Fictions of God: Raphael Magarik in conversation with Molly Farneth

When Jewish Currents launched its parshah newsletter offering interpretations of the week’s Torah reading, many readers saw it as a betrayal of the magazine’s secular legacy. (The controversy produced a classic On the Nose episode, which remains a staff and audience favorite.) The Bible, went our thinking, is not only a religious text, but a story—and one with particular relevance for Jews. 

But what does it mean to treat the Bible as literature? Is it even possible to interpret the Torah through secular eyes? Or are we doing something “religious” when we read it for our own purposes, secular or political? Join us next Thursday, May 28th at 7 pm in Brooklyn for a conversation on these questions with Professor Molly Farneth and Jewish Currents contributing writer Raphael Magarik on his new book, Fictions of God: English Renaissance Literature and the Invention of the Biblical Narrator. 

In Fictions of God, Magarik explores how the Bible became literature. In the 16th century, amid the violence and turmoil of the Protestant Reformation, poets and theologians began discovering in scripture the murky, unreliable voices of human narrators. Rather than teaching them foundational truths, backed by divine authority, this Bible taught readers something else: how to write fiction. Through these changing notions of biblical narrative, Magarik explores a perennial question for a Jewish left: Can the Torah be utilized by secular readers, and what are the gains—and costs—of turning to a religious text for guidance? 

Tickets are free for sustaining members of Jewish Currents, and $9 for non-members. If you’re interested in more events like this one, become a sustaining member today. For $9/month, you gain free admission to this event and others like it—plus a subscription to the print magazine, an exclusive members’ mug, and more. Whether you’re a long-time subscriber or a new reader, we hope you’ll join us.

This event is in-person at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research (BISR), located at 68 Jay St #425, Brooklyn, NY. Doors open at 6:30 pm, and the event starts at 7 pm. The venue is wheelchair accessible. Email events@jewishcurrents.org with questions about accessibility.

Raphael Magarik is an assistant professor of English at the University of Illinois Chicago; his book, Fictions of God, is out now.

Molly Farneth is a professor and chair of the religion department at Haverford College. Her research and teaching focus on modern Western religious thought, with particular attention to social and political ethics. She is the author of Hegel’s Social Ethics: Religion, Conflict, and Rituals of Reconciliation (2017) and The Politics of Ritual (2023).