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  • The Secular Bible: Why Nonbelievers Must Take Religion Seriously
  • Jorunn J. Buckley
The Secular Bible: Why Nonbelievers Must Take Religion Seriously. By Jacques Berlinerblau. Cambridge University Press, 2005. 217pages. $55.00.

When Professor Berlinerblau is preparing to present an academic paper, he often takes off his well-tailored jacket, seems to don imaginary boxing gloves, fixes the audience with a conspiratorial glance, and starts speaking with a dizzying velocity. This book fits the presentation style. The book has already seen a second printing and has sold in the thousands, and it soon becomes clear why. The organizational principles of the material are not exactly traditional, and neither are the contents. Departed and lamented scholars such as Gösta Ahlström, Marvin Pope, and Morton Smith would probably have cherished and chuckled over this work. [End Page 551]

Berlinerblau provides the reader with copious notes (spanning pages 143–197) to each of the eight chapters (in three parts), a Preface and Acknowledgments, Introduction, Conclusion, and four indices. The title of the Introduction is "Secularists and the Not Godless World." Here Berlinerblau sets out his program, which is restated in the Conclusion, called "Beyond Church and State: New Directions for Secularism." These two segments form the bookends (so to speak) to serious charges and startling announcements delivered in a language befitting a scholar who might, perhaps, double as a stand-up comedian. But a reader should not be misled into thinking that the author will shout out a barrage of disconnected one-liners.

Very few secular scholars are able to speak intelligently about religion, says Berlinerblau (6), and this lack in our culture spells a real crisis. How to address it? Berlinerblau exposes the sins of biblical scholars, who for generations have led not only themselves, but also the greater public, down the wrong paths. It must be said, at once, that for Berlinerblau, the "Bible" means the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, not the New Testament. (This immediately poses the question: when will Berlinerblau delve into the New Testament?) His main charge is that the texts of the Hebrew Bible are overwhelmingly incoherent and that Bible scholars have labored heavily to show that this is not the case. Interpretation willscoherence into existence.

In chapters 1 and 2 the author deals with the question of biblical authorship, treating ancient and modern responses, respectively. Berlinerblau notes that the Bible is a collection of scrolls and that the text constitutes an unselfconscious artifact (28). No identifiable authors—and certainly no "mono-author"—can be found.

In chapter 2 Berlinerblau starts pursuing his main theme: the poly-authorism of the Bible and the consequences this situation creates. A reader would be wise to begin consulting the notes right away, for they constitute veritable bibliographies, with many valuable insights and asides. For instance, Berlinerblau is astonished that many Biblical scholars hold on to the idea of a final redactor (160: 3), which he judges to be a "mono-author" delusion. Likewise, those questing for an "original author" are equally in error. But what happens in between? To trace the so-called history of reception would require teams of scholars, says Berlinerblau (169:16). Who "receives," and what do they have in their laps? The answer is: assemblages, aggregates, juxtapositions, and mountainous layers of texts that have been manipulated through the ages. Although Berlinerblau does not say so, I wonder whether the "original author" and the "final redactor" fixation reflect a monotheistic dream—a hope to find as few singular, important individuals as possible (all monotheistic persons, of course). If such cannot be found, the multitudes of unnamed authors and editors begin to resemble a messy polytheism. The ideal would be onefigure, divine or human (in contrast, cementing the single authorship of the Qur'an became imperative for Muslims).

With chapter 3, Berlinerblau provides a secular answer to the question of biblical authorship: poly-authorism. Necessarily this results in polysemy. Next Berlinerblau asks, almost plaintively, why there is so much biblical interpretation and why it is assumed that we—the moderns—think that the book is [End Page 552]about us or ancient people that oddly approximates "us" (65). In chapter 5 the...

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