The Great Shift: Encountering God in Biblical Times

James L. Kugel

Sep 2017 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Malcolm Hillgartner

About this audiobook

Why does the Bible depict a world in which humans, with surprising regularity, encounter the divine-wrestling an angel, addressing a burning bush, issuing forth prophecy without any choice in the matter? These stories spoke very differently to their original audience than they do to us, and they reflect a radically distinct understanding of reality and the human mind. Yet over the course of the thousand-year Biblical Era, encounters with God changed dramatically. As James Kugel argues, this transition allows us to glimpse a massive shift in human experience-the emergence of the modern, Western sense of self. In this landmark work, Kugel fuses revelatory close readings of ancient texts with modern scholarship from a range of fields, including neuroscience, anthropology, psychology, and archaeology, to explain the origins of belief, worship, and the sense of self, and the changing nature of God through history. The Great Shift will make believers and seekers think differently not just about the Bible, but about the entire history of the human imagination.

About the author

James L. Kugel is the Starr Professor of Hebrew Literature at Harvard University and a regular visiting professor of biblical studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. He is the author of a number of books on biblical scholarship, including How to Read the Bible, for which he won the National Jewish Book Award for best book.

Malcolm Hillgartner is an accomplished actor, writer, and musician. An AudioFile Best Voice of 2013 and the recipient of several Earphones Awards, he has narrated over 175 audiobooks.