Review of Levenson, The Making of the Modern Jewish Bible

H-JUDAIC BOOK REVIEW:

Alan T. Levenson. The Making of the Modern Jewish Bible: How Scholars in Germany, Israel, and America Transformed an Ancient Text.
Lanham Rowman & Littlefield, 2011. xiii + 247 pp. $49.95
(cloth), ISBN 978-1-4422-0516-1.

Reviewed by Alan Cooper (Jewish Theological Seminary)
Published on H-Judaic (October, 2012)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

Whose Bible?

Alan T. Levenson introduces his book by suggesting that its scope
might be deemed "hubristic" and stating that it is "_not_ an original
piece of scholarship" (pp. 4, 5, his emphasis). One could say,
therefore, that the book is self-reviewing, but the overly modest
characterization does an injustice to a volume that is learned,
informative, insightful, often entertaining, and occasionally (but
constructively) annoying. The learning, culled from a wide array of
primary and secondary sources, is placed in the service of an effort
to "translate the findings of the academy for a wider audience"--an
effort that succeeds admirably (p. 5).

[...]