Sara Japhet. The Commentary of Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam) on the Book of Job. Publications of the Perry Foundation for Biblical Research in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2000. 487 pp. (Hebrew).

Abstract

Our knowledge of the French school of biblical interpretation has benefited in the last two decades from much original scholarship, including newly published texts and groundbreaking studies. Sara Japhet has already contributed in both areas, with her edition of Rashbam on Qohelet (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1985, with a translation by R. Salters) and studies of this school's hermeneutics. Her new book, likewise, represents a two-fold advance in scholarship. It features the (unattributed) Job commentary in MS Lutzki 778, which she identifies as Rashbam's, preceded by an analytic introduction, divided into seven chapters, two appendices and a bibliography that itself is a most valuable, up-to-date study of Rashbam's exegesis. After demonstrating that this commentary was, indeed, written by Rashbam (Chapter One), Japhet outlines his concept of peshat (Chapter Two), system of beliefs (Chapter Three), literary insights (Chapter Four), and linguistics (Chapter Five). M. Banitt contributed a study of Rashbam's Old French glosses (Chapter Six), which is followed by Japhet's description of her edition (Chapter Seven). Apart from offering an important new commentary by Rashbam, critically edited and annotated, Japhet has produced the most comprehensive published study on this exegete since the pioneering work of Rosin over a century ago. Building on the substantial advances in our understanding of the interpretive tradition since that time, Japhet has created a lucid, nuanced picture of Rashbam's hermeneutical thought and practice.