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Title: Poor Scholarship with an Axe to Grind
Review: Kirsh's work is third rate at best. Yes, he has read a great deal of supporting text (midrash, commentary, etc), but he fails to present it in a balanced way. He opts instead to focus on what ever grabs his fancy. For example, where he chooses to attack Moses or the text he often does not offer the reader a traditional Jewish explination or, worse, presents it and then belittles it. This can sometimes boarder on the amusing, such as when he holds up Freud's text on Moses as illuminative, when scholars are near unanimous that it tells you more about Freud then it does about Moses.If you are interested in this subject, there are far better texts. Start with a bible with traditional comentators and go from there. Like with Frued, this will tell you more about Kirsch and the biases of a liberal Jew in LA then it will tell you about Moses.
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