Language:
English
Year of publication:
2023
Titel der Quelle:
JSIJ - Jewish Studies; an Internet Journal
Angaben zur Quelle:
23 (2023) 15
Keywords:
Cohen, Mordechai Z.
;
Cohen, Mordechai Z.
;
Bible Hermeneutics
;
Bible Criticism, interpretation, etc., Jewish Middle Ages, 600-1500
;
History
Abstract:
In ancient rabbinic literature, the Sages formulated what prima facie looks like a rule of biblical interpretation: אין מקרא יוצא מידי פשוטו, “a (Scriptural) verse never escapes from the hands of its plain meaning." However, in antiquity there is precious little evidence that the Rabbis regularly applied that rule in their interpretation of Scripture, and the vast preponderance of ancient rabbinic biblical interpretation was midrashic. It was, in fact, left to Jewish exegetes in medieval times (both Karaite and Rabbanite) to develop the statement about plain meaning into the fundamental principle of biblical exegesis. Mordechai Cohen has written two important books that relate to this statement. One of them, The Rule of Peshat, examines how the statement was put to the test in a wide variety of medieval contexts; the other, Rashi, Biblical Interpretation, and Latin Learning in Medieval Europe, focusses principally on Rashi, and illustrates the way in which this most important of exegetes developed an approach to interpretation that endeavored to incorporate the statement as a fundamental component of exegesis. The present review essay seeks both to summarize Cohen’s magnificent achievement as well as to consider both books within the context of recent scholarship about medieval biblical exegesis.
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