Concepts of Scripture in Yehezkel Kaufmann
Concepts of Scripture in Yehezkel Kaufmann
This chapter considers the case of Yehezkel Kaufmann, often referred to as “the greatest and most influential Jewish biblical scholar of modern times.” He understood the Bible as a historical artifact produced in a particular setting of time and place. For him, the Bible was a text to be examined by means of the general principles and analytical tools of empirical investigation. Kaufmann has no doubt about discussing the history of the formation and transmission of biblical literature. The chapter presents two perspectives of reading Kaufmann's Toledot ha'emunah hayisre'elit (A History of the Israelite Faith). First, it is a classic that has shaped contemporary Jewish biblical scholarship; and second, it still has relevance for today's biblical and religious studies-especially for phenomenological analyses of biblical monotheism.
Keywords: Yehezkel Kaufmann, Toledot, Bible, empirical investigation, biblical literature, contemporary Jewish scholarship, biblical studies, biblical monotheism
NYU Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
