Title: A bold effort to synthesize modern research with belief.
Review: In defense of Jacobs' much-maligned works, I believe that this book makes a valiant effort to describe a mode of Judaism that harmonizes historical-critical research and belief. Although the author himself admits that gray areas do exist in his non-traditional "liberal supernaturalism", it is certainly a step toward a definition of belief for today's Jews. The book is written in a very personal tone, one that some readers may find distracting; I found it to add an interesting autobiographical flavor, one that reflects Jacobs' journey from yeshiva student to Masorti proponent. Incidentally, he makes no claim that the so-called "High criticism" represented by Wellhausen's Documentary Hypothesis has been utterly rejected, only that it has been subject to scholarly revision and modification in recent years.
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