Problematizing the Bible . . . Then and Now

Rather, Our'an represents an alternate literary crystallization of what constituted "the Bible" for that particular time and cultural space, and when read through this lens, it can actually supply valuable clues about the precanonical shapes and meanings of certain stories and thematic complexes.31 Kugel's How to Read the BibL· is an eloquent edifice of discursive exposition and personal reflection which will surely win accolades within those institutional settings that are nominally married to conventional historical-critical explanations and sympathetic to faith-based reasoning and discourse. Scholars in the secular academy who are seriously committed to the pursuit of conceptual clarity and methodological rigor in their study of "the Bible" and its associated literatures will encounter little in this book that addresses their concerns or that builds upon the wider-ranging theoretical discussions about authorship, readership, orality/literacy, semiotics, ideological criticism, and cultural materialism taking place in departments of history, comparative literature, classics, and anthropology during the past four decades.