Christians still held the ancient assumptions, except for the first, for Enlightenment thinking undermined the belief that the bible was cryptic. They believed that they as individuals, using the historical-grammatical method could dig down and discover the original, clear and literal meaning of the author, which alone was the divinely inspired and authoritative Word of God. Tragically, this close inspection of scripture, ultimately undermined the other assumptions they held that the bible was consistent and perfect, historically sound, that it had relevant lessons and instructions for us today, and that God had any direct involvement in its creation. Many then, their faith shattered, swung to the opposite extreme, resulting in the modern assumptions that many biblical scholars now bring to the text.

After going through the Torah and sharing the evidence for the hyper-critical modern interpretation of the text, Kugel ask “Why should anyone seeking to worship God devote himself or herself to reading the etiological narratives and political self-puffery of civilizations long dead, the guerrilla tactics and court shenanigans of various ancient kings, law codes endorsing herem and the stoning of a rebellious child, or statues forbidding Molech worship and similarly outdated concerns, psalms specifically designed to accompany the sacrificing of animals at a cultic site, or erotic love poetry? All of these texts underwent a radical change in meaning when they began to be interpreted in the somewhat quirky, highly creative, and altogether God-centered approach of the ancient scholars in the late biblical period. The original meaning of these text disappeared. In a sense, ancient interpreters rewrote every one of them, even though they did not change a word. The question that poses itself to today's reader is: can we still read the Bible with the approach and assumptions that these ancient interpreters brought to it, even though modern biblical scholarship has now convinced many people that that way of reading is quite out of keeping with the original meaning of the text? Or (to refine the question a bit), if you and I now know a little too much to espouse the old way of reading naively and unquestioningly, can we somehow nevertheless mange to espouse it as what the bible (as distinguished from its original, constituent parts) means?”

Surprisingly, James Kugel who unlike conservative scholars, fully affirms this critical scholarship without any skepticism, does at the same time, as an orthodox Jew, sides with the ancient interpreters. Not in the sense, that we read and interpret the bible as individuals from these ancient assumptions, but rather that the proper way to read the bible, is to accept the traditional interpretations of it. I'll quote Kugel at length on this:

“The text that make up the Bible were originally composed under whatever circumstances they were composed. What made them the Bible, however, was their definitive reinterpretation, along the lines of the Four Assumptions of the ancient interpreters—way of reading that was established in Judaism in the form of the Oral Torah. Read the Bible in this way and you are reading it properly, that is, in keeping with the understanding of those who made and canonized the Bible. Read it any other way and you have drastically misconstrued the intentions of the Bible's framers.”
And later he wrote:
“Yet here is the most interesting point: the words of that Torah were evidently not sacrosanct. On the contrary, as we have seen throughout this study, their apparent meaning was frequently modified or supplemented by ancient interpreters—sometimes expanded or limited in scope, very often concretized through specific applications of homey examples, sometimes (as with “an eye for an eye”) actually overthrown. An Obvious question arises; if the law and the stories of the Pentateuch were deemed to come from God, how dare mere humans fiddle with them, adding to them, taking them out of context, changing their meaning, or even getting them to say the opposite of what they said?... this is, I believe the question to ask, since it reveals the very idea of Scripture at its essence. The answer is that there was something considered even more important, more powerful, than the words of the text themselves. That something was precisely the “standing up close” mentioned above: the supreme mission of serving God, of being God's familiar servants. Scripture was sacred, but more sacred still was the purpose underlying the very idea of Scripture. How else to explain that the Torah's laws could be treated as they were, modified even within the Bible itself, and then lavishly, unashamedly expanded and reinterpreted and applied to the concrete situations of daily life by the ancient interpreters? Indeed, this same tendency has carried through clearly even into modern times.
View from this perspective, the sometimes disturbing insights of modern scholarship must necessarily take on a different aspect. In Judaism, Scripture is ultimately valued not as history, nor as theology, nor even as the great, self-sufficient corpus of divine utterances—all that God had ever wished to say to man.,,,What scripture is, and always has been, in Judaism is the beginning of a manual entitled to Serve God, a manual whose trajectory has always led from the prophet to the interpreter from the divine to the merely human. To put the matter in, I admit, rather shocking terms: since in Judaism it is not the words of Scripture themselves that are ultimately supreme, but the service of God that they enjoin, then to suggest that everything hangs on Scripture might well be described as a form of... idolatry, that is, mistaking of the message for its Sender and the turning of its words into idols of wood and stone.”

It is extremely clear to me that biblical authors in the New Testament interpreted their own scriptures according to the ancient assumptions, they would all, including Jesus, get an F in a seminary course, due to their little interest in the historical, cultural and grammatical context of the text and lack of regard for the original meaning of the text. Of course, it is the same for the church fathers who came after them establishing orthodoxy, they clearly didn't use the historical-grammatical method. Sadly, I personally don't feel comfortable with using such an approach when I come to scripture and it is hard for me, to see how their interpretations are legit and authoritative, for the interpretive method they used can make the bible mean just about anything.
Many Christians today find comfort in just embracing tradition and accepting the church father's interpretation as authoritative and final. It still seems only legit to embrace the ancient interpretations of scripture, if they are, creatively built upon something somewhat solid.

I don't know how Kugel does it, to on the one hand accept the radical conclusions of modern scholarship that there is practically no historical basis for any of it; no Abraham, no Moses, no exodus, no David, no God acting or speaking in history, and yet to somehow be happy with the ancient interpreters who appeared to be utterly deluded about the foundation of their faith, and built upon this sandy makeshift foundation fanciful speculations.

I personally think Kugel created a false dilemma for his readers, for he presents the ancient interpretations which seem dubious and absurd to many of us modern readers, and then he only shares the claims from biblical scholars which utterly dismantle the original text. But what if there is a middle way? It seems even if one wants to accept the ancient interpreters as the authoritative meaning of the bible, it is easier to do so, if there was something, a tiny something concrete to their faith, believing that maybe perhaps God actually did reveal himself to Abraham for example. Sure, maybe there is legendary material, and a messy compiling of it, but it seems other more conservative scholars can make a decent case that there is reason to believe there is some historical basis to the faith.
My main problem with Kugel was that he hardly ever mentioned any objections to the biblical minimalist claims . For example, I've heard what sounded like strong arguments for the early dating of the exodus and conquest narrative, which results in a lot (though admittedly not everything) lining up with archaeological evidence. The late date doesn't seem to have anything going for it, other than the fact in giving it a late date, none of the biblical claims line up with the current archaeological data which is precisely what current scholarship is trying to prove. But now, if I said the American Civil War actually happened in the 1950's, I could then point out how there is no archaeological evidence for this war and that thus the American Civil War never happened. This is what it seems some scholars are doing. I'd appreciate if the author would have simply mention how some-scholars challenge the now fashionable late dating of the exodus for reasons x,y and z, even if he disagreed for reasons a,b and c. Instead he simply stated the late dating which implies there is no historical basis to any of it.

Maybe an already big book would be made too hefty if he shared a more balance view of the current state of biblical scholarship.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does a great job of making the history and literature sides of the Bible feel as important and vibrant as the stories it tells, and breaks down the various schools of thought on the origins of those stories with patience, charm, and a clear love of the field. Drags a little around the half way point, but overall an informative, sometimes humorous, often captivating read.

Highly recommended to anyone who just knows the surface of the Bible or its stories, this book could change your understanding of a huge part of the western world.

[Austin Dooley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kugel gives an incredibly broad summary of how modern OT critical scholarship compares with traditional religious interpretation, written to be understandable for any reader. After summarizing the data, he attempts to reconcile the embrace of modern critical scholarship with traditional, orthodox faith. I found this part of the book difficult to understand, which was disappointing, but I’m not sure whether his writing was the issue or just my comprehension. Overall I’d highly recommend the book for someone interested in the topic.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a showpiece of erudition--a real intellectual tour de force. Don't ask me to explain it in the space of this review. It's late at night and the weave of its central argument is too complex for me to manage that. Suffice it to say no other book I've ever read has so deeply enriched my understanding of the Hebrew Bible (i.e. the Old Testament) and its ancient and modern schools of interpretation. Everyone who cares at all about this spiritual cornerstone of Western civilization, monotheism, biblical history, or the Judaeo-Christian worldview should read this book. It's long, it's complicated, and, at times almost overwhelming in scope, but the writing is wonderfully clear and engagingly discursive. It will repay perseverance, so stick with it!

[Jean Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone who would like to get a clear picture of how Biblical scholars have understood the Bible both historically and throughout the years of Bible study, this is the book. The author begins by letting the reader know he is a traditionally observant Jew and then, only in the final chapter, comes back to this and states his own position in the debates he reported thorough out the book.

[Avery Amstutz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um… so this book is good… but unless you are a super nerd, stay away? I’m going to buy it and plan to have it on my shelf for reference, but I will probably never again read it in its entirety.

[Camilla Coleman]

Read this for school

[John Jacobson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the audio book on Audible. At over 36 hours of listening well worth an Audible credit. This is one of those books that if someone asks, can you recommend a book that would give me an understanding of the Bible, then this is one I would recommend. Detailed & insightful, it leaves you with a panoramic understanding of the Old Testament, the context it was written in, and the way it has been interpreted over the centuries.

If you are looking for answers, this isn't the book for you, but then neither is the Bible. It's one that helps you think of the right questions to ask for your time and place.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very approachable read. Each chapter could be taken on its own, but there are a number of threads which flow throughout which Kugel brings together to great effect. Be ready to get your hands, and preconceptions, dirty.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a fair bit to wade through. From the title you might think the author it trying to tell you how to read the Bible…but this is not the case. What the author does is present a pretty thorough overview of what is thought to be the development of the Bible itself…and the way it has been read, or interpreted throughout the ages. Finally at the end he argues for his view of what the Bible is really all about. From this, you can chose the way you see best to view and read the Bible.

No one really knows how the Bible (Old Testament), in its present form, came to be. The best scholars can do really only amounts to a guess. It is thought that the five books of Moses existed long before the Babylonian exile…and some internal, linguistic evidence is presented for this. It is further believed that most of the current form of the Bible was developed in the “post exilic” (post Babylonian exile), or second temple time period. This is when all the books of the current bible were compiled, edited, and/or assembled into their current form. Also during this time period was when a tremendous amount of interpretive material was developed. The author calls the developers of this material the “ancient interpreters”. These “ancient interpreters” are responsible for a large majority of the way the Bible was read and interpreted by both Jews and Christians from this time period up to the reformation.

These interpretations are founded on four assumptions 1) The book is cryptic. Meaning when it says A it really means B. Or that the text has multiple layers of meaning…some allegorical 2) The book is a set of lessons directed to readers in their own day, 3) The book contains no contradictions or mistakes. Much of the volume of extra-biblical interpretations were devoted to resolving the many contradictions that exist in the book when the text is taken at face value. 4) That the book is divinely given text, a book where God speaks directly or through his prophets

This way of reading the Bible held until the reformation. Along with peeling away much of what the reformers felt were incorrect traditions that had built up in the Christian church, by the late 1800’s, a group of mostly German, Protestant scholars felt that science and scholarly progress had reached a state where these tools could be used to “peel away” all those centuries of interpretations…and that by doing so the “true bible” and “true meaning” of the book could be brought to light.

This is not what happen, however. What really happened was quite the opposite. Over the decades that followed this “modern scholarship” pretty much rewrote every line of the Bible and the way it was interpreted…in pretty much a uniformly “faith destroying” manner…for both Jews and Christians. These scholars used their own set of assumptions such as the “documentary hypothesis” (the first five books of the Bible were not written by Moses but by different authors), and other assumptions such as a belief that there is no thing such as prophecy. Thus anything that looks like a correct prophecy must have been written after the fact.

The author discusses reaction by both the Jewish and Christian communities (including the rise of Christian Fundamentalism) and presents his own argument that what the Bible really is is a set of instructions for how to “serve God.” If you want to serve God, then the Bible (Old Testament) will give you the details on how to do that.

The book goes through each book of the Old Testament. For each book it gives the view of the “ancient interpreters” and the “scholars”. He also discusses differences between Jewish understanding and Christian understanding of various “Messianic” texts in the book.

I found the book pretty interesting, and quite long. One of the more striking things, to me, probably because of my background as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was the author pointing out that the nature of God in the early part of the Bible does not agree with the nature of God in the later part of the Bible. The later part of the Bible presents God as what most people think of today as the three Omni’s: Omnipresent, Omniscient, and Omnipotent. In the early part of the Bible God seems to have a body. He travels to places…no need to do this if He were Omnipresent. He sends messengers to learn things…no need to do this if He were Omniscient. This is interesting to me, of course, because of my own beliefs but I don’t think I had considered all the implications of my beliefs.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a long time I have been wanting to read the bible from an academic perspective, and this was definitely a fantastic place to start. This is a truly fascinating book from start to finish. It will turn the most devout believer into a bit more of a skeptic (in a respectful way), and will give the most skeptical atheist a much greater appreciation of the profundity of the Hebrew bible.

[Mac · Rating 5 out of 5]

How should one read the (Hebrew) Bible? Is it the inerrant word of God, or is it exclusively the product of humans? James L. Kugel is uniquely qualified to tackle this big question, being both a professor of ancient Hebrew who has kept up-to-date with modern Bible scholarship, and a believing Orthodox Jew who now lives in Jerusalem. In each chapter Kugel takes a book or section of a book from the Bible, summarizes it, and then unpacks its difficulties of interpretation. He does so from two tacks, first showing how ancient interpreters resolved the difficulties, then detailing how modern scholars have explained the same problems. Kugel explains complicated concepts clearly and writes in an engaging way. Having recently finished reading the whole Bible, I loved learning much about both the ancient context of the Bible's creation, as well as the ingenious ways later Jews and Christians explained various apparent contradictions.

One might expect such a book to present the modern scholarship as debunking the ancient interpretations, but that is not Kugel's intention. For instance, when discussing the Psalms, many of which seem to have had specific uses in ancient Israelite temple rites, Kugel argues, "If, even within the biblical period, the Psalms came to mean something else—if people prayed the same words in a setting different from the intended one and with a different meaning, and if they have continued to do so for more than twenty centuries since—does it really matter that the original authors did not mean for their words to be used and understood in the way that we use and understand them?" (p 471). Or, confronting the Song of Songs, which clearly began as a non-religious love poem, Kugel suggests that some ancient reader must have looked at the poem and seen an alternate allegorical interpretation, effectively saying, "Listen to it my way, and it's not about a man and a woman at all." Kugel then asks, "if you and I now know a little too much to espouse that old way of reading naively and unquestioningly [i.e. assuming everything in the Bible is of divine origin], can we somehow nevertheless manage to espouse it as what the Bible (as distinguished from its original, constituent parts) means?" (pp 517-518). In the end, despite the fascinating insights of modern biblical scholarship, Kugel advocates this latter method of reading the Bible. Though scholars began with the admirable intention of getting back to the original meaning of biblical texts, he argues, they have in the process stripped away the very reason these texts were incorporated in the Bible in the first place.

Whether you end up agreeing with the author or not, this is a fascinating book. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about the Hebrew Bible, the origins of Judaism and Christianity, or just in how to read ancient texts in general.

[Ushan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Hebrew Bible is an accretion of various texts in Hebrew (with a little Aramaic here and there) collected over about 1000 years. Modern scholars know where much of it came from. The Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1-18) is written in very archaic Hebrew; chapter 14 of Exodus is prose rewriting of the poem; the part about Moses parting the waters of the Sea of Reeds comes from the rewriter's misunderstanding a line in the song. Likewise, the Song of Deborah in chapter 5 of Judges came first (its Hebrew is also archaic), and the story of Jael in chapter 4 was written by someone who misunderstood it. Likewise, chapter 1 of Jonah was written to give context to the poem in chapter 2. A lot of the Bible has parallels in other ancient Near Eastern writings. At the end of the flood story in the Bible, Noah sacrifices and Yahweh finds the smell pleasing; at the end of the flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Ut-Napishtim sacrifices and the gods find the smell pleasing. Many laws of the Pentateuch corresponds to laws of Hammurabi and other Mesopotamian lawgivers; the Ten Commandments look very much like Hittite treaties. In none of the voluminous Egyptian and Mesopotamian writings we have read is there any evidence of the Exodus story, or of a large empire of David and Solomon, or of the conquest of Canaan by outsiders. David did not write the Psalms, nor did Isaiah write all of the book of Isaiah, nor did Solomon write the books attributed to him. Now, ancient scholars, both Jewish and Christian, read the Hebrew Bible very differently from modern scholars. They believed that the Bible contains hidden meanings, that it is full of lessons for readers living hundreds or thousands of years into the future, that at a deep enough level it has no contradictions or mistakes, and that it is God-given or God-inspired as a whole. This way of reading developed gradually between 300BCE and 200CE, before the Biblical period was over; it was very popular during the European Middle Ages, when it was believed that every single verse of the Bible has four meanings: literal, allegorical, moral and eschatological; it still persists among Orthodox Jews and fundamentalist Christians. In the last chapter Kugel tries to reconcile his Orthodox Jewish faith with modern Biblical scholarship, but I find this pathetic.

[Josh Maddox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is it. This is The Book. If you want to understand how the Bible relates to history, start here. I've read tons on this subject, and this knocks everything else out of the park. Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible & Why We Don't Know About Them, is good for the New Testament, but it still isn't as good as this. If you're Jewish, or a Christian and want to know more about your own faith tradition, read it.

[Simcha York · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given the large number of books (including some with similar titles to the book under review here) that present the ideas and findings of modern biblical scholarship to lay readers, ultimately it's hard not to judge such a book based on what it has to offer that many of the others do not. In the case of James Kugel's How to Read the Bible, there really isn't a whole lot here that can't be found elsewhere.

The bulk of this work is a synopsis of Tanakh, or the Hebrew Bible, offering a comparison of how the works were received and interpreted by the Jewish sages and early Christian commentators and how they are read under the light of modern biblical scholarship. Kugel does offer some analysis of how such modern scholarship is informed by Christian, and specifically Protestant, assumptions about how to go about uncovering the truths of Scripture, but most of what is presented here will be familiar to anyone who has read other works presenting modern biblical scholarship to non-academic audiences.

Kugel ends with "a few disjointed observations ... jotted down over the years," which are brief but interesting and, had the ideas presented here been allowed to permeate and inform the entire work, would probably have resulted in a considerably more interesting book. Instead, we have a book that contains some solid scholarship and that can definitely serve as a fine introduction to modern biblical scholarship for the general reader, but which doesn't really offer much of anything new for those already familiar with the material.

[Bob Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Kugel has done the world a great service in How to Read the Bible. This book is the fruit of his decades of research.

While the title says "Bible," Kugel is a Jewish Hebrew Scripture scholar who concentrates on the Old Testament. But the principles he describes hold true for New Testament readers as well.

Kugel goes on to wrestle with the question, "how are we to read the Bible?" How are we to make sense of this? He goes through the various sections of the Old Testament describing in his theory how they came to be and how their meaning has changed over time.

For example, he will argue that the "Garden of Eden" account in Genesis 3 did not originate as a description of the "Fall of Mankind" but rather was an explanation of the shift to an agrarian culture. Later readings of this account ascribed the theological meaning of the Fall, especially seen through St Augustine and early Christian interpreters. Likewise the stories of David, which had very overt political meanings have come to be 'spiritualized' by subsequent readings.

This creates the crisis for Kugel and others of how do we then understand and read the Bible?

This is a book that everybody who deals with the Bible should at least be familiar with. Kugel's insights are those that should cross the mind of the modern theologian or pastor even if you do not agree with him or his conclusions.

I highly recommend this book to all who want to read and understand the Bible.

Grade: A+

[Richie Sevrinsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kugel's magnum opus encompasses all aspects of modern Biblical scholarship: archaeology, historical evidence, comparative literature, and centuries of religious thought. This is not a work to be taken lightly, particularly for the religiously observant (as I am), but is eminently rewarding for those willing to expand their horizons.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

High scholarly content. Probably a must read for anyone interested in apologistic defense of the Bible as the Word of God. Mainly because it skillfully presents a very humanistic argument for a relatively bleak conclusion.

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Acheological, linguistic and anthropological insights make this more than old wine in new bottles. I found myself constantly surprised, challenged and delighted by Kugel's approach.