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

from nbmars

James L. Kugel, a Harvard professor of religion and an Orthodox Jew, has written an exceptionally lucid analysis of the Hebrew Bible itself (the "Old Testamtent," as it was taught to me) as well analyses of modern biblical research and the interpretations given to it by the ancient interpreters o...

from yapete

This book is quite a tome, but Kugel is an excellent writer. His point is that, yes, modern Biblical scholarship is probably correct in many or most statements, but that this misses the point: The Bible was put together to advance certain viewpoints and when you read the Bible you need to underst...

from fingerpost

How to Read the Bible sort of straddles the line between books written for a general audience, and those of a more scholarly bent. Kugel explores the Hebrew Bible, looking both at the traditional rabbinic interpretations that were largely formulated around the first and second century BCE, and al...

from pjeanne

I enjoyed this book immensely. Tells you what the bible says and provides historical context along with the various ways each story has been interpreted. Allowed me to understand how and why people continue to place such importance on something that archeologists, historians and biblical scholars...

from McCauley

This is an excellent work which applies the latest Biblical studies to the Old Testament passages.