Concepts of Scripture in Moshe Greenberg 253biblical text as part of ancient Near Eastern literature on the one hand, and
of the preconceptions of some modern critics on the other.”27
Similarly, in treating the book of Job, he resists discussing the theology
of diff erent layers of the text because he believes they cannot be discerned
with suffi cient certainty. Even in cases where a redactional hand is obvious
in places in Ezekiel, Greenberg does not believe that the eff ort to discern
layers is worth it, and he believes that, as in Exodus, redaction refl ects “an
intelligent choice” and yields a fi nal text that can and should be interpreted.
On the other hand, reconstructed texts are always more or less hypotheti-
cal in nature, and most of the criteria that scholars use for creating such
texts are highly subjective. In addition, study of ancient Near Eastern doc-
uments and the Temple Scroll (one of the Dead Sea Scrolls) suggests that
a single ancient author may have composed a text that seems uneven or
composite to us. Th is evidence bolsters his approach of “explain[ing] the
biblical books as we have them — as integrated, independent wholes.”28
Th e Bible’s Existential Values
For Greenberg, the Bible is not an arcane ancient text; it contains “existen-
tial values” that should be of broad interest to the “cultural community” (as
well as “the faith community”). Th is perspective is especially obvious in
his early articles, before he moved to Israel in 1970, aft er which his explicit
focus oft en narrowed to the Israeli Jewish community, though implicitly he
oft en retains a broader audience. For example, Greenberg spoke recently
on “the Bible as a means of refl ecting ultimate concerns.”29
Already in 1959, Greenberg praises certain “humanitarian values” of the
Bible. More recently, in outlining the goals of the Mikra Le Yisra’el com-
mentary series, a modern Hebrew series that he coedited, Greenberg la-
ments that most Israeli Bible scholars avoid “inquiry into the signifi cance
of the texts that they study,” with the result that “that Bible is perceived as
irrelevant.” Instead, the commentator needs to explain the Bible’s “world-
view, and its meaning and signifi cance.” Th ese comments mirror the
praise that Greenberg off ered for Kaufmann in the fi rst volume of Anchor
Bible: Ezekiel: “Yehezkel Kaufmann embodied a passionate commitment to
grand ideas.”30
Many of Greenberg’s works published aft er he immigrated to Israel still
refl ect a broad implicit audience. His 1970 essay “Rabbinic Refl ections on