James Kugel: Professor of Disbelief. Esteemed scholar discusses irreconcilability of modern Biblical scholarship with orthodox theology.
Kugel, however, seems underwhelmed when I ask him how he remains an Orthodox Jew. “The only way to square this circle is the traditional way,” he explains while furrowing bushy eyebrows.... Or, as he wrote in the closing pages of How to Read the Bible: “My own view… is that modern biblical scholarship and traditional Judaism are, and must always remain, completely irreconcilable. The whole attitude underlying such speculation is altogether alien to the spirit of Judaism and the role of scripture.”