Biblical Revisions and Para-Biblical Visions
by Mordecai Roshwald
ISBN: 978-1-935444-00-8
Dr. Roshwald's interview with M. Stefan Strozier his publisher is posted here.
Mordecai Roshwald, Biblical Revisions and Para-Biblical Visions
"Prof. Roshwald,
Gordon Schochet did me the great favor of sharing your book, Biblical Revisions. I have no academic expertise in the area, but I have of course been reading the Bible all my life and occasionally using the texts in classes. Your book has been unmatched in my reading for insight, stimulation, and pure enjoyment of its style, clarity and humor. The closest competitor, for me, was Wiesel's Messengers of God, but you're better. Thank you for the inspiration and the teaching."
-Gerald Pomper
Board of Governors Professor of Political Science (Emeritus)
Rutgers University
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"This is an altogether splendid book: insightful, intelligent, learned, wise, and provocative. Roshwald's marvelously playful and inventive re-telling of some of the crucial stories of the Hebrew and Christian bibles penetrates the mystique of biblical literalism and drives straight to the deeper ethical messages of the text. Through the use of invented 'newly discovered' texts, some allegedly on the order of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Roshwald's "para-biblical visions" provide human-centered readings of holy writ that can happily co-exist along side the more conventional emphases on divinity. His challenging readings, which never leave the Bibles themselves far behind, are certain to annoy the rigidly observant of all stripes. The more flexible among us, however, cannot but rejoice; yes, rejoice, with almost all the connotations that word bears at these bold demands that we return to the realizations that Judaism and Christianity have much to say about our relations to one another and that discussion and even intellectual disruption are fundamental parts of the processes of understanding who we are and what we are about."
--Gordon Schochet
Co-Executive Editor, Hebraic Political Studies
Professor of Political Science
Rutgers University
89 George Street
New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901-1411
Biblical Revisions and Para-Biblical Visions sounds like a strange title. The book itself is also peculiar. It presents a series of narratives, allegedly translations of ancient documents, most of which focus on biblical stories, but deviate from the known text in substance. The book could be described as Theology-Fiction, a cousin of Science-Fiction. If this may sound frivolous to devout believers, actually the Revisions and the Visions are not a light-hearted attempt to provoke an uproar, but a sincere and tortuous quest of truth. To be sure, the book may encounter fierce criticism and perhaps even resentment of observant Jews, and even more objections from Christian denominations. Yet, such foreseen reaction, though painful to the author, could not prevent him from expressing his views; perhaps in hope that his effort would lead to a dialogue with sincere believers of both faiths, a dialogue ' le shem shamayim' with his fellow-Jews, and self-searching 'ad maiorem Dei gloriam' among his Christian friends.
*This book is a testimony to the anguished encounter of a skeptic with the
doctrines of Judaism and Christianity.*
*The conflicts of Belief and Reason, of Religion and Ethics, are sincerely
confronted on the pages of this book.*
*With the skill of a scholar, the commitment of a philosopher, and the
passion of a would-be believer, the author questions some of the basic
tenets of Judaism and Christianity.*
*The author, steeped in Biblical studies, contends with some dogmas of the
good book, even as Jacob "contended with God and with men" (Genesis 32:29).*
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