Na hata hao Wayahudi wameibadilisha sana Biblia na walivyoiandika awali si inavyotafsiriwa leo, Biblia na Quran ni mkusanyiko wa vitabu vilivyoandikwa na watu wakipambana na mazingira yao, hizi habari za Mungu kuwapo ni za kimapokeo zaidi ya ukweli.
Ukisoma wasomi wa Biblia wanakueleza kwamba inavyotafsiriwa na waumini wengi ni tofauti sana na ukweli wa mambo.
Mfano mzuri ni hiki kitabu cha Profesa James L Kugel aliyekuwa anafundisha masomo ya Biblia Harvard, kachambua vizuri sana jinsi Biblia ilivyobadilishwa sana na tofauti kati ya inavyotafsiriwa na ilivyo kiukweli.
In How to Read the Bible, Harvard professor James Kugel leads the reader chapter by chapter through the "quiet revolution" of recent biblical scholarship, showing time and again how radically the interpretations of today's researchers differ from what people have always thought. The story of...
How to Read the Bible
A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now
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Scholars from different fields have joined forces to reexamine every aspect of the Hebrew Bible. Their research, carried out in universities and seminaries in Europe and America, has revolutionized our understanding of almost every chapter and verse. But have they killed the Bible in the process?
In
How to Read the Bible, Harvard professor James Kugel leads the reader chapter by chapter through the “quiet revolution” of recent biblical scholarship, showing time and again how radically the interpretations of today’s researchers differ from what people have always thought. The story of Adam and Eve, it turns out, was not originally about the “Fall of Man,” but about the move from a primitive, hunter-gatherer society to a settled, agricultural one. As for the stories of Cain and Abel, Abraham and Sarah, and Jacob and Esau, these narratives were not, at their origin, about individual people at all but, rather, explanations of some feature of Israelite society as it existed centuries after these figures were said to have lived. Dinah was never raped — her story was created by an editor to solve a certain problem in Genesis. In the earliest version of the Exodus story, Moses probably did not divide the Red Sea in half; instead, the Egyptians perished in a storm at sea. Whatever the original Ten Commandments might have been, scholars are quite sure they were different from the ones we have today. What’s more, the people long supposed to have written various books of the Bible were not, in the current consensus, their real authors: David did not write the Psalms, Solomon did not write Proverbs or Ecclesiastes; indeed, there is scarcely a book in the Bible that is not the product of different, anonymous authors and editors working in different periods.
Such findings pose a serious problem for adherents of traditional, Bible-based faiths. Hiding from the discoveries of modern scholars seems dishonest, but accepting them means undermining much of the Bible’s reliability and authority as the word of God. What to do? In his search for a solution, Kugel leads the reader back to a group of ancient biblical interpreters who flourished at the end of the biblical period. Far from naïve, these interpreters consciously set out to depart from the original meaning of the Bible’s various stories, laws, and prophecies — and they, Kugel argues, hold the key to solving the dilemma of reading the Bible today.
How to Read the Bible is, quite simply, the best, most original book about the Bible in decades. It offers an unflinching, insider’s look at the work of today’s scholars, together with a sustained consideration of what the Bible was for most of its history — before the rise of modern scholarship. Readable, clear, often funny but deeply serious in its purpose, this is a book for Christians and Jews, believers and secularists alike. It offers nothing less than a whole new way of thinking about sacred Scripture.
Bible Department Bar Ilan University 52900 Ramat Gan, Israel telephone: +9722 672-2197 website: www.jameskugel.com email: jlk@jameskugel.com 1. Born: August 22, 1945, New York, N.Y. I am married and have four children. 2. Education: Yale University, B.A. (1968) Harvard University, Junior Fellow...
Biography
James Kugel was the Starr Professor of Hebrew Literature at Harvard University for twenty-one years. He retired from Harvard to become Professor of Bible at Bar Ilan University in Israel, where he also served as chairman of the Department of Bible.
A specialist in the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Kugel is the author of more than eighty research articles and fifteen books, including
The Idea of Biblical Poetry,
In Potiphar’s House,
On Being a Jew, and
The Bible As It Was(this last the winner of the Grawemeyer Prize in Religion in 2001). His more recent books include
The God of Old,
The Ladder of Jacob,
How to Read the Bible, awarded the National Jewish Book Award for the best book of 2007,
In the Valley of the Shadow, and
A Walk Through Jubilees. He is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, and Editor-in-chief of Jewish Studies: an Internet Journal.
Bible Department
Bar Ilan University
52900 Ramat Gan, Israel
telephone: +9722 672-2197
website:
www.jameskugel.com
email:
jlk@jameskugel.com
1. Born: August 22, 1945, New York, N.Y. I am married and have four children.
2. Education: Yale University, B.A. (1968)
Harvard University, Junior Fellow (1972-76)
City University of New York, Ph. D. (1978)
3. Areas of interest: Hebrew Bible; history of biblical exegesis; Judaism.
4. Positions held: Andrew Mellon Faculty Fellow, City University (1978-79)
Lecturer, Harvard University (1979-80)
Assistant Professor, Religious Studies and Comparative Literature, Yale University (1980-82); Associate Professor (1982)
Starr Professor of Hebrew Literature, Harvard University (1982-2003)
Professor of Bible, Bar Ilan University (1992-2013)
Professor Emeritus, Bar Ilan University, 2014—
5. Memberships and Offices:
Poetry Editor,
Harper’s Magazine (1972-4)
Co-founder and associate editor,
Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History (1981-2000)
Executive Board, Association for Jewish Studies (1983-84)
Chairman, Department of Near Eastern Languages, Harvard University (1987-91)
Director, Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University (1996-2001)
Editorial Board, Jewish Studies Quarterly (1993-2003)
Member, American Academy for Jewish Research (1999-2003)
Founder and editor-in-chief,
Jewish Studies: an Internet Journal (2002- present)
Director, Institute for the History of the Jewish Bible, Bar Ilan University (2003-10)
Chairman, Department of Bible, Bar-Ilan University (2006-09)
Editorial Board,
Themes in Biblical Narrative – Jewish and Christian Traditions (series, Brill Publications, Leiden)
Editorial Board, פרשנות ובקורת (Bar Ilan)
Editorial Board, שנתון המקרא (Jerusalem)
Editorial Board,
Biblische Notizen—Neue Folge (Vienna) (2010-present)
Editorial Directorate, מוסד ביאליק מו”ל
Editorial Board, Journal of Ancient Judaism (2011-present)
6. Awards and Prizes: Phi Beta Kappa (1968), Wrexham Prize (1968), Fulbright Graduate Fellowship (1968), Danforth Graduate Fellowship (1968), Woodrow Wilson Fellow (1968), Bryant Dissertation Prize (1977), A. Mellon Fellow (1977), Ingram Merrill Fellow (1978), S. F. Morse Faculty Fellow (1981-82).
The Idea of Biblical Poetry was supported by awards from the F. Hilles and A. W. Griswold Funds, and received the book prize of the American Jewish Committee (1982). Research for
In Potiphar’s House was sponsored by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1988-89).
The Bible As It Was was supported by awards from the Alan M. Stroock Publication Fund for Jewish Studies and a grant from the Littauer Foundation. It was among five finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award in the category of General Nonfiction.
Traditions of the Bible was honored with a special session at the 1999 Society of Biblical Literature convention.
The Bible As It Was and
Traditions of the Bible were jointly awarded the $200,000 Grawemeyer Award for the best book in Religion, 2001.
How to Read the Bible was awarded the prize for the best book in any category by the National Jewish Book Awards, 2007. It was chosen as one of the New York Times “Best Books of 2007, All Categories.”
Outside the Bible, coedited with Louis Feldman and Lawrence Schiffman, was just awarded the National Jewish Book Award for Scholarship, 2014.