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JOURNAL OF SEMITIC STUDIES VOLUME 9 NUMBER 2 AUTUMN I964 MEDIEVAL JEWISH EXEGESIS: ITS CHARACTER AND SIGNIFICANCE 1 By ERWIN I. J. ROSENTHAL Any general estimate of Medieval Jewish exegesis must start from the contemporary attitude to the Hebrew Bible in the con- text of the dialogue between Judaism and Christianity.' There are, therefore, broadly speaking three lines of thought to be distin- guished. The dominant factor is the riaim of the Church to represent the verus Israel and to have in the New Testament the fulfilment of the Old which is interpreted in a christological sense. Against this Christian claim the Jews put up a spirited defence of the Hebrew Bible as the word of God vouchsafed to the people of Israel in its full and perfect truth. The ensuing dialogue centred in the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible as the pike de risistance. The dialogue between Church and Synagogue was conducted, as is well known, on two fronts at the same time: in religious disputations forced by a militant Church on a reluct- ant Synagogue on the defensive, and in literary form in an exten- sive Commentary-literature and in special tracts. This paper is only concerned with the Hebrew commentaries of the High Middle Ages and rather with their general character than with their specific contribution to the relentless dialogue between the two faiths. For polemic is only one, though a vital, aspect of biblical interpretation as a whole. Medieval Jewish exegesis had, it is true, a twofold task: first and foremost the affirmation and strengthening of the faith of medieval Jewry and, closely linked with it, the defence of the Jewish position against Christian attack and missionary activity, with special reference to the divine-human nature and Messiahship of Christ and the continu- ing validity of the Torab or its abrogation. 1 Paper read before the Society for Old Testament Study at the Summer Meeting in Dublin on 19 July 1961.

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Page 1: Jewish Exegesis

JOURNAL OF SEMITIC STUDIES

VOLUME 9 NUMBER 2 AUTUMN I964

MEDIEVAL JEWISHEXEGESIS: ITS CHARACTER AND

SIGNIFICANCE1

By E R W I N I. J. ROSENTHAL

Any general estimate of Medieval Jewish exegesis must startfrom the contemporary attitude to the Hebrew Bible in the con-text of the dialogue between Judaism and Christianity.' There are,therefore, broadly speaking three lines of thought to be distin-guished. The dominant factor is the riaim of the Church torepresent the verus Israel and to have in the New Testament thefulfilment of the Old which is interpreted in a christologicalsense. Against this Christian claim the Jews put up a spiriteddefence of the Hebrew Bible as the word of God vouchsafed tothe people of Israel in its full and perfect truth. The ensuingdialogue centred in the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible as thepike de risistance. The dialogue between Church and Synagoguewas conducted, as is well known, on two fronts at the same time:in religious disputations forced by a militant Church on a reluct-ant Synagogue on the defensive, and in literary form in an exten-sive Commentary-literature and in special tracts. This paper isonly concerned with the Hebrew commentaries of the HighMiddle Ages and rather with their general character than withtheir specific contribution to the relentless dialogue between thetwo faiths. For polemic is only one, though a vital, aspect ofbiblical interpretation as a whole. Medieval Jewish exegesis had,it is true, a twofold task: first and foremost the affirmation andstrengthening of the faith of medieval Jewry and, closely linkedwith it, the defence of the Jewish position against Christianattack and missionary activity, with special reference to thedivine-human nature and Messiahship of Christ and the continu-ing validity of the Torab or its abrogation.

1 Paper read before the Society for Old Testament Study at the SummerMeeting in Dublin on 19 July 1961.

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The touchstone was Hebraica veritas, the true meaning of theauthentic word of God, in the linguistic and historical interpreta-tion of the Old Testament. Now, we all know that this conceptwas not invented in the age of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. It was already invoked by Jerome; but it is of theessence of medieval and modem exegesis that Hebraica veritas hasassumed not only paramount significance, but a content andmeaning quite distinct from and much wider than that understoodby Jerome. It is in both instances the result of close contactbetween Christian and Jewish exegetes and provides the commonground on which they met and discussed in an attempt to arriveat the true mining of the Old Testament. On it the Jews tooktheir stand in their defence of Judaism, and the Christians in theirchristological interpretation of the messianic passages of the OldTestament. Jerome arrived at the Hebraica veritas largely with thehelp of primarily aggadic interpretation transmitted by thetaimudic scholars of his age (aerasb). On the other hand,Hebraica veritasy as the battle-cry of the Reformers in their attemptat establishing the authority of the Word of God, is the result ofthe literal interpretation, pesbaf. Again, pesbat is nothing new;but it assumed an importance unknown to earlier generations asthe only effective weapon in the battle for the truth of the Bible.This weapon was primarily forged by Jews for Jews in the MiddleAges as the best means of safeguarding Judaism against Karaiteand particularly against Christian attack. Pesbat became almostidentified with Hebraica veritas and played a decisive part in thedialogue between Jews and Christiana.

It is for this reason that I gave this paper its title: the diameterof medieval exegesis determined its twofold significance. For theJews it served to buttress and'maintain their identity, and thus itperpetuated the challenge to the Christian claim to be the ventsIsrael. For the Christians, it served as the authentic means ofattaining the Hebraica veritas. Medieval Jewish exegesis has thusa share in the consolidation of the Reformation and of Puritanismin this country. It is based on a deeper understanding of theHebrew language through grammatical and lexicographicalstudies, more systematic and rational than anything that has gonebefore. These Jewish studies in response to a challenge fromwithin, Karaism, and without, Islam and Christianity, haveadvanced the scientific exploration of the language of the Bible.But there is more to it than that: the linguistic attainment ofmedieval Jewish grammarians and lexicographers has.become

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the foundation for our modem scientific study of the HebrewBible. This was possible because in their quest for knowledge andtruth they managed to isolate their research as far as this washumanly possible from the theological struggle between the twofaiths for which the Old Testament serves as Holy Writ. But thisdoes not mean that their labours were unrelated to the perennialneed of explaining afresh the Bible for the benefit of every suc-ceeding generation of Jews. On the contrary, the Jewish com-mentators writing in Aiabic and later in Hebrew made full use ofthese grammatical and lexicographical studies. In this way theybecame source and medium for the Christian Hebraists of thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries in what they conceived to beHebraica veritas.

Before we look at the linguistic foundation of medieval exegesiswhich transformed lihcpesbaf and secured its ascendancy over thederasb, let us sum up the foregoing by pointing ouf that it wasthe Muslim and especially the Christian challenge which forced theJews to develop the method of rational, literal interpretation.In turn, Christian medieval exegetes had to recognize the plainsense as one of the four methods of Christian interpretation ofScripture: bistoria corresponds to pesbaf. Earlier, Origen and hisdisciples referred to the Jews as a carnalis pcpulus, as amid liter at,and called the literal meaning the sensus htdaicus. This is quitecorrect for the rabbis insisted that en miqrdyose mute pisbufo ("noverse in Scripture can lose its literal (plain) simple meaning "). Thefigurative explanation exists alongside with the plain meanings itcannot set it aside or replace it. Origen and the other ChurchFathers opposed to this sensus htdaicus the sensus mystiats, butAugustine tolerated the literal rp<*aning provided the Christianaadhered to the spiritual or mystical sense. This became the pre-vailing attitude in the Middle Ages. While the Jews had toaccept metaphor and metaphorical interpretation—-i£ only tocombat anthropomorphism—allegory and allegorizing exegesiswere frowned upon with the sole exception of the Song of Songs.

At the same time, we find that the medieval exegetes like Rashiand his successors, Qimhi, Abraham b. F-*ra and others explicitlylinkthe/wAzfwith the "answer" or rejoinder to the Christians. Thisis clear evidence of the connexion between literal interpretationand anti-Christian polemic The frequency with which polemicalexpressions occur in medieval Jewish commentaries testifies tothe grave danger which the Jews had to face, and also shows howthese commentaries served a real need in the life and thought of

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medieval Jewry. There is nothing academic about the refutationof Christian interpretation, and yet we find that, forced on thedefensive, the Jews had to pay close attention to the structure ofthe Hebrew of the Bible and to the historical connexion ofmessianic prophecies which, as such,, did much to sustain theJews and to fire them with faith and hope. The by-product of thisdefence is the scientific study of the Hebrew language as anacademic discipline alongside the classical languages.

The proper study of Hebrew begins with Saadya Gaon (882-942) under the direct threat from the Karaites.. His grammaticaland lexicographical pioneering efforts kid the foundations for themany commentaries written in Spain, France and Germany.Saadya is naturally influenced by Arab grammarians, in bis classifi-cation of Hebrew into nouns, verbs and particles, as also in histerminology. Masoretic studies were his starting-point and heapplied to the explanation of biblical nouns and verbs the prin-ciple of the unity and continuity of the Hebrew language from theOld Testament over Mishnah and Talmud to his own age. Hemade use of his linguistic studies in his Arabic commentaries andtranslations of the Pentateuch, Isaiah, Proverbs and Job, as part ofhis literal interpretation, at which he arrived by using traditionalrabbinic interpretation—in so far as it was compatible with hislinguistic understanding of the Hebrew text—and also by apply-ing his reason. For he was trained in Muslim philosophy andtheology no less than in the secular sciences of his age whichwere the fruit of the renaissance of Hellenistic Greek science andphilosophy. Next to Karaism it was Muslim rationalist theologywhich caused Saadya to concentrate on ptsbat and to lay downprecise conditions for allowing an inner, hidden meaning. If theliteral sense runs counter to reason or established tradition or is inopposition to another biblical passage, then and then only isa figurative interpretation permissible and called for. (I havedealt at length with his exegesis elsewhere and must thereforeconfine myself to a few remarks on his aim and method.) Just asthe language of the Bible is a unity, so is the Bible itself, both as awholeand in every one of its several books. Already his translationis—like every translation of course—interpretation. He says of itthat it is a " simple, explanatory translation of the text of the Torabwritten with the knowledge of reason and tradition". Heprefaces his comments with a short summary of the contents ofthe book and of its difficulties which he solves with the helpof reason and linguistic knowledge. He has recourse to a

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metaphorical interpretation, but eschews allegory, typology orsymbolism. It may be he is influenced by Christian exegesis inthis restriction, the common property of rabbinic exegesis.

On his exegesis, no less than on Arabic linguistic studies, isbased the great advance of biblical studies in Muslim and Chris-tian Spain, after the decline of the Babylonian centre. Here thedividing line between ptshat and derash became more marked,dose attention to grammar and syntax helped to bring" out theliteral meaning of Scripture. Past history now exerted a stronginfluence on the i-hinlring of the interpreters, no doubt stimulatedby a flourishing Arabic historiography. The historical books ofthe Bible were treated as historical records until, at the end of theperiod, Abravanel added extra-biblical and non-Hebrew, classicalsources in his exposition of the Bible.

In about 960 Menahem b. Sariiq initiated the intensive study ofHebrew in Europe with his Hebrew Dictionary, ma^bmth.Dunash b. Labrat effectively challenged Menahem, and a livelydiscussion of grammatical points and problems was carried on bythe disciples of both. Dunash wrote on strong and weak verbs andforeshadowed the theory of triliteral roots in important points.But it was left to Hayyuj of Fez to present a scientific theory oftriliteralism of the Hebrew verb. Menahem occupies a positionmidway between Saadya and Hayyuj in that he tried to presentthe Hebrew verb systematically in form and meaning, on thebasis of reason and study "and from the context. He recognizedthe parallelism of Hebrew poetry, at least as far as synonymousparallelism (of the two verse halves) is concerned. like Saadyahe often explains a biblical word by a mishnaic one, claimingunity and continuity of the language. The Targum naturally isoften adduced in determining the meaning of a biblical word.

Dunash's criticism drew its strength from a systematic investi-gation of morphology, grammar and syntax and was informedthrough a scholarly comparison between Hebrew, Aramaic andArabic He also drew on the Masora and rabbinic rules ofinterpretation. As already mentioned, he is groping for tri-literalism, rejects single-letter roots and tries to replace biliteralwith triliteral roots. But only with Hayyuj docs Hebrew gram-mar reach full scientific status and significance. By applyinghis theory of triliteralism to the weak verbs he succeeded inaccounting for the vowel changes and for the different grammati-cal forms, and formulated relevant laws. He also made a distinctcontribution to the, better understanding of the Hebrew noun.

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Writing in Arabic, he throughout employs the terminology ofArabic grammar. His treatise on vocalization shows familiaritywith Saadya's treatment of the sbiwa.

His work was completed by 'Abdul Walid Merwan ibn Janah,better known by bis Hebrew name, R. Yonah. His aim was fromthe start a better and more correct understanding of the Bibletext; he was not primarily a grammarian, But he systematicallycultivated the comparative linguistics of Hebrew, Aramaic andArabic and succeeded in perfecting the researches of his declaredmaster Hayyuj, thanks to his original investigations the results ofwhich he embodied in his principal work in two parts: grammarand dictionary. The latter under the title Book of Roots is thedirect source for David Qimhi's dictionary of the same title whichhas pushed it aside, R. Yonah's attitude to rabbinic exegesis iscritical on the basis of an advanced linguistic knowledge which,moreover, extended to questions of biblical style and diction.Thus his Dictionary is in itself a significant contribution tobiblical exegesis. It was translated into Hebrew by Judah b.Tibbon.

Hayyuj's writings in Arabic were made available to Hebrewspeaking and writing Spanish and French Jews through transla-tions made by Moses ibn Gikatilla of Cordova whose philo-logical interpretations of many biblical passages are preserved inAbraham b. Ezra's writings. He also attempted to give a histori-cal explanation: thus he refers some Psalms to the Exile anrl assignsDeutero-Isaiah to the Second Commonwealth. His rationalisticinterpretation of the miracles was rejected by his compatriotJudah ibn Balaam who favoured the traditional view. IbnBalaam's Commentary on Isaiah shows Saadya's influence.

For chronological reasons, before dealing with Abraham ibnEzra, the foremost exegete of Spain, we now turn to NorthernFrance. Unlike their Spanish colleagues the French were withoutexception deeply learned in the Talmud. Hence, traditionalexegesis played a great part in their own interpretation of theHebrew Bible, with the result that the borderline between pesbafand derasb is sometimes rather fluid. But because of the Christianchallenge they all stress the literal interpretation which, followingin the wake of the great master Rashi, they link with the"answer"to the Christians. The more bitter and relentless the conflictbetween the Church and the Synagogue became, the closer per-sonal contact between these French exegetes and Chriri

h l f F d E l d Thg

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taries formed together with those of Ibn Ezra and Qimhi thearmoury of the Reformers and have found a permanent echo inthe Authorized Version. It is usual to speak of David Qimhi inconnexion with the entry of Jewish exegesis into Christianbiblical scholarship in the Middle Ages and especially duringthe Reformation and after. This is correct as far as grammar andlexicography are concerned, and his comments arc certainly to bemet with frequently in Latin and English commentaries on booksof the Old Testament, and in the Latin translation of SebastianMunster and the English versions down to the AuthorizedVersion, no less than the Catholic Douay Bible. But first placeshould go to Rashi (R. Solomon b. Isaac of Troyes, 1040-96) andhis school, as is clear from the important studies of Dr Smalley,especially on the school of St Victor, R. Loewe's work onHerbert of Bosham, and some earlier efforts of my own as far asthe Reformers are concerned. His simple, often pithy, expositionhas made a lasting impact on Jews and Christians alike. While theremay be a little too much derash contained in his commentaries, hisliteral interpretation has set the pace for the French schools ofJewish and Christian exegetes. It is based on the best of previousrabbinic exegesis and on Menahem b. Sariiq's mabberetb and isinformed with, for his time, sound, advanced linguistic know-ledge and a fine spontaneous feeling for the meaning of the Wordof God. Hence, Reuchlin named him ordmarius Scripturaeinterpret, a phrase echoed in John Rainolds's "the author of theirordinary gloss" which we find in his commentaries on Haggaiand Obadiah. Already Nicholas of Lyre reflects Rashi's exegesisso that Reuchlin could say that not much would be left ofNicholas's Postillae were we to take out the many references to"Rabi Salomon". Rashi was a principal source for SebastianMunster, who bequeathed his comments to Coverdale, theGenevan and Bishops' Bibles and especially to the AuthorizedVersion. Rashi was to them the embodiment of Hebraica veritas,perhaps chiefly because he utilized rabbinic tradition judiciouslyin his striving for the plain, literal meaning of Scripture. Asremarked earlier on, Rashi linked thtpesbaf with the objection tochristological interpretation of many passages in the Pentateuch,Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel or the Psalms. We must remember thatRashi wrote in the first place for his generation of hard-pressedJews in an atmosphere that produced the Crusades. Hence, weoften find references to contemporary events, for example in hiscomments on Isa. liii. 9 or Ps. xxxviii. 18. He lived with his

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people and mixed with Christians -in his native town and on histravels. What is important is that in order to combat Christianinterpretation he was prepared to depart from traditional exposi-tion. For, to repeat, the first requirement for medieval Jewishexegetes was to provide for their generation a meaningful, satis-fying interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in the course of whichthey had to answer Christian interpretations. If they had notdone so the Jews might have succumbed in large numbers toChristian attempts at conversion. The danger was very real, andonlypesbat could avert it. Pesbat meant correct linguistic analysisand historical interpretation. Messianic prophecies must not referto the Second Commonwealth but to the end-time, hence doseattention was paid to proving that these predictions had notactually been fulfilled during the period of the Second Temple.(Cf. Rashi's comment on Ps. ii: David is meant, not Jesus; Ps. xvrefers to Israel, not to the Church. Edom is Rome; the Kittimmean Christian Rome; Zech. ix. 4 refers to the days of theMessiah, not to the Second Temple. For a departure from tradi-tional exegesis cf. his interpretation of Ps. ix, x, xxi, of the ServantSongs in Isa. lii-liii, or of Zech. vi. 2.) This kind of anti-Christianpolemic is common to all Jewish medieval exegetes, notably toQimhi. They were aware that it would not be enough simply toreject the christological interpretation. What was more impor-tant was a positive interpretation by asserting that a biblicalhistorical person or «vent was meant and, especially, if this waslinguistically and historically possible, that the passage in questioncontained a promise of the future redemption of Israel which allJews then eagerly expected. Naturally, when assessing the objec-tive scientific value of Jewish exegesis we must bear in mind thatit was bound up with the facts and the spirit of the times. Hence,the conflict between the Church and the Synagogue looms largein Hebrew literature as do messianic hope and eschatologicalexpectancy. Especially the latter is heightened by the fact thateschatology is not absent from the movement of the Crusadeseither. Everyday life is also reflected in the commentaries,especially of Rashi and his school. They use a large number ofFrench glosses, lo'asym, many of which are the only extant witnessto medieval French usage. They were meant for the ordinaryJewish reader and were to convey the exact meaning of a difficultword or phrase in the Hebrew. In passing it may be stated thatapart from Rashi's commentary on the Pentateuch, those onIsaiah, the Minor Prophets and the Psalms were only published

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some twenty years ago in critical editions made from uncensoredmanuscripts.

It is worth noting once more that the medieval commentariesnot only reflect the conflict between the Church and the Syna-gogue, but also the dialogue between Jewish and Christianscholars. They met to discover the true meaning of the Bible. It isunlikely that the Christians could have obtained the Jewishinterpretation from an independent study of the Hebrew com-mentaries in manuscript; they needed the help of individualJews. In turn, they acquainted the Jews with the Vulgate, theinterpretation of the Church Fathers and their own interpretationsemploying the fourfold method of biblical interpretation as it wasevolved by the Venerable Bede and Hrabanus Maurus. One in-stance may be quoted: Qimhi frequently uses the terms gupbanitband rubanitb, which exactly correspond to the Christian exegeticalterms corporealiter and spiritualiter.

Time does not permit me to discuss Rashi's successors in detail.Suffice it to mention his grandson R. Samuel b. Meir whose com-mentary on the Pentateuch shows how the method oipesbaf wasdeveloped by him into a fine art. He was not a trained gram-marian but had an exceptionally fine feeling for the language ofthe Bible. This led him to disagree with traditional Jewishexegesis, using his own sound judgement. Let me illustrate thiswith his interpretation of shilob in Gen. xlix.. 10. He says thatneither the Jewish nor the Christian interpretations are compatiblewith the strictly literal mining. It does not refer to Jesus, theVulgate is wrong with its qui mitttndus est. Jewish reference to thepromised Messiah is equally untenable. Shiloh is, he avers,the name of a town, near Shechem, to which the king of Judah,Rehaboam son of Solomon, is to come.

Abraham b. Ezra (d. 1167) cites this explanation among otherswithout mentioning its author. Next to Rashi's, Abraham b.Ezra's commentary on the Pentateuch is most widely studied byJews. It shares with his other commentaries qualities quitepeculiar to Abraham b. Ezra: remarkable insight into thetheological and ethical content of the Bible; sound grammaticallearning and wide secular knowledge as is to be expected of aJew living in Spain. He mediated the results of the Spanish schoolof exegesis to the Jews of Italy and France, excelling them all instrict application of the literal method of interpretation. But healso liberally sprinkles his comments with hints and allusions tosecrets hidden in commandments, stories and expressions of the

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Bible. Far in advance of his time in his literary criticism of thetext of the Pentateuch and of Isaiah, for example, he shared thetraditional acceptance of the Pentateuch as Mosaic. But he heldthat some additions were made to the Pentateuch after Moses andhe distinguished a Second Isaiah from the First, at least he hintedat it. But he was not a higher critic; no medieval Jew or Chris-tian could be such in the climate of the age. Only in respect ofthe Song of Songs did he accept an allegorical meaning alongsidethe literal one. He furnishes a threefold explanation: first of all,he sets out to explain every obscure word linguistically, then heexplains the simple mining of the whole book and lastly heexpounds the inner meaning in accordance with the method ofderash. He has left us a precise statement on his own methodof interpretation contrasting it with four other methods. TheGeoninf (heads of the Babylonian academies) include too muchextraneous material; by leaving tradition out of consideration theKaraites fail to understand Scripture; Rashi and his schoolincorporate too much midrashic material instead of making use ofthe results of the scientific study of Hebrew and of following thedictates of reason. For only a consistent application of the laws ofthe Hebrew language and of logic can lead to an understanding ofthe plain meaning of the text. Therefore, he also rejects thefourth method of interpretation, that of the Christian sages whoallegorize everything, even the laws, statutes and ordinances ofthe Torab. As an adherent of tradition, which includes the accep-tance of the Halakbah as obligatory on every Jew, he maintainsthat every commandment must be interpreted literally. But headmits that the Torab contains secrets like the stories of the tree ofknowledge or of paradise.

Of Qimhi's exegesis I need say nothing, since Dr Baker hasfully dealt with it and I discuss his anti-Christian polemic else-where. The Qimhi family shared Ibn Ezra's attitude and method,and their grammatical and lexicographical writings formed animportant element in the equipment of the Christian Hebraists ofthe sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,

In Don Isaac Abravanel (1437-1509) we meet with the lastmedieval commentator of outstanding merit. Since exegesisreflects the.life of the times so vividly, we are not surprised thatthe man who epitomizes the best in biblical scholarship amongmedieval Jews should have paid special attention to messianicpromises on the eve of the Jewish expulsion from Spain and inthe wake of this disaster. Therefore, references to the events of his

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time abound in his commentaries, particularly in that on Daniel andin his treatise comprising all the messianic passages in the Bible,none of which had been realized during the Second Common-wealth but which were going to be fulfilled soon to bring Jewishsuffering to a speedy end. His work as a. commentator exhibitssome features which, despite his dependence on earlier Jewishand Christian exegetes, are quite his own. His method is scholas-tic; he carefully reviews earlier exegesis and then gives his owninterpretation. Of Christian scholars he mentions Jerome, Bede,Isidore of Seville, Albertus Magnus and Nicholas of Lyre, andPaul of Burgos, a Jewish convert to Christianity. His knowledgeof affairs gained in the service of Christen princes, chief amongthem the king of Spain who decreed the expulsion of the Jews,makes his criticism of predecessors realistic and sound. With thishe combined considerable knowledge of past history gleanedfrom Latin chronicles and such Jewish historical, writings asJosippon and Abraham ibn Da'ud's sefer baqqabbaJab. Heanticipated the modem science of introduction to the Old Testa-ment by his serious discussion of date and authorship of theHistorical Books and of the Hagibgrapha, and of chronologicaland literary difficulties in the text. While he is critical of much oftraditional exegesis he is rather conservative in sticking to pesbatwithin the confines of the text itself, aided by a judicious useof rabbinic interpretation. Only if a literal interpretationruns counter to reason will he reluctantly admit a figurativeexplanation. His conservatism and highly critical attitude tophilosophy and philosophical exegesis are due to the con-temporary situation, which imposed a certain rigidity and with-drawal into strictly traditional Judaism.

So much for the dominant characteristic of medieval Jewishexegesis, the great stress on the pesbat. Two other tendencies,though outside the main stream of exegetical activity with its pre-dominantly practical purpose, must at least be mentioned: thephilosophical and mystical explanations of the Hebrew Bible.Both can be accommodated under the general heading of derasb,though they widely differed from the midrashic method of edify-ing comment of an ethical nature.

A strictly rational interpretation of Scripture was never entirelyabsent since anthropomorphism had to be combated, witnessalready the Targum. But in the High Middle Ages we areencountering a rational explanation in answer to the challenge ofHellenistic Greek philosophy. Divine Revelation was a historical

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fact accepted by all Jews since it was witnessed by the childrenof Israel assembled at the foot of Mt Sinai. The truth of revela-tion was accepted as an axiom of faith, but it had to be shown tobe identical with philosophical truth arrived at by demonstrativeargument. Saadya had tried to balance reason with trustworthytradition, his successors often set aside the plain meaning throughreading Aristotelian concepts into the Bible. Maimonides' Guideto the Perplexed is largely philosophical interpretation of the Bible;for him, its figurative meaning was in harmony with Aristotle.But Maimonides took good care not to undermine the founda-tions of the Torab; thus he accepted creation out of nothing andrejected the concept of the eternity of matter; providence orreward and punishment were religious doctrines essential for thelife and faith of the people of Israel and had to be acceptedliterally. But he interpreted the angels as Aristotle's separateintelligences, and aroused fierce opposition since allegoricalinterpretation was dangerous, especially in view of the use theChurch made of it in its interpretation of the Old Testament.Philosophical speculation was considered dangerous, but in theskilful hands of Maimonides and Gersonides it appealed to thoseintellectuals who had fallen under the spell of Aristotelian philo-sophy and could thus retain their loyalty to Judaism on theintellectual plane.

That Thomas Aquinas thought highly of Maimonides' biblicalexegesis may at least be mentioned in passing.

Of the mystical exegesis of the Bible from the twelfth centuryonwards little need be said in our context. The mystics insist likethe rationalist thinkers on the inner, hidden mining of Scripture,which they value higher than the plain, literal meaning. But veryrarely have they permitted themselves an attitude and even less apractice which could be called antinomian: so strong in their casealso was the adherence to the rabbinic principle that the plainsense must not be lost sight of and that it was binding on thepreceptive side. Between 1150 and 1250 there arose a mysticalmovement in Germany, probably under the impact of theFranciscan "spirituals", which found eloquent expression inbiblical exegesis of a pietist and devotional character. The move-ment spread to Spain where Nachmanides (1195-1270) gave themost profound expression to it in his important commentary onthe Torab. Though thepesbaf predominates, securing wide accep-tance among the Jews, the commentary is full of mystical allu-sions. His disciple Bahya b. Asher employs in his commentary on

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. MEDIEVAL JEWISH EXEGESIS

the Torab four methods of exegesis: pesbat, midrash, sekhel andqabbalab.

The first two are traditional, the third is philosophical strictlywithin the confines of text and tradition, and the fourth is new,combining both reme\ and sod, allusion and mystery. The fourmore or less correspond to the usage in the basic mystical work ofthe Middle Ages, the Zobar, which was so popular among theJews for centuries and also led to the kabbalistic vogue amongChristians in the sixteenth century. What is so significant is thatthe four methods are none other than the four Christian modes ofinterpretation, adapted to Jewish concepts and needs: pesbat isbistoria; dtrasb corresponds to tropologia; reme^ to allegoric; and sodto anagoga. Scripture can have more than one meaning, and all iswell as long as the different meanings exist alongside each otherand none ousts the basic, literal mining on which the survival ofJudaism and the Jews depended.

All four methods were practised 1° order to arrive at the truthof the Bible. The Jewish exegetes were concerned to give theirgenerations that moral and spiritual support which their faithbased on the Bible needed. In doing their duty, they have alsoprovided an exposition of the Bible which enabled the Reformersto give their co-religionists a translation of the Old Testamentauthentic within the limits of the biblical scholarship of the timeand representing that Hebraica veritas the translators of theBishops' Bible were instructed by Archbishop Parker to work for.They were enjoined "for the verity of the Hebrew to follow...Pagnine (Santes Pagnino) and Miinster specially, and generallyothers learned in the tongues ".

In fact, Monster's exposition found an entry into the GreatBible, from there into the Genevan and thence into the Bishops'Bible. But it was left to the latter's chief editor, ArchbishopParker, to demand that his team of translators should followMunster specially. There can be no doubt that the Englishversions owe much to Mtinster's Latin translation of the OldTestament, or that the informed, careful use of Jewish exegesisby Munster is responsible for their greater accuracy, their muchcloser approach to Hebraica veritas. How did Munster acquire theconsiderable knowledge of Hebrew and of Jewish exegesis whichhe considered essential for his task of translating the Old Testa-ment? Through his teacher Conrad Pellicanus, himself the discipleof Reuchlin, Munster became acquainted with Reuchlin'sRjidimenta which are based on Qimhi's Sefer baMikhlol. But of

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more direct and lasting influence was his Jewish teacher ElijahLevita whose Masoretic studies had a profound effect on theEnglish Hebraists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries aswell. Reuchlin, and more so Levita, provided him with a soundgrammatical knowledge, and the new art of printing put the moreimportant rabbinic commentaries, many major and minorMidrasbim, Hebrew chronicles and halakhic works in his hands.Rashi's commentary on the Torab was published in 1475; Qimhi'sdictionary in 1480, his grammar in 1 j 32-4, both also a little laterwith Levita's annotations. The Bomberg edition of the rabbinicBible, the Miqra'dtb Gedo/otb, enabled Miinster to publish his edi-tion of the Hebrew text with the Masoretic accents and his Latintranslation in 1537, and with fuller notes in 1546. He tells us thathis aim in translation was to give simply Hebraica veritas with thehelp of the Jewish exegetes, whose works he used "not asoracles, but with discrimination". He consulted, so he writes,before all the Targum which he often finds clearer than theHebrew text; Rashi,Qimhi, Ibn Ezra, Menahem di Recanati andNachmanides' adherents of the mystical interpretation of Scrip-ture. He defends his adherence to Hebraismus (against Steuchus),saying that this Hebraism has sometimes forced him to coin newLatin words unfamiliar to the ear in order to render Scripturemore faithfully, for example herbifitart for berbam producere (Gen.i. 11) or reptificare for reptile multiplicare (Gen. L 20). He strove inhis translation to make Christians understand the Old Testamentas the foundation on which the New rests, for there is nothing inthe New Testament that has not been foreshadowed in the Old.His vast knowledge of grammatical and exegetical Jewish worksenabled him to produce a model translation as we know fromArchbishop Parker's injunction.

Much of the Jewish exegesis which went into the making of thefinest monument to Hebraica veritas, the Authorized Version, goesback to Munster. The foremost defender of that translation fromthe Hebrew original was the Cambridge Regius Professor ofHebrew* Edward Lively, who combined sound classical learningwith a competent knowledge of Hebrew language and literature,mainly through Mtinster's translations of Levita's grammatical,lexicographical and Masoretic writings. Thus, he attaches greatimportance to the accents in his interpretation of Dan. lx. 24-7and insists on the correctness of the 'atbndb under sbibb'db(v. 25). To ignore it would destroy the true meaning of thepassage. He sums up his position thus: "As I finde in the Hebrew

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so I have Englished, that is, the truthe of interpretation, be itunderstood as it may." His chief opponent was Hugh Broughton,and their dispute well illustrates " The Battle of the Vowel points "which had such an important bearing on the question of theantiquity and authenticity of the original word of God. Hedefends the Jews against the charge of falsifying and corruptingScripture and wrote a special treatise in defence of the HebrewOld Testament. The Hebrew text is "a fountaine wherin the mostdeare and perfect truth of the ould testament is conteyned".Neither Septuagint nor Vulgate "doth so purely expresse thedivine and infallible truth of god his holy word. But as well theone as the other in infinit places errounious and faulty. So shall itdeariy appeare that we do well in following the Hebrew, and notamisse in refusing those interpretadons." He would rather turnto the Jewish exegetes whose care for every letter of the Hebrewword of God he commends and whose interpretation, if sound, heunhesitatingly follows.

Reverence for the word of God prompted the translators ofthe Authorized Version to apply linguistic and historical analysisto their task, in which they allowed themselves to be guided bymedieval Jewish grammatical and exegetical works. Presenttranslators of the Old Testament can no longer have thatabsolute faith in the authentic transmission of the original wordof God. Textual and literary critidsm as evolved in modembiblical scholarship have made the task of faithful translationinfinitdy more complex and difficult.

SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. GRAMMATICAL AND LEXICOGRAPHICAL WORKS

Hayyuj, Two Trtatists on Vtrbs containing FttbU and Doubl* Litters, ed. J. W.Nutt, London, 1870.

AW I WaliiMtrwan ibn D/andb, Optuadts et Traitis, ed. J. and H. Derenbourg,Paris, 1880.

Abuhvalii Marwan ibn Jandb, Srpbtr Hascboraubim, ed. W. Bacher, Berlin,1896. (Hebrew transL of Dictionary by Judah b. Tibbon.)

David Qimhi, Book of Roots, ed. Biesenthal and Lebrecht, Berlin, 1847.Ubtr Responsiomu*, ed. S. G. Stern, Vienna, 1870. (Controversy about

Menahem b. Saruq by his disciples and opponents.)

IL CRITICAL EDITIONS OF MEDIEVAL HEBREW COMMENTARIESON BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

Rashi: Commtntarius in Ptntattutbum, ed. A. Berliner, 2nd ed. Frankfurt, .190 5.German translation by S. Bamberger, Rasebis Ptntattucbkommtntar,

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Hamburg, 1922; Parsbandatba, ed. J. Maarsen, pt. n—Isaiah: Jerusalem,I953;pt. 1—The Minor ProphetB: Jer. 1936; pt. in—Psalms: unobtain-able, but cf. Judah Rosenthal, Tbe Anti-Christian Polemic in Rasbi's Com-mentarits on tbe Tnakb (Hebrew), in the Rashi volume pubL by the WorldJewish Congress, also S. Poznanski's introduction to bis edition ofEJityer of Beaugncy; Rasbi on Eqekiel xl-xhnii, ed. Abr. J. Levy, Phila-delphia, 1931; Pentattueb, with Targttm Onkelos, Hapbtarotb and Praytrs forSabbatb andRasbi's Centmentary,taos....and annotated by M. Rosenbaumand A. M. Silbermann, London, 1929-32. (I have only seen 3 volumesof this, the third being Leviticus); Rasbi on Genesis, L. Loewe. London,1928.

R. Samuel b. Meir: Kommentar vyim Pentateuch, ed. D. Rosin, Breslau, 1881.Abraham b. Ezra: cf. M. Friedlaender, Essays on tbe Writings of Abraham ibn

E%ro, TV, London, 1877. (Contains the Hebrew introduction to hiscommentary on Genesis, quoted in the paper.)

David Qimhi: Isaiah i-xxxix, ed. L. Finkelstein, New York, 1926; Nahum,ed. W. Windfuhr, Giessen, 1927; Hosea, ed. H. Cohen, New York,1929; Psalms: Tbe First Book of Psalms with tbe Longer Commentary ofR.David Qimcbi, ed. S. Schiller-Szinessy, Cambridge, 1883 (Pss. i-viiitransL A. W. Greenup, London, 1918); Second Book (xlii-tmi), ed. S. I.Esterson in H.U.C~A. x (193 j); no critical edition of third and fourthbooks exists; Tbe Commentary on tbe Fifth Book of Psalms, ed. J. Bosniak,New York, 1954. (Further references in my article in J.JJ., cf.below.)

III. STUDIES DEALING WITH MEDIEVAL COMMENTARIES

W. Bacher, Die Bibtkxtgtn vom Anjang des 10. bis %um Ends des 15. J abr bunderts,in: Winter u. Wunsche, Die Judixcbe Utteratur..., vol. 2, Trier, 1894.(Important, basic, masterly survey.)Die Bibelexeffse der judiscben Religionspbilosopben des Mittelalters vor

Maimuni, Strasbourg, 1892, and Die Bibilexegese Maimunis, 1897.Lebtn u. Werke d. Abdul Merwan b. Gandb u. d. Quellen seiner Scbrift-

erkldrung, Leipzig, 1885.S. R. Driver and Ad. Neubauer, Tbe Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah ace. to tbe

Jewish Interpreters. Texts and translations, Oxford, 1876.I. Heinemann, "Die wissenschafdiche Allegoristik d. jud. Mittelalters", in

H.U.C.A. xxm, 1950-1. (Especially for the Church Fathers.)H. Liebeschutz, "The Crusading Movement in its Bearing on the Christian

Attitude towards Jewry", in J.JJ. x, 1959. (Deals with the religiousissues, especially eschatology.)

H. Loewe and J. B. Trend (eds.),Ir*v Abravanel, Cambridge, 1937.R. J. Loewe, "Herbert of Bosham's Commentary on Jerome's Hebrew

Psalter", in Btblica, xxxiv, 1953.J. Pereira-Mendoza, Rasbi as Pbiloloffst, Manchester, 1940.A. Poznanski, Scbilob, Leipzig, 1904.S. Poznanski, Elie^er of Beaugsncy's Commentaries on E^tkiel and tbe Minor

Prophets, Warsaw, 1910-13. (Especially Introduction (German).)Erwin L J. RosenthaL "Rashi and the English Bible", in Bulletin of tbe John

Rylands Library, xxrv, 1 (1940).

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—r- "Don Isaac Abravanel: Financier, Statesman and Scholar", ibid, XXL, 2(i937)-" Saadya Gaon: An Appreciation of his Biblical Exegesis ", ibid, xxvn,1 (1942)-Saadya Studies (ed.), Manchester, 1942. (Several contributions on his

grammatical and exegetical studies, among others my Saadya's Exegesis ofthe Book of Job.)"Sebastian Munster's Knowledge and Use of Jewish Exegesis",.in

Essays presented to DrJ. H. Hert\, ed. I. Epstein, E. Levine and C Roth,London, 1943. (This essay, that on Rasbi and the English Bible and that onEdward Lively deal fully with the influence of Jewish exegesis on theReformers and the English versions of the Old Testament fromTindale to the Authorized Version, with illustrations.)Edward Lively: Cambridge Hebraist, in Essays and Studies presented to

Stanley A. Cook, ed. D. Winton Thomas, London, 1950."Anti-Christian Polemics in Medieval Bible Commentaries", in

Journal of Jewish Studies, xi (i960)."Medieval Jewish Exegesis of the Hebrew Bible", being ch. 7 (e) of

The Cambridge History of the Bible in the West, voL r, ed. G. W. H. Lampe,to be published by the Cambridge University Press.

Judah RosenthaL cf. above, p. 280, L 3.G. Scholcm, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism*, London, 195 5.S. L. Skoss, Saadia Gaon, th* Earliest Hebrew Grammarian, Philadelphia, 195 j .Beryl Smalley, "Andrew of St Victor, Abbot of Wigmore: A Twelfth

Century Hebraist", in Ruberebes Tbiologiquts Antiennts et Midievales, x."The School of Andrew of St Victor", ibid. xi.The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages*, Oxford, 1952.

J. Weingreen, "The Rabbinic Approach to the Study of the Old Testament",in Bulletin oftbt John Rylands Library, xxxrv, 1 (1951).

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