How to Read the Bible (review)

Marc Zvi Brettler is one of the editors of The Jewish Study Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), which should be on the shelves of all students of the Bible, whether Jewish or not. How to Read the Bible hits the same standards of excellence. It sets out to introduce the reader to modern critical study of the Hebrew Bible. There are many similar works on the market, but few if any designed, as this is, specifically for a Jewish readership, by a writer who is himself an observant Jew. He tries to show the benefits of reading critically, and to deflect the suspicion that critical approaches are a kind of crypto-Christian way of reading the heritage of Judaism, or a rationalistic attack on it.

After an introduction to historical-critical method, the chapters broadly follow the order of books in the Hebrew Scriptures, Torah, Prophets, and Writings, though pragmatically Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah are handled immediately after the Former Prophets since they are also “history” books. There is also a brief history of ancient Israel, and a concluding chapter on how the Bible came together. Though the presentation assumes little previous knowledge beyond what a religious person would have come by in the ordinary course of events, the notes and bibliographies are so comprehensive and up to date that anyone who followed them up would get a very clear picture of the present state of biblical studies. Modern critical study does not divide along religious lines, and the book would be as useful to a Christian or nonreligious reader as to the Jewish readership it is intended for.

Many current debates are covered. The chapter on Genesis looks not only at the vexed question of source criticism but also at contemporary disputes about creation and “creationism.” Archeology in the Middle East is discussed in the context of the emergence of Israel as a distinctive people. There is good coverage of the covenant with David and eventual messianism, and of the development of prophecy throughout the time span covered by the Bible. Wisdom writings ( Job, Proverbs, Qohelet) are treated against their ancient background, for many similar books are known from other cultures. There is a good chapter on the Psalms, doing justice both to their function as religious lyrics and to their possible liturgical use in the First and Second Temples. I could not think of any area of biblical study that ought to be here and isn’t.

In an Afterword, Brettler engages with the feeling some readers may have that critical study undermines faith and loyalty to Judaism (very similar problems exist in Christianity). “After all,” he writes, “it is easy to read the previous pages as an acute case of ‘Bible bashing.’ I have emphasized the composite nature of the Bible, treating it as a human, rather than a divine, work. . . . I have made the following claims: the beginning of Genesis is a ‘myth’; the Exodus did not happen; and Joshua did not fight the battle of Jericho and make the walls come tumbling down. Further, I have stated that much of the material in the Bible’s historical texts is not historical; that not everything found in the work known as Amos (or Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or Ezekiel) was written by Amos (or Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or Ezekiel), and that David composed none of the psalms” (p. 279). How is this possible for one who acknowledges that he is an observant Jew? In a very few pages, Brettler sketches an answer to this question, unpacking the following dictum: “The Bible is a sourcebook that I—within my community—make into a textbook. I do so by selecting, revaluing, and interpreting the texts that I call sacred” (p. 280, author’s emphasis). He acknowledges that this involves walking a tightrope between critical and traditional Jewish modes of reading and interpreting the Scriptures. But he argues that Judaism is specially well placed to cope with the huge variety of critical approaches precisely because rabbinic reading of...