How Should We Read the Bible?

I am in the midst of reading (and listening to) a book written by a Hebrew Bible/Old Testament scholar, James L. Kugel in 2007, that bears the title, How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now. Kugel is more than qualified to educate readers on this topic, as per the following blurb from his website (www.jameskugel.com):

• James Kugel was the Starr Professor of Hebrew Literature at Harvard University for twenty-one year. 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 Nation Jewish Book Award for the best book of 2007), In the Valley of the Shadow, and A Walk Through Jubilees.

Kugel states that he was hesitant to write this book in which he attempts to share, "for both the specialist and the general reader,"  most of what he knows about the Bible. He overcame his hesitation because he believed that to not express the results of his research would be dishonest and it "ultimately would prove impossible to hide from the central question addressed by this book." That question is simply this:

• Has modern scholarship killed the Bible? Or is there some way to salvage its message despite all that we now know about how the Bible came to be? How to Read the Bible offers nothing less than a whole new way of thinking about sacred Scripture.

This book comes with a warning "because this book deals with modern biblical scholarship, many of the things it discusses contradict the accepted teachings of Judaism and Christianity and may thus be disturbing to people of traditional faith." This book is not for the faint of faith. Yet, neither is it Kugels intention to undermine anyone's faith. In fact, my experience, with taking a long (15 years now) and hard look at the results of modern biblical scholarship, it has honed my faith, by helping me focus on what really matters through jettisoning all those indefensible, traditional interpretations of Scripture. I now understand and fully accept that my personal faith, in terms of what I believe, is a choice that I can explain but that I cannot
prove or defend beyond all doubt. 

I have had the privilege to sit at the feet of numerous biblical, Near Eastern and Classical scholars at UBC (Drs. Sara Milstein, Gregg Gardner, Lisa Cooper, Robert Cousland, Franco DeAngelis, Anthony Keddie, Kurtis Peters, Shelley Reid, Thomas Schneider, and Lyn Rae)* and now biblical and Dead Sea Scrolls scholars at TWU (Drs., Dirk Buchner, Thomas Hatina, Craig Broyles and Andrew Perrin)**. They have all, through our discussions, their teaching and writing and other scholarly works they have directed me to explore, challenged my thinking and my conclusions. All the while they have never tried to undermine my faith choices even though my choices were not theirs. I personally believe that a faith that is not (or cannot) be questioned, investigated, challenged, explored, etc., is not a faith worth holding onto. In other words, for me, "The unexamined faith is not worth believing."

In the next few blog posts, I'm planning to share some things from Kugel's book that have made so much sense to me. He is an excellent writer who explains things in ways that are clear and compelling. So, if you dare, let's go there!

Notes:

* I spent more than 10 years studying, part time and full time, at the University of British Columbia (2005–2017). My undergraduate degree is in Classics (Greek and Latin languages) and my M.A. is in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism. My thesis was titled, Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts: Proponents, Challengers and Judges 5.  I studied in the department of Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies (CNERS).

**I am currently working on a second M.A. in Biblical Studies at Trinity Western University (2017–present), with a major focus on the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls, specifically. My proposed thesis has the tentative title, Eschatological Agents in the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls. I also have the privilege of being a part time instructor at TWU, teaching mostly first year students, Introduction to the New Testament and Introduction to the Old Testament.