Traditions of the Bible is a literary masterpiece. Nuanced presentations of multiple versions allow the reader to enter into the eddying flow of interpretation that, between the third century BC and the first century AD, eventually produced the Jewish Bible. We are there, in the Temple, in heightened conversation. Kugel is there to remind us of particular reasons, often fascinating in themselves (for example, the ambiguities of the Hebrew language) why a given story--say the story of Jacob and Esau--can have so many interpretations. Kugel suggests that the Bible, in all its echoing complexity, is the final result of a great effort of remembrance: a millennial attempt to remember what happened, and why, and what it was like, before IT happened, before that time. Could the Bible be a response to a devastating loss of cultural identity and memory as embodied in the Temple? Is that why this great book overflows with conflicting points of view?

This is a very useful reference work.

[From a review of The Bible As It Was]:
Wonderfully rich and learned...Kugel's enormous undertaking is likely to be seen as a milestone in the long critical history of Bible studies, that is, of the approach to the Bible as both a human document and a living one.

It is the general reader whom Kugel has in view throughout [his book], and his aim, in which he admirably succeeds, is both to provide such a reader with a first-hand acquaintance with some examples of ancient biblical interpretation and also to show how these make sense, once the writers' assumptions and exegetical techniques are grasped ...The Bible As It Was is an enjoyable work. It is beautifully produced, clearly set out, so that, in spite of its size, it is easy to use, and is written in a lively, often racy, style; it displays that expository mastery of a complicated subject which is the mark of a distinguished scholar, and it will make the readers to whom it is directed feel at home in an unfamiliar world.