Most readers are probably familiar with the Documentary Hypothesis. The basic idea is that the Bible, as an artifact, is best explained by supposing that it is a compilation of several ancient texts, written by different people in different times and cultures. Somebody (“the Redactor,” maybe Ezra) compiled many of the texts by the third century BCE. This explains why not all of the stories fit smoothly together; why there are two accounts of creation, and two accounts of the ten commandments; and why the style varies so much. Moreover, as one delves into the Bible along with archeology and the study of ancient civilizations, one begins to suspect that many of the stories served quite different purposes that the ones uninformed readers project upon the stories nowadays — or, indeed, from the first century CE onward.
An example. After Moses and the Jews have left Egypt, they get into a battle with the Amelekites (Exodus 17). Moses’s plan is to have Joshua command the Israelites while Moses stands atop a nearby hill and holds up his hands. So long as Moses’s hands are outstretched, the Israelites do well; but if he lets them drop, they begin to fail. Moses’s arms get tired, so his helpers give him a rock to sit on and help prop up his arms, and the Israelites eventually prevail.
Weird story. What does it mean? Jewish commentators say something along the lines of, “So long as we turn up our hands in supplication to the Lord, we have his favor.” Christian readers suggest that Moses, in stretching out his arms, foreshadowed the crucifixion, and the victory over death. But compare these readings to a more ordinary hypothesis. The name of the place where the battle takes place, Rephidim, resembles a Hebrew phrase meaning “spread out” or “prop up.” When you say the name aloud, it sounds sort of like you are saying “the hands grew weak.” So maybe, in the area, there was a prominent hill with a couple of rocks on top of it, called “Rephidim,” and the Moses story was invented to explain how the hill got its name. My family when I was growing up similarly made up all sorts of stories about how “Sheboygan” got its name, all of them invoking an ancient Indian who was disappointed at his wife’s inability to give birth to a daughter (“She boy again!” Har har).
Kugel, in this book, provides many similar etiological hypotheses (explaining weird stories as attempts to explain how a place got its name, or why we have some expression, or why two groups don’t get along, and so on). The overall effect is twofold. On the one hand, the Bible becomes a very interesting and complicated text from which you might be able to learn a lot about how ancient people saw their world, as well as how they tried to explain it. On the other hand, a lot of divine significance is drained from the work. Many allegedly inspired and inspiring stories turn out to be just about as rich as my old “Sheboygan” stories.
What’s fascinating is that Kugel is an Orthodox Jew, and so he really wants to revere the text, though his reverence is challenged by his considerable expertise and knowledge. He ends up with the following view. Yes, there are humdrum natural explanations for everything in this old, complicated text. But what makes it sacred are the layers and layers of interpretations that commentators have shellacked over it for centuries. The text has managed to hold the fascination of brilliant scholars for all that time, and the interpretations are wondrous, and somewhere in all that lies the sanctity of the work.
I’m glad this works for Kugel, and I’m hesitant to ask whether he’d also revere any work that supported wild misinterpretations over several generations. (He does give a groovy religious reading of “She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain When She Comes,” so I’m guessing this possibility has already occurred to him.) This seems to me to be clearly a case of denying what he knows to be true, and hiding behind a thin veil of hermeneutics.
This is a fascinating book, though — highly readable and well-informed (I guess, but what do I know?). I really think it needs to be read by anyone who wants to take the Bible seriously, or by anyone who wants to get a clearer picture of how this book — the most influential one in the western world, by far — came to be written.