James Kugel and Robert Alter, two of the most notable American Hebraists working today, have both surfaced in mainstream media publications recently. (This via PaleoJudaica, which mentioned the stories here and here [compare here].)

The New York Times reviewed James Kugel's gargantuan How to Read the Bible on Saturday. Kugel, who calls himself and American and a Zionist, and who proved his conviction by relocating from Harvard to the Orthodox Bar-Ilan Univeristy outside Tel Aviv (he says he did it for the tomatoes), has started a web site in connection with the new book, www.jameskugel.com. The site is a work in progress, though it does already contain an appendix on "Apologetics and Biblical Criticism."

The NYT review focuses on Kugel's thesis that "ancient interpreters" and "modern scholars" have interpreted the Bible in radically different ways.

Charles Augustine Briggs, a 19th-century pioneer of modern biblical scholarship, declared that by sweeping away the “rubbish” of centuries of biblical interpretation, modern scholars would finally “recover the real Bible.” Professor Kugel admires the audacity and genius of scholars like Briggs, but he believes that in their contempt for the “rubbish” of ancient interpretation, modern scholars have let the “real Bible” elude them. They have been left, instead, with “the raw material that made up the Bible.”

The reviewer wonders if the two approaches have to be seen as irreconcilable. Given this summary, I imagine I can see why Kugel was among the few who came to the Childs session in Vienna this summer (mentioned near the end of this post).

Yesterday, NPR's All Things Considered (one of the things I miss most about commuting in the US of A) broadcast Robert Siegel's interview of Robert Alter, about his new translation of the Psalms. In the interview Alter explains why "soul" is a bad translation of "nephesh." Translations can be "like those thick layers of veneer that were put down on paintings in the Victorian period so you couldn't see the true colors." They impose later ideas about the division of body and soul, or about the soul surviving after death, onto the ancient text. "I scrupulously avoided 'soul' in order not to give the wrong impression."

Alter also reads Psalm 8, drawing attention to translation choices that aim to preserve the strong rhythms and compactness of the original Hebrew. He comments about the strange mythical language preserved in Psalm 82, which has God among the gods. "Our God, the big guy, presides over the assembly." He summarizes the message to the small-g gods: "You're going to be demoted to human status because you haven't done your job of administering justice."

Listen to the entire interview. It's not long. NPR also includes an excerpt of Alter's translation and commentary on Psalm 23.

Very much looking forward to browsing both books when I can get my hands on them.

POST SCRIPT (20 Sept): Kugel's online appendix is worth reading. In it he actually goes after Alter a bit (similarly Jon Levenson, whose Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son I reviewed just last night), proving that the alignment which brought them together here does not entail alignment in other matters—obviously.

Professor Kugel, if you should happen to find this, thank you for your efforts on your web page, especially for publishing some real content there.

Tags: Psalms