Sinai and Zion "An Entry into the Jewish Bible" by Jon D. Levenson

Sinai and Zion "An Entry into the Jewish Bible" by Jon D. Levenson

Levenson, in his book “An Entry into the Jewish Bible", rejects the Jewish liberals as well as the fundamentalists. He referred to the Bible several times as a homogeneous and coherent but static entity. Levenson claims that the theological significance of the Bible cannot be ignored. However, several issues have resulted in the people breaking up into groups and the faith of Israel being torn down. He deals with two important symbols in the Hebrew Bible namely Mount Sinai and Mount Zion. The author explains the Hebrew Bible in a way that related to the present faith of people.

“An Entry into the Jewish Bible” is for those who wish to understand the history of the Jewish Bible. The contents are presented in a way that is easy to read and also includes an explanation of the Old Testament. One major issue that Levenson highlighted was that when Christians read the Bible, they eliminate some contents that do not have any historic significant and do not make sense. Readers of the Bible need to understand that the writers of the Bible were not historians; rather, they wrote in the theological concept and were mainly revealing the relationship between God and his people. Despite the fact that the Bible does not speak in the historic concept, archaeology has determined several things in the Bible to be true while others have been determined to be the complete opposite.

In order to provide an easy means of understanding the subject, Levenson divided the book into three chapters: “Sinai: The Mountain of the Covenant”, “Zion: The Mountain of the Temple” and “The Manifold Relationships between Sinai and Zion”.

The Pentateuch's literary analysis is accepted by Levenson without ascribing it to research. However, he does not believe in certain theological and historical events that have shaped traditions. He believes that there is a possibility that Moses may not have existed. According to him, the Ten Commandments were not passed on to Moses but rather they are an evidence of something that took place earlier on Mount Sinai. Israel was loyal to this event that led to the creation of the Torah and hence Israel got the status of royalty as a reward for being loyal (Exodus 19:3-8).

The experience at Sinai is displayed in the texts as being intense with words such as a mysterious cloud, lightening, and hurricane thunder to explain what people witnessed. According to Levenson, the texts seem to explain some sort of volcanic activity which people associated with God because they were unaware of such occurrences. There is also mention of quakes which all the more show that Mount Sinai was actually a volcano. According to Levenson, the book of Exodus has gone through a lot of editing due to which it seems that things have been adjusted to feel as if the events were actually the communication of God with the ...