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Loading... God's Echo: Exploring Scripture with Midrash (edition 2007)by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso
Work InformationGod's Echo: Exploring Scripture with Midrash by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso
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The Rabbis of old believed that the Torah was divinely revealed and therefore contained eternal, perfect truths and hidden meaning that required elucidation. The meaning of a text was more complicated than simply reading it. And meaning changed over time. This understanding of how the Bible mystically relates to all of life is the fertile ground from which midrash emerged. "The rabbis believed that nothing in the Bible, not the choice of words or their spellings, not the order of events or the relationship of one text to another, was haphazard or inconsequential. Everything was there with purpose. They deemed it their reponsibility to discover connections and harmony where on the surface none appeared to exist. A text may contain multiple meanings. Time is of no consequence. They felt free to read back into old stories what happened in future eras, and to see in the early stories of Genesis a foreshadowing of future events." In this engaging book, Rabbi Sasso explores how midrash originated, how it is still used today, and offers new translations and interpretations of more than twenty essential midrash texts. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)296.1Religions Other Religions Judaism Jewish writingsLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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I also found interesting the parallels and differences between the four senses of Jewish exegesis (plain, allegorical, midrash and mystical), with the four senses in Christian exegesis (literal, moral, anagogical and allegorical). I don't necessarily think that the midrash is right about everything, but I do commend reading the text with that sort of attentiveness. ( )