Exegetical Material Research Articles

Anspielungen und Missverständnisse. Scholien verstehen und emendieren. Betrachtungen über die moschopouleischen Kommentare zur „Elektra“ des Sophokles vv. 823–825

“Allusions and Misunderstandings: Understanding and emending Scholia. Considerations on the MoschopouleanComments on Sophocles’ “Electra” vv. 823–825”: In this article, I am looking into the question of what the scholia on theByzantine triad of Sophocles by Manuel Moschopoulos contain and what understanding and possibly emending them entails.In particular, I consider the comments on Sophocles’ Electra (vv. 823–825), which are preserved in the so-called Moschopouleanmanuscripts of Sophocles, and discuss techniques of textual criticism with regard to Scholion Σ_2 for the expressionφαέθων Ἅλιος (vv. 823–824). In the first part, I will briefly describe the context in which these verses are to be found. In thesecond part, I edit, for the first time, the marginal scholia and the interlinear glossae on these verses with a few notes and(where necessary) translations. I also emphasize the relationships between the Moschopoulean manuscripts of Sophocles.Finally, I examine various literary sources and exegetical material from different eras in order to determine whether the expressionκαὶ ὁ ἕτερος τῶν ἵππων αὐτοῦ, applied to Phaethon in the manuscripts, is justifiable.

On Antigone’s Suffering

Examining the contestation of interpretations around this work, I argue that the proliferation of exegetical material on Sophocles’sAntigoneis related to a noncomprehension of the human motives behind her transgressive action. Did she ever love, and is there any suffering in her piety? If she didn’t love (her brother), could she have suffered? I read the play alongside Kamila Shamsie’s postcolonial rewriting of it inHome Fireto elaborate on the relationship between personal loss and collective (and communal) suffering, particularly as it is focalized in the novel by the figure of a young woman who is both a bereaved twin and a vengeful fury.

Abraham in Islamic and Jewish Exegesis

AbstractJewish and Muslim exegetical narratives on the shared forefathers (known as midrash aggadah and al‐anbiyā ’/isrā’iliyyāt) have long been recognized as a meeting point of Judaism and Islam. Early studies of the forefathers, Abraham in particular, strove to ‘prove’ that much of what appeared in the Islamic exegetical materials derived from the traditions that predated Islam, mainly Judaism. More recent scholarship has abandoned such a reductionist approach for a more moderated view. Studies of the Jewish and Muslim exegetical material on Abraham show that while scholars continue to trace the historical development of the Muslim exegetical narratives, they also look to uncover the inner meaning of the narratives themselves. This article traces the shift from the purely reductionist treatment of the Muslim and Jewish exegetical narratives to the more nuanced approach, especially as it applies to Abraham. Four categories of Abrahamic motifs are singled out here: Abraham and his sacrifice of his son, Abraham and his relationship with Sarah, Abraham and his later visit to Ishmael, and narratives relating to Abraham’s birth and early life.

From Budé to Zenodotus: Homeric Readings in the European Renaissance

The reception of Homer in the European Renaissance is still in many ways an uncharted territory.1 The present article deals with some approaches to Iliad and Odyssey in the four main European humanistic cultures at the turn of the 16th century. Though not systematic in its analysis, it tries to assess similarities and differences between the Homeric studies of some outstanding Italian, Spanish, German and French humanists, with a special focus on their attitude to earlier Greek Homeric exegesis, and on the enduring conflict between philology and allegory, between a “textual” and a “moralistic” approach. This attempt towards a new perspective on the overall development of the European reception of Homer will be substantiated by the study of partly neglected (Politian, Melanchthon, Camerarius) or still unpublished exegetical material (Pincianus, Bude). Particular emphasis will be put on Guillaume Bude, whose manuscript notes to the Homeric poems reveal the surprising wealth of his sources; in some cases, these notes may help improve the text of ancient scholia or even bring to light new, hitherto unknown, fragments of Alexandrian exegesis. (I. Italian prologue – II. Spain: the case of Pincianus – III. Germany: a moral Homer – IV.1 Paris; IV.2 Bude’s notes: dating; IV.3 Bude’s notes and ancient Homeric exegesis; IV.4 Bude’s Homer. – Appendix A: From Pincianus’ notes on Iliad and Odyssey; Appendix B: From Bude’s notes on the Iliad; Appendix C: Some Homeric references in Bude’s published works. Le Paris que vous aimâtes n’est pas celui que nous aimons et nous nous dirigeons sans hâte vers celui que nous oublierons Raymond Queneau, L’Amphion (1967) Le Paris ou nous marchons N’est pas celui ou nous marchâmes Et nous avancons sans flamme Vers celui que nous laisserons. J. Roubaud, Paris (2006)

Noah's Ark on the two mountains of Ararat: The iconography of the cycle of Noah in the Ripoll and Roda Bibles*

The two Catalan manuscripts known as the Ripoll and Roda Bibles are giant Latin Bibles written and illustrated at the beginning of the eleventh century in the monastery of Ripoll, during the long abbacy of Oliba (1008–46). During this time of spiritual and cultural renewal the monks of the Ripoll scriptorium probably worked on a new recension of the Bible designed for study rather than liturgy and produced these onevolume giant works, by collecting and unifying a vast amount of biblical, exegetical and pictorial material.

The Exegetical Traditions of cĀcisha: Notes on their Impact and Significance*

This article examines six exegetical traditions from Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ traced back to cĀↄisha bint Abī Bakr (d. 58/678), in an effort to contribute to the discussion of the many complex questions surrounding the exegetical material attributed to her found in medieval ḥadīth collections and Qur'an commentaries. Three of the exegetical traditions studied relate to aspects of Hajj, and three discuss theological questions. These traditions portray cĀↄisha's interpretive activity in three main ways: as a transmitter and ‘active interlocutor’ of Muhammad's words, as an exegete, and as a participant in the early Muslim community's exegetical debates. Some of these traditions are also striking in the way in which they place cĀↄisha's own interpretive voice at the forefront of the text. It is demonstrated that, for Bukhārī at least, transmission of exegetical material is not necessarily a passive role, and it is suggested that he depicts cĀↄisha as an exegetical authority in her own right. Moreover, it is argued that the medieval Sunnī Qur'an commentators surveyed in this article generally recognise traditions credited to her as authoritative, although the degree to which they do so may vary for a number of reasons.

Oral Tradition and Rabbinic Studies

The literature of classical rabbinic Judaism is usually said to have been “redacted” from around 300 CE until about 700 CE in the Palestinian and Mesopotamian centers of rabbinic settlement. Rabbinic literature itself assumes that the traditions that stand behind the written texts were transmitted orally for at least several generations (and in some views, centuries) prior to the compilation of the written manuscripts that are known from the Middle Ages. The formulaic and stylistic traits of the rabbinic writings also suggest a firm basis in orally transmitted material in at least two senses. First, the strong mnemonic traits of the medieval manuscripts suggest that the documents preserved by them were formulated by people for whom oral textual performance was a common experience. Secondly, the written texts as we have them seem to have emerged in a milieu in which written versions of texts were shaped by prior orally-managed material, even as written texts then shaped the outlines of further oral performances based upon them as mnemonic aids. To sum up, oral tradition in the context of rabbinic studies is the complex of legal, theological, and exegetical material transmitted by rabbinic sages of antiquity in the context of oral-performative instruction and preserved in a host of manuscript exemplars that reflect in varying degrees the presence of oral-traditional stylistic traits. The most important recent work in rabbinic oral traditional studies concerns the relationship of the surviving manuscript materials to their primary oral-traditional milieu, either in the original formation of the earliest rabbinic oral traditions in the first centuries CE or in the consolidation of the extant texts in the transition from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages. A comprehensive discussion of the history of ancient rabbinic oral tradition, and particularly, the ideological formulation of oral tradition as part of an oral revelation to Moses parallel to the Torah, has recently been offered by Martin S. Jaffee (2001). Important studies of the ways in which rabbinic compilations of biblical exegesis reflect and, in some senses, create an oral traditional milieu include Fraade (1991) and Nelson (1999). A fresh look at ways in which the oral transmission of the Mishnah, regarded as the

Gender and exemplarity east of the middle Rhine: Jesus, Mary and the saints in manuscript context

The available source material for the intellectual, religious and cultural history of the Rhine-Main region in the eighth century is outstanding, due to the many surviving manuscripts produced in the region during that time period. In this paper I demonstrate how a historically contextualised analysis of the manuscript evidence can lead to a significant re-evaluation of gender ideology in an early medieval society. The manuscript evidence allows us to investigate the reception and adaptation of inherited gender models by male and female religious communities, and illuminates the cultural significance to eighth-century male and female readers of heroines assigned to the earliest days of the Church. Comparison of three manuscripts which can be allocated to male and female communities – two containing exegetical material penned by Gregory the Great and read liturgically for dominical and martyr festivals, the third Marian writings and the passiones of four female martyrs – demonstrates the importance of gender identification in the reception of this material. Writers and copyists in one community of religious women in the Rhine-Main region in the eighth century were concerned to present both Roman martyrs and Biblical women as positive models for women without reference to hierarchical notions of gender. Mary, for example, is put forward as a ‘new Eve’ who has freed women of every estate (not just virgins) from the curse of Eve, whilst the commemoration of female martyrs – fully human figures who were temporally and geographically less remote than Mary and biblical models – further strengthened the egalitarian message provided by this exegesis. A proper understanding of gender identities, and of the meanings of the cult of the Roman martyrs, in the early middle ages can only proceed from this type of properly contextualised analysis.

A Thematic Commentary on the Qur’an

There has been an increasing interest in the Qur’an’s literary aspects withinthe field of Qur’anic studies over the last few years. In the past, westernscholars have devoted a great deal of energy to tracing foreign influencesin the Qur’an or reconstructing the chronology of its verses and surahs.However, the trend now is shifting toward textual studies, a developmentindicated by the proliferation of articles, anthologies, and books on theQur’an as a composed literary ornament.This shift is both refreshing and welcome, particularly for those whoare more interested in understanding the Qur’an in its present form, ratherthan learning about its textual history or compilation. Classical Islamicscholarship developed a body of exegetical material on the Qur’an’s miraculousnature (i‘jaz) from a literary perspective. This approach has taken aprimarily microscopic linguistic viewpoint (balaghah [eloquence]) ofstudying the choice of words and how the verses are constructed.Although it has always been accepted that the Qur’an’s surahs are distinctliterary pieces with their own style and content, comprehensive attemptsto present entire surahs as thematically independent entities have been rare.With increasing pressure from western scholars that the Qur’an is incoherentand haphazardly arranged, a new genre of exegetical material is developing,both in Muslim and western circles. This new genre focuses upon explainingwhy the surah should be considered as a distinctly composed piece with itsown dynamic of sound and meaning. Muhammad al-Ghazali’s work fallswithin this emerging category of Qur’anic exegesis.A Thematic Commentary on the Qur’an is a translation from al-Ghazali’s Al-Tafsir al-Mawdu‘i. The print is well typeset and easily legible,not cramped together, with a glossy green cover commanding an elegance ...

初期の聖書註解と本文批評

Textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible is often described as requiring both “scientific” and “artistic” qualities in balance. However rigorously one conducts the weighing of essential data of manuscripts and witnesses and accounts for variants by textual principles, it is impossible to prove scientifically every textual decision one makes; it is particularly frustrating when one faces equally probable variants of MT, LXX, and the Qumran evidence, where any preference for one reading or another is arbitrary. This paper will argue that, in such a case, knowledge of early biblical interpretation can equip textual critcs with additional means to grade such ancient variants.For the proposed study I will use exegetical material from rabbinic and Second Temple texts to help determine what is a pristine reading and what are scribal variants. In particular, choosing a problematic biblical account of David and Bathsheba's incident, I will focus on textual variants of LXX (Lucianic and non-Lucianic readings), Targum, MT, and 4QSam concerning three specific parts of 2Sam 11: 2, 4: 1)_??__??__??__??__??_2)_??__??__??_3)_??__??__??_. Examining how these parts determine the understanding of the story as a whole in midrashim, a Talmudic discourse, Josephus' Jewish Antiquities, and the Damascus Document, and suggesting specific concerns of early biblical exegetes about these parts, I will try to show how the concerned variants address themselves to these exegetical concerns. In this way, the study proposes to determine the degree of tendentiousness in each variant, which will be a guideline to sort out a superior reading.Thus, the paper will not only stimulate fundamental thoughts as to the present practices of textual criticism but also expose the richness of early biblical interpretation of the biblical account in the exegetical problems as well as the solutions.

Die Nagmaal as ’n maaltyd

Holy Communion as a meal. To reach the goat of this article two main issues are being investigated. The first concerns the relationship between meals in the Old and the New Testament and Holy Communion as a meal. The second issue is: what is the meaning of Holy Communion as a meal for the believer, i.e. what does it mean to eat the body of Christ and to drink his blood? By means of analysis and synthesis the relevant data from Scripture art investigated Due to a lack of sufficient exegetical material concerning the Holy Communion as a meal, several ad hoc passages had to be explored independently in order to obtain relevant data for the topic. In the course of this article matters pertaining the Holy Communion as a meal are also dealt with in the light of the obtained data from Scripture. In conclusion Holy Communion as a meat is finally defined in the light of the relevant and explored data from Scripture.