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

Philip Sumpter is currently doing a PhD at Cheltenham, but long distance from Bonn, Germany. Earlier this summer an acquaintance forwarded me a Yahoo group thread in which Phil got into a short discussion with Philip Davies over the significance of canon for biblical studies. This caught my interest for a variety of reasons which I won't go into here.

I noticed last week that Phil has started a blog, entitled Narrative and Ontology, and that he is embarking on a discussion of Childs' work, among many other things. He has already sparked quite a discussion! I see today that the first installment in the promised series was posted over the weekend. It's titled: Introducing Brevard S. Childs…

It's a busy time for me just now—final year PhD stuff: moving into a new flat this last weekend, looking for jobs, building the CV, and all the while attempting to write up and revise for submission—so it's hard to say how involved I'll get. But I do look forward to seeing what he has to say.

Last week, after I ventured too long an explanation of my thesis to my aunt and uncle, my uncle recovered from the semi-conscious state I had induced just enough to ask how many would read my work. ("Ten?" I guessed. "Excluding the examiners, if I'm lucky. And eight of them won't like it.") The question reminded me of some of the hazards of specialization. To cope with this, it is tempting to imagine that you're not just isolated with this highly specific knowledge, but that it makes you unique. Maybe, you think, I put the special in specialized. For instance, I have wondered before if I was not the youngest person to have made a project of reading through Childs' entire corpus. Obviously, if the conditions are framed carefully enough, most people can earn distinction in a given area, if only for themselves. But—and here's the point—it probably isn't true. Even Elijah had to be shown that there were 7000 left in the land.

So I am pleased to discover that others are interested in this topic. Good luck moderating, Phil.

UPDATE: I couldn't resist. See my additions to an already overlong thread here (then John's response), here (John's response again), and here plus here (with a third response), then here. Meanwhile, Phil moved ahead with the next installment. But it's time for me to get back to work.

Tags: Childs

From what I hear the SBL session in honor of Brevard Childs is coming together well. Thus far Christopher Seitz, Gary Anderson, Richard Hays, Ellen Davis, Ephraim Radner (now here), David Peterson, and Kavin Rowe are involved. Their responses will be 7-10 minutes, from NT, Theology, OT, Reception History, and other angles.

Tags: Childs, Canon, PhD