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Rating: 
Summary: A Fascinating And Compelling Read For Student or Scholar
Review: W. Lee Humphreys presents a documented reading of the Old Testament with a focus on history and meaning. He makes a very compelling argument about how these written words gave/give meaning to the people who understand themselves through this sacred literature. The introduction explains Redaction Critisism as a process of examining a text in order to understand the people who wrote it and, in this case, continue to identify and understand themselves according to it. "Myth" DOES record truth in Humphreys' reading--albeit moral and ethnological truth rather than dry (and dead) factual truth. By identifying three main crises in the history of Judaism, Humphreys (an exciting, gifted writer) tells the story of Judaism, its focus on how Jews (from Abraham and Moses to Marx and Freud) understand history itself as Yahweh's message to them, and how the interpretation and re-interpreation, telling and ritual re-telling defines a people, therefore "made of words." (There was good reason for the Ten Commandments to be WRITTEN in stone, rather than kept in the oral tradition). He attributes much of European logocentrism to this primarily Jewish reading of history. I first used the book in a university-level course, but currently use it in an honors high school religious literture course I teach. A truly fascinating and compelling read for anyone interested in the religious history of our planet.
Rating:
Summary: A Fascinating And Compelling Read For Student or Scholar
Review: W. Lee Humphreys presents a documented reading of the Old Testament with a focus on history and meaning. He makes a very compelling argument about how these written words gave/give meaning to the people who understand themselves through this sacred literature. The introduction explains Redaction Critisism as a process of examining a text in order to understand the people who wrote it and, in this case, continue to identify and understand themselves according to it. "Myth" DOES record truth in Humphreys' reading--albeit moral and ethnological truth rather than dry (and dead) factual truth. By identifying three main crises in the history of Judaism, Humphreys (an exciting, gifted writer) tells the story of Judaism, its focus on how Jews (from Abraham and Moses to Marx and Freud) understand history itself as Yahweh's message to them, and how the interpretation and re-interpreation, telling and ritual re-telling defines a people, therefore "made of words." (There was good reason for the Ten Commandments to be WRITTEN in stone, rather than kept in the oral tradition). He attributes much of European logocentrism to this primarily Jewish reading of history. I first used the book in a university-level course, but currently use it in an honors high school religious literture course I teach. A truly fascinating and compelling read for anyone interested in the religious history of our planet.
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