What do Jews think scripture is? How do the People of the Book conceive of the Book of Books? In what ways is it authoritative? Who has the right to interpret it? Is it divinely or humanly written? And have Jews always thought about the Bible in the same way? In seventeen cohesive and rigorously researched essays, this volume traces the way some of the most important Jewish thinkers throughout history have addressed these questions from the rabbinic era through the medieval Islamic world to modern Jewish scholarship. They address why different Jewish thinkers, writers, and communities have turned to the Bible-and what they expect to get from it. Ultimately, argues editor Benjamin D. Sommer, in understanding the ways Jews construct scripture, we begin to understand the ways Jews construct themselves.

What do Jews think scripture is? How do the People of the Book conceive of the Book of Books? In what ways is it authoritative? Who has the right to interpret it? Is it divinely or humanly written? And have Jews always thought about the Bible in the same way? In seventeen cohesive and rigorously researched essays, this volume traces the way some of the most important Jewish thinkers throughout history have addressed these questions from the rabbinic era through the medieval Islamic world to modern Jewish scholarship. They address why different Jewish thinkers, writers, and communities have turned to the Bible--and what they expect to get from it. Ultimately, argues editor Benjamin D. Sommer, in understanding the ways Jews construct scripture, we begin to understand the ways Jews construct themselves.

In The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel, Benjamin D. Sommer investigates the notion of a deity's body and self in ancient Israel, Canaan, and Mesopotamia. He uncovers a lost ancient Near Eastern perception of divinity according to which an essential difference between gods and humans was that gods had more than one body and fluid, unbounded selves. Though the dominant strains of biblical religion rejected it, a monotheistic version of this theological intuition is found in some biblical texts. Later Jewish and Christian thinkers inherited this ancient way of thinking; ideas such as the sefirot in kabbalah and the trinity in Christianity represent a late version of this theology. This book forces us to rethink the distinction between monotheism and polytheism, as this notion of divine fluidity is found in both polytheistic cultures (Babylonia, Assyria, Canaan) and monotheistic ones (biblical religion, Jewish mysticism, Christianity), whereas it is absent in some polytheistic cultures (classical Greece). The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel has important repercussions not only for biblical scholarship and comparative religion but for Jewish-Christian dialogue.

This book examines the use of older biblical texts in Isaiah 40-66, notably the writings attributed to Deutero-Isaiah. Its discussion of allusions, influence, and intertextuality generates significant questions for both biblicists and literary critics: Why do authors allude? How does the presence of older material in a text affect readers? How can critics identify genuine cases of allusion? Are contemporary theories of intertextuality applicable to ancient texts? The author defends the controversial historical questions asked by scholars of inner-biblical exegesis, modifying some of the dominant (and, in some ways, misleading) categories other biblical scholars have created. In sum, the book aims to refine the study of inner-biblical exegesis through an extensive examination of the use of older texts in one corpus.
The redactional complexity of the Book of Isaiah has rendered it central to discussions of canon formation and the final shaping of biblical material. The author demonstrates that Deutero-Isaiah situated himself in a wide stream of tradition by no means limited to an Isaianic school, and that his most important literary precursor was not First Isaiah but Jeremiah. This finding necessitates a trenchant reappraisal of recent work on the unity of the Book of Isaiah. Further, the author shows that the strikingly consistent poetics of allusion running throughout all of Isaiah 40-66 testifies to the coherence of those chapters as a single corpus, arguing against multiple authorship.
Close readings of the use of borrowed material in Isaiah 40-66 sharpen our appreciation of Deutero-Isaiah's originality and artistry, highlighting his attempts to convince Judean exiles that God had neither abandoned nor failed them. The prophet's heavy dependence on earlier prophets illuminates the changes classical Israelite prophecy underwent in the Babylonian exile. These changes led to the disappearance of prophecy and the rise of exegetical forms of religious expression known from Qumran, early Christianity, and rabbinic Judaism.

In The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel, Benjamin D. Sommer investigates the notion of a deity's body and self in ancient Israel, Canaan, and Mesopotamia. He uncovers a lost ancient Near Eastern perception of divinity according to which an essential difference between gods and humans was that gods had more than one body and fluid, unbounded selves. Though the dominant strains of biblical religion rejected it, a monotheistic version of this theological intuition is found in some biblical texts. Later Jewish and Christian thinkers inherited this ancient way of thinking; ideas such as the sefirot in kabbalah and the trinity in Christianity represent a late version of this theology. This book forces us to rethink the distinction between monotheism and polytheism, as this notion of divine fluidity is found in both polytheistic cultures (Babylonia, Assyria, Canaan) and monotheistic ones (biblical religion, Jewish mysticism, Christianity), whereas it is absent in some polytheistic cultures (classical Greece). The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel has important repercussions not only for biblical scholarship and comparative religion but for Jewish-Christian dialogue.