Ancient Bible Interpretation and its Legacies by Aberbach, David;

Short description:

Ancient Bible Interpretation and its Legacies: Politics, Literature, and Heresy offers a sweeping exploration of the evolving role of Bible interpretation from ancient times to modernity, revealing its profound impact on religious, political, literary, and secular culture.

Long description:

Ancient Bible Interpretation and its Legacies: Politics, Literature, and Heresy offers a sweeping exploration of the evolving role of Bible interpretation from ancient to modern times, revealing its profound impact on religious, political, literary, and secular culture.

Tracing the origins of Midrash in post-Temple Judaism and its transmission across Christian and Islamic traditions, this book examines how scriptural exegesis has shaped – and been shaped by – historical trauma, national identity, and cultural transformation. It explores the central role of Midrash in Jewish survival and education, its responses to persecution and polemic, and its influence on mystical traditions, Zionism, and modern literary movements. Moving beyond religious contexts, the volume investigates how biblical interpretation has informed dissenting voices in English literature, the formation of modern nationalism, responses to anti-Semitism, and contemporary concerns from environmental ethics to the search for justice in postcolonial and global literatures. Through a rich tapestry of case studies – from ancient rabbis to Bunyan, Blake, Bialik, Orwell, and Achebe – it reveals the enduring power of homiletic traditions in shaping moral and political imagination across ages and cultures.

This book is essential reading for scholars of Jewish studies, religious studies, comparative literature, intellectual history, and cultural studies, offering a vital perspective on the complex legacies of ancient Bible interpretation in the modern world.

Table of Contents:

Contents

Foreword by John A. Hall

Acknowledgements

Introduction

PART I:  Jewish origins:  from the ancient Near East to the Roman empire

1.   After Eden:  midrashic antecedents in the Hebrew Bible

2.   Talmudic midrash and the Graeco-Roman empire:  from Herod to Judah Hanasi

3.   Ancient Bible interpretation and politics:  leaders and national disaster

4.   Early Christian anti-Judaism and midrashic polemics

5.   Midrash and Jewish education in the early Roman empire

6.   Major themes in Bible interpretation

7.   Economic factors in ancient midrash

8.   The Bible, exile and Kabbalah

9.   Nationalism and midrashic visions of Zion

PART II:  Secular societies and homiletic traditions

10.   Monarchic crisis and poet-priests: aspects of the English homiletic tradition

11.  English dissenters and the Bible: Bunyan, Defoe, and Blake

12.  Bible interpretation, Wordsworth and the ‘holy poor’

13.   Bialik, Aggadah and Jewish nationalism

14.   Midrash, the Hebrew revival, and anti-Semitism, 1881-1948

15.   Midrash and early 20th century culture

16.  The Bible for atheists:  Orwell, Steinbeck, Carlo Levi  

17.  The Bible in literature of developing countries

18.  Midrash and environmental moral dilemmas

Bibliography

Index