I’m plowing my way through the Bible for the first time, and I’m constantly wishing I had a reliable reference manual. Why does God get so pissed off at Moses, at the Waters of Meribah? Why, when God exterminates all the worshippers of the Golden Calf, does Aaron get a pass, when he’s the one who made it?
Are there any reference guides to the King James that are generally accepted by educated believers and non-believers regarding the likely meaning of each passage? Ideally, the guide would also address competing interpretations and discuss why those interpretations are inferior.
My edition of the KJ includes an appendix, the last sections of which are “KJV Words Which Have Changed in Meaning” followed by “How to Become a Christian.” I’m very interested to learn about words that have changed meaning, but I’d like a more impartial source.
Likewise. I used the New Oxford in college as well; that was the selected text for the very, very secular history classes. It uses the New Revised Standard Version (NSRV) translation, which is not very pretty but seems to written straightforwardly.
Any time you ask why God did something, the answer will inevitably reflect the religious bias of the person speaking, so I fear your quest for an impartial/unbiased explanation of those passages is doomed.
However, an understanding of the geographical, cultural, and historical references will go a long way toward helping you evaluate the answers you get. For that, I can recommend Asimov’s Guide to the Bible. Possibly a bit dated by now, but you can’t beat Asimov for readability.
Try Asimov’s Guide to the Bible: A Historical Look at the Old and New Testaments - from Amazon. written by someone raised in the Jewish faith and professing atheism, I doubt it pushes any particular sect’s preconceptions or agenda. But Asimov was very entertaining, a very good writer, and has done excellent research.
Speaking here as a somewhat well-educated and observant Jew, I can tell you that these questions - and many others like them - are discussed at length by many many Jewish commentators. In general, I’m satisfied by those answers. But that’s because I’m coming from a starting point which presumes that these people usually had good reasons for what they did. I also presume that every single word of the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) was written by God, and with reasons behind every single word, and even behind why each word was spelled in a certain way.
But if someone’s starting point is that these stories were written by an imperfect human, then explanations which hinge on the author’s word choice will sound umplausible, and explanations of a character’s choices will sound like excuses.
I can’t imagine any middle ground. If the OP can offer a definition of “impartial/unbiased” which includes both believers and non-believers, I’d love to hear it.
Isaac Asimov is Jewish due to his parentage, but he was not raised in the Jewish faith. He has said that his parents made no effort to educate him in the religion.
Thanks.
I have read his 3 autobiography books long ago and I was not sure of this detail, other than I don’t recall him mentioning observances or going to synagogue.
You could use the Bible itself to help define the Bible, different books, different people but arguably the same theme which would help resolve those questions.
It’s difficult to recommend a theological work for its impartiality; any theologian is likely to show some bias toward his or her particular tradition. Nevertheless, I’ll go out on a limb here and mention a work that has been held in high esteem for about 200 years… Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible. The full text is available online, which is fortunate as a print copy runs to 6 volumes of about 1000 pages each.
Clarke was an Irish Methodist so his work naturally takes a Wesleyan-Arminian view. As such he was opposed to Catholicism, Calvinism, and some say to Judiaism although I personally think too much has been made of his supposed anti-semitism. Of course, the Commentaries were written so long ago that they do not have the benefit of recent discoveries of historians & archeologists., however they are still one of the most thoroughly-researched and exhaustive reference works out there.
If you want to study the Bible and get context, I recommend to seek out more than one point of view. Try Jewish commentators, Christian ones. Old, modern, whatever. The ones listed here by Dopers are all highly recommended.
There are some websites like thatt offers commentary by Rashi, but it may be advanced. The JPS bible will also have notes on the Hebrew.
If you can afford it, I love the Stone Edition of the tenakch (Jewish bible). Plenty of commentary. I cannot recommend it enough.
Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliott Friedman is an excellent introduction and addition to the documentary thesis of the composition of the Torah, or the Old Testament books from Genesis to Deuteronomy.
It has an interesting explanation of the golden calf story.