The God of Old: Inside the Lost World of the Bible

I picked up "The God of Old" because I loved Kugel's "How to Read the Bible" and this promised to look deeper into some ideas that were mentioned in the latter. While interesting and enjoyable - Kugel is a charismatic and engaging writer - it felt like it wasn't entirely developed. Several concepts are convincingly introduced, but they're never quite tied together. Kugel admits this in the last chapter and writes that he hopes they will be of use to others; this might be enough for scholars, but it leaves laymen such as myself hanging.

Each chapter explores at least one idea. It feels to me that Kugel is developing his ideas as he writes this book and we are along for the ride. His use of the term starkness seems to be an attempt to use an existing word for a concept that doesn't quite fit the word, but he hasn't found anything better. Notes can be found at the end, where the relevant sentence from the text is followed by sources and comments; i.e., if you just read the book, you don't know what is footnoted.

Some of his ideas:
Chapter 2: When God appears to someone, that person has a "moment of confusion" before realizing that God has appeared. There is no requirement for God to appear---only later does it seem necessary that the viewer is worthy.
Chapter 3: The show more person who sees God is "not searching for God," but only minding his (or her) own business.
Chapter 4: While God can appear as a man---hence the moment of confusion above as someone realizes that he has been talking to God and not a man, there are "no graven images" of the Jewish God, even if there are graven images to be found in ancient Israelite sites.
Chapter 5: God is required to act to correct injustice if he hears "the cry of the victim."
Chapter 6: While exploring "the soul's journey," Kugel discusses the idea of starkness, which I think is a way of viewing the world in stark distinctions of good and bad, instead of the more mundane way that we usually live our lives.
Chapter 7, The Last Look: In the Bible, the dead and those close to death, seem to know the future; e.g., Samuel's ghost tells Saul what is going to happen to Saul. As God becomes more remote, angels become closer to people and assume "specific names and functions." [p. 194] show less