Bible Books: The Bible as a Whole

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In this era of specialization, it is remarkable that any one individual would set out to write a commentary on the entire Torah, or the Five Books of Moses. Richard Elliott Friedman of the University of California at San Diego is uniquely suited to the task, having previously written on a wide variety of biblical texts from multiple perspectives. He has produced a remarkable commentary.

Friedman is best known for his book Who Wrote the Bible? (1987), which summarized and developed the standard scholarly theory of source criticism. This theory suggests that the Torah (Pentateuch) is a complex, composite work that brings together several separate documents or sources, each reflecting a different time-period and ideology. To understand the Torah, one must first disentangle the sources, which were combined in ancient times by editors (redactors), and then interpret these documents in relation to their historical background.

Friedman still accepts the validity of source criticism, but this tool does not serve as the basis for his Commentary on the Torah. Rather, this new work takes the final (redacted) form of the text very seriously and offers what is often called a holistic reading of the Torah. Friedman thus explicitly sees Who Wrote the Bible? and Commentary on the Torah as complementary works: The former asks what the Torah means if we take it apart and concentrates on its history of composition, while the latter examines what it means as a whole. In this new commentary, Friedman aims “to show how intricately, how essentially connected all of it is, how logical its progression is, how essential the early stories are to what follows them, and how essential the later stories are to what precedes them!”

This approach to the text is, of course, nothing new: It characterizes the way the Torah was viewed throughout history, in both the Jewish and Christian tradition, until the rise of modern critical biblical scholarship in the last few centuries. In fact, this commentary is fundamentally a traditional Jewish book: It opens from the right side, like Hebrew books; it contains the complete Hebrew text of the Torah alongside Friedman’s new English translation (the commentary appears on the bottom of each page); it denotes and refers to Jewish lectionary readings (the parashah); it often refers to traditional medieval Jewish commentaries and earlier classical rabbinic works; and it quotes several contemporary rabbis. Sometimes, Friedman will offer more than one explanation of a passage, separating them with the phrase “another view,” which is used in rabbinic texts to distinguish alternate, equally plausible explanations. These “Jewish” elements might make the work of greater interest to the Jewish reader, but in no way excludes the general, non-Jewish reader interested in a Jewishly informed holistic reading of the Hebrew Bible.

Any commentary must be selective; a one-volume work incorporating the Hebrew text, its translation and a commentary must be especially selective. Friedman clarifies his goals in his introduction: “I mean to try to offer explanations for old problems and to address new ones. I aim to shed new light on the Torah and, more important, to open windows through which it sheds its light on us.” This intimates, correctly, that the commentary is in many ways very personal. The personal style makes Friedman’s commentary suitable in content and tone for the individual who wants to take the Torah seriously as Torah, that is, as (religious) instruction. It is thus just the opposite of the typical critical commentary, in which the commentator is asked to ignore himself or herself and the surrounding community in order to be true only to the original text.

Friedman is an excellent teacher who has a strong sense of what interests the lay reader and is able to address these interests in a clear, engaging fashion. In this work, he teaches a great deal about the history of the biblical text, its ancient translations, how various types of errors entered the standard (Masoretic) Hebrew text and how scholars decide which reading is best. He uses extrabiblical ancient Near Eastern texts, words and expressions in a judicious fashion to clarify texts. He notes that the term Torah, even though it is often translated as Law, is a much broader concept, including both narrative and law. He teaches important, basic grammatical points about biblical 043Hebrew, and notes that it is incorrect to be overly etymological in translating Hebrew words based on their root. “Words can evolve away from their root meanings over centuries,” warns Friedman. A sensitive listener, he draws attention to many puns and word-plays in the text. (For example, the name of one of Eden’s four rivers—the Gihon—foreshadows the punishment of the snake, who must crawl on his belly—Hebrew, gahon.) He corrects many misconceptions that the average reader might have. He notes, for example, that the Hebrew words for man and women, ‘ish and ‘ishah, might seem to be etymologically related, but really are not; that Genesis 3 depicts a plain snake, not a serpent, the devil or Satan; that the Bible does not present its heroes as perfect; and that Genesis 34 need not be understood as the rape of Dinah. In Friedman’s words, “The nature of the act is not in fact clear from this wording.” In addition, he notes that the Hebrew root for Pesach (Passover) should not be translated as “to pass over” but “to halt”; that ancient people did not worship idols themselves but saw them as representatives of deities; that the decalogue prohibition should be translated as “you shall not murder” rather than “kill”; and that the biblical text of Exodus 21:22 has no bearing on the biblical attitude toward abortion. He also notes that the God of the Hebrew Bible may not be understood as a wrathful God and then contrasted to the God of the New Testament. He offers a wonderful polemic against those who would read the Bible as a secret code (“nonsense,” he calls it); and notes that in some cases a difficult biblical text is simply the result of a scribal error, and that it is wrong to find “deep” explanations for these mistakes.

Taken together, Friedman’s sharp observations provide the lay reader with insight into the foundations of modern biblical scholarship. They will certainly help transform the average Bible reader into a much more knowledgeable and sophisticated student.

Throughout, Friedman’s tone is remarkably humble. “I do not know what this means,” he states several times, following, to some extent, the medieval Jewish tradition of admitting uncertainty. He honestly observes that certain episodes, such as the story in Exodus 4 concerning the bridegroom of blood, remain fundamentally obscure. Concerning a contradiction in the text (in Exodus 13:11), he notes: “I am not certain of the answer to this problem. I point it out in order to make it known and in the hope that someone else may solve it.” Now, as BR readers are probably aware, these kinds of admissions are absent from most (biblical) scholarship, which has become a game of oneupmanship, of “You are wrong and I am right.” Friedman’s humility reflects the value he places on the Torah itself. He is acknowledging that the text should not be viewed as an arcane compilation of ancient sources, but as Torah, or instruction.

It should not be surprising in a work of this scope that I sometimes disagree with the author. Most fundamentally, I wish that Friedman had not offered the Commentary as a complete contrast to Who Wrote the Bible?, and had instead examined how we can understand the Torah as a whole even though it is clearly a composite work. I often feel that his explanations of how the text is unified are somewhat forced. (One example is his depiction of Numbers “as a coherent and tightly woven text” unified by the theme of “the journey.”) I find this theme too vague; it does not allow the wide variety of material to cohere. Perhaps this is simply a matter of predisposition: It is easier for some of us to see coherence where others (like me) see diversity.

There are several things Friedman doesn’t mention that I wish he had. For example, he does not explore what the “image of God” (Genesis 1:27) means; nor does he discuss the historical background of the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22), noting the variety of attitudes in ancient Israel toward child sacrifice. He does not give an extensive introduction to biblical law; for example, he does not compare the law of the goring ox in Exodus 22:28–32 to the earlier laws in the Hammurabi law collection. He does not explain why the biblical text spends so much time describing the construction of the Tabernacle at the end of Exodus. I would have liked more detail (especially in a Jewishly oriented commentary) on the function and purpose of sacrifices. I believe that Friedman is incorrect in stating that the Covenant Code, the legal collection in Exodus, comprises chapters 21 through 23; it actually begins at the end of chapter 21, and is better called a collection, rather than a code. As others have noted, it is not comprehensive or organized for use in the court, as is expected of a code. I also wish that he avoided using the phrase “Ten Commandments,” which he notes is problematic. I prefer “decalogue,” Greek for “ten sayings”; this more closely reflects the Hebrew term used and allows Exodus 20:2 and Deuteronomy 5:6 (“I am the Lord your God…”), which are not commandments, to be part of this unit. I disagree with his translation of the Hebrew term shalom in the priestly blessing (Numbers 6:26) as “peace” rather than 044“well being.” Although his translation is generally smooth and accurate, in places it is clumsy, reflecting the Hebrew too closely, such as Deuteronomy 1:17, “You shall not recognize a face in judgment” or Deuteronomy 32:5, “It corrupted at him.”

I was distressed to find several factual errors in the commentary. The second sentence of the introduction states that the first Hebrew book printed “was the Torah with the commentary of Rashi,” the great Jewish French Bible commentator who lived from 1040 to 1105. Friedman is partially correct—the volume published indeed was Rashi’s commentary on the Torah but without the accompanying Torah text. It is truly remarkable that Rashi’s commentary was published before the Torah itself! In addition, Friedman understands Rashi’s seeking of the Bible’s peshat as “pursuing the straightforward meaning of a text.” This, however, is not quite correct. Rashi rarely uses the terms peshat (often mistranslated by others as “the simple meaning” of the text). More significantly Rashi’s goal was not to create a “straightforward” commentary but a commentary that is sensitive to context. Most classical rabbinic interpretations that preceded Rashi emphasized the meaning of the individual word; Rashi’s great contribution was “discovering” the wider context of the phrase, the verse and the literary unit. Friedman’s opening comment on Genesis 1:1 is also inaccurate. He states: “Rashi began his commentary with the remark that the Torah could have begun with the first commandment to Israel—the commandment 045to observe Passover.” The first commandment to Israel is in Exodus 12:2, and concerns starting the new year with the spring month of Nissan; commandments concerning Passover appear only later in that chapter.

These errors and omissions do not negate the value of this book. Friedman is to be congratulated for producing a masterful commentary that truly teaches how the Torah text might be read as a whole, and how it might “teach” and inform the life of the religiously sensitive individual. His pedagogical skills—his ability to communicate in a clear and interesting fashion—are especially laudable. I know of no other work that has these merits, and I imagine that anyone from any background who reads this commentary will gain an enriched sense of the Torah, its meaning and its significance.

In this era of specialization, it is remarkable that any one individual would set out to write a commentary on the entire Torah, or the Five Books of Moses. Richard Elliott Friedman of the University of California at San Diego is uniquely suited to the task, having previously written on a wide variety of biblical texts from multiple perspectives. He has produced a remarkable commentary. Friedman is best known for his book Who Wrote the Bible? (1987), which summarized and developed the standard scholarly theory of source criticism. This theory suggests that the Torah (Pentateuch) is a complex, composite […]