
The Modern Scholar
The Hebrew Bible
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Narrated by:
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Lawrence H. Schiffman
About this listen
The Jewish Bible was collected in ancient Israel over a long period of time. The first books of the Bible are the Five Books of Moses, in Hebrew, the Torah, or by its Greek name, the Pentateuch, meaning "five books." For the Hebrew Scriptures, the Biblical canon was divided into three parts, Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim. Christians have a completely different term for this Jewish canon that constitutes about one half of the Christian Bible. Because Christians have an additional set of texts, namely, the Gospels and the Epistles, Christians refer to the earlier material as the Old Testament in contradistinction to the New Testament.
This intellectually satisfying course examines the complex issues of the historicity of the biblical account as well as the deep theological and religious ideas that the Bible teaches. We will sample approaches both traditional and modern, making use of the works of a broad sampling of scholars - ancient, medieval, and modern - to understand the message of the Hebrew Scriptures and the stories they told. Archaeology and the perspectives gained from our knowledge of the Ancient Near East will be at the forefront, allowing us to approach the Bible with the help of the manifold tools of modern research while retaining respect for the Bible and its ancient message.
Download the accompanying reference guide.©2008 Lawrence H. Schiffman (P)2008 Recorded Books, LLCPeople who viewed this also viewed...
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Story
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
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What did you love best about The Modern Scholar?
Lectures are in reasonable length segments so I can think about one lecture before going onto another.Did the narrator do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?
Not applicableIf you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
Not applicableAny additional comments?
This is an introduction to the subject, so it covers a lot of material. The series of lectures starts by giving the necessary background. The necessary technical terminology is introduced throughout the bookWhen people start interpreting the Hebrew Bible they generally have a point of view, ranging from the extremes of Biblical Minimalism and Biblical Literalism. The lecturer does have a point of view, as I would expect any competent scholar to have, but he takes the time to fairly discuss the other points of view throughout the course of the lectures, and states what is his opinion and why.
The fact that he has a specific point of view does not automatically imply that the others are either more or less correct.
An useful introduction
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Fairly good introductory material
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