Perry Dane

The Hebrew Bible (also known as the TaNaKh or Old Testament) is the shared text of Judaism and Christianity, and one of the foundations of our civilization. Yet, remarkably, both Jews and Christians have traditionally read the Hebrew Bible almost entirely through the lens of other texts—the New Testament for Christians and the writings of the Rabbis for Jews. Nevertheless, over the centuries, some voices in both traditions have tried – for better or worse – to reclaim the authority or meaning of the Hebrew Bible in itself, raw and unfiltered. This demand to go back to the Bible has sprung up in such radically different movements as medieval Karaites, 19th century Zionists, Russian Christian Sabbath-observers, and colonial Puritans – in short, a fascinating hodgepodge of reformers, rationalists, mystics, and political revolutionaries. This session will present a glimpse into this persistent impulse, looking for common themes in all the diversity, and asking what this counter-tradition in Jewish and Christian religious history might tell us about the Bible’s place in our own culture and faith.