Concepts of Scripture in Moshe Greenberg 249in whom he sees “a model of reverence toward the source of religion that
does not entail blindness to the complexity of that source.” He commends
a Christian scholar (George Ernest Wright) for combining “historical in-
quiry and religious concern.”10 Although there are other Jewish biblical
scholars aside from Greenberg who are interested in theology, no other
scholars of that generation may be called theologians or, at the very least,
theologically sensitive exegetes.11
Greenberg’s Scripture
Greenberg does not merely interpret the Bible; he interprets Scripture and
in his writing frequently uses the more theological term “Scripture,”12 in
addition to “Hebrew Bible.” Greenberg’s Scripture has the following seven
main characteristics: (1) it is a Hebrew Bible, very close to the accepted
Hebrew Masoretic text (MT); (2) it has a prehistory, but that prehistory is
never as important as the text in its fi nal form; (3) it contains fundamental
values, many of which endure; (4) some of its contents are more important
than others; (5) it has an authoritative status within Judaism; (6) it is aes-
thetically beautiful; and (7) Jewish interpreters are a signifi cant resource
for understanding it.
Many of these principles are shared with other Jewish biblical schol-
ars, though few share them all, and none articulates them as clearly and
consistently as Greenberg. In Greenberg’s writings, they combine in a par-
ticular way that forms a Jewish theology of Scripture and are similar to
what Brevard Childs sees as his goal in Introduction to the Old Testament
as Scripture: “to take seriously the signifi cance of the canon as a crucial ele-
ment in understanding the Hebrew scriptures, and yet to understand the
canon in its true historical and theological dimension.”13
Greenberg’s Biblical Text: Th e Importance of the Masoretic Text
Th e fi rst task that most scholars of the Hebrew Bible engage in is textual
criticism, typically understood as determining the correct or (more) origi-
nal text that the scholar intends to expound.14 Whereas many volumes
of the Anchor Bible series contain extensive textual notes relating to po-
tential errors or variants in the Masoretic text (MT), Greenberg’s Ezekiel