The Uses of the Bible

What is reception history? Reception history is a scholarly term for what we could call the study of the afterlives of the Bible: how, since it was being formed, the Bible has been used, from popular culture to high art. Such cultural influence of canonical...

Biblical Concepts

What do I mean by “biblical concepts”? By biblical concepts I mean major ideas and themes that are often grouped under the rubric “biblical theology.” It is a mistake, I think, to speak of “the theology” of the Bible, or of the Hebrew...

Authors and Authorship

Who wrote the Bible? The simple fact is that we don’t know who wrote much of the Bible. Although the names of apparent authors are found in many biblical books and parts of books, scholars have concluded that not all of those individuals wrote the...

Biblical Values

What are the Bible’s highest values? When the early first-century CE rabbi Hillel was asked by a prospective convert to explain the whole Torah while the prospective convert was standing on one foot, Hillel reportedly replied: “What is hateful to you, do not do to...

The Contents of the Bible

What are the books of the Bible? The Bible is divided into books. For easy reference, scholars in the Middle Ages divided the books into chapters (except for the very short books), and beginning in the fifteenth century the chapters into verses, just as study...

Languages, Texts, and Translations

What languages was the Bible written in? The Bible was written in three languages. The first is Hebrew, which was the primary language of the ancient Israelites for most of the biblical period, until Aramaic gradually replaced it. Hebrew continued to be used by Jews...

Interpretive Strategies

What are interpretive strategies? Interpretive strategies are methodologies of various types used in studying the Bible. Some of these, such as textual criticism and archaeology, we have discussed earlier, and some, such as reception history, we will discuss in subsequent chapters. Many of them overlap,...

The Contexts of the Bible

Why is it important to study the contexts in which the biblical writers lived? Because the Bible was not written in a vacuum, but in a world—or rather, many worlds—that are different from ours, understanding those worlds helps us understand the Bible. Reading the Bible...

Bible and Bibles

What is the Bible? The Bible is the sacred scripture of Judaism and Christianity. In its pages we encounter some of the most memorable characters in world literature: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob, Moses, Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsheba,...