Judaism: An Odd Sort of Religion of Laws - James Kugel

Jewish historian and Hebrew Bible scholar James Kugel delivers a lecture on how Judaism got to be the way it is, a religion centrally concerned with laws.

Has Modern Biblical Scholarship Killed the Bible? - James Kugel

Fourth in a series of four lectures delivered at Pardes by James Kugel, this lecture finishes tracing the arc of the history of Bible interpretation by discussing the consequences of modern Biblical scholarship for Bible interpretation.

The Rise of Modern Biblical Scholarship - James Kugel

Third in a series of lectures by Hebrew Bible and Jewish history scholar James Kugel at the Pardes Institute, tracing the trajectory of Bible interpretation from ancient to modern times. This lecture discusses the beginnings of modern, historical-critical understandings of the Bible.

The Book of Jubilees, the Oldest Commentary on Genesis - James Kugel

Second in a series of lectures delivered by Hebrew Bible scholar and historian James Kugel at the Pardes Institute, on the subject of Bible interpretation from ancient times through the present. This lecture presents the book of Jubilees, a Jewish work from late in the period BCE that Kugel frames as a very early commentary on the book of Genesis.

Lecture on Biblical Interpretation - James Kugel

In this lecture (which will serve as the first in a series of four), James Kugel, a Jewish scholar of the Bible and the early history of Judaism, lays out what we know about the earliest interpretations of the Hebrew Bible, and discusses how those early interpreters have influenced readers of the Bible down to the present day. Though this is not actually from the series of lectures delivered at the Pardes Institute, it has roughly the same information as the first lecture in that series, which was recorded with a bad microphone and is somewhat painful to listen to.