The Tanakh – or the Jewish Bible, if you will – is easily the most popular book published by the Jewish Publication Society.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise – the Bible is the ultimate classic.  It’s probably the bestselling book of all time!   For those who are interested in the Bible, there are easily hundreds of books on the topic – but if you’re not an expert, it’s ridiculously difficult to decide which ones to start with.

This is where Rabbi James Diamond comes to the rescue!  I approached the author of Stringing the Pearls: How to Read the Weekly Torah Portion to suggest his top ten books on the Bible.  Just so you get an idea of his creds, Rabbi Diamond was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary, and he holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University in Bloomington. Diamond has taught the Tanakh course in the Me’ah program, a two-year intensive adult Jewish learning program that is sponsored by the Hebrew College of Boston.  He has taught in the Program in Judaic Studies at Princeton University, and has served as the director of Princeton’s Center for Jewish Life.

The following are Rabbi Diamond’s top ten books about the Bible (rather than translations or commentaries – he points out that “the Jewish Study Bible is listed here only because of the 25 excellent essays at the back”).  But this isn’t just any old list.  Here’s how he put it together:

There is an ascending progression here – in level, technicality, and complexity. There are really 2 lists of 5. The first 5 deal with the Bible in general. The 2^nd group of 5 represent important takes on the Bible from key perspectives.

General books about the Bible

1. Understanding the Hebrew Bible: A Reader’s Guide, by Elliot Rabin  [“Clear, concise, nontechnical, and thorough.  A superb starting point.”]

2. The Jewish Bible: A JPS Guide, by the Jewish Publication Society  [“The best handbook to have at your side as you read or study.”]

3. The Bible and the Ancient Near East: (Revised Edition), by Cyrus H. Gordon & Gary A. Rendsburg  [“Delineates the full historical and cultural matrix out of which the Bible springs and in which it has to be seen.”]

4. How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now, by James L. Kugel  [“If I had to have only one book on the Bible, this would be it.”]

5. The Jewish Study Bible: featuring The Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation, Adele Berlin & Marc Zvi Brettler, eds.  [“The biggest bang for your Bible buck. You get not only a full English translation of the whole TANAKH but excellent running commentary on the margins, and the 25 essays at the back alone are worth the price of the book.”]

Important Takes on the Bible From Key Perspectives

6. The Bible with Sources Revealed, by Richard Elliot Friedman  [“The Torah in typographical Technicolor. Very useful if you want to see what source criticism can yield. The masterful 30 page introduction is a shorter and clearer presentation of his earlier Who Wrote the Bible.”]

7. Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study, by John Barton  ["Lucidly opens up the different ways of reading and analyzing the Bible.”]

8. The Book of God: A Response to the Bible, by Gabriel Josipovici  [“A superb literary critic reads the Bible not only with head but with heart. Demanding but rewarding.”]

9. Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of Their Stories, by Tikva Frymer-Kensky  [“Put yourself in the hands of one of the greats of contemporary Biblical scholarship and you will understand not only gender issues in the Bible but much more.”]

10. How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel, by William M. Schneidewind  [“An important, readable presentation of where Bible scholarship is headed in the 21^st century.”]

-Naomi