Bible: Teaching the Bible in Our Times

Abstract

This chapter explores the nature of Bible teaching in contemporary Jewish education. The chapter begins by looking at the history of Jewish Bible interpretation and argues that although we know very little about teaching the Bible before the modern era, we can extrapolate a good deal about it from examining Bible interpretation in the past, assuming that the record of Bible interpretation reflects the content of Bible teaching in the past. The chapter shows that the distinction between ``midrashic'' approaches to reading the Bible (emphasizing the ``omnisignificance'' of the text) and ``peshat'' or historical--contextual methods of reading the Bible later surface in contrasting curricular and pedagogic methodologies in our times. The chapter then explores these distinctions in contemporary Jewish education, looking at various curricular projects and pedagogies. The chapter concludes by looking at research that draws upon work in general education about ``pedagogical content knowledge'' and ``orientations'' to subject matter, exploring the implications of this scholarship for Bible teaching.