Concepts of Scripture in Moshe Greenberg 263
- See chapter 13 in this volume by Job Jindo.
- Greenberg, “Kaufmann,” in Studies in the Bible and Jewish Th ought, 175.
- Ibid., 175, 184, 187 – 88.
- Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, “Scriptural Authority: Biblical Authority in Juda-
ism,” ABD 5 (1992): 1017. For a discussion on Jews and biblical theology, see Jon
Levenson, “Why Jews Are Not Interested in Biblical Th eology,” chap 2. in Th e He-
brew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism (Louisville, KY: Westmin-
ster/John Knox, 1993), 33 – 61; there is also some relevant material on this topic in
my essays “Biblical History and Jewish Biblical Th eology,” JR 77 (1997): 563 – 83; and
“Biblical Authority: A Jewish Pluralistic View,” in Engaging Biblical Authority: Per-
spectives on the Bible as Scripture, ed. William P. Brown (Louisville, KY: Westmin-
ster/John Knox, 2007), 1 – 9, 141 – 43. - I have borrowed this term from James L. Kugel, Th e God of Old: Inside the
Lost World of the Bible (New York: Free Press, 2003). - Greenberg, “Prophecy,” in Studies in the Bible and Jewish Th ought, 416;
Greenberg, “On Sharing the Scriptures,” in Magnalia Dei: Th e Mighty Acts of God:
Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright, ed. Frank
Moore Cross, Werner E. Lemke, and Patrick D. Miller (Garden City, NY: Double-
day, 1976), 455. - See Moshe Greenberg, “A Faith-ful Critical Interpretation of the Bible,” in
Judaism and Modernity: Th e Religious Philosophy of David Hartman, ed. Jonathan
W. Malino (Burlington, VT: Aldershot, 2004), 210: “In dedicating this essay to Da-
vid, I acknowledge my debt to him who persists in calling me provocatively a ‘theo-
logian’ when I am no more than an exegete, though keenly aware of the ideal mar-
riage of exegesis and theology, so rare in Judaism.” Of a younger generation, the
recent book of Michael Fishbane, Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Th eology (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2008), is especially noteworthy, as is the more recent
Benjamin D. Sommer, Th e Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), esp. 124 – 32. - See the comments of James Barr on Brevard Childs, in Th e Concept of Bib-
lical Th eology: An Old Testament Perspective (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress,
1999), 49: “[Scripture] is a distinctively religious usage that evokes holiness, au-
thority, the Word of God.” See also James Barr, Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority,
Criticism (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1983), 1, where he glosses Scripture as a “written
guide for religion.” - Brevard Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadel-
phia: Fortress, 1979), 71. Greenberg the canonical critic is especially evident in
Understanding Exodus (New York: Behrman, 1969) and Th e Anchor Bible: Ezekiel,
vols. 1 – 2, and in his volume of Hebrew collected essays, On the Bible and Judaism
(in Hebrew). - On textual criticism, see Odil Hannes Steck, Old Testament Exegesis: A
Guide to the Methodology, 2nd ed., trans. James D. Nogalski (Atlanta: Scholars,