The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus
The Particulars of Raptureis Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg's literary  and theological exploration of the book of Exodus. Zornberg, the daughter of a  rabbi, is a scholar of English literature who has become a popular teacher of  religion in Israel, North America, and England. Her approach to Exodus is  midrashic--a rabbinic tradition of creative, interpretive, even fanciful study  of the Bible that often involves "the telling of stories that fill in gaps in  the written biblical text."The Particulars of Rapturegathers many such  stories that Zornberg has told and also discusses the process by which she  created these stories--a process that she describes with reference to a wide  range of psychological, philosophical, and literary works. If this all sounds  complicated, that's because it is. "In my approach," she explains, "the biblical  text is not allowed to stand alone, but has its boundaries blurred by later  commentaries and by a persistent intertextuality that makes it impossible to  imagine that meaning is somehow transparently present in the isolated text." She  imagines interpretation to bepart ofthe text itself, and not a second- order process that is derived from the text. It's a wise and receptive way of  reading, and those willing to follow Zornberg's sometimes knotty prose will  find, from time to time, clear bright observations about the way believers  continue to experience Israel's slavery, freedom, and redemption even today.--Michael Joseph Gross--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.