A quest for clarity in the illusive realm of religion

MIDWAY through his fascinating but intermittently frustrating book bearing the provocative title “Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine” (the latter a name many religious Jews still consider too holy to pronounce), the prolific and dazzling literary critic Harold Bloom asks a question that has probably been occurring to the reader as well:

“At my age, just turned seventy-four, I begin by wondering: what is my book’s genre?”

Bloom never quite gets around to providing a clear -- or, at any rate, a simple and unequivocal -- answer to this question, or, for that matter, to many of the other issues during his foray into the shadowy realm between literature and religion.

Much of the uncertainty may be inevitable: not only owing to the nature of the subject matter (surprisingly little is known, for instance, of the historical Jesus) but also owing to the author’s divided feelings.

Born into an Orthodox Jewish family, Bloom continues to feel culturally “Jewish,” as he tells us, but not part of “normative Judaism” because he cannot subscribe to what he considers its basic tenet: “I decidedly do not trust in the Covenant [between God and the Jewish people].” Like many, he finds it hard to have faith in a deity who would permit the Holocaust and countless other horrors.

Yet Bloom has also found that “Yahweh, whom I have evaded throughout my three-quarters of a century, has an awesome capacity not to go away, though he deserves to be convicted for desertion, in regard not just to the Jews but to all suffering humankind.”

Yahweh’s dubious record is one reason why Bloom has long been attracted by Gnosticism, with its vision of a flawed universe created by a flawed deity, inferior to the true but hidden one:

“I very much want to dismiss Yahweh as the ancient Gnostics did, finding in him a mere demiurge who had botched the Creation so that it was simultaneously a Fall. But I wake up these days, sometimes between midnight and 2 a.m., because of nightmares in which Yahweh sardonically appears as various beings, ranging from a Havana-smoking

Still another part of Bloom sympathizes with secularist-rationalist arguments that religious belief can pose a serious threat to reason, science, freedom and democracy.

Yet he feels that mere reason is not strong enough to free most people from the power of their beliefs.

But then, having expressed his lack of faith in the power of reason when dealing with “true believers,” he throws up his hands over the use of military force in responding to fundamentalist terrorism.

Famous beyond the confines of academe, Bloom is a critic who is widely read. Yet despite his dynamic and engaging style and his often provocative declarations, he can also be abstruse, sometimes unnecessarily, rather like the math teacher who patiently and repeatedly expatiates upon the points you’ve grasped, then blithely sloughs over the trickier steps.

He also has a penchant for delivering impassioned, yet slightly cryptic, off-the-cuff pronouncements on current topics such as Islamic fundamentalism and the crises-riddled Middle East as well as American religions and the apostles of unreconstructed cut-throat capitalism.

To talk of this book’s central thesis would be misleading; Bloom is not so much proposing a thesis as offering up his personal impressions based on a lifetime of thoughtful reading.

He also engages in a one-sided colloquy with a variety of Christian, Jewish and secular scholars, including Gershom Scholem, Jaroslav Pelikan, Donald Akenson (to whom the book is dedicated) and Jack Miles.

“Jesus and Yahweh” presents a number of key ideas colorfully and emphatically, if sometimes belaboring them. In addition to the character of Yahweh, Bloom discourses eloquently on the gap between the theological figure Jesus Christ, second person of the Trinity, and the historical Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish genius who “fused love for his father, Yahweh ... with love for the Law ... and love for his people.”

Another theme is the virtual “kidnapping” of the original Hebrew Bible by the emerging Christian church, which recast it as the “Old Testament,” a mere forerunner of the New, expanding the number of its component books and altering their sequence.

Somewhat gracelessly, in view of the fact that a Christian authority such as Pelikan seems to share his views about the “kidnapping” of the Hebrew Bible, Bloom spends a great deal of time deploring the term “Judeo-Christian tradition” as a well-meaning but misleading platitude that papers over a harsh historical reality.

But if, as his book seems to demonstrate, there is a powerful tendency to interpret and misinterpret texts to suit historical needs, doesn’t the mere idea of a “Judeo-Christian tradition” serve as a positive force in itself?

Merle Rubin is a contributing writer to Book Review.