Overview

In his series on The Moral Meaning of the Bible, Brandeis Professor Reuven Kimelman uses well known Biblical episodes to discuss many of the “gray areas” of morality. By asking difficult ethical questions that emerge from the Biblical narrative, he helps us wrestle with these issues in a contemporary relevant manner. The focus is on Biblical characters as agents exercising moral leadership.

Each session focuses on one narrative from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), asks provoking questions, analyzes the text closely in search for elucidation, and wraps up by suggesting at one or more answers.

Throughout this journey, Professor Kimelman highlights the historical background, the literary artistry, and the ideological motivations of the text by posing three questions: what is said, how is it said, and why is it said. Through the prism of these three questions, he analyzes the moral content of each narrative, delineates its mode of presentation, and seeks to ascertain its purpose—all converging in illuminating the moral meaning of the Biblical text.