The Hebrew Bible Reborn: From Holy Scripture to the Book of Books: A History of Biblical Culture and the Battles Over the Bible in Modern Judaism

This work, the first of its kind, describes all the aspects of the Bible revolution in Jewish history in the last two hundred years, as well as the emergence of the new biblical culture. It describes the circumstances and processes that turned Holy Scripture into the Book of Books and into the history of the biblical period and of the Jewish people. It deals with the encounter of the Jews with modern biblical criticism, the archaeological research of the Ancient Near East, with contemporary archaeology, the Bible-Babel polemic at the start of the twentieth century, and the use of the bible as a guide to life in education, culture and politics.

Review:

Das Buch zeichnet sich durch seine grundliche und methodische Auswertung des - ebenso umfassenden wie disparaten - Quellenmaterials und durch dessen abwagende Bewertung aus. Es illustriert die fundierende Bedeutung der Bibel in unterschiedlichen Lebensbezugen, Problemlagen und Fragestellungen und erlaubt ebenso lehrreiche wie spannende Einblicke in die facettenreiche Geschichte der historischen Bibelkritik im Judentum. Michael Tilly in: Theologische Literaturzeitung 10.134/2009 [...] its scope and depth make this thoroughly researched study on a highly consequential subject an invaluable source for Jewish and German religious and intellectual history. Michael M. Meyer in: American Historical Review 2/2009