Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and its Origins
Aug 2023 · Cambridge University Press
4.3star
3 reviewsreport
Ebook
501
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About this ebook
Why did no other ancient society produce something like the Bible? That a tiny, out of the way community could have created a literary corpus so determinative for peoples across the globe seems improbable. For Jacob Wright, the Bible is not only a testimony of survival, but also an unparalleled achievement in human history. Forged after Babylon's devastation of Jerusalem, it makes not victory but total humiliation the foundation of a new idea of belonging. Lamenting the destruction of their homeland, scribes who composed the Bible imagined a promise-filled past while reflecting deeply on abject failure. More than just religious scripture, the Bible began as a trailblazing blueprint for a new form of political community. Its response to catastrophe offers a powerful message of hope and restoration that is unique in the Ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman worlds. Wright's Bible is thus a social, political, and even economic roadmap - one that enabled a small and obscure community located on the periphery of leading civilizations and empires not just to come back from the brink, but ultimately to shape the world's destiny. The Bible speaks ultimately of being a united yet diverse people, and its pages present a manual of pragmatic survival strategies for communities confronting societal collapse.
Ratings and reviews
4.3
3 reviews
Andrea Romance
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August 17, 2023
This is a beautifully written, deeply researched, and easy to understand academic work. Because it's an academic work, it resorts to citations and "further reading" lists instead of comprehensive explanations. As a reader, I found this practice frustrating. The book felt incomplete. Still, it's an engaging book and well worth reading. Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.
Bob Mitchell
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May 26, 2024
Remarkable synthesis of: traditions, writings, archeology, historiy...in understanding a prime touchstone of thought, philosophy, and metaphysics.
About the author
Jacob L. Wright is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at the Candler School of Theology, Emory University. His first book, Rebuilding Identity: The Nehemiah Memoir and its Earliest Readers (de Gruyter, 2004), won the 2008 Templeton prize for a first book in the field of religion. He is also the author of David, King of Israel, and Caleb in Biblical Memory (Cambridge University Press, 2014), which won The Nancy Lapp Popular Book Award from the American Schools of Oriental Research, and most recently, War, Memory, and National Identity in the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
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