Ron Hendel: Judaism Unbound Episode 260 - The Bible...It's ALIVE!!
Ron Hendel, the Norma and Sam Dabby Professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, joins Dan and Lex to open up a mini-series of conversations (to be released in the coming weeks) on the Hebrew Bible. How old is the Bible? What "genre(s)" is it? Is it best understood as one big book or a bunch of smaller books? Why does any of this matter? These are questions asked and explored (but not necessarily answered!) in this podcast.
[1] Learn more about Ron Hendel by clicking here. Purchase his book How Old is the Hebrew Bible? at this link, or The Book of Genesis: A Biography at this link.
[2] If you like the idea of writing a “biography” of religious books like Genesis (or the bible as a whole), you may enjoy other books in the Lives of Great Religious Books series from Princeton University Press. Click here to see all the books in that series, check out another Judaism Unbound episode with one of its authors by listening to Episode 211: The Passover Haggadah, a Biography - Vanessa Ochs, and watch a jewishLIVE video featuring a third (Barry Wimpfheimer, author of The Talmud: a Biography) by clicking here.
[3] There is a brief reference to the work of Richard Elliott Friedman, author of Who Wrote the Bible? Listen in to previous episodes of Judaism Unbound featuring him in either Episode 27: Wrote the Bible? or Episode 83: The Exodus. Tune into past or future episodes of his weekly jewishLIVE show, Return to Torah, at this link.
[4] Read Nietzsche’s work Thus Spake Zarathustra, which Hendel mentions, and explore its relationship to the Bible, here.
[5] Dan talks about his remarkable experience at The Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky (whose approach to the Bible, as scientific fact, we certainly do not endorse, but do find fascinating!). Take a look at this organization’s website at CreationMuseum.org.