Moshe Greenberg: A Spiritual Critical Bible Scholar

As a former member of the JTS faculty, I will diplomatically avoid the question of which category JTS of the 1950’s belonged to!

Editor’s note: See also the discussion of Greenberg’s approach to biblical scholarship in Natan Ophir (Offenbacher), “My Abandoned Quest to Integrate Orthodoxy and Biblical Criticism,” TheTorah (2021).

Moshe Greenberg, “Can Modern Critical Bible Scholarship Have a Jewish Character?,” in Studies in Bible and Jewish Thought (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1995), 3–8 (at 7); first publ. in 1983.

Moshe Greenberg, “Reflections on Interpretation,” in Studies in Bible and Jewish Thought, 227–234 (at 233); first publ. in 1979.

Thus, in his chapter on “Purpose and Method” in Understanding Exodus, he describes his focus in examining the work of the Bible’s redactors:

Finally, the work of the redactor will be discussed. Our point of departure is the question: What did the redactor mean by putting the material together as he did?... Even during this most speculative part of our inquiry, the focus will remain on the message and meaning of the text. (Moshe Greenberg, Understanding Exodus: A Holistic Commentary on Exodus 1–11, 2^nd ed. [Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2013], 6; first ed. publ. in 1969).

Moshe Greenberg, המקרא המשמעות האמיתית של [The Real Significance of the Bible], in על המקרא ועל היהדות [On the Bible and Judaism], ed. אברהם שפירא (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1984), 344–349 (at 349); first publ. in 1981.

Greenberg’s determination to read the Bible “as-is” shares certain points in common with Brevard Childs’ approach to the Old Testament as scripture, which focused on the Bible as it was canonically received, with the obvious caveat that Greenberg was focused on the Bible as Jewish scripture as reflected through Jewish history, and in particular through the prism of rabbinic interpretation. See Brevard Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979).

For a bibliography of Greenberg’s published works, see Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg, ed. Mordechai Cogan, Barry L. Eichler, and Jeffrey H. Tigay (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), xxiii–xxxviii. The same volume also includes a discussion of Greenberg and his scholarship, “Moshe Greenberg: An Appreciation,” ix–xxii. See also Marc Zvi Brettler, “Concepts of Scripture in Moshe Greenberg,” in Jewish Concepts of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction, ed. Benjamin D. Sommer (New York: NYU Press, 2012), 247–266.

Greenberg, Understanding Exodus, 154. Editor’s note: See also the discussions of the ten plagues in Marc Zvi Brettler, “Some Biblical Perspectives on the Haggadah,” TheTorah (2014); and Tzemah Yoreh, “Three Redactional and Theological Layers of the Plagues,” TheTorah (2016).

Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, trans. Moshe Greenberg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960).

See the discussion in Alex Sinclair, “An Exploration of Moshe Greenberg’s Religious Vision and its Manifestation in His Bible Scholarship and Writings on Bible Education,” Journal for Jewish Education 76 (2010): 124–150.

Smith uses the example of a torii, a Japanese gateway that leads to a shrine—a symbol that moves the believer from one kind of feeling to another:

One passes through it, leaving behind psychologically, symbolically, the humdrum ordinary world to enter the sacred space of the temple; and after worship, one again moves through the gate in the other direction, to re-enter now the realm of everyday life, but as a renewed person (W. C. Smith, “Religion as Symbolism,” in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15^th ed., Propaedia [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992], 299–301 [at 299]).

Smith’s example is a powerful and accessible explanation of what a religious symbol is: at the end of the day, a torii is merely a man-made structure of wood and metal and paint. Knock it down and it is firewood. Nevertheless, the torii does something to the members of its community, impacting them and affecting them, their feelings, their thinking, their experience of life. It helps them encounter transcendence. For more on Greenberg’s reliance on Smith, see note 14, below.

For Greenberg’s interest in Jewish education per se, see his “On Teaching the Bible in Religious Schools,” Jewish Education 29/3 (1959): 45–53; and “On teaching the Bible,” Studies in Jewish Education 5 (1990): 27–34, in both of which he discusses not just the specifics of Bible teaching but also the broader contexts of Jewish education in which that is situated. For Greenberg’s interest in broader communal/national/educational matters in Israel, see his “The Task of Masorti Judaism,” in Deepening the Commitment: Zionism and the Conservative/Masorti Movement, ed. J. S. Ruskay and D. Szonyi (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1990), 137–145.

Time itself is a symbol too: there can be no greater example of how a basically arbitrary and man-made construct (i.e., the 7^th day of the week) is experienced by the meaning-seeking Jew as something that quite literally changes the way he encounters the world at a particular moment.

Because of Shabbat...the days of the week cannot completely distance a person from the reviving realm of transcendence (Moshe Greenberg, “על זהות, תבונה ודת” [On Identity, Reason, and Religion], in On the Bible and Judaism, 247–261 [at 250], first publ. in 1978).

“On Identity, Reason, and Religion” is a crucial locus to see how Greenberg builds on Smith, both in the body of the essay itself, and in particular, in footnote 1, where he explicitly details his reliance on Smith:

I have drawn in particular from the writings of the scholar of religion Wilfred Cantwell Smith, of which I have read [several of Smith’s books and articles]. From the latter two pieces I have used much, both in formulation and in structure, because Smith’s wisdom is critical for us and I cannot formulate it better than he does. I have cut, added, changed and edited for the sake of the Jewish context, which does not interest Smith in his writings, but at the end of the day my words are marked with his stamp (247).

Understanding Exodus is the second volume in a series originally intended to be a resource for teachers in religious schools (note: religious schools, i.e. synagogue schools, not day schools!). The first volume, Understanding Genesis, was written by Nahum Sarna in 1966. Greenberg had given a series of seminars on Exodus for select teachers, and he then reworked the material from those seminars to create the book. Greenberg’s giving of his time and energies for this kind of teacher education is further proof of his deep commitment to Jewish life and education beyond the academy.

Greenberg, “Can Modern Critical Bible Scholarship Have a Jewish Character?,” 5.

Ibid.

Moshe Greenberg, Biblical Prose Prayer (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).

Greenberg, Biblical Prose Prayer, 38.

Greenberg, Biblical Prose Prayer, 51.

Greenberg, Biblical Prose Prayer, 51–52.

Moshe Greenberg, “The Biblical Grounding of Human Value,” in The Samuel Friedland Lectures, 1960–1966 (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1967), 39–52. The article expands on elements of Greenberg’s earlier work, “Some Postulates of Biblical Criminal Law,” in Yehezkel Kaufmann Jubilee Volume, ed. Menahem Haran (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1960), 5–28; repr. in Studies in Bible and Jewish Thought, 25–41. “Some Postulates” was extensively critiqued by Bernard S. Jackson in “Reflections on Biblical Criminal law,” JJS 24 (1973): 8–38, and Greenberg responded to these and other criticisms in his “More Reflections on Biblical Criminal Law,” in Studies in Bible: 1986, ed. Sara Japhet, Scripta Hierosolymitana 31 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986), 1–17.

Greenberg, “Biblical Grounding of Human Value,” page 42.

Greenberg, “Biblical Grounding of Human Value,” 44–45.

Ibid.

Greenberg, “Biblical Grounding of Human Value,” 45.

Greenberg, “Biblical Grounding of Human Value,” 50.