Marc Zvi Brettler

In 2017 my wife read this book. We are studying the Old Testament in church in 2022, so I started to read it also. By the time I got through the introductory material, there were so many things that I wanted to highlight that I bought my own Kindle edition of it.

Why The Jewish Study Bible instead of Christian resources?
Each Christian translation has biases. For example, the King James, which is the one most used in our church, is biased toward Kingship. The Jewish Study Bible I expect to have only one principal bias, and I am fine with that. Instead of it having an axe to grind, I find in it a deeper study of what the text means.

This book uses the proposal that the books of the Hebrew Bible are composed as a composite of four sources:
J — Yahveh, Jahwe (German)
E — Elohim God
P — Priestly
D — Duteronomist

The essays make it clear that Jewish interpretation of the Bible changed dramatically over the centuries and describes the competing schools with their attempts to harmonize discrepancies. There are nearly essays at the back of the book. I did not find them as interesting as the Biblical text and notes.

- “The first set of essays, “Jewish Interpretation of the Bible,” surveys, in chronological order, Jewish biblical interpretation in various periods, from earliest times to the present.
- The second set of essays, “Biblical Ideas and Institutions,” surveys various concepts that stand behind the biblical text.
- The third set of essays, “The Bible in Jewish Life,” gives some intimation of the importance of the Bible for Judaism and the Jewish community, an importance that cannot be overstated.
- The fourth set of essays, “Backgrounds for Reading the Bible,” provides contemporary scholarly background material for understanding the Bible.
- The fifth and last set of essays, “The Hebrew Bible in Other Scriptures” recognizes that the authors of both the New Testament and the Qur’an knew and were influenced by the Hebrew Bible, in different ways and to different extents. The two essays juxtapose the uses of Hebrew Scriptures in emerging Christianity and early Islam.”

I did not care for some of the essays
- The Bible in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Seemed to dodge their meaning and instead talked a lot about their classification.
- Classical Rabinic Interpretation: Lots of fussing about fine points, disputations and justifications.

Essays I liked:
- Medieval Jewish Interpretation
- The Bible in the Jewish Philosophical Tradition
- Jewish interpretation of the bible
- Many philosophers and their interpretation of the Bible


“On the other hand, prophecy as a living phenomenon was discouraged. Future prophets had to prove they were “true” and not “false” by producing prophecies that came true before their messages would be heeded (Deut. 18.21), a tautologous condition that effectively abolished prophecy as a living institution after the 5th c. bce, at least in “official” religion. No future revelation could compete with Moses or amend what he had said.” (86%)

Although I have not finished all of the roughly 50 essays at the end of the book, it is time to mark this book as read and move on to New Testament study.… (mehr)