RENDSBURG, G. A. How the Bible Is Written. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2019, 675 p. – ISBN 9781683071976
O objetivo deste livro é aproximar os leitores interessados do texto original da Bíblia Hebraica / Antigo Testamento e proporcionar-lhes uma apreciação maior de sua arte literária e linguística. Em suma, este livro trata muito mais do modo como a Bíblia diz o que diz do que daquilo que diz.
The goal of How the Bible Is Written is to bring interested readers–scholars and laypeople alike–closer to the original text of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and to provide them with a greater appreciation of its literary artistry and linguistic virtuosity. In short, this book focuses not so much on what the Bible says as how the Bible says it. A book focusing on the nexus between language and literature in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, with specific attention to how the former is used to create the latter; topics include wordplay, wordplay with proper names, alliteration, repetition with variation, dialect representation, intentionally confused language, marking closure, and more.
The first paragraph of my new book reads as follows: “Learned colleagues have written books entitled Who Wrote the Bible?, How to Read the Bible, How the Bible Became a Book, and How the Bible Became Holy. The present volume poses a different question, How the Bible Is Written. My goal in this book is to reveal the manner in which language is used to produce exquisite literature, no less for the ancient Israelite literati who crafted the compositions that eventually were canonized as the Bible than for William Shakespeare or Jane Austen or J. R. R. Tolkien or any other writer whose literature we admire and continue to enjoy. Which is to say, in the most simple of terms: there are many books on what the Bible says; this is a book on how the Bible says it”.
Uma avaliação do livro feita por Jim West pode ser lida em seu blog Zwinglius Redivivus.
Gary A. Rendsburg é Professor de História Judaica na Universidade de Rutgers, Nova Jérsei, Estados Unidos.
