Between the Lines of the Bible: A Study from the New School of Orthodox Torah Commentary - Tapa dura

Yitzchak Etshalom initiates readers into the world of the New School of Orthodox Torah commentary in a series of compelling studies of the Genesis narratives.Over the past few decades, Orthodox Jewish scholars have carefully embraced many of the methodologies of modern Bible study. History, archeology, linguistics and many other disciplines—especially literary analysis—can serve to enhance our understanding of the Book of Books. Traditional students have much to gain by utilizing all of the tools available in studying the Divine word. However, this burgeoning genre of scholarship has been almost entirely in Hebrew.In this book, Yitzchak Etshalom provides the first English introduction to the methodologies of the New School. In a number of popular essays, Etshalom analyzes the familiar stories of the Bible and demonstrates the powerful tools of modern Torah commentary. In the process, Etshalom undermines many of the arguments of biblical critics and defends the Torah, through literary and historical methodologies, against attacks.

In recent years, a wedding of the new methodologies of interpretation, including many coming from the world of academia, to the older framework of traditional interpretation has been celebrated. The union is yet young, but the many disciplines that have been tested in the laboratories of secular study, including archeology, philology, Assyriology, Egyptology, anthropology, and literary theory, have now been marshaled for the cause of Biblical interpretation within the traditional rubric of critical reverence for the text. This is a sanctification of the new as much as a revivification of the old.The many Orthodox students, scholars, and teachers of this new methodology (which is really a loose confederation of methodologies), who are absolutely committed to the sanctity of the text and to its iron-clad ability to withstand any challenge, see themselves chiefly as Pashtanim (Literalists) who, just as Sa’adia, Rashbam, and ibn Ezra did in their day, use every available tool to understand the text. The disadvantage from which we suffer—a greater distance from Sinai and from the original sitz im leben of the text is somewhat offset by the more powerful tools at our fingertips. It is with the reverence and the skepticism, the fear and the courage described as the ideal relationship to masters by R. Hayyim of Volozhin that these exegetes operate. It is that same dialectic that informs the larger works produced by this school.It is important to note that, surprisingly, there is very little that is revolutionary about this method and its various expressions (e.g., works on archeology, Biblical place names, development of language); it is all very much within the spirit of the Rishonim (medieval scholars), echoing their concerns, furthering their inquiries, and augmenting their solutions.The “New School” is thriving in Israel, with an ever-growing literature of books and journals in Hebrew. The approach of this school, really a conglomerate of approaches, is partially Contextual—looking at the larger picture of the narrative, the poem, the legal framework, or the prophecy—while being absolutely anchored in a concern for the literal meaning of the text. It is the aim of this volume to introduce the English-reading public to the various methodologies that the “new school”—which is really a revivified form of the old school—uses in order to bring the text back to life and to deepen our understanding and appreciation of the elegance, the beauty, the vision, and the depth of the Book of Books.