I hope someone else can answer your question about a specific book.
I looked up the Jewish Publication Society's site for books in the category of Bible Commentary. There were commentaries on the Torah, but that leaves out two long sections, Prophets and Writings. There were commentaries on single books, and deep in the weeds scholarship. The JPS website does give recommendations on which English translation to buy (depending on what you want it for).
The best I can do is to suggest what to look for, where one might find it, and what to pass up.
In the early Seventies I took a few undergraduate classes on the Bible at UC Berkeley. One was on the Bible as Literature, taught by Robert Alter near the beginning of his career. Takeaway from that class was that the Bible is an anthology of books of different literary genres, whose authors had different objectives, composed (or later on, written) over many centuries in differing circumstances. If you keep this in mind, it gives you a handle on how to relate to what you are reading, especially the various books in the catchall Writings (Ketuvim) section.
Biblical commentary by Christian authors is usually written for Christian audiences, and cherrypicks texts that bolster Christian beliefs. So not useful for understanding what the Bible meant or means to the people who wrote it. I've got a book covering both Old and New Testaments by an avowed atheist, Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version. It's worth reading, but Fox does not know either Hebrew or Aramaic, so I would not start with him.
Ideally you want a Jewish author who takes the religion seriously and has at some point in their life been a member of a Jewish congregation, who is fairly up to date with mainstream Biblical scholarship whether or not they are themselves an academic, and doesn't have an ax to grind.
Where to locate such a book? If in an area with a large Jewish population, you could look for a Judaica store that has a sizeable book section, and browse it. Contact a rabbi of a Reform, Conservative, or Reconstructionist congregation, and ask for the reading list he or she gives for adult education to prospective converts, gentiles in relationships with Jews, or Jewish adults who want to continue learning. Another possibility would be to see whether there is a full time Jewish day school that has students at the middle school or high school level; ask what they have in their library or reading lists that they would recommend. If these resources are not available, the next best thing would be to visit a large public library and see whether they have anything in the collection that meets the guidelines I suggested (Historical and cultural perspective, knowledge of the primary texts, personal experience with some form of Jewish religious practice*).
*Jews tend to regard belief as a personal matter, and not a requirement for being an active member of a synagogue or temple.
PS Tip of the hat to you, JMG, for your mention of NROOGD in the second edition of A World Full of Gods.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2023-07-01 12:07 am (UTC)I hope someone else can answer your question about a specific book.
I looked up the Jewish Publication Society's site for books in the category of Bible Commentary. There were commentaries on the Torah, but that leaves out two long sections, Prophets and Writings. There were commentaries on single books, and deep in the weeds scholarship. The JPS website does give recommendations on which English translation to buy (depending on what you want it for).
The best I can do is to suggest what to look for, where one might find it, and what to pass up. In the early Seventies I took a few undergraduate classes on the Bible at UC Berkeley. One was on the Bible as Literature, taught by Robert Alter near the beginning of his career. Takeaway from that class was that the Bible is an anthology of books of different literary genres, whose authors had different objectives, composed (or later on, written) over many centuries in differing circumstances. If you keep this in mind, it gives you a handle on how to relate to what you are reading, especially the various books in the catchall Writings (Ketuvim) section.
Biblical commentary by Christian authors is usually written for Christian audiences, and cherrypicks texts that bolster Christian beliefs. So not useful for understanding what the Bible meant or means to the people who wrote it. I've got a book covering both Old and New Testaments by an avowed atheist, Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version. It's worth reading, but Fox does not know either Hebrew or Aramaic, so I would not start with him.
Ideally you want a Jewish author who takes the religion seriously and has at some point in their life been a member of a Jewish congregation, who is fairly up to date with mainstream Biblical scholarship whether or not they are themselves an academic, and doesn't have an ax to grind. Where to locate such a book? If in an area with a large Jewish population, you could look for a Judaica store that has a sizeable book section, and browse it. Contact a rabbi of a Reform, Conservative, or Reconstructionist congregation, and ask for the reading list he or she gives for adult education to prospective converts, gentiles in relationships with Jews, or Jewish adults who want to continue learning. Another possibility would be to see whether there is a full time Jewish day school that has students at the middle school or high school level; ask what they have in their library or reading lists that they would recommend. If these resources are not available, the next best thing would be to visit a large public library and see whether they have anything in the collection that meets the guidelines I suggested (Historical and cultural perspective, knowledge of the primary texts, personal experience with some form of Jewish religious practice*).
*Jews tend to regard belief as a personal matter, and not a requirement for being an active member of a synagogue or temple.
PS Tip of the hat to you, JMG, for your mention of NROOGD in the second edition of A World Full of Gods.