Some questions addressed in this wide-ranging book

Who wrote the Bible and how should we read it?
How and when did the Jews emerge in history?
One god or many – is less really more?
What is myth and can it be relied upon?
Can Jews be idolaters too?
What is Kabbalah?
Why do good people suffer?
Can a legal code stay valid for all time?
Can a Universal God have a chosen people?
Are women treated fairly by Orthodox Judaism?
What is the difference between superstition and religion?

Society has always been threatened by those who presume to know the truth for us all. This threat has never been more keenly felt than it is today. After considering both religious belief and atheism, Jews, Myth and History encourages a quest for answers and discourages the belief that any of us possesses the whole truth. With clarity, information and deep probing it leads us towards increased awareness and tolerance, and towards finding our own path through the minefield of competing claims.

In this book, Alan Silver takes a broad look at Jewish origins, belief and practice. He considers the role of myth and history in producing the Bible’s epic story of the Jewish people, and compares this with what the flood of scholarship since the Enlightenment has revealed. He explains that the Bible is not, and was never intended to be, a history book and that reading it correctly means that it still can speak to us in the twenty-first century.