Jewish Bible Exegesis Research Articles

Jewish Biblical Exegesis from Islamic Lands: The Medieval PeriodPolliacMeiraBrenner-IdanAthalyaJewish Biblical Exegesis from Islamic Lands: The Medieval PeriodSBL PressAtlanta GA, 2019, xvii, 365, $49.00ISBN 978-1-62837-254-0

Jewish Biblical Exegesis from Islamic Lands: The Medieval PeriodPolliacMeiraBrenner-IdanAthalyaJewish Biblical Exegesis from Islamic Lands: The Medieval PeriodSBL PressAtlanta GA, 2019, xvii, 365, $49.00ISBN 978-1-62837-254-0

The Golden Rule and Ancient Jewish Biblical Exegesis: The Pluriformity of a Tradition

Abstract The present article is an integrative study of rabbinic sources in tandem with gospel pericopes, Pauline passages, and a passage of the Duae viae (included in the Didache). I contend that all these sources are variants of a Jewish tradition composed of two elements: (a) a maxim—the golden rule—or an equivalent biblical verse, Lev 19:18b; (b) an assertion that this maxim or verse summarizes the torah, or is the core of the whole torah (the difference in Hebrew is between kǝlāl, “rule,” and kōl, “whole”). The wording of these variants cuts across the putative division between the various corpora. Observing the pluriformity of this tradition is important for the study of both the New Testament and rabbinic literature, the focus of the present article. This study demonstrates that early phraseology may be preserved in late rabbinic texts, which thus problematizes the “synoptic problem” of rabbinic literature (and, mutatis mutandis, of the gospels). Similar wording should not blur different contents; affinities should not obscure inherent dynamics. The potential for a radical interpretation of the formulation that “the whole torah” is encapsulated in one verse or maxim has not been realized in rabbinic literature; the radical potential of the formulation was realized and developed by Paul in Gal 5:14.

Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic

Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic

Logic of theological debate in the Book of Job: Criticism of Maimonides’ interpretation in the Jewish biblical exegesis in the 14th century

The article discusses the critical understanding of Maimonides’ interpretation of the Book of Job, representing a theological debate on Divine Providence. Maimonides ascribes certain assessments on this issue to Job and his friends, linking their opinions to some theological or philosophical schools of the 10th–12th centuries, developed in the context of Arabic culture. A number of Jewish exegetes, who were working in a diverse cultural context and were writing in Hebrew, such as Joseph Ibn Kaspi and Gersonides, considered this distribution of opinions an anachronism. Being Maimonidean followers, they nevertheless criticized the distribution of opinions between Job and his friends proposed in The Guide of the Perplexed. The main argument of this criticism was logic. We will discuss the origins of such an approach and analyze some nuances of logical solutions, suggested by Maimonidean followers, juxtaposing them with a range of problems touched upon in The Guide of the Perplexed in regards to the Book of Job. It will be stressed among others, that the interpretation of Gersonides, coming from his statement on the logical completeness of the solution of the question of Divine Providence in the Book of Job, can be justified by the means of modern formal logic.

"Now I Know": Five Centuries of Aqedah Exegesis by Albert van der Heide (review)

Reviewed by: "Now I Know": Five Centuries of Aqedah Exegesis by Albert van der Heide David Gottlieb Albert van der Heide. "Now I Know": Five Centuries of Aqedah Exegesis. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2017. 504 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009419000667 The Akedah, the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22:1–19/20), has been the subject of extensive exegesis and endless interpretation throughout Jewish history. Abraham's devotion to God, set against his love for his favored son, both affirms the [End Page 463] Covenant and shatters the patriarch's family. His descendants, in the words of the Israeli poet Haim Gouri, are "born with a knife in their hearts." Tikvah Frymer-Kensky described the Akedah as no less than the central text in the formation of Jewish spiritual consciousness, while Israeli authors, including David Grossman, A. B. Yehoshua, and Yitzhak Laor, among others, have argued for outright rejection of the narrative as a continuing influence on Israeli identity. Rabbinic interpreters plumbed the narrative and its gaps for hidden clues to Israel's destiny, and their exegetical ingenuity exerted a profound influence on their textual inheritors. The Akedah played a central role in medieval Jewish life and thought—on the medieval philosophical tradition, to be sure, but also on medieval Jewish theology, mysticism, and martyrdom, as witnessed in the mass murder/suicides willingly undergone by some medieval Jewish communities faced with death or forced conversion during the Crusades. In grappling with Abraham's nearsacrifice of Isaac (which some interpreters see as having been carried through to completion), one can ponder the text in isolation, contextualize it in the broader arc of covenantal commitment, or trace the history of its interpretation or exegesis. To say, then, that the Akedah occupies a central place in Jewish imagination, memory, and identity, would be to grievously understate the case. At least an overall familiarity with medieval Jewish biblical exegesis of the story is fundamental to understanding the depth and breadth of the Akedah's unceasing influence on Jewish life and thought. And indeed, excellent scholarship on individual interpreters and their exegetical approach to the story is broadly available, as are works on medieval biblical interpretation writ large. Until now, however, there have been few comprehensive surveys of medieval philosophical approaches as seen through the lens of a specific, foundational biblical narrative. This is in part because the amount of literature to access, assess, edit, translate, and contextualize is simply too vast. Tracing the influences on medieval thought over half a millennium or more, and following the many streams of that thought back to their source rabbinic exegesis, for any number of biblical narratives, would continuously reveal new sources and suggest new methods. This, along with advances in philology and linguistics, and the discovery of previously neglected editions or undiscovered archival materials, could make completion of the project impossible. Albert van der Heide, professor in the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Middle East at Leiden University (Netherlands), has nonetheless completed just such a project. Eschewing theological interpretation or text-critical source analysis, van der Heide focuses, as the book's title suggests, on the Akedah as analyzed and understood by medieval exegetes, from Saʿadiah Gaon (ninth to tenth centuries) to Isaac Abrabanel (fifteenth to sixteenth centuries), concluding with a coda from Moses Mendelssohn's Bi'ur (late eighteenth century). His task is daunting: van der Heide provides translations of some two dozen medieval texts, and he cross-references each of them with the rabbinic and later midrashic texts that provide each medieval author's source material. Van der Heide consults a range of sources, from rare to scholarly and critical editions of these source texts, prefacing each medieval exegete's text with an introduction providing biographical information on the author's cultural, philosophical, and historical context. The introduction to the entire volume provides valuable context on translations of the Akedah in the targumim and rabbinic literature, a review of [End Page 464] sources and exegetical topics, and a survey of the Akedah in medieval prayer, piyyut, and philosophical-theological interpretation. The book concludes with three appendices on aspects of the chronology of the Abrahamic narrative and the Ten Trials contained therein, as...

On the medieval rabbinic assumption that the early sages knew the peshat

Medieval peshat commentary constitutes a new stage in the history of Jewish biblical exegesis. Despite many points of continuity, it is customary in academic research to distinguish this approach from those of previous periods. The essential difference between these eras lies in the use of the peshat method, specifically the commentator’s awareness of its methodological principles and commitment to them. It is therefore interesting that medieval scholars, including the peshat commentators themselves, casually assumed that peshat exegesis had been known from time immemorial and that even the rabbinic sages had been aware of its principles. From their perspective, the difference between them and the sages was merely a matter of choice: the sages, for a variety of reasons, paid scant attention to peshat exegesis, while they themselves devoted considerable attention to it. However, in their eyes, the peshat methodology and its principles were not in themselves innovative. I will present this view of the medieval scholars and try to explain its origins and rationale.

The Virtue Ethics of Levi Gersonides by Alexander Green

Reviewed by: The Virtue Ethics of Levi Gersonides by Alexander Green Tamar M. Rudavsky Alexander Green. The Virtue Ethics of Levi Gersonides. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. xxiii + 195 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009419000217 Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides) has emerged in recent years as one of the most significant and comprehensive medieval Jewish philosophers. He was quoted constantly (even if only to be criticized) and, through the works of Ḥasdai Crescas and others, his ideas influenced such thinkers as Leibniz and Spinoza. The Gersonidean corpus is wide-ranging and includes halakhic works, biblical exegesis, mathematics, science and astronomy, and philosophy. While most of the attention has focused on his metaphysical and scientific works, recent scholars have turned towards Gersonides's more "Judaic" and ethical works, found primarily in his commentaries on Scripture. Despite the popularity and influence of these commentaries in Jewish biblical exegesis, they have received far less attention from scholars of Jewish philosophy. Charles Touati was the first to highlight the significance of these works, but in the past decade other scholars (Menachem Kellner; David Horwitz; Assael Ben-Or) have begun groundbreaking work in the area. Alexander Green's volume belongs in this [End Page 221] latter category, and provides an innovative and important study of Gersonides's moral and political thought. Gersonides's biblical commentaries were written after he finished Wars of the Lord (Milḥamot ʾAdonai). These include his commentary on the Torah, as well as on other books of Scripture (Job, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, etc.), which often draw from or complement the philosophical material in Wars of the Lord. Gersonides's commentary on Scripture is one of the first by an Aristotelian philosopher to provide a successive commentary on most of the Bible. Why didn't Gersonides provide a supercommentary of Averroes's Nicomachean Ethics and Republic? That ethics, which is based on convention and opinions, is not a precise science like mathematics was noted already by Aristotle in his ethical works. Green suggests that perhaps Gersonides followed Aristotle's line, and introduced a narrative style that exemplifies the contingency and variability of ethical discourse (5). Gersonides's ethical theory is couched in the context of examples, or lessons, of the lives and actions of particular individuals, rather than in a scientific commentary (4). Using biblical proof texts, he derives practical lessons (toʿalot) meant to teach particular virtues. As Green notes, these lessons represent "practical maxims that enable one to achieve perfection" (6). They offer philosophical insights into three main areas: the commandments, moral and political philosophy, and theoretical philosophy that includes both metaphysics and natural science. In chapter 2, Green emphasizes that for Gersonides the primary goal of the practical intellect is self-preservation. Green is concerned to distinguish between Maimonides's and Gersonides's ethical theories. He argues that, like Maimonides, Gersonides focuses on the mean as the basis for ethics, while adding two new virtue categories: virtues of self-preservation and virtues of altruism. Both Aristotle and Maimonides emphasize the doctrine of the mean as part of their ethical theory: on this model, virtues represent a balance between extremes. Maimonides adopts most of Aristotle's virtues. In his Eight Chapters, for example, he describes many of the moral virtues as lying in the mean between excess. Gersonides, however, introduces a new set of materialistic virtues that emphasize the importance of maximizing one's physical needs—endeavor, diligence, and cunning in crafting stratagems—that are described at great length in his toʿalot (33). All three virtues, according to Green, are "physio-biological capacities rooted in the human imagination that humans can perfect to maximize physical self-preservation" (33). Green provides a detailed elaboration of these three virtues as reflected in a variety of biblical contexts. Green makes the interesting point that in contradistinction to Maimonides, who in the Guide for the Perplexed denigrates the body and physical existence of humans, Gersonides claims physical preservation to be a "moral necessity" (35), especially in light of the whims of fate and fortune (34). Abraham, who brought all his possessions with him from Canaan to Egypt, may serve as an example. Gersonides extols Abraham's actions in passing off his wife Sarah as his...

Jews, Bible and Prayer. Essays on Jewish Biblical Exegesis and Liturgical Notions, written by Stefan C. Reif

Jews, Bible and Prayer. Essays on Jewish Biblical Exegesis and Liturgical Notions, written by Stefan C. Reif

The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben ‘Eli on the Book of Proverbs by Ilana Sasson

Reviewed by: The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben ‘Eli on the Book of Proverbs by Ilana Sasson Marzena Zawanowska Ilana Sasson. The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben ‘Eli on the Book of Proverbs. Volume 1. Edition and Introduction. Karaite Texts and Studies, volume 8 (Études sur le judaïsme médiéval 67). Leiden: Brill, 2016. xviii + 528 pp. One of the most acclaimed Karaite exegetes of the so-called Golden Age of Karaism (mid-tenth to early eleventh century) was Yefet ben ʻEli (Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥasan b. ‘Alī al-Laˉwī al-Baṣrī). He was also one of the most prominent and prolific Bible commentators who ever lived. His Arabic relational suffix (nisba) suggests that he, or his family, originally came from Basra in Iraq, but from the middle of the tenth until his death in the early eleventh century he resided in Jerusalem, where he was active in the famous Karaite “academy of [biblical] studies” (dār li-ʼl-‘ilm), opened there by Yūsuf ibn Nūḥ Yefet’s work is a singular example in the history of Jewish Bible exegesis of a running translation and commentary of all twenty-four books of Scripture. His interpretations are often highly innovative and original. Little wonder, then, that they so impacted later generations of Bible commentators, Karaite and Rabbanite alike, most famously Abraham ibn Ezra. Still, over time Yefet and his significant contribution to the history of scriptural exegesis gradually sank into oblivion. He was prone to generalizing and impressionable views and those who did venture to study his works denied him originality and labeled him a “mere compiler.” Only in the latter part of the twentieth century did [End Page 233] scholars begin to show specific interest in his unparalleled exegetical achievements, and reappraise his texts on the basis of in-depth, comparative analysis. Ilana Sasson’s The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben ‘Eli on the Book of Proverbs is part of this trend. By shedding further light on this exceptional exegete and his amazingly diverse, rich, and comprehensive commentaries, this book enhances our understanding and appreciation of the originality of his interpretations. Based on Sasson’s doctoral dissertation (“Methods and Approach in Yefet ben ʻElī al-Baṣrīʼs Translation and Commentary on the Book of Proverbs” [Jewish Theological Seminary, 2010]), and subsequently significantly adapted, this volume consists of two parts, the second of which is entirely new and includes a critical edition of Yefet’s translation and commentary on the whole book of Proverbs (183–528). Reconstructing the oldest existing and most reliable version of the Judeo-Arabic text from numerous manuscripts and making it available to a wider scholarly public through a meticulous and rigorous, noneclectic edition is a great scholarly achievement, a major contribution to the study of Bible exegesis, and to the history of development and reception of medieval Karaite exegesis in particular. The only weakness of the book is that it does not include an English translation of the edited text; this is, however, being currently prepared and expected to be published as a second volume within the same series.1 Although at first glance the content of the first part of the book may seem similar to the dissertation, it was significantly reworked and expanded, the arguments were developed, and the state of the art updated. It includes an introduction, which consists of six chapters, the first five of which are analytical and offer an informative and interesting study of diverse aspects of Yefet’s hermeneutics. The first chapter surveys the exegete’s life and works, as well as previous (fragmentary) scholarly editions of his commentary on Proverbs. It also discusses the relationship between his commentary on this book and those of Saʿadiah Gaon, Jacob b. Reuben, and Abraham ibn Ezra. The section presents Yefet’s work as an invaluable, so far underestimated link in the history of Jewish interpretation of Proverbs (3–22). The second chapter focuses on Yefet’s unique style of Bible commentary, in comparison with the Arabic model of his time, with particular stress on the literary convention of prefacing works with introductions (muaqaddima), the rhetorical form of disputation...

The Bible Read through the Prism of Theology

The paper demonstrates that when translating explicit anthropomorphisms in Scripture, medieval Karaites are neither particularly more nor less literal than their rabbinic counterparts. Indeed, they often propose translations similar to those of Targum Onqelos and Saʿadyah Gaon. Moreover, although their lines of argument are different, both Saʿadyah and the Karaites insist that human language is responsible for corporeal descriptions of God in the Bible, and they resort to the linguistic conventions of figurative language and extension of meaning (majāz, ʾittisāʿ) to justify these theologically disturbing expressions. The Karaites’ contribution consists of advancing and refining these linguistic justifications by introducing, for example, the concept of polysemy (or homonymy) to account for certain kinds of problematic formulations. In addition, they are probably the first commentators in the history of Jewish Bible exegesis to cite the rabbinic dictum, “the Torah speaks in the language of man” to explain the presence of anthropomorphisms in Scripture.

No religion without idolatry: Mendelssohn's Jewish Enlightenment

Moses Mendelssohn (1725 1786) is considered the foremost representative of Jewish Enlightenment. In No Religion without Idolatry, Gideon Freudenthal offers a novel interpretation of Mendelssohn s general philosophy discusses for the first time Mendelssohn s semiotic interpretation of idolatry in his Jerusalem and in his Hebrew biblical commentary. Mendelssohn emerges from this study as an original philosopher, not a shallow popularizer of rationalist metaphysics, as he is sometimes portrayed. Of special lasting value is his semiotic theory of idolatry.From a semiotic perspective, both idolatry enlightenment are necessary constituents of religion. Idolatry ascribes to religious symbols an intrinsic value: enlightenment maintains that symbols are conventional merely signify religious content but do not share its properties value. Without enlightenment, religion degenerates to fetishism; without idolatry it turns into philosophy frustrates religious experience. Freudenthal demonstrates that in Mendelssohn s view, Judaism is the optimal religious synthesis. It consists of transient ceremonies of a living script. Its ceremonies are symbols, but they are not permanent objects that could be venerated. Jewish ceremonies thus provide a religious experience but frustrate fetishism. Throughout the book, Freudenthal fruitfully contrasts Mendelssohn's views on religion philosophy with those of his contemporary critic opponent, Salomon Maimon. No Religion without Idolatry breaks new ground in Mendelssohn studies. It will interest students scholars in philosophy of religion, Judaism, semiotics.In this lucid provocative study, Gideon Freudenthal offers an original compelling reading of Mendelssohn as well as a defense of the possibility of religious rationalism more generally. This book is not only an excellent contribution to a growing body of scholarship on Mendelssohn early modern philosophy, but it also significantly sharpens advances contemporary conversations about the relations between religion reason. Leora Batnitzky, Princeton UniversityIn this masterful study, Gideon Freudenthal demonstrates how Mendelssohn s philosophy, including his philosophy of religion, is grounded in semiotics. The result is a landmark work that not only successfully challenges standard interpretations of Mendelssohn s 'enlightened Judaism' its alleged inconsistency but also effectively invites reconsideration of the very possibility of 'religion without idolatry.' Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Boston UniversityIn focusing on Mendelssohn's 'semiotics of idolatry, ' Gideon Freudenthal writes as a philosopher fully at home in multiple traditions: contemporary philosophy, eighteenth-century philosophy, Jewish biblical exegesis, comparative religion. The result is a systematic penetrating study, based on the Hebrew as well as the German texts, that engages Mendelssohn on perhaps the most critical issue of his understanding of religion with unprecedented philosophical rigor imagination. David Sorkin, City University of New York Graduate Center

Reading Other People Reading Other People's Scripture: The Influence of Religious Polemic on Jewish Biblical Exegesis

Research Article| September 01 2012 Reading Other People Reading Other People's Scripture: The Influence of Religious Polemic on Jewish Biblical Exegesis James T. Robinson James T. Robinson University of Chicago jtr@uchicago.edu James T. Robinson, PhD (2002) in NELC, Harvard University, is associate professor of the history of Judaism at The University of Chicago, The Divinity School. He has published extensively on medieval Jewish philosophy and exegesis, including Samuel ibn Tibbon's Commentary on Ecclesiastes: The Book of the Soul of Man (Mohr Siebeck, 2007), and Asceticism, Eschatology, Opposition to Philosophy: The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Salmon b. Yeroham on Qohelet (Ecclesiastes) (Brill, 2012). Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google English Language Notes (2012) 50 (2): 77–88. https://doi.org/10.1215/00138282-50.2.77 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation James T. Robinson; Reading Other People Reading Other People's Scripture: The Influence of Religious Polemic on Jewish Biblical Exegesis. English Language Notes 1 September 2012; 50 (2): 77–88. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00138282-50.2.77 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsEnglish Language Notes Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2012 Regents of the University of Colorado2012 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The Book of Leviticus Interpreted as Jewish Community

This article addresses an essay, published in 2001 by John Van Engen, entitled "Ralph of Flaix: The Book of Leviticus Interpreted as Christian Community.” Ralph’s voluminous commentary, composed and published in the mid-twelfth century, aimed, in Van Engen’s words, at “refuting Jewish arguments” about the biblical book and the nature of the levitical law, particularly as these arguments might influence young Christian clerics who were “fascinated and troubled by a close reading of the biblical text.”The present article examines three rabbinic commentaries on Leviticus roughly contemporary with Ralph, those of Rashi, Rashbam and R. Joseph Bekhor Shor. Through examining the “close reading” through which these three exegetes interpreted specific biblical texts, the article considers whether or not they presented what might be considered as “the Book of Leviticus Interpreted as Jewish Community” and as such conveyed what may have been the types of arguments with which Ralph was in conversation.The article does not attempt to provide a direct correspondence between specific Jewish and Christian exegetes. Rather, the article suggests that the content and form of 12th century Jewish and Christian biblical exegesis bespeak a type of conversation among those using the literary genre of “commentary writing,” and that it is possible to gain an understanding of the contours of that conversation through analysis of the commentaries they wrote. Additionally, the article examines ways in which medieval Jewish exegetes may have advanced arguments in their commentaries that were intended to sustain the Jewish community in their observances and belief structures in the presence of Christian hegemony.

What Can a Catholic Learn from the History of Jewish Biblical Exegesis?

This article considers the claim of the 2001 Pontifical Biblical Commission Study, The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible that the Christian reader can be instructed by post-biblical Jewish reflections on the Bible. It explores Jewish understandings that the role of the biblical prophets was not only to communicate God's messages to Israel but also to represent Israel before God. The essay demonstrates the correctness of the PBC's assertion by applying this Jewish tradition about the prpohets to Christian reflection on the meaning of Jesus' death.

Peter Abelard, Heloise and Jewish Biblical Exegesis in the Twelfth Century

This paper revisits the question of the influence of Jewish biblical exegesis on Christian scholars in twelfth-century France, by focusing in particular on Abelard's response to a question of Heloise in herProblemataabout questions raised by1 Samuel ii.35–6 (=1 Regum ii.35–6)concerning ‘the faithful priest’ prophesied as Eli's successor, the meaning of ‘will walk before my anointed’ and the nature of the offering his household should make. Abelard's discussion of the views of an unnamed Jewish scholar illustrates a consistent movement evident in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries for certain Christian exegetes to approach Jewish scholars to resolve problems posed by the text of the Old Testament. While the passage in1 Samuelwas traditionally interpreted in a Christocentric fashion, Heloise implicitly supports a more historical reading of the text in the question she puts to Abelard. The Jewish scholar's interpretation reported by Abelard is very close to that of Rashi's twelfth-century disciples.

A History of Biblical Interpretation. Volume 2: The Medieval through the Reformation Periods. Edited by ALAN J. HAUSER and DUANE F. WATSON.

This is the ambitious second volume of a series. It seeks to set the biblical interpretation of the period it covers in ‘the complex matrix of social, political, intellectual, artistic, and religious factors that arise in each new age’. After an attempt, in an introductory chapter contributed by the editors, to set the exegetical context and provide an overview, the core first chapters on ‘interpretation’ cover ‘Early Medieval Exegesis: Gregory I to the Twelfth Century’ (Mary A. Mayeski), ‘Jewish Midrashic Interpretation in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages’ (Carol Bakhos), ‘Medieval Jewish Biblical Exegesis’ (Robert A. Harris), and ‘Eastern Orthodox Biblical Interpretation’ (Paul M. Blowers). The approach tends to be summary and one misses examples in which the commentators considered are seen in active engagement with the text, and a sense of the collective exegetical endeavour. The book construes ‘interpretation’ broadly, including, for example, chapters on the transmission and establishment of the text by Russell Fuller (‘The Text of the Tanak’) and J. Keith Elliott (‘The Text of the New Testament’). Discussions of questions of translation occur in individual chapters, with threads brought together in an analysis of ‘Scriptures in the Vernacular up to 1800’ by Lynne Long. This results in some overlap and repetition, for instance between her essay and the chapter on ‘Biblical Interpretation in Medieval England and the English Reformation’ (Lee W. Gibbs). This last has been set much too lengthy a time-frame, with the result that a certain superficiality is inevitable, for example on Wyclif.

Mapping the New Testament: Early Christian Writings as a Witness for Jewish Biblical ExegesisRuzerSerge Mapping the New Testament: Early Christian Writings as a Witness for Jewish Biblical Exegesis BrillLeiden, 2007, xiii, 254, $155.00 / €109.00ISBN 978-90-04-15892-4

Mapping the New Testament: Early Christian Writings as a Witness for Jewish Biblical ExegesisRuzerSerge <i>Mapping the New Testament: Early Christian Writings as a Witness for Jewish Biblical Exegesis</i> BrillLeiden, 2007, xiii, 254, $155.00 / €109.00ISBN 978-90-04-15892-4

Book Review: Mapping the New Testament: Early Christian Writings as a Witness for Jewish Biblical Exegesis. By Serge Ruzer. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007. Pp. xiii + 254. Cloth $155.00

Book Review: Mapping the New Testament: Early Christian Writings as a Witness for Jewish Biblical Exegesis. By Serge Ruzer. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007. Pp. xiii + 254. Cloth $155.00

The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature (review)

Reviewed by: The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature Judith R. Baskin The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature, edited by Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert and Martin S. Jaffee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 412 pp. $24.99. This important collection of fifteen essays by an international array of major scholars demonstrates the range of approaches that characterize contemporary academic study of the Talmud and related texts. In their introduction, Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert and Martin S. Jaffee detail the numerous challenges that accompany the modern study of a polyglot body of ancient writings that was produced in different locations over at least six centuries. These include the multivocality of rabbinic texts and the difficulty of assigning any one component or strand of these many layered, highly redacted traditions to a particular time or place; further complications stem from the unreliability of attributed teachings in the rabbinic corpus and a dearth of concrete information about named rabbis and sages. Added to these perplexities is limited scholarly knowledge about the complex interactions between the two centers of rabbinic production in Roman Palestine and Sasanian Iraq and the impacts of these two very different political, religious, social, and linguistic environments on Jewish communities and rabbinic endeavors. Moreover, the authors and editors of talmudic literature were a small and highly self-conscious elite; it is impossible to know to what extent their legal formulations, social constructs, and spiritual convictions reflected or affected the great majority of contemporaneous Jews. The editors of The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature provide a useful timeline and a glossary, but this volume is not a handbook. As Fonrobert and Jaffee point out, helpful guides to rabbinic texts already exist. Rather, these studies are intended to further the integration of rabbinic studies into general humanistic studies by contextualizing and to some extent decoding an immense and often daunting literary tradition. By presenting these writings as one particular intellectual and religious cultural phenomenon among a variety of others in Late Antiquity, the essays in this anthology aspire to make rabbinic literature more accessible to academics in a range of fields. The first of this volume’s three sections is entitled “The Conditions of Rabbinic Literary Activity”; three of its four essays establish the ideological, social, political, and geographical realities that shaped the production of rabbinic writings. Thus, Jaffee addresses rabbinic authorship as a collective enterprise; Jeffrey L. Rubenstein describes the social and institutional settings of rabbinic literature; and Seth Schwartz outlines the political geography of rabbinic texts. The fourth chapter, “The Orality of Rabbinic Writings,” by Elizabeth [End Page 143] Shanks Alexander, addresses the privileging of oral transmission that is characteristic of the rabbinic endeavor. As she notes, even when rabbinic traditions were recorded in writing, there was an assumption that their oral nature would continue through ongoing cycles of textual study that would engender “the social enactment of the words on the page” (p. 55). The various genres of rabbinic literature and their larger cultural settings are delineated in this anthology’s next six chapters; as Catherine Hezser points out, rabbinic writings must be understood “intertextually,” in relation “to the entire surrounding culture in its literary, legal, religious, socioeconomic, and political manifestations” (p. 162). Essays by Stephen D. Fraade, Shaye J. D. Cohen, and Hezser address, respectively, rabbinic midrash in the larger context of ancient Jewish biblical exegesis; the prehistory of the Jewish legal traditions that are preserved in the Mishnah; and points of comparison between rabbinic legal composition and contemporaneous Roman legal theory. In a significant chapter, Yaakov Elman discusses the impact of Middle Persian culture and religion on the law, theology, and general attitudes of Babylonian Jewry and Babylonian Talmud. Michael D. Schwartz demonstrates the degree to which rabbinic Judaism, like the other religions of the Greco-Roman world, also encompassed “esoteric tendencies in which magical and visionary practices were put to use for the needs of individuals” (p. 198), while Galit Hasan-Rokem uses insights from linguistics and folklore studies to reveal the significant degree of rabbinic engagement with the larger popular cultures within which Jews lived. Five chapters that take thematic approaches conclude this volume. These “Hermeneutical Frames for Interpreting...

Mapping the New Testament: Early Christian Writings as a Witness for Jewish Biblical Exegesis

Mapping the New Testament: Early Christian Writings as a Witness for Jewish Biblical Exegesis