Valley Beit Midrash

A virtual presentation by Dr. Marc Brettler

ABOUT THE EVENT:

The belief that the Torah is a composite book written by people over a long period of time, that the Hebrew Bible text that we use contains errors, and that the Bible was influenced by  ancient Near Eastern texts, are main elements of the historical-critical analysis of the Bible. What are the variety of reactions to these developments of the last few centuries within the Jewish community?  To what extent have Jews of different types accepted these scholarly claims, and can they play a constructive role within Judaism?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Marc Zvi Brettler is the Bernice and Morton Lerner Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies in the Dept. of Religious Studies at Duke University, and the Dora Golding Professor of Biblical Literature Emeritus at Brandeis University. His books How to Read the Jewish Bible; The Jewish Study Bible (edited with Adele Berlin); and The Bible and the Believer (with Peter Enns and Daniel Harrington).  He co-edited The Jewish Annotated New Testament, and co-authored The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently, both with Amy-Jill Levine. He is deeply committed to making the Jewish community more aware of the richness of Jewish literature from the past, including the New testament, and to introducing academic biblical study to the broader community, as reflected in TheTorah.com, which he co-founded.