FOREWORD To most people, the Hebrew Bible is an impenetrable book. It was written during a thousand-year period, and reflected a wide variety of internal and external political and intellectual currents. Even more difficult yet is Jewish interpretation of the Bible, which has been written for over two millennia in an even wider set of political and intellectual currents. To add to the problem, the language in which such interpretation comes down to us can be harder than biblical Hebrew, and much