Scripture as the Supreme Composition: Literary Aspects of Yefet’s Exegesis of Genesis

Abstract

Within the confines of Yefet's literary focus, the innovative aspect of his hermeneutical undertaking is his general perception of the Holy Writ as a literary text that requires literary analysis. He gives voice to this literary orientation of biblical exegesis on various levels of his commentary. Yefet's contextual interpretations of particular biblical narratives are only articulated within the framework of these thematic chapters or pericopes. He deduces general rules that govern its composition, the characteristics of its structure, and the manner of its development, as well as its linguistic conventions, rhetorical and stylistic devices, and patterns of expression. Yefet identifies the mudawwin and the muḥkῑ as the ones responsible for reporting, writing down, and carrying out the literary editing of the divinely inspired content of the Holy Scriptures, and for the sophisticated manner by which it is expressed in the biblical text.Keywords:biblical narrative; exegesis; linguistic conventions; literary aspects; patterns of expression; rhetorical; Scripture; stylistic devices