Synopses & Reviews
The Bible you usually read is not the complete story. Some holy writings were left out for political or theological reasons, others simply because of the physical restrictions of ancient bookmaking technology. At times, the compilers of the Bible skipped information that they assumed everyone knew. Some passages were even omitted by accident.
In The Bibles Cutting Room Floor, acclaimed author and translator Dr. Joel M. Hoffman gives us the stories and other texts that didnt make it into the Bible even though they offer penetrating insight into the Bible and its teachings.
The Book of Genesis tells us about Adam and Eves time in the Garden of Eden, but not their saga after they get kicked out or the lessons they have for us about good and evil. The Bible introduces us to Abraham, but it doesnt include the troubling story of his early life, which explains how he came to reject idolatry to become the father of monotheism. And while there are only 150 Psalms in todays Bible, there used to be many more.
Dr. Hoffman deftly brings these and other ancient scriptural texts to life, exploring how they offer new answers to some of the most fundamental and universal questions people ask about their lives. An impressive blend of history, linguistics, and religious scholarship, The Bibles Cutting Room Floor reveals whats missing from your Bible, who left it out, and why it is so important.
Review
Praise for
The Bible's Cutting Room Floor"A wonderful book to confirm the beliefs of the faithful, to strengthen those whose faith begs for more information and to enlighten those who reject the stories of the Bible as mere fiction." —Kirkus Reviews
"An engrossing gift for amateur bible students." —Booklist
Praise for And God Said "A lively tour of the difficulties besetting the Bibles translators, their successes and (more frequent) failures." —Jewish Ideas Daily
"Deeply welcome as a valuable tool for teaching . . . well-worth acquiring." —Jewish Book World
"[Hoffman] unites biblical scholarship and translation theory, embracing modern science and modern linguistics, to help us understand what the prophets and our forebears were doing and how they wrote. He retrieves what the Bible really was and what it can be for us now." —The Very Reverend James A. Kowalski, The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine
"A wise and important book, and a lot of fun to read." —Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People
"Hoffman is wise and gentle as he exhibits the issue of distortion by way of translation. Short of all readers learning Hebrew, Hoffmans work is the best gift for a careful reader of a text that defies easy contemporary rendering." —Walter Brueggemann, author of The Prophetic Imagination
Praise for In the Beginning
"Hoffman has a flair for explaining how languages work." —The Times Literary Supplement (London)
"Written in an energetic style with a commitment to exploring the evolution of Hebrew from ancient times to the present in ways that a broad audience can comprehend." —Religious Studies Review
Synopsis
The Bible you currently read is the abridged version. Some holy writings were left out for political or theological reasons, others simply because of the physical restrictions of ancient book-making technology. At times, the compilers of the Bible skipped information that they assumed everyone knew. Some passages were even left out by accident. In this book, Joel Hoffman explains that:
—The Book of Genesis tells you about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but not what happens to them after they get kicked out.
—The Bible presents Abraham, the father of monotheism, but doesn't explain how he came to reject idolatry.
—Today's Bible contains only 150 Psalms, but there used to be more.
—Christians know they have the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, but Jews had a similar book that told a different story of what eventually happens to the Earth.
The Bibles Cutting Room Floor introduces these and other fascinating writings that offer different answers to the most fundamental and universal questions people ask about their lives. An impressive blend of history, linguistics, and religious scholarship, this book reveals what's missing from your Bible, who left it out, and why it is so important.
About the Author
JOEL M. HOFFMAN, Ph.D., is the author of In the Beginning and And God Said. He is the chief translator for the series My Peoples Prayer Book (winner of the National Jewish Book Award) and for My Peoples Passover Haggadah. He is an occasional contributor to The Jerusalem Post and The Huffington Post and has held faculty appointments at Brandeis University and at Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion. He lives in New York.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Abridged Bible
1. Jerusalem: An Eternal City in Conflict
2. The Dead Sea Scrolls: How a Lost Goat Changed the World
3. The Septuagint: How Seventy Scholars Took Seventy Days to Get It Wrong
4. Josephus: The Only Man to Be a Fly on Every Wall
5. Adam and Eve: Falling Down and Getting Back Up
6. Abraham: Humans, Idols, and Gods
7. Enoch: The Beginning of the End
8. The Big Picture: Finding the Unabridged Bible