A01=James L. Kugel
Abomination (Bible)
Allusion
Angel of the Presence
Apologetics
Author_James L. Kugel
Babylonian captivity
Bathing
Ben Sira
Biblical apocrypha
Biblical Hebrew
Biblical law
Bilhah
Blessing of Jacob
Book of Deuteronomy
Book of Exodus
Book of Judith
Book of Leviticus
Canaan
Category=QRM
Category=QRMF19
Category=QRVC
Dead Sea Scrolls
Deity
Dialogue with Trypho
Dinah
Divine presence
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
Esau
Exegesis
Genesis Rabbah
Gentile
God
Heavenly host
Hebrew Bible
Hebrew language
Israelites
Issachar
Jacob's Ladder
Jews
Joseph and Aseneth
Justification (theology)
Justin Martyr
Ladder of Jacob
Land of Israel
Levite
Literature
Maccabean Revolt
Masoretic Text
Midrash
Mishnaic Hebrew
Ordination
Potiphar
Priestly Blessing
Pseudepigrapha
Pseudo-Philo
Qumran
Rabbinic literature
Rebecca
Religious text
Righteousness
Samaritans
Second Temple
Second Temple period
Septuagint
Shechem
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan
Testaments
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Theodotus
Tithe
Torah
Tribe of Judah
Tribe of Levi
Worship
Writing
Product details
- ISBN 9780691141237
- Weight: 397g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 29 Mar 2009
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Rife with incest, adultery, rape, and murder, the biblical story of Jacob and his children must have troubled ancient readers. By any standard, this was a family with problems. Jacob's oldest son Reuben is said to have slept with his father's concubine Bilhah. The next two sons, Simeon and Levi, tricked the men of a nearby city into undergoing circumcision, and then murdered all of them as revenge for the rape of their sister. Judah, the fourth son, had sexual relations with his own daughter-in-law. Meanwhile, jealous of their younger sibling Joseph, the brothers conspired to kill him; they later relented and merely sold him into slavery. These stories presented a particular challenge for ancient biblical interpreters. After all, Jacob's sons were the founders of the nation of Israel and ought to have been models of virtue. In The Ladder of Jacob, renowned biblical scholar James Kugel retraces the steps of ancient biblical interpreters as they struggled with such problems. Kugel reveals how they often fixed on a little detail in the Bible's wording to "deduce" something not openly stated in the narrative.
They concluded that Simeon and Levi were justified in killing all the men in a town to avenge the rape of their sister, and that Judah, who slept with his daughter-in-law, was the unfortunate victim of alcoholism. These are among the earliest examples of ancient biblical interpretation (midrash). They are found in retellings of biblical stories that appeared in the closing centuries BCE--in the Book of Jubilees, the Aramaic Levi Document, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and other noncanonical works. Through careful analysis of these retellings, Kugel is able to reconstruct how ancient interpreters worked. The Ladder of Jacob is an artful, compelling account of the very beginnings of biblical interpretation.
James L. Kugel, formerly Starr Professor of Hebrew Literature at Harvard University, is Director of the Institute for the History of the Jewish Bible at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, where he also serves as Professor of Bible. Kugel is the author of ten books, including "The God of Old: Great Poems of the Bible" and "The Bible as It Was" (a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction and the winner of the Grawemeyer Prize in Religion in 2001). He lives in Jerusalem.
