Judaism and Its Bible: A People and Their Book - Paperback

by Frederick E. Greenspahn (Author)

Judaism and Its Bible explores the profoundly deep and complex relationship between Jews, Judaism, and the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible has been ubiquitous in Jewish life and thought: Jews read it, interpret it, and debate it. They translate the Bible even as they deem those translations inadequate, and they cite the Bible as the basis for observances that are not even mentioned in it. Jews quote the Bible as authority for their tradition's preservation and innovation, as both the word of God and the language of humans, and as justification for both pro- and anti-rabbinic movements. Fascinating and comprehensive, Judaism and Its Bible describes the extraordinary two-and-a-half-millennia journey of a people and its book that has changed the world.

Author Biography

Frederick E. Greenspahn is the Gimelstob Eminent Scholar of Judaic Studies emeritus at Florida Atlantic University and former professor of religious and Judaic studies at the University of Denver. He has written and edited sixteen books, including An Introduction to Aramaic; When Brothers Dwell Together; The Preeminence of Younger Siblings in the Hebrew Bible; and Hapax Legomena in Biblical Hebrew. He is editor of the New York University Press series Jewish Studies in the Twenty-First Century.