Concepts of Scripture in Moshe Greenberg 257For Greenberg, the Bible is both necessary and, through its later inter-
pretations, (almost) suffi cient for Jewish life. He observes in relation to the
Conservative movement in the State of Israel, “Th e function of the Jew-
ish state in Judaism is to promote the realization of Torah in life and soci-
ety. . . . Th e scope of Torah is total. Its ideal is to permeate life and society
and shape all to the service and the greater glorifi cation of God (kiddush
hashem).”40 It cannot, however, be a suffi cient source for society in a sim-
plistic manner. It is a complex and contradictory text, and it contains some
repugnant ideas. He is concerned that Israeli students might be infl uenced
to apply Joshua’s attitude toward the Canaanites to the current Arab popu-
lation. Th at is why the issue of his essay “How Should We Expound the To-
rah Now?” is so important for him — given the many contradictory voices
in the text, and the variety of ways each text has been interpreted, what
is authoritative? Only a person who believes in the centrality of the Bible
would be concerned with this issue and would speak so forcefully and oft en
about the problem of biblical texts that appear to be morally problematic.41
Th e Bible’s Aesthetic Beauty
For Greenberg, the Bible is not only central but aesthetically beautiful.
Here too he follows in the footsteps of several biblical scholars, many of
them Jewish, who emphasize the beauty of the Bible.42 He speaks of mod-
ern scholars fi nding in the Bible “design that bespeaks subtle intelligence.”
In his commentaries and essays, he frequently points out aspects of that
design. For example, in Understanding Exodus, he notes word plays, an au-
thor’s “exquisite touch,” and the redactor’s “rich weave.” He admires the lit-
erary economy of the Garden of Eden story. Th ese are among the elements
he notes in his Ezekiel commentary: “a gem of literary adaptation and com-
bination,” alliteration and rhyme, a “rich blend of motifs,” Ezekiel’s “poetic
range,” “verbal artifi ces,” meaningful assonance, “coherence of the whole
[chapter], structurally and thematically,” “art and design,” “high-style” allit-
erative chiasm, “artful design,” “skillful employment [of words],” “intricate,
integrative construction,” and “foreshadowing.”43
Th ere is a clear polemic in these observations — among the proph-
ets, Ezekiel’s diction is oft en considered poor and certainly not compa-
rable to the soaring poetry of (First or Second) Isaiah. For example, the
great early twentieth-century British scholar S. R. Driver says of Ezekiel,
“He has imagination, but not poetical talent.”44 Greenberg disagrees — he