The Bible As It Was

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The Bible As It Was

Author: James L. Kugel
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Publisher: Belknap Press
This is a companion to the Bible like no other. Leading us chapter by chapter through key biblical stories—from Creation and the Tree of Knowledge through the Exodus from Egypt and journey to the Promised Land—James Kugel shows how a group of anonymous ancient interpreters radically transformed the Bible and made it into the book that has come down to us today. Here, for the first time, we can witness the development of the Bible “As It Was” at the start of the common era—the Bible as we know it.
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James Kugel’s The Bible As It Was is an eye-opening study of early scriptural interpretation. Kugel focuses on readings of the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) from 100-300 A.D., particularly the Jewish tradition of midrash—a practice of filling in the narrative gaps where biblical stories are ambiguous or unclear. Kugel’s interest in midrash is more than academic, however. He wants readers to consider the ways these early readings of the Bible affect today’s popular understandings of scriptural texts (such as the sacrifice of Isaac or the creation in Genesis); and he provides a convincing description of the richness and complexity that informs what seem to many like simple, commonsense readings of scripture.

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