The Biblical Mind

Ethical Ambiguity, Biblical Vigilantes, and Dr. Shira Weiss (CHT Fellow)

In this episode, Dr. Dru Johnson talks with Dr. Shira Weiss about her research on biblical ethics, the sticky ethical stories of Scripture, and why the biblical authors might not have given us easy answers about morality. 
Shira Weiss holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Philosophy and has taught at Yeshiva University.  She has earned fellowships from the NEH, The Templeton Foundation, and Ben Gurion University.  Dr. Weiss is the author of Joseph Albo on Free Choice: Exegetical Innovation in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Oxford University Press) and Ethical Ambiguity in the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge University Press), as well as articles in a variety of academic journals. She is currently working on a manuscript, Biblical Heroes on Trial: Justice and Vigilantism in the Hebrew Bible, and is co-authoring a book on protests against God in the Book of Job according to the three Abrahamic faiths.

Introducing Dr. Joshua Berman (CHT Fellow)

Dr. Dru Johnson talks to Dr. Berman about what the intellectual world of the Bible looks like to him. 
Joshua Berman is a professor of Hebrew Bible at Bar-Ilan University, Israel.  A graduate of Princeton University, Dr. Berman also studied for eight years at Yeshivat Har-Etzion in Israel and has rabbinical ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.  He is the author, among other works of Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought  (Oxford, 2008) and Inconsistency in the Torah: Ancient Literary Convention and the Limits of Source Criticism (Oxford, 2017). In addition to his scholarly output, Dr. Berman has also published pieces on the Hebrew Bible and contemporary thought in Mosaic Magazine and the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Berman served as a member of the International Advisory Council of the Museum of the Bible, Washington, D.C.

Yoram Hazony: "An Individualist Approach To The Hebrew Bible" (NPR)

In this short NPR episode, Yoram Hazony opens the “bottle” of the Hebrew Bible and reads the message inside, arguing that the Hebrew Bible is philosophy in narrative form. The message is this: there is hope for human political affairs, and the Scriptures are an epic that advocate wariness of great imperial powers and individualism in the face of authority. 

Yoram Hazony on the Bible as Philosophy

In this episode, CHT director Dr. Dru Johnson interviews Yoram Hazony about the recent history of viewing the Bible as a work of philosophy. They discuss the state of academics and the unique influence of Hebraic philosophy on our way of understanding the world. 
Yoram Hazony is President of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem, and currently serves as Chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, a new public affairs institute based in Washington that will be hosting the first National Conservatism Conference in July 2019.
His book The Virtue of Nationalism was published by Basic Books in September 2018. It has been selected as Conservative Book of the Year for 2019, and was an amazon #1 best-seller in both International Diplomacy and Nationalism. You can read all the reviews of the book here.
His previous books include The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture (Cambridge University Press, 2012), which won the second place PROSE award for the best book in the category of Theology and Religion by the Association of American Publishers; The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel’s Soul (Basic Books, 2000); and God and Politics in Esther (Cambridge University Press, 2016).

FAQ: Do We Think Like Ancient Folks Did?

Did ancient Israelites think like we do today? Did they have abstract thoughts? If we don't, then can we understand anything the biblical authors said? Dr. Dru Johnson discusses reasons to trust that we do think similarly to the biblical authors. 
For a more technical survey of this discussion, see Dru's essay "Did Ancient Hebrews Have Different Minds than the Greeks?"
 

FAQ: What About the New Testament?

Abby Smith and Dr. Dru Johnson discuss what "Hebraic thought" has to do with the New Testament and whether we need the Old Testament in order to understand the New.
Note: Dr. Johnson mistakenly referenced Leviticus 18:19, which should have been Lev 19:18.

FAQ: Why "Hebraic Thought" and not "Jewish Thought"?

FAQ: Justice as an Example of Hebraic Thought

For more on this, see "What is Hebraic Thought?"

FAQ: What is Hebraic Thought?

 “Hebraic thought is more than just religion—it’s a fully-formed cultural tradition. It includes that rich collection of ideas, concepts, stories, and values that emerge from the world of ancient Israel.”
—Rob Nicholson
“‘Hebraic thought’ refers to the reasoning and philosophy developed within the Hebrew Bible, continued into the New Testament, and not found elsewhere in the ancient Near East.”
—Dru Johnson
 
The Hebrew Bible contains a rich tapestry of ideas worked out over centuries by the biblical authors. In addition to communicating God’s instruction to His people, we see their thinking on display through their rigorous, systematic thoughts about the nature of reality and how humans can understand reality. These thoughts aren’t just musings; the authors advocate a way of understanding reality. Both their ideas and the way they arrived at those ideas is “Hebraic thought.”
For more information, please visit us at HebraicThought.org.

Center for Hebraic Thought *Coming Soon*