The Rule of Peshat: Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim Contexts, 900–1270 2019045117, 9780812252125, 9780812297010

Citation preview

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

The Rule of Peshat

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

JEW ISH CULTURE AND CONTEXTS Published in association with the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania Series Editors: Shaul Magid, Francesca Trivellato, Steven Weitzman A complete list of books in the series

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

is available from the publisher.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

The Rule o

Peshat Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim Contexts, 900–1270

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Mordechai Z. Cohen

unive rsity of pe nnsylvania press philadelphia

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from the Publications Fund of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Copyright © 2020 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Names: Cohen, Mordechai Z., author. Title: The rule of peshat : Jewish constructions of the plain sense of scripture and their Christian and Muslim contexts, 900–1270 / Mordechai Z. Cohen. Other titles: Jewish culture and contexts. Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2020] | Series: Jewish culture and contexts | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019045117 | ISBN 9780812252125 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Old Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc., Jewish—History—To 1500. | Bible. Old Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc.—History—To 1500. | Bible. Old Testament— Islamic interpretations—History—To 1500. | Bible. Old Testament— Commentaries—Early works to 1800. Classification: LCC BS1186 .C64 2020 | DDC 221.609—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019045117

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

In memory of my mother, Yolanda Cohen (1922–1977) ‫עדה בת ר' יצחק משה ז"ל‬ and my grandfather Dr. Moriz Zalman (1882–1940), who dedicated his career to justice and gave up his life in the battle against tyranny and hatred

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

‫ר' יצחק משה בן ר' חיים הירש הי"ד‬

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

This page intentionally left blank

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Contents

List of Abbreviations

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Introduction

ix 1

Chapter 1. Geonim and Karaites: Appropriating Methods of Qur’an Interpretation

27

Chapter 2. The Andalusian School: Linguistic and Literary Advances in the Muslim Orbit

68

Chapter 3. Rashi: Peshat Revolution in Northern France

95

Chapter 4. Qara and Rashbam: Refining the Northern French Peshat Model

127

Chapter 5. The Byzantine Tradition: A Newly Discovered Exegetical School

166

Chapter 6. Abraham Ibn Ezra: Transplanted Andalusian Peshat Model

208

Chapter 7. Maimonides: Peshat as the Basis of Halakhah

237

Chapter 8. Nahmanides: A New Model of Scriptural Multivalence

271

Notes

301

Bibliography

363

General Index

391

Index of Scriptural References

403

Acknowledgments

411

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

This page intentionally left blank

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Abbreviations

AJS

Association for Jewish Studies

BDB

Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907

b.

Babylonian Talmud

comm.

commentary

EBR

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, ed. Hermann Spieckermann et al. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009–

EI

Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. P. J. Bearman, Thierry Bianquis, Clifford Edmund Bosworth, E. J. van Donzel, and Wolfhart Heinrichs. 2nd ed. Leiden: Brill, 1960–2005

HBOT

Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, ed. Magne Sæbø, Menahem Haran, and Chris Brekelmans. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. Vol. I/1, Antiquity, 1996. Vol. I/2, The Middle Ages, 2000

HUCA

Hebrew Union College Annual

j.

Jerusalem Talmud

JJS

Journal of Jewish Studies

JQR

Jewish Quarterly Review

JSIJ

Jewish Studies Internet Journal

JTS

Jewish Theological Seminary of America

m.

Mishnah

MS

manuscript

MT

Masoretic Text

NJPS

Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures: The New Jewish Publication Society Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

x

Abbreviations

Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research

PL

Patrologia Latina, ed. Jaques Paul Migne. Paris: Migne, 1844–1855

REJ

Revue des études juives

t.

Tosefta

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

PAAJR

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Within the tradition of Jewish Bible interpretation, few concepts are as vital as peshat, oen rendered the “literal” or “plain sense,” a notion that powered a medieval exegetical revolution that remains vibrant to this day. Generally contrasted with midrash (or derash), a term that connotes the creative and, at times, fanciful rabbinic modes of reading,1 peshat came to connote systematic philologicalcontextual and historically sensitive analysis of the Bible, powered by an appreciation of its literary qualities. As Jews in Muslim lands became aware, the “obvious” or literal sense—ẓāhir or ḥaqīqa in Arabic—enjoyed a special status in Qur’an exegesis and Muslim jurisprudence, and those concepts were correlated with the term peshat as early as the tenth century.2 The emergence of peshat is comparable to the increasingly privileged standing of Scripture’s sensus litteralis in Christian interpretation om the Middle Ages onward.3 By that time, Christian Hebraists regularly consulted the peshat interpretations of Rashi (Rabbi Solomon Yiṣḥaqi; northern France, 1040–1105), Abraham Ibn Ezra (Spain, Italy, France, 1089–1164), and David Kimhi (Radak; Provence, 1160–1235).4 The substantial impact of these three pashtanim (practitioners of peshat) is reflected by the many surviving manuscripts of their commentaries, including precursors of the Miqra’ot Gedolot, or Rabbinic Bible, in which multiple commentaries accompany the biblical text.5 With the advent of printing, the influence of the peshat school spread immensely. From the sixteenth century onward, the commentaries of Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Radak have accompanied the sacred text in the Rabbinic Bibles that became increasingly prevalent in the Jewish library.6 In the 1525 edition, the standard template for later Rabbinic Bibles, Rashi’s commentaries are printed alongside almost every book of the Bible, paired with Ibn Ezra in the Pentateuch and Writings, and with Radak in the Prophets. Later editions expanded this roster. The Pentateuch commentary of Rashbam (Rashi’s grandson Samuel ben Meir; Rouen, 1080–1160) began to appear om 1705 onward, and that of Nahmanides (Christian Spain, 1194–1270) om 1860. The Miqra’ot Gedolot layout of master biblical text surrounded by commentaries resembles that of the influential medieval Glossa Ordinaria.7 The Gloss, however, was superseded in the Renaissance, whereas the Miqra’ot Gedolot, featuring a continually growing list of commentaries, remained dominant into the modern period and is still used by traditional Jewish readers.8

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

2

Introduction

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

The Nature and Influence of Peshat The forceful emergence of peshat interpretation reverberated widely, even outside the Jewish community. Nicholas of Lyre (1270–1349), considered to be the bestequipped medieval Christian Bible scholar, used Rashi avidly.9 He followed earlier Christian exegetes seeking to explicate the literal sense. Herbert of Bosham (1120– 1194) cites Rashi (“Rabbi Salomon”); and it seems that Hugh of Saint Victor (c. 1096–1141) learned not only om Rashi but also om Rashbam, his contemporary, whom he could have met in person, as they traveled in the same cities in northern France.10 These Latin interpreters feature prominently in the influential work of Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (published in 1941 and republished a number of times). Smalley regards their interest in the sensus litteralis as a precursor of the philological-historical “scientific study” of the Bible.11 Prior Christian interpretation focused on the “spiritual senses,” prompting readers to “not look at the text, but through it.”12 “Spiritual exposition,” for Smalley, “consists of pious meditations or religious teaching for which the text is used merely as a convenient starting-point.”13 In her characterization of literal-sense exegesis, Smalley reflects the prestige of historical-critical Bible scholarship in her day.14 The peshat movement, likewise, gained in standing greatly over the last two centuries, being celebrated as a precedent for modern Bible scholarship in the nineteenth-century Wissenschaft des Judentums (“scientific study of Judaism”) movement.15 Though there is now increasing interest in the more creative interpretive modes of midrash and kabbalah (Jewish mysticism)—itself a reflection of postmodernism16—the term peshat is oen used nowadays to connote proper, scientific interpretation, that is, what the Bible “really says,” as opposed to the “pious meditations” of midrash. The rabbis of antiquity had explicated Scripture to establish the halakhah (religious law) much as the lore of Judaism was embodied in their aggadot (homilies, legends; sing., aggadah). In telling moments of hermeneutical self-definition, Rashi distinguishes peshat om that traditional interpretive mode. “There are many midrashic aggadot,” he says, “and our Rabbis have already arranged them in their appropriate place in Genesis Rabbah and other midrashic works. My aim, however, is to relate only the peshat of Scripture . . . and the sort of aggadah that settles [meyashevet] the words of Scripture, each word in its proper place.”17 Notwithstanding the novelty of his approach, Rashi argues that it is consistent with the talmudic dictum that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.”18 This dictum, which we call the “peshat maxim,” was regularly used to justi the tendency to privilege peshat among Rabbanite interpreters.19 Rashi’s peshat sensibilities are illustrated in his commentary on the account in Genesis of Joseph losing his way in the search for his brothers: “A man came

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Introduction

3

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

upon him wandering in the fields. The man asked him, ‘What are you looking for?’ He answered, ‘I am looking for my brothers. Could you tell me where they are pasturing?’ The man said, ‘They have departed om here, for I heard them say: Let us go to Dothan’ ” (Gen. 37:15–17).20 Rashi begins his gloss with a midrashic reading: “ ‘A man came upon him’— This is Gabriel. ‘They have departed’—om any feeling of brotherhood. ‘Let us go to Dothan’—They seek legal pretexts with which to put you to death.”21 This reading employs typical midrashic associative linkages to reconstrue this episode as something other than the chance encounter it may seem to be, making the “man” into an angel sent to reveal to Joseph his brothers’ thoughts. Yet Rashi continues: “But according to its peshat, Dothan is the name of a place. And a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.”22 Invoking the peshat maxim, Rashi registers the alternative peshat reading that takes the man’s words literally. This also implies that the “man” is just a man, not Gabriel. As Ibn Ezra remarks: “According to the way of peshat: this ‘man’ was one of the people traveling on the road.”23 The thinking underlying ancient Jewish (and Christian) interpretation has been characterized by James Kugel as comprising four fundamental assumptions about the Bible: 1. The Bible is cryptic. Although Scripture might appear to say X, what it really means is Y, a meaning only hinted at.24 The Rabbis formulated rules for interpreting such “hints” in lists of middot (sing., middah; “hermeneutical principle”), such as “the thirteen middot of R. Ishmael” and the “thirty-two middot of R. Eliezer.”25 2. Though it recounts historical events, the Bible is not essentially a historical work. Rather, it is a “Book of Instruction” for readers in all ages, teaching how to behave and think—a point made explicitly by Paul in 1 Corinthians.26 3. Scripture is perfect and perfectly harmonious. There are no mistakes in the Bible, and anything that might look like a mistake is clarified by proper interpretation. This led to the doctrine of “omnisignificance,” whereby nothing in Scripture is said in vain or for rhetorical flourish: every detail is important; everything is intended to impart some teaching. Apparently insignificant details, such as an unusual word or grammatical form, or any repetition, were all read as potentially significant.27 4. All of Scripture is the word of God. Though written down by humans, it is ultimately of divine provenance, or divinely inspired.28 Noting that the true author of the Bible is the Holy Spirit, the church father Gregory the Great (c. 540–604) likened its human authors to a pen in the writer’s

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

4

Introduction

hand, since they were passive agents.29 The Talmud, likewise, describes how the Pentateuch was written: “The Holy One, blessed be He, dictated, Moses repeated, and Moses wrote” (b.Bava Batra 15a)—like a scribe taking dictation.30 The doctrine that “the Torah is om Heaven” (m.Sanhedrin 10:1)—the word of God Himself—is a comprehensive article of faith that excludes “someone who says that the entire Torah is om the Almighty except for a particular verse which was written by Moses on his own.”31 A fih assumption ought to be added:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

5. Events described in Scripture are supernatural and miraculous, manifesting divine intervention. This is usually dependent on Assumption 1: that is, what seems to be a mundane event (“Scripture says X”) is actually extraordinary (“what it really means is Y”), with deep theological or cosmic significance—in accordance with Assumption 2. The Rabbis were generally uninterested in the “plain sense”—the philological, literary analysis of Scripture in its historical setting. They mined the sacred text for eternal moral, religious, and halakhic instruction. They read through Scripture, between its lines, scrutinizing words and turns of phrase, making connections between different formulations, in order to discover hints to miraculous events in the past that were meaningful for the future. The medieval endeavor to discover the “peshat of Scripture” departed om all five of the midrashic assumptions, albeit om some assumptions more than om others. Rejecting Assumption 1, the pashtanim explicated the “surface” of the text, its linguistic and literary structures and poetic style. This led them to sidestep Assumptions 2 and 5, as they began to appreciate Scripture as a literary text reflecting its ancient Near Eastern context and describing historical events that must be explained rationally.32 With their proclivity to appreciate the poetics of the Bible, many pashtanim rejected the doctrine of omnisignificance by explaining the supposed linguistic anomalies (e.g., extra words and letters) upon which the midrash capitalized as nothing more than literary conventions. Assumption 4 was more enduring, as the pashtanim generally accepted Scripture’s divine provenance (“authorship”). Yet even this assumption was modified as medieval exegetes reconsidered the role of the human agents who penned and later edited the texts that would make up the Bible. The assumption of Scripture’s “perfection,” likewise, seems to have generally remained intact, though some pashtanim manifested increasing anxiety about contradictions within the Bible, rejecting facile resolutions offered in midrash.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Introduction

5

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Complexity of the Medieval Peshat Model To be sure, there were variations among medieval pashtanim in their departure om midrash and its assumptions. Some do not even seem to live up to their own pronouncements about peshat. Rashi illustrates this dilemma, as he oen adopts midrashic interpretations. An early Genesis episode regarding Abraham (when he was still referred to as Abram) relates the capture of his nephew Lot, which prompts the following reaction: “When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he mustered his trained men, who numbered 318, and went in pursuit as far as Dan” (Gen. 14:14). Rashi here begins with a philological analysis: “ ‘His trained men [ḥanikhayw]’—whom he trained to observe the commandments [miṣwot]. The Hebrew root ḥ-n-kh means to initiate a person or utensil for the skill or function that he/it will have in the future. As in these verses: ‘Train [ḥanokh; “initiate”] the lad . . .’ (Prov. 22:6), ‘. . . initiation [ḥanukkah] of the altar’ (Num. 7:11), ‘. . . initiation of the house’ (Ps. 30:1). In the vernacular [la‘az; Old French]: enseigner (‘to instruct’).”33 Based on its other occurrences in Biblical Hebrew, Rashi concludes that the root ḥ-n-kh means “to initiate a person or object.” As he oen does, Rashi provides the equivalent enseigner in Old French, the vernacular of his community. Hence, ḥanikhayw would mean “the ones he instructed or trained.” Given that Abram was a man of God, not a warrior, Rashi presumes that the “instruction” and “training” he imparted was religious. To identi these “trained men,” Rashi relies on midrash: “ ‘318’—Our Rabbis said that it was Eliezer alone, whose name adds up to 318 in gematria” (numerical value of the letters).34 The Bible seems to recount how Abram took 318 “trained men.” But the Rabbis, followed by Rashi, took this number as a gematria, a numerological reference to none other than Eliezer, Abram’s faithful servant. In so doing, the midrash amplifies the miraculous nature of Abram’s victorious pursuit to rescue Lot, achieved without a large military force. This popular midrashic tradition also appears in the Leqaḥ Ṭov commentary of Rashi’s younger Byzantine contemporary Tobiah ben Eliezer.35 By contrast, Ibn Ezra argues that Abram had indeed trained men for battle, who accompanied him on this campaign. Even without evidence om elsewhere in Scripture, making such an assumption is superior to the alternative, since “counting the letters of Eliezer is merely by way of derash, as Scripture does not speak in gematria, for that would allow anyone to interpret any name for good or for bad as he pleases.”36 Fearing exegetical anarchy, Ibn Ezra rejects gematria as an interpretive technique. His target here may have been Leqaḥ Ṭov, a work he criticizes as being typical of “the sages in Greek (i.e., Byzantine) and Roman (i.e., Latin) lands, who pay no attention to grammar, but merely follow the way of derash.”37

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

6

Introduction

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

It is true that Rashi’s commentary on this verse features philological analysis, unlike Leqaḥ Ṭov, which uses only the gematria. But ultimately, it is at odds with the peshat program of Ibn Ezra, for whom “318 men” means just that—not “Eliezer alone.” Notwithstanding Rashi’s professed adherence to the “peshat of Scripture” in his commentary, Ibn Ezra elsewhere remarks dismissively: “He thought that it is by way of peshat, but the peshat in his writings is less than one in a thousand”; and so Rashi “interpreted Scripture by way of derash.”38 Ibn Ezra seeks to distinguish his own exegesis as peshat. Indeed, as Aaron Mondschein has demonstrated, many of Ibn Ezra’s interpretations appear to be directed against Rashi.39 Ibn Ezra inherited a tradition of philological-grammatical analysis that had originated in the Judeo-Arabic tradition in the Muslim East in the tenth century and developed in the eleventh century in al-Andalus (Arabic for Spain; Hebrew, Sefarad).40 Accordingly, he could apply a more systematic peshat approach to Scripture than Rashi did. As the product of Franco-German (“Ashkenazic”) scholarship, with its intellectual center in the Rhineland talmudic academies (yeshivot; sing., yeshiva), Rashi had virtually no access to the Judeo-Arabic library that informed Ibn Ezra’s Sephardic “way of peshat.” Rashi’s own grandson Rashbam acknowledged his grandfather’s reliance on midrash. But he credited Rashi for initiating the peshat project: Our Rabbis taught us that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat,” even though the . . . early generations . . . tended to occupy themselves with the derashot . . . and therefore were not accustomed to the deep peshat of Scripture. . . . Now our Master, Rabbi Solomon, the father of my mother, luminary of the Diaspora, who interpreted the Torah, Prophets, and Writings, aimed to interpret the peshat of Scripture. And I, Samuel, son of his son-in-law Meir of blessed memory, debated with him personally, and he admitted to me that if he had the opportunity, he would have to write new commentaries according to the peshat interpretations that newly emerge every day.41 In this remarkable self-reflection on an exegetical revolution in which he participated, Rashbam credits Rashi for putting peshat on the interpretive agenda aer its neglect by the sages of the Talmud and their successors in the Rhineland academies. Rashi also recognized the further work that remained to be done—and acknowledged the continuing refinement of the method by subsequent pashtanim.

Homogenized View Ultimately, the peshat method that had emerged in the twelh century would become a “gold standard” for subsequent Jewish commentators well into the modern period. In the view of contemporary Bible scholar Moshe Greenberg:

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Introduction

7

“Essentially, nothing has changed in the definition of the interpretation of Scripture according to its peshat om Rashbam’s time until today.”42 Writing in modern-day Israel, his words reflect the common contemporary Hebrew usage of the term peshat to connote the Bible’s original “true” meaning—now ascertained by historical-critical scholarship. The notion of peshuto shel miqra can, of course, be traced to the peshat maxim in the Talmud. A discussion is recorded in the Talmud, b.Shabbat 63a, regarding a mishnaic dispute between the majority view that “a man may not go out with a sword or bow” on the Sabbath (on which carrying in the public domain is prohibited), and the dissenting opinion of R. Eliezer, who maintains that this is permitted because “they are ornaments for him”—and one is permitted to wear ornaments, just as one wears clothing. This prompts the inquiry: “What is R. Eliezer’s reason? Because it is written, ‘Gird your sword on your thigh, O hero; it is your glory and your majesty’ (Ps. 45:4). R. Kahana objected to Mar bar R. Huna: But this refers to the words of the Torah! He replied: ‘A biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.’ ”43 The verse in Psalms indicates that a sword is a man’s “glory” and “majesty,” which supports R. Eliezer’s opinion. R. Kahana had received a symbolic interpretation, according to which “sword” means “the words of Torah.” This reading, typical of the Rabbis, led R. Kahana to believe that the verse does not refer to weaponry at all. To refute that conclusion, Mar bar R. Huna states the rule that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.” While he does not deny the validity of the symbolical reading, he argues that the verse retains its literal sense as well. The appearance of the peshat maxim in the Talmud has led some to perceive a stable, continuous peshat-derash dichotomy om antiquity to the modern era. This supposed stability of the dichotomy is abetted by the notion that peshat—as opposed to eewheeling and open-ended derash—is fixed and static. The contemporary midrash scholar Jonah Fraenkel, for example, avers that “peshat is a category of interpretation fundamentally at odds with the term ‘new,’ since it does not intend to be new”; rather, it “simply wishes to reveal the original meaning.” By contrast, derash is new interpretation by definition, as it entails “the connection, in a quasi-interpretive way, of Scripture to new ideas.”44 Drawing upon Johan Huizinga’s notion of intellectual “play” to depict the creative dimension of culture and the study of cultural history, Fraenkel casts midrash as a sort of interpretive “game” that follows hermeneutical rules but ultimately must be regarded as an artistic, rather than analytic, form.45 By implication, peshat is devoid of such creative dimensions, being an exposition of “the text itself.” The notion of a stable and fixed conception of peshat led to the tendency to emphasize the common features manifested by the medieval pashtanim. Individual exegetes who professed adherence to peshat but did not conform to this “homogenized” model were regarded as imperfect practitioners of peshat. The ideal of peshat was regarded as stable and objective, with various exegetes coming

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

8

Introduction

closer to it or remaining distant om it.46 Rashi is generally placed in the latter category, Rashbam in the former, with opinion about Ibn Ezra divided.47

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

An Alternative Dynamic Conception The current study is predicated on an alternative to the “homogenized,” static conception, and regards peshat in dynamic terms, as a developing mode of interpretation shaped by the pashtanim themselves. As demonstrated by David Weiss Halivni, the conception of peshat in the Talmud did not actually have the valence⒮ it would acquire in the medieval period; nor was the dictum that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat” presented in the Talmud as an authoritative principle. It was, in fact, the medieval exegetes who endowed the dictum with new meaning and authority in accordance with their hermeneutical conceptions.48 Furthermore, modern critical theory questions the very notion that “the text itself ” ever has a singular meaning. As Frank Kermode remarks: “the plain sense, if there is one, must be of the here and now rather than of the origin,” since “the body of presuppositions which determines our notions of the plain sense is always changing.” Therefore, “the plain sense depends in larger measure on the imaginative activity of interpreters”; it is they who provide Scripture with a variety of contexts, some imposed by authority and tradition, others by the need to make sense of the ancient text in a different world.49 While peshat exegesis aims, in some sense, to illuminate an original meaning, it also necessarily bridges chronological and cultural gaps between the Bible and its readers. Huizinga’s interpretive “game” model illuminates the creative balance that the pashtanim had to strike between the biblical text and their cultural-intellectual sensibilities. Given these critical perspectives, the current study aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of how different pashtanim constructed a variety of hermeneutical models during the formative era of the peshat revolution, om the tenth to the thirteenth centuries. This investigation is made possible, in part, by the augmented roster of medieval exegetes that modern scholarship has brought to light. More expansive Rabbinic Bibles published in the last generation include more commentaries than ever before. New studies and critically edited texts make even more stars of the medieval exegetical constellation visible. Recent studies, for example, reveal hermeneutical contributions by authors previously not recognized as Bible interpreters, such as the great Sephardic linguist Jonah Ibn Janah (al-Andalus, early eleventh century) and philosopher-talmudist Moses Maimonides (al-Andalus, Egypt, 1138–1204).50 Dramatic developments have resulted om the publication of previously inaccessible or even unknown commentaries, some based on newly found manuscripts. Now available, for example, are the eleventh-century commentaries of Moses Ibn Chiquitilla and Judah Ibn Bal‘am—cited by Ibn Ezra and Maimonides as chief authorities on the Bible in al-Andalus.51 The vibrant Karaite exegetical

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Introduction

9

school is increasingly accessible, thanks to a plethora of studies and critical editions.52 A remarkable find in the Cairo Genizah of commentaries written c. 1000 by Greek-speaking Rabbanite Jews has brought to light an other wise littleknown exegetical tradition in Byzantine lands that some scholars believe served as an intellectual bridge over which interpretive traditions traversed om the Muslim East to Ashkenaz.53 Based on these newly available texts and studies, a much broader and more variegated picture of the medieval Jewish exegetical tradition comes to light, as illustrated in the following chart (featuring the familiar commentators of the Rabbinic Bible in bold font): Table 1. The Major Medieval Schools of Bible Interpretation Karaite

Geonic-Andalusian

Daniel al-Qumisi (Persia, Palestine; late ninth century)

Saadia Gaon (Egypt, Iraq; 882–942)

Jacob Qirqisani (Iraq; early tenth century)

Judah ben Quraysh (North Aica; tenth century)

Yefet ben Eli (Jerusalem; d. c. 1007)

Samuel ben Hofni Gaon (Iraq; d. 1013)

David ben Abraham Alfasi (North Aica; mid-tenth century)

Menahem ben Saruq (al-Andalus; tenth century)

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Dunash ben Labrat (al-Andalus; tenth century) Joseph Ibn Nūḥ (Jerusalem; late tenth century)

Judah Hayyuj (al-Andalus; late tenth century)

Abū-l-Faraj Hārūn (Jerusalem; early eleventh century)

Samuel ha-Nagid (al-Andalus; 993–c. 1056)

Yūsuf al-Baṣīr (Iraq, Jerusalem; early eleventh century)

Jonah Ibn Janah (al-Andalus; early eleventh century)

Jeshua ben Judah (Abū al-Faraj Furqān ibn Asad; Jerusalem, mid-eleventh century)

Moses Ibn Chiquitilla (al-Andalus; late eleventh century)

Northern French

Midrashic interpretation and compilations

Rashi (Solomon b. Isaac; Troyes; 1040–1105)

Byzantine (Greek-speaking lands)

Reuel (author of a commentary on Ezekiel and the Minor Prophets and the anonymous Greek-speaking author of the Scholia on Genesis and Exodus; Byzantium; c. 1000)

Tobiah ben Eliezer (Balkans; late eleventh century)

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Table 1 (continued) Geonic-Andalusian

Northern French

Tobiah ben Moses (Jerusalem, Byzantium; late eleventh century)

Judah Ibn Bal‘am (al-Andalus; late eleventh century)

Joseph Qara (Rhineland, Troyes; c. 1050–1130)

Samuel of Rossina (Rossano in southern Italy; early twelh century)

Jacob ben Reuben (Byzantium; late eleventh / early twelh century)

Moses Ibn Ezra (al-Andalus; c. 1055–1138)

Rashbam (Samuel b. Meir, Rashi’s grandson; Rouen; c. 1080–1160)

Menahem ben Solomon (Italy; early twelh century)

Judah ha-Levi (Christian Spain, Palestine; 1070–1141)

Authors of anonymous peshat commentaries— students of Rashi, Qara, Rashbam (northern France, twelh century)

Abraham Ibn Ezra (Muslim and Christian Spain, Italy, France, England; 1089–1164)

Joseph Bekhor Shor (northern France; midtwelh century)

Joseph Kimhi (al-Andalus, Provence; c. 1110–1170)

Eliezer of Beaugency (northern France; late twelh century)

Judah Hadassi (Byzantium; late twelh century)

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Byzantine (Greek-speaking lands)

Karaite

Moses Maimonides (al-Andalus, Egypt; 1138–1204) Inheritors of the Andalusian and northern French schools: David Kimhi (Radak, son of Joseph Kimhi; Provence; c. 1160–1235) Aaron ben Joseph (Byzantium; late thirteenth century)

Moses Nahmanides (Ramban; Christian Spain, Palestine; 1194–1270)

Note: Names in bold indicate commentators appearing in the Rabbinic Bible (Miqra’ot Gedolot).

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Introduction

11

The dramatis personae of this study are the authors on this chart, which illustrates the variegated landscape on which the peshat revolution occurred. The augmented roster of exegetes places the familiar figures of the Rabbinic Bible into a larger context. It now becomes apparent, for example, that Ibn Ezra was hardly revolutionary in advancing his “way of peshat.” He represents the culmination of a vibrant school that had developed over the preceding century in alAndalus, where the powerful winds of Arabic linguistics had been harnessed to revolutionize the understanding of Biblical Hebrew by Judah Hayyuj, who discovered the triliterality of the Hebrew root.54 Jonah Ibn Janah consolidated Hayyuj’s discoveries in his biblical grammar and dictionary, which served as the basis for the influential philological commentaries of Ibn Chiquitilla and Ibn Bal‘am. New studies reveal the hermeneutical contributions of Moses Ibn Ezra55 and Judah ha-Levi, both philosopher-poets who addressed theoretical interpretive issues relating to the Bible’s aesthetic dimensions.56 It was this tradition that Abraham Ibn Ezra absorbed during his formative years in Spain, where he evidently lived in both Muslim and Christian regions, and established a reputation as a talented Hebrew poet. In 1140, he emigrated om Spain and arrived in Rome, where he began a new career writing Bible commentaries and books on science and mathematics. For the remaining two and a half decades of his life, he traveled om town to town in Italy, Provence, northern France, and England, composing commentaries that brought Andalusian scholarship to Jews in Christian lands. New studies also shed greater light on the precursors of the Andalusian school in the Muslim East, particularly on the towering figure of Saadia Gaon (882–942).57 Having emigrated om his native Fayyum in Egypt in the early tenth century, Saadia rose to prominence in Baghdad, a cosmopolitan center of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholarship. Drawing upon a broad range of Arabic learning, including qur’anic hermeneutics, Mu‘tazilite thought and Muslim jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh), Saadia and his successor Samuel ben Hofni Gaon established a methodologically aware system of philological-contextual, rational Bible interpretation. Though the geonic school waned, the teachings of these two authors remained influential. Ibn Janah would take as his model “the peshat commentaries of Rav Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni,” and Abraham Ibn Ezra lauded Saadia as “the first speaker on all matters.”58 Saadia was not the first Jewish author to devise a philological-contextual interpretive method. That distinction, as far as the extant record shows, belongs to the Karaite exegete Daniel al-Qumisi, who settled in Jerusalem (evidently om his native Persia) around 880 and founded a Karaite community there. The community flourished throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries, but came to an end with the crusader conquest in 1099, at which point the center of Karaite learning transferred to Byzantium. Unlike their Rabbanite counterparts, the Karaites denied the authority of the interpretive tradition codified in the Talmud.59

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

12

Introduction

Whereas the geonim were always bound to the substance of rabbinic tradition, the Karaites had eedom to draw upon Arabic models to develop their new rational, philological-contextual modes of reading the Bible, as reflected in the extensive Bible commentaries produced by authors of the Karaite “Golden Age” in Jerusalem. This account helps recti a misperception abetted by the arrangement of the Rabbinic Bible. For centuries, its juxtaposition of Rashi and Ibn Ezra—together representing the best-known pashtanim in Jewish tradition—led to the perception of Rashi as a cautious traditionalist clinging to midrash, and Ibn Ezra a radical revolutionary in advancing the peshat agenda. It is true that Ibn Ezra was more skeptical than Rashi about the absolute authority of midrash. But the portrait of Rashi as the conservative and Ibn Ezra as the revolutionary is an oversimplification. Ibn Ezra actually was a traditionalist within his heritage, less radical than some earlier Andalusian exegetes. Rashi, on the other hand, was highly innovative within the milieu of Ashkenazic learning, centered on Talmud study. New research also sheds light on broader developments in the northern French and Geonic-Andalusian exegetical traditions, which are only partially represented in the Rabbinic Bible. Within Rashi’s school, we have access today to what are believed to be the long-lost commentaries by Rashbam on Psalms, Job, Song of Songs, and Qohelet, as well as a host of other peshat commentaries by unknown authors on these and other biblical books.60 We now can grasp the pivotal role played by Joseph Qara, Rashi’s close student and Rashbam’s older colleague. Indeed, Qara’s work was integral to what Rashi referred to as the “newly emerging” peshat interpretations in his day.61 Modern scholarship has also brought to light the commentaries of Joseph Bekhor Shor and Eliezer of Beaugency, who represent the final phase of the northern French peshat movement.62 In the Geonic-Andalusian school, new research focuses on Maimonides as a key Bible interpreter, though he has long been recognized as an authority on philosophy and halakhah. His influential philosophical opus, The Guide of the Perplexed, establishes rules for interpreting the Bible in light of reason.63 Most important for our purpose is the distinctive peshat model he constructed to strati the talmudic system of halakhah.64 Maimonides exerted substantial influence on subsequent exegetes aligned with the Andalusian school as it was transplanted to Christian lands—especially Radak (son of the Andalusian émigré Joseph Kimhi) in Narbonne and Nahmanides in Girona, near Barcelona.65 Yet Radak and Nahmanides, living in Christian lands, were also influenced by Rashi, and hence represent an integration of the two most important earlier peshat schools—the Geonic-Andalusian and northern French. It was not inevitable that the expanded roster of medieval exegetes would challenge the homogenized notion of peshat. Indeed, many modern scholars continue to apply a uniform peshat-derash dichotomy to evaluate earlier interpreters

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Introduction

13

against a standard of “scientific” philological analysis. The medieval exegetes are thus oen judged according to the extent to which they approximate modern conceptions of peshat.66 To be sure, such explorations have their value—and demonstrate the continued relevance of the medieval tradition for modern Bible study. Yet a fuller assessment of the peshat revolution on its own terms requires understanding how the medieval exegetes conceptualized their hermeneutical endeavors. This requires a more subtle investigation of the distinctive features of the respective constructions of peshat that they advanced, and how these were integrated within the broader peshat movement. A challenge to the prevailing mode of assessing the medieval exegetes was formulated a generation ago by Greenberg, who noted the way in which Rashi’s peshat project was understood in modern scholarship beginning in the nineteenth century: “Today as then, the concept of peshat was considered so self-evident that scholars of Rashi saw no need to discern precisely how he understood it, and regarded his work as missing the mark rather than asking if he had set a different target than they imagined.”67 Those who assumed that peshat is simply “what the text says”—in terms defined by modern scholarship—viewed Rashi’s midrashic tendencies as a shortcoming.68 According to this conventional wisdom, the peshat method—inchoate in Rashi—was perfected by later exegetes such as Rashbam and Ibn Ezra, whose work, in turn, served as a stepping-stone toward modern historical-critical scholarship, as adumbrated, for example, by Benedict Spinoza in the seventeenth century.69 An analogous trajectory had been posited regarding the emerging Christian interest in Scripture’s sensus litteralis in the school of Saint Victor and subsequently by Nicholas of Lyre, which was seen as the impetus that led inexorably to the Sola Scriptura doctrine of the Reformation. But just as this neat schematic portrayal of Latin exegesis has been challenged,70 the linear model of peshat must be questioned—leading to a more complex, and more interesting, account. Greenberg’s challenge to understand Rashi in his own terms was taken up by his student Sarah Kamin in her seminal book, Rashi’s Exegetical Categorization in Respect to the Distinction Between Peshat and Derash (Hebrew; 1986). Kamin establishes a method for defining peshat through the hermeneutical notions of the medieval exegetes themselves. The talmudic peshat maxim—which Kamin traces through rabbinic literature—is far om clear and certainly does not imply the sharp peshat-derash dichotomy that would emerge in the medieval period.71 As she demonstrates, Rashi appropriated the vague maxim and transformed it into an exegetical principle to support his endeavor to interpret Scripture philologically and contextually. In her subsequent studies, published posthumously in the collected volume Jews and Christians Interpret the Bible (Hebrew; 1991; 2nd ed., 2009), Kamin emphasized that the northern French peshat revolution (as epitomized by Rashbam and his successors) should be understood in relation to contemporaneous

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

14

Introduction

developments in Christian exegesis in France—for example, in the school of Saint Victor. Kamin’s insight that the talmudic peshat maxim was subject to reinterpretation by the medieval exegetes inspired my monograph Opening the Gates of Interpretation: Maimonides’ Biblical Hermeneutics in Light of His Geonic-Andalusian Heritage and Muslim Milieu (2011). That work aims to solve a conundrum that perplexed students of Maimonides for generations. On the one hand, the great philosopher-talmudist seems to grant supreme halakhic authority to peshat in his Book of the Commandments. Yet elsewhere, he seems to downplay peshat, leading some to speak of its “devaluation” by Maimonides. The resolution of this problem entails an understanding that Maimonides’ conception of peshat is quite different om that of other interpreters and must be viewed against the backdrop of his Judeo-Arabic cultural milieu. Drawing upon conceptions om both Muslim legal hermeneutics and Qur’an interpretation, Maimonides recast the peshat maxim as a principle by which to integrate the derivation of the halakhah with rational Bible exegesis—in the spirit of the intellectual revolution precipitated by Saadia and the subsequent Judeo-Arabic tradition. Rashi and Maimonides are the two most celebrated authors of medieval Judaism, and the aforementioned studies of the different constructions of peshat they devised point to the need to reevaluate the prevailing homogenized conception. The rich yield of recent scholarship enables us to chart out the “grand narrative” of the medieval exegetical revolution by applying a similar method to reveal how other exegetes recruited the talmudic peshat maxim to construct their hermeneutical models. Rather than presupposing a static peshat-derash dichotomy or a single linear progression of the peshat method, we can trace multiple trajectories by which the peshat maxim that was originally quite marginal in the Talmud came to be construed variously as a justification for plain-sense exegesis. Although the notion of peshat solidified late in the Middle Ages, acquiring connotations that it would retain well into the modern era, the formative period om the tenth to the thirteenth centuries produced a number of peshat models that responded in varied ways to Muslim and Christian interpretation of Scripture. The medieval quest to define the “peshat of Scripture” was not simply about what the sacred text “really says”; it was, rather, a medium through which readers in diverse cultural contexts encountered and made sense of Scripture intellectually and religiously. The aim of this volume is to trace these dynamic trajectories by showing how the talmudic peshat maxim was recruited and transformed into what we can call the “rule of peshat”—both as an interpretive principle and, ultimately, as a means of granting the plain sense of Scripture unique authority (the “rule” of peshat in the sense of hegemony or dominion) in relation to other modes of scriptural signification recognized within Jewish tradition.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Introduction

15

While the conventional view of the peshat movement recognizes progress in the medieval exegetical tradition, that progress is plotted in terms of a dialogue exclusively with the biblical text—as suggested by the graphic design of the Rabbinic Bible with commentaries surrounding the master text of the Bible. But it seems that another set of coordinates is required to appreciate the hermeneutical transformations of the formative age of peshat: the intellectual heritage and cultural milieu of each exegete as he sought to make sense of the ancient Scripture in his time and place. It was perhaps inevitable that Samuel ben Hofni’s construction of peshat in tenth-century Iraq would differ om that of Rashbam in twelh-century France. Just as the former, writing in Arabic, embraced Muslim hermeneutical models, Rashbam’s hermeneutics must be viewed against the backdrop of the Latin learning of his time. We must further consider the impact of inner dynamics on the Jewish exegetical tradition—for example, the polemical reactions among Rabbanites to the Karaite movement om the ninth century onward in Muslim lands, as well as the increasing contact, and occasional tensions, among the Geonic-Andalusian, Byzantine, and northern French peshat traditions. Responding to such internal and external intellectual, cultural, and religious stimuli and challenges, it should not be surprising that chronologically and geographically diverse exegetical schools would produce varying hermeneutical models.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Peshat and the “Literal” Sense Until recently, it was standard to render the term peshat simply as the “literal sense”—with midrash being a figurative, symbolic, or otherwise nonliteral reading. This translation works in many cases—for example, in the peshat-derash dichotomy presented by Rashi on Gen. 37:17, “Let us go to Dothan.”72 There, indeed, the peshat reading is “literal,” whereas the midrashic one is a play on words. Yet it is not always accurate to render peshat as the “literal sense.” At times, the pashtanim argued that a biblical phrase taken literally by the midrash should actually be interpreted figuratively. Moreover, the very definition of what constitutes “literality” or “the literal sense” has been shown in recent scholarship to be quite complex—both in modern parlance and in their usage throughout the history of Christian interpretation, as well as the parallel terminology in Muslim learning. The term “literal” is oen defined as “obvious” or “plain” and might be compared with the Arabic hermeneutical term ẓāhir (“apparent” sense). But Muslim interpreters—since the ninth century—noted that in some cases, the bāṭin (“hidden” sense) is clearly more reasonable—for example, in the verse “Ask the village in which we have been” (Qur’an 12,82), which refers to the people of the village, rather than

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

16

Introduction

its physical structures.73 In such cases, the ẓāhir might be termed the “preinterpretive” meaning.74 In a similar vein, reflecting what Alastair Minnis has described as the increasingly “capacious” nature of the sensus litteralis in Latin interpretation, Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) argues that at times a figurative reading is part of the “literal sense”—for example, when Scripture refers to “the arm of God,” in which case “the literal sense is not that God has a physical limb . . . but rather that He has that which is signified by this limb, namely, effective power.”75 These developments shed light on the complexity of the notion of peshat within Jewish exegesis. In the Judeo-Arabic tradition, some interpreters equated peshat with the ẓāhir (which at times must be dismissed as incorrect), whereas others aligned peshat with the bāṭin, where it is indicated. This underscores the fact that peshat exegesis—as defined in the medieval tradition—oen calls for a figurative or otherwise nonliteral reading of a given biblical locution.76 To overcome these challenges, some scholars prefer other translations of peshat, such as the “plain” or “simple” sense. Others argue that peshat has no English equivalent. Japhet thus defines the term to mean an elucidation of “the text as it is,” “according to its language, syntax, context, genre and literary structure, within a rational approach.”77 This definition holds for the northern French peshat school, particularly when juxtaposed with midrashic readings that can be hyper-literal. For example, in the account of Abraham and his men battling “four kings” and their armies, which features the unusual locution “the night was divided upon them” (Gen. 14:15), Rashi cites the midrashic reading that the night was, in fact, “divided,” meaning that during its first half, a miracle was done for Abraham; but “the second half was saved for the midnight in Egypt” at the time of the Exodus.78 This midrash is typical, looking beyond the story at hand to seek “instruction” about God’s future intervention in Israel’s history. It begins with a strictly literal, word-by-word reading in order to discover an allusion in this story to an unrelated biblical episode—making a connection that highlights the miraculous nature of both. But Rashi proposes another solution that integrates the locution into the remainder of the verse: “According to its peshat, you must invert the order (sares) of the verse: ‘He and his servants divided themselves upon them at night,’ as is the manner of those who pursue enemies fleeing in different directions.”79 Rashi’s peshat interpretation is not the most obvious one, as it requires some exegetical work, as opposed to the slavishly literal (“pre-interpretive”) sense. Positing the syntactic flexibility of Biblical Hebrew, Rashi understands that it is grammatically legitimate to “invert” this verse and posit that “he and his servants” (not “the night”) are the subject of the verb “divided,” with “night” being an adverb (i.e., at night). To explain why Abraham’s forces “divided,” or split in

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Introduction

17

different directions, Rashi cites a common battle practice. Instead of relating this verse to divine miraculous interventions in other epochs, the peshat reading views the event in mundane terms. In some cases, Rashi adheres to the literal rabbinic reading, and subsequent exegetes would offer the nonliteral peshat alternative. For example, the Rabbis (b.Menaḥot 34b–37b) derive the obligation for every male Jew to don tefillin (phylacteries)80 daily, om a literal reading of Exod. 13:9, “And this shall serve you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder between your eyes—in order that the teaching of the Lord may be in your mouth—that with a mighty hand the Lord eed you om Egypt.” Rashi interprets accordingly—that the tefillin are the “sign” placed on the arm and head literally.81 Rashbam, though, explains “according to its profound peshat” that “as a sign on your hand” means that the Exodus om Egypt “should always be on your mind, as if it were written on your hand.” As a prooext, he cites Song 8:6, “Make me like a seal on your heart, like a seal on your arm,” in which the beloved beseeches her lover to think of her always. Similarly, “between your eyes,” for Rashbam, means that the recollection of the Exodus should be “like an ornament or a gold chain that is customarily put on the forehead for decoration.”82 Based on his awareness of the stylistic tendency of Scripture to speak metaphorically, Rashbam argues that this verse does not refer to anything literally placed on the hand or between the eyes. Rashbam probably regarded this as the “profound peshat” because it accords with the context of this verse. The rabbinic interpretation breaks the connection between Exod. 13:9 and the surrounding pericope (Exod. 13:3–10), which speaks exclusively of the annual celebration of the unleavened bread festival to commemorate the Exodus. Rashbam preserves the contextual unity of this pericope by construing Exod. 13:9 as a command to keep the Exodus in mind constantly.83 Yet not all pashtanim were complacent about the prospect of diverging om the halakhic reading. Ibn Ezra on Exod. 13:9, for example, cites a similar metaphorical reading, noting that “some disagree with our holy forebears and say that ‘as a sign . . . and reminder’ is like ‘for they are a graceful wreath on your head, a necklace about your neck’ (Prov. 1:9)” and that accordingly, “for a sign . . . and reminder” means that the Exodus om Egypt “be constantly on your tongue.”84 That remark appears in the early version of Ibn Ezra’s Pentateuch commentary, composed in Italy in the early 1140s. A little over a decade later, when he resided in northern France and may have become aware of Rashbam’s commentaries, he cites the non-rabbinic interpretation but concludes categorically that the verse must be taken “in its literal sense (ke-mashma‘o), to make tefillin for the hand and tefillin for the head.”85 As he reasons: “since the Sages, of blessed memory, transmitted thus, the first interpretation is void, for it does not have trustworthy witnesses as the second interpretation has.”86 Though committed to the “way of peshat,” Ibn Ezra—ever wary of the Karaite threat (far om Rashbam’s

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

18

Introduction

purview)—tends to defer to the authority of the Rabbis in matters of halakhah, which highlights the audacity of Rashbam’s peshat model. At times, the challenge of the Christian allegorical reading of the Old Testament precepts made its way into the calculus of peshat. Joseph Bekhor Shor explicitly rejects this Christian interpretive mode.87 Ibn Ezra, likewise, criticizes the Christians for “concocting hidden meanings (sodot) for all matters” and for “their belief that the laws and statutes are allegories.”88 Yet he acknowledges that “in one matter they are correct,” for in the Bible, “every word . . . must be weighed rationally . . . and if it contradicts reason, then one must seek its hidden meaning (sod).”89 Ibn Ezra does not rule out figurative interpretation; he simply argues that it should be applied only when the literal reading is untenable. He illustrates this duality with the precept of circumcision. “Circumcise the flesh of your foreskin” (Gen. 17:11) must be taken literally as physical circumcision (be-gufot), since it does not contradict reason, whereas “circumcise the foreskin of your heart” (Deut. 10:16) would be absurd literally, and thus must be taken figuratively, as “mental” circumcision (be-maḥashavot).90 As Ibn Ezra explains, it could mean “avoiding crude desires that are ‘coarse’ like the foreskin,” or “to puri the heart to understand the truth.”91 As Ibn Ezra would have known, the Christian view was that physical circumcision had become irrelevant, as articulated by Paul: “But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter” (Rom. 2:29). Physical circumcision represents subservience to the Law and “the flesh,” whereas Paul celebrated “the Spirit” (Gal. 5:2–5, 16–18). Ibn Ezra’s contemporary Joseph Kimhi (c. 1110–1170), who emigrated om al-Andalus to Provence, recorded the Christian critique of the Jewish fulfillment of the Law in a “corporeal” manner (gufanit), whereas the Christians follow it “spiritually” (ruḥanit).92 Against this backdrop, it is noteworthy that Ibn Ezra adopts a “spiritual” understanding of circumcision in Deut. 10:16, illustrating his concession that the Christians are correct that figurative interpretation is necessary at times.93 In sum, the medieval conceptions of peshat developed within specific and complex religious and intellectual contexts—and they bear the imprint of those contexts. In Kermode’s words, “the plain sense . . . must be of the here and now . . . [as] the body of presuppositions which determines our notions of the plain sense is always changing,” and therefore “the plain sense depends in larger measure on the imaginative activity of interpreters.” It is to the understanding of the presuppositions behind the emerging strategies of peshat and the imaginative interpretive activity of the medieval pashtanim that this study is dedicated.

Outline, Scope, and Structure of This Study This study explores the theoretical underpinnings of the methods of rationalphilological interpretation that emerged c. 900–1300 and came to be associated

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Introduction

19

with the term peshat. This subject will be investigated om three interrelated vantage points, summed up by the following questions: (1) How did the new constructions of peshat relate to earlier Jewish interpretation, especially its five midrashic presuppositions enumerated above, and to hermeneutical developments in the surrounding Muslim and Christian cultures? (2) How did the pashtanim negotiate their departure om midrash? (3) And, to this end, how did they enlist the maxim that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat”? These three questions delimit narrowing concentric circles and focus this study on a well-defined hermeneutical theme over a vibrant four-century period. The chapters of this book trace the increasing force that the peshat maxim acquires—until it can be characterized as the “rule of peshat,” which would become a central, defining feature of Jewish hermeneutics into the modern period. The originally marginal talmudic peshat maxim would first became a firm hermeneutical principle (the “rule of peshat” in the sense of a directive or regulation) in the medieval period; but at times, it was also invoked to establish the supreme authority of peshat over other forms of interpretation (“rule,” connoting “dominion”)—a radical move that sparked controversy. There are other ways that a study of Jewish interpretation during this formative period might be conducted. Most obviously, one could outline the methods of peshat developed by Jewish interpreters, without concern for how they reconciled them with midrash, or even whether they actually invoked the peshat maxim.94 That, however, would yield a different study with a much broader scope, since a number of key interpreters engaged in (what others might characterize as) peshat exegesis without recourse to the peshat maxim. Accordingly, in addition to mapping out the content of each chapter of this study, the outline that follows also offers notes on such exegetes—who will not be discussed in detail in this work. We have chosen to ame this study in a focused way on the various construals of the peshat maxim because this trajectory most sharply tells the story of how Jewish interpreters perceived their own exegetical methods. Chapter 1 is a necessary exception to the rule. Providing a foundation for the study as a whole, it explores the rational-philological interpretive methods developed in the Muslim East before Samuel ben Hofni Gaon, who was first to invoke the peshat maxim, late in the tenth century, and who sought to anchor the new methods in rabbinic teachings. As mentioned above, the Karaite Daniel al-Qumisi is the earliest attested exegete to apply such a rational-philological method. But his now agmentary writings do not immediately manifest a clear interpretive theory. We therefore begin with Saadia, who wrote in Arabic—the philosophicalscientific language of the day—and articulated clear axioms that resemble contemporaneous rules of Qur’an interpretation and rationalist Mu‘tazilite thought. Departing om midrashic practice, Saadia privileges the “obvious” or literal sense— which he terms the ẓāhir—as a default position. However, where it contradicts

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

20

Introduction

reason, another verse, or rabbinic tradition, he argues that nonliteral interpretation (ta’wīl) must be applied to determine correct, deeper sense (bāṭin). Samuel ben Hofni would correlate this rule with the peshat maxim, which, in his view, meant that one must aim first to interpret a verse according to its literal sense (peshat = ẓāhir), unless there are legitimate reasons that call for its reinterpretation. The chapter then returns to Karaite exegesis, beginning with Daniel alQumisi, whose interpretive theory can be discerned against the backdrop of Saadia’s axioms, and those applied in contemporaneous Qur’an exegesis. Al-Qumisi overtly eschewed “foreign” (i.e., Arabic) learning, and he wrote in Hebrew rather than in Arabic, in contrast to later Karaite exegetes. Yet his exegesis, like Saadia’s, manifests the tendency to privilege the “obvious” literal sense, and he vigorously criticizes the Rabbis for positing that the Bible bears multiple recondite meanings. The first known Karaite author to formulate clear interpretive rules is Jacob Qirqisani (Iraq, tenth century). Like Saadia, and probably influenced by him, Qirqisani embraces the Mu‘tazilite endeavor to harmonize Scripture and reason, and he even articulates the very same axiom that the Bible must be understood according to the ẓāhir, except in the case that such an understanding would contradict reason or another verse—in which case, ta’wīl must be applied. The chapter then charts the hermeneutical outlook of Yefet ben Eli of Jerusalem (c. 915/920–c. 1007), who carried on the tradition of al-Qumisi (e.g., explicitly shunning “foreign” learning), though he was influenced profoundly by Qirqisani. Yefet’s extensive Bible commentaries reveal deep philological and literary sensitivity. He likewise privileged the ẓāhir and criticized Rabbanite interpreters such as Saadia for their lack of exegetical discipline in this matter. Whereas midrash tended to treat Scripture as a finished literary product given by God, Yefet considered how the biblical narratives, laws, and prophecies were originally formulated and arranged by an ancient prophetic narrator-editor, whom he refers to with the Arabic term al-mudawwin (lit., “compiler”). The foundations of Karaite exegesis were firmly established in the tenth century. It is to the leading thinkers of this Karaite “Golden Age” that the current study devotes attention, as they shed light on subsequent developments within the peshat schools that are the focus of this study. The Karaite community of learning in Jerusalem—following Yefet’s model—flourished for three more generations, producing exegetes such as Yūsuf Ibn Nūḥ, Abū al-Faraj Hārūn, and his student Jeshua ben Judah. In the late eleventh and twelh centuries, parts of the Karaite library—written almost exclusively in Arabic—were summarized and translated into Hebrew by the Byzantine authors Tobiah ben Moses, Jacob ben Reuben, and Judah Hadassi. By transplanting Karaite learning to Byzantium, they enabled it to survive the destruction of the Jewish community of Jerusalem in the last third of the eleventh century. Their works, though, are rather rudimentary: apart om being unoriginal, the quality of the Byzantine translations is only fair.95

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Introduction

21

In the late thirteenth century, major Karaite works would again be composed in Byzantium—at which point, they were influenced by Rabbanites such as Ibn Ezra (assumed by the later Karaite authors to have been a clandestine Karaite), Maimonides, and Radak.96 Chapter 2 traces the Rabbanite interpretive school that migrated westward in the Muslim world and flourished in al-Andalus in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Its two central figures are the great Andalusian linguists Menahem ben Saruq and Jonah Ibn Janah. Unlike the geonim, who sought to harmonize their Bible exegesis with the halakhic rulings of the Talmud, Menahem engaged in a pure philological analysis of the biblical text without regard for rabbinic interpretation—a move criticized by his contemporary Dunash ben Labrat, a student of Saadia’s. The justification for Menahem’s independent mode of analysis would come two generations later in a breakthrough by Ibn Janah, who recruited the peshat maxim in a new way to argue that a biblical verse always retains its philological-contextual sense notwithstanding the midrash, which determines halakhah. This critical step represented a departure om Samuel ben Hofni’s construal of the peshat maxim. Since Samuel ben Hofni equated peshat with the “apparent” sense (ẓāhir), it was merely a default position that had to be abandoned where a nonliteral interpretation is indicated. His was thus a “weak” reading of the peshat maxim. Ibn Janah, however, defines peshat as the most reasonable philological-contextual sense of the biblical text, which retains its legitimacy even if it contradicts the rabbinic interpretive tradition, that is, midrash. In the case of this conflict, Ibn Janah argues that both senses of the text are correct—on different planes: one halakhic, the other philological. Ibn Janah thus advances a “strong” reading of the peshat maxim—that peshat is inviolate even when it conflicts with midrash. The maxim now became the “rule of peshat,” a firm principle with no exceptions. Chapter 2 also addresses other authors critical for mapping the trajectory of the Andalusian peshat school. It opens with a discussion of a key interpretive crux posed by the biblical anthropomorphic depictions of God as addressed by Judah ben Quraysh of Kairouan (tenth century), by navigating between the conflicting strategies of Saadia and Qirqisani. The chapter also takes stock of the contributions of Judah Hayyuj—a disciple of Menahem ben Saruq—whose discovery of the triliteral Hebrew root represents a breakthrough that put Hebrew linguistics on a firm scientific footing. The final sections of Chapter 2 outline the contributions of the influential Andalusian commentators Samuel ha-Nagid, Moses Ibn Chiquitilla, and Judah Ibn Bal‘am, as well as the poet-exegete Moses Ibn Ezra. Chapter 3 turns to the peshat movement pioneered by Rashi, who advanced a construal of the peshat maxim resembling Ibn Janah’s “dual hermeneutic.” But Rashi had limited exposure to the Andalusian school, and still relied on midrash, which led some to deny his commitment to peshat, as mentioned above. Indeed,

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

22

Introduction

given his background in the Rhineland talmudic academies, it is surprising that Rashi even privileged the “peshat of Scripture.” This chapter addresses these challenges by considering Rashi’s valuation of peshat within his cultural milieu, against the backdrop of contemporaneous Latin learning in northern France, particularly as manifested in the Psalms commentary of Bruno the Carthusian (1030–1101). Acknowledging the integrity of the literal sense, Bruno harnessed the analytic tools of classical grammar and rhetoric to critically select om among the interpretations of the church fathers to ascertain the Christological spiritual sense intended by King David in the Psalms. Analogously, Rashi seems to have regarded peshat as a baseline for selecting midrashic readings that best account for the language and order of the biblical text. As Greenberg and Kamin argued, Rashi should not be viewed as a flawed pashtan, as he never intended to limit himself to peshat exegesis. Rather, his goal was to utilize both linguistic tools and traditional interpretive sources to “settle” the words of Scripture, “each word in its proper place.”97 Chapter 4 traces the continued development of the conception of peshat by Rashi’s students Joseph Qara and Rashbam and others in their scholarly circle. Qara aimed to exclude midrash and construct a “pure” peshat method. Building on Qara’s achievements, Rashbam formulated a theoretical conception of peshat as an independent mode of analysis, even while acknowledging the authority of midrash, especially in matters of halakhah. This enabled him to eely engage in a peshat analysis of the legal sections of the Pentateuch at odds with the Talmud. Both Qara and Rashbam display familiarity with Christian interpretation. It is thus conceivable that they were aware of the emerging interest among twelh-century Latin interpreters in the literary qualities of the Bible attributable to its human authors, independent of the spiritual senses imbued by the Holy Spirit. Qara and Rashbam likewise fashioned new literary approaches to the Bible that took into consideration the poetic designs of its human authors, which they associated with peshat, leaving the halakhah and doctrinal aspects of Judaism to the realm of midrash. Chapter 5 investigates the Rabbanite Byzantine exegetical school, virtually overlooked until recently.98 Newly discovered commentaries and the identification of long-known ones as originating in the Byzantine orbit (which included parts of Italy) have brought this distinct tradition into focus. A pivotal Byzantine work long part of the traditional Jewish library is Leqaḥ Ṭov, once thought to be of Ashkenazic origin because it mentions the 1096 massacre of the Mainz Jewish community. In fact, however, its author, Tobiah ben Eliezer, lived in the Greekspeaking Byzantine orbit in the Balkans. Though Leqaḥ Ṭov is primarily a midrashic compilation,99 Tobiah manifests methodological awareness in sporadic references to the peshat maxim. The balance he struck between a primarily midrashic orientation and the integrity of the “peshat of Scripture” was embraced

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Introduction

23

by two Italian authors whose works were published in the twentieth century: Samuel of Rossano, who penned a Pentateuch commentary in the first quarter of the twelh century; and Menahem ben Solomon, whose Pentateuch commentary Sekhel Ṭov was penned in 1139. This twelh-century Byzantine-Italian school might be perceived as a parallel to Rashi’s school, both working in a Christian environment, producing commentaries in Hebrew, developing sensitivity to the “peshat of Scripture,” and distinguishing it om midrash. Yet the Byzantine context distinguishes this tradition in important ways. To begin with, Leqaḥ Ṭov engages in polemics with Karaism—a note absent in Rashi’s school. More important, twelh-century Byzantine peshat exegesis can be traced to a much older interpretive tradition in recently discovered commentaries by a certain Reuel on Ezekiel and the Minor Prophets, as well as anonymous scholia on Genesis and Exodus. These agmentary works, written c. 1000, are the earliest attested philological Rabbanite commentaries written in Christian lands. It is conceivable that the nascent philological sensibilities in the Rabbanite Byzantine school were sparked by exposure to the Karaite tradition that had been transplanted there om Jerusalem. Evidence of such influence comes om the distinctive literary approach taken by Reuel, Tobiah, and Menahem to the editorial work underlying the arrangement of the biblical narrative, which they ascribe to a prophetic sadran (editor/ narrator)—reminiscent of the mudawwin of which Yefet (and Qirqisani before him) spoke. While Reuel and the Pentateuch scholia manifest a remarkably robust philological exegetical method, they do not invoke the peshat maxim to support it conceptually, nor do they differentiate peshat and derash theoretically. Both these features are manifest in Leqaḥ Ṭov and Sekhel Ṭov (but not in Samuel of Rossano’s commentary), where the peshat maxim is invoked in a distinctive way, to assert the necessity of midrash notwithstanding the integrity of peshuto shel miqra—virtually the opposite of how the maxim was used in Rashi’s school. We know little about developments in the Rabbanite Byzantine exegetical school during the century or so intervening between its early and late stages. But it stands to reason that Bible study and commentary continued within the Byzantine Rabbanite community, whether in writing or orally. It is thus conceivable that the label peshat became attached to philological exegesis during this unknown period and that it was privileged vis-à-vis midrash. That could explain the otherwise idiosyncratic usage of the peshat maxim introduced by Tobiah ben Eliezer and adopted by Menahem ben Solomon. The hypothesis raised in this chapter is that Tobiah and Menahem were reacting to the increasing prestige of peshat and sought to reinstate the traditional preeminence of midrash. This would suggest that the ascendance of the “rule of peshat” was not always linear; yet, once peshat exegesis had taken hold, it could not be dismissed.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

24

Introduction

Focusing on Abraham Ibn Ezra, Chapter 6 returns to the Andalusian school and its distinctive concerns. Unlike most of his Andalusian predecessors, Ibn Ezra wrote in Hebrew—for audiences in Christian Europe. Ibn Ezra rejected Rashi’s peshat model, and even went beyond the dual hermeneutic formulated by Ibn Janah. Advancing a very strong reading of the peshat maxim, Ibn Ezra argues that the “way of peshat,” as he termed the philological-contextual method, reveals the single true meaning of Scripture, and he relegates midrash to the status of mere homiletics. For Ibn Ezra, peshat has exclusive hermeneutical authority. The “rule of peshat” thus implies dominion over other interpretive modes. But Ibn Ezra paid a price for this transformation. Whereas Ibn Janah and Rashbam allowed for contradictions between the halakhah and the “peshat of Scripture,” Ibn Ezra’s singular hermeneutic forced him to harmonize his “way of peshat” with talmudic halakhah—which he was not prepared to adjust. Ironically, as shown in Chapter 7, it was the great talmudist Maimonides who restructured the talmudic halakhic system by distinguishing between peshuto shel miqra and midrash. In order to maintain the talmudic system of halakhah as traditionally understood, Ibn Ezra had argued that many precepts within the halakhah were transmitted orally—and are fully authoritative even though they are not mentioned in the Bible. Maimonides, on the other hand, regarded peshuto shel miqra as the sole source of laws of biblical (de-orayta) authority, and relegated those laws derived midrashically—through the middot—to the lower “rabbinic” (de-rabbanan) status. He based this on what might be called a superstrong reading of the peshat maxim—that biblical authority is limited to peshuto shel miqra. Now the “rule of peshat” implied dominion over other interpretive modes not only hermeneutically but legally as well. Maimonides’ principle of peshat primacy redrew the theoretical map underlying talmudic halakhah—which Maimonides himself codified in Mishneh Torah, his comprehensive code of Jewish law. Maimonides anchored the halakhic system in the biblical text in a manner unprecedented in Rabbanite tradition. In order to do so, the great codifier drew upon conceptions and terms om Muslim jurisprudence. Writing in Arabic, Maimonides characterized peshuto shel miqra using the Muslim conception of naṣṣ, an explicit text, the authority of which is irrefutable, and he equated the midrashic middot with qiyās—logical inferences om the text, which may be subject to dispute. In the Talmud, Maimonides found a preexisting delineation of laws of biblical (de-orayta) and rabbinic (de-rabbanan) force, with an oen fuzzy correlation of the former to the text of the Pentateuch and the latter with rabbinic enactments. Muslim jurisprudence provided a set of theoretical categories that he could correlate with talmudic ones—peshateh di-qera (Aramaic for peshuto shel miqra) versus midrash—to construct a more systematic account of the de-orayta/de-rabbanan classification.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Introduction

25

The Maimonidean rule of peshat primacy represents an extreme point in the Geonic-Andalusian peshat trajectory, which would be moderated as that tradition was transplanted to Christian lands. The results of this shi are evident in the Provençal exegete Radak, who integrates midrashic elements into his peshat method, which otherwise is strongly influenced by Ibn Janah, Ibn Ezra, and Maimonides.100 Yet Radak does not advance a new construal of the peshat maxim, nor does he grapple with the sensitive issue of the relationship between peshat and halakhah.101 His hermeneutical system is therefore not the subject of a dedicated chapter, though some of his exegetical positions are discussed at relevant points throughout this study. As discussed in Chapter 8, the Catalan talmudist Nahmanides would most decisively transform the rule of peshat in the post-Andalusian tradition. Criticizing both Ibn Ezra and Maimonides for endowing peshat with unique authority, Nahmanides reverts to a dual hermeneutic that empowers midrash to yield genuine interpretations of Scripture, as well as laws of biblical force. Yet the scuffle with Maimonides le an indelible mark on Nahmanides, whose dual hermeneutic was fundamentally different om that of Ibn Janah and Rashbam. For those predecessors, the authority of midrash was a given; their aim was to carve out a niche for the “peshat of Scripture.” That battle no longer needed to be fought in the post-Andalusian milieu, in which the dominion of peshat was firmly established. Like Radak a generation before him, Nahmanides was beginning his exegetical road with peshat as his point of departure, beyond which he sought to account for the authority of midrash. Nahmanides formulates his dual hermeneutic specifically with respect to the methods of halakhic derivation, the middot that were subjected to Maimonidean devaluation. But Nahmanides also validated other non-peshat modes of interpretation, specifically typological interpretation, termed remez (lit., “hint”); and mystical kabbalistic readings, termed sod (“secret”). The resulting fourfold scheme (peshat, halakhic midrash, typological interpretation, and kabbalistic readings) can be compared with the well-known “four senses” of Christian interpretation summed up in the medieval couplet Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia (“The literal teaches deeds, what you believe allegory, moral how you act, where you are going anagogical”). It is likely that Nahmanides had some exposure to Latin Bible interpretation, as he engaged in public disputations with the Dominicans. The distinctive terminology he coins in his typological interpretations resembles Latin terminology characteristic of the well-defined Christian mode of reading whereby Old Testament narratives prefigure events in the Gospel and in the history of the Church. Recent scholarship has shown that the relationship among the various senses of the Bible was a “hot topic” in late medieval Latin learning, and Chapter 8 explores how such distinctions

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

26

Introduction

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

reverberate in Nahmanides’ exegetical thought. Beyond simply considering possible Christian “influence” on Nahmanides, the chapter outlines the challenges he faced that were caused by the convergence of the Andalusian and northern French peshat traditions, which he was uniquely able to address by appropriating tools om his Latin intellectual surroundings. Nahmanides serves as a fitting closing point of this study, as he brought the rule of peshat to a point of stability that would guide Jewish exegesis for centuries. Bahya ben Asher (Saragossa, late thirteenth century), a student of Nahmanides’ student Solomon Ibn Adret, would fashion a fourfold interpretive system heavily influenced by Nahmanides, as mentioned in Chapter 8. Elijah Mizrahi (Constantinople, 1455–1525), the great super-commentator on Rashi, would apply Nahmanides’ standard of peshat as a yardstick by which to evaluate Rashi’s exegesis, as noted in Chapter 3. The chapters of this volume, as well as the discussions within each chapter, are arranged in an essentially chronological fashion. Yet it oen proves helpful to diverge om chronological order so that an issue can be traced comprehensively as it unfolded in the medieval tradition. For example, an exegetical strategy applied by Saadia is illuminated in Chapter 1 by the reaction of Ibn Ezra and by comparison with an approach taken by Rashi. A debate about the relative standing of Mishnaic Hebrew vis-à-vis Biblical Hebrew sparked by Menahem ben Saruq is discussed in Chapter 2, where later opinions, such as that of Maimonides, are also presented. Therefore, in order to facilitate ee movement om one exegete to another, all the major figures discussed in this study have been presented in this introductory chapter.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Chapter 1

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Geonim and Karaites: Appropriating Methods of Qur’an Interpretation

Philological Jewish Bible exegesis emerged in the Muslim East at the turn of the tenth century, with methodical commentaries powered by sophisticated interpretive theories that offered a robust alternative to midrash. This occurred in the opposing Karaite and Rabbanite schools, with the former accusing the latter of distorting the word of God by exalting the Talmud as the repository of authentic ancient traditions.1 Notwithstanding the polemics between them, Karaites and Rabbanites developed similar methods of interpretation that drew upon Muslim learning, especially in the fields of grammar and philology. Neither generally acknowledged such borrowing. Some Karaites overtly eschewed the use of “foreign” learning—and accused the Rabbanites of doing so.2 There is agmentary evidence of Jewish commentaries penned in Arabic as early as the ninth century under the influence of Syriac Christian commentaries.3 Yet the extant literary record suggests that this trend first reached maturity in the tenth century in the fully developed works by Saadia ben Joseph al-Fayyumi (882–942), known as Saadia Gaon, and his younger Karaite contemporary Jacob al-Qirqisani (early tenth century). In order to assess this revolution, it is necessary to briefly outline Jewish interpretation in the preceding centuries in the major Rabbanite schools in Iraq (Babylonia) and Palestine and in the rival religious movement om which Karaite Judaism would emerge. The twin Babylonian academies of Sura and Pumbedita, which transferred to Baghdad in the ninth century, emerged as leading centers of rabbinic scholarship aer the Muslim conquest, each headed by a gaon.4 Geonic scholarship focused on the Babylonian Talmud, which had been redacted in those ancient academies.5 Until the tenth century, responsa were virtually the only written product of geonic scholarship (responses to queries om Jewish communities near and far, mostly about halakhah, with occasional discussions of theology or interpretation of biblical or talmudic passages). Some important independent compositions were penned by scholars of the period who were not actually geonim. Among these is the She’iltot (“Quæstiones,” i.e., disquisitions) attributed

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

28

Chapter 1

to R. Aḥa of Sabḥa (eighth century), a collection of about two hundred discourses arranged according to the weekly Torah reading, which may have originated as midrashic homilies delivered in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Another is the Halakhot Gedolot by Simon Qayyara (ninth century), which deals primarily with halakhic matters and contains an introduction that enumerates the 613 commandments (mitzvot) considered to be the foundation of Jewish law.6 In Palestine, a number of compilations were written based on earlier midrash, such as Pirqei de-Rabbi Eliezer, probably composed in the eighth century.7 Midrashic material is likewise incorporated into the late Targums (Aramaic versions of the Bible) produced in Palestine during this period, such as Pseudo-Jonathan on the Pentateuch and the Song of Songs Targum, which adopts an allegorical mode of reading.8 Closely related is the extensive piyyut (liturgical poetry) literature composed in Palestine throughout the geonic period in which biblical verses are incorporated according to their midrashic interpretations.9 (This would change in al-Andalus in the twelh century, where piyyutim were composed according to the newly developed grammatical-philological interpretation of the Bible.)10 A different branch of scholarly activity had emerged by the ninth century among the so-called masoretes (Heb., ba‘alei ha-masorah; “masters of the tradition”), who created a written system of vocalization to ensure the Bible’s proper pronunciation. Rules describing the major morphological patterns in Biblical Hebrew were produced by the school of masoretes in Tiberias. Among them were the five generations of the Ben-Asher family, of whom we know most about the last two, Moses Ben-Asher (late ninth century) and his son Aaron (ben Moses) Ben-Asher (first half of the tenth century).11 Aaron penned the first composition that consolidates the morphological patterns discerned by earlier masoretes, titled Sefer diqduqei ha-ṭe‘amim (The book of precision of accents). While not a grammar per se, this work represents a learning tradition that would lead to the fullblown study of Hebrew grammar in the tenth century.12 The hegemony of rabbinic interpretation was challenged by Anan ben David (Iraq, eighth century), traditionally regarded as the founder of Karaism, but now generally considered to be only a forerunner of the movement.13 Later Karaites ascribed to him the maxim “Search Scripture well and do not rely upon my opinion,” taken to mean that the Bible, as a rule, must be interpreted literally—and rabbinic tradition rejected. The maxim, however, probably did not originate with Anan, whose teachings were actually quite distinct om what would later emerge as Karaism.14 The extant agments of his Book of the Commandments (Sefer hamitzvot) and citations by later authors indicate that Anan devised his own halakhic system based on independent analysis of the Bible. Natronai Gaon (ninth century) is reported to have said that Anan instructed his followers, “Forsake the words of the Mishnah and Talmud, and I will compose for you a Talmud of my own.”15 Ironically, as implied by the formulation of this critique, Anan’s

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Geonim and Karaites

29

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

interpretive methods resembled those employed in the Talmud—except that he arrived at different halakhic conclusions. Anan employed rabbinic hermeneutical techniques such as heqqesh and gezerah shawah—legal analogy based on similar phraseology or literary juxtaposition in the Bible.16 His Aramaic resembles that of the Talmud and geonim, and the style of his Book of the Commandments that of the She’iltot.17 And so, while vilified by the geonim as a heretic, Anan was criticized within Karaite circles for rabbinic tendencies.18 An effort to expunge the rabbinic elements that Anan had accepted is evident in Benjamin al-Nahawandi (Iran, mid-ninth century), whose Book of Commandments (Sefer mitzvot) and Book of Rules (Sefer dinim) are in fluid Hebrew, not Aramaic. He seems to have been the first to adopt the appellations ba‘alei miqra (“masters of Scripture”) and benei miqra (“people of Scripture”)—later embraced by Karaites.19 Yet even Benjamin relied on rabbinic sources, since it was difficult to create a complete halakhic system based on Scripture alone.20 Benjamin is reported to have composed commentaries on the Pentateuch, Isaiah, Song of Songs, Qohelet, and Daniel; but none are extant, except small agments of his commentary on Genesis.21 Later sources indicate that he maintained that the Creator actually created only a single angel, who, in turn, created the world, communicated with the prophets, and issued the commandments.22 A four-step periodization of the prehistory and earliest stages of the Karaite movement is sketched by Salmon ben Jeruhim (b. c. 910 or 915), a key Karaite figure in Jerusalem: (1) Anan emerged and awakened the hearts of men and opened their eyes so that they became desirous of studying Scripture to the best of their ability. For the teaching of the Rabbis and their concentration on the Talmud had made them forget Scripture and the understanding of its true meanings. (2) Aer him appeared Benjamin, adding strength and discovering matters in which Anan (may the Lord have mercy on him) still followed the practice of the Rabbis. (3) Aer Benjamin there arose the Karaites (al-qara’iyīn), who increased legal analysis and skill in Scripture. (4) Aerward, men arose in East and West to further strengthen the religion and intensive study of wisdom. Leaving homes and fortunes behind and despising this-worldly enjoyments, they proceeded to settle in Jerusalem, where they now live.23 This sketch identifies the stage immediately aer Benjamin al-Nahawandi as the point when a Karaite school is identifiable as such.24 That fourth stage in Salmon’s periodization corresponds to the advent of Daniel al-Qumisi, generally regarded as the true founder of Karaite interpretation.25 Having emigrated om his native Tabaristan in northern Iran to resettle in Jerusalem around 880, he would strongly

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

30

Chapter 1

influence Karaite thought in its Golden Age. Al-Qumisi was a founding member of the so-called mourners of Zion in tenth-century Jerusalem, a group characterized by Palestino-centrism, scripturalism, ascetic piety, messianism, and a harsh polemic against Rabbanite halakhah.26 Rejecting the rabbinic establishment as corrupt, he called for a return of the Jews om the Diaspora to Jerusalem and a reading of Scripture ee of midrashic distortions. He excoriated the Rabbanites for seeking wisdom among the Gentiles and for adherence to “precepts taught by men” (his play on Isa. 29:13)27 at the expense of God’s law in the Bible.28 His polemics extended to his non-Rabbanite predecessors. Although he is reported to have originally venerated Anan, al-Qumisi eventually came to regard him as “the chief of fools.”29 He also sharply rejected Benjamin’s view that an angel, and not God Himself, created and manages the world.30 Al-Qumisi wrote polemical works in Arabic and Bible commentaries in Hebrew, of which only agments survive.31 Although the commentaries display a new philological method, it is difficult to piece together a complete exegetical theory om them. At the beginning of the tenth century, a distinct new phase of systematic philological commentary opened that took on the new garb of the Arabic language and clearly drew upon Muslim hermeneutical concepts. This new phase, the focus of the current chapter, begins with Saadia—at least as far as the literary record shows.32 Born in Fayyum near Fustat in Egypt, Saadia studied in Palestine in his youth and subsequently rose to such great prominence that he was appointed gaon of Sura, a position generally reserved for the local elite. Saadia penned vigorous polemics against Karaism, and it is conceivable that for this reason he was recognized as a champion of Rabbanite Judaism. A profoundly original thinker who broke out of the standard mold of the geonic responsa format, Saadia composed works in new genres adapted om Arabic learning: grammar, lexicography, poetics, theology, and scriptural exegesis. Saadia’s Bible interpretation incorporates tools of analysis that Muslims had developed earlier to interpret the Qur’an. His theology manifests the spirit of Mu‘tazilite kalām—the endeavor to demonstrate the compatibility of religious tradition and rational speculation.33 Saadia’s project was carried on by Samuel ben Hofni (d. 1013), also gaon of Sura and a prolific author of exegetical and legal works—most now lost.34 He clarified critical theoretical aspects of Saadia’s interpretive system, and the two together are the key authors of the “geonic school” that would influence subsequent Judeo-Arabic Rabbanite exegetes.35 Although both vehemently opposed the Karaites and accepted rabbinic authority implicitly, in practice their rationalistphilological exegetical modes had much in common with those of their Karaite contemporaries. It was therefore crucial for them to affirm their adherence to rabbinic tradition. Samuel ben Hofni argued that his exegetical thought—and, by extension, that of Saadia—was guided by the talmudic maxim that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.” The eleventh-century Andalusian

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Geonim and Karaites

31

linguist Ibn Janah would thus invoke the authority of “the peshat commentaries of Rav Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni.”36 These two geonic authors mark the beginning of the “grand narrative” of peshat in the medieval tradition. Karaite interpreters, by contrast, celebrated their departure om rabbinic interpretation and evidently had no use for the talmudic peshat maxim.37 Yet to illuminate the origins of what would emerge as the Rabbanite “rule of peshat,” it is necessary to survey the Karaite exegetical breakthrough, beginning with Jacob al-Qirqisani, “the greatest Karaite mind of the first half of the tenth century.”38 Qirqisani lived in Iraq and traveled throughout the Muslim East. He eely cites om the Qur’an and New Testament, and was well versed in Mu‘tazilite learning. Only agments of his commentaries on Genesis, Job, and Qohelet are extant. But his two surviving expository works provide a wealth of knowledge about Karaite interpretation. His halakhic code, The Book of Lights and Watchtowers (Kitāb alanwār wa-l-marāqib), written in 937, discusses the legal sections of the Pentateuch and includes a historical-methodological survey of early Karaism. Its sequel, The Book of Heaths and Gardens (Kitāb al-riyāḍ wa-l-ḥadā’iq), completed in 938, treats the nonlegal sections of the Pentateuch and includes a systematic exposition of the principles of Bible exegesis. Living in Iraq, Qirqisani was not connected with the more radical Karaite center in Jerusalem, where the vocally anti-Rabbanite “mourners of Zion” were composing Bible commentaries and polemical works that starkly defined Karaite ideology.39 Among them was the aforementioned Salmon ben Jeruhim, who penned The Book of the Wars of the Lord, a harsh polemic against Saadia, as well as Bible commentaries now surviving only in agmentary form.40 These included Psalms and Lamentations, which provided the community’s main liturgical texts; the Song of Songs and Daniel, which were both regarded as prognostic prophetic books containing information concerning the imminent End of Days; and Qohelet and Proverbs, which furnished theological and ethical guidance.41 Yefet ben Eli is undoubtedly the most important Karaite exegete of all time. His extensive, detailed translations of, and commentaries on, the entire Bible (all in Arabic) provide rich grammatical, philological, and literary analysis of precisely the type that would be favored by the later peshat schools.42 Probably born in Basra in southern Iraq (c. 915–920), Yefet emigrated to Palestine and settled in Jerusalem, where he died around 1007.43 It is he who attributed to Anan the motto “Search Scripture well and do not rely upon my opinion” (commentary on Zech. 5:9–11), which he applies consistently in his scholarly analysis of the Bible.44 So compelling were Yefet’s opinions that they were oen utilized by later Rabbanite commentators—most notably, Abraham Ibn Ezra. Later Karaites, in turn, argued that Ibn Ezra was a student of Yefet’s (ignoring the historical impossibility of that scenario) and a clandestine Karaite.45 Unlike Qirqisani, Yefet did not compose theoretical treatises, nor does he seem to have been inclined toward

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

32

Chapter 1

systematic thought. Furthermore, like Daniel al-Qumisi, he opposed the use of “external sciences” om non-Jewish writings—which inspired Qirqisani’s systematic thought.46 But Yefet was influenced by Qirqisani’s principles and, at times, clarifies points of interpretive theory.47 Yefet, in turn, had a formative influence on later Karaite exegetes, especially in the Karaite “college” in Jerusalem founded by Yūsuf Ibn Nūḥ, whose disciples included Abū al-Faraj Hārūn, Levi ben Yefet (Yefet ben Eli’s son), and Yūsuf alBaṣīr (d. c. 1040).48 Ibn Nūḥ’s works include a Pentateuch commentary (abridged by Abū al-Faraj Hārūn as the Talkhiṣ) and a grammatical work titled al-Diqduq, influenced by the Arabic Kūfan school of grammar. Succeeding Ibn Nūḥ as head of the Jerusalem college, Abū al-Faraj Hārūn achieved renown in the Andalusian Rabbanite school as “the Jerusalem grammarian.” In 1026, he completed Kitāb al-Mushtamil, a comprehensive analysis of the Hebrew language (which he abridged as Kitāb al-Kāfi), as well as Sharḥ al-Alfāẓ, a selection of biblical verses translated into Arabic with explanatory glosses. Yūsuf al-Baṣīr was originally om Iraq (where he met Samuel ben Hofni), but settled in Jerusalem to become a Karaite theologian, influenced by Mu‘tazilite thought. He wrote halakhic and philosophical works that would be used by later Karaite exegetes, among them his student Jeshua ben Judah (Abū al-Faraj Furqān Ibn Asad; mid-eleventh century). Jeshua, the most influential eleventh-century Karaite Bible commentator, translated the Pentateuch into Arabic and composed commentaries on Genesis and the Decalogue.49 The Karaite Jerusalem school came to an end in the late eleventh century, with the Seljuk conquest in 1071, which terminated organized Jewish life in the city, followed by the even more disastrous 1099 crusader conquest.50 Yet by then, Karaite learning had been transplanted to Byzantium (Constantinople), where it continued to flourish—though never matching the achievements of the Karaite Golden Age in Jerusalem. Already in the eleventh century, the Byzantine scholar Tobiah ben Moses, who had studied in Jerusalem, translated Karaite works om Arabic into Hebrew upon returning to Byzantium.51 Following in this tradition, Jacob ben Reuben (late eleventh and early twelh century) compiled Sefer ha‘Osher, a digest of the commentaries of Yefet ben Eli, Yūsuf Ibn Nūḥ, and other Karaite exegetes.52 Over the following two centuries, the Byzantine Karaite tradition was carried on by Judah Hadassi (mid-twelh century), Aaron ben Joseph “the Elder” (c. 1260–1320), and Aaron ben Elijah “the Latter” (1328–1369).53 Their works were mostly derivative, digesting the great achievements of the Jerusalem Karaites and even drawing upon Rabbanite works. For example, Aaron ben Joseph’s Pentateuch commentary, Mivḥar yesharim, relies heavily on Abraham Ibn Ezra, and Aaron ben Elijah’s philosophical-exegetical work, The Tree of Life, bears the imprint of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed.54

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Geonim and Karaites

33

Our focus in this chapter will be on five key authors—two Rabbanite, and three Karaite: Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni, Daniel al-Qumisi, Qirqisani, and Yefet.55 Their chronological and geographic positioning vis-à-vis the earlier traditions is sketched in Table 2. As highlighted here, al-Qumisi is an intermediate figure. He deserves credit for being the first Karaite scripturalist and the first to compose philological Bible commentaries. However, he does not yet participate in the tenth-century trend, attested in Saadia, to write commentaries in Arabic in a way that highlights the use of Muslim learning. For this reason, our detailed discussion begins with Saadia, followed by Samuel ben Hofni, whose work complements Saadia’s. At that point, we turn to the Karaite tradition. Once we have laid out the ways in which the geonim utilized Muslim interpretive concepts, it will be possible to trace some of these strands in al-Qumisi’s commentaries. Similarly, Yefet’s reliance on Mu‘tazilite thought becomes clear when his writings are compared with those of Qirqisani, a key Karaite predecessor he revered, and even Saadia, the Rabbanite predecessor he criticized. Indeed, the fact that two important Karaite authors—al-Qumisi and Yefet—explicitly eschewed “foreign sciences” and nonetheless incorporated concepts om Qur’an interpretation demonstrates just how pervasive the latter was in their Arabic surroundings in the Muslim East. Rather than speaking of conscious “influence” or “borrowing,” it seems more apt to describe this process using the term “enculturation,” as

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Table 2. The Karaite-Rabbanite Exegetical Divide Karaite

Rabbanite

Proto-Karaites (still using midrashic methods):

Traditional Rabbinic Interpretation:

 • Anan ben David (Iraq; late eighth century)  • Benjamin al-Nahawandi (Persia; mid-ninth century)

 • Iraq: Geonim (penned responsa) and authors of separate works (She’iltot, Halakhot Gedolot)  • Palestine: Targums; late midrashic works; piyyutim; masoretic works

Karaite scripturalism: Daniel al-Qumisi (Persia, Jerusalem; late ninth century): wrote Bible commentaries in Hebrew employing a philological method

Authors writing in Arabic—employing philological methods: Qirqisani (Iraq; first half of tenth century)

Saadia Gaon (Egypt, Iraq; 882–942)

Yefet ben Eli (Jerusalem; second half of tenth century)

Samuel ben Hofni Gaon (Iraq; d. 1013)

Note: Names in bold indicate the major philological commentators of this period, who are discussed in this chapter.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

34

Chapter 1

Sidney Griffith does when describing the new patterns of learning manifested by Christian writers in the Muslim East in the eighth and ninth centuries.56 Within their new Muslim intellectual milieu, it became natural for Jews, like Christians, to view the Bible om a different perspective om that of their predecessors in non-Muslim contexts.

Saadia Saadia composed Arabic Bible translations and commentaries, separate works on theology, grammar, lexicography, and halakhah, as well as polemical treatises, primarily against the Karaites.57 Saadia was well versed in various disciplines of Muslim learning, especially the Mu‘tazilite brand of theology known as kalām. His works also manifest familiarity with Arabic poetics and grammar, as well as qur’anic hermeneutics. Saadia drew upon all these disciplines in his works, which would become foundational in Jewish tradition, prompting Ibn Ezra, two centuries later, to refer to Saadia as “the first speaker on all matters.”58 His Pentateuch translation, the Tafsīr, became a sort of authorized version among Rabbanite Jews.59 Although traces of earlier Jewish Arabic Bible translations exist, these were pushed aside by the Tafsīr, which bears the indelible imprint of Saadia’s strong personality, as he reshaped the biblical text in accordance with his distinctive understanding and classical Arabic stylistic sensibilities.60

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Saadia’s Role in the Jewish Exegetical Tradition According to Richard Steiner, the Tafsīr provided the “basic tools for the later pashtanim, making it possible for them to distinguish peshat om derash”; he thus regards Saadia Gaon as “the father of peshat-exegesis.”61 Saadia has been cast as a pioneer, a brilliant ray of light and singular point of origin for the unfolding peshat tradition. In the words of David Weiss Halivni, “The first Rabbi to ascertain the superiority of peshat over derash was R. Saadya Gaon.”62 This almost mythical portrait, however, must be modified om two directions. To begin with, Saadia was not an absolute innovator, as he drew upon tools provided by earlier authors and his own teachers. This is a point we shall turn to presently, by taking a panoramic view of the fields of Saadia’s intellectual activity within the context of earlier Jewish and Muslim scholarship. Indeed, it is by placing Saadia within his tenth-century intellectual context that we can best asses his genuine innovations. The larger goal of this chapter is to challenge the implication that Saadia produced a fully developed peshat model. To be sure, he took important steps in this direction. But it remained for others to establish a true “rule of peshat.” Saadia’s theological treatise, The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, written around 933, offers a systematic philosophical account of Judaism based on Scripture

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Geonim and Karaites

35

harmonized with “reason,” in a Mu‘tazilite format that draws upon Greco-Arabic learning.63 It became a touchstone for further theological writings, including Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed. Both works, penned in Judeo-Arabic, were among the first rendered in Hebrew in the wave of translations prompted by the emigration of Jewish scholars om al-Andalus to Provence in the twelh century. Saadia’s Agron (lit., “collection”), written around 902, is credited as the first (partial) Hebrew dictionary, which included a brief discussion of Hebrew grammar.64 Originally written in Hebrew, it was later rendered by Saadia in JudeoArabic and retitled Kitāb uṣūl al-shi‘r al-‘ibrāni (Book on the principles of Hebrew poetry), as it was augmented with a discussion of the forms of Hebrew poetry— om the Bible to the piyyutim.65 Saadia also composed a grammatical work, The Book of the Purity of the Language of the Hebrews, now only partially extant. Although the building blocks of his system were provided by the Tiberian masoretic tradition, Saadia drew upon Arabic grammatical learning to establish the first full-fledged, systematic conceptual account of the workings of Biblical Hebrew.66 Later, Saadia penned the Explanation of the Seventy Isolated Biblical Words, dedicated to hapax legomena and other rare Hebrew and Aramaic words in the Bible, which he analyzes philologically using cognates om rabbinic literature. In doing so, Saadia makes a point of criticizing the Karaites, who eschewed rabbinic traditions.67 Superseded by more advanced linguistic works in al-Andalus, Saadia’s philological work did not have the same lasting impact as his Tafsīr or Beliefs and Opinions.68 The portrait of Saadia as a great innovator has long been challenged. Salo Baron cites nineteenth-century scholars who credited the Karaites with “all the revolutionary discoveries . . . in Hebrew philology, Bible exegesis, and philosophy”—allowing only the possibility of some innovations by “Rabbanites reacting to the rise of the new sect.”69 Saadia indeed exerted great effort to combat Karaism. Around 915, he composed The Book of Refutation Against Anan.70 He also wrote other anti-Karaite polemical works, as well as a separate refutation of the critiques of the Bible by one Hiwi al-Balkhi (Balkh, in modern-day Afghanistan, late ninth century).71 Still, Baron regards the “reactionary” portrait of Saadia as an exaggeration. A more nuanced argument is raised by Rina Drory, who notes that Saadia oen followed Karaite examples in diverging om standard geonic-era Rabbanite genres.72 Indeed, precedents for Saadia’s work in every field can be found. Daniel al-Qumisi predated Saadia in composing philological Bible commentaries, with which Saadia may have been familiar.73 Nor, as already mentioned, was Saadia the first to translate the Bible into Judeo-Arabic. In systematic theology, he followed Isaac Israeli (c. 855–955), a Jewish Neoplatonic philosopher om Egypt who emigrated to Kairouan in Tunisia, with whom Saadia corresponded.74 It is likely that Saadia was influenced by (and is reported to have studied with) the ninth-century

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

36

Chapter 1

Jewish philosopher David al-Muqammiṣ, who applied Mu‘tazilite concepts to the Bible.75 In linguistics, as well, Saadia did not create ex nihilo. He studied under the grammarian Abū Kathīr Yaḥya al-Kātib (“the scribe”; d. c. 932) in Tiberias, and it is likely that there he also knew the masoretes.76 Precursors can thus be found in every area in which Saadia is said to have been “the first speaker”: theology, grammar, lexicography, Bible translation, and commentary. Yet it would be a mistake to deny Saadia’s originality. In grammar, lexicography, and Bible translation, Saadia’s work went far beyond those “precursors.” Moreover, he was evidently the first to consolidate all these disciplines into an integrated structure. His Bible commentaries are predicated upon his linguistic work and supported by the philosophical outlook in Beliefs and Opinions, which, in turn, is suffused with Bible interpretation. This combination did not occur in Jewish tradition before Saadia, nor, indeed, was it replicated aer him in the medieval period.77 With the above qualifications in mind, then, Ibn Ezra’s appellation of Saadia as “the first speaker on all matters” is still apt. He may not have truly been the “first” in every field, but he established an integrated philologicalrational approach to Bible interpretation, which Ibn Ezra and others in the later tradition would identi as the “way of peshat.”

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Scriptural Translation and Reason While earlier Jewish theologians—most notably, Israeli and Muqammiṣ—wrote in Arabic, Saadia seems to have been the first author to broaden this convention to other fields of Jewish scholarship. Benjamin al-Nahawandi’s halakhic works and Daniel al-Qumisi’s commentaries were composed in Hebrew, as were the masoretic works. Saadia’s very decision to translate the Bible into Arabic, departing om the Aramaic Targums, was a reflection of this new acculturation in Muslim society. This radical step had been resisted by earlier geonim.78 A goal of the Tafsīr, Steiner argues, was to respond to critiques of the Bible raised by Muslims and to recti the inadequacies of Christian translations.79 Saadia hints at these motives in recording this lifetime goal: “For a long time, in my hometown, I dwelled constantly on my desire, which was to have a translation of the Torah composed by me in use among the people of the true religion, a proper translation that would not be refuted by speculative knowledge (naẓar) or rebutted by tradition (āthār).”80 Although the Tafsīr now extant is the product of Saadia’s mature scholarship, Steiner identified a manuscript agment of an early version of the Tafsīr om Saadia’s days in Tiberias.81 Already at that stage, he sought to compose a translation that accords with “speculative knowledge” and “tradition.” The point of the latter criterion is obvious—to undercut the Karaite rejection of rabbinic interpretive traditions. As for the first criterion, it would seem to reflect Saadia’s endeavor to harmonize Scripture with reason.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Geonim and Karaites

37

More specifically, Steiner argues, Saadia’s translation appears to respond to a challenge by Abū ‘Uthman ‘Amr b. Baḥr al-Jāḥiẓ (Basra, Baghdad, 781–868), a prominent Mu‘tazilite author.82 Al-Jāḥiẓ relates that “the Jews consider philosophical speculation (al-naẓar f ī al-falsifa) unbelief,” and thus misunderstood their own Scripture, a claim he supports by pointing to about a dozen biblical expressions that describe God anthropomorphically, which Jews took literally.83 As a Mu‘tazilite thinker, he believed God to be incorporeal. “Had they possessed the intellect of the Muslims,” al-Jāḥiẓ posits, “they would have found for these expressions a fitting interpretation (ta’wīl), an easy way out, and a plausible figure of speech.”84 Saadia, who counted himself among the “speculative philosophers” (naẓirīn) and likewise asserted God’s incorporeality, addressed these very examples using language that matches that of al-Jāḥiẓ.85 The Fourfold Axiom of Bible Interpretation The “speculative” nature of Saadia’s translation project resonates in the interpretive axiom articulated in the introduction to his Genesis commentary:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

It is incumbent upon a person of reason to at first attempt to understand the Torah according to the apparent sense (ẓāhir) of its words, I mean the wellknown meaning (mashhūr) understood among speakers of its language. . . . One may conclude that a verse is not intended according to its apparent sense only if that well-known meaning contradicts (1) sense perception, (2) rational knowledge, (3) another verse that is unambiguous, or (4) a tradition transmitted by the Rabbis. . . . In those cases we must posit that the verse contains a word or words that are majāz (nonliteral language). When one discerns the type of majāz it is . . . then the verse will conform to sensory and rational knowledge, the other verse and tradition.86 Saadia’s baseline assumption is that any given biblical language expression has its usual, widely known meaning (mashhūr) and must be taken according to its ẓāhir, a term drawn om Qur’an exegesis that connotes the apparent/obvious or “literal” sense.87 Only when that creates a contradiction may one posit that the language is used in a sense less commonly known—that is, it is majāz. This term, also drawn om Qur’an exegesis, is used by Saadia to connote nonliteral language, including figurative language, as well as a broad range of otherwise unusual usages, such as ellipsis, pleonasm, and inversion.88 Some have pointed to this rule to argue that Saadia was a pioneer of peshat exegesis because he privileged the “literal” sense. This impression has been all but cemented by the use of the term peshat to render ẓāhir in medieval and modern Hebrew translations of his writings. (A more precise Hebrew term—used by some medieval translators—is nir’eh or nigleh, the “apparent” or “obvious” sense.)89 The

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

38

Chapter 1

implications of this rendering are evident, for example, in the following remark by Weiss Halivni, based on the Hebrew translations of Saadia’s works: “The first Rabbi to ascertain the superiority of peshat over derash was R. Saadya Gaon . . . who says in several places . . . that ‘Everything that is found in the Bible has to be understood according to peshat except when the peshat is against the senses, or against reason, or if it contradicts another verse in the Bible or if it opposes tradition.’ In the exceptional cases one has to interpret the text according to derash.”90 Admittedly, Saadia’s ẓāhir category partially overlaps with what later exegetes would refer to as peshuto shel miqra. The following two examples illustrate this point. 1. We have already seen (in the Introduction) that Rashi distinguished between peshuto shel miqra and the midrashic interpretation of Gen. 37:15–17 in the Joseph narrative. Saadia’s Tafsīr matches Rashi’s peshat reading: “And a certain man found him. . . . And the man said, ‘They are departed hence; for I heard them say, “Let us go to Dothan.”’ ” For Saadia, “the man” is a man, not the angel Gabriel, as in the midrashic reading, and Dothan is simply the name of a place rather than part of a midrashic play on words. One might argue that this is a trivial example, since the translation medium naturally militates against the midrashic interpretation here, which makes Saadia’s adherence to Rashi’s peshat reading unremarkable. But a similar midrashic reading is actually woven into the Aramaic rendering of this verse in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, a work Saadia knew and could have followed.91 2. A more striking example (that will also be relevant in discussions later in this study) relates to Deut. 25:6, part of the biblical law of levirate marriage: “If brothers live together and one of them dies and has no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry outside to a stranger; her husband’s brother shall . . . take her . . . for a wife. . . . And it shall be that the firstborn that she bears shall succeed to the name of his brother who is dead, that his name be not blotted out of Israel (Deut. 25:5–6).” The second verse is rendered in Saadia’s Tafsīr, “And the firstborn they anticipate that she will bear om him will succeed to the name of his deceased brother,”92 which does not accord with the following talmudic interpretation: (1) “And it shall be that the firstborn”—om here we know that the commandment of the levirate marriage devolves upon the surviving elder brother. (2) “That she bears”—excludes a woman who is incapable of procreation, since she cannot bear children. (3) “Will succeed to the name of his brother”—with respect to inheritance.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Geonim and Karaites

39

(4) “That his name not be of blotted out”—excludes a eunuch, whose name is already blotted out. Regarding the third derivation, the Talmud mentions—but rejects—a straightforward reading: You say, “with respect to inheritance.” Perhaps it does not mean that, but rather, “with respect to the name”? In other words, if the deceased was Joseph, the child shall be called Joseph; if Yohanan, he shall be called Yohanan! Here it states, “He shall succeed in the name of his brother,” and elsewhere it is stated, “They shall be called aer the name of their brethren in their inheritance” (Gen. 48:6). Just as the “name” mentioned there is inheritance, so, too, the “name” mentioned here is for inheritance. . . . Rava remarked: Although normally a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat, here the gezerah shawah came and removed it om its peshat entirely.93

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Rava makes a point of noting that the gezerah shawah94 overrides the peshat, by which he means the straightforward, contextually indicated literal reading—the one Saadia adopted. Saadia’s divergence om the Talmud is noted by the later Andalusian commentator Judah Ibn Bal‘am: “And it shall be, that the firstborn that she bears”—meaning, the firstborn, the brother of the deceased. And “that she bears” refers to the mother of the levirate brothers, not the levirate wife herself, as it says “shall succeed to the name of his brother who is dead.” Now this phrase is rendered in the Tafsīr “and the first-born they anticipate that she will be bear”. . . indicating that it is the levirate wife. However, the early Sages, of blessed memory, said: “the commandment of the levirate marriage devolves upon the surviving elder brother,” and they bring as proof the verse “And it shall be, that the firstborn that she bears.”95 Ibn Bal‘am mentions Saadia’s literal reading but prefers the talmudic one. In fact, some later revisions of the Tafsīr wove the talmudic understanding into the Arabic rendition of this verse.96 Saadia probably regarded the talmudic “reading” of this verse in terms described by Ibn Ezra:

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

40

Chapter 1

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Our Sages oen would oen use a scriptural verse as an asmakhta, though they knew the essence (‘iqqar, i.e., the true meaning of the verse). . . . Now . . . everyone knows the meaning of the verse, and the peshat is according to its literal sense (mashma‘). . . . For example, “And it shall be, that the firstborn that she bears,” which must be taken according to its literal sense (mashma‘). There was also a tradition that the eldest of the brothers must be the one who performs the levirate marriage, and the Rabbis therefore interpreted this verse midrashically as a reminder (zekher), i.e., an asmakhta.97 The talmudic term asmakhta refers to a mnemonic device used to preserve details of the halakhah originally transmitted only through an oral tradition, which seems to be how Saadia took the talmudic interpretation of Deut. 25:6 by way of gezerah shawah.98 Although these two examples om Saadia’s Tafsīr would seem to support Weiss Halivni’s assessment, it is actually only partially accurate. The ẓāhir overlaps at times with some medieval conceptions of peshat; but the two must not be equated automatically. As noted in the Introduction, peshuto shel miqra oen differs om the “literal” sense. Furthermore, the peshat-derash opposition is a talmudic one that Saadia does not use in the context of his fundamental exegetical axiom. Rather, his hermeneutical thought derives om the wellsprings of qur’anic hermeneutics, and his axiom must be understood within that context. Prior to presenting his exegetical axiom in his introduction to Genesis, Saadia engages in an epistemological discussion in which he identifies the three sources of human knowledge: reason, Scripture, and tradition. Since the Karaites denied rabbinic authority, Saadia constructed an elaborate defense of the need for an oral tradition. He argues that the Law is not sufficiently clear om Scripture alone, and requires elaboration, as transmitted by the Rabbis.99 Aer establishing the epistemological necessity of tradition, he opens his hermeneutical discussion: Now that I have completed explaining these three types of knowledge the interpreter of the Torah must know, I see fit to lay out in an introduction how the Torah and the rest of the prophetic books must be interpreted. All speech in all languages is composed of clear expressions (muḥkamāt) and ambiguous expressions (mutashābihāt). The Torah, likewise, is constructed in this way—as it was given in one of the languages. It is therefore incumbent upon the one who interprets the verses of the Torah to classi as clear expressions those that agree with the things that are known om reason and the tradition, and to classi as

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Geonim and Karaites

41

ambiguous (mutashābih [sing. of mutashābihāt]) those that contradict one of those two things.100 Saadia draws here upon a dichotomy in qur’anic hermeneutics between muḥkam (sing. of muḥkamāt) and mutashābih, rooted in Qur’an 3,7, a verse said to Muhammad about God regarding the Qur’an:101 “He has sent down to you the Book. In it are verses that are clear (muḥkamāt)—they are the essence of the Book. And others are ambiguous (mutashābihāt). As for those in whose hearts is dissension, they follow that of it which is ambiguous (mutashābih), seeking discord and seeking interpretation (ta’wīl). And no one knows its interpretation except Allah and those firm in knowledge. They say, ‘We believe in it. All is om our Lord.’ ”102 The clear verses are privileged, as they express God’s will (murād) directly, whereas the ambiguous ones can be misleading.103 This led to the default presumption that a given qur’anic verse is muḥkam rather than mutashābih, and therefore must be understood according to its ẓāhir. Although philological analysis might be required to ascertain the ẓāhir, this did not match the challenges posed by the mutashābihāt, which were typically presumed to employ majāz, as opposed to ḥaqīqa—language used in its proper, “literal” sense.104

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Nonliteral Interpretation The mode of interpretation required by the mutashābihāt was known as ta’wīl,105 a term attested in the Qur’an, where it connotes interpretation, oen of a dream. But it later acquired a specific range of meanings as a technical term in qur’anic hermeneutics.106 In early Muslim literature, the terms ta’wīl (interpretation) and tafsīr (explanation) were interchangeable. But by the tenth century, a distinction had been made: tafsīr is a simple interpretation, a translation (as in Saadia’s Tafsīr), while ta’wīl gets at the deeper meaning. Abū Ḥatim al-Rāzi (d. 934/935) illustrated this difference with the example of a non-Arabic speaker who sought the meaning of his dream om a wise man who speaks only Arabic. To overcome the linguistic barrier, a translator first relays the man’s description of his dream to the interpreter. The translator engaged in tafsīr, whereas the wise man’s interpretation of the dream is ta’wīl.107 While the term ta’wīl would thus be used by some to connote allegorical or symbolic interpretation, it was used in the philologically oriented schools to connote interpretation that entails adjustment of the literal sense in light of contextual or rational considerations. Like his Muslim counterparts, Saadia made it his default position that any given biblical verse is muḥkam, and must therefore be understood according to its ẓāhir, or ẓāhir al-naṣṣ (the apparent sense of the text; naṣṣ meaning “text”). However, Saadia’s axiom was actually formulated to justi the exceptions, in which case one must assume that the text involves majāz and apply ta’wīl to interpret it. In

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

42

Chapter 1

practice, Saadia took these steps in order to harmonize Scripture with reason and tradition, as he stated in describing his youthful aspiration to produce a proper Bible translation. The examples that Saadia cites in his introduction to Genesis to illustrate his exegetical axiom are closely connected with his Tafsīr. For the first case that requires ta’wīl, he cites Gen. 3:20, “Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living beings”: “If we leave the expression ‘all living beings’ according to its well-known meaning . . . we forsake sense perception, for this implies that the lion, ox, donkey, and other animals are Eve’s children. Now since there is no trick that will dislodge sense perception, we maintain that there is an elided word (kalima muḍmara) in this verse, through which it can be brought into agreement with the unmistakable facts, as I shall explain.”108 Indeed, in his commentary on that verse, he writes: “In my translation of ‘all living beings’ I added human beings (lit., ‘speaking living beings’) in order to make this expression exclude animals such as the horse, donkey, and others, which sense perception contradicts.”109 Invoking the notion of iḍmār common in qur’anic exegesis, Saadia argues that the word “speaking” is understood om the context. Samuel ben Hofni would refer to this phenomenon using the rabbinic term derekh qeṣarah (“abbreviated speech”).110 To illustrate the second case that requires ta’wīl, Saadia cites Deut. 4:24, “For the Lord your God, He is a consuming fire,”111 which prompts his discussion: “If we take this dictum according to its apparent sense (ẓāhir), reason (‘aql) will contradict this, for we know that fire is not self-sufficient and that it is subject to change aer its termination, whereas the Creator is everlasting and unchanging. But once we realize that this is majāz, Scripture is in agreement with reason.”112 In the Tafsīr, the verse is rendered “for the punishment of the Lord your God is fire.”113 Saadia regularly sought to avoid the implication that God experiences emotions. Hence, Gen. 6:6, “God regretted (wa-yinnaḥem) that He created man and was saddened (wa-yit‘aṣev) in His heart,” is rendered in the Tafsīr, “God threatened to punish those that He had made on earth and brought sadness into their hearts.”114 As Saadia explains in his commentary: “I translated [wa-yinnaḥem] ‘he threatened’ because this word occurs with six meanings. One is ‘to regret,’ according to the well-known usage . . . another is to threaten: ‘behold Esau, your brother is threatening (mitnaḥem) to kill you’ (Gen. 27:42) . . . another is to console . . . another is to forgive . . . another is to warm . . . another is to see, consider. . . . And according to this explanation, ‘He was saddened in his heart’ is attached (i.e., refers) to mankind, since om beginning to end he is spoken of in the singular.”115 The possibility that God would experience regret or sadness was unacceptable to Saadia. He therefore catalogs the various meanings of the Biblical Hebrew root

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Geonim and Karaites

43

n-ḥ-m, creating a quasi-dictionary not uncommon in his commentaries. Since its best-known sense is theologically problematic, he plugs in a less common (majāz) usage. In his construal of the next phrase, Saadia relies on a loose interpretation of the grammatical form of the verb wa-yit‘aṣev (lit., “He was saddened”) to divert the sadness om God to man.116 Such readings might seem tenuous, and Saadia’s heavy-handed applications of ta’wīl were indeed criticized.117 But these methodologies were typical in his Muslim milieu. The endeavor to interpret the Qur’an in light of reason characterized—but was hardly limited to—the Mu‘tazilite school.118 In his aforementioned critique, al-Jāḥiẓ reflects the Muslim strategy to interpret theologically problematic verses by way of majāz.119 For example, Abū Bakr al-Jaṣṣāṣ (d. 981) writes about the verse “Those who hurt God” (Qur’an 33,57): “The meaning of that is: ‘[Those who hurt] the followers of God.’ So the mention of the ‘followers’ was elided . . . because no affliction, nor any benefits or damages can befall God.”120 The assumption of iḍmār was not always theologically motivated. As alJaṣṣāṣ writes of another verse—a stock example in Muslim interpretation— “Inquire of the city wherein we were” (Qur’an 12, 82): “Its meaning is: Inquire of the people of the city. If that were literal language (ḥaqīqa), then the city would be the one who is asked, and it is absurd to ask walls.”121 Of particular relevance are the thirty-nine categories of majāz enumerated by the influential Qur’an exegete Abū ‘Ubayda (Basra, Baghdad; 728–825), in his comprehensive work Majāz al-Qur’an, including ellipsis (iḍmār, also referred to as ḥadhf), pleonasm (e.g., repetition for emphasis; al-mukarrar li-l-tawkīd), inversion (muqaddam wa-mu’akhkhar; lit., “putting earlier,” “putting later,” i.e., language used in a reverse order), and various other syntactic and grammatical irregularities.122 Saadia equently invokes the very same categories of majāz defined by Abū ‘Ubayda using similar terminology.123 The necessity of ta’wīl was widely recognized in Muslim learning, even among opponents of the Mu‘tazilites. A century aer Saadia’s time, the Andalusian scholar Abū Muhammad ‘Alī Ibn Ḥazm (d. 1064), well-known for his affiliation with the so-called ẓahiri (literalist) school of Muslim jurisprudence, criticized interpreters who diverged om the literal sense of the Qur’an based on speculative arguments.124 Yet even his commitment to the ẓāhir is not absolute, as he writes: “It is one’s duty to interpret God’s word literally (‘ala ẓāhirihi). This may be abandoned only when another written word of God, or the consensus of the Companions of the Prophet or compelling knowledge based on sense perception (ḍarūrat ḥiss) supplies conclusive evidence that a particular word of God should not be understood literally.”125 For Ibn Ḥazm, the authority of the literal sense must cede to ḍarūrat ḥiss—the compelling nature (lit., “necessity,” “constraint”) of knowledge om sense perception. Elsewhere he replaces the term ḍarūrat ḥiss with ḍarūrat ‘aql—that is, compelling knowledge based on reason.126

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

44

Chapter 1

Ibn Ḥazm’s epistemological rationale resembles Saadia’s argument that rabbinic tradition overrides ẓāhir al-naṣṣ. As he continues to illustrate his axiom in his introduction to Genesis: “An example of the fourth type is the divine prohibition, ‘You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk’ (Exod. 23:19). Yet the tradition prohibits eating all meat in milk. Now since the tradition was transmitted by those who witnessed it with their own eyes, we must seek an interpretation (takhrīj) . . . in order for the verse to be in agreement with the prophetic tradition.”127 Since rabbinic tradition, originally transmitted by the Prophets, originates om people who saw with their own eyes how biblical law was implemented, it must be regarded as immediate, compelling knowledge.128 Tradition therefore has the same status as sense perception, reason, and Scripture itself with respect to ẓāhir al-naṣṣ. Accordingly, this verse is rendered in the Tafsīr, “Do not eat meat with milk.”129 Indeed, throughout the Tafsīr, Saadia regularly abandons the ẓāhir in accordance with talmudic halakhah.130 Yet Saadia was selective in this respect. His Tafsīr at times reflects a literalcontextual reading and not the rabbinic halakhic one, as noted above in connection with Deut. 25:6.131 Saadia does not provide a specific theoretical justification for this divergence—at least not in his extant writings. He probably assumed that the halakhic exegesis was not meant as genuine interpretation but was merely an artificial projection onto the biblical text, or asmakhta132—the explanation given by others following Saadia’s model.133 In sum, while Saadia privileges the literal sense, and his pioneering philologicalgrammatical interpretive methods foreshadow those employed by later pashtanim, the talmudic peshat maxim is not his motor, nor does the peshat-derash dichotomy provide his coordinates. His thinking is rooted in qur’anic hermeneutics. Operating in a milieu informed by Qur’an 3,7, he regarded the ẓāhir as his interpretive starting point, and his applications of ta’wīl are motivated by a Mu‘tazilite-like endeavor to harmonize Scripture and reason, which for him included rabbinic tradition.

Samuel ben Hofni: Invoking the Talmudic Peshat Maxim In the extant literature, it was Samuel ben Hofni Gaon who first made the talmudic peshat maxim a guiding interpretive principle. In a glossary of terms in his introduction to the Talmud, he equates the talmudic expression peshateh di-qera in the context of the peshat maxim with ẓāhir al-naṣṣ.134 The implications of this equivalence emerge in a manuscript agment believed to be by Samuel ben Hofni, which enumerates guidelines for a biblical interpreter: The seventh matter is that he should leave the texts as they are (lit., “in their state”; ‘ala ḥālihā), and he must interpret them according to their

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Geonim and Karaites

45

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

apparent sense (‘ala ẓawāhirihā), as the Sages said: “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.” Except for what (1) clashes with sense perception, or (2) is against reason, or (3) contradicts another text (naṣṣ) that is unequivocal (muḥkam), or (4) contradicts the tradition (manqūl). Under those circumstances, it is necessary to seek for it an interpretation (takhrīj) and reconciliation (tawf īq), so that it should be consistent with sense perception, reason, the other verse of Scripture and the tradition.135 The peshat maxim is cited to support Saadia’s rule that a verse must first be interpreted according to its apparent sense (ẓāhir), which may be suspended in the four exceptional cases. A similar outlook emerges in another agment believed to be om Samuel ben Hofni’s commentary on Deuteronomy: “The words of God, May He be Exalted . . . divide into two: literal language (ḥaqīqa) and nonliteral language (majāz). . . . If God or His messengers address us . . . it is necessary to take their words as literal language, rather than nonliteral language, unless there is an indication that proves to us that the intent of that expression is nonliteral. As our Sages have said: ‘a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.’ ”136 On this basis, Weiss Halivni comes to the conclusion that “Samuel ben Hofni was the first . . . to interpret the word peshuto in the celebrated dictum to mean simple or plain meaning and to make the dictum imply the invincibility of peshat.”137 But this assessment is dubious. Samuel ben Hofni’s equation of peshat with ẓāhir hardly implies its “invincibility,” since the presumed validity of (what Weiss Halivni calls) the “simple or plain meaning” is actually quite vulnerable. Samuel ben Hofni adopts what we can call a “weak reading” of the peshat maxim, since he effectively renders it a rule made to be broken, as the ẓāhir/peshat is little more than a point of departure, om which further interpretation—ta’wīl—must be considered. Where ta’wīl is indicated, the ẓāhir/peshat has no standing; it is merely the “pre-interpretive” sense.138 Indeed, Samuel ben Hofni, like Saadia before him, was quite willing to reject the literal sense and apply ta’wīl.139 A dramatic application of this principle relates to the episode in 1 Samuel 28 of Saul’s encounter with the witch of En Dor, who is said to have resurrected the prophet Samuel. Since Samuel ben Hofni regarded this as being scientifically impossible, he argues that the biblical account must be reinterpreted to mean that Saul was merely tricked into thinking that he saw Samuel’s ghost. In doing so, Samuel ben Hofni departs also om rabbinic tradition, since the Rabbis assumed that the witch, in fact, raised Samuel’s spirit om the dead.140 Not surprisingly, this brazen move generated opposition: Saadia had deferred to rabbinic tradition on this matter, and Hayya (Hai) Gaon (c. 939– 1038), Samuel ben Hofni’s own son-in-law, rejected his rationalist approach.141 Yet Samuel ben Hofni argued that rabbinic statements that contradict reason must

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

46

Chapter 1

not be accepted. Referring to rabbinic interpretations by the “scholars of the aggadot,” he writes: “It is not admissible for us to believe the truth of something when there are proofs that it is false simply because one of the early authorities said it. Rather, it is necessary to examine the matter rationally. If there is a proof that it should be accepted, we will accept it. If there is an indication that it could possibly be true, we will consider it to be possible, and if it is shown to be impossible, we will consider it to be impossible.”142 Yet Samuel ben Hofni took a submissive approach in halakhah, as we see in his guidelines for the interpreter: The eighth matter: whatever belongs to the eight categories of the commandments—valid, invalid, forbidden, permitted, unclean, clean, guilty, or innocent—should be explained with precision and clarity, without deviation, according to Scripture (al-naṣṣ) and the tradition (al-naql) alone.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

The ninth matter: whatever is established by an explicit verse, clarified by Scripture, or established by rational demonstration, should be stated unreservedly and decisively; but of those interpretations which the Sages call midrashot or aggadot . . . in matters other than the commandments, with which he embellishes his discourse, he should say “It may be,” or “It is suitable.”143 Samuel ben Hofni thus distinguishes between halakhah, which is absolutely authoritative, and aggadic (i.e., non-halakhic) midrash, which is of limited authority. While there were debates over its application, the rationalist approach established by Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni remained strong in the subsequent geonic tradition. Hayya Gaon, for example, criticized the pronounced rationalism of his father-in-law;144 yet even he did not feel bound by aggadic statements of the Rabbis and asserted that if one of their statements contradicts reason, we must conclude that “they did not mean it literally (‘al peshateh) but rather figuratively (be-torat mashal we-dimmuy), just as ‘Scripture spoke in the language of men,’ for the prophets thus speak figuratively and say, ‘the eye of God’ (Ps. 33:18), ‘behold the hand of God’ (Exod. 9:3), ‘and God’s anger [lit., “nostril”] was kindled’ (Exod. 4:14 and elsewhere), ‘smoke arose in His nostril, and fire om His mouth’ (2 Sam. 22:9, Ps. 18:9)—not literally, but rather figuratively and according to ‘the language of men.’ And the words of the haggadah are said similarly.”145 The term peshat was used by Hayya—as it was by Samuel ben Hofni—to connote a literal reading of Scripture or rabbinic literature, which must be suspended where it conflicts with reason.146

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Geonim and Karaites

47

Daniel al-Qumisi: Karaite Scripturalism and Ideology

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

A generation before Saadia, Daniel al-Qumisi seems to have been the first to advance “exegesis worthy of that name . . . a philological approach to the interpretation of individual words, an effort to discover the general intention of the verses, a quest for connection and continuity between verses, and om one matter to the next.”147 Al-Qumisi’s extant works are agmentary. Apart om his almost complete commentary on the Minor Prophets, we have very small sections of his commentaries on each of the five books of the Pentateuch, as well as Psalms, Qohelet, and Daniel.148 Written in Hebrew sprinkled with Arabic and Persian, the commentaries manifest an endeavor to ascertain the proper sense of the words of the biblical text through philological-contextual analysis. Although he did not translate the Bible, al-Qumisi occasionally offers Arabic or Persian equivalents for biblical locutions, “translation glosses” that foreshadow the next phase of Karaite commentary, in which translation became central.149 One of al-Qumisi’s polemics against Rabbanite Judaism provides a glimpse into his hermeneutical outlook. In Mal. 2:8–11, the Prophet rebukes the priests for abandoning God’s law: “You have swerved om the correct way; you have caused many to stumble in adherence to the Law (Torah). . . . I, in turn, have made you despicable and vile in the eyes of all the people, because you disregarded My ways and showed partiality [lit., have ‘raised faces’; nesa’tem panim]150 in applying the Law. . . . Judah has profaned what is holy to the Lord—which He loved—and has espoused daughters of alien gods.” Al-Qumisi’s commentary is a paraphrase of this text, interlaced with his explanatory glosses: You—O priests of the Second Temple period, and the “shepherds of the exile”—swerved om the ways of God. You caused many to stumble in adherence to the Law, for you have placed a stumbling block before Israel through “substitution” (ḥilluf) of the commandments, and you say, “This is om the Torah” (i.e., a biblical commandment). . . . I, in turn . . . made you despicable and vile in the eyes of all the nations, because you . . . “raised faces in the Torah,” which means: you adduced (lit., “raised”) nonliteral interpretations (ta’wīlāt; pl. of ta’wīl)151 of the Law, for you said that there are forty-nine meanings (Heb., panim; lit., “faces”) in the interpretation of the Torah. . . . Judah has . . . profaned the Law, which is holy to the Lord . . . and espoused daughters of alien gods through “precepts taught by men.”152 For al-Qumisi, the words of Malachi apply to his own day153 and criticize the Rabbis’ abandonment of God’s word stated clearly in the Torah, and its replacement by rabbinic laws.154

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

48

Chapter 1

Al-Qumisi defines his interpretative departure om that of the Rabbis based on the Prophet’s rebuke of the leaders of his time, which al-Qumisi construes to mean (using an Arabic gloss), “you adduced [lit., ‘raised’] nonliteral interpretations (ta’wīlāt) of the Law.”155 He uses the term ta’wīl here to connote unwarranted midrashic interpretation. This is ironic because his reading of Biblical Hebrew nesa’tem panim can justly be called ta’wīl, as he takes it out of context and interprets it hyper-literally, as “you have raised faces in the Torah.” From similar biblical usage elsewhere (e.g., Lev. 19:15), it is clear that lase’t panim means “to favor,” “to show partiality.”156 But al-Qumisi has in mind the figurative usage of the term panim in Rabbinic Hebrew to connote senses, interpretations (just like Arabic wujūh; lit., “faces”).157 Using the prophetic verse as a springboard, al-Qumisi attacks the rabbinic tendency to produce multiple interpretations by way of ta’wīl for every biblical verse, not an unfair characterization of midrash.158 Al-Qumisi, by contrast, seeks to apply a philological method to arrive at a single correct meaning: “You must know that everything in Scripture has only one interpretation (pitaron), and not two. And it is only because people do not know it correctly that one says thus and the other says thus, until the righteous teacher (i.e., the Messiah) will arrive.”159 The idea that God’s word is univocal echoes Qur’an 3,7, as understood by Muslim interpreters. For al-Qumisi, the Bible is essentially muḥkam, and ta’wīl is generally inadmissible.160 Yet al-Qumisi did not eschew ta’wīl categorically. He classifies verses speaking of God in human terms as “nonliteral language” (majāz al-kalām).161 Apart om citing two verses to illustrate this tendency—“And God descended” (Gen. 11:5) and “the finger of God” (Exod. 8:15)—al-Qumisi does not elaborate further on the matter in his extant writings. As discussed above, scriptural verses depicting God anthropomorphically would be construed as majāz by Saadia. The brief remark by al-Qumisi reveals that he did so a generation earlier, though he did not articulate a theory to rationalize this process in the Mu‘tazilite manner, as Saadia and later Karaite authors would do.162 In fact, it is unlikely that al-Qumisi would admit Mu‘tazilite influence, since he criticizes those who studied “foreign books.” A polemical epistle written by alQumisi (or someone in his circle) contains these sharp directives: You must rebut the dissenters om Scripture (i.e., the Rabbanites), for all is clear in it.163 You must delve assiduously in the logic of Scripture. But alas . . . you have not involved yourselves with the interpretation of the Scriptures. . . . Instead you have sought out foreign learning, which is vanity and abomination. . . .

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Geonim and Karaites

49

Guard yourselves om rationalism! For reason at times contradicts the commandments. Distance yourselves om foreign types of wisdom! For they remove faith om the heart. . . . On the other hand, interpretation of Scripture restores the soul. . . .

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Now who is a fool? Those are the ones who abandon the truth and follow falsehood—the blind tradition the Rabbanites follow (taqlīd), commandments taught by men, and foreign wisdom.164 This matches Qirqisani’s assessment that al-Qumisi was “dissatisfied with reason, disowning it and equently criticizing its practitioners.”165 It is thus not surprising that al-Qumisi did not articulate an agenda of harmonizing Scripture and speculative reason. What is surprising is that he engaged in this sort of reinterpretation, invoking the notion of majāz characteristic of Mu‘tazilite strategies of reading. This tendency was evidently pervasive in the Muslim East—to the point that even those non-Muslims who sought to isolate themselves om the intellectual streams of the surrounding culture could not help but absorb it.166 Although al-Qumisi advocated a literal reading of Scripture, he at times engages in “prognostic” exegesis—interpretation of biblical prophecies as referring to events in his own time, usually about the Karaite struggle with the Rabbanites. Even while recognizing that the prophets addressed the people of their time, he maintains that their words are also relevant for future generations. He thus writes about a prophecy of Amos: “We say that perhaps this prophecy is about the second exile (aer the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 ce), and about us today. For the prophets prophesied about those later generations. Then they returned to prophesy to their own generation.”167 For al-Qumisi, the words of the prophets are multivalent, with specific meanings for their own times and multiple meanings for later generations. This prognostic mode would seem inconsistent with al-Qumisi’s pronouncement that Scripture has but one meaning. The application of ancient prophecies to events in al-Qumisi’s own epoch required midrash-like creativity and would rightly be called ta’wīl. Scholars have considered various ways of reconciling al-Qumisi’s exegetical practice with his stated aversion for ta’wīl.168 For our purposes, this is not crucial. Al-Qumisi’s statement regarding the singularity of scriptural signification and his critique of midrash are clear enough. The fact that he nonetheless engages in ta’wīl attests to the pressing need for religious thinkers to make Scripture relevant to their own time.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

50

Chapter 1

Al-Qumisi’s prognostic exegesis has striking similarities to the so-called pesher style of interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls, by which the ancient biblical prophecies are taken to predict contemporary events at the end of the Second Temple era. It is thus conceivable, as some have argued, that Karaites like alQumisi had access to Second Temple–era pesher commentaries.169 Rina Drory, on the other hand, argues that the parallel does not indicate direct influence; instead, she suggests that similar circumstances produced the same type of interpretive movement. In her view, prognostic exegesis was an ancient interpretive style used by a sect that resisted the central authority of rabbinic Judaism—much as the Karaites did in the ninth and tenth centuries.170 The prognostic elements in al-Qumisi’s exegesis are downplayed by Meira Polliack, who emphasizes his novel philological-historical method.171 As she demonstrates, al-Qumisi’s exegetical terminology, while appearing to bear similarities to that in some pesher commentaries, is actually used quite differently—to “understand the biblical text as a [historically] self-contained entity, no less than . . . decoding its hidden message regarding the historical destiny of the Karaite sect.”172 Polliack further notes that whereas the Second Temple pesher commentaries are exclusively prognostic, alQumisi “consistently differentiates between a literal and nonliteral level of interpretation . . . which afford[s] a prognostic dimension relating to events in al-Qumisi’s time.”173 Furthermore, “the transition om the literal to the nonliteral interpretation is oen signaled by expressions such as ‘and even in exile’. . . which reflect a different interpretive register.”174

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Qirqisani: Exegetical Axioms and Their Intellectual Foundation Jacob al-Qirqisani’s works provide a snapshot of the intellectual landscape of early Karaism. His Book of Lights and Watchtowers sheds light on Anan, Benjamin al-Nahawandi, and Daniel al-Qumisi. Qirqisani also critically evaluates Christianity and Islam, as well as sects of Judaism that predated the Karaite movement. Qirqisani knew Mu‘tazilite writings firsthand and emphasizes the importance of philosophical speculation.175 This, in his view, included the study of non-Jewish writings, and Qirqisani criticizes those, such as al-Qumisi, who shunned them.176 This stance, in fact, brings him into basic agreement with his Rabbanite opponent Saadia, who seems to have influenced his thought. Like Saadia, Qirqisani prefaces his exegetical axioms by defining what he regarded as the valid sources of human knowledge. He then sets out to “mention the necessary preliminary things pertaining to the explanation of the meaning of Scripture and the interpretation (ta’wīl) of its ambiguous [passages] (mutashābih)”: Scripture as a whole is to be interpreted literally (‘ala ẓāhirihi), except where literal interpretation may involve something rationally objectionable

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Geonim and Karaites

51

or if it creates a contradiction. Only in the latter case, or in similar cases that demand that a passage be removed om its literal sense (ẓāhir)—e.g., where a preceding or a following passage requires it in order to avoid a contradiction—does it become necessary to remove the text om the literal sense. . . . Thus we are compelled to say that the verse “They saw the God of Israel. . .” (Exod. 24:10) must not be understood literally and does not signi seeing with one’s eye, since it is contrary to reason (‘aql) to assume that the Creator may be perceived with man’s senses. The same applies to all similar passages.177

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Qirqisani’s “scripturalism” does not imply strict literalism, as ta’wīl is required to interpret the sacred text in light of reason and other biblical verses. As Qirqisani clarifies elsewhere, “reason” in this context includes both sense perception and philosophical speculation—categories that Saadia had listed separately.178 Qirqisani thus endorses the application of ta’wīl in three of the four cases enumerated in Saadia’s exegetical axiom. Qirqisani, of course, rejects Saadia’s claim that rabbinic tradition overrides the literal sense.179 Yet Qirqisani does not categorically reject rabbinic learning, in which he was well versed.180 He dedicates thirteen chapters of his Book of Lights and Watchtowers to the thirteen midrashic middot of Rabbi Ishmael.181 Although he deems some of the middot illogical, he accepts others as reasonable rules of inference for interpreting Scripture.182 Qirqisani also cites a rabbinic maxim to rationalize the Bible’s tendency to depict God anthropomorphically: Scripture addresses mankind in a manner accessible to their understanding, and about matters familiar to them om their own experience. This is what the Rabbanites mean when they say: “Scripture spoke in the language of men” (b.Berakhot 31b). Thus, when the Creator wished to describe Himself to the effect that nothing visible is hidden om Him, He described Himself with eyes, because men are familiar with the sense of sight. . . . Likewise, when He wished to let them know that no sound is veiled om Him. He described Himself with ears, because among men sounds are perceived by the sense of hearing. The same applies to all matters of this sort.183 The maxim that “Scripture spoke in the language of men” is used (sparingly) in a quite different sense in the Talmud.184 Qirqisani cites “the Rabbanites” to invoke the maxim in another sense: to apply ta’wīl in a systematic way, specifically in the cases of anthropomorphic depictions of God—a usage that is indeed attested in the Rabbanite interpretive tradition.185 Given Qirqisani’s willingness to cite rabbinic sources, it is noteworthy that he does not mention the talmudic peshat maxim, or even the term peshat itself (at

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

52

Chapter 1

least not in his extant writings). This would confirm the importance of the point made above that the maxim was not used by Saadia. For these Jewish scholars in Iraq in the first half of the tenth century, the operative exegetical term was ẓāhir, not peshat. Qirqisani, like Saadia, drew upon Muslim learning—and Arabic terminology—to devise his powerful philological-literary reading of Scripture. Indeed, Qirqisani used a range of Arabic poetic terms, some of which were already used by Saadia, to identi stylistic elements of the biblical text.186 According to Drory, Qirqisani’s efforts to systematize the principles of Bible exegesis reflect the influence of Arabic poetics and rhetoric.187 Although Saadia also showed interest in these features of Scripture, Qirqisani went further in this area, enumerating thirty-seven principles for interpreting the Bible in consideration of its literary nature.188 The first is: “Moses was the one who wrote down (or compiled; dawwana) the Torah om its beginning in Genesis to its end. It is he who handed down to us all the accounts contained therein regarding the events om God’s creation of the world down to Moses’ own death, inasmuch as it is written: ‘And Moses wrote this Torah’ (Deut. 31:19). . . . ‘Remember the Torah of my servant Moses’ (Mal. 3:22).”189 In speaking of the process whereby the Pentateuch, “the Book of our Lord, which He revealed to us through Moses,”190 was committed to writing, Qirqisani employs the Arabic root d-w-n (used as a form II verb in the passage cited above), which connotes composition, compilation, taking oral material and committing it to writing, or, in some cases, editing preexisting written texts.191 Qirqisani evidently means that Moses composed the Torah based on prophetic content transmitted by God. As Haggai Ben-Shammai notes, in using the root d-w-n, Qirqisani appears to be drawing upon a conception of Scripture articulated by the so-called Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-ṣafā’), a secret society of Muslim philosophers, in their influential encyclopedic work “The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity” (Rasā’il ikhwān al-ṣafā’). By their account, the prophets who received revelation om God also committed it to writing—a process termed tadwīn—in the Torah, the Gospels, the Psalms, and the Qur’an.192 The Brethren of Purity delineate the stages of the prophetic mission: “receiving Divine revelation (waḥy), promulgating the call to the nation, composition (tadwīn) of the revelation in succinct language, explaining to people how to recite it properly, clariing the explanation (tafsīr) of its matters, and the attainment of its inner interpretation (ta’wīl).”193 Accordingly, an essential aspect of the work of the prophet was tadwīn—formulation of the divine word in the most fitting language. It would seem that this way of thinking was in Qirqisani’s mind when referring to Moses as the mudawwin of the Torah—the one who engaged in tadwīn in committing God’s word to writing. The Torah narrative is told om the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Geonim and Karaites

53

perspective of Moses and his generation. Qirqisani notes, for example, that the wording of the early chapters of Genesis reflects the geopolitical realities of Moses’ era, not the primordial era depicted in the Creation story or even the time of Abraham:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

The Bible mentions things according to the names by which they were known at the time that it mentions them. For example, “[the river Gihon] is the one that winds through the entire land of Kush” (Gen. 2:12). . . . “[Tigris] is the one that flows east of Ashur” (Gen. 2:14). Now at the time of Creation, neither Kush nor Ashur existed. But since the Prophet— Moses, peace upon him—was the one who composed (dawwana) the Torah . . . and at the time of its composition (tadwīn) by him, they were known by these names. . . . He mentioned these rivers in terms current in his time. And similarly, “Lot looked about him and saw [how well watered was the whole plain of the Jordan]—this was before the Lord had destroyed [Sodom and Gomorrah]” (Gen. 13:10). These are not the words of Lot, but rather the words of Moses . . . for he was the mudawwin of that account.194 Not only did the mudawwin—Moses—update place names according to the realities of his time; he also was responsible for the literary arrangement of the biblical narrative, which at times does not follow strict chronological order. As Qirqisani observes, “the Bible may put earlier in the order of reading and composition (tadwīn) something that occurred later, and may also put later what is earlier.”195 Likewise, Moses, in his capacity as the mudawwin, rendered in Hebrew all the dialogues recorded in the Pentateuch. As Qirqisani remarks, “some things may have been spoken in other languages, but were conveyed in the language in which Scripture was composed (duwwina).”196 Based on Qirqisani’s use of the root d-w-n to describe the compilation of the Pentateuch, Ben-Shammai concludes that in Qirqisani’s opinion, Moses played an active role in determining its literary design and formulation.197 This would be a bold position, indeed, because it seems to have been traditionally assumed that Moses wrote the Pentateuch directly om divine dictation—that is, he received it word-for-word om God.198 Although this doctrine is found in rabbinic sources, Qirqisani seems to subscribe to it.199 Eran Viezel thus questions Ben-Shammai’s conclusion, arguing that even when Moses is said to have engaged in tadwīn, Qirqisani means to say that it was based on God’s dictation.200 It seems difficult to decide this matter conclusively because Qirqisani is rather vague about it. In any case, this literary notion of tadwīn that Qirqisani introduced would be developed within the Karaite school, especially by Yefet ben Eli, to whom we now turn.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

54

Chapter 1

Yefet ben Eli: Philological-Literary Exegesis and Ideology Yefet wrote extensive commentaries on the entire Bible, a monumental project that occupied him for about thirty years (c. 960–990).201 Although it was once thought that Yefet was an unoriginal, eclectic interpreter, he is now credited as an original, even groundbreaking, exegete.202 His commentaries are extant today in numerous manuscripts (many in the libraries of Russia), though only a small action have been critically edited and translated.203 Accordingly, our study of Yefet’s exegetical methodology is subject to revision as more of his writings are published, though the major contours of his exegesis emerge clearly already.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Scripture and Reason Yefet’s interpretive theory was influenced by Qirqisani and even by Saadia, against whom he polemicized.204 Yefet did not write theoretical treatises, so his interpretive theory must be gleaned om his exegetical practice and programmatic remarks in his commentaries.205 Like Saadia and Qirqisani, Yefet argues that biblical verses depicting God experiencing emotion—for example, joy, grief, or jealousy—must be taken as nonliteral expressions (majāzāt).206 Yefet privileged the ẓāhir as a default position but was prepared to engage in ta’wīl where necessary. As a general rule, “there is no justification for rejecting the apparent meaning of the text (ẓāhir al-naṣṣ) of God’s word or that of His prophets, except where the apparent sense is obscure or untenable because it is contradicted by reason or a clear text (naṣṣ muḥkam).”207 Yefet applies this rule on Jer. 23:24, a verse that speaks of God “filling” the heaven and earth, as though God were a physical entity. Yefet interprets this by way of ta’wīl, since God is incorporeal.208 He then formulates a general rule: “There are similar verses in Scripture in which one must diverge om the literal sense (ẓāhir), because if they are taken literally, then speculative reason (naẓar) will oppose it. And it is not possible that revelation should include anything that contradicts what is known through reason (al-ma‘qūl).”209 This echoes the rules formulated by Saadia, though, naturally, Yefet rejects Saadia’s position that rabbinic traditions override the literal sense.210 Yefet regularly asserts that reason and speculation (‘aql, naẓar) are necessary for religious devotion and Bible interpretation.211 Yet he is less sanguine than Saadia or Qirqisani regarding the use of non-Jewish sources to acquire it. Apart om polemicizing against Christianity and Islam (as Saadia and Qirqisani had done), he singles out the Mu‘tazilites as arrogant and evil.212 He likewise disparages “the wise men of the Gentiles . . . such as Plato and Aristotle and their ilk.”213 Yefet criticizes those who seek “foreign wisdom” and prohibits the study of “foreign books,” since these lead to “the denial of God and abandonment of the Torah.”214

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Geonim and Karaites

55

Indeed, he testifies that “the wise men of the Gentiles corrupted many people with their writings, to the point that even some Jews who studied their books brought perdition upon themselves, and the corruption of their fundamental beliefs.”215 According to Yefet, a faithful Jew must limit himself to the study of God’s word in Scripture. In his view, this is a theme of Qohelet, traditionally ascribed to King Solomon, “the wisest of all men” (1 Kings 4:31).216 Although Solomon is depicted in the Bible as possessing scientific knowledge, Yefet argues that Solomon did not acquire his wisdom om books or teachers, but rather, it was granted to him as a gi by God through divine inspiration.217 Yefet’s discussion of Solomon’s wisdom seems to draw upon Saadia’s writings. But Yefet makes an important change in his source, since, according to Saadia, Solomon studied om a teacher.218 In attributing Solomon’s wisdom to divine inspiration, Yefet indicates that God alone must be the source of all instruction.219 Yefet’s opposition to “foreign” learning can perhaps be traced to Daniel alQumisi, who seems to have influenced the thinking of the Karaite center in Jerusalem.220 There is, however, a substantial difference between them. Yefet was influenced by Qirqisani and Saadia—which thus gave him Jewish (and consequently “kosher”) sources for his speculative wisdom, even though his predecessors themselves had studied the “foreign books” that Yefet eschewed. Whatever the acceptable sources of “speculative wisdom” in his view, Yefet was prepared to reinterpret Scripture on the basis of its tenets. Like Samuel ben Hofni, Yefet insisted that the witch of En Dor did not actually raise Samuel’s spirit om the dead, as a literal reading of 1 Samuel 28 suggests. Yefet criticizes those “ignorant of the way of speculation (naẓar)” who fail to recognize the absurdity of that possibility.221 Yefet was also motivated by more characteristically Mu‘tazilite conceptions, such as the doctrine of “prophetic infallibility” (‘iṣmat alanbiyya),222 a doctrine accepted by Saadia, Samuel ben Hofni, and Hayya, who applied ta’wīl to “interpret away” the seemingly inappropriate behavior of biblical figures like Abraham and Moses.223 On Jon. 1:3, “Jonah started out to flee to Tarshish om before God,” Yefet seeks to avoid the implication that the prophet disobeyed God’s command to travel to Nineveh to deliver his prophecy: “This expression (Heb., b-r-ḥ; ‘to flee’) can also be used in the sense of traveling quickly . . . and likewise Jonah, peace upon him, sought the closest route, and sought to sail the sea to shorten his route, to leave om Tarshish to Nineveh . . . and the dictum ‘om before God,’ means om the place where He spoke with him.”224 Daniel al-Qumisi had cited such an opinion, but rejected it because it does not accord with the usual sense of the verb b-r-ḥ.225 Yefet, on the other hand, allowed for ta’wīl to accommodate the Mu‘tazilite doctrine of prophetic infallibility that had been “naturalized” within Jewish learning.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

56

Chapter 1

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Midrash and Prognostic Interpretation Yefet’s theoretical privileging of the literal sense led him at times to disquali midrash. He was aware, for example, of midrashic interpretations that attributed significance to the number of animals Jacob presented to Esau as told in Genesis 32, but argues that these are inappropriate speculations that diverge om the true meaning of the Bible: “He who possesses understanding will not occupy his imagination with fabricating such nonsensical stories or outright inventions. They do not understand the simple meaning of Scripture (basīṭ al-kitāb).”226 Yefet here uses the term basīṭ, a cognate of the Hebrew/Aramaic term peshat, which suggests that Samuel ben Hofni’s use of the term in connection with Saadia’s rule privileging the ẓāhir gained currency in the tenth century.227 Of particular interest is Yefet’s approach to Abraham’s “covenant between the parts” (berit bein ha-betarim), in which Abraham cut in half a heifer, a goat, and a ram and walked between the carcass halves, whereupon God promised to his progeny the land of Canaan (Gen. 15:7–20). The midrash interpreted these actions symbolically—as representing the foreign kingdoms that would conquer the Land of Israel.228 Yefet, however, remarks: “We must take the text (al-naṣṣ) according to its literal sense (ẓāhir), unless necessity requires that we remove it om its literal sense and apply ta’wīl to it. Now since the plain meaning of this text is stable (mustamirr), and there is no compelling factor preventing it om being taken according to its apparent meaning, it must be taken according to its literal sense, namely, that Abraham took these animals, brought them to the altar he built in Hebron, sacrificed them there, and split them in half.”229 Yefet goes on to argue (in his commentary on Gen. 15:17) that the symbolism in the book of Daniel (where various animals are indeed said to symbolize various nations) cannot be applied to the animals cut in half by Abraham, and he criticizes Saadia for doing so: When the dean of the yeshiva was distracted, he understood the heifer to represent the kingdom of the Chaldees, the female goat the king of Greece, and the ram the king of Persia and Media, but he became confused about Edom and Ishmael. Once, he said that “a turtledove and a young pigeon” were Edom and Ishmael, whereas another time he said that the turtledove symbolized Edom and Ishmael together and that the young pigeon stood for Israel. . . . All this indicates his confusion concerning this passage. Had he followed its literal sense (ẓāhir) —as is his practice in many places, in which he refutes those who remove the texts om their literal sense and engage in ta’wīl without restraint—he would have been protected om this great error.230

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Geonim and Karaites

57

Through his criticism, Yefet offers Saadia a backhanded compliment for his usual practice of privileging the literal sense and not engaging in ta’wīl, a shared feature of their exegesis. Yefet did not reain entirely om ta’wīl and even applied “prognostic” interpretation. He interprets the Song of Songs as an allegory about the history of Israel, with special emphasis on the Karaite movement.231 As Yefet writes on Song 1:6, “My brothers became angry at me, made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I did not guard”: “ ‘My brothers’ connotes . . . ‘the shepherds of the Diaspora’ [the Rabbanite leadership; compare Jeremiah 23] who brought Israel to ruin by the wickedness of their management and lack of pity. . . . ‘made me keeper’ . . . the shepherds of the Diaspora . . . distorted many divine precepts and forced Israel to keep them, since they sentenced anyone to death who disobeys them. As they said, ‘anyone who violates the words of the Sages deserves death’ (b.‘Eruvin 21b).”232 It could be argued that the Song of Songs is an exceptional text because it was traditionally understood allegorically and that Yefet’s application of ta’wīl in that case is not remarkable.233 But Yefet’s prognostic interpretations are also prominent in his Psalms commentary. For example, he identifies the superscriptions of Psalms 45, 69, and 80, each containing the term shoshanah, as references to the Karaite movement. In doing so, he drew upon the trope of Song 2:1–2, where the beloved—who symbolically represents Israel—is compared to a “lily (shoshanah) among the thorns.”234 Yefet makes a similar assumption about the term maskil (“wise one”) appearing in a number of Psalms superscriptions, since that term had been used as an appellation of the Karaites of Jerusalem om the time of Daniel al-Qumisi.235 And in his commentaries on Psalms 74 and 79, which describe the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in antiquity, Yefet weaves the contemporary travails of the Jewish people into his interpretation.236 Most of Yefet’s commentaries remain unedited, so it is difficult, for now, to determine the extent of his prognostic interpretation. Yet it is evident, in varying proportions, in those of his commentaries that have been edited—for example, Hosea, Esther, and Daniel.237 Scholars of Karaite interpretation have endeavored to explain this phenomenon in light of Yefet’s stated rule that privileges the literal sense (ẓāhir). Michael Wechsler argues that Yefet’s prognostic exegesis is not necessarily “nonliteral” because he sincerely believed that events in his epoch amount to a “literal fulfillment of these biblical predictions.”238 But this does not answer the question completely, since Yefet seems to recognize that his prognostic interpretations go beyond the ẓāhir—precisely the error he ascribed to Saadia.239 Polliack observes that Yefet engaged in prognostic interpretation less equently than Daniel al-Qumisi did, and this, she argues, indicates his respect for the literal sense.240 It might be said, then, that Yefet inherited a tradition of prognostic

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

58

Chapter 1

exegesis that he could not ignore (and perhaps even wished to embrace); but he limited it on the basis of rational, historically sensitive, philological-contextual exegesis.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Literary Sensibilities As part of his philological analysis, Yefet manifests profound literary sensitivity, using an array of Arabic poetic and rhetorical terms to note stylistic features of the biblical text.241 Drory attributes this interest in the Bible’s formal features to the influence of the Muslim claim of i‘jāz al-qur’an—the stylistic inimitability of the Qur’an.242 Making extensive use of Qirqisani’s notion of tadwīn, Yefet attributes a dynamic literary role to the mudawwin to highlight the fact that the historical events, dialogues, and even communications directly om God were not recorded mechanically in the Bible, but rather were shaped according to poetic principles.243 Yefet uses the term mudawwin in reference to two different—albeit related—literary functions: an editor of preexisting texts, responsible for their selection and arrangement in the Bible; and an implied author whose voice narrates the biblical story and, implicitly, selects and arranges the historical data within it. In classical Arabic, the term diwān connotes an anthology or collection of poems, compiled by a mudawwin (editor, compiler). Accordingly, Yefet uses the term mudawwin to connote the individuals who gathered, edited, and arranged the biblical text under prophetic guidance.244 In his view, each of the fieen literary prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve “Minor Prophets”—was responsible for writing down his own collection (diwān) of prophecies.245 In this respect, Yefet echoes the literary role of prophecy articulated by the Brethren of Purity, noted above.246 But Yefet recognized further literary development in the prophetic books, attributing the next step of their compilation to an anonymous mudawwin who decided on the overall arrangement of those fieen books in the Bible.247 The mudawwin also selected which prophecies to include in each book. As Yefet remarks: “Many of the prophecies of Hosea and Micah were omitted om the collection (diwān) . . . for [the mudawwin] did not record most of their prophecies; rather, he recorded only those that would prove necessary for the Jewish people in exile. The prophecies that they prophesied for their own generation he did not record fully, just as he shortened the stories of the kings and recorded only some of them in Chronicles and Kings, as he says in each of them, ‘Now the rest of the acts of so and so [are found in the chronicles of kings of Judah and Israel].’ ”248 In the books of Kings and Chronicles, the biblical narrator regularly acknowledges that he had recounted the history of each king only partially—and that other information is available in their respective chronicles.249 This implies that the mudawwin of those books drew selectively om earlier historical sources. Yefet argues that the mudawwin of the prophetic

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Geonim and Karaites

59

books likewise drew selectively om larger collections of prophecies only those with eternal significance.250 The role of the mudawwin in the arrangement of the historical narratives of the former prophets is the subject of Yefet’s commentary on the opening verse of Ruth, “Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled” (Ruth 1:1): “The mudawwin told the story of Ruth and Boaz in a separate book, because the stories of the Judges have nothing in common with them. He also arranged it together with the other Scrolls and placed it before them for chronological considerations, as Boaz antedated Solomon.”251 Yefet posits that the mudawwin saw fit to separate the family-based narrative of Ruth om the national narrative of Judges, and decided to place Ruth in the Five Scrolls based on the historical considerations.252 Yefet also notes the literary activity of a mudawwin responsible for the arrangement of the Psalms, a matter he discusses in his commentary on Psalm 1.253 This function was of particular importance because Yefet ascribes special meaning to the juxtaposition of the Psalms.254 For example, he explains that the mudawwin placed Psalm 85 (a psalm that expresses thanksgiving for divine grace) aer Psalm 84 (a psalm expressing a longing for the “courts of the Lord” [84:3]), in order to teach us that “the Lord accepted the prayers of those who desire to return to His land and holiness.”255 Yefet also ascribes the headings of the Psalms to the mudawwin. For example, he notes in Psalm 56 that the mudawwin attached a heading to David’s prayer to clari that it was composed when he was a captive of the Philistines in Gath.256 Yefet elsewhere identifies additions by the mudawwin when editing the books of the Bible. For example, regarding the first two verses of Qohelet, he remarks: “These verses are the statement of the mudawwin, and were not said by Qohelet. He intends to mention the purpose of the book as an introduction, just as it says in Proverbs, ‘To know wisdom and education’ (Prov. 1:6), and the rest of that section in which he details the purpose of the book and its utility.”257 In Yefet’s opinion, the opening verses of Qohelet and Proverbs were penned by the mudawwin in order to supply information about their authors and to summarize their main themes. This function of the mudawwin is, likewise, evident in Yefet’s commentary on Esther. In one place, Yefet remarks that the mudawwin drew his material om an original text composed by Queen Esther herself.258 Yet the mudawwin, in Yefet’s view, had his own agenda in composing the book of Esther. Whatever the personal or national motives of Esther to record this narrative, the mudawwin had a specific religious objective in mind: “The intention of the mudawwin was to inform us the reason that the Jews accepted upon themselves the obligation to celebrate the days of Purim.”259 This, according to Yefet, guided the mudawwin in his selection and arrangement of the historical data in the book of Esther.260 The

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

60

Chapter 1

Purim celebration commemorates the divine intervention that saved the Jewish people miraculously in Persia—and it is this aspect of the narrative highlighted by the mudawwin. As noted by Wechsler, according to Yefet, the mudawwin refashioned Esther’s Urtext into a theologically significant scriptural book.261 The second function that Yefet ascribes to the mudawwin entails literary activity of a different, albeit related, order: to describe how the implied authorial voice within the biblical narrative selects and organizes the details of the story and interacts with the voices and perspectives of its characters. In making his observations about the workings of the mudawwin in these cases, Yefet manifests sensitivity to intricacies of biblical narrative noted in modern literary scholarship of the Bible.262 In such cases, Yefet uses the term al-mudawwin to connote the narrator, a literary abstraction rather than an editor distinct om the original author of the biblical texts. Yefet, for example, distinguishes between the voices of the narrator and the characters in the story in his commentary on Judg. 5:31, which concludes the victory hymn sung by Deborah (Judg. 5:1–31), “So let all your enemies perish, O Lord: but let them who love Him be as the sun when he goes forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years.” Regarding the words “And the land had rest forty years,” Yefet remarks: “This is the utterance of the mudawwin. The end of the hymn is the word ‘in his might.’ ”263 Whereas the hymn is a quotation of the words sung by Deborah, the concluding clause is a historical statement by the narrator. It is helpful to contrast the tenor of Yefet’s remark with that of Saadia on this verse: “Then Scripture (lit., ‘the book’; al-kitāb) said: ‘And the land had rest forty years.’ ”264 For Saadia, it is “Scripture” that “speaks”; Yefet, on the other hand, identifies the voice of a biblical narrator, the mudawwin. At times, Yefet notes that the mudawwin adopts a perspective unavailable to the characters in the story. For example, in the account of the twelve spies Moses sent to scout out the land of Canaan, we read: “And they came unto Wadi Eshkol, and there they cut down a branch with a single cluster (eshkol) of grapes” (Num. 13:23). Yefet remarks: “His utterance ‘unto Wadi Eshkol’ is the utterance of the mudawwin in the fortieth year, for it was Moses who named it ‘Wadi Eshkol’ aer the spies returned.”265 As Yefet observes, the following verse records the origin of the name of “Wadi Eshkol”: “That place was named Wadi Eshkol, because of the cluster of grapes that the Israelites cut down there” (Num. 13:24). This name, then, was not known to the spies when they reached the wadi. That geographic detail is told om the perspective of the mudawwin, the narrator later telling the story. By its nature, the voice of the biblical narrator tends to be anonymous, a fact reflected in Yefet’s reticence about the identity of the mudawwin. As modern literary theorists note, one must distinguish between the voice of the narrator or

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Geonim and Karaites

61

“implied author” and the actual historical author, a distinction to which Yefet seems sensitive in adopting the term mudawwin.266 To be sure, Yefet states unequivocally that Moses “wrote down (kataba) the [entire] Torah,” om the very first verse of Genesis, till the concluding verse of Deuteronomy—echoing Qirqisani.267 Historically speaking, then, the Pentateuch conveys Moses’ authorial voice. But Yefet refers to Moses anonymously as the mudawwin in his literary role of the narrator—distinct om the historical figure of Moses, who occasionally acts as a character within the narrative. Yefet thus says that the mudawwin relied on the name later given to Wadi Eshkol—by Moses. Yefet makes this distinction clearly on Exod. 3:2, where he remarks: “Know that the mudawwin said: ‘And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him [in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush]’ (Exod. 3:2) and reported about Moses: ‘he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, [and the bush was not consumed]’ (Exod. 3:2).”268 When seeing what he thought was a burning bush, Moses did not know that he was in the presence of an angel. Therefore, Yefet concludes, the words “And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him” must be those of the mudawwin— speaking om the objective narrative perspective, rather than om the perspective of Moses as a character in the story.269 Although Moses was the one who committed the Pentateuch to writing, in recounting this episode about himself Moses spoke in the voice of the anonymous narrator, and thus distinguished between his own perspective at the time, and the more informed perspective he had when recording this story.270 Yefet regularly points out that the mudawwin provides information in the biblical narrative selectively, according to considerations required for the proper development of the story.271 Literary scholars of the Bible have noted that it is not uncommon for a detail in the narrative to be omitted, only to be revealed later in a subsequent dialogue.272 As Adele Berlin remarks, “the narrator is not an annalist; he tells his audience only what he wants them to know, and only when he wants them to know it.”273 Yefet thus notes that the biblical narrator “abridged” the narrative, omitting details that are reported only later. For example, regarding the words of Jacob to his wives, “As you know, I have served your father with all my might; but your father cheated me, and changed my wages ten times” (Gen. 31:6–7), Yefet remarks: “His words: . . . ‘and he changed my wages ten times’ indicate that [Laban] changed his salary ten times. We do not come across this information except here. It seems that the mudawwin abridged it (ikhtaṣarahu). Jacob is obviously correct without doubt, for he stated this to Laban’s face . . . ‘and you have changed my wages ten times’ (Gen. 31:41).”274 This aspect of Laban’s deceit was not recorded earlier. Yefet thus struggles with the possible implication that Jacob was lying when he mentioned it to his wives. Yefet concludes that the event Jacob reported must have occurred, because

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

62

Chapter 1

otherwise Jacob would not have been able to challenge his father-in-law, Laban, to his face. As for its omission in the original narrative, Yefet surmises that this was a deliberate strategy by the mudawwin. Similarly, Yefet notes the disparities between the way Joseph’s brothers reported their encounter with him to their father, Jacob (Gen. 42:29–34), and the actual narrative of that encounter earlier in the chapter (Gen. 42:7–20). About the verse “When they came to their father, Jacob . . . they told him all that had befallen them,” Yefet remarks: “The mudawwin said part of it explicitly, and abridged (ikhtaṣara) part. For it does not say in Scripture that they informed him of their lineage, and so here it clarifies something that is not made explicit there, namely, his saying, ‘I will then restore your brother to you, and you shall go about eely as merchants in the land’ (Gen. 42:34).”275 The principle behind this tendency is spelled out by Yefet later in the chapter: “This is the typical manner of Scripture (ṭarīq li-l-kitāb): it abridges (yakhtaṣiru) in some places and does not supply the account in full (or, properly, ḥaqqatan), relying on what it explains concerning this elsewhere.”276 Yefet’s observation that abridgment by the mudawwin is a common convention in biblical narrative can be traced to the principle established by Qirqisani: “Scripture may recount a certain story without completely recounting everything that occurred therein. Yet what at first it has not recounted, it recounts in another place.”277 Qirqisani’s principle, in turn, is an echo of the rabbinic maxim that “the words of Scripture are poor in their place and rich in another place” (j.Rosh ha-Shanah 3:5).278 Among all of these sources, Yefet most clearly conceptualizes the notion of a narrator determining the order in which the biblical story is told. Most importantly, Yefet ascribes intentionality to the mudawwin, as evident om his remarks regarding the stark introduction of Moses’ birth in Exodus 2, “A certain man of the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw how beautiful he was, she hid him for three months” (Exod. 2:1–2). This son, of course, would come to be known as Moses, as described in the remainder of the chapter. In this initial brief narrative, Moses’ father and mother are not identified, nor are his older brother or sister even mentioned. As Yefet explains: “The mudawwin omitted (lit., ‘abridged’; ikhtaṣara) the mention of his lineage here, as his purpose (Ar., gharaḍ) was to inform us how this decree [of Pharaoh] was performed in Israel, and by whom they were saved—by Moses, may he rest in peace, who was a savior om the day he appeared in the world. Yet [all] this was enabled by his mother, and this is why [the mudawwin] omitted mentioning Moses [by name], and said, ‘the woman conceived and gave birth to a son.’ ”279 The narrator omitted any mention of Moses’ lineage in order to highlight the heroism of his mother and to move

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Geonim and Karaites

63

quickly into the story of how Pharaoh’s decree was averted—the major theme of Exodus 2. Given the active role that the mudawwin plays in shaping the biblical narrative, scholars have considered whether Yefet’s use of the term in his Pentateuch commentary may imply that he ascribed its literary formulation to Moses—and not God Himself. Precisely such a conclusion is drawn by Haggai Ben-Shammai and articulated most forcefully by Marzena Zawanowska.280 Zawanowska points, for example, to the commentary on Gen. 3:23, where Yefet writes: “The words ‘and Lord God said’ (Gen. 3:22) are those of the storyteller (al-muḥki), Moses, may peace be upon him, who reports to us the words of God, just as he reported God’s other utterances, starting om ‘and God said: “let there be light”’ (Gen. 1:3) until this verse, which are altogether eighteen utterances of God.”281 Here Moses is termed the muḥki, an Arabic term for the one who transmits an account—the storyteller—which, as Ben-Shammai notes, is oen used interchangeably with the term mudawwin.282 The “voice” of the narrator is not God’s but rather that of Moses, who conveys God’s words within the story of Creation. Yefet makes a similar remark regarding the Creation story elsewhere: “The words ‘and God made the firmament’ (Gen. 1:7) constitute a statement by the mudawwin, peace upon him, whereas ‘Let there be a firmament . . .’ (Gen. 1:6) and the rest of that verse are the words of God, exalted be He. Similarly in the previous passage, only four words are pronounced by God, exalted be He, ‘Let there be light’ (Heb., yehi or; Gen. 1:3), ‘day,’ ‘night’ (Gen. 1:5), whereas the rest of the chapter is an account reported by the mudawwin (ḥikāyat al-mudawwin), peace upon him.”283 The direct words of God during the Creation, as noted by Yefet, were few. Most of the account of Creation is the words of the narrator: Moses. Indeed, Yefet conceptualized the recording of the Creation story in the following way: God taught Moses how the world was created, and Moses committed this account to writing in the Genesis. As Yefet remarks regarding the story of Adam and Eve: “Moses, may peace be upon him, says that he was informed by God that when Adam had le paradise, he knew Eve, his wife.”284 Yefet also emphasizes that Moses, as the narrator, was selective in describing events that transpired in the creation of the world and the early history of humanity. With respect to God’s instructions to Adam that he may eat om all the trees of the Garden of Eden except for the tree of knowledge, Yefet remarks: “Moses recounted (dawwana) for us this commandment om among all the commandments that were imposed upon Adam.”285 According to Yefet, Adam actually was given a number of divine commandments—an ancient Jewish tradition286—but Moses recorded only the one relevant for the Genesis narrative. Zawanowska, developing a position advanced by Ben-Shammai, reaches the following conclusion: “Moses decided on his own, what to include in the Torah,

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

64

Chapter 1

and what to omit as well as how to fashion the text. . . . Moses was far om being a mere scribe, or a passive medium of divine revelation, and might easily be considered a human co-author of the Torah, not only formulating in his own words what he heard om God, but also and of his own accord omitting and adding entire passages to the Holy Text.”287 Zawanowska acknowledges that elsewhere Yefet is clear that Moses “wrote down” the Torah entirely om God’s dictation— the traditional Jewish view, which Qirqisani reiterates.288 In commenting on one Genesis narrative, Yefet credits God Himself with the process of tadwīn: “This story, as well as every story that resembles it, God recorded (dawwana) in His Book and established them firmly for eternity.”289 This implies that the act of tadwīn, “recording” the biblical narrative, was essentially divine, with Moses participating only passively, as God’s agent.290 There are a number of ways to reconcile these two conflicting strands in Yefet. Zawanowska favors the first conclusion: that Moses was primarily responsible for the literary formulation of the Pentateuch, having received the content of its history and laws om God. As already noted, this is how Ben-Shammai understands Yefet—and Qirqisani before him, both in light of the characterization of prophetic writing articulated by the Brethren of Purity.291 Zawanowska argues that Yefet felt compelled to “camouflage” this revolutionary view by repeating the traditional doctrine that Moses wrote down the Pentateuch om God’s dictation.292 Alternatively, it seems that even Yefet’s boldest formulations can be explained in a more traditional way: that when he says that Moses or the mudawwin (implicitly understood to be Moses) presented history or laws selectively or according to a particular literary design, Yefet simply meant to say that Moses gave the Pentateuch its final literary formulation—at God’s dictation. Furthermore, it seems that the conclusion reached by Ben-Shammai and Zawanowska is based on their conflation of the two distinct roles of the mudawwin in Yefet’s commentaries: that of the editor, as opposed to that of the narrator. The mudawwin-editor whose work Yefet noted in the prophetic books, as discussed above, was a historical figure who played an active role in shaping the final form of the biblical text. The mudawwin-narrator, on the other hand, is merely an abstract literary construction, the voice that is theoretically “telling the story,” distinct om the historical author.293 It seems that when speaking of Moses as the mudawwin in the sense of the narrator, Yefet does not necessarily intend to make any claim about Moses as the historical author of the Pentateuch—meaning that he was not editing preexisting texts, or even modiing oral accounts given to him by God. As Viezel argues, Yefet found the notion of the mudawwin a useful literary abstraction for pointing out literary features of the biblical narrative—but not to make novel claims about the Bible’s historical authorship.294 It is conceivable that Yefet at times in his own mind blurred the distinction between these two roles—and the evidence for this is that he did, in fact, use the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Geonim and Karaites

65

term mudawwin for both. As noted by Polliack: “The term mudawwin appears to have served Yefet as a composite literary term, blending several functions into one overall concept”; in some cases, the mudawwin is “the narrator whose role is to control and carry out the narration process of the biblical text,” whereas “at times, this aspect converges with his secondary role as the redactor-editor of the biblical text, responsible for its stringing together into a cohesive whole.”295 Given the fluidity with which one sense of the term blends with the other, it is conceivable that Yefet may have at some points contemplated the possibility that Moses played an active role in the formulation of the Pentateuch, as argued by Ben-Shammai and Zawanowska.296 However, Yefet does not state this clearly, and elsewhere even seems to deny this possibility. When all is said and done, his opinion on this matter is necessarily subject to interpretation. Yefet’s use of the notion of tadwīn and the term al-mudawwin reverberate in the writings of later Karaite exegetes, such as Yūsuf Ibn Nūḥ and Jeshua ben Judah.297 Beyond the Karaite center in Jerusalem, these notions continued to exert influence in the Byzantine Karaite tradition. Jacob ben Reuben in Sefer ha-‘Osher, followed by Aaron ben Joseph in Mivḥar Yesharim, regularly used the term hasofer (lit., “the scribe”) to connote the biblical narrator-editor as Yefet used the term al-mudawwin.298 Intriguingly, there is virtually no parallel to the Karaite interest in the work of the mudawwin in the geonic tradition, or even in the subsequent exegetical tradition that sprang forth om it in al-Andalus.299 But in other branches of the peshat tradition, there are intriguing reflections of Yefet’s mudawwin. Abraham Ibn Ezra does not use a clear Hebrew equivalent to the term; but he does discuss Moses’ role in the formulation of the Pentateuch.300 A clearer parallel emerges in the term ha-sadran used in the Rabbanite exegetical tradition that developed in Byzantine lands (as discussed in Chapter 5)—where Yefet’s commentaries could have been accessible in Hebrew translation. Intriguingly, an analogous interest in the work of the biblical editor-narrator also emerged in the northern French peshat tradition (as discussed in Chapter 4).

Conclusions: Bible Exegesis and Cultural Interactions In the tenth century, the incorporation of Muslim learning transformed Jewish Bible exegesis—as first attested robustly in the works of Saadia Gaon. Writing in Arabic and adopting Muslim hermeneutical concepts, Saadia constructed a new system for interpreting the Bible philologically, in light of all sources of knowledge, including “speculative reason” and rabbinic traditions. With the exception of the very last category, this system was adopted by the Karaite interpreters Qirqisani and Yefet. All three of these exegetes argued that Scripture is to be taken literally (according to the ẓāhir), under the default presumption that its language is “clear” (muḥkam)—an echo of Qur’an 3,7. Yet where the literal sense conflicts

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

66

Chapter 1

with other sources of knowledge, reinterpretation (ta’wīl) is to be applied, since the language of Scripture may be “ambiguous” (mutashābih) and contain nonliteral language (majāz).301 There were precursors to Saadia’s exegetical revolution. Daniel al-Qumisi deserves credit as an earlier philological Jewish Bible exegete. Although he wrote in Hebrew, al-Qumisi employed some of the Muslim concepts applied more saliently by Saadia. Indeed, Saadia may have known al-Qumisi’s commentaries (which he could have encountered in his early years in Palestine) and perhaps even polemicized against them.302 There is stronger evidence that Saadia was influenced by al-Muqammiṣ, though it is difficult to trace the exegetical implications of that path of influence, since so little of the latter’s Bible commentary has survived. This brings us to the question—debated in recent scholarship—of what could have prompted Saadia to depart so radically om the prevailing modes of geonic Bible interpretation and replace them with a new Arabophone system. Drory argued that he did so under the influence of the Karaite revolution inspired by the Muslim model to place the Bible at the center of Jewish learning.303 It seems that this strong claim is an oversimplification that must be qualified. While the Karaites predated Saadia in adopting Muslim genres of religious learning, the open and full-scale use of qur’anic hermeneutical concepts to interpret the Bible seems to have been Saadia’s innovation. Indeed, Qirqisani and Yefet were probably influenced by him in this respect, as argued by Ben-Shammai.304 It is likely that Saadia recognized the need to reply to the Karaite challenge by developing a new method of Bible interpretation rather than relying upon older geonic models of learning. But he did not merely mimic existing Karaite interpretation. He independently drew upon the broad Arabic education he acquired within his Muslim milieu to translate the Bible into Arabic and establish a new amework for its interpretation. Recent scholarship points to Syriac Christian Bible interpretation as an influence on the Judeo-Arabic exegetical revolution, though the literary evidence is agmentary.305 The missing link would be al-Muqammiṣ, who converted to Christianity before returning to Judaism. Much of our knowledge of his life and works comes om Qirqisani, who reports that during his years as a Christian, al-Muqammiṣ studied with a certain Nana (Nonnus) in Nisibis. Upon his return to Judaism, al-Muqammiṣ produced commentaries on Genesis and Qohelet translated om Christian works.306 Although some have argued that al-Muqammiṣ was a Karaite (as later Karaites regard him as an authority), Sarah Stroumsa maintains that he was unaware of the Karaite-Rabbanite conflict.307 In her opinion, al-Muqammiṣ paved the way for a new focus on Bible interpretation in both camps. She notes that his exegetical interest preceded his theological writing,

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Geonim and Karaites

67

which reflects the centrality of the Bible that would become characteristic of JudeoArabic culture. In her view, “this feature was not modeled primarily on the centrality of the Koran in the Muslim literary system, but rather on the centrality of the Bible in Syriac Christianity.”308 Saadia seems to have been influenced by al-Muqammiṣ;309 and Qirqisani reports having read his books. But since nearly all of al-Muqammiṣ’s commentaries are lost, it is difficult to judge the influence they exerted. Moreover, Qirqisani gives al-Muqammiṣ a mixed review, stating that he at times “was guilty of foolish verbosity.”310 In sum, Syriac Christian influence may have been a catalyst for Jews in the Muslim East to focus on Bible interpretation in the ninth century. But the available evidence points to the centrality of Muslim learning in the transformation of Jewish exegesis in the tenth century. The preceding discussion suggests that the exegetical revolution with which Saadia has been credited—as “the first speaker on all matters”—was actually predicated upon earlier steps in Jewish learning. The process may have started in the mid-ninth century with a shi toward Bible interpretation under Syriac Christian influence, as represented by al-Muqammiṣ, followed by the Karaite adoption of Muslim modes of scriptural interpretation in the late ninth century, as attested in al-Qumisi. Saadia’s pivotal contribution was to bring this tendency to new heights by developing an unprecedented full-scale interpretive system that integrated Muslim elements with a traditional Jewish reading of the Bible. This brings us to our final point, which entails qualiing the characterization of Saadia as the “father of peshat exegesis.” In pioneering a new mode of Bible interpretation that privileged the literal sense (ẓāhir), Saadia actually aimed to defend rabbinic tradition and geonic learning. He emphasized the necessity of rejecting the ẓāhir when it does not conform to rabbinic traditions. Midrashic interpretations, reworked and reworded in Arabic, are oen incorporated into Saadia’s commentaries.311 Saadia’s privileging of the philological-contextual sense— what later exegetes would term peshat—was decisive but not absolute. Nor did Saadia invoke the talmudic peshat maxim to support his powerful new interpretive axioms.312 It was le to Samuel ben Hofni to validate Saadia’s system by citing the maxim to argue that the Rabbis themselves privileged the ẓāhir—as an initial point of reference. But midrashic tradition still largely controlled Rabbanite reading of Scripture, and both Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni were oen forced to abandon the ẓāhir as a result, thus rendering the peshat maxim a rule meant to be broken. This would change as the geonic tradition would migrate to Muslim Spain, as discussed in the next chapter.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Chapter 2

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

The Andalusian School: Linguistic and Literary Advances in the Muslim Orbit

With seeds planted in the Muslim East, Rabbanite Bible exegesis was ultimately transplanted to al-Andalus, where it flourished in the eleventh century, nourished by a revolution in Hebrew grammar and philology brought about by the great linguists Menahem ben Saruq, Judah Hayyuj, and Jonah Ibn Janah. A new peshat model would be constructed by Ibn Janah, the central figure of this chapter. Ibn Janah mentions the work of Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni as precedents for his conception of peshat—even though he, in fact, transformed their exegetical model into a platform for a new peshat theater. Yet Ibn Janah was working with far more than just the writings of those two geonic figures, as important interpretive innovations by authors in the intervening century powered his hermeneutics. Though the focus of this study is the tradition of Bible interpretation, some remarks are in order regarding the transfer of geonic learning in general westward in Muslim lands. The rabbinic academy in Kairouan was an important way station in this migration, in which a key figure was R. Hananel ben Hushiel (c. 980– 1055). Evidently of Italian origin (referred to by the Tosafists as “R. Hananel of Rome”), Hananel was educated in the Kairouan academy, where his father, R. Hushiel, served as dean and maintained contact with Hayya Gaon in Baghdad.1 In Kairouan, Hananel absorbed geonic learning and ultimately succeeded his father as dean of the academy. Interpretations of some biblical passages attributed to R. Hananel by later medieval commentators largely feature Hebrew paraphrases of interpretations by Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni.2 Of greater importance were Hananel’s original Talmud commentaries that offer an expansive paraphrase of the oen cryptic talmudic text and elucidate its difficult language. Geonic traditions form the bedrock of Hananel’s commentaries, though he at times advances his own views at odds with the geonim.3 R. Nathan ben Jehiel of Rome (c. 1035–1106) relied heavily on Hananel’s Talmud commentaries in his important talmudic lexicon, Sefer ha-‘Arukh. Hananel’s most important student in Kairouan was R. Isaac

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Andalusian School

69

Alfasi (c. 1013–1103), who founded an academy in Lucena that became a major center of rabbinic learning in al-Andalus. Alfasi’s monumental abridgment of the Talmud, which incorporated geonic halakhic decisions as well as Hananel’s elucidations, would serve as the foundation of Andalusian Talmud scholarship.4

Judah Ibn Quraysh: Comparative Philology

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Already in Saadia’s generation, the tradition of Jewish Bible interpretation likewise began to migrate westward in Muslim lands. These initial steps did not have the breadth or scope of Saadia’s works, focusing instead on particular interpretive issues. Judah Ibn Quraysh, who lived in North Aica at the beginning of the tenth century, is an early link in this tradition chain—predating Samuel ben Hofni Gaon and even the great Karaite scholar Qirqisani. In enumerating the “elders of the Hebrew language,” Abraham Ibn Ezra lists Ibn Quraysh immediately aer Saadia and before Menahem ben Saruq, and records that he came om Tahert (Tiaret), a city in Algeria destroyed in 908.5 Ibn Quraysh eventually settled in Kairouan, where he composed his important epistle (Ar., risāla; the work became known simply as “the Risāla”) to the Jews of Fez, urging them to rescind their decision to discontinue reciting the Aramaic Targum in the synagogue. The Risāla also touches upon related interpretive issues, especially the usefulness of comparisons with Aramaic and Arabic for understanding the Bible. Ibn Quraysh addresses what, by his time, was becoming the controversial issue of how to interpret anthropomorphic depictions of God in the Bible: Whoever explains these in terms of “Scripture spoke in the language of men” avoids . . . saying improper things about God . . . and will be ee of that which contradicts reason with respect to the attributes of the Creator, may He be exalted. By doing so, he will not need to resort to contriving absurd translation (al-tarjama al-muḥāliyya) and worthless nonliteral renderings (al-ta’wīlāt al-ḥashwiyya), senseless in both Arabic and Hebrew . . . such as the words of those who explained that “heart” (lev; Gen. 6:6) means prophet . . . as they say, “He was saddened in His heart” means “He caused distress to His prophet.”6 The crux cited om Gen. 6:6 was addressed by Saadia, as discussed in Chapter 1. Ibn Quraysh records that the theological difficulty it poses was resolved by an unnamed scholar through nonliteral interpretation (ta’wīl), taking God’s “heart” (lev) to mean “His prophet,” which brought along with it a reconstrual of the verb wa-yit‘aṣev (lit., “He was saddened”) to mean “He caused distress.” Ibn Quraysh finds this and similar interpretations objectionable. He therefore offers a more global alternative strategy by invoking the talmudic maxim “Scripture spoke in

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

70

Chapter 2

the language of men,” which he takes to mean that Scripture regularly uses anthropomorphic terms to speak of God.7 Accordingly, “He was saddened in His heart” is to be rendered literally—as an imaginary depiction of God as if He experienced despair. Who was the target of Ibn Quraysh’s criticism? A logical candidate would indeed be Saadia, who employed ta’wīl liberally in cases like this. Although the extant versions of Saadia’s Tafsīr and Genesis commentary reflect a different translation strategy to resolve the anthropomorphism in Gen. 6:6 (as discussed in Chapter 1), Richard Steiner marshals evidence indicating that the one cited by Ibn Quraysh reflects an early version of Saadia’s rendering.8 The criticism that Ibn Quraysh leveled against Saadia’s translation strategy, according to Steiner, was intended to bolster the authority of the Targums, which do not take the same liberties with the biblical text. Qirqisani, on the other hand, disparaged the Targum of Onkelos on the Pentateuch and Jonathan ben Uziel on the Prophets for the “absurdities” (muḥālāt) they contain.9 Qirqisani’s criticism of the “absurdities” in the Targums echoes Ibn Quraysh’s criticism of Saadia. Given the fact that Qirqisani—cited in Chapter 1—mentions that “the Rabbanites” invoke the maxim that “Scripture spoke in the language of men” to interpret the anthropomorphic expressions in the Bible, it is conceivable that he is referring to the Risāla of Ibn Quraysh.10 In fact, Ibn Quraysh may have been the first author to apply the talmudic maxim in this way.11 In any case, his strategy, rather than that of Saadia, would be adopted widely. This shi is evident already in Hayya Gaon.12 It would become more pronounced in the Andalusian tradition.13 Joseph Kimhi, drawing upon the pietist-philosopher Bahya Ibn Paquda (Saragossa, eleventh century), spells out its implications: “It is typical for the Torah to speak figuratively (‘by way of mashal’) in the language of men about God . . . in order that people should learn about Him, and imagine Him in human form, even though He is far om human. This is done so that the ignorant should comprehend and understand the Creator, without harming the wise, who will understand the true nature of the matter. They will remove the rind and eat the uit.”14 Joseph Kimhi’s son Radak (David Kimhi) writes similarly: “Scripture speaks about God in the language of men. It thus attributes to Him sight, hearing, smell, hand and foot, as spoken about humans. But this is figurative (‘by way of mashal’) in order to help people understand.”15 Such anthropomorphic terms retain their normal sense, but are said “by way of mashal,” that is, as part of a linguistic-literary strategy of personification. Radak interprets Gen. 6:6 in this spirit: “ ‘He was saddened in His heart’. . . this is by way of mashal, as God does not actually experience joy or sorrow. . . . And the opposite of ‘He was saddened’ is ‘the Lord rejoices in His works’ (Ps. 104:31). All are by way of mashal, for as a man rejoices over something proper in his eyes, and is saddened by something evil in his eyes, so it is predicated of God, by way

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Andalusian School

71

of transference (ha‘avarah). Now since human joy and sorrow are in the heart, Scripture says about God ‘in His heart’ by way of mashal.”16 Pointing to similar portrayals of God’s emotions, Radak accepts the literal sense of the verb “He was saddened” and the modifier “in His heart,” which evoke an imaginary portrayal of God’s disappointment.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Anonymous Chronicles Commentator: Peshat as Succinct Interpretation The impact of Judah ben Quraysh on the subsequent tradition was limited. His writings were known and used almost exclusively by linguists in the next generation or two, such as Menahem ben Saruq. Intriguingly, his imprint is also evident in an anonymous Chronicles commentary penned in Hebrew ascribed to “a student of Saadia Gaon,” as the author seems to have firsthand knowledge of Saadia’s teachings. The commentary, published in 1874 by Raphael Kirchheim, has long puzzled scholars, resulting in a debate over its provenance.17 Since this work occasionally cites Judah ben Quraysh and “the sages of Kairouan,” it is thought to have been composed in the second half of the tenth century by a student of Saadia’s in North Aica.18 Yet the fact that it is in Hebrew suggests that it was written in a Christian land where Jewish readers were unfamiliar with Arabic. Some of its features are— surprisingly—characteristic of the exegetical school that would develop in northern France a century later, such as vernacular glosses in Old French and the use of prooexts om piyyut to illuminate biblical locutions.19 Eran Viezel and Aaron Mondschein thus conjecture that the commentary was penned in northern France before Rashi’s time.20 Based on linguistic and other factors that link this commentary with known Byzantine writings, Steiner suggests that it was composed by a scholar who came om southern Italy (under Byzantine cultural influence at the time) to Kairouan, where he could have studied with Judah ben Quraysh and been exposed to Saadia’s teachings.21 The anonymous Chronicles commentary includes an amalgam of linguistic and historical notes on the biblical text, which one might expect om a student of Saadia and Judah ben Quraysh. These are accompanied by equent references to Talmud and midrash, usually introduced with the formula “the sages explained.”22 Only in one place, however, does the author delineate the two exegetical modes and express a methodological preference. On 2 Chron. 36:13, aer referring to a rabbinic interpretation, he remarks: as it is found in the midrash, and everything is explained there. However, I have not come to elaborate but rather to speak succinctly (le-qaṣṣer). One who wishes to study the aggadah (i.e., midrash) in order to understand

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

72

Chapter 2

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

the matters truly, may he be blessed. Now here is a criterion for you to discern the presentation of the commentators, which one interprets properly and which one interprets poorly: a commentator who first explains the peshat of Scripture in succinct language (qiṣṣur lashon), followed by the midrash of our Rabbis, this is a good interpretation; the opposite is characteristic of a blockhead.23 These lines are tantalizing because they appear in such an early work and give primacy to the “peshat of Scripture” in a prescription for proper Bible commentary that obliquely references the talmudic peshat maxim. In fact, some of the formulations in this passage resemble those that would be used by Rashi three generations later.24 Yet the hermeneutical conceptions here are more rudimentary than those of Rashi. Here, the single defining feature of the “peshat of Scripture” is succinctness: aiming for “good interpretation,” this commentator intends to “speak succinctly” (le-qaṣṣer) before turning to the more elaborate interpretations drawn om midrash. A glimpse of this commentator’s conception might be gleaned om his single other use of the term peshat—in 1 Chron. 27:25, a verse that mentions one “Azmaweth the son of Adiel.” He begins by citing a midrash that Azmaweth is none other than King David, who vowed that he had never consumed untithed produce and that if he ever did so, he should be cursed with a “harsh death,” a play on the Hebrew ‘az mawet.25 However, he adds, “the masters of Scripture (ba‘alei miqra) say: it is to be interpreted according to its peshat—that this was his name.”26 The term peshat here seems to connote the obvious sense, as ẓāhir was used in Judeo-Arabic. But the peshat interpretation is also a succinct one, whereas the midrash is a more intricate explanation. The term peshat and even its Arabic cognate basīṭ were used only rarely by Saadia and were marginal in his exegetical system. Yet it is possible that the anonymous Chronicles commentator—in his distinctive use of the term peshat—was inspired by Saadia’s gloss on Prov. 30:1, “The words of Agur the son of Jakeh . . . the speech of the man om Ithiel”: “The simple sense of the text (basīṭ al-naṣṣ), which our Sages of blessed memory call ‘the peshat of Scripture,’ is that there was a man named Agur, and he had a teacher named Ithiel. And this student transmitted om his teacher these words.”27 This is followed by the alternative possibility that Agur is King Solomon, who “gathered” (agar) wisdom, an interpretation derived om midrashic sources.28 Saadia labels the first interpretation basīṭ, “simple,” “plain,” “uncomplicated,” a term he associates with the cognate rabbinic term peshat. This resembles the usage in the anonymous Chronicles commentary to distinguish the peshat interpretation of the name Azmaweth in 1 Chron. 27:25 om the midrash.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Andalusian School

73

Unlike the Chronicles commentator, Saadia on Proverbs did not express any programmatic preference for the peshat or basīṭ. Furthermore, the expression basīṭ al-naṣṣ is not typical in qur’anic hermeneutics, and its use elsewhere by Saadia— and other Judeo-Arabic interpreters following him—was limited.29 The term does occur, however, in one key passage in the introduction to Saadia’s Tafsīr. Aer having written his long, involved Genesis commentary, he explains that he penned this translation-paraphrase “because some petitioners asked me to set apart the simple text of the Torah” (basīṭ naṣṣ al-Torah), which would omit the exegetical and theological discussions in his commentary.30 Here Saadia does not oppose basīṭ al-naṣṣ to midrashic interpretation, but rather to his own commentary. Clearly, then, Saadia did not privilege basīṭ al-naṣṣ categorically, since he presumably regarded his own commentary as being no less authoritative than the Tafsīr, notwithstanding the benefit of the latter’s brevity. In Saadia’s usage, basīṭ interpretation is brief and succinct, not necessarily privileged.31 Saadia’s usage of the term basīṭ al-naṣṣ sheds light on the otherwise idiosyncratic way that the anonymous Chronicles commentator invoked the notion of the “peshat of Scripture” and its opposition to midrash. His criteria are technical rather than methodological. He expresses a preference for brevity, as opposed to the elaborate, creative readings characteristic of midrash. This sort of distinction works well in biblical verses that pose few exegetical difficulties, and in which the midrash engages in a play on words, as if to say, “Although Scripture might appear to be saying X, what it really means is Y.”32 In the reference to “Azmaweth the son of Adiel” (1 Chron. 27:25), the gloss “that this was his name” is indeed the more succinct explanation, since this is the most obvious sense of the text, namely, ẓāhir al-naṣṣ. By contrast, the midrash requires an intricate analysis to associate Azmaweth with King David. But in many other cases, the biblical text itself poses substantial exegetical difficulties that require analysis no less detailed. It is therefore not surprising that the usage of the term peshat simply to connote a succinct interpretation would ultimately be abandoned. The anonymous Chronicles commentator seems to represent an embryonic stage of Jewish exegesis. The definitions he uses would have to be revised as this field matured, especially in alAndalus, where sophisticated methods were developed to unlock the profundities of the language and literary style of the Bible.

Menahem ben Saruq and Dunash ben Labrat: Controversy Menahem ben Saruq (Cordoba, c. 920–970) was the secretary of Hasdai Ibn Shaprut, the Jewish minister of the Muslim caliph ‘Abd al-Rahman III. At the request of his patron, Menahem compiled the first comprehensive dictionary of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic written in Hebrew, which became known as the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

74

Chapter 2

Maḥberet. Lexicographic study of the Hebrew Bible was not new in Menahem’s day. Apart om Saadia’s linguistic works, the Karaite David ben Abraham al-Fāsī (North Aica, mid-tenth century) penned a comprehensive biblical dictionary in Arabic, titled Kitāb Jāmi‘ al-Alfāẓ, also known as the Agron.33 Menahem cites Saadia a number of times. Though he praises the gaon for “deep understanding . . . and faith,” he does not hesitate to disagree with him, at times using barbed language.34 Menahem also cites Judah Ibn Quraysh, and evidently drew upon alFāsi’s dictionary as well.35 A fierce opponent of Menahem’s, Dunash ben Labrat must also be discussed in this context, since he highlights some of the former’s distinctive—and sometimes controversial—views. Born in Fez around 920, Dunash seems to have been a student of Saadia’s in Baghdad before settling in Cordoba, where he composed Teshuvot ‘al Menahem (Rebuttals to Menahem).36 Dunash’s criticisms were answered by three of Menahem’s students (including Hayyuj) in Teshuvot talmidei Menahem (Rebuttals by Menahem’s students). Notwithstanding the heated debates between them, Menahem and Dunash shared a basic outlook—inherited om Saadia—that the Bible must be interpreted through philological analysis, rather than simply relying on rabbinic tradition. The works of Menahem and Dunash became widely influential. As a rule, Jewish authors in the Muslim orbit wrote in Arabic. But Menahem and Dunash wrote in Hebrew. As a result, their works could be read by Jews in Christian lands, who otherwise had no access to the philological methods of the JudeoArabic school. Scholars in Rashi’s circle in northern France, for example, would draw heavily upon Dunash and Menahem but manifest no familiarity with other Andalusian works. The great Tosafist Rabbenu Jacob Tam (Rashbam’s younger brother), Rashi’s grandson, even wrote glosses on Dunash’s Teshuvot defending Menahem. Menahem explained biblical anthropomorphic depictions of God following the precedent set by Ibn Quraysh: “The interpreter can say: ‘Scripture spoke in the language of men.’ Now wise people must understand that it is not proper to attribute to God a shape, form or body, but Scripture spoke figuratively, equently employing poetic expressions according to human understanding and intellect so that people could grasp a conception of God. Now had Scripture spoken according to the potency of His inexplicable greatness they would not have been able to understand because He is above the capacity of their intellect.”37 Even though Dunash was a devotee of Saadia, he, likewise, favors this approach. Aer construing the word wa-yishtomem—said about God in Isa. 59:16—“He was distressed,” Dunash makes the following general remark: “Do not be puzzled about the term wa-yishtomem, because there are other such cases in Scripture: ‘He was saddened in His heart’ (Gen. 6:6) and also ‘I grew weary of them’ (Zach. 11:8), and ‘In all their distress, He too was distressed’ (Isa. 63:9). . . . Now God, may His

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Andalusian School

75

name be exalted, is beyond despair and sadness, and is above weariness of spirit or sadness of heart. But Scripture spoke to men so that they can understand according to their capacity, and to instruct them according to their intelligence.”38 Gen. 6:6 is the very verse about which Ibn Quraysh disagreed with Saadia, and his approach is endorsed by Dunash. Saadia had regularly engaged in comparisons with Aramaic and Arabic to understand difficult Biblical Hebrew words, and Ibn Quraysh articulated the methodological need for doing so. Menahem, on the other hand, conspicuously avoided making comparisons with Arabic.39 His students even avoided using Aramaic for this purpose. As recorded in Teshuvot talmidei Menahem, they deemed Hebrew a unique language, incomparable even with its sister Semitic languages.40 Dunash eely compared Hebrew with Aramaic and Arabic.41 Furthermore, he accused Menahem of duplicity, since the latter oen remarked that the meaning of a particular biblical term is ke-mashma‘o (lit., “as it sounds”), which Dunash took to mean “as it sounds in Arabic.”42 Menahem’s students defended their master’s integrity by arguing that he used the term ke-mashma‘o to connote the obvious, well-known sense—in Hebrew.43 In avoiding reliance upon Arabic cognates for comparison, Menahem deprived himself of a rich source of philological analysis that almost all Arabophone Hebrew linguists and Bible commentators utilized, including later authors, such as Hayyuj, Ibn Janah, and Abraham Ibn Ezra. In fact, Isaac Ibn Barun (d. 1128, who lived in Saragossa and Malaga) penned a dedicated treatise on this subject, The Book of Comparison Between the Hebrew and Arabic Languages.44 Without this analytic tool, Menahem was at a disadvantage, especially with respect to rare biblical words, forcing him to rely exclusively on contextual clues to decipher its ancient language. As he remarks: “There are words in Scripture that occur only rarely. Their meaning can be determined exclusively based on their context (‘inyan). Were it not for their being situated in a larger biblical passage, their interpretation would not be known.”45 Menahem thus oen remarks that “its interpretation is according to the context,” and “its context indicates it[s meaning]” (‘inyano yoreh ‘alayw).46 His reliance on contextual clues leads Menahem to formulate his rule regarding what would come to be known as biblical parallelism: “The first half of the verse informs us about the second half. The idea is complete in the first half and is repeated, so the same meaning appears twice in the same verse.”47 This rule makes it possible to discern the sense of hapax legomena or otherwise rare biblical words by comparison with the corresponding ones used in a parallel verset.48 The poetics of biblical parallelism would be developed by Rashbam as a key element of peshat, as discussed in Chapter 4. Avoiding reliance on rabbinic interpretation and being forced to draw exclusively on contextual clues, Menahem at times arrived at idiosyncratic—and controversial—interpretations. For example, the last verset of Exod. 23:19, traditionally

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

76

Chapter 2

rendered “You shall not cook a kid (gedi) in its mother’s milk,” was taken in the Talmud to indicate that meat and milk must not be cooked and eaten together— an interpretation adopted by Saadia, as discussed in Chapter 1. Menahem, mindful of the first part of this verse (“The first uits of your land you must bring to the House of the Lord your God”), offers a different construal of the word gedi: “According to its context (‘inyan), its interpretation is ‘seeds of uits,’ and it may be derived om megadim (choice uits).”49 A sharp reaction to this interpretation is registered by Abraham Ibn Ezra: “Those devoid of understanding said that gedi is derived om meged. But this is not possible, as the mem in meged is part of the root. . . . Besides, what would be the meaning of ‘You shall not cook’? . . . and what would be the point of saying ‘in milk’?. . . Furthermore, what would be the meaning of ‘its mother’? . . . and they arrived at this interpretation because we find this precept in the context of ‘the first uits of your land.’ ”50 Though aware of the contextual consideration that Menahem raised, Ibn Ezra harshly rejects this interpretation. The disparaging reference to its author as being “devoid of understanding”—a barb he usually reserves for the Karaites—is surprising, since Ibn Ezra otherwise venerated Menahem. In this case, Menahem’s interpretation can indeed be traced to Anan ben David. Qirqisani records that Anan interpreted “You shall not cook a kid (gedi) in its mother’s milk” in light of the beginning of the verse to mean that one must not delay bringing the first uits until they ripen in the ground. Qirqisani rejects this interpretation as an untenable ta’wīl,51 followed by al-Fāsi: “He who explains gedi by analogy with megadim is mistaken, since . . . that word contains a radical mem, while gedi has no mem. Moreover, it is not the usual manner of the precepts to be expressed in language that calls for ta’wīl, for if that were the case, the precepts would not be knowable.”52 It is, of course, striking that Menahem adopted the very interpretation given by Anan— even though the latter’s own Karaite followers rejected it. On a more fundamental matter, Menahem adopted what seems to be a Karaite position: he distinguished sharply between the “sacred tongue”—that is, Biblical Hebrew—and Mishnaic Hebrew. One of Saadia’s strategies for addressing the challenge of hapax legomena in the Bible was to draw upon analogies in the lexicon of Mishnaic Hebrew. This was based on the assumption that the sages of the Mishnah knew Hebrew perfectly and that their language represents a natural, authoritative continuation of the ancient “sacred tongue.” As Saadia wrote in the introduction to his Explanation of the Seventy Isolated Biblical Words: “I shall explain every word and I shall bring proofs for these usages om the prose of the Mishnah, and that which was well-known to its authors as a vernacular.”53 It is this position that Menahem seems to reject in his remark: “Those interpreters know that the entirety of the language is not found in the Bible. Now if the language in our possession would have been complete, we would have known the unfamiliar words and grasped them in its breadth. But now they are lost, for we

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Andalusian School

77

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

have been removed om our land, and therefore they fabricate words to augment the sacred tongue in order to fill in its lacunae as attested in the Bible (lit., ‘to lengthen the short and increase the small’). But it is improper to do this without inspiration of the Holy Spirit (lit., ‘until a Spirit om High comes down to us’).”54 Menahem distinguished sharply between “the language of the Mishnah” and “the sacred tongue / Hebrew language,”55 as though the former were not genuine Hebrew. He even criticizes mishnaic usages as incorrect where they diverge om the conventions of Biblical Hebrew. In his view, the mishnaic verb taram (“to give the priestly portion”), derived om the biblical noun terumah (“the priestly portion”; lit., “what was lied”), is a misnomer. The proper term would be le-harim terumah (lit., “to li up the priestly portion”), as attested in the Bible.56 Criticizing the Mishnah, even for an issue as minor as grammatical impropriety, would have bordered on blasphemy in the Rabbanite world. Ibn Janah reacted harshly to this, criticizing Menahem without mentioning him by name: “It is ignorant, puzzling, and disgraceful behavior to criticize us and other Bible interpreters when we adduce philological evidence om the Mishnah. Those who do so disparage the Mishnah because of the words it contains that do not follow exactly the precedents set in Biblical Hebrew, for example . . . yitrom . . . taram. . . . We, on the other hand, exalt the Mishnah.”57 Maimonides also took part in this controversy, writing in his Mishnah commentary: With respect to their saying throughout the Mishnah taram, torem, and yitrom, some recent linguists criticize this usage and say that this root requires saying herim, merim, and yarim. But this is not a valid criticism, since any language depends on its speakers—as attested among them. Now the authors of the Mishnah were undoubtedly Hebrew speakers in their native land—Israel—and the form taram is attested in their language. . . . This manner of reasoning is a fitting rebuttal to those recent scholars who say that the language of the Mishnah is not pure, and that the authors of the Mishnah used words improperly. In formulating this principle, I have relied upon the opinions of the finest scholars who discuss universal matters relating to all languages.58 Undoubtedly, the passion with which these authors expressed themselves has much to do with the fact that criticism of the Mishnah was a typical Karaite move. Although the essential Karaite critique was leveled against the content of the Mishnah, Salmon ben Jeruhim disparaged its “new language” made up by “modern men,” that departs om the “Sacred Tongue.”59 By reaining om using Mishnaic Hebrew, Menahem deprived himself of yet another tool used by Rabbanite lexicographers. A prime example of his methodological divergence om Saadia’s school on this matter relates to the rare term

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

78

Chapter 2

ṭoṭafot in Deut. 11:18, “Impress these My words upon your heart and self: bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as ṭoṭafot between your eyes.” The Talmud (b.Menaḥot 34b) took this verse as a reference to the tefillin bound on the arm and forehead. Upholding the rabbinic tradition, Saadia invoked the use of the term ṭoṭefet in m.Shabbat 6:1, which refers to a headband or head covering.60 Menahem took a different approach:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Ṭoṭafot has the sense of “talk” and “uit of the lips” (cf. Isa. 57:19). And this is the interpretation and sense of “it shall be ṭoṭafot . . .,” as it says, “I set the Lord always before me” (Ps. 16:8). And thus Moses exhorted Israel, saying, “let them serve as ṭoṭafot between your eyes,” as if to say, “My people, put my words in ont of you and my statutes opposite your eyes, and do not forget the things that you have seen with your own eyes, in order that His fear shall be upon you, so that you do not sin.” This is what Solomon said in the book of Proverbs: “Tie them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.” (3:3, 6:21)61 Menahem’s source may be al-Fāsi’s dictionary: “The root ṭ-f . . . means ‘preaching and revealing a speech,’ as in ‘my word drips (tiṭof) upon them,’ om which ‘let them serve as ṭoṭafot between your eyes’ is derived. That is to say, the preaching will be between your eyes.”62 This Karaite interpretation would be rejected by Ibn Ezra for its divergence om the tradition.63 Menahem’s independence om rabbinic tradition and the critique it generated are well illustrated by his analysis of the term malaq, which appears in only one context in the Bible, in connection with the burnt offering of fowl, where it evidently connotes the priest’s nipping of its head: “He shall nip off (malaq) its head” (Lev. 1:15), “He shall nip off its head (malaq) opposite the back of the neck, but he shall not separate it” (Lev. 5:8). The Talmud describes the process of meliqah in detail and distinguishes it om sheḥiṭah, ritual slaughter performed on larger animal offerings.64 As Ibn Ezra explains: “There is no other occurrence of the word malaq in Scripture. Therefore, the procedure of meliqah is known solely om the tradition.”65 Ibn Ezra here alludes to the controversy between Menahem and Dunash over this matter. Menahem had remarked: “ ‘And he shall nip off [malaq] its head’—it has the sense of slaughtering; but it is the slaughtering of a bird specifically.”66 This prompted Dunash’s critique: “This is the evil idea of the chief heretic Anan, who broke with the Rabbis and the early Sages. Now the early interpreters, who witnessed the worship of the sacrifices in the Temple, said that meliqah is a procedure distinct om sheḥiṭah, and its method is to cut the spinal column and the nape with the fingernail and not a knife.”67 Criticizing Anan— and, implicitly, Menahem—Dunash echoes Saadia’s epistemological defense of

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Andalusian School

79

rabbinic tradition, that is, the necessity of relying on eyewitness testimony of how the Law was enacted through the generations.68 Dunash’s critique brought an awareness of this Rabbanite-Karaite controversy to the attention of Rashi’s students. Although Rashbam normally seeks to interpret Scripture without recourse to rabbinic tradition (as discussed in Chapter 4), here he makes an exception: “Dunash explained that this is a proof to the words of our Rabbis, who witnessed the worship in the Temple, that the priest cuts the spinal column and the nape with his fingernail.”69 Rashbam did not wish to side with a “chief heretic.” His younger brother, Rabbenu Tam, was so convinced by Dunash that he could not fathom the possibility that Menahem believed otherwise. He thus argued that Dunash simply misunderstood Menahem, who never diverged om the rabbinic interpretation; “and so, Dunash and Menahem are one and the same, their words are correct, and they are equally good.”70 Far removed om the Karaite schism, Rabbenu Tam was not as hypersensitive as his Andalusian brethren were to sectarian interpretation. In light of Menahem’s adoption of some Karaite views, Nehemya Allony argued that Menahem actually was an adherent of Karaism.71 Menahem’s orthodoxy was, in fact, impugned by Dunash, and the aspersions he cast were serious enough for Hasdai Ibn Shaprut to banish Menahem and even to destroy his home on the Sabbath. Subsequent scholars reject Allony’s position and question the validity of Dunash’s accusations.72 Yet the alignment of Menahem’s opinions with those of Karaite scholars is telling. It suggests that the application of a philological method independent of talmudic tradition was likely to yield Karaite conclusions. Whereas Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni tempered their philological method with respect for talmudic tradition, Menahem privileged the former at the expense of the latter. Though critical of Menahem in theory, Dunash had no magical solution for reconciling rabbinic law with seemingly contradictory biblical texts. He paid lip service to rabbinic interpretation, asserting that the “thirteen middot” of the Rabbis are somehow necessary for interpreting the Bible.73 But, in fact, the middot are incompatible with the philological methods applied by Dunash, which derive om his teacher Saadia and do not differ fundamentally om those of Menahem. This incompatibility would become more acute as the philological tradition advanced—especially with the strides made by Menahem’s student Hayyuj.

Hayyuj: Revolutionary Grammatical Theory Judah ben David Hayyuj (c. 945–1012) was born in Fez, and moved to Cordoba around 960. His work represents the most important turning point in the development of Hebrew linguistics and, consequently, Bible exegesis. He founded the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

80

Chapter 2

triliteral theory of the Hebrew verb, made possible by the notion of the so-called weak radicals and the geminates—letters of the root that drop out in some declensions of the verb. Earlier linguists, including David al-Fāsi and Menahem, had posited the existence of two-letter and even one-letter roots. Hayyuj established the theory—which would prevail to this day—that every Hebrew root has three letters (“radicals”), except for the rare four-letter roots. Hayyuj undoubtedly made this “discovery” by analogy with Arabic grammar, which had reached maturity by the ninth century. Indeed, Moses Ibn Ezra asserts that the secrets of the Hebrew language—evidently a reference to Hayyuj’s monumental discovery— were revealed to the Jews only aer they had become familiar with the workings of Arabic.74 Abraham Ibn Ezra, likewise, asserts that “the grammar of the Hebrew language was unknown until the advent of Judah ben David [Hayyuj], first of the grammarians.”75 Hayyuj’s triliteral conception of the root put the study of Hebrew on a firm scientific footing, enabling him to correct the philological errors of his predecessors. Although he did not engage in polemics, he sided against his teacher Menahem regarding the permissibility of using Arabic and Mishnaic Hebrew to clari rare words in the Bible.76 Hayyuj seems to have limited his scholarly activity to grammar, writing three books on this subject: Kitāb al-af‘āl dhawat ḥurūf al-līn (The book of verbs possessing weak letters), Kitāb al-af‘āl dhawat al-mathalain (The book of verbs possessing double letters), and Kitāb al-tanqīt (The book of punctuation).77 In addition, he wrote Kitāb al-nutaf (“The book of plucked feathers,” i.e., selected notes), which is a “commentary” on the Prophets (now only partially extant) that amounts to grammatical notes on specific verses.78 Hayyuj’s grammatical theory was ultimately embraced universally—though until the twelh century, it was largely unknown among Jews in Christian lands because he wrote in Arabic. In the late eleventh century, Moses Ibn Chiquitilla translated Hayyuj’s works into Hebrew in southern France, but that translation did not circulate widely. Abraham Ibn Ezra saw the need to translate Hayyuj’s works once again in Rome in 1142, since “the sages in Greek and Roman lands (i.e., Christian Europe) . . . do not heed the rules of grammar and rely instead upon the way of derash.”79 Making a similar observation, the Andalusian émigré Joseph Kimhi disparages the grammatical knowledge of the Jewish scholars he encountered in Provence because they relied on the works of Menahem and Dunash, which had been supplanted by Hayyuj’s discoveries.80 For Ibn Ezra and Kimhi, Hayyuj represents the parting point between midrashic interpretation and the linguistic peshat method. Yet the implications of this departure are not addressed in Hayyuj’s extant works. Perhaps because of his narrow grammatical focus, or simply because he could not foresee the far-reaching implications of his discoveries, the great linguist never explains how he related to

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Andalusian School

81

midrash—the foundation of Rabbanite Judaism. The way to bridge the two outlooks would be paved by Hayyuj’s most important successor, Ibn Janah.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Ibn Janah: Peshat as Philological Interpretation Jonah Ibn Janah (Cordoba, c. 990–Saragossa, c. 1050) was a student of Menahem ben Saruq’s student Isaac Ibn Chiquitilla but was strongly influenced by Hayyuj. Consolidating and building upon the linguistic foundation that Hayyuj established, Ibn Janah focused on Hebrew grammar and philology. Ibn Janah would become a supremely influential figure on the Andalusian exegetical landscape, second only to Saadia.81 It is unclear if he wrote running Bible commentaries.82 However, his linguistic works Kitāb al-Luma‘ (Hebrew grammar and style) and Kitāb al-Uṣūl (Book of roots, a biblical dictionary) together served as a foundation for all further Andalusian grammatical-philological Bible interpretation.83 In contrast to the works of Hayyuj, who wrote almost exclusively about rare and difficult grammatical forms, Ibn Janah’s works are comprehensive: his grammar deals with a broad range of issues om morphology to syntax to stylistics, and his dictionary (like Menahem’s Maḥberet) covers the entire biblical lexicon. Living a generation aer the controversies over Menahem’s views, Ibn Janah was acutely aware of the accusations that might be sparked by linguistic exegesis independent of rabbinic interpretation. In Kitāb al-Luma‘, he addresses anonymous talmudists who may criticize his method for this reason. To fend off this sort of attack, he cites the words of the Rabbis, arguing that such zealots act out of “ignorance of the dictum of our early Sages, may God be pleased with them: ‘a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat’ and . . . ‘the peshat of the verse is one thing, the halakhah another.’84 For it is not impossible that one language expression can bear two correct meanings and more than that, as the early Sages, may God be pleased with them, said (b.Sanhedrin 34a): ‘One verse can have a number of meanings, but one meaning cannot be expressed by two verses.’ ”85 As Samuel ben Hofni had done, Ibn Janah invokes the talmudic peshat maxim to justi a new mode of interpretation. But his construal of the maxim is quite different om that of his geonic predecessor, who, as discussed in Chapter 1, used it to uphold Saadia’s axiom that a verse must be interpreted according to its “apparent” (usually literal) sense (ẓāhir)—except where it contradicts sense perception, reason, another verse, or rabbinic tradition. In such cases, the ẓāhir/peshat is superseded by an interpretation (ta’wīl) that harmonizes Scripture with those other sources of knowledge. Samuel ben Hofni thus identified peshat as the starting point of interpretation—a default position, important as such, but hardly inviolate. Ibn Janah construes the peshat maxim as justification for allowing the philological interpretation to stand as an alternative to the midrashic halakhic one.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

82

Chapter 2

Whereas Samuel ben Hofni sought to arrive at a single correct reading that harmonizes the two, Ibn Janah argues that “the peshat of the verse is one thing, the halakhah another.” To justi this bifurcation, the great linguist cites another talmudic maxim: “One verse can have a number of meanings,” which he takes to mean that “one language expression can bear two correct meanings.” The result is a dual hermeneutic that allows two equally valid levels of interpretation to coexist: the peshat, guided by the philological method; and the midrashichalakhic reading of the Rabbis. Ibn Janah can be said to advance a strong reading of the peshat maxim, in contrast to Samuel ben Hofni’s weak reading. We thus can chart two construals of the maxim: Construal (1): a weak reading—Scripture must be interpreted according to its apparent, literal sense (peshat/ẓāhir), unless there is a good reason to interpret it nonliterally. Construal (2): a strong reading—Scripture can never be deprived of its philological-contextual sense (peshat), notwithstanding the midrash, which is a viable alternative interpretation, authoritative for halakhic purposes. Within construal (1), the “rule of peshat” is weak, since ẓāhir al-naṣṣ is simply the first assumption, to be adjusted in light of other relevant factors. By contrast, construal (2) is a strong reading that makes peshat inviolate. As a Rabbanite, Ibn Janah does not claim that peshat is the only sense of Scripture but rather that it stands side by side with the authoritative midrashic-halakhic reading. He uses the peshat maxim to create a niche for the new philological-contextual method and dispense with the need to harmonize it with the talmudic halakhic system. Why was it important for Ibn Janah to advance this new reading of the peshat maxim that departed om the geonic model? It would seem that he was sensitive to the intervening methodological developments in al-Andalus—the controversial moves made by Menahem and the revolutionary grammatical theory of Hayyuj— which highlighted the implausibility of harmonizing the philological method with the traditional rabbinic reading of Scripture. The alternative he proposed was to bifurcate the two and posit their equal validity, making peshuto shel miqra inviolate. While Ibn Janah’s construal of the peshat maxim represents a theoretical innovation, om a practical perspective his exegesis follows the model of philological analysis pioneered by Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni. While those geonim were willing to engage in ta’wīl where necessary, in practice their interpretation generally adhered to the ẓāhir, which was usually a contextual-philological reading.86 Ibn Janah emphasizes this continuity, arguing further (in the passage cited above) that talmudists who denied the validity of the philological method do so “because of their scant study of the peshat commentaries of Rav Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni, may God be pleased with the two of them.”87 Though Saadia did not characterize his method as peshat, and Samuel ben Hofni did not deem peshat inviolate, Ibn Janah nonetheless counts them as founders of the peshat method of

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Andalusian School

83

interpretation in a sort of back-projection of his own conception of this hermeneutical category. Ibn Janah’s strong reading of the peshat maxim enabled him to engage in linguistic exegesis eely, even where it conflicts with rabbinic traditions. In discussing the term qaluṭ in Lev. 22:23, for example, he offers his own interpretation “by way of peshat” (min ṭarīq al-peshat), though he acknowledges that it does not accord with “the tradition” (al-naql) of the Rabbis in the Talmud.88 Ibn Janah’s use of the term peshat in this case, which stands out as a technical term in contrast to his normal Arabic prose, is unusual. Most typically, he simply offers his philological interpretation without any label. In some cases, he refers to an opposing rabbinic interpretation, usually noting that the two senses of the biblical text coexist. This dual hermeneutic can be illustrated by his discussion of Deut. 12:2–6: (2) You must destroy all the sites at which the nations . . . worshiped their gods, whether on lo mountains or on hills or by any luxuriant tree. (3) Tear down their altars, smash their pillars, put their sacred posts to the fire . . . and obliterate their name om that site. (4) Do not do thus to the Lord your God, (5) but only to the site that the Lord your God will choose amid all your tribes to put His name there, unto His habitation you shall seek and there you shall come. (6) There you shall bring your burnt offerings and other sacrifices, your tithes and contributions, your votive and eewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and flocks.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

In his section on biblical syntax in Kitāb al-Luma‘, Ibn Janah addresses the ambiguity of verse 4: to what does the prohibition “Do not do thus” refer? He first presents the rabbinic view: The early Sages, may God be pleased with them, take His dictum “Do not do thus to the Lord your God” to refer to His dictum “[You must destroy all the sites. . .] and you shall obliterate their name om that site.” In other words: Do not destroy the houses of God, as I have commanded you to destroy the houses of the Baals and the places of their worship. They said: “One who removes a stone om the heikhal or ulam (halls of the Temple) . . . violates a negative commandment, as it says: ‘And you shall obliterate their name. . . . Do not do thus to the Lord your God.’ ”89 Evidently looking to the sentence immediately preceding verse 4 (“and you shall obliterate their name om that site”), the Rabbis take this verse as a prohibition to act destructively toward God’s name by dismantling the Holy Temple. Ibn Janah offers a different interpretation:

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

84

Chapter 2

But in my opinion, it bears an additional meaning . . . that it refers to what is before it, namely to what it says, “at which the nations . . . worshiped their gods, whether on lo mountains or on hills.”. . . He . . . recounted those places . . . to prohibit them om making His places of worship similar to those places. Rather, they must worship in a single specified place and defined location. That is the import of the verse “Do not do thus to the Lord your God but only to the site that the Lord your God will choose. . . . There you shall bring your burnt offerings,” and so on.90 The larger context, Ibn Janah observes, suggests that the prohibition in verse 4 is a preface to the commandment in verses 5–6 to worship God through sacrifice in only one fixed central location. “Do not do thus” must therefore refer not to “and you shall obliterate their name om that site” but rather “to what is before it,” the phrase that precedes the last sentence of verse 3—the description of the scattered holy places of the idol worshipers. For Ibn Janah, this is peshuto shel miqra, which coexists with the rabbinic construal, as he comments:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

No one should criticize us for assigning this meaning to the phrase “Do not do thus,” even though we accept what the early Sages transmitted about it. For they, may God be pleased with them, already said: “One verse can have a number of meanings.”. . . And even though it is one of the negative commandments, it is not impermissible to include in it another prohibition without increasing the number of the commandments. But rather the other interpretation is correct, and there is no harm in accepting it, just as there is no harm in accepting seven interpretations of “Do not eat upon blood” (Lev. 19:26) and that it is also a single negative commandment.91 Although he usually does not go into such detail, the few other cases in which he mentions rabbinic exegesis generally include a confirmation of this dual hermeneutic.92 While Ibn Janah’s strong reading of the peshat maxim reduced the need for ta’wīl, he was hardly an absolute adherent of ẓāhir al-naṣṣ. As part of his endeavor to elucidate the “peshat of Scripture,” he classifies the numerous deviations om “proper” or “literal” language (ḥaqīqa) in the Bible. Like his geonic predecessors, he relied substantially on terms and concepts om Arabic learning for this purpose.93 For example, in chapter 24 of Kitāb al-Luma‘, on the subject of ellipsis (ḥadhf, iḍmār), he writes: “Know that Hebrew Scripture oen elides and shortens its language, rendering it incomplete if taken literally (as ḥaqīqa). Rather, it must be taken as abbreviated language, as its addressee understands immediately.”94

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Andalusian School

85

When presenting examples, Ibn Janah uses another term that had become common by his time in qur’anic hermeneutics: taqdīr, “reconstruction” or “textual restoration,” a literal equivalent of the language of Scripture that cannot be taken as is, as ḥaqīqa.95 As Ibn Janah writes: “And an example of ḥadhf is the dictum . . . ‘I was om tent to tent and om tabernacle to tabernacle’ (1 Chron. 17:5); and the taqdīr is: ‘I was wandering om tent to tent.’ ”96 A key type of majāz enumerated by Arab theorists, al-mukarrar li-l-tawkīd (“repetition for emphasis”),97 is addressed by Ibn Janah in chapter 25, titled “what is added for emphasis (ta’kīd), but otherwise is unnecessary”: “At times a verb or a word is repeated without any pressing need in the logic of the context. Rather, it is said by way of emphasis (ta’kīd) . . . for example, ‘Lo we have perished, we are lost, all of us are lost’ (Num. 17:27), the repetition (takrīr) of ‘all of us are lost’ is for emphasis.”98 Later, Ibn Janah adds: “An example of an addition by way of emphasis and eloquence (faṣāḥa) is: ‘Who has wrought and achieved this?’ (Isa. 41:4). There is no meaning conveyed by the dictum ‘and achieved’ beyond the dictum ‘wrought.’ It is thus employed merely for the sake of eloquence and stylistic beauty (faṣāḥa wa-balāgha). Likewise, ‘I have created him, I have formed him, and I have made him’ (Isa. 43:7). Neither the expression ‘I have made him’ nor the expression ‘I have formed him’ adds any meaning beyond what is already expressed by ‘I have created him.’ ”99 The notion that Scripture would diverge om ḥaqīqa for the sake of literary elegance likewise finds a precedent in Qur’an interpretation.100 Ibn Janah’s application of ta’wīl based on this observation enables him to avoid midrashic readings powered by what Kugel terms the doctrine of “omnisignificance.”101 Whereas the Rabbis typically ascribed meaning to seemingly redundant words in the Bible, Ibn Janah viewed such redundancies as literary flourish or even as simple linguistic conventions.102 As he remarks: “You should know that the common usage of Biblical Hebrew is to add words such as ‘for me,’ ‘for yourself,’ ‘for yourselves’ by way of emphasis (ta’kīd). For example, ‘I shall go for myself to the great ones’ (Jer. 5:5) . . ., ‘the rain has gone and le for itself’ (Song 2:11), ‘Go and cross for yourselves wadi Zered’ (Deut. 2:13) . . ., ‘Go for yourself om your homeland.’ ”103 The usefulness of this observation to counter midrashic overinterpretation is illustrated by Nahmanides in his rejection of Rashi’s midrashic reading of Gen. 12:1, based on the seemingly redundant wording on God’s command to Abraham, “Go forth, for yourself (lekh lekha), om your native land and om your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” Aer citing Rashi, Nahmanides remarks: “There is no need for this explanation because this is simply the convention of the language (mishpaṭ ha-lashon). For example, ‘the rain has gone and le for itself’ (Song 2:11), ‘I shall go for myself to the great ones’ (Jer. 5:5), ‘Go and cross for yourselves the wadi Zered’ (Deut. 2:13).”104 Nahmanides’ expression

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

86

Chapter 2

“there is no need” is drawn om Ibn Ezra, who oen uses it to assert the value of exegetical economy and undercut midrashic exegesis.105 But the substance of Nahmanides’ critique here is based on Ibn Janah’s observation. What is perhaps Ibn Janah’s most dramatic application of taqdīr is his rule that later exegetes would call “lexical substitution” (Ar., badal; Heb., ḥilluf; terms that Ibn Janah himself does not use):106 “At times Scripture uses a particular language expression, and the intention (murād) is that of another. Now this is acceptable because of the association of the two language expressions in their genus or species or their quality or some other matter. And occasionally, one word is put in place of another, even though it is not associated with it in any way, and this is based on their perception of an association, which can be discerned if sought carefully.”107 Ibn Janah explains many such “substitutions” in terms of poetic license, identiing various types of biblical majāz (the term he uses to connote figurative language), such as metaphor (isti‘āra), simile (tashbīh), and parable (mathal), as well as metonymy (mujāwara) and “semantic expansion” (ittisā‘).108 The notion that words acquire new meanings over time and that expressions are occasionally used idiomatically rather than literally was central for Ibn Janah and plays a critical role in his dictionary, where terms such as ittisā‘, isti‘āra, tashbīh, and majāz are used regularly. This linguistic flexibility of Biblical Hebrew asserted by Ibn Janah would become a pillar of the Andalusian “way of peshat,” as Abraham Ibn Ezra would characterize it.109 Ibn Ezra actually criticized unbridled applications of “substitution,” as he feared it could lead to exegetical anarchy.110 But he knew well that the method itself—applied prudently—was essential, as it enabled interpreters to avoid the far-fetched conclusions oen reached in midrash through hyper-literal readings of the biblical text.111

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Samuel ha-Nagid Samuel ha-Levi ben Joseph (993–1056), known as Samuel ha-Nagid (“the Prince,” a reference to his career as a statesman), was an intellectual rival of Ibn Janah. Having fled his native Cordoba in 1013, he settled in Granada, serving as vizier to the Berber king and engaging in military campaigns on his behalf. An accomplished Hebrew poet and Talmud scholar, the Nagid also made substantial contributions in Bible exegesis. A protégé of Hayyuj, he tenaciously attacked Ibn Janah for his critiques of the master.112 The Nagid penned the twenty-two-section lexicographical work Kitāb al-istighnā (Book of wealth/amplitude), now known only om agments and citations in later authors.113 Judging om these later references, it seems that this work exerted substantial influence—rivaling that of Ibn Janah’s works.114 In Talmud scholarship, the Nagid was dependent on the tradition of the geonim in Iraq.115 It is thus not surprising that he adopted Samuel ben Hofni’s construal

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Andalusian School

87

of the peshat maxim—being unaware of, or dismissing, its new construal by Ibn Janah. This is evident om a citation by Isaac Ibn Barun: “The Nagid, may God be pleased with him, says that we must not remove a language expression om the category of literal language (ḥaqīqa) and deem it nonliteral language (majāz) unless it is impossible to take it as literal language, because literal language is fundamental (aṣl; lit., “the root”), whereas nonliteral language is a deviation (‘udūl) om the root, and we do not depart om it unless there is a dire necessity . . . and about this the early Sages, peace upon them, said: ‘a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.’ ”116 Like his geonic predecessors, the Nagid seems to have formulated this rule to justi his departures om the literal sense. The surviving agments of his own work and citations om later authors both indicate that he regularly applied ta’wīl to resolve exegetical difficulties.117 For the Nagid, peshuto shel miqra / ẓāhir al-naṣṣ was not inviolate. It was the first assumption, to be adjusted as necessary. Evidently, Samuel ben Hofni’s weak reading of the peshat maxim circulated in al-Andalus well into the twelh century. Perhaps geonic authority impeded the adoption of Ibn Janah’s new construal of the maxim. Saadia’s fourfold axiom, like his Tafsīr, remained the “high road” of Rabbanite interpretation.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Moses Ibn Chiquitilla and Judah Ibn Bal‘am This geonic imprint is also evident in the commentaries of the eleventh-century authors Moses Ibn Chiquitilla (Cordoba, Saragossa) and Judah Ibn Bal‘am (Toledo, Seville), who are cited in one breath by Maimonides as “the learned commentators” of al-Andalus.118 Abraham Ibn Ezra counts them among the “elders of the Sacred Tongue.”119 Penned in Judeo-Arabic, their commentaries were lost for centuries, surviving today only partially in manuscripts scattered in European libraries, many in Russia. Most of Ibn Bal‘am’s commentaries are extant, and some have been published. By contrast, only a small portion of Ibn Chiquitilla’s are extant, though scholars have pieced together distinctive features of his exegesis om citations by later authors. Both adopt a philological method— for which they draw upon Hayyuj, Ibn Janah, and Samuel ha-Nagid—informed by Saadia’s fourfold axiom. Yet there were sharp divisions between them, and Ibn Bal‘am criticized Ibn Chiquitilla for what he perceived as the latter’s heretical views.120 Ibn Chiquitilla composed Hebrew poetry in addition to writing Bible commentaries and works on grammar.121 His exegesis manifests remarkable literary, historical, and rational sensitivities, resulting in their dramatic divergence om traditional rabbinic interpretation. His approach to the Psalms, recorded by Abraham Ibn Ezra, diverged om the traditional view that King David compiled this collection with the Holy Spirit, making it a prophetic work. The Talmud states

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

88

Chapter 2

that “David wrote down the book of Psalms [which had been composed by] Ten Elders” (b.Bava Batra 14b), followed by a list of these “elders” that includes earlier biblical figures such as Adam, Abraham, Moses, and the sons of Korah.122 It was typically assumed that David was the final psalmist, giving the book of Psalms its final shape. Going beyond this traditional view, Saadia argued that the book of Psalms was transmitted by God to King David, making it a fully prophetic work. By contrast, Ibn Chiquitilla argued that Psalms is a collection of non-prophetic prayers by devout authors throughout the biblical epoch.123 In his view, the book was not completed until well aer King David’s time, as it contains prayers reflecting events that occurred much later: the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 bce (e.g., Psalms 74, 89), the exiles in Babylonia (Psalm 137), and the return to Zion in the Persian period (Psalm 126).124 The traditional view—which Ibn Ezra would embrace—was that King David himself wrote such psalms with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, which enabled him to foresee those future events and adopt the personae of people experiencing them.125 But this approach evidently dissatisfied Ibn Chiquitilla, who insisted on accounting for the literary form of the psalms—which would seem to be prayers and not predictive prophecies. Ibn Chiquitilla’s rational sensibilities prompted him to interpret seemingly miraculous events described in the Bible naturalistically. Although such a rationalist trend was displayed earlier by Samuel ben Hofni, as discussed in Chapter 1, Ibn Chiquitilla was more radical in this respect. He applied figurative interpretation to prophecies traditionally taken to be messianic in order to link them to historical events in biblical times. Isaiah’s prophecy regarding a righteous Davidic ruler “om the stump of Jesse” who will restore justice and peace to Israel (Isa. 11:1–10) was traditionally assumed to be a reference to the future Messiah. Ibn Chiquitilla identified that righteous ruler as Isaiah’s younger contemporary King Hezekiah, described elsewhere in Scripture as a righteous king.126 Accordingly, he interprets figuratively Isaiah’s famous prophecy, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard lie down with the kid” (11:6–10), taking it to mean that there was peace in Hezekiah’s day.127 A similar view of Ibn Chiquitilla’s is cited by Ibn Ezra on Joel 3–4, an oracle that speaks of God pouring His “spirit upon all flesh” (3:2), followed by a prediction that “the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord comes” (3:4). Aer that, God will “gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat” (4:2) for a fearsome battle, during which “the sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining” (4:15). These depictions led most commentators to take this as an eschatological prophecy.128 Ibn Chiquitilla maintained that Joel spoke figuratively and hyperbolically about events in his own time, as depicted elsewhere in Scripture—the proliferation of prophets in the days of Jehoshaphat

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Andalusian School

89

(1 Kings 18:4, 13; 2 Kings 2:3–7, 16–17; 4:38–44), a king successful in battles with neighboring nations (2 Chronicles 17–20).129 Ibn Chiquitilla’s views were attacked in a dedicated (now lost) treatise by Ibn Bal‘am—mentioned approvingly by Moses Ibn Ezra, who endorses the latter’s opinion that such eschatological prophecies must be taken literally.130 Ibn Bal‘am was a halakhic scholar and grammarian, as well as a Bible exegete. He drew heavily upon Hayyuj, Samuel ha-Nagid, and, most of all, Ibn Janah.131 Yet in formulating his exegetical theory, Ibn Bal‘am turned to the older geonic axiomatic formulas:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Know that we do not remove a verse om its obvious sense (ẓāhir) except on account of three things. The first of those is if that verse ininges upon reason. Then reinterpretation (ta’wīl) should be applied in order to divert it toward what is reasonable. And the second is that it ininges on what is in another verse and the two biblical utterances contradict each other, then we must reinterpret (apply ta’wīl to) one of them as befitting in order to harmonize them. And the third is if the verse opposes what has arrived om the tradition; then we reinterpret (apply ta’wīl to) it as necessary to make it consistent with the tradition.132 Ibn Bal‘am posits that Scripture has a single correct interpretation, determined by considering all relevant factors, beginning with the apparent sense of the language, to be adjusted in light of reason, other biblical texts, and tradition.133 Like Saadia, Ibn Bal‘am was prepared to depart om the ẓāhir in light of rabbinic exegesis, especially in the realm of halakhah, though in some instances he retained the former and evidently regarded the latter as mere derash.134 In either case, he does not enjoy the luxury afforded by Ibn Janah’s two-level theory: when faced with a contradiction between the apparent sense and a rabbinic reading, he must choose to endorse the former as is, or to allow the latter to override it. Well aware of Ibn Janah’s analysis of Deut. 12:4, Ibn Bal‘am had to adopt a different approach: The early Sages applied its saying “Do not do thus to the Lord your God” to the destruction of the nations’ places of sacrifice, saying to Israel: Do not do thus to My places of sacrifice. Now the apparent sense of the text (ẓāhir al-naṣṣ) suggests another meaning—that it is a prohibition of utilizing altars to God in every place, as the idol worshipers do, but rather it is necessary that you come to the altar that He shall make in a chosen place, and there you shall offer My sacrifices. Yet the Rabbis (lit., “men of the tradition”), who are the most correct (aṣdaq), dismissed that interpretation in accordance with what I mentioned first, as they said: “Anyone

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

90

Chapter 2

who removes a stone om the holy temple violates a negative commandment, as it says: ‘Do not do thus to the Lord your God.’ ” They also derived om this verse the prohibition of erasing the essential names of God.135

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Whereas Ibn Janah had emphasized that both interpretations can coexist, Ibn Bal‘am privileges the rabbinic interpretation, which overrides the “apparent sense of the text.”136 Yet in at least one instance, he seems to have embraced Ibn Janah’s dual hermeneutic. On Deut. 24:16, “Fathers shall not be put to death for sons, nor sons be put to death for fathers; each person shall be put to death only for his own sin,” he comments: The early Sages applied it to testimony: that testimony of relatives for or about each other is invalid. . . . Now the apparent sense of the text (ẓāhir al-naṣṣ) is that it is impermissible to punish the father for the sin of the son, or the son for the sin of the father. For you see the language of Scripture, “But he did not put to death the children of the assassins, in accordance with what is in the Torah, in the book of Moses, where the Lord commanded: Fathers shall not be put to death for sons, nor sons be put to death for fathers” (2 Kings 14:6). And our master Saadia, of blessed memory, acted well in saying that Scripture had need to mention this, even though it is clear om reason, since the Arabs used to make such rulings in pre-Islamic times (jahiliyya; lit., “time of ignorance”), I mean that they would kill a relative as retribution for the killing of a relative, and God prohibits the likes of this. And you should not have misgivings about the words of the early Sages in the matter of testimony that contradict the apparent sense of the text (ẓāhir al-naṣṣ), for this is not unusual in their work, for you see that they interpreted “Do not eat upon blood” (Lev. 19:26) in many ways, and all are acceptable in their view.137 Ibn Bal‘am could not reject the apparent sense of Deut. 24:16,138 which seems incontrovertible in light of 2 Kings 14:6, in addition to having Saadia’s support. Since Ibn Bal‘am accepted the halakhic exegesis as authoritative, here he makes an exception and relies on Ibn Janah’s dual meaning theory, which his language here echoes, including the example om Lev. 19:26.139 Though the philological interpretations of Ibn Chiquitilla and Ibn Bal‘am are the pillars of what Abraham Ibn Ezra would refer to as the “way of peshat,” neither ever refers (in their extant writings) to the peshat maxim. Nor did they use the term peshat itself, but rather relied on Arabic terminology. Unlike Ibn Janah, neither saw a need to make a strong statement about the inviolate nature of peshuto shel miqra. This omission is understandable since Ibn Janah himself cited the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Andalusian School

91

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

peshat maxim only once and used the term peshat very rarely. Within its original Judeo-Arabic environment, the Andalusian school did not emphasize its adherence to the “way of peshat”—as Abraham Ibn Ezra would do when transplanting that tradition to Christian lands. The imprint of Ibn Chiquitilla and Ibn Bal‘am is evident in the exegetical work of Isaac ben Samuel al-Kanzi (c. 1065–1140), a religious judge (dayyan) in Fustat (Egypt) known as “ha-Sefaradi” because he (or his father) originated om al-Andalus. Isaac ben Samuel penned a commentary on the former prophets in Judeo-Arabic. Only parts of the commentary on Samuel are extant, in two manuscripts: MS Saint Petersburg, Heb. Arab. II Firk. 3362; and MS London, British Library Or. 2388. The commentary has yet to be published, and only a few studies—of a rather preliminary nature—are devoted to it.140 In addition to Ibn Chiquitilla and Ibn Bal‘am, al-Kanzi drew also upon Saadia, Samuel ben Hofni, Hayyuj, Ibn Janah, and Nathan of Rome. Although he was heavily influenced by Yefet ben Eli as well, al-Kanzi mentions him by name only once, perhaps because he did not wish to acknowledge his debt to a Karaite. As was typical of other authors in the Geonic-Andalusian school, al-Kanzi aims to harmonize his interpretations with the halakhah but is not bound by aggadic midrash.141 In one case, he cites a “lovely midrash” (midrash ḥasan) but interprets “according to what is required by the apparent sense of the text (ẓāhir al-naṣṣ).”142 In commenting on the richly detailed stories of the book of Samuel, al-Kanzi manifests remarkable literary sensitivity to the workings of biblical narrative. It would seem that he owes much to Yefet ben Eli in this regard—but further research on both Yefet and al-Kanzi is required to assess this matter fully. Perhaps because al-Kanzi lived and wrote in Egypt, his work did not circulate widely, and was unknown, for example, to Abraham Ibn Ezra.

Moses Ibn Ezra: Poetic Dimensions of Scripture More central to the Andalusian exegetical tradition was the literary perspective on Scripture developed by the great poet Moses Ibn Ezra (c. 1055–1138). Born and educated in Granada in al-Andalus, he fled around 1090 to Christian Spain, where he remained until his death.143 Early in his career, Moses Ibn Ezra established his reputation as a great Hebrew poet, attracting the young Judah ha-Levi (c. 1075–1141), who corresponded with him om Christian Toledo, as a protégé.144 In addition to writing “sacred” (liturgical) poetry, Moses Ibn Ezra wrote “secular” (non-liturgical) Hebrew poetry that followed the conventions and themes of Arabic poetry. Toward the end of his life, he wrote two significant expository works: The Treatise of the Garden on the Matter of Majāz and Ḥaqīqa (Maqālat al-Ḥadīqa fi Ma‘na l-Majāz wa-l-Ḥaqīqa) and The Book of Discussion

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

92

Chapter 2

and Conversation (Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa-l-Mudhākara), both composed in Judeo-Arabic and infused with a broad range of Arabic learning.145 Although not Bible commentaries per se, these works address issues of biblical hermeneutics that reflect the outlook of the Geonic-Andalusian exegetical school. Moses Ibn Ezra’s Treatise of the Garden has three major sections: a programmatic introduction on the majāz-ḥaqīqa dichotomy; a philosophical section that discusses God’s unity and unknowability, Creation, and man’s nature; and an exegetical section arranged in a quasi-dictionary format that lists biblical terms associated with human beings (such as the Hebrew words for soul, heart, face, sight, and hearing), and enumerates how they are used literally (in connection with human beings) and nonliterally (in connection with animals, inanimate objects and God). In his introduction, Moses Ibn Ezra repeats Saadia’s axiom that any given biblical locution should initially be assumed to be ḥaqīqa unless doing so yields an unreasonable interpretation, in which case it must be taken as majāz.146 In his view:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Ḥaqīqa is primary (lit., “the root”; aṣl), whereas majāz is derivative (lit., “a branch”; far‘). Ḥaqīqa is specific, whereas majāz is diffuse. . . . We must not assume that a language expression is majāz rather than ḥaqīqa unless its understanding as ḥaqīqa is impossible. Ḥaqīqa is natural, whereas majāz is an affectation. Majāz connotes using language for something other than its original coinage, whereas ḥaqīqa is the correspondence of language to its meaning without pleonasm (ziyāda; lit., “addition,” “excess”) or omission (nuqṣān), such that each word (ism) is in conformity with its signification and each signification conforms to its word.147 Although the majāz-ḥaqīqa dichotomy had long been a part of Jewish learning, its formulation by Moses Ibn Ezra, laden with allusions to Arabic poetics and qur’anic hermeneutics, adds important theoretical dimensions om a logicallinguistic perspective, an aspect that Maimonides would develop.148 The extensive philological application of the majāz-ḥaqīqa dichotomy in the dictionary section of The Treatise of the Garden likewise represents a unique contribution to Jewish interpretation. Informed by the commentaries of Ibn Chiquitilla and Ibn Bal‘am, Moses Ibn Ezra does for biblical majāz specifically what Ibn Janah had done in his comprehensive biblical dictionary in general. The Treatise of the Garden is a dedicated study of a broad range of metaphorical and other linguistic transformations within Biblical Hebrew that fall under the rubric of majāz. Following the model of Arabic works on poetry and qur’anic hermeneutics, it provides sophisticated poetic and linguistic explanations for the various subtypes of majāz occurring in the Bible, such as metaphor (isti‘āra), metonymy

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Andalusian School

93

(badal al-mujāwara), simile (tashbīh), hyperbole (ghulluw), ellipsis (iḍmār), and pleonasm (ziyāda), for many of which similar usages om Arabic poetry and the Qur’an are cited.149 In this respect, Moses Ibn Ezra’s philological work draws upon the literary expertise he manifests in his Book of Discussion and Conversation, a guide for composing Hebrew poetry according to Arabic literary conventions.150 He enumerates twenty “embellishments of poetry” (maḥāsin al-shi‘r) defined in similar Arabic handbooks and aims to demonstrate their occurrence in Scripture. The result is an aesthetic exegesis of the Bible that offers insight into its literary workings. Despite the logical precedence he grants ḥaqīqa in the Treatise of the Garden, a different attitude colors his Book of Discussion, which emphasizes the literary elegance of the various types of majāz that the “embellishments” entail. Metaphor (isti‘āra), for example, is lauded as being indispensable for literary expression, in both poetry and prose, even though it is less precise than literal language.151 Aesthetic considerations at times call for prolix language, as Moses Ibn Ezra observes in discussing mubālagha (poetic intensification, strengthening): “Examples of it in the Sacred Scriptures include: ‘I will be tender toward them, as a man is tender toward his son who ministers to him’ (Mal. 3:17). Once it says ‘his son,’ the intended idea is complete, and the phrase ‘who ministers to him’ is a marvelous poetic addition (ziyāda) and beautiful intensification (tablīgh).”152 Ibn Ezra regards the prophets as poets, who sought not only to convey the word of God but also to do so in the most aesthetically pleasing, rhetorically effective way possible.153 The exegetical tradition inspired by Saadia generally aimed to cut through or “decode” the majāz usages in Scripture, a goal that Moses Ibn Ezra articulates in The Treatise of the Garden when speaking of biblical anthropomorphic depictions of God: “One must treat these nonliteral (majāz) expressions delicately and realize that the true matter (al-ma‘na al-ḥaqīqī) is too subtle and exalted for us to know it in its true nature. The intelligent person must strip them of these husks . . . to reach the desired matter according to the ability of his discernment.”154 For the interpreter, majāz is a barrier to understanding, which Saadia, for example, removed in his Tafsīr, as he transformed metaphors into literal language, rectified ellipses, and omitted redundancies.155 But Moses Ibn Ezra speaks as a poet in his Book of Discussion and provides the perspective that illuminates why majāz was used in the first place by the biblical authors. Moses Ibn Ezra highlights the divergence of the Judeo-Arabic literaryphilological method of interpreting the Bible om midrashic interpretation, in which the very notion of poetic embellishment is foreign.156 The literary understanding that Moses Ibn Ezra articulates would become a central feature of what Abraham Ibn Ezra, followed by Radak and Nahmanides, termed the “way of

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

94

Chapter 2

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

peshat.”157 Yet Moses Ibn Ezra, like Ibn Chiquitilla and Ibn Bal‘am before him, sufficed with the rich terminology provided by Arabic learning and saw no need to invoke the peshat maxim for this purpose, even though he would have been aware of its use by both Ibn Janah and Samuel ha-Nagid.158 The need for such a concept would become acute only once the Andalusian method would be rendered in Hebrew by Jews in Christian lands.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Chapter 3

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Rashi: Peshat Revolution in Northern France

While philological Jewish Bible interpretation had been gaining influence in Muslim lands since the late ninth century, midrash dominated the Ashkenazic intellectual horizon well into the eleventh. Rashi’s exegetical program represented a seismic shi, om which the vibrant northern French peshat school emerged. Much has been written about Rashi, both in traditional literature (especially supercommentaries on his Pentateuch commentary) and modern scholarship. Yet recent findings about eleventh-century Ashkenazic learning and contemporaneous Latin Bible interpretation make the time ripe for a new perspective on Rashi’s hermeneutical innovations. Born in Troyes in the Champagne district of France, Rashi traveled around 1060 to study in the Rhineland, the intellectual center of Ashkenaz.1 He first studied at Mainz with R. Jacob ben Yaqar (c. 990–1064), a key disciple of the seminal talmudic master Rabbenu (“our Rabbi, Master”) Gershom, “Luminary of the Diaspora” (c. 960–1028), founder of the Mainz rabbinic academy.2 R. Jacob, renowned for his piety and humility, was credited by Rashi as the most formative influence on his scholarship and his religious persona.3 Aer R. Jacob’s death, Rashi continued at the Mainz academy, then headed by R. Isaac ben Judah (c. 1010–c. 1090), who played a key role in consolidating Rabbenu Gershom’s talmudic interpretations.4 Soon aer, Rashi transferred to the Worms academy to study under R. Isaac ben Eliezer ha-Levi (c. 1000–c. 1080), a disciple of Rabbenu Gershom who was also involved in communal affairs as the spiritual leader of the Worms community—a model Rashi would emulate in Troyes.5 An ambitious, wide-ranging commentary on the Babylonian Talmud, the primary subject of study in the Rhineland, was composed there by Rabbenu Gershom’s students, based on his teachings.6 As noted in Chapter 2, R. Hananel and R. Isaac Alfasi, direct successors of the Babylonian geonim, penned works that paraphrased and abridged the Talmud. But Rabbenu Gershom’s followers in the Rhineland labored to elucidate its oen enigmatic text comprehensively in the first line-by-line commentary-glosses on the Talmud.7 Their revolutionary aim, as

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

96

Chapter 3

characterized by Haym Soloveitchik, was to “grasp . . . [the talmudic text] in its entirety,” powered by a presumption that its “every nook and cranny . . . had to be illuminated; every thought and interpretation, however briefly entertained . . . had to be understood in all its detail.”8 A small but important part of this endeavor is reflected in a set of 130 vernacular glosses, or le‘azim (sing., la‘az), elucidating difficult talmudic words, mostly in Old French, that emanated om Rabbenu Gershom’s school.9 Educated in this intellectual workshop, Rashi returned to Troyes around 1070 as an accomplished talmudist. Always recognizing his intellectual debt to the Rhineland academies, Rashi continued to correspond with his teachers there, as illustrated by a series of twelve queries he sent to R. Isaac ben Judah on Talmud exegesis.10 He also returned to Worms at least once (c. 1075) to visit R. Isaac ben Eliezer.11 Yet Rashi forged his own path as an intellectual pioneer and communal leader.12 In Talmud interpretation and halakhah, he disagreed at times with his Rhineland teachers. In fact, at one meeting during his return visit to Worms, R. Isaac ben Eliezer conceded that Rashi was correct in a halakhic matter that the two had debated.13 The Troyes master composed his own monumental line-byline commentary on virtually the entire Talmud, which distilled and refined the best features of the Rhineland commentaries. Those were eventually largely lost, as they were eclipsed by Rashi’s, which became a standard accompaniment of the talmudic text, unrivaled until the modern period.14 Rashi’s academy at Troyes would draw the best and brightest students om France and even Germany, among whom would be the leading Ashkenazic talmudic scholars of the twelh century and founders of the Tosafist movement.15 Whereas Rashi’s Talmud commentary is suffused with Rhineland interpretive traditions, his Bible commentary is marked by expressions such as “but I say,” highlighting his own interpretive voice, in which he critically evaluates, and offers peshat alternatives to, traditional midrashic interpretations.16 By contrast, the Leqaḥ Ṭov Pentateuch commentary by Rashi’s younger contemporary Tobiah ben Eliezer (aer 1097), a scion of the Byzantine interpretive tradition, was dependent almost exclusively on midrash, notwithstanding its sporadic references to the “peshat of Scripture.”17 Rashi manifested interest in biblical grammar and philology unprecedented in Ashkenazic circles. For this purpose, he drew upon the Aramaic Targums18 and the works of the Andalusian Hebraists Menahem ben Saruq and Dunash ben Labrat.19 From within his own Ashkenazic tradition, Rashi oen cited anonymous poterim (“interpreters,” “translators”) whose Old French glosses (le‘azim) elucidated difficult words in the Bible, a trend attested in a Christian tradition of vernacular Bible glosses.20 Yet Rashi’s novel program of peshat exegesis went beyond philological analysis of individual words. Aiming to account for the sequence and arrangement of the biblical text, Rashi exhibited interest in its literary dimensions and the ancient historical events that its narrative

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Rashi

97

conveys.21 Rashi’s commentary quickly spread throughout the Ashkenazic world, though its penetration among Jews in Muslim lands would be more gradual.22 Even within the Christian world, in which the literal sense was increasingly privileged in the high and late Middle Ages, “Rabbi Salomon” (abbreviated as Ra. Sa.) became an important exegetical resource. His commentaries are cited by Nicholas of Lyre (1270–1349),23 were evidently utilized by Andrew of Saint Victor (c. 1110– 1175)24 and Herbert of Bosham (1120–1194),25 and may have even been known to Hugh of Saint Victor (c. 1096–1141).26 Though Rashbam credited Rashi for pioneering the discipline of peshat exegesis27 and Christian Bible scholars would turn to him to elucidate Scripture’s literal sense, the characterization of Rashi as a pashtan is aught with challenges. To begin with, Rashi oen incorporates midrash into his commentary. Abraham Ibn Ezra judged Rashi’s exegetical skills harshly, by the standard of his GeonicAndalusian tradition.28 At the same time, as we shall see in this chapter, Rashi arrived at a theoretical understanding of the peshat maxim that resembles its “strong reading” advanced by Ibn Janah (see Chapter 2). For both eleventhcentury interpreters, the “peshat of Scripture,” by which they meant a grammaticalcontextual reading, is inviolate. This parallel led some scholars to argue that Rashi drew upon Ibn Janah’s work and that his peshat model is a derivative of earlier Jewish sources. The argument put forth in this chapter, on the other hand, is that Rashi’s distinctive peshat agenda is best understood as a distinct interpretive outlook that reflects intellectual trends and tensions within his Franco-German cultural milieu. An introductory note regarding the widely used text of Rashi in the Rabbinic Bible is in order. His supremely influential Pentateuch commentary shows signs of alteration om its original form—with evidence of omissions as well as additions. Abraham Berliner published a critical edition in 1866 (and a revised second edition 1905) based on medieval manuscripts and on the 1475 Reggio di Calabria edition, the earliest dated printed text.29 The endeavor to isolate Rashi’s original commentary is especially challenging because there are no extant autographs and the earliest manuscripts date om the second third of the thirteenth century, over a hundred years aer his death. In a provocative 1987 study, Eleazar Touitou argued that the majority of the printed text of Rashi’s Pentateuch commentary, even in Berliner’s edition, derives om interpolated glosses by his students and other scribe-copyists.30 This has far-reaching implications for any attempt to study Rashi’s methodology, as it calls into question the authenticity of practically any given passage of his commentary, especially those in which more than one interpretation appears.31 Touitou’s theory has been challenged by Avraham Grossman, on the basis of MS Leipzig 1 (Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig B.H. 1), which contains Rashi’s commentaries on the Pentateuch and other sections of the Bible read in the synagogue. This manuscript was transcribed by one Makhir in the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

98

Chapter 3

thirteenth century om a manuscript that seems to have been penned by Rashi’s own close student and secretary Shemaiah (c. 1060–1130), and thus can reasonably be identified as a close replica of his original commentary.32 Accordingly, Rashi’s Pentateuch commentary is cited in this study based on Berliner’s edition, checked against MS Leipzig 1. Citations of Rashi’s commentaries on other biblical books are based on critical editions, where available.33 To be sure, even MS Leipzig 1 reflects the susceptibility of Rashi’s commentaries to revision, since Makhir notes at times that he included additions and corrections that Shemaiah made—in some cases, at Rashi’s request.34 The last case is particularly illuminating because it shows that Rashi regularly instructed Shemaiah to revise his original work—a tendency attested in other manuscripts as well.35 Given Rashi’s expressed wish, recorded by Rashbam, to perfect his commentaries “according to the peshat interpretations that newly emerge every day,”36 it is conceivable that interpretations originally proposed by Rashi’s students were endorsed by the master and incorporated into his commentaries—perhaps by Shemaiah’s hand at his instruction. This process seems to be behind Rashi’s commentary on Isa. 64:3, for example, which contains two interpretations, the second of which, appearing only in some manuscripts, has the following note appended: “Thus I heard om Rabbi Joseph [Qara], and it pleased me.”37 However, such additions—even if they were endorsed by Rashi—must be studied in the context of the advances in the peshat method made by Qara and Rashbam, discussed in Chapter 4.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Consciously Advanced Peshat Model As discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, exegetes in the Geonic-Andalusian tradition drew heavily upon Arabic terminology and only rarely used the peshat maxim—or even the term peshat. Rashi was different: as an Ashkenazic rabbinic scholar, he regularly invoked the authority of the talmudic peshat maxim to justi his philological exegesis and his departure om midrashic traditions (aggadot; sing., aggadah)—for example, in his famous programmatic statement: “There are many midrashic aggadot and our Rabbis have already arranged them in their appropriate place in Genesis Rabbah and other midrashic works. My aim, however, is to relate only the peshat of Scripture and the sort of aggadah that settles (meyashevet) the words of Scripture . . . ‘each word in its proper place’ (Prov. 25:11).”38 Midrash is still in the background when Rashi highlights the philological orientation of his peshat reading—for example, in his gloss on the word lahaṭ in Gen. 3:24, “So [the Lord] drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubim and the lahaṭ of the sword turning itself to guard the way of the tree of life”: “ ‘The sword turning itself ’—it had a lahaṭ to threaten Adam so as not to enter the Garden again. The Aramaic Targum of lahaṭ is shenan (blade)

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Rashi

99

. . . and in the vernacular (la‘az) lame (‘blade’). Now there are aggadic midrashim, but I relate only the peshat of [Scripture] (peshuto).”39 In Genesis Rabbah, biblical verses are cited to construe lahaṭ in the sense of a “flame.”40 Accordingly, “the lahaṭ of the sword” means “a flaming sword,” an ancient interpretation attested in the Vulgate (et conlocavit ante paradisum . . . flammeum gladium). This midrash was evidently popular in Rashi’s time, as it is cited in Leqaḥ Ṭov.41 Rashi, on the other hand, built his peshat interpretation on an independent line of philological analysis based on the Targum, for which he also provided an Old French equivalent.42 Accordingly, Rashi renders lahaṭ as “a blade” (and thus “the blade of the sword” in Gen. 3:24), not as “a flame.” For the Rabbis, who typically emphasized the supernatural in the biblical narrative, this was a miraculous flaming sword, whereas Rashi’s peshat reading renders it in a more naturalistic, mundane way. This sort of example, in which Rashi’s philological peshat interpretation displaces the midrash, would seem to illustrate his adherence to the “peshat of Scripture” most dramatically.43 Oen, however, Rashi juxtaposed his peshat interpretation and the midrash. For example, on Gen. 11:28, “And Haran died in ont of his father, Terah, in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees,” Rashi provides two explanations of the expression “in ont of ” and two corresponding ones of the expression “Ur of Chaldees”:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

In ont of his father, Terah—during his father’s lifetime. But the aggadic midrash says that he died through his father’s actions. For Terah complained to Nimrod about his son Abram because he smashed his idols, and Nimrod cast Abram into the fiery furnace. And Haran sat and said in his heart: “If Abram triumphs, I am with him, but if Nimrod triumphs, I am with him.” And when Abram was saved, they asked Haran, “Whose side are you on?” Haran said to them: “On Abram’s side.” They cast him into the fiery furnace and he was burnt. And that is Ur (lit., “fire”) of the Chaldeans. But Menahem [ben Saruq] explained: ur means “valley.” And similarly, “Glori the Lord in the valleys” (urim) (Isa. 24:15), and like “the den (me’urat) of a viper” (Isa. 11:8). Every hole or deep cle may be called ur.44 With ur construed to mean “fire,” the reading identified as midrash takes this verse as a reference to a miraculous event—Abram’s surviving the fiery furnace— symbolic of the victory of monotheism over idolatry. This midrashic tradition was well-known and influential. Not only does it appear in Leqaḥ Ṭov; it is even reflected in Saadia’s commentary.45 Rashi, however, offers an alternative philological

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

100

Chapter 3

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

analysis—implicitly cast as peshuto shel miqra—based on Menahem ben Saruq’s observation that the Biblical Hebrew word ur means “valley.” Accordingly, Rashi renders the narrative in this entire verse a more ordinary account of a son dying within his father’s lifetime (“in ont of his father”)—in the valley of the Chaldees. Rashi oen uses a “double commentary” format to differentiate between two interpretations using the methodological labels peshuto (“its peshat”) and/or midrasho (“its midrash”).46 A good example relates to the “covenant between the parts” (berit bein ha-betarim) in Genesis 15, in which Abraham was told by God to gather three large animals (a heifer, a goat, and a ram) and two birds (a turtledove and a pigeon). Abraham cut the large animals in half to confirm his covenant with God. To explain this curious ritual, Rashi cites the typological midrashic interpretation according to which these animals symbolize the animal sacrifices that the people of Israel would offer to God in the Temple in Jerusalem or, alternatively, to prophetically foretell how various nations will oppress and exile Israel but will ultimately be destroyed (“cut to pieces”), whereas Israel herself (represented by the two birds) will survive eternally (therefore “he did not divide the birds”; v. 10).47 Tobiah ben Eliezer, likewise, offers symbolic midrashic interpretations in this vein.48 Rashi, however, adds the following remark: But the biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat. Since God was making a covenant with him to keep His promise to give the land to his progeny, as it says, “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying” and so on (Gen. 15:18), and the manner of those who made covenants (derekh kortei berit) in biblical times was to split an animal and to pass between its parts, as it says elsewhere: “those who passed between the parts of the calf ” (Jer. 34:19). So, too, here: “A smoking oven and a flaming torch that passed between those pieces” (Gen. 15:17)—that was the agent of the divine presence, which is fire.49 Invoking the talmudic peshat maxim, Rashi accounts for these events within their historical context, citing Jer. 34:19 as evidence that cutting animals in half was a normal way of making a covenant in biblical times. Rashi’s concept of peshat entails an endeavor to explain the biblical narrative in light of the norms, conventions, and behavior (“the manner”; derekh) of people in ancient times, a tendency that would be refined by Rashbam and his students.50

Was Rashi Truly a Pashtan? Notwithstanding the striking instances in which Rashi insisted on preserving the integrity of the “peshat of Scripture,” there are the numerous cases in which

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Rashi

101

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

he drew exclusively upon rabbinic sources that yield midrashic interpretations. Examples of this sort have been discussed in earlier chapters (Gen. 14:14 in the Introduction, Deut. 26:5 in Chapter 1, and Gen. 12:1 in Chapter 2), and some will be discussed later (Gen. 11:1–4 and Exod. 15:6 in Chapter 4). Here we cite one that serves as a counterpoint to those discussed in the preceding section, which manifest Rashi’s sense of historical propriety. Instead, Rashi equently follows in the footsteps of the Rabbis, reading into Scripture to seek eternal messages for the Jewish people. Oen these messages relate closely to the situation of his downtrodden coreligionists in the cruel diaspora of medieval Europe. For example, Psalm 42 would appear to be the lament of an individual Israelite in exile, perhaps in Babylonia, who expresses grief because he is currently unable to make the periodic pilgrimage to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem—a joyful experience he recalls in this psalm. Indeed, this was the opinion of Moses Ibn Chiquitilla, cited by Abraham Ibn Ezra.51 For Rashi, however, the psalmist “prophesied about the three kingdoms that will bring the worship in the Temple to an end: Babylonia, Greece, and Rome. Israel cries in anguish, but will be rescued.”52 Later verses in this psalm read: “O my God, my soul is downcast: therefore I think of You in this land of Jordan and of Hermon, in Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterspouts: all Your waves and billows have swept over me. By day the Lord vouchsafes His faithful care, and in the night a song to Him shall be with me, a prayer to the God of my life (Ps. 42:7–9).” Ibn Ezra here manifests the historical and literary-contextual sensibilities typical of the Andalusian peshat approach: Deep calls to deep—within the context of this passage, it would seem that the psalmist refers here to streams that descend om the mountains. And the meaning of “Deep calls to deep” is that the water of the streams combines at low points . . . as he used to enjoy himself when he passed through the mountains in the summer, and the flowing waters—like waves and billows of the sea—flowed over him. But one who interprets this verse about the matter of the exile disconnects it om the context. By day—he recounts traveling with the celebrants by day with the security of God’s grace. And at night—they sang . . . hymns of prayer.53 Taking into consideration the references in these verses to the terrain of northern Israel, Ibn Ezra interpreted these words as a wistful recollection of the joyous pilgrimage travels through mountains and streams by day, followed by devotional communal song at night.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

102

Chapter 3

The last line of Ibn Ezra’s commentary on verse 8 seems to be a response to Rashi, who follows the midrashic approach and takes this psalm as a collective lament said by the “Congregation of Israel.”54 Accordingly, Rashi’s commentaries on these verses emphasize Israel’s suffering in exile: “Deep calls to deep— one calamity invites another, pouring suffering upon me like gushing water, and so ‘all Your waves and billows have swept over me.’. . . By day may the Lord vouchsafe His faithful care—[i.e., may the light of redemption arrive]. And in the night—in the darkness of exile and suffering.”55 For Rashi, the violent water imagery symbolizes calamities, the night exile and suffering, and the day redemption—all for the Jewish people in his time, far removed om the experiences of the ancient psalmist. By contrast with Ibn Ezra, Rashi adopts a midrashic agenda. The question of how to reconcile Rashi’s midrashic exegetical practice with his stated peshat program is an old one. A venerable tradition of supercommentaries on Rashi’s Pentateuch commentary diligently endeavored to show how each and every midrashic reading offered by the rabbinic master of Troyes was motivated by compelling philological-literary considerations and is not simply a gratuitous midrashic elaboration. Elijah Mizrahi (Constantinople, 1455–1526), author of the most celebrated of these works, employs this strategy. Taking the peshat method of Nahmanides as a yardstick, Mizrahi acknowledges that Rashi’s commentaries do not adhere to the same standard, but he argues that they nonetheless are “close to the peshat of Scripture.”56 In the twentieth century, this approach was refined by Nehama Leibowitz, who drew upon modern literary theory to show that Rashi engages in what the New Criticism calls “close reading,” which— in Leibowitz’s view—can be classified as peshat.57 This can be illustrated by an example om Rashi’s commentary on Job, which recounts the undeserved suffering of this righteous man. In Job 1:22, aer the initial round of calamities that befall Job, the biblical narrator records: “With all this, Job did not sin”; that is, he did not curse God, as the Satan had predicted (Job 1:11). Job is then afflicted by the Satan with painful boils, aer which the narrator recounts: “With all this, Job did not sin with his lips” (Job 2:10). Rashi’s gloss on this verse, “But in his heart he sinned,”58 is drawn om the Talmud (b.Bava Batra 15a). This would seem to reflect the midrashic doctrine of omnisignificance, as the Rabbis made an inference om the superfluous phrase “with his lips.” Rashbam objects to this midrashic projection of an unstated sin onto Job, insisting that “according to the peshat of Scripture, he did not sin at all, not in his heart, nor with his lips.”59 Yet Rashi’s interpretation can be said to reflect a “close reading” of this verse and not simply blind acceptance of the omnisignificance doctrine, since, in the first account (1:22), the narrator stated categorically that “Job did not sin.” Hence, the qualifier “with his lips” might be taken to connote Job’s faltering faith.60

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Rashi

103

Yet this approach works in only some cases. Elsewhere, Rashi seems to exceed the boundaries of what he defined as the “peshat of Scripture.” The paradox is clear enough. On the one hand, Rashi manifests a clear grasp of peshat as historically sensitive, contextual-philological interpretation. Yet many interpretations he adopts do not meet those very criteria. Benjamin Gelles dealt with this incongruity in his methodical study of the way Rashi employed the term peshuto shel miqra and the notion of “settling” the text (the root y-sh-b in the pi‘el form),61 that is, making it cohere naturally. This terminology indicates Rashi’s incipient conception of peshat exegesis. But since most of his interpretations are, in fact, midrashic, Gelles concluded that Rashi “had not yet reached the modern finality of evaluation which allocates to each sense a realm of its own.”62 In other words, “when Rashi composed his commentary on Scripture he had not yet come to a clear recognition of peshat and derash as belonging to two unconnected realms of interpretation”63—an echo of Ibn Ezra’s assessment. Sarah Kamin arrived at a different conclusion. She argued that Rashi was fully capable of distinguishing between peshat and midrash but that his notion of “settling” the text is not identical to his conception of peshat.64 When Rashi promised to limit himself to ⒜ peshuto shel miqra and ⒝ the sort of aggadah that “settles” the language of Scripture “each word in its proper place,” he was actually speaking of two distinct categories. The latter is not identical to the “peshat of Scripture” but rather represents a critical selection om among midrashic interpretations of those that “settle”—conform to and help to explain—the language of Scripture so that each word is accounted for sequentially in its context.65 Rashi’s intention was to create a midrashic commentary “that manifests internal unity and sequential coherence” and “corresponds to the language of Scripture as a syntactic and contextual unit.”66 While these are also characteristics of peshuto shel miqra, as Rashi used the term, his midrashic interpretations eely import elements om elsewhere (later history, theology, etc.), whereas peshat exegesis is bound by what is stated explicitly or strongly implied in Scripture itself. According to Kamin, Rashi’s two goals were: to preserve the integrity of the “peshat of Scripture”; and to select midrashic interpretations that meet methodological criteria that are analogous—but not identical—to the criteria of peshat exegesis. This dual objective is articulated most clearly in Rashi’s introduction to the Song of Songs: “One thing God has spoken; two things have I heard” (Ps. 62:12)—“One verse can have a number of meanings” (b.Sanhedrin 34a), but in the end a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat. . . . Although the prophets uttered their words in allegory (dugma), one must settle the allegorical meaning (dugma) on its basis and sequence (seder), just as the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

104

Chapter 3

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

verses are arranged (sedurim) one aer the other. Now I have seen many aggadic midrashim on this book . . . and they are not settled upon the language of Scripture and the sequence of the verses (seder ha-miqra’ot). I therefore decided to establish the literal sense (mashma‘) of the verses, in order to settle their interpretation according to their sequence, and the rabbinic midrashim I shall set, one by one, each in its place.67 Rashi accepts the midrashic allegorical reading as the essential meaning of the Song of Songs. Yet he introduces what in his milieu was a revolutionary peshat analysis of the literal love tale that emerges om the poetry of the Song. To justi this endeavor, he combines two separate talmudic statements: “one verse can have a number of meanings” and “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.”68 For Rashi, then, the Song of Songs must be interpreted on two methodological planes: philologically, as a collection of love songs (peshuto shel miqra); and midrashically, as a national allegory reflecting the relationship between God (the lover) and Israel (the beloved).69 This construal of the peshat maxim is strikingly similar to that of Ibn Janah. As discussed in Chapter 2, the great Andalusian linguist combined the very same two rabbinic statements to conclude that “the peshat of the verse is one thing, the halakhah another.” Both Rashi and Ibn Janah invoked the peshat maxim to introduce—and preserve the integrity of—peshuto shel miqra, notwithstanding the authority of midrashic interpretation. Below we shall consider the possibility that Ibn Janah was Rashi’s source here; but for now, we note important differences between their applications of the peshat maxim. To begin with, Ibn Janah invoked the peshat maxim essentially to bypass midrash and engage exclusively in peshat exegesis. Rashi, on the other hand, committed himself to both exegetical modes. In the Song of Songs, in particular, Rashi emphasizes the connection between them, with the “peshat of Scripture” serving as a baseline for his midrashic interpretation. Diverging om the format of earlier rabbinic works, Rashi compiled a continuous, coherent commentary by selecting among midrashic interpretations only ones that are “settled upon” the language and sequence of the verses (as expounded in his analysis of peshuto shel miqra) and excluding those that do not meet his exegetical criteria. The connection between Rashi’s two exegetical modes is evident in the continuation of his introduction: Now I say that Solomon saw with the Holy Spirit that Israel will be exiled, exile aer exile, destruction aer destruction, and will mourn in this exile over their original glory, and will remember God’s initial love for them, making them His chosen among all nations, saying, “I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now” (Hosea 2:7),

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Rashi

105

and they will recall His kindness and their transgression, and the good things that He promised to bestow upon them at the end of days.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

And Solomon composed this book with the Holy Spirit in the language of a woman stuck in living widowhood, longing for her husband, pining over her lover, recalling to him the love of their youth, and admitting her sin. Likewise, her lover suffers over her pain, and recalls the goodness of her youth and her beauty, and the excellence of her deeds, through which he was tied to her in powerful love, to say to them that he did not decide on his own to afflict her, and that her “casting out” (divorce) is not actual, and that she is still his wife and he is her husband and that he will ultimately return to her.70 Following the midrash, Rashi made this biblical text relevant to the people of Israel for eternity—even in “this exile,” namely, in Christian Europe.71 Yet Rashi found it necessary to delineate the underlying human love story reflected in the “peshat of Scripture,” the pining of a woman separated om her husband, recalling the love of their youth, and seeking to reunite. In his introduction to the Song of Songs, Rashi mentions two criteria for selecting midrashic material: conformity to the language of Scripture; and conformity to the sequence of the verses. These criteria are evident elsewhere in his commentaries. For example, on Exod. 6:2–9, he records a midrash with the following reservation: “But this midrash is not settled aer (i.e., upon) the verse for several reasons.”72 He notes, first, that it does not correspond to the language of the biblical text. Furthermore, he wonders, “How does the sequence follow (hasemikhah nismekhet) in the words with which it continues?” Rashi therefore concludes: “Let the text be settled according to its peshat, though the midrash can be expounded separately.”73 This is one among other similar instances in which Rashi set aside what was evidently a well-known midrash and argued that the text can be “settled” only “according to its peshat.”74 Implicitly, then, these are exceptions; elsewhere the midrashic interpretations that Rashi incorporates into his commentary “settle”/“are settled upon” the language and sequence of Scripture.

What Prompted Rashi’s New Approach? As argued by Kamin, a close reading of Rashi’s programmatic statements suggests that peshuto shel miqra was not his exclusive goal but rather a baseline, explicated where necessary, for his midrashic commentaries that “settle” the language and sequence of Scripture. For Rashi, then, peshuto shel miqra was not the ultimate or best form of interpretation, a distinction that he would assign to

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

106

Chapter 3

midrash—critically selected. Rather than regard Rashi as a flawed pashtan, we must recognize his dual objective: to respect the integrity of peshuto shel miqra and engage in selective midrashic interpretation.75 But this outlook on Rashi’s exegetical program raises two critical follow-up questions. First, if Rashi had a clear conception of peshat exegesis, why didn’t he adopt it as his exegetical yardstick? If he could have “settled” the language of Scripture most tightly and powerfully with “pure” peshat exegesis, why was he satisfied with looser midrashic readings? As Moshe Ahrend put it, Kamin’s theory implies that “Rashi . . . resembles a crasman who perfected a new and original technique, but set it aside to display to his audience a haphazard collection of works by his predecessors.”76 Second, what could have motivated Rashi to engage in peshat exegesis—an endeavor unprecedented in his Ashkenazic milieu—in the first place? What new intellectual influences could have inspired his novel exegetical project? The second question, which has received more attention than the first, has been answered by Rashi scholars in three broad ways. Aer reviewing these, a new answer will be proposed below, which will also yield a clear new response to the first question. By way of introduction, though, it is essential to make two methodological points. First, we must explain why it is important to consider the influences that could have inspired Rashi to pioneer his peshat agenda, since an objection might be raised: Is it not possible that Rashi, otherwise known to have been an original thinker, devised his new agenda independently? If so, there would be no need to seek any outside sources of influence on his thought. The validity of this reasoning depends on what we mean by “influence.” We are not assuming that Rashi “acquired” or “borrowed” a ready-made notion of peshat om elsewhere. Rather, we aim to discover the conceptions and forces at work in Rashi’s intellectual milieu that may have provided the motives and means for opening his new interpretive vista. The second methodological point is related to the first. Ultimately, the discussion below regarding possible influences on Rashi’s thought remains largely conjectural. Rashi does not say what inspired him to emphasize the peshat maxim that had been previously been ignored in Ashkenazic learning. Rashi may not have even been fully cognizant of the factors that contributed to his interpretive outlook. But beyond its strict historical significance, this inquiry, as we shall see, offers a new way of assessing Rashi’s hermeneutical innovation—and thus yields a powerful new solution to the first question above. Hence, a more complete understanding of Rashi’s intellectual world can help us grasp what he sought to accomplish by establishing his new hermeneutical model, which seems less than successful om the perspective of the later peshat tradition.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Rashi

107

We can now enumerate the three broad theories raised to explain Rashi’s novel interest in peshuto shel miqra—as well as the criticisms that have been raised for each. Rashi’s Talmud Scholarship It has been proposed that Rashi’s intensive activity as a Talmud commentator accustomed him to engage in plain-sense, philological-contextual analysis and that this motivated him to apply a similar method to the Bible.77 Avraham Grossman, though, raises the following objection: Rashi was preceded by at least two generations of Talmud commentary in the Rhineland academies. If a peshat approach to Scripture were a natural result of this sort of interpretive activity, Grossman reasons, it should have emerged in the Rhineland before Rashi’s time.78 While this objection is reasonable, below we shall have an opportunity to reconsider the matter om a new perspective, based on developments in Rashi’s Latin intellectual milieu.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Earlier Jewish Bible Exegesis Rashi was certainly aware of earlier Jewish Bible exegesis that departed om traditional midrash. He acknowledges his debt to the works of Menahem and Dunash.79 He cites interpretations of Menahem bar Helbo (a mid-eleventhcentury Ashkenazic scholar), usually transmitted through the latter’s nephew Joseph Qara, and sporadic philological notes are cited by Rashi in the name of R. Moses the Preacher (ha-darshan; Provence, early eleventh century).80 Rashi regularly refers to Old French glosses of the poterim.81 All these sources provided building blocks for Rashi’s philological-contextual method. Yet it is difficult to regard them as precedents for his strongly stated peshat agenda. Neither Menahem nor Dunash ever uses the term peshat, as noted in Chapter 2. Nor does the term appear in the extant teachings of R. Moses the Preacher or interpretations of Menahem bar Helbo. But other Jewish exegetical sources could have inspired Rashi’s valuation of peshat. andalusian exegesis

Avraham Grossman argues that Rashi drew upon the rich philological exegetical method developed in eleventh-century al-Andalus—the model of peshat inherited by Ibn Ezra.82 Grossman marshals evidence for Rashi’s contacts with travelers who brought him information about Jewish communities in foreign lands, including Muslim Spain. Yet there is no evidence that Rashi knew of the Bible scholarship of any Andalusian authors om Hayyuj onward, who wrote exclusively in Arabic.83 This includes the commentary tradition that developed in the wake of Ibn Janah’s works and his establishment of peshuto shel miqra as his distinct

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

108

Chapter 3

exegetical focus. If Rashi knew of such earlier peshat authorities, we would expect him to cite them.84

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

byzantine exegesis

Israel M. Ta-Shma argued that Rashi drew upon a peshat tradition that had emerged in Byzantine lands in the eleventh century.85 As discussed in Chapter 5, the works of this school survive only in agmentary form; but these agments suggest a budding Byzantine exegetical tradition prior to Rashi’s time that included essential components of his peshat program. This might seem to be a more promising theory because the Byzantine commentaries were in Hebrew, unlike the works of the Judeo-Arabic school. The oldest extant Rabbanite Byzantine commentaries manifest philological-grammatical concerns and the related use of vernacular Greek equivalents of biblical words and phrases in a way that resembles Rashi’s use of Old French. The peshat maxim appears once—in quite a marginal and attenuated way—in one anonymous Byzantine commentary.86 But one may conjecture that it played a larger role in the subsequent Byzantine tradition, since the maxim appears more regularly in Leqaḥ Ṭov. That work, however, may have been influenced by Rashi and would thus not represent an independent attestation of a peshat program.87 Indeed, as discussed in Chapter 5, the pre-twelh-century Byzantine commentaries manifest neither a well-defined notion of peshat, nor a systematic attempt to delineate peshat and midrash, as Rashi does. Furthermore, there is no direct evidence that Rashi knew of the Byzantine commentaries. For this reason, Grossman rejects Ta-Shma’s theory.88 Yet other scholars point to Rashi’s close student Shemaiah as a possible conduit for such a transfer. Shemaiah was familiar with Byzantine coins and practices of Byzantine Jews and seems to have been in southern Italy.89 It is thus conceivable that he brought Byzantine interpretive traditions to Rashi’s attention.90 Also relevant is the Chronicles commentary attributed to the students of Saadia, which has been associated with the Byzantine tradition.91 As discussed in Chapter 2, that commentary, written in Hebrew, is quite old, perhaps dating to the tenth century. It is cited by the Tosafists and seems to have influenced Chronicles commentaries that emerged om Rashi’s school.92 Although it was never mentioned by Rashi, it is conceivable that he, too, knew of the work. That commentary makes reference to the peshat maxim in a style resembling its usage in Rashi’s key methodological statements and might thus be considered among his possible sources.93 Yet the Chronicles commentary manifests only a vague conception of peshat, by comparison with Rashi’s well-developed one. It could have inspired Rashi to consider the exegetical value of peshat, but other sources for his hermeneutical thought must be considered.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Rashi

109

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Christian Learning and Bible Interpretation The possibility has been raised that the inspiration for Rashi’s peshat program can be traced to intellectual developments in his Christian surroundings. An early iteration of this theory is that Rashi privileged peshat in a polemical effort to bolster Jewish Bible interpretation as a response to increasing anti-Jewish polemics in his day that asserted the superiority of its Christian reading.94 That approach was subsumed under a broader argument in the 1980s by Touitou and Kamin that Rashi’s peshat program was inspired by the renewed spirit of Latin learning— especially in grammar, rhetoric, and logic—in the cathedral schools of western Europe in what has been termed the “twelh-century renaissance,” the roots of which can be traced to the eleventh century.95 Beryl Smalley, in her seminal work The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, charted the increasing valuation of the literal sense of Scripture that emerged as a result. She highlighted the interpretive theory and practice of Hugh of Saint Victor, followed by his successor (and possibly his student) Andrew of Saint Victor, in what marked the beginnings of the “scientific study” of the Bible historically and philologically, a process that reached fuller definition in the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas.96 By contrast, prior Christian interpretation focused on the Bible’s “spiritual senses,” prompting medieval readers to “not look at the text, but through it.”97 “Spiritual exposition,” as characterized by Smalley, “generally consists of pious meditations or religious teaching for which the text is used merely as a convenient starting-point.”98 Touitou and Kamin relied on this account and argued that these developments in Latin learning could have influenced Rashi’s peshat agenda, which likewise displaced the “pious meditations” of midrash.99 Not surprisingly, Rashi nowhere hints that he drew upon Christian learning. Indeed, it is unlikely that Rashi consciously adopted Christian modes of thinking about the Bible. But he seems to have been aware of Christian doctrines and interpretive views, to which he responded in his commentaries.100 So Rashi may have subconsciously appropriated hermeneutical elements om that prevailing Zeitgeist. The obvious chronological problem with this theory is that Rashi died in 1105, long before Hugh of Saint Victor was active. To be sure, neither Touitou nor Kamin argued that Hugh actually influenced Rashi—or even Rashbam, for that matter.101 Their claim, rather, was that the intellectual environment that fostered the new Christian interest in the literal sense was shared by Jewish interpreters. Yet the problem remains that its Latin manifestation (Hugh of Saint Victor) comes well aer its manifestation in Judaism (Rashi). Anticipating this objection, Kamin remarked that “Rashi’s work . . . has its parallels— though less obvious parallels—in Christian Bible studies of his time.”102 By necessity, Touitou and Kamin were guided by what Stephen Jaeger has termed

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

110

Chapter 3

“the logic of looking for something where there is light even when you have lost it in the dark.”103 Other problems with the theory emerge om recent studies of Latin learning. The starkness of the “twelh-century renaissance” has been called into question, as evidence points to the continuous vitality of Latin learning in the tenth and eleventh centuries.104 More fundamentally, Smalley’s “grand narrative” has been challenged by studies that chart a more gradual and nuanced picture of the increasing Christian valuation of the literal sense.105 The distinction between the literal (sometimes called “historical”) and “spiritual” (sometimes called “mystical,” i.e., hidden, mysterious)106 senses was well established in Christianity, discussed by the early church fathers Origen (185–254), Saint Jerome (347–420), and Saint Augustine (354–430).107 To be sure, those authorities privileged the spiritual senses, which they subdivided into specific categories. Augustine, for example, highlighted allegoria, aiming to demonstrate how the Old Testament narrative foreshadows that of the New Testament.108 The importance of the literal sense would be emphasized occasionally—for example, by Gregory the Great (d. 604) in his Moralia in Job.109 But it was generally marginalized, with the preponderance of attention directed toward the spiritual sense.110 Gregory adopted a threefold pattern in which the literal-historical sense was a first step, leading to the allegorical sense, and ultimately to the third and highest level of understanding, the moral sense, which serves as a guide to the practice of a Christian life.111 In this vein, Hugh of Saint Victor emphasized the importance of the historical sense as the foundation upon which the allegorical and moral (also called “tropological”) senses were to be constructed.112 By the early thirteenth century, a theory of “the four senses of Scripture” became widely accepted—as delineated, for example, by Stephen Langton (1150–1228).113 Aquinas followed this trend in delineating three spiritual senses—allegorical, moral (or tropological), and anagogical—all of which are “founded” or “based upon” the literal or “historical sense.”114 In practice, though, Latin Bible exegesis in the twelh and thirteenth centuries continued to be dominated by the spiritual senses rather than the literal sense, a trend that Smalley has been criticized for failing to acknowledge adequately.115 Alastair Minnis argues that the growing Christian interest in the literal sense, albeit as a minor note, manifested itself largely in a renewed focus on the literary intentions of the human authors of Scripture.116 This conception was sharply formulated by Aquinas, for whom “the literal sense is that which the author intends,”117 though it had been adumbrated by Hugh of Saint Victor.118 The emphasis on authorial intention put pressure on a long-existing tension between two attitudes: the Bible is a sui generis divine work unlike secular literary works, which requires a different mode of analysis that aims to uncover its recondite spiritual senses, as expounded by the church fathers; and the Bible is an essentially

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Rashi

111

literary work, penned by human authors (divinely inspired, of course), and therefore subject to the sort of analysis typical of other literary works. The introduction of the Aristotelian conception of causality—specifically, the notion of the “twofold efficient cause” (duplex causa efficiens)—into Latin learning in the thirteenth century helped diffuse this tension by allowing these two perspectives to coexist. God was deemed the first auctor of the Bible, its “primary efficient cause,” whereas its human authors were considered “instrumental efficient causes.”119 This allowed the medieval schoolmen to focus attention on the individual human auctor and his intended meaning—the “literal sense”—with the spiritual or “mystical” senses attributed to the Holy Spirit.120 The implications of these distinctions would emerge in Aquinas’s interpretive theory, and would be fully realized in the literal expositions of Nicholas of Lyre121—trends that postdate Rashi substantially. To me it seems that this general approach put forth by Touitou and Kamin is fundamentally correct. Their specific argument, however, must be adjusted in light of recent studies that highlight developments in Christian Bible interpretation in the eleventh century. Once these adjustments are made, it will become clear that the comparison with Latin learning holds an important key to understanding Rashi’s innovative interpretive agenda—one that can be effectively combined with some of the other theories delineated above.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Rashi and Bruno the Carthusian Despite the paucity of the literary output of the cathedral schools of the eleventh century, it is evident that Bible interpretation played an important role in their courses of study.122 It is to this period that we can trace the roots of the Glossa Ordinaria, for which Anselm of Laon (d. 1117), master of the cathedral school of Laon om around 1080 and a founding figure of the scholastic exegetical tradition,123 seems to have been largely responsible. Assembled aer Anselm’s death by his students, the Gloss marks a new mode of learning, presenting discrete patristic and earlier medieval interpretations in a readily accessible, easily referenced way.124 Though the Gloss was produced in the twelh century, it reflects the exegetical activity of Anselm and probably also that of his teachers—scholarly figures of the mid-eleventh century and older contemporaries of Rashi.125 The search for the influences on Master Anselm proves somewhat elusive. As Cédric Giraud notes, the traditions that he studied at the abbey of Bec under Anselm of Bec (1033–1109; later, archbishop of Canterbury) and under the inspiration of Lananc of Bec (1005/1010–1089), prove to have little basis.126 Evidence is likewise lacking for the theory that Anselm of Laon was a student of Manegold of Lautenbach (1030–1103).127 Drawing upon earlier scholars, Giraud places Anselm at the cathedral school of Rheims in the 1070s, where he would have studied

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

112

Chapter 3

under Bruno of Cologne (c. 1030–1101), who came to be known as Bruno the Carthusian.128 This exercise has yielded the prominent names of Christian Bible interpreters in Rashi’s time and geographic vicinity: Lananc of Bec, Anselm of Canterbury, Manegold of Lautenbach (who seems to have worked in the Rhineland), and Bruno the Carthusian. For the first three of these figures, we do not have Bible commentaries that can readily be compared with Rashi’s.129 Bruno, however, composed a commentary on the Psalms—“the book of the Old Testament most beloved by patristic and medieval exegetes” because it was understood “as a guide to the Christian life and as a prophecy of Christ and his church.”130 The commentary survives in a single manuscript, om La Grande Chartreuse, now Grenoble, Bibliothèque municipale, 341 (240), copied in the first third of the twelh century.131 Yet the interpretive method it embodies occupies a pivotal place in a tradition of Christian interpretation that linked the study of the liberal arts and the Bible.132 The argument we put forth is that the interpretive strategies epitomized by Bruno shed valuable light on Rashi’s novel exegetical agenda. Reflecting a prevalent perception, the Carolingian theologian Rabanus Maurus (c. 780–856) remarked that “grammar (grammatica) is the science of interpreting the poets” and is “the origin and foundation of the liberal arts.”133 Andrew Kraebel and Constant Mews show that Bruno applied a grammatical approach to the Psalms, using methods typically applied to pagan poetry, in what was known in grammatica as enarratio poetarum (“interpreting”; lit., “narrating out” the poets).134 This trend can be traced to Remigius of Auxerre (d. 908), a late Carolingian-era master at Rheims, expert in grammatica and its application to Bible exegesis, whose teachings remained influential there well into the eleventh century.135 Remigius was well versed in the commentary tradition on classical poetry, especially the influential commentaries of the fih-century grammarian Servius on the works Virgil. Remigius wrote commentaries on the grammatical works of Donatus and Martianus Capella’s On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury.136 Commentary on the classical poets entailed a study of the language divided into small units, with a focus on grammatical forms, syntax, literal versus figurative language, and historical and geographic references. All this was prefaced by a study of who the author was, what his intention was, and what the subject matter of his book was.137 Unlike the Bible, secular poetry is interpreted in its literal sense, with the sole aim of discovering the intention of its human author. Notwithstanding this disparity, Remigius employed some of the same grammatical techniques of analysis to the Psalms that he used in glossing the classical poets—for example, metaphor, synecdoche, hendiadys, and prolepsis.138 Bruno further developed the grammatical method of Bible interpretation and highlighted the connection between the analysis of secular poetry and of the writings of King David inspired by the Holy Spirit. Bruno, in turn, influenced the Bible

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Rashi

113

commentators Roscellinus of Compiègne (d. c. 1125), John of Rheims (d. c. 1125), Gilbertus Universalis (d. 1134)—and perhaps Anselm of Laon.139 There are striking biographic parallels between Bruno and Rashi. Bruno was initially educated in his native Cologne, and his thought was shaped within a still-vibrant Carolingian intellectual milieu that combined Christian and classical ideals under imperial patronage.140 He moved to Rheims in the late 1040s— just under the age of twenty—likely attracted by the strong tradition of classical learning in the cathedral school there, especially in grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic.141 Bruno reinvigorated learning at Rheims, achieving renown as a teacher of the liberal arts and the Psalms.142 Like Bruno, Rashi le a vibrant intellectual center in Germany—the Rhineland academies where he studied in the 1060s— to launch his intellectual career in France, with his school at Troyes ultimately rivaling the academies of Mainz and Worms (which were devastated during the First Crusade). Rashi’s bold peshat program represented a unique and novel agenda in his Troyes academy, differentiating it om the more established Rhineland academies. There are, on the other hand, significant differences between the biographic trajectories of the two scholars. Achieving scholarly renown, Bruno reanimated learning within the well-established cathedral school at Rheims, which was already centuries old by his time. But it was Rashi who put Troyes on the intellectual map of Ashkenazic Jewry, transforming the small Jewish community into a great center of rabbinic learning. Until his death, Rashi remained active as a master and communal leader in Troyes and would exert enormous influence in subsequent Jewish tradition. Bruno, on the other hand, departed om Rheims aer a dispute with Archbishop Manassas I in 1080 or 1081, to live as a hermit, initially in the forest of Colan. By 1084, he had moved to La Grande Chartreuse, where he established the Carthusian order of cloistered monastics. He was summoned to Rome in 1090 by his former student Pope Urban II (1088–1099) to become archbishop of Reggio in Calabria. Bruno declined the invitation and instead established a hermitage at La Torre, where he stayed until his death, in 1101.143 Bruno’s withdrawal om academic life as a cathedral master limited the influence he exerted upon later Latin learning. Unlike Rashi in the Jewish tradition, Bruno did not feature widely in the canon of authorities for Christian interpreters in later centuries, as would the name of Anselm of Laon, for example.144 Yet in his own time, Bruno achieved renown as a teacher of the liberal arts and an interpreter of the Psalms. When he died, monks om his hermitage in Calabria traveled widely in western Europe to collect testimonies about Bruno. The resulting mortuary roll features nearly 180 eulogy entries om religious communities throughout France, Italy, Germany, and England, attesting to his reputation as a great teacher.145 We must, of course, allow for exaggeration within this celebratory genre.146 Yet it is instructive that Bruno is recalled vividly as “the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

114

Chapter 3

teacher of many grammarians,” “learned psalmist, most clear and sophistic” who “embodied the knowledge and prudence of the liberal arts,” and “supreme teacher of the Church of Rheims, most clear in the Psalter and in other sciences.”147 Even though Bruno’s commentary does not seem to have been copied much, and he is best known in later tradition as founder of the Carthusian monastic order rather than a Bible interpreter, these descriptions suggest that during his lifetime, Bruno’s teachings on the Psalms, informed by grammatical learning, made an impact upon his students. To be sure, the Psalms were long classified as poetry in Christian tradition. Cassiodorus (c. 485–c. 585) and Bede (672/673–735) cited biblical examples in their Psalms commentaries to illustrate the figures and tropes (metaphor, synecdoche, hendiadys, prolepsis, etc.) employed in classical poetry.148 Yet the Psalms were a source of Christian inspiration for a separate reason: their mystical, spiritual sense was assumed to be about Christ—his passion, resurrection, and divinity—and Christological content was the focus of patristic interpretation.149 The grammatical and mystical perspectives initially remained separate, as authors like Cassiodorus and Bede simply cited examples of poetic techniques in the Psalms as an ancillary part of their commentaries. The innovation that Bruno epitomizes was to use grammatical-literary analysis in a more essential way: to discover King David’s Christological intentions.150 Bruno adhered to a traditional Christian distinction among three senses of Scripture—literal/historical, allegorical, and moral—as enumerated by Gregory the Great.151 Bruno offers a conventional definition of allegory in his commentary on Gal. 4:24, “some other understanding than what the literal sense here conveys.”152 In his commentary on the eightfold alphabetic acrostic Psalm 118 (MT [Masoretic Text] 119), Bruno associates the alphabet, being rudimentary for children’s education, with the literal sense—a foundation for moral instruction (moralis instructio) that leads to “blessedness” (beatitudinem), the topic of this psalm.153 Bruno highlights the distinction between the literal/historical and allegorical/ mystical senses in his commentary on Psalm 77 (MT 78), which recounts the history of Israel, om the exodus om Egypt to the sojourn in the desert to the selection of Zion as God’s holy place. Bruno begins his commentary by explaining the title “A Psalm of Understanding for Asaph”: “Of understanding (intellectus) . . . in which a mystical understanding is contained . . . Asaph—a teaching by the perfectly faithful Church to Asaph, the one less perfect in faith (the synagogue of the Jews).”154 The point that the heading intellectus (Heb., maskil) indicates that this psalm has a deeper, “spiritual” sense was already made by Jerome and Augustine, reiterated by Remigius.155 Elaborating on this thought, Bruno places emphasis on the next lines of this psalm: “Attend, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Rashi

115

words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in parables: I will utter propositions om the beginning” (77:1–2 [MT 78:1–2]). Here he remarks:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

It recounts the former benefits God bestowed upon their fathers in ancient times. The beginning of this psalm adjures the same less perfect Asaph that he attentively and diligently hear the things that are said to him in “parables” and “propositions,” that is to say, that he understand those benefits mystically, not only according to the letter, as their incredulous fathers did, who neglected them and, understanding only the letter, perished. Therefore it narrates those benefits to teach them that the things that occurred historically to an earlier people will also come to pass in the Church.156 The opening lines of this psalm thus reveal that it is to be interpreted spiritually, rather than purely literally. Bruno’s distinction between the mystical and literal (“according to the letter”) understanding of Israel’s history was standard in Christian interpretation. Bruno, however, goes on to define the relationship between the two ways of reading the psalm: “Although this psalm, which is to be read continuously for its history (continuatim juxta historiam), contains within it an allegory (allegoriam), it does not everywhere contain an allegory that can be read continuously (juxta allegoriam continuatim). . . . This psalm, like the others, contains prophecy, although not when it is read historically (ad historiam).”157 Only on the literal level does the psalm offer a coherent, “continuous” narrative. Implicitly, then, the allegorical reading is discontinuous, to be read into the psalm only sporadically. There is no precedent in Bruno’s sources for this differentiation.158 In accordance with this prefatory remark, Bruno highlights the literary integrity of this psalm as a sequential narrative of Israelite history.159 Although Bruno’s methodological preface and commentary on Psalm 77 demonstrate his ability to read a psalm in its literal sense, as distinct om its spiritual one, that demarcation is actually atypical, as Bruno usually offers spiritual readings alone. Bruno emphasizes that the Christological mystical reading reflects the intentions of King David as the author of the Psalms. Since David was a prophetic writer, Bruno’s reasoning goes, he was able to incorporate his foreknowledge of the life of Christ into his poetry—and this, then, is his proper intention.160 That intention is discovered though grammatical analysis, and Bruno—along with other interpreters at Rheims—therefore interpreted the Psalms using techniques developed by commentators on classical works, which were naturally interpreted only “according to the letter.” Hence, the grammatical methods that Servius, for example, had used to uncover meaning in the works of Virgil were applied by the Remois Psalms exegetes to discover the intentions of David as an author.161

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

116

Chapter 3

A manifestation of the grammatical method adopted by Remigius was his tendency to supply a more idiomatic order for the words of Scripture. He does this, for example, on Ps. 17:42 (MT 18:42), “They cried, but there was no one to save them, to the Lord. The order of the words (ordo verborum) is: They cried to the Lord, but there was no one to save them.”162 This sort of grammatical note was commonly applied by Servius to Virgil’s Aeneid.163 But it was not typical of patristic Bible commentaries. Remigius’s gloss on Ps. 17:42 has no antecedent, for example, in Cassiodorus’s commentary.164 On the other hand, Rashi, in his commentary on the virtually identical verse, 2 Sam. 18:42, writes similarly: “This is an inverted verse (miqra mesoras): ‘they call out to God, and He does not answer them, and there is no savior.’ ”165 Indeed, it was not uncommon for Rashi to engage in such syntactic “inversion” (sirus) of Scripture within his peshat exegesis.166 This stems naturally om the value that Rashi places on accounting for the “sequence” (seder, semikhah) of the verses.167 The ordo-style gloss found in Remigius was applied more regularly by Bruno. For example, on Ps. 40:3 (MT 41:3), “May the Lord preserve him and give him life,” Bruno remarks: “the order is backward” (praeposterus ordo), as one must first be alive before one’s life can be “preserved.”168 On Ps. 67:10 (MT 68:10), Bruno’s concern for logical sequence leads him to rearrange the five preceding verses: “And all of this, beginning where it says God in his holy place (v. 6), is the same (aequipollens est) as if it were said in this order (ordo): Therefore the people will be troubled (v. 5), since the heavens (v. 9) will drop rain (v. 10), by which the earth (v. 9) will be moved, i.e., it will be troubled with a good disturbance, when you will go forth in the face of your people (v. 8) and you will pass through into the desert (v. 8). And then you will lead out the bound (v. 7) and those who dwell in tombs (v. 7), and thus you will make them dwell in a house (v. 7).”169 Adopting a strategy applied by Servius to Latin poetry, Bruno employs the technical phrase aequipollens est (“is the same as”) to argue that entire sentences of this psalm—composed in poetic form—are out of their more proper prosaic order.170 While the parallels to Rashi will be discussed more systematically below, it is already worth noting the similarity between Bruno’s interest in the syntactic arrangement of Scripture as displayed in his ordo and aequipollens glosses and Rashi’s interests when employing the notion of miqra mesoras. This similarity, of course, is not distinctive enough by itself to make a case for influence; but it does indicate that the two interpreters shared grammatical concerns and developed similar strategies to understand the logical sequence of the biblical text. Bruno’s grammatical rigor led him to be more selective than his predecessors in adopting Christological interpretations of the church fathers. He pointed out that some allegorical interpretations are not consistent with David’s intention expressed in the language of the Psalms. The superscription of Psalm 50 (MT 51), “A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, aer he had gone

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Rashi

117

in to Bathsheba,” was interpreted typologically by Cassiodorus, on the authority of Jerome and Augustine, making David a “type” (typological symbol) of Christ, and Bathsheba a type of the Church:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Blessed Jerome among others points out that Bathsheba manifested a type of the church or of human flesh, and says that David bore the mark of Christ; this is clearly apt at many points. Just as Bathsheba when washing herself unclothed in the brook of Cedron delighted David and deserved to attain the Royal embraces, and her husband was slain at the prince’s command, so too the church, the assembly of the faithful, once she has cleansed herself of the foulness of sins by the bath of sacred baptism, is known to be joined to Christ the Lord. . . . Augustine, in the books which he wrote against the Manichee Faustus, discussed this typology of David and Bathsheba amongst other subjects most carefully.171 Remigius added details, interpreting Uriah (whose death David had arranged, as described in 2 Samuel 11) as a type of the devil—and he was therefore justly put to death.172 This patristic reading was not uncommon, and it was too strong to be ignored by exegetes in the eleventh and twelh centuries.173 Bruno’s different treatment of this reading is revealing. He opens his interpretation of the psalm’s superscription with a detailed discussion of the historical circumstances to which it refers: Nathan’s rebuke of David for his adultery with Bathsheba. Bruno cites the account in 2 Samuel 11, which records how David coveted Bathsheba aer watching her bathe om his roof. He then remarks: “In this history a figure is involved (continetur), which, even though it does not appear to pertain to the intention of this psalm, still has something useful to offer to the audience.”174 Although he records Remigius’s reading in detail, this preface reveals Bruno’s reservations. In other psalms, Bruno was prepared to accept the traditional typological Christological interpretation; in this case, he resists doing so because it is so far om the language of the psalm that it cannot reasonably be construed as David’s intention. Yet he acknowledges its “usefulness” for the audience, presumably for its Christian inspirational value. Bruno’s treatment of the heading of Psalm 141 (MT 142), “Of understanding (intellectus) for David, A prayer when he was in the cave” manifests a similar critical attitude toward earlier Christological interpretation. Cassiodorus had explained that while hiding in a cave during his flight om King Saul, David “uttered a prayer by which he revealed that the Lord Christ would make in the flesh before his passion.” Noting that “understanding (intellectus) prefaces this prayer,” Cassiodorus explains the Christological references it contains: that Christ “avoided his persecutors as he prayed and hid himself by moving to various places. . . . So the flight of David was rightly placed in the heading to point to the persecution by

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

118

Chapter 3

the Jews, for David, as we have oen said, denotes both that earthly king and the kingdom of heaven.”175 For Cassiodorus, the historical background of David’s flight om Saul is merely a “pointer” indicating its true reference to the prayer of “the Lord Savior.” Bruno, on the other hand, interprets the heading of this psalm historically (juxta historiam), describing the circumstances in which it was uttered: when David was hiding in a cave, which Saul entered but did not see him, as described in 1 Samuel 24.176 Following this, Bruno does cite an allegorical reading in the spirit of the one preferred by Cassiodorus, but with the following proviso: “The allegory of this history, not altogether worth pursuing, is as follows.”177 Although he dutifully elaborates on the allegorical potential of this psalm to indicate the Passion of Christ, Bruno expresses reservations about this reading, evidently because it is not borne out by the language of the psalm. By contrast with earlier patristic commentators, such as Augustine and Cassiodorus, who typically interpreted individual verses of the Psalms separately and atomistically (not unlike midrashic interpretation), Bruno and other Remois commentators following his lead regularly sought to explain how consecutive verses within each psalm fit together, adopting what Kraebel has termed a “coherent, poetic hermeneutic.”178 This interpretive concern, which follows the model of how the grammarians interpreted secular poetry, is attested, for example, in Bruno’s insistence on reading Psalm 77 (MT 78) “continuously for its history.” The value that Bruno placed on literary coherence also motivated him to evaluate allegorical readings critically, as is evident in his treatment of Ps. 97:3 (MT 98:3). In Bruno’s view, this psalm relates how David foretells that “all the faithful who will live in the time of God’s fullness will sing a new song to God the Father.” He goes on to say that the psalm’s second and third verses, “He has revealed in the sight of the peoples” (revelavit in conspectu gentium) and “all the ends of the earth have seen” (viderunt omnes termini terrae), speak of the fulfilled faith of the Gentiles, as opposed to the Jews’ imperfect faith. But then he cites what he characterizes as an “allegorical” alternative reading: “Or this can be read allegorically (allegorice legi): . . . the ends of the earth, that is, all those who restrain their earthly qualities.”179 The characterization of this interpretation as allegorical is probably based on the fact that the Latin term termini (“ends”) is taken figuratively rather than literally. Bruno, however, remarks that he prefers the first reading: “Yet, according to the letter (ad litteram), what follows (sequentia) seems to accord better with the earlier meaning (priori sententiae).”180 In other words, the literal reading of verse 3 is to be preferred over the allegorical reading, because it best accords with the “sequence”—the verse that follows. Admittedly, this case is somewhat exceptional, as Bruno does not regularly differentiate between the literal and spiritual senses. Yet he manifests new and consistent interest in the literary construction of the Psalms and their analysis according to the discipline of grammatica in

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Rashi

119

order to select the mystical/allegorical readings that best reflect King David’s intentions.181 The methodological parallels between Bruno and Rashi, each exegete in his own tradition, are striking. Bruno’s consistent distinction in Psalm 77 (MT 78) between the literal and mystical senses resembles Rashi’s distinction between peshat and derash in his “double commentaries”—most notably, his consistent differentiation between the love story (peshat) and allegory (midrash, dugma) in the Song of Songs. But the distinction fades into the background, in most cases, where both Rashi and Bruno expound the deeper sense of Scripture (midrashic, mystical/allegorical) within the new theoretical ameworks they construct. Both inherited interpretive traditions that they incorporated selectively: Rashi the midrashic readings of the Rabbis; and Bruno the allegorical and mystical readings of the earlier church fathers. And both challenge the cogency of earlier readings that do not meet their exegetical criteria: adherence to the language and its order, sequence, or “continuity” (Heb., seder, semikhah; Latin, ordo, sequentia, continuitas).182 Bruno’s exegetical criteria, as we have seen, stemmed om his classical grammatical learning, which he applied to the Psalms. Although Rashi did not have access to Latin grammatica, he was trained in the Rhineland yeshivot, where Rabbenu Gershom and his students had developed a powerful mode of philological talmudic exegesis in line-by-line commentary glosses that fully elucidated the text, including its gnomic terms and obscure references.183 As noted by Haym Soloveitchik, the magnitude of their achievement is reflected by the fact that R. Nathan of Rome, in his talmudic lexicon, Sefer ha-‘Arukh, regarded “the sages of Mainz” as great authorities—on par with the geonim of Babylonia, the very birthplace of the Talmud.184 This powerful Rhineland tradition of enarratio talmudae— analogous to enarratio poetarum in Latin grammatica—was the foundation of Rashi’s education. Rashi’s innovation was to apply these philological skills to the Bible.185 Indeed, Benjamin Gelles observed a terminological link between the two projects: in his Talmud commentary, Rashi also uses the term “to settle” the text in describing his exegetical goal—to interpret the language of the Talmud contextually and philologically.186 As Rashi remarks, for example, regarding a difficult passage of the Talmud: “I have labored since my youth to understand it, taking into consideration all aspects of the manner (shiṭṭah) of the Talmud, to ‘settle’ it properly in accordance with my teachers’ words.”187 Rashi endeavored “to settle” the text by adducing evidence om “the manner of the Talmud”—its normally attested linguistic usage and stylistic conventions—what might be termed “grammatical” analysis in the Latin tradition.188 Rashi, in his Bible commentary, likewise sought to “settle the text” according to “the manner of Scripture,”189 which naturally led to his focus on peshat and his critical assessment of midrashic readings.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

120

Chapter 3

As mentioned above, the theory that Rashi’s peshat project grew out of his Talmud commentary had been raised earlier, but was challenged by Grossman, who reasoned that if it were a natural result of intensive talmudic exegesis, a peshat program should have emerged in the Rhineland before Rashi’s time.190 Here is where consideration of the Latin intellectual milieu in general, and the proximate school of Rheims in particular, is instructive. In the twelh and thirteenth centuries, as already discussed, the emerging interest in the literal sense went hand in hand with an increasing focus on the features common to divine Scripture and human literary works—which had to contend with the traditional uneasiness about equating the sacred and secular texts. Bruno provides an important precedent for this development in the eleventh century. While there were earlier examples of grammatical commentary on Scripture, Bruno represents the blossoming of this trend as a widespread teaching regime across the cathedral schools of northern France.191 As part of this outlook, Bruno used his grammatical training to critically evaluate patristic allegorical interpretations. This phenomenon in Christian learning can help us appreciate Rashi’s innovation. The transfer of exegetical tools of analysis om Talmud commentary to Bible commentary would not necessarily have been a natural one in Rashi’s Ashkenazic milieu. The Talmud, a human literary composition, is not comparable to the Bible, which is divinely authored and therefore subject to a different interpretive mode, as embodied in the authoritative tradition of midrash, which, as Rashbam attests, was the sole focus of Bible interpretation in Ashkenaz prior to the advent of Rashi.192 Analogous to what Bruno had done within Christian interpretation, Rashi’s innovative move was to create a bridge allowing for the transfer of the tools of Talmud commentary to Bible commentary.193 Mirroring the trend of Christian learning exemplified by Bruno, Rashi used the analytic “grammatical” skills he had perfected for interpreting a human literary composition—the Talmud (as Bruno did with classical literature)—to develop criteria for selecting among the traditional interpretations of the Rabbis (analogous to patristic interpretation), which do not adhere to these same analytic norms. Neither Bruno nor Rashi aimed to supplant the nonliteral interpretations of their predecessors. Instead, they sought to select among them those that could reasonably be construed as reflecting the intent of the biblical authors based on some “correspondence” to the language and sequence of the text. As Bruno did with patristic interpretations, Rashi established criteria for adopting midrashic interpretations—under the assumption that King David spoke prophetically in the Psalms. For example, on Ps. 16:7, Rashi accepts one midrashic reading while rejecting another: “Until this point, David prophesied about the Congregation of Israel, who will utter this [psalm of thanksgiving]. And now he says about himself: ‘As for me, I too shall praise God. . . .’ Our

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Rashi

121

Rabbis, however, interpreted it about our father Abraham. . . . Yet we must settle the verses according to their sequence (seder).”194 The notion that David prophesied about “the Congregation of Israel” enables Rashi to adopt a midrashic approach to Psalm 16.195 Yet Rashi insists upon applying this notion only insofar as it conforms to the language and sequence of the text—such that it can be construed as David’s intention in his prophetic voice. In a similar vein, Rashi remarks on Ps. 51:7, “There are midrashim on this verse, but they are not settled upon the matter of which this psalm speaks.”196 Interpretations that do not meet these criteria do not reflect the intentions of King David. Given the striking methodological parallels between Rashi and Bruno, we must consider whether the rabbinic master of Troyes could actually have known the teachings of the older cathedral master of Rheims, sixty-six miles away. As mentioned above, Bruno was an influential authority on the Bible and the liberal arts during Rashi’s formative years.197 Rheims was an important intellectual and cultural center of Champagne, in which Troyes was a vibrant commercial hub that hosted markets, and perhaps even large fairs, that drew merchants and other travelers om far and wide.198 Troyes had a significant clerical population, with the Abbey of Saint-Loup, the Cathedral of Saint-Pierre (where Peter Comestor would serve as dean, 1147–1164), and the collegiate Church of Saint-Etienne all in close proximity—and to the Jewish section of the city, which housed the synagogue and, presumably, Rashi’s school.199 An entry in Bruno’s mortuary roll om the Troyes Cathedral of Saint-Pierre suggests that he was known in the city,200 and it is therefore conceivable that his teachings circulated there as well, especially given the equency of travel between the two Champenois centers. A question we must consider is whether Rashi would have availed himself of Bruno’s commentary, even if it circulated among his Christian neighbors. Here we encounter the thorny social-historical problem of the tense Jewish-Christian relations in medieval France. Rashi termed Christians minim (sing., min; lit., “sectarian,” “heretic”) and emphasized their wickedness and even the danger of conversing with them.201 Christians, likewise, regarded the Jews as enemies of God, blind to His truth, and guilty for the murder of Christ.202 A language barrier divided Jewish and Christian scholars: the former wrote in Hebrew, the latter in Latin. Although Rashbam seems to have known some Latin, there is no indication that Rashi did.203 But Rashi could have learned about Latin Bible interpretation with the help of students who knew Latin, or by conversing with Christian scholars in Old French. Evidence for such an intellectual exchange is provided in a remarkable account of collaborative work initiated by Stephen Harding, who was among the founders of Cîteaux Abbey (just over a hundred miles om Troyes) in Burgundy in 1098, and who became abbot in 1109.204 That year saw the completion of Harding’s Cîteaux Bible, based on the Vulgate—with corrections in

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

122

Chapter 3

accordance with the original Hebrew and Aramaic.205 Harding describes how, in order to access those ancient texts, he “resorted to certain Jews expert in their Scripture, and . . . interrogated them most diligently in romance speech (Old French).” As he recounts, “opening many of their books before us, they explained the Hebrew or Chaldean Scripture to us in romance speech.”206 It is not unlikely that the Jewish Bible experts whom Stephen Harding consulted were om Rashi’s school—and it is conceivable that Harding had forged a connection a few years earlier with the master himself. Admittedly, there are few written records of the many other oral exchanges that must have taken place between Jews and Christians. Yet we occasionally get glimpses of such exchanges om the writings of Rashi and his students. Rashbam, for example, records debates of his with Christians in his commentaries on Exod. 20:13 (where he also notes an error in the Vulgate translation of a biblical term) and Lev. 19:19.207 And an interpretation that can be traced to Jerome appears in Rashi’s commentary on Ezek. 2:1, with the following comment, presumably added by a student: “This was told to our master [Rashi] by a Christian (min) and it pleased him.”208 Rashi’s willingness to learn om a Christian is not out of character, since, as Grossman has noted, Rashi was intellectually curious and open to learning traditions unfamiliar to him.209 Yet Rashi’s interest in Christian interpretation would not have been motivated primarily by intellectual curiosity. A key concern of Rashi’s, manifested throughout his commentaries, is the need to protect the Jewish community om the enticement of Christian beliefs.210 This seems to have been a realistic concern, as some Jews exposed to Latin learning were swayed by it and ultimately converted to Christianity.211 A remarkable gloss on a line of liturgical poetry (piyyut) thought to be penned by Joseph Qara suggests the attractiveness of Christian “words,” perhaps a reference to Latin learning.212 Herman the Jew of Cologne (c. 1107–1181) reports in his autobiography that his conversion to Christianity was prompted, in part, by discussions with Christian clerics, including the renowned Rupert of Deutz (1075–1129).213 To bolster Jewish faith under these conditions, Rashi engaged in anti-Christian polemics in his Bible commentaries, undercutting Christian doctrines and interpretations of the Bible. Anti-Christian polemical motifs have been identified in Rashi on the Pentateuch, Isaiah, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Daniel, and, especially, Psalms.214 On Ps. 2:1, for example, Rashi remarks: “Many of the students of Jesus interpreted the matter regarding the King Messiah. And as a response to the Christians (minim) it would be correct to interpret it about David himself.”215 It is conceivable that, in discussing the Bible with Christian clerics, Rashi learned of the special standing of the Psalms in Christianity—and this may have motivated him to engage in anti-Christian polemics most vigorously in his Psalms commentary.216

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Rashi

123

If Rashi became aware of Bruno’s Psalms commentary, it would have posed a special challenge because the patristic readings cited therein were selected critically and are shown to accord with the language and sequence of Scripture. Given Rashi’s stated concern with the perceived threat of Christian learning enticing a potential Jewish audience, this sort of commentary would have called for a particularly sophisticated response. For the purpose of this argument, it is not necessary to presume that Rashi had detailed knowledge of Bruno’s commentary, nor that he intended to refute it psalm by psalm. It would have been sufficient for Rashi to have grasped the gist of Bruno’s aim to demonstrate, through grammatical analysis, that the Christological readings of the Psalms reflect King David’s prophetic intentions.217 This could have caused Rashi to regard the traditional midrashic commentaries as inadequate and impelled him to devise a new commentary that draws upon midrash selectively in order to demonstrate the cogency of the traditional Jewish readings, rather than the Christian ones.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Evaluating the Impact of Multiple Influences In order to evaluate the significance of the parallels between Rashi’s novel exegetical agenda and the trends in Latin interpretation that Bruno represents, it is helpful to revisit the range of sources that could have influenced Rashi’s thinking about the Bible. Midrash was the mainstay of Bible commentary at the time among Jews in Christian lands, as Rashbam attests.218 This trend is reflected in the teachings of Rashi’s predecessor R. Moses the Preacher, whom he cites, and Leqaḥ Ṭov, by Rashi’s contemporary Tobiah ben Eliezer, which was probably unavailable to him.219 On the other hand, as mentioned above, Rashi had new tools such as Old French glosses by anonymous poterim and the lexicographic works of Menahem and Dunash. But these are primarily philological reference works that elucidate individual words and phrases, not peshat commentaries in Rashi’s sense. The same can be said of the interpretations of Menahem bar Helbo, whom he cites occasionally.220 Since the literary sources available in Rashi’s Ashkenazic milieu that he cites explicitly do not yield a precedent for his peshat program, it is important to reconsider his possible exposure to other exegetical traditions. As mentioned above, it is conceivable that Rashi’s close student Shemaiah or other traveling scholars brought the philologically oriented Byzantine interpretive tradition to his attention. But it is difficult to trace his hermeneutical model to that source, since the extant Byzantine commentaries do not manifest a well-defined notion of peshat, as discussed in Chapter 5. From within the Andalusian tradition, Rashi seems to have had access only to Menahem and Dunash, whereas the “way of peshat” epitomized by Abraham Ibn Ezra was the product of subsequent Andalusian works— in Judeo-Arabic.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

124

Chapter 3

Yet Ibn Janah’s strong reading of the peshat maxim, as mentioned above, is so close to Rashi’s that it is worth considering whether it somehow came to his attention, perhaps in an oral report. As discussed in Chapter 2, Ibn Janah linked the peshat maxim with the notion of scriptural multivalence expressed in the talmudic statement that “one verse can have a number of meanings”221—the very connection made by Rashi on the Song of Songs.222 As Kamin noted, this distinctive connection is not made in the Talmud and, in fact, entails reinterpretation of both statements, whereby, taken together, they express the notion that Scripture conveys a dual signification and that the peshat is inviolate notwithstanding the authority of midrash.223 This decisive and distinctive parallel could suggest that Rashi borrowed this peshat conception om Ibn Janah, a possibility I raised in an earlier study.224 My own conclusion was that this avenue of influence is unlikely, as Ibn Janah is never mentioned by Rashi or even by any of his students.225 Avraham Grossman, however, argues that the possibility should not be discounted, since travelers om alAndalus and other Muslim lands were known in Rashi’s intellectual circle.226 Yet even if this scenario is historically plausible, we must consider its hermeneutical implications. The question is whether Ibn Janah’s peshat model is, in fact, integrated into Rashi’s exegetical thought. For Rashi, the “peshat of Scripture” is not the final goal, as it was for Ibn Janah. Rather, Rashi saw it as a stepping-stone to arrive at Scripture’s deeper sense, providing a amework for selecting midrashic interpretations that “settle” the language, “each word in its proper place.”227 Based on a study of his programmatic statements, Kamin concluded that Rashi conceived of the “peshat of Scripture” as a “base” upon which the midrashic interpretation must be “settled.”228 This conception of peshat can be illuminated by comparison with the Christian characterization of the literal sense as the “foundation” (fundamentum) upon which the spiritual sense is to be constructed. This metaphor is famously articulated by Hugh of Saint Victor: [T]he student of sacred Scripture ought to look among history, allegory, and tropology [as] we see happen in the construction of buildings, where first the foundation is laid, then the structure is raised upon it, and finally, when the work is all finished, the house is decorated by the laying on of color. . . . [Y]ou will [not] be able to become perfectly sensitive to allegory unless you have first been grounded in history.229 [W]e call by the name “history” not only the recounting of actual deeds, but also the first meaning of any narrative that uses words according to their proper nature [i.e., literally]. And in this sense of the word . . . all

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Rashi

125

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

the books of either Testament . . . belong to this study in their literal meaning.230 Although Hugh was much younger than Rashi, he cites om an older source, Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Job: “Lay first the foundation of history; next, by pursuing the “typical” meaning, build up a structure in your mind to be a fortress of faith. Last of all, however, through the loveliness of morality paint the structure over as with the most beautiful colors.”231 Gregory’s work was highly influential, and his characterization of the historical sense as the “foundation” for the spiritual senses was repeated oen in the Middle Ages by, for example, Bede (673–735), Rabanus Maurus (780–856), and Rupert of Deutz (1075–1129).232 Its recurrence before and during Rashi’s time makes it more likely that this theme would have been known to him if he discussed the Bible with learned Christians. Notwithstanding the terminology he shared with Ibn Janah (drawn, aer all, om a common talmudic heritage), Rashi’s conception of peshuto shel miqra and the dual signification of Scripture more closely resembles the way his Christian neighbors conceived Scripture’s literal sense and its relation to the spiritual sense. Historically speaking, it is conceivable that Rashi knew of Ibn Janah’s construal of the peshat maxim. But in that case, Rashi recast it to fit his hermeneutical conceptions in a way that was compatible with his northern French intellectual milieu, in which the philological-contextual interpretation of Scripture (peshuto shel miqra) was only a baseline upon which to construct a commentary consisting of a critical selection of midrashic interpretations—much as Bruno did with patristic interpretations. The preceding discussion enables us to place in perspective the various interpretive conceptions that were part of the intellectual landscape upon which Rashi introduced his peshat model. His own experience as a Talmud commentator endowed him with a keen ability to engage in philological-contextual interpretation. Rashi also drew upon the tools offered by the Old French glosses of the poterim, the interpretations of Menahem bar Helbo, and the works of Menahem and Dunash. It is possible that he had access to the subsequent Andalusian exegetical tradition and perhaps the Byzantine one. But these tributaries that fed into the stream of Jewish learning om which Rashi drew do not account for the way in which he conceived the interrelation between the “peshat Scripture” and midrash. The closest parallel to the way that Rashi negotiated between these two values is the Christian hermeneutical model that emerged in the school of Rheims. Like his Christian neighbors in the cathedral schools of northern France who followed Bruno’s grammatical hermeneutic that selectively drew upon patristic interpretations, Rashi did not regard philological-contextual analysis of the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

126

Chapter 3

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bible an end unto itself, but rather a stepping-stone for engaging in a selective commentary drawn om midrashic sources. Although the hypothesis that Rashi knew of Bruno’s exegetical work remains conjectural, the comparison we have drawn between the two eleventh-century northern French Bible interpreters unquestionably helps us better understand their cultural world, and thus sheds valuable light on how Rashi would have conceived his peshat project. This, in turn, suggests an answer to the key question mentioned above: If Rashi knew how to determine peshuto shel miqra, why did he not make that the exclusive focus of his commentary? If we were to view Rashi as a puzzle piece, this would be like trying to fit him into the wrong puzzle. The assumption underlying the question betrays the modern bias in favor of peshuto shel miqra in the sense used in contemporary discourse—the “true” meaning of the biblical text, determined through scientific philological study. A medieval precedent for this perspective developed in the Andalusian school, influenced by Saadia, who had constructed his hermeneutical system in the spirit of Qur’an 3,7, which privileges the “clear verses” of God’s word. The idea that the “clear” verses are the “essence” of Scripture led—in the Andalusian school—to the marginalization of the midrash, which is predicated on the assumption that the Bible is a cryptic document and that its true meaning lies beneath the surface. On the other hand, Rashi and his Christian neighbors, as much as they disagreed about the “true” meaning of the Hebrew Bible, shared the traditional view that its essence is not to be found at the surface but rather in its deeper sense, which was thought to convey messages directly relevant to their respective religious experiences. Within this amework, it makes sense that Rashi’s goal was not to offer a peshat commentary but to compose one that selectively incorporates midrashic interpretations to appropriately “settle the words of Scripture.”

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Chapter 4

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Qara and Rashbam: Refining the Northern French Peshat Model

The northern French peshat revolution pioneered by Rashi was taken to new heights by his students Joseph Qara and Rashbam. Rather than relying on midrash, as Rashi had done, they composed self-sufficient peshat commentaries. Rashbam is better known than Qara, as his Pentateuch commentary has appeared in the Miqra’ot Gedolot since the 1705 Berlin edition, whereas Qara’s commentaries on the Prophets have appeared there only since the 1897 Lublin edition. Interest in Qara grew with the nineteenth-century Wissenschaft des Judentums (“scientific study of Judaism”) movement, which sought out his commentaries in manuscript, impressed by this bold intellect fiercely devoted to peshat. Qara and Rashbam inspired subsequent northern French pashtanim, such as Joseph Bekhor Shor and Eliezer of Beaugency (believed to have been Rashbam’s direct student), before the school came to a close in the thirteenth century.1 The mature northern French peshat method, characterized by philological, literary, and historical sensitivity, captured the attention of modern scholars, who lauded it as a precursor to modern historical-critical Bible scholarship.2 The clarity and force of the peshat method advanced by Qara and Rashbam made it seem superfluous to consider the complexities of their hermeneutics, something required in Rashi’s case because of the disparity between his stated peshat agenda and reliance on midrash in practice. To many scholars, it seemed that their interpretive theory was straightforward: Qara and Rashbam discerned the Bible’s “real meaning,” peshuto shel miqra. Rashbam’s expression “the true peshat of Scripture” (amitat peshuto shel miqra; comm. on Lev. 10:3) was taken to indicate that peshat is the “high road” of Bible interpretation.3 As a result, the mixed signals that Qara and Rashbam emit in speaking of the status of peshat vis-à-vis derash have not been explored sufficiently. Rather than projecting the privileged modern status of peshat onto these medieval authors, we would like to consider how their hermeneutics emerged organically within their twelh-century milieu. As discussed in Chapter 3, Rashi’s exegetical innovations find parallels in Latin Bible exegesis that help explain his new interest in peshuto shel miqra. By

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

128

Chapter 4

the twelh century, with the emergence of the school of Saint Victor, the parallels between the new Jewish and Christian interpretive modes had grown stronger.4 There is no need to cite such a parallel to explain the very interest in peshat manifested by Rashi’s students, which can be traced directly to the master. Yet when considering how Qara or Rashbam perceived this new approach in relation to midrash, analogous developments in Latin learning prove illuminating. The emerging medieval Christian interest in the “literal sense” depended on the increasing tendency of the interpreters to analyze the sacred text using grammatical methods initially devised for secular literature, as discussed in Chapter 3. An analogous link seems to inform Rashi’s associated conceptions of peshuto shel miqra and “settling” the text in accordance with its language and sequence, as manifested in his Bible and Talmud commentaries. Rashi’s exegesis of the Talmud had precedents in the Rhineland academies where he was trained. But the application of philological-contextual analysis to the Bible was Rashi’s innovation. This conceptual link between Bible commentary and the analysis of humanly authored texts is critical for understanding the hermeneutics of Qara and Rashbam, as both pashtanim also composed commentary-glosses on other forms of Jewish literature: in Qara’s case, piyyut (and probably midrash); and in Rashbam’s, Talmud. The argument put forward in this chapter is twofold: first, that the conception of peshuto shel miqra in twelh-century northern France depended on a view of the Bible as a literary work, subject to the modes of analysis that Qara and Rashbam applied in their commentaries on postbiblical Jewish literature; and second, that the ways in which this association was conceived in contemporaneous Latin learning sheds light on how the northern French pashtanim negotiated the conflicting demands of their rational analysis of the Bible and traditional midrashic methods. The possibility that Qara and Rashbam were actually aware of—and responded to—specific Christian interpretive streams should not be ruled out, since they manifest greater familiarity with Christianity and Latin than Rashi did. Yet, as was the case in our investigation of Rashi, the probative value of this comparison is independent of the question of influence. The parallels offer a valuable way to appreciate how the twelh-century northern French pashtanim balanced their innovative literary interests in Scripture with earlier midrashic traditions, much as their Christian neighbors expressing a nascent interest in the sensus litteralis balanced it with their abiding allegiance to the “spiritual” Christological senses.

Biographic and Bibliographic Background Joseph Qara, born in Germany in the 1050s, studied in the Rhineland yeshivot, probably in Worms, in the 1070s and 1080s. The clearest source of his conception

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Qara and Rashbam

129

of peshat is Rashi, with whom he came to study in Troyes sometime in the 1080s. Qara seems to have first been inspired to follow this path om his earlier studies with his uncle Menahem bar Helbo.5 Joseph’s appellation “Qara” (also given to Menahem) evidently connotes special dedication to Bible study (Heb., miqra), rather than halakhah.6 His commentaries probably spanned all the Prophets and many of the Writings. Later authors cite interpretations of his on Job and the Five Scrolls, and agments of a Psalms commentary have been attributed to him.7 There is no extant Pentateuch commentary by Qara.8 However, there is great importance to his interpretations recorded in manuscript margins of the master’s Pentateuch commentary.9 These marginal notes oen bear a critical tone, presenting an interpretation at odds with that of Rashi, accompanied by formulations such as: “But I Joseph son of Simon say.”10 Generally directed at Rashi’s midrashic interpretations, these notes highlight Qara’s new peshat methods. As he remarks: “what the master explained . . . is its midrash . . . but according to its peshat.”11 In one place, he even states: “Thus I, Joseph son of Simon interpreted, and Rashi acknowledged that my view is correct.”12 Elsewhere, a third party records that Rashi accepted Qara’s interpretation.13 Qara seems to have written a commentary on Genesis Rabbah.14 He was better known for his commentaries on the piyyutim, liturgical poetry recited in Ashkenazic prayer rites.15 While the earliest piyyutim originated in Palestine, there was a continuous tradition of piyyut composition that came to the Franco-German community through Italy. Rabbenu Gershom composed piyyutim, as did Rashi. The language of the piyyutim is oen difficult, as it is highly allusive and dependent on midrash. In response, piyyut commentaries were composed in the Rhineland. Pioneers in this endeavor included Meshullam ben Moshe (d. 1095) of Mainz, Menahem bar Helbo, and Rashi.16 But it was Joseph Qara who fully developed this new genre; and he is oen referred to simply as “the commentator” in the subsequent piyyut commentary tradition.17 In his piyyut commentaries, Joseph Qara cites his uncle, as well as Kalonymus of Rome, with whom he seems to have studied in Worms.18 Qara continued writing commentaries on the piyyutim in Troyes, where he joined Rashi’s close student Shemaiah, who likewise engaged in piyyut commentary.19 Unlike the sacred, ancient, and fixed text of the Bible, the piyyutim were perceived as a human literary production, especially as many were composed close to Qara’s time.20 The implications of this distinction are reflected in a gloss thought to be om Qara’s pen on a line of piyyut by Simon ben Isaac (c. 950–1020), a great Ashkenazic piyyut composer. The piyyut was written around 990 and laments that “over 920 years have passed” since the Holy Temple was destroyed. The glossator notes that by his time, nearly a century later, one had to change the language and instead say, “more than a thousand years have passed” when reciting this piyyut liturgically.21 The divine text of the Bible obviously was not subject to

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

130

Chapter 4

revision or updating; but the piyyut is a human—and contemporary—text serving as the voice of the community and, as such, is to be adjusted according to changing circumstances. Rashbam, who resided in Ramerupt (less than thirty miles om Troyes), was a colleague of Qara’s.22 He composed commentaries on most of the Bible, though only some survive.23 Rashbam’s Pentateuch commentary, which scholars believe to have been penned late in his life, was first published in 1705 om a single surviving medieval manuscript.24 In the last generation, commentaries attributed to Rashbam on Psalms, Job, the Song of Songs, and Qohelet have been published.25 Rashbam penned a grammatical work titled Dayyaqut (“Grammar”) that deals with Biblical Hebrew phonology, morphology, and syntax, based largely on the works of Menahem and Dunash. It is unclear if he ever became aware of Hayyuj’s works, which were written in Arabic, though they were translated into Hebrew in southern France by Ibn Chiquitilla.26 Rashbam also penned a separate, and evidently unfinished, grammatical commentary as an appendix to Dayyaqut, which covers only Gen. 1:1–7:5.27 Attesting to the importance of grammar for Rashbam, this work places him in a sub-tradition of Jewish grammatical commentaries—alongside those of Hayyuj (see Chapter 2) and Abraham Ibn Ezra (see Chapter 6).28 Rashbam was an important talmudist, though his achievements were overshadowed by those of his grandfather Rashi and his own younger brother Jacob (c. 1100–1171), renowned as the leading Tosafist Rabbenu Tam.29 The Tosafists would revolutionize Talmud study by introducing a dialectical method of legal analysis. Rashbam wrote commentaries on most of the Talmud; but apart om sections on tractates Bava Batra and Pesaḥim, they now are known om citations by later authors.30 In contrast to Rashi’s succinct gloss style, Rashbam is expansive. Representing an early Tosafist manner, he goes beyond Rashi’s goal of elucidating the text and engages in legal analysis by comparison with other talmudic sources.31 Rashbam highlights different interpretive possibilities to a greater extent than Rashi did, in part because he had access to additional interpretive traditions. Rashbam was the first Ashkenazic talmudist to utilize the commentary of R. Hananel, which drew heavily on geonic traditions, as noted in Chapter 2.32 Rashbam also seems to have been the first major Ashkenazic talmudist to utilize R. Isaac Alfasi’s abridgment of the Talmud, on which he penned critical glosses.33 Being aware of traditions of talmudic study completely different om those of the Rhineland academies, Rashbam seems to have had a clearer grasp than Rashi did of the openness of the talmudic text and the creative role of the interpreter in determining its meaning. Rashbam’s Talmud commentaries bear the stamp of his forceful, critical personality, as is evident in the following typical remark that follows the interpretation he offers: “There are many other interpretations . . . and

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Qara and Rashbam

131

there is no substance to them. And the manner (shiṭṭah) of the discussion does not settle well with any of them.”34 To critically evaluate the interpretations available to him, Rashbam developed sensitivity to the “manner” (shiṭṭah) and “conventional style” of talmudic expression.35 Just as Rashi used the term shiṭṭah, Rashbam seeks to “settle” his interpretations on the language of the Talmud, informed by a proper understanding of its typical manner and style.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Attitudes Toward Contemporaneous Modes of Bible Interpretation Given the extensive involvement of Qara and Rashbam in piyyut and Talmud commentary, respectively, it is not surprising that both acknowledge that their peshat method diverges om midrash—with which they were deeply familiar. Rashbam observes that previous Bible interpreters limited themselves to midrash and that it was his grandfather Rashi who first sought to ascertain the “peshat of Scripture.”36 Rashbam further records that in his discussions with Rashi, the latter acknowledged “peshat interpretations that newly emerge (ha-mitḥaddeshim) every day”—presumably devised by his students.37 For Rashbam, peshat was nothing less than a revolutionary way of interpreting Scripture—still evolving in his own time. It is remarkable that a talmudist like Rashbam, in a conservative rabbinic amework, would openly admit that his exegetical approach departs om traditional interpretation. His younger contemporary Abraham Ibn Ezra, by contrast, argued that the Rabbis “knew the peshat” and claimed that he and his commentaries aimed to restore a genuine rabbinic understanding of the Bible.38 Whereas Ibn Ezra typically invokes earlier authorities, Rashbam celebrates his discovery of new peshat readings that had eluded his predecessors.39 In a particularly telling case, Qara offers a peshat interpretation that he recognizes will be disparaged by “masters of aggadah and Talmud . . . because they cannot abandon the way the Rabbis interpreted this verse,” whereas “the maskilim (intellectuals; ‘those with reason’)” will perceive properly that he alone has arrived at the “correct understanding.”40 There evidently was a cadre of scholars eager to absorb the new peshat method, whom Qara and Rashbam refer to as maskilim and “lovers of reason”— those guided by their own rational thinking rather than the authoritative traditions of the Rabbis.41 As Qara’s remark indicates, the more traditionally oriented scholars of his time resisted this development. This situation bears resemblance to the tendency—discussed below—of some contemporaneous Latin scholars to apply reason in their explication of the Bible and theology, rather than relying on tradition alone, a tendency that was likewise viewed with suspicion by more conservative Christian figures.42

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

132

Chapter 4

Within Jewish learning, the spirit of innovation in Bible interpretation parallels the groundbreaking method of Talmud scholarship pioneered by the Tosafists, heralded by Rabbenu Tam and his circle. Characterized by critical dialectic analysis that departed om the more conservative Talmud study in the Rhineland, the Tosafists in northern France prized ḥiddush—innovative legal or textual analysis.43 Due to the appeal of this new type of learning, students om the Rhineland began streaming to France to study with the Tosafists, reversing the earlier trend of students om France (such as Rabbenu Gershom and Rashi) studying in the Rhineland.44 The implications of this revolution can be gauged by a conservative backlash in the thirteenth-century pietist ḥasidei Ashkenaz movement, as reflected in its foundational written work Sefer Ḥasidim. According to Haym Soloveitchik, these pietists aimed to redress an imbalance engendered by Tosafist learning. Traditionally in Ashkenazic learning, eminence in scholarship could be acquired only through many years of study that led to comprehensive knowledge. By casting ḥiddush as the standard of excellence, the Tosafist school made it possible for a scholar to gain prominence simply by making a few subtle distinctions.45 Learning in the old Ashkenazic culture “was assimilative rather than creative,” and therefore “the scholarly style was milder, the profile lower.” The traits oen attributed to Rashi—reticence, modesty, and temperateness of expression—epitomized that older culture, in which the intellectual, imaginative, and moral faculties were balanced. That equilibrium was upset by the Tosafist introduction of personal intellectual aspiration into the sacred realm of Torah study, an imbalance that the pietists aimed to redress.46 With the advent of the Tosafists, individual authorship and achievement gained new prominence and inevitably became a legitimate motivation for learning. Soloveitchik regards that development as the target of the pietist tendency to inveigh against the increasing phenomenon of torah she-lo lishmah, “Torah study that is not for its own sake,” that is, for improper motives, such as self-aggrandizement, rather than to increase one’s obedience to the Law and developing moral character.47 Our interest here is not in Sefer Ḥasidim or the pietist movement per se, but rather in what they tell us about cultural and intellectual developments in Ashkenaz. Of particular relevance is the new use of the expression torah she-lo lishmah in Sefer Ḥasidim as being synonymous with lilmod she-lo ‘al menat leqayyem (“study without intention to fulfill the Law”)—in other words, “the reduction of talmud torah to a purely intellectual experience.”48 Soloveitchik considers this to be an indictment of the pitfalls opened by Tosafist learning. This critique might also have applied to maskilim in the circle of Qara and Rashbam, intellectuals who prized novel peshat interpretations that departed om the traditional ones. Bold, even proud, statements by these pashtanim about discovering new readings that had eluded earlier interpreters or that would irritate traditionalists for other

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Qara and Rashbam

133

reasons hardly seem to comport with the eleventh-century values of reticence and modesty. Moreover, peshat analysis might appear to be an intellectual pursuit detached om religious observance, since, as Rashbam acknowledges, it sidesteps the halakhic and moral directives that emanate om the Bible—according to its traditional midrashic interpretation.49 By pietist standards, this might seem suspiciously close to improper study of the sacred text—torah she-lo lishmah.50 These tumultuous developments in the culture of Jewish learning in northern France might be compared with analogous ones in Latin learning in the transition om the eleventh century to the twelh century. The paucity of writings emanating om the eleventh-century cathedral schools by contrast with the numerous works penned in the so-called twelh-century renaissance has long been noted. Yet Stephen Jaeger, who questions the very appellation of twelh-century learning as a “renaissance,” marshals substantial evidence for the continuous vitality of earlier learning in the cathedral schools.51 According to Jaeger, eleventhcentury scholars manifested a “charismatic” rather than an “intellectual” outlook, and conveyed their learning orally rather than in writing, with the ultimate aim of inculcating within themselves and in their students the values (Latin, mores) that defined civilized behavior, such as discipline, obedience, and humility.52 In the twelh century, “gains in knowledge, reasoning, success in disputation and in proof ” came at the expense of this culture of virtue.53 Within the twelh-century cathedral schools, there emerged a new critical intellectual spirit that valued the views of the moderni alongside the antiqui. Rashbam’s bold rejection of the “early ones who came before me” is hard to find in Christian learning. But Peter Abelard (1079–1142)—a chief example cited by Jaeger for his lack of discipline54—did assert the need to critically evaluate the words of the church fathers for possible errors.55 Abelard and Gilbert of Poitiers (c. 1080–1154) also manifest an innovative style of Bible commentary that draws upon the arts in new ways to analyze Scripture.56 These two thinkers were, in fact, well-known for applying logical and grammatical thought to the interpretation of Holy Scripture.57 Furthermore, Abelard and Gilbert were otherwise regarded as radical thinkers. Both were put on trial for views deemed heretical, and they were opposed energetically by the more conservative Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090–1153), a devotee of the old charismatic style of learning and the “culture of virtues” it embodied.58 Particularly telling is the account by Abelard of his encounter with Anselm of Laon, who played a key role in the formation of the Glossa Ordinaria. Though Anselm was reputed to be “the very oracle of his time,” Abelard found him to be “more venerable for his age and wrinkles than his genius or learning . . . useless when put to the question. He had a remarkable command of words but their meaning was worthless and devoid of all sense.”59 As Jaeger notes, these lines illustrate the conontation of the new Latin learning with the old. Anselm taught “by eloquence, charisma . . . and inertia,” whereas Abelard “makes sense through

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

134

Chapter 4

plain speech and reasoning”; “Abelard has genius, Anselm has slowly acquired polish.”60 Among the areas in which Abelard challenged Anselm was in the interpretation of Scripture. Abelard describes how he attended the old scholar’s lecture on Ezekiel but was disappointed. That prompted him to deliver his own lecture the next day on this difficult text and its interpretation by the church fathers. To Anselm’s dismay, that lecture proved popular, prompting the audience to request further lectures om Abelard, who eventually set up his own school in Paris.61 Though Abelard was exceptional in the Christian world for his audacity, he did make a name for himself and would have been well-known in Rashbam’s day in northern France. It is therefore suggestive that in one instance, Rashbam expresses himself with surprising sharpness—reminiscent of Abelard’s remarks— in connection with Rashi’s interpretation of a difficult biblical locution: “Don’t you see that this is nonsense?” Rashbam goes on to say: “I, on the other hand, have explained this properly according to the verses and reason.”62 This text is om a agment of Rashbam’s writings and may have been part of a private correspondence with a student.63 In any case, Rashbam’s willingness to dismiss his grandfather’s interpretation is striking. In contrast to the contentious relationship between Abelard and Anselm, a spirit of cooperation seems to have permeated Rashi’s school. The rabbinic master of Troyes evidently encouraged his students’ independence and, at times, accepted their views over his own. Rashbam mentions that he debated matters of interpretation with his grandfather, in language reminiscent of the disputatio style that characterized the new mode of Latin learning in the cathedral schools.64 Rashbam goes on to report—remarkably—that his grandfather valued such “peshat interpretations that newly emerge every day” and was prepared to revise his commentaries accordingly.65 In a responsum to the rabbis of Auxerre, Rashi remarks with respect to the original version of his commentary on Ezek. 42:10: “In any event, I erred in that commentary . . . and now I have studied it with our brother Shemaiah and I have corrected it.”66 As mentioned in Chapter 3, Rashi’s close student and secretary, Shemaiah, helped the master transcribe—and revise—his writings late in his life, a process reflected in MS Leipzig 1. Interpretations by Qara and Rashbam are recorded in the margins of medieval Rashi manuscripts—occasionally with indications that the master approved of them.67 In some cases, these originally marginal notes eventually made their way into the text.68 As Berliner has shown through his research of medieval Rashi manuscripts, many such additions—now indistinguishable om Rashi’s own commentaries—were first introduced with a sign (at times, a single letter: Hebrew taw) indicating “an addition” (tosefet), but subsequent scribes dropped that mark, yielding the multiple interpretations within Rashi’s commentaries that are all presented as his.69 An illustrative example is Rashi on Exod. 15:6, “Your right hand,

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Qara and Rashbam

135

O Lord, glorious in power, Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the foe,” where three separate explanations are given for the redundancy in the verse: “Your right hand . . . Your right hand”—Why is it said twice? Because when Israel performs the will of the Omnipresent, the le hand (symbolizing punishment) becomes a right hand (symbolizing reward). “Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power”—to deliver Israel; and “Your second right hand shatters the foe.” But to me it appears more fitting to explain that the very same right hand shatters the foe, something that is impossible for a human being: to do two things with one hand.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

But the peshat of the verse is: “Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power”—what does it do? “Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the foe.” There are many scriptural verses exactly in this form—for example, “For behold your enemies, O Lord [for behold your enemies will perish].” (Ps. 92:10)70 The first explanation, drawn om the Mekhilta, is typical of the rabbinic endeavor to seek meaning in an apparent redundancy, reflecting the doctrine of omnisignificance. According to the midrash, the repeated phrase “Your right hand” actually refers to God’s left hand—that is, the attribute of judgment, whereas God’s right hand represents the attribute of mercy. This midrash derives a theological lesson om the redundancy: When Israel performs God’s will, they prompt Him to use His anger for merciful purposes, to rescue Israel om her enemies—by striking them. Not surprisingly, this interpretation is also presented in Leqaḥ Ṭov.71 In Rashi, on the other hand, there are two additional interpretations in the spirit of the peshat method that explain away the redundancy in linguistic or stylistic terms. The second interpretation still shares the syntactic assumption that the repeated “Your right hand, O Lord” is a grammatically necessary component of this verse, which comprises two separate sentences (“Your right hand, O Lord, [is] glorious in power”; and “Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the foe”). The third reading, labeled the “peshat of Scripture,” severs the midrashic link altogether by analyzing this verse as a single sentence, in which the repeated “Your right hand, O Lord” is employed purely for stylistic purposes and, grammatically speaking, could have been omitted. In other words, the verse could have been written more concisely: “Your right hand, O Lord, being glorious in power, shatters the foe.” The poetic logic of this biblical convention is spelled out more clearly in Rashbam’s commentary here: “This verse is like ‘The ocean sounds, O Lord, the ocean sounds its thunder’ (Ps. 93:3), ‘How long shall the wicked, O

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

136

Chapter 4

Lord, how long shall the wicked exult’ (Ps. 94:3), ‘Surely Your enemies, O Lord, surely Your enemies perish’ (Ps. 92:10). The first half does not finish the statement until the second half comes and repeats a phrase and then completes the statement. But the first half mentions about whom it speaks.”72 Rashbam, who does not even mention the midrashic interpretation, accounts for the redundant phrase as a biblical stylistic convention, the structure of which he describes in a remarkably clear way that foreshadows what modern scholars would refer to as “staircase parallelism.”73 Although this would seem to be a fine example of a double commentary that juxtaposes Rashi’s peshat alternatives with the older midrashic reading, the manuscript evidence points to a complex history of this gloss. The midrashic interpretation alone appears in Rashi’s commentary in MS Leipzig 1 and in the 1475 Reggio di Calabria printed edition.74 Moreover, Berliner notes the stylistic “markers”—the “seams” conjoining the three readings—that suggest that the second and third are later additions.75 He attributes the second reading to Qara, who characteristically prefaced his glosses on Rashi with the phrase “But to me it appears.” Berliner traces the third reading to Rashbam, since it is introduced by the formula “But the peshat of Scripture is,” characteristic of Rashbam, whose commentary here actually features a similar reading. Indeed, Eleazar Touitou argued that any interpretation advanced by Rashbam in his commentary that is identical to one found in Rashi’s cannot be original there, since Rashbam, whose goal was to offer new peshat interpretations, would not ever simply have repeated his grandfather’s interpretation.76 Touitou thus posits that in such cases, Rashbam’s gloss had been incorporated into Rashi’s commentary by a later copyist. A similar argument has been made regarding the identical interpretations appearing in the commentaries of Rashi and Qara on Samuel and Kings—that these were added to Rashi om Qara’s commentary by later copyists.77 Yet even interpretations clearly attributable to Qara and Rashbam ought not necessarily be viewed as external to Rashi’s project. As noted, there is evidence that Rashi viewed his students’ new peshat interpretations kindly. In Rashi’s commentary on Isa. 64:3, for example, an alternate interpretation is cited with the following note appended: “Thus I heard om Rabbi Joseph, and it pleased me.”78 Rashbam’s aforementioned poetic discovery regarding staircase parallelism was acknowledged by Rashi, as recorded in a marginal note in MS Vienna 32 that cites the rule with the concluding comment: “All this is om the work of Rabbi Samuel (Rashbam), and when Rabbi Solomon his grandfather came to these verses, he called them ‘Samuel’s verses’ in his name.”79 This anecdote—obviously recorded by a third party—concurs with Rashbam’s version of the exchange with his grandfather, who acknowledged that he would have liked to update his own commentaries according to the new peshat

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Qara and Rashbam

137

interpretations devised by others. Rashi did not regard his commentary as the final word. Quite the contrary; as Rashbam portrays it, his grandfather was aware that he had taken only the first steps in a project completed by his successors. In light of the evidence mentioned above that Rashi revised his commentaries over his lifetime, in part with the assistance of Shemaiah, we can consider the possibility that the master himself incorporated interpretations originally suggested by Qara and Rashbam—and this would explain the otherwise perplexing duplications, as well as the “seams” in Rashi’s commentaries. Indeed, in this spirit, Berliner posits that Rashi himself added the third reading to his commentary on Exod. 15:6, based on his grandson’s insight.80

New Methods of Peshat

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Perhaps the most fundamental principle of the peshat method developed by Qara and Rashbam is the hermeneutical self-sufficiency of the text of the Bible. The assumption underlying midrash, as noted in the Introduction, is that the biblical text is cryptic and requires deep investigation that goes beneath its surface. Qara vigorously opposed this notion: “It is not the manner of a prophet in any one of the twenty-four books of the Bible to obscure the meaning of his words in such a way that they can be ascertained only through the aggadah.”81 Whereas Rashi accepted the need for supplementary information om midrash, Qara argued that the Bible is self-explanatory: Prophecy was written . . . in a complete manner with all that is necessary for its interpretation . . . so that there is no need for corroboration om elsewhere, nor midrash, for the Torah, as given, is perfect (cf. Ps. 19:8) . . . and lacks nothing. But anyone who . . . leans toward the midrash . . . is like one swept away by the river current . . . and grabs anything that comes to hand to save himself. But if he put his heart to the word of God, He would reveal the meaning of the matter and its peshat, fulfilling what it says: “If you seek it as you do silver and search for it as for treasures, then you will . . . attain knowledge of God.” (Prov. 2:4–5)82 Rashi had used his sensitivity to the language and sequence of the biblical text as tools for selecting critically among midrashic interpretations. Qara—followed by Rashbam—harnessed these sensitivities to develop peshat as an entirely new interpretive method.83 This self-sufficiency of peshat can be illustrated by comparing Rashbam and Rashi on the Tower of Babel episode. Rashi drew upon midrash to interpret the intentions of the builders of the Tower of Babel, attributing to them the rebellious plan to battle with God Himself in the heavens, based on Gen. 11:4, “Come let us

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

138

Chapter 4

build a city, and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered all over the world.”84 Rashi selected the midrash that best accounts for the language of the verse—specifically, the words “a tower with its top in the sky.” Rashbam, on the other hand, writes: “According to the peshat, in what manner did the generation of the dispersion sin? It cannot be their statement ‘. . . with its top in the sky,’ for it says similarly, ‘large cities walled up to the sky’ (Deut. 1:28, 9:1). But rather, because God commanded them: ‘Be fertile and increase and fill the earth!’ (Gen. 1:28, 9:1), but they chose one place in which to dwell and said, ‘lest we scatter’; therefore God scattered them by His decree.”85 According to Rashbam, it is unreasonable to suppose that the tower builders intended to reach “the sky” literally. Abraham Ibn Ezra states this more bluntly: “These tower builders were not fools to think that they could ascend to the sky . . . and you should not wonder about the expression ‘with its top in the sky,’ for Moses likewise said, ‘large cities walled up to the sky.’ ”86 As proof that this expression must be understood as hyperbole, Rashbam—like Ibn Ezra—cites the description in Deuteronomy of the strong Canaanite cities as being “walled up to the sky,” meaning fortified with walls that are very high.87 Seeking evidence for the builders’ sin in the Bible, Rashbam cited the divine “command” to Adam and repeated to Noah: “Be fertile and increase and fill the earth!” This precept was violated by the men of Shinar in their stated intention not to scatter, a sin that invited God’s forceful intervention: “Let us, then, go down and confound their speech there, so that they shall not understand one another’s speech” (Gen. 11:7), leading to the realization of their very fear: “the Lord scattered them . . . over the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:8). Based on comments such as this one, some scholars ascribe to Rashbam a sort of “rationalism” in his movement away om midrashic supernaturalism by explaining events portrayed in the Bible in natural terms.88 Yet any discussion of “rationalism” in the northern French peshat school must be distinguished om that manifested in the Geonic-Andalusian school, which sought to harmonize Scripture with Greco-Arabic philosophical and scientific learning—an endeavor central in Ibn Ezra’s “way of peshat.” There are striking similarities between Rashbam and Ibn Ezra regarding the Tower of Babel episode.89 Beyond those just mentioned, Ibn Ezra also turns to Gen. 1:28, 9:1 (“Be fertile and increase and fill the earth!”) to explain the problem with the tower builders’ intentions. However, whereas Rashbam viewed God’s reaction as a punishment for their violation of that “commandment,” Ibn Ezra deems them to have been misguided but not rebellious, and he casts the entire episode in anthropological terms, with God’s intervention taken as benevolent guidance rather than punishment: “If we look carefully by way of peshat, we see that the people of the ‘generation of the dispersion’ were not punished, but rather were scattered throughout the earth, contrary to their intention . . . for God . . . saw fit in His wisdom that they should dwell

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Qara and Rashbam

139

in many places, as written ‘and fill the earth’ (Gen. 1:28, 9:1), which are the words of Moses [as the biblical narrator]; yet they were unaware of God’s thoughts.”90 Accordingly, Ibn Ezra reinterprets God’s “confounding” the languages of the tower builders: “In my view . . . they scattered om there, and aer they scattered Nimrod reigned over Babylonia, and other kings arose; and over time, with the death of the first generation, the original language was forgotten.”91 Ibn Ezra thus renders the miraculous biblical depiction as a dramatization of a prosaic reality: the builders had a change of heart and abandoned the tower, leading to their dispersion, which, over time, led to the differentiation of languages among their descendants. Applying what Saadia would call ta’wīl (see Chapter 1), Ibn Ezra reinterprets Scripture to conform to his rational outlook. In fact, one might say that his zealous concern for historical feasibility caused him to misunderstand the myth-like Tower of Babel tale that was meant to be taken at face value, as Rashbam did. Menahem ben Saruq—whose Maḥberet was influential in Rashi’s peshat school—relied heavily on the immediate literary context as an exegetical tool, oen using the phrase “its context indicates it[s meaning] (‘inyano yoreh ‘alayw).”92 This outlook was taken to new heights by Qara and Rashbam.93 For example, the puzzling prohibition “Do not eat upon blood” (Lev. 19:26), which Rashi had interpreted based on the Talmud, is glossed in the following way by Rashbam: “According to its peshat, ‘this matter is understood om its context’ (davar lamed me-‘inyano), as a continuation of the beginning of the verse ‘Do not practice divination or soothsaying.’ So this, too, must mean not to follow the manner of the pagan nations, who eat beside the grave of a murdered person for the purpose of witchcra, in order to prevent the avenging of his death. Or it may be some other type of witchcra.”94 The expression davar lamed me-‘inyano comes om R. Ishmael’s thirteen middot.95 In rabbinic literature, the principle is used midrashically to derive laws not stated explicitly in Scripture. Rashbam, on the other hand, recasts the expression to articulate his peshat ideal of contextual interpretation. For Qara likewise, “the order of Scripture” (seder ha-miqra) and the flow of the verses (hillukh ha-ketuvim; lit., “running of the verses”) are a methodological yardstick, reminiscent of Rashi’s criterion of “the sequence of the verses” (seder ha-miqra’ot). As Qara remarks on a prophecy about the “servant” of the Lord in Isaiah 42, taken in Christianity as a reference to Jesus (see Matt. 12:15–21): “A person not familiar with the order of Scripture (seder ha-miqra) and the flow of the verses (hillukh ha-ketuvim) might interpret this passage about the King Messiah, and he could cite proofs for his view om many places. But heaven forbid that we disregard the flow of the passage (hillukh ha-parashah) and its order (seder) and the matter that settles well (mityashev), to stitch and connect extraneous subjects to the matter of this prophecy on the basis of two or three verses in the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

140

Chapter 4

passage that are not consecutive.”96 Qara, by contrast, interprets this passage as part of a prophecy about the Persian king Cyrus, whom he regards as the subject of Isaiah’s adjacent prophecies. Beyond the immediate context, both Qara and Rashbam were sensitive to the style and conventions of Biblical Hebrew, sometimes referred to as “the usual manner of the language of Scripture” (hergelo shel leshon ha-miqra), knowledge of which enables them to avoid midrashic interpretations.97 This led them to discover a variety of techniques of biblical narrative and poetry. Both manifest awareness of what has been called the “exposition” style in biblical narrative—the tendency of the biblical narrator to provide seemingly irrelevant information early in an account in order to prepare the reader to understand something that will be told later.98 Rashbam refers to this tendency as “anticipation” (haqdamah) as in the following remark:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

The typical convention of the scriptures (derekh ha-miqra’ot) is to anticipate (le-haqdim) and to make clear something that is apparently unnecessary for the sake of something that is mentioned later on in another place. For example, it is written, “Shem, Ham, and Japhet” (Gen. 9:18). And it adds in that verse: “And Ham was the father of Canaan,” seemingly without any purpose. But it is added to explain what is written later, when Noah sought to punish Ham, “May Canaan be cursed” (9:25). Now, had it not been stated earlier who Canaan is, we would not know why Noah cursed him.99 Rashi on Gen. 9:18 already noted that the information provided in that verse is necessary to enable the reader to understand Gen. 9:25. Rashbam’s innovation is to use this case as a prototypical example of a biblical literary convention. As Eleazar Touitou demonstrates, Rashbam applies the haqdamah principle and other related structural concepts widely to explain the arrangement of the large and small literary units within the Pentateuch.100 Modern scholars have noted Rashbam’s substantial insights into the literary conventions of biblical narrative and poetry.101 Rashbam’s awareness of biblical parallelism, noted briefly above, is particularly significant because it has been viewed as a medieval precursor for the “discovery” of parallelismus membrorum, or “parallelism of the members” (parts of the verse) by the distinguished eighteenthcentury English Hebraist Robert Lowth, who defined it as the fundamental characteristic of biblical poetry.102 As Lowth writes: “The poetical conformation of the sentences . . . consists chiefly in a certain equality, resemblance, or parallelism between the members of each period; so that in two lines . . . things . . . answer to things, and words to words, as if fitted to each other by a kind of rule or measure.”103

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Qara and Rashbam

141

This “principle of parallelism” occurs with “much variety and many gradations; it is sometimes more accurate and manifest, sometimes more vague and obscure.”104 Lowth’s classification of three main types of parallelism is helpful for gauging Rashbam’s grasp of this poetic characteristic of Hebrew Scripture. The most obvious type is “synonymous parallelism”: “when the same sentiment is repeated in different, but equivalent, terms. This is the most equent of all, and is oen conducted with the utmost accuracy and neatness.”105 Throughout his commentaries, Rashbam notes this phenomenon using the term kefel (“double”), and related terminology.106 For example, on Deut. 32:23, “aspeh evils on them / I will use up (akhaleh) My arrows on them,” Rashbam supports Rashi’s philological analysis of the difficult word aspeh—meaning “I will consume”—based on the parallel structure of the verse “for it is the manner (derekh) of the verses to double (likhpol) their language. And so this verse means: I will use every one of the evils that I possess to injure them.”107 Lowth’s second major category is what he calls “antithetic parallelism,” that is, “when a thing is illustrated by its contrary being opposed to it.”108 As he explains: “Sentiments are opposed to sentiments, words to words, singulars to singulars, plurals to plurals . . . of which the following are examples: The blows of a iend are faithful / But the kisses of an enemy are treacherous. The cloyed will trample upon a honeycomb / But to the hungry every bitter thing is sweet (Prov. 27:6–7).”109 Rashbam perceived the workings of this phenomenon as well. Sara Japhet has noted this based on Rashbam’s analysis of Qoh. 4:13, “Better is a poor (misken) and wise youth than an old and foolish king”: “Misken—I cannot interpret this as wise to make it synonymous with (lit., ‘a double word’ [kefel millah]) ‘wise man,’ as . . . [indicated by a comparison with the use of this root in Isa. 40:20 and Job 22:2] . . . because in this verse ‘youth’ relates to ‘old’; ‘poor’ relates to ‘than a king’; ‘and wise’ relates to ‘and foolish.’ ”110 Despite prooexts suggesting that misken means “wise,” Rashbam gives greater weight to the antithetical structure of this verse that requires an antonym of king here. Lowth’s third major category is “synthetic parallelism,” where “the sentences answer to each other, not by the iteration of the same image or sentiment, or the opposition of their contraries, but merely by the form of construction.” For example: The Torah of The Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of The Lord is sure, making wise the simple; The precepts of The Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. (Ps. 19:8–9)111 What modern scholars term “staircase parallelism,” a subtype of “synthetic parallelism,” was defined by Rashbam in the following terms: “The first half does not

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

142

Chapter 4

finish the statement until the second half comes and repeats a phrase and then completes the statement. But the first half mentions about whom it speaks.”112 Rashbam discerned key elements of biblical poetics using only his deep familiarity with the biblical text and keen literary intuition. As impressive as these abilities are, the results of his analysis are rudimentary compared with Moses Ibn Ezra’s systematic outline of the Bible’s literary techniques in his poetics, The Book of Discussion, mentioned in Chapter 2. The Andalusian poet did not have to be as original as Rashbam, as he drew upon Arabic poetics to identi biblical manifestations of twenty “embellishments of poetry” (maḥāsin al-shi‘r) such as metaphor, simile, and hyperbole, as well as a number of structural techniques. Among the latter are verse forms that resemble the subcategories of parallelismus membrorum, including muṭābaqa (“antithesis”), akin to antithetic parallelism; tardīd (“reiteration”), akin to “staircase parallelism”; and four-verse structures that resemble synonymous parallelism: taṣdīr (“inclusio”), taqsīm (“specification”), tashīm (“distribution”), and muqābala (“correspondence”).113 Arabic poetics equipped Moses Ibn Ezra with a level of conceptualization, a range of definitions, and an array of terminology unavailable to Rashbam. As Japhet acknowledges, “Rashbam does not present a systematic and structured explanation of the phenomenon of parallelism.”114 He did not even coin a term for the phenomenon of “staircase parallelism,” which was referred to only by citing other examples, or with Rashi’s designation “Samuel’s verses.”115 A similar observation should be made about the sort of “rationalism” that Qara and Rashbam manifest. Although they associate themselves with maskilim and “lovers of reason” (sekhel), neither was exposed to formal scientific or philosophical learning, as their coreligionists in Muslim lands were. Instead, Rashbam invokes commonsense rationalism using the expression the “way of the world” (derekh ereṣ), which became a defining feature of his peshat interpretation. In one of his programmatic remarks, Rashbam thus states his intention to focus on “the peshat of the Scriptures . . . to explain the regulations and laws according to ‘the way of the world’ (derekh ereṣ),” in contrast to midrash.116 The term derekh ereṣ is originally found in rabbinic literature, where it has a range of meanings, including “conventional, proper behavior.” Rashbam, however, recasts this term to connote rationalism as a central element of his peshat exegesis. In his commentary on Job, Rashbam recruits another rabbinic coinage, “according to the custom of the world” (be-nohag she-ba-‘olam), when drawing upon empirical observation as part of his rational peshat method.117 The way in which Rashbam used the concept of “the way of the world” in service of his peshat ideal is evident, for example, in his commentary on Gen. 1:2, a verse that describes how “the ruaḥ (lit., ‘wind,’ ‘breath’) of God moved over the water.” Rashi, following the midrash, took this as a reference to “the throne of divine glory” miraculously “standing in space, hovering over the water by the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Qara and Rashbam

143

breath of the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, and by His command.”118 Rashbam, however, took ruaḥ here to mean “wind” and explains this step of the Creation scientifically: “A wind blew over the water. The wind was needed for what is written below, ‘And God said: Let the water below the sky be gathered into one area . . .’ (Gen. 1:9), for the water was gathered by means of the wind, just like the splitting of the Red Sea, when the dry land became visible by means of the wind: ‘and the Lord drove back the sea with a strong east wind all that night and turned the sea into dry ground’ (Exod. 14:21).”119 Indeed, in his commentary on Exod. 14:21, Rashbam writes: “The Holy One acted in accordance with the way of the world (ke-derekh ereṣ), for the wind dries and eezes the rivers.”120 A similar scientific explanation of “the wind” in Gen. 1:2 was already offered by Saadia, followed by Abraham Ibn Ezra.121 But they did so as part of a program of harmonizing Scripture with Greco-Arabic scientific learning. By contrast, there is no evidence that Rashbam was working with anything more than an intuitive understanding of “nature” and “science”—and a desire to avoid the supernaturalism typically posited by midrashic tradition. Yet there is an instructive parallel between Rashbam’s naturalistic tendency and a dramatic development in contemporary Latin learning. The cathedral school of Chartres (about a hundred miles om Rashbam’s native Ramerupt and about forty miles om Paris, where Rashbam is known to have traveled) achieved renown in the late eleventh and early twelh centuries as a center of learning, especially in mathematics and “natural philosophy,” namely, science, as it was known om the works of the ancient Greek philosophers. Bernard of Chartres (d. before 1130) was considered an authority on Plato and appealed to works of his such as the Timaeus (a dialogue on the nature of the physical world) to explicate Scripture and theology.122 This process was further developed by William of Conches (c. 1090–1154).123 Adelard of Bath (1080–1152), another member of the Chartres school, traveled widely—om Spain to Antioch—in his search for Arabic and Greek philosophical and scientific works, which he translated.124 The tendency of such scholars to rely on human reason was criticized by more conservative Christian figures such as Bernard of Clairvaux and William of Saint Thierry, who regarded the church fathers as the essential authority for explicating the Bible and theology.125 Notwithstanding this controversy, the availability and prestige of the new learning is evident in the remarks of Thierry of Chartres (d. slightly aer 1156)126 in the preface to his Hexameron (commentary on the six days of Creation): “I am going to expound the first part of Genesis, and the seven days and the division between the six works in relation to physics and the literal sense (secundum physicam et ad litteram). . . . I shall proceed to the exposition of the historical literal sense, so I shall completely leave beside the allegorical and moral readings, which holy expositors have lucidly accomplished.”127

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

144

Chapter 4

The parallels to Rashbam are striking: both authors pay homage to earlier traditional interpreters, while focusing on a newer scientific approach. Thierry’s conceptual combination secundum physicam et ad litteram resembles Rashbam’s association of peshat and derekh ereṣ. Occasionally, Rashbam reveals the particular coloration he gives to this term by adding other expressions to it: “derekh ereṣ and a matter of wisdom (devar ḥokhmah)” / “derekh ereṣ, according to human wisdom (ḥokhmat benei adam).”128 There is no evidence that Rashbam had access to the glosses on Plato’s Timaeus by his Christian contemporaries—or any other Latin philosophical or scientific works, for that matter. It is possible, however, that he knew of such works om conversations with Christian neighbors—which may have included “lovers of reason” like him. His negative reference, for example, in his Qohelet commentary to the type of “wisdom” that deals with the secrets of Creation (which he refers to with the Rabbinic Hebrew term ma‘aseh bereshit) may indicate that he was aware of this branch of Latin learning.129 One may gather that derekh ereṣ, being a universal, rather than specifically Jewish, type of wisdom, provided a common ground for interfaith conversation. This explains the association of that term with Rashbam’s occasional “responses to the Christians,” which suggests some sort of intellectual interaction with his non-Jewish neighbors. For example, on Lev. 11:34 he offers a rationale for a biblical law for “one who wishes to give a reason (ṭa‘am) for the commandments130 according to derekh ereṣ and as a response to the Christians (teshuvah la-minim).”131 Rashbam likewise points to the empirical benefits of adhering to the prohibition to eat certain (“nonkosher”) animals: “According to the peshat of Scripture and as a response to the Christians (teshuvah la-minim): all the animals, beasts, birds, fish, and types of locusts and swarming things that God prohibited to Israel are referred to as ‘impure,’ since they are disgusting. They also harm and heat the body. And the great physicians say so as well, and in the Talmud (b.Shabbat 86b) it states: ‘Gentiles who eat insects and reptiles harm themselves.’ ”132 From the connection he makes between the “peshat of Scripture” and “a response to the minim” it would seem that Rashbam discussed Scripture with his Christian neighbors and found the rational peshat method congenial for portraying the virtue of its Jewish interpretation.133 The yardstick of rationalism (derekh ereṣ) enabled him to provide an explanation for Jewish adherence to the Law in its literal sense, which Christianity rejected. In a similar vein, Rashbam identifies the common theme of three biblical laws in commenting on Deut. 22:6, which requires that a mother bird be chased away before one collects her eggs or chicks: “According to derekh ereṣ and as response to the Christians (teshuvah la-minim), I have already explained in connection with the verse ‘You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk’ (Exod. 23:19), and also on ‘No animal shall be slaughtered on the same day with its young’ (Lev. 22:28), that

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Qara and Rashbam

145

it is cruelty and gluttony to take, slaughter, cook, or eat a mother and its young together.”134 Derekh ereṣ here connotes a sense of morality, which Rashbam regarded as an aspect of human reason. Elsewhere Rashbam uses a different term, saying that in these laws, “Scripture aims to teach you civilized/refined behavior (derekh tarbut).”135 Derekh tarbut would seem to be another aspect of derekh ereṣ, implying that human wisdom includes proper, refined behavior.136 This use of the expression derekh tarbut by Rashbam can be traced to the use of the term tarbut in rabbinic Hebrew to connote domestication, as in the term benei tarbut, which connotes domesticated animals, as opposed to wild animals.137 A related usage is the rabbinic Hebrew expression tarbut ra‘ah, (human) bad behavior.138 But Rashbam’s use of the expression derekh tarbut to connote civilized, refined behavior was a neologism that he evidently coined to express something akin to the medieval Latin ideals of civiles mores (civil behavior) and, more broadly, civilitas (civility), as well as venustas morum (beauty of manners/conduct) celebrated in Latin society in the eleventh and twelh centuries.139 It would seem that Rashbam intends to say that these very values, which he refers to as derekh tarbut, are inculcated by adherence to the Law in its literal sense—as practiced by the Jews. Rashbam’s notion of derekh ereṣ reflects not only an interest in “natural philosophy” and ethics but also historical sensitivity—an awareness of the realia of the Bible’s historical setting.140 This represents a departure om midrash, which tends to downplay the historical, realistic, and mundane aspects of the biblical narrative. The Rabbis’ endeavor to seek moral and religious relevance in Scripture oen led them to blur the chronological gap between their own circumstances and the Bible’s historical world. Rashi and his students inherited this hallowed tradition and lived their Jewish lives by it—as their “spiritual sense” of the Bible (to use a Christian term). But the peshat method, as it began to emerge in Rashi’s school, entailed an effort to make sense of Scripture independently as a literary reflection of ancient Israelite circumstances, akin to what Christians regarded as the “historical” sense of the Old Testament.141 This dimension of peshuto shel miqra is already found in Rashi in his dual commentary on Abraham’s “covenant between the parts” with God in Genesis 15, as discussed in Chapter 3. Most oen, however, Rashi still relied exclusively on the ahistorical midrashic approach, leaving it to Qara and Rashbam to advance the historically oriented peshat approach. For example, to explain why Abraham ordered his servant, “Put your hand under my thigh and I will make you swear by the Lord” (Gen. 24:2), Rashi, drawing upon midrashic tradition, interprets this ritual as a reference to Abraham’s circumcision, following the assumption that one must hold a sacred object (a Torah scroll in rabbinic times), when taking an oath.142 Rashbam, however, adopts a historical-anthropological outlook based on internal biblical evidence:

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

146

Chapter 4

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Various ways of establishing a covenant are found in the Bible: (1) “the calf that they cut in two [so as to pass between the halves]” (Jer. 34:18); “[a flaming torch] that passed between those pieces” (Gen. 15:17)—this is one way of establishing a covenant; (2) “Is the palm of Zebah and Zalmmuna in your hand?” (Judg. 8:6), “[My son, if you have stood surely for your fellow], given your hand to another” (Prov. 6:1); this, too, is a way of establishing a covenant. (3) And placing a hand on [i.e., beneath] the thigh, we find with a son—Joseph; and Eliezer, a servant, when the father or master made them take an oath. And a son’s honor for his father was equated with a servant for his master, as written: “A son should honor his father and a slave his master” (Mal. 1:6). And this was their practice in those days.143 Indicating awareness of the historical gap between his own circumstances and those in antiquity, Rashbam seeks biblical evidence to reconstruct the various conventions that governed the establishment of a covenant in biblical times. Abraham Ibn Ezra offers an explanation similar to Rashbam’s about the oath that Abraham administered to his servant, adding that “this custom is still practiced in India.”144 The parallel raises the intriguing question of whether one may have actually influenced the other on this point, or if this is simply a case of two peshat exegetes, using the same biblical evidence, arriving at similar conclusions.145 But there is a cultural disparity between them. Having lived in Muslim Spain— with his son, Isaac, having traveled to Egypt and possibly even Iraq146—Ibn Ezra had extensive knowledge of the East and found it relevant to cite practices there to support his conjectures regarding biblical times. Rashbam used only internal biblical evidence for this purpose. At times, the peshat interpretation of Qara and Rashbam is based on observable human behavior. This type of anthropological-psychological peshat sensibility is evident, for example, in Exod. 17:11, which describes how Israel prevailed in battling Amalek only as long as Moses’ hands were raised. As recorded by Rashi on that verse, the Rabbis (m.Rosh ha-Shanah 3:8) explained this in religious terms: when Moses raised his hands to heaven, Israel turned their hearts to God, thereby meriting a miraculous victory. Qara offers an alternative: “According to the peshat, it is this way: when someone raises the flag, fondon in the vernacular (la‘az), it serves as a good omen for his army, and they battle mightily as long as it is raised. But when he lets it down, they say, ‘We are defeated,’ and this is a signal for them to retreat and flee.”147 Rashbam refines this observation by highlighting the fact that it is based on typical human behavior: “This is the manner of those who wage war (derekh ‘orkhei milḥamah); as long as they see their raised battle flag, confanion in the vernacular (la‘az) , they prevail, but when it is cast down, they typically flee and

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Qara and Rashbam

147

are defeated.”148 Rashbam here employs phraseology characteristic of his anthropological-psychological commentaries, “it is the manner of those who. . .,” a formula also adopted by Eliezer of Beaugency in his peshat commentaries.149

Hermeneutics: Status of Peshat in Relation to Midrash

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Within two generations—om Rashi to Joseph Qara to Rashbam—the rules of Ashkenazic Bible interpretation were rewritten. No longer was the Bible viewed exclusively as a divine cryptic document, to be decoded through midrashic tools. The peshat project entailed analyzing the Bible as an open book like others, its meaning to be understood through contextual-philological analysis. Rather than mining the sacred text for moral and halakhic “instruction,” the pashtanim aimed to understand ancient Scripture within its human historical context. It is not surprising that this movement has been viewed as a precursor of modern historicalcritical Bible scholarship.150 But the twelh-century pashtanim were not modern Bible scholars. It is necessary to consider how they perceived this new interpretive model within their cultural-intellectual milieu and to ask: What was the status of peshat vis-à-vis the traditional modes of reading Scripture? Qara’s position is remarkably spirited. His declaration of the hermeneutical self-sufficiency of peshat cited above (n. 82) is expressed in stark, evocative terms that render peshat a sure-footed quest for intellectual treasure guided by the “perfection” of God’s word, whereas midrash is likened to aimless, hopeless flailing by one being swept away by a raging river current. In a similar vein, Qara remarks: Incline your ear and bend over toward Scripture, for every verse that our Rabbis interpreted midrashically . . . when they concluded their midrashic homily, they themselves said in the end: “Scripture does not leave the realm of its peshat,” for there is no manner of study in Scripture greater than . . . peshuto shel miqra.151 And thus King Solomon said: “Incline your ear [and listen to] the words of the Sages, and put your heart to My knowledge” (Prov. 22:17). Meaning, even though you are obligated to listen to the words of the Sages, “Put your heart to My [God’s] knowledge (Heb., de‘ah)”—the very essence (lit., “body”; Heb., guf) of the matter. It does not say “to their knowledge,” but rather “to My knowledge.”152 Qara creates a clear demarcation: peshuto shel miqra is the true meaning of Scripture, the “knowledge” conveyed by God in the sacred text, whereas midrash conveys only the opinions of the Sages.153 This suggests that peshuto shel miqra is the superior form of Bible interpretation. No wonder, then, that Qara elsewhere speaks of peshat representing the “truth”—which the maskilim of his day were beginning to appreciate—in opposition to the well-known midrashic reading.154

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

148

Chapter 4

To be sure, Qara had considerable expertise in midrash. Apart om having written commentaries on Genesis Rabbah, he drew heavily on midrash in his piyyut commentaries. This is only reasonable, since the piyyutim are based heavily on midrash. So reference to midrashic material is oen essential to ascertain the intentions of the authors of the piyyutim.155 Surprisingly, though, Qara’s commentaries on Isaiah also include extensive citations om midrash.156 For example, the very passage cited above om Qara on Isa. 5:9, in which he extols the virtue of peshat, occurs amid a reference to the interpretation offered by the Rabbis, and he continues: “Until here I have interpreted this passage according to its context and peshat. But now I shall return to the words of the Rabbis, may their bones flourish like grass.”157 Midrash was never far om Qara’s mind, even where he seems to set it aside, as is evident in his characteristic remarks: “this is the peshat of the verse, whereas its midrashic interpretation is well-known.”158 “And in the annals of the aggadah [the Rabbis] offer different interpretations, but they are not convincing (lit., ‘settled upon the heart’).”159 In one revealing instance, Qara cites a midrashic interpretation in full and labels it as such (“this is its midrash”), but then remarks: “But I do not know how to explain (lit., ‘settle’; leyashev) this verse within its context. And this is not its peshat interpretation.”160 As Qara knew well, Rashi endeavored to cite midrashic sources that “settle” the verses—that explain the language of Scripture in its proper sequence. Here Qara uses the verb “to settle” in a similar way, only that he had expressly eschewed resorting to midrash.161 He must therefore acknowledge his failure to arrive at a satisfactory explanation within the parameters of peshat. This acknowledgment is especially dramatic in his commentary on 1 Sam. 17:55. The previous biblical chapter (1 Sam. 16:19–23) recounts that David played the harp for King Saul to alleviate his depression and that the king “loved him very much and he became his armor bearer” (v. 21). Yet aer slaying Goliath, David seems unknown to Saul, who inquires, “The son of whom is that lad?” (1 Sam. 17:55). Qara raises this question and then provides an elaborate answer based on midrashic sources. At that point, he remarks: “This is explained in the midrash, and in tractate Yevamot. Without its midrashic explanation, it is not possible for me to find a resolution of this verse (yishuv ha-miqra). Yet ‘Scripture does not leave the realm of its peshat.’ ”162 Qara seems to acknowledge that there is no satisfactory peshat solution to this crux, implicitly suggesting that it requires reliance on midrash.163 Though Qara was a brilliant pashtan, there are inconsistencies between his exegetical theory and practice—an indication, perhaps, that the northern French peshat school was still not ready for a radical break with midrash. Conceivably, Rashbam’s pronouncements about peshuto shel miqra were designed as a corrective, as he offers critical self-reflection on the emergence of the new interpretive agenda in Ashkenazic culture:

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Qara and Rashbam

149

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Let lovers of reason (sekhel) comprehend and understand that our Rabbis taught us that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat,” even though the essence (‘iqqar) of Torah comes to teach and inform us of the haggadot (traditions, lore), halakhot (laws), and dinim (regulations) through the hints of the peshat,164 by way of redundant language, and through the thirty-two hermeneutical rules of R. Eliezer . . . and the thirteen rules of R. Ishmael. Now the early generations, because of their piety, tended to occupy themselves with the derashot, since they are the essence, and therefore were not accustomed to the deep peshat of Scripture. And also because the Sages said, “Do not let your children engage in a great deal of recitation [of Scripture].”165 And they also said: “One who studies Scripture—that is a somewhat meritorious manner of study (lit., ‘a manner [middah], but not a manner’) . . . one who studies Talmud, there is no manner of study greater than this” (b.Bava Meṣi‘a 33a).166 Therefore they were not very accustomed to delve into peshuto shel miqra, as it recounts in tractate Shabbat: “I was eighteen years old and I had studied the entire Talmud, and I did not know that ‘Scripture does not leave the realm of its peshat’ ” (b.Shabbat 63a). Now our master, Rabbi Solomon, the father of my mother, luminary of the Diaspora, who interpreted Torah, Prophets, and Writings, endeavored (natan lev) to interpret the peshat of Scripture. And I, Samuel, son of Meir, his son-in-law (of blessed memory), debated with him personally, and he admitted to me that if he had the opportunity, he would have to write new commentaries according to the peshat interpretations that newly emerge (ha-mitḥaddeshim) every day.167 These comments reveal a sense of energetic innovation, development, and progress. Rashi departed om the midrashic focus of the pious “early generations”— the Rabbis and the great talmudic scholars of the Rhineland—and “endeavored to interpret the peshat of Scripture.” Yet the peshat project that Rashi initiated (that he “endeavored” to implement) was not brought to completion in his own work, leaving room for further development—by pashtanim such as Joseph Qara and Rashbam. These students of Rashi’s and their circle were no doubt the source of the “peshat interpretations that newly emerge (ha-mitḥaddeshim) every day,” which were acknowledged by Rashi—according to Rashbam’s report.168 This programmatic comment also casts important light on Rashbam’s perception of midrash, which he characterizes as the “essence” of Scripture. Rashbam presents a dual model of Bible interpretation that balances midrash with the novel peshat mode. He takes the maxim that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat” to mean that the peshat is inviolate, notwithstanding the primacy of midrash. This departs om Qara’s construal of the peshat maxim and returns, at least in theory, to that of Rashi, who still regarded midrashic

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

150

Chapter 4

interpretation—conducted within the proper parameters—as the conduit for a true understanding of Scripture (see Chapter 3). Indeed, Rashbam corrects Qara’s imprecise quotation of the talmudic maxim regarding the relative merit of studying Scripture and studying Talmud.169 As Rashbam understood well, traditional Jewish Bible study was based on the Talmud, and peshuto shel miqra is an innovation—albeit an important and exciting one—of his time. The implications of Rashbam’s dual hermeneutic are especially pertinent in the case of halakhic passages, as is evident om his programmatic preface to the first full-length law code in the Pentateuch:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

I have not come to explain halakhot, even though they are essential, as I explained in Genesis,170 for the haggadot and halakhot can be inferred om the redundancies of the Scriptures, and some of them can be found in the commentaries of Rabbi Solomon my grandfather, may the memory of the righteous be blessed. I, on the other hand, have come to interpret the peshat of the Scriptures, interpreting the dinim (regulations) and halakhot (religious laws) according to the way of the world (derekh ereṣ). Yet the halakhot (as interpreted by the Rabbis) remain essential (‘iqqar), as our Rabbis said: “halakhah uproots Scripture” (b.Soṭah 16a).171 This should be compared with the proviso by Thierry of Chartres: “I shall proceed to the exposition of the historical literal sense, so I shall completely leave beside the allegorical and moral readings, which holy expositors have lucidly accomplished.”172 Like Thierry, Rashbam acknowledges the authority of the earlier “expositors,” even while engaging in his own very different mode of interpretation. Whereas the Rabbis of the Talmud applied the midrashic middot to ascertain the halakhah, Rashbam would aim for peshuto shel miqra guided by his own reasoning and “the way of the world.” Manifesting ingenuity and originality in his analysis, which is oen at odds with rabbinic halakhic interpretation, Rashbam effectively creates an alternative, non-talmudic “shadow” system of halakhah based his reading of Scripture.173 He remarks, furthermore, at the conclusion of his Exodus commentary, which also serves as a preface to the book of Leviticus: He who puts his heart to the word of our Creator must not budge om the explanations of my grandfather our Master Rabbi Solomon, and must not depart om them. For most of the halakhot and derashot in them are close to the peshat of the verses; and all of them can deduced om the redundancies and anomalies of the language. It is therefore best for you to take this commentary as I have interpreted the Pentateuch, but not let go of Rashi’s commentaries. The book of Leviticus contains many halakhot.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Qara and Rashbam

151

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Now wise men: study the commentaries of my grandfather because I will elaborate only where there is a need to explicate the peshat of the verses.174 Rashbam stipulates that peshat cannot stand alone but is merely a supplement— an ancillary one—to midrashic interpretation, which conveys the halakhah that guides Jewish practice.175 Rashbam’s diminution of the status of peshat ees him to analyze the legal sections of the Pentateuch independently, because ultimately the halakhah is not determined by peshuto shel miqra. As noted in the Introduction, for example, Rashbam offers a contextual peshat interpretation of Exod. 13:9 (“And this shall serve you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder between your eyes”) quite different om the talmudic understanding of this verse as a source for the precept of tefillin.176 More dramatically, Rashbam at times offers interpretations that actually contradict the halakhah.177 On Gen. 1:5, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day,” for example, Rashbam glosses: “The evening of the first day arrived and the light faded away, and there was morning, the morn of the night, meaning that the dawn arrived. At that point, one of the six ‘days’ that God mentioned in the Ten Commandments (‘For in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth’ [Exod. 20:11]) was complete.”178 Rashbam indicates that “a day” in the Bible begins and concludes at dawn, contradicting the talmudic principle that “the night follows the day,” that is, that the time span of “a day” (e.g., the Sabbath) is om sundown to sundown. This was noted by Abraham Ibn Ezra, who seems to have become aware of Rashbam’s commentary in England toward the end of his life, prompting him to pen “The Epistle of the Sabbath” to demonstrate that the sundown-to-sundown observance of the Sabbath mandated by the halakhah is supported by peshuto shel miqra.179 Whereas Ibn Ezra could not countenance the possibility that the halakhah would contradict peshuto shel miqra, Rashbam’s dual hermeneutic implied precisely that. In Rashbam’s view, evidently, Scripture was formulated originally with two different levels of meaning: derash, to be derived according to the midrashic hermeneutical rules; and peshat, a literary, philological-contextual analysis of the text.180 It has been argued that this seemingly irrational theory stemmed om a “mystical” orientation—as would be attested in Nahmanides a century later.181 Nahmanides was indeed an ardent kabbalist and advanced a strong theory of the multiple levels of meaning within Scripture, as discussed in Chapter 8. Yet it seems that this analogy with Nahmanides is misplaced, as Rashbam elsewhere manifests an anti-mystical attitude.182 What to a modern ear may seem irrational actually would have been a natural way of thinking about Scripture in Rashbam’s twelhcentury northern French intellectual milieu, since a similar duality was posited by his Christian neighbors.183 The notion that Scripture conveys multiple layers

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

152

Chapter 4

of meaning simultaneously was a cornerstone of Church tradition, and even the twelh-century exegetes who devoted attention to the literal sense still saw it as a stepping-stone to the deeper and more spiritual allegorical and anagogical senses of the biblical text. With this supposition permeating Rashbam’s intellectual milieu, it should not be surprising that he believed his devotion to peshat could go hand in hand with a genuine commitment to midrash, which he regarded as Scripture’s “essence” (‘iqqar). One can point to an illustrative parallel in twelh-century Christian Bible interpretation in the monastic school of Saint Victor outside Paris, founded in 1108 by William of Champeaux (1070–1121, himself a student of Anselm of Laon and a onetime teacher of Abelard). The Victorines in general were known for their interest in the literal sense. Andrew of Saint Victor (c. 1110–1175) was famous (and controversial) for his learned investigation of the Hebrew text—for which he at times relied on Jewish sources.184 Andrew’s predecessor (and Rashbam’s contemporary), Hugh of Saint Victor, played an important role in the emerging twelh-century interest in the literal sense.185 Yet Hugh regarded it merely as a foundation upon which to establish the more lo spiritual senses.186 A similar perspective is shared by other twelh-century Christian interpreters who manifested an interest in the literal sense, such as Rupert of Deutz and Richard of Saint Victor (d. 1173), who engaged heavily in mystical interpretation.187 Though Rashbam obviously did not subscribe to Christological interpretation, the underlying conception of the Bible’s multivalence offered a fitting way for him to posit the coexistence of peshat alongside midrash. Sporadic comments by Rashbam indicate that he was aware of Christian opinions. As mentioned above, he at times registers “responses” to the Christians.188 He also records a conversation with Christians about a mistranslation in the Vulgate.189 It is thus not implausible that Rashbam had knowledge of theoretical developments in Christian interpretation in his time, especially since he is known to have traveled to Paris and other centers of Latin learning in northern France.190 In any case, the argument made here is not for Christian influence on Rashbam as such. Rather, the parallel to the Victorines points to an underlying Zeitgeist in twelh-century northern France and suggests how Rashbam could have navigated the theological complexities of introducing a new mode of Bible interpretation seemingly at odds with the traditional one in Ashkenaz.

Peshat and Biblical Authorship As mentioned in the Introduction, the midrashic axiom especially resistant to modification even within the peshat traditions was the divine authorship of Scripture. To be sure, the Talmud lists the human “authors” of the books that make up the Bible, such as Moses, David, Solomon, and Ezra—as recorded in

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Qara and Rashbam

153

Scripture itself. But little attention is paid within rabbinic literature to the personal contributions of these figures, since they are assumed to have written down what they received through divine inspiration, or even dictation.191 A break with this tradition seems to have first emerged within Karaite interpretation, which posited the role of the so-called mudawwin (editor or narrator), a human figure— divinely inspired, to be sure—responsible for the literary selection and arrangement of the Bible, as discussed in Chapter 1. Within Rabbanite tradition, a parallel conception of a biblical editor-narrator, referred to in Hebrew as the sadran (lit., “the one who arranges”), emerged in the Byzantine school in the eleventh century and developed further in the twelh, as will be discussed in Chapter 5. As we shall see presently, a similar concept would play an important role in the northern French conception of peshat. The Talmud (b.Bava Batra 15a) states: “Hezekiah and his associates wrote Isaiah, Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Qohelet.” This tradition follows in the spirit of Prov. 25:1, “These, too, are the proverbs of Solomon, which the men of King Hezekiah of Judah copied.” According to the talmudic tradition, Hezekiah and his associates compiled and perhaps edited the prophecies originally recorded by Isaiah, as well as the poems and sayings of King Solomon that now make up the books of Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Qohelet.192 Yet the literary role of these “editors” of the divinely inspired words of Isaiah and Solomon seemed to be of little interest to the Rabbis of antiquity.193 Rashbam, on the other hand, takes care to identi the contribution made by these editors to the biblical text—for example, in his remarks on the opening verses of Qohelet: “These two verses (1:1–2), ‘the words of Qohelet,’ ‘Vanity of vanities’ were not said by Qohelet but by the one who edited (sidder; lit., ‘arranged’) the words as they stand.”194 Likewise, Rashbam observes, regarding the concluding verses: “Now the book is completed; those who edited (sidderu; lit., ‘arranged’) it speak om now on.”195 Rashbam discerned that these opening and closing verses speak in a different voice om the rest of this book, indicating that they were contributed by the biblical “editor⒮” rather than Qohelet himself (traditionally assumed to be none other than King Solomon).196 The Talmud likewise states: “The men of the Great Assembly (a Second Temple synod comprising 120 prophets and sages) wrote Ezekiel and the Twelve Prophets, Daniel, and the Scroll of Esther” (b.Bava Batra 15a). Their editorial role is noted by Eliezer of Beaugency, believed to have been a student of Rashbam’s—and who, in any case, was certainly influenced heavily by him.197 Eliezer of Beaugency argues that Ezek. 1:2–3, which provide Ezekiel’s name, location, and dates, are not original to the prophet: “ ‘I saw visions of God . . . and lo, a stormy wind!’ (1:1, 4)—This is all that Ezekiel said originally; he did not even give his name. . . . But the editor (sofer; lit., ‘scribe’) who put all his words together in writing (she-katav kol devaraw) went on to make explicit in these two verses (1:2–3)

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

154

Chapter 4

what he le unsaid and abbreviated.”198 Rashi—seeking to account for “the sequence of the verses/words”—had already noted that verses 2–3, which speak about the prophet in third person, interrupt the flow of Ezekiel’s first-person account in verses 1 and 4. But Rashi attributed this interruption vaguely to “the Holy Spirit.”199 Eliezer of Beaugency, on the other hand, boldly ascribes the biographical information about Ezekiel provided in verses 2–3 to “the scribe” who edited Ezekiel’s prophecies. What is perhaps the most sweeping remark regarding the work of the editor/ redactor in a number of biblical books is found in the following gloss on the superscription to the Song of Songs (“The Song of Songs by Solomon”; Song 1:1) in an anonymous northern French peshat commentary: “The Song of Songs by Solomon—the editor (ha-sofer; lit., ‘the scribe’) tells us that Solomon composed this poem, and these are not Solomon’s words. And the beginning of the book is ‘May he kiss me of the kisses [of his mouth]’ (Song 1:2). And thus ‘The Words of Qohelet’ (Qoh. 1:1) are the words of an editor (sofer). And thus ‘The Proverbs of Solomon son of David’ (Prov. 1:1) are the words of an editor.”200 Japhet identifies this anonymous commentator as a student of Eliezer of Beaugency,201 so it is not surprising that he uses the term “the scribe” (ha-sofer)—characteristic of Eliezer— to refer to the biblical editor. As discussed in Chapter 1, Yefet ben Eli regularly identified the work of the editor-narrator in Scripture using the Arabic term al-mudawwin. Indeed, he addressed some of the very same editorial insertions noted in Rashbam’s tradition, including the opening verses of Proverbs and Qohelet. Yefet’s term almudawwin would seem to be equivalent to the term ha-sofer as used within Rashbam’s circle, as well as Rashbam’s own slightly more verbose (but more precise) expression, “the person who edited (sidder; lit., ‘arranged’) the words as they stand.” It is highly unlikely that anyone in Rashbam’s circle had direct access to Yefet’s commentaries, written in Judeo-Arabic. Nonetheless, the possibility cannot be ruled out that Jewish scholars traveling om Muslim lands could have conveyed the notion of the mudawwin to Jews in northern France.202 It is also worth considering that this transfer was made via the Byzantine tradition. In Jacob ben Reuben’s Sefer ha-‘Osher, a Hebrew digest of earlier Karaite commentaries—especially those of Yefet—the term ha-sofer is used regularly to connote the mudawwin in the sense of the biblical narrator-editor.203 There is some basis for supposing that the term ha-sadran to connote the biblical editor-narrator in the Byzantine exegetical tradition (as discussed in Chapter 5) came to the attention of Rashbam, who was certainly aware of Leqaḥ Ṭov and may have even had access to Sekhel Ṭov.204 And that could have inspired Rashbam’s usage of the root s-d-r in a similar sense.205 Aside om its possible Karaite or Byzantine origin, the interest in the human aspects of biblical authorship displayed within Rashbam’s circle takes some unique

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Qara and Rashbam

155

turns that can be compared productively with developments in Latin learning. As discussed in Chapter 3, Rashi expresses his hermeneutical conceptions most elaborately and clearly in his commentary on the Song of Songs. A number of later Jewish commentaries om the northern French peshat school have survived, some in agmentary form, and all of them anonymous or mistakenly attributed to Rashi.206 From among these, one has been identified as Rashbam’s commentary.207 The introduction to this work begins by presenting peshat as its objective:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

The discerning man must incline his heart to understand the language of eloquence (meliṣah) of this book. To teach and convey its peshat, according to its style and wording, in accordance with its structure and language . . . Solomon wrote (katav) his . . . “Song” . . . in the voice of a maiden longing and lamenting the loss of her lover, who le her and went to a faraway land. She recalls him and his everlasting love for her, and she sings and says: such strong love my darling manifested toward me when he was still with me. And she . . . recounts to her iends and her maidens: such and such my darling said to me and this is how I responded.208 Although the spirit of Rashi’s interpretation is evident, Rashbam’s peshat amework is new. He identifies the beloved as a young maiden, not an older woman in “living widowhood.”209 The allegorical sense of the Song of Songs is not mentioned in Rashbam’s introduction; but it features prominently throughout the commentary, as is evident in his gloss on the first verse: “ ‘[The Song . . .] of Solomon’—King Solomon composed (yasad) it through the Holy Spirit, for he saw that Israel would grieve in their exile over God, who has become distant om them, as a groom separated om his beloved. He began to sing his song representing the people of Israel, who are like a bride for Him.”210 This gloss attributes the prophetic content of the Song of Songs to the Holy Spirit, as Rashi had done. But whereas Rashi also attributed the human love story that constitutes the literary format of the Song of Songs to the Holy Spirit (“Solomon composed [yasad] this book with the Holy Spirit in the language of a woman stuck in living widowhood”211), Rashbam speaks only of Solomon’s authorship in that connection: “Solomon wrote (katav) his . . . ‘Song’ . . . in the voice of a maiden longing and lamenting the loss of her lover.”212 Solomon, rather than the Holy Spirit, is credited for the imaginative literary amework of this book, the object of its peshat analysis.213 For Rashbam, evidently, the poetic garb of the Song of Songs is a product of human literary ingenuity, as opposed to its divine prophetic content. This would explain the analogy that Rashbam draws between this holy text and the love songs, chansons d’amour, popular in France in his time. Aer offering his peshat

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

156

Chapter 4

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

interpretation of a particular verse, Rashbam adduces support in the following way: “And still nowadays the convention of the meshorerim (singers, poets, trouvères) is to sing a song that recounts (mesapper) the narrative of the love of a couple, with love songs (shirei ahava = chansons d’amour) as is the practice of all people (minhag ha-‘olam).”214 Rashbam knew of chansons d’amour by the trouvères in his time, in the spirit of which, a generation later, Chrétien de Troyes (1130–1191) would compose Old French romances about courtly love (fin’ amour) that became immensely popular.215 Rashbam used this model to illuminate the literary nature of the Song of Songs. Indeed, as recent studies by Sara Japhet and Hanna Liss have shown, Rashbam analyzes the Song as love poetry more fully than had ever been done before in Jewish tradition.216 Rashbam’s approach to the authorship and literary format of Lamentations reveals further insight into his conception of the interrelation between Scripture and human literary expression.217 Traditionally, Lamentations was attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, as recorded in the Talmud, followed by Rashi.218 Although Rashbam faithfully records that this was the opinion of the Rabbis, he begins his analysis in a different vein: The “lamentor” (ha-meqonen) who composed (yasad) the scroll of Lamentations selected his style (shiṭṭah) following the manner of lamentations typical of ordinary people (be-nohag she-ba-‘olam bi-benei adam). As might occur typically in the case of a widow, remaining completely alone, bere of her children and husband, she calls upon professional “lamenting women” to utter many lamentations for her. Sometimes they express their lamentations speaking in the voice of the widow herself. . . . And sometimes they speak to the widow in their lamentations and bemoan her misfortune. And sometimes they recount the events that befell the widow to others in their lamentations. In this way this “lamentor” composed his lamentation for Israel. Sometimes he speaks in the voice of the people of Israel, and sometimes he speaks to her. And sometimes he speaks to others about her.219 Voicing his own opinion in contrast to the Rabbis, Rashbam regards the author of Lamentations as an anonymous witness to the destruction of the Temple and suffering of Israel. This “lamentor” employed a style characteristic of ordinary people, an observation that Rashbam uses to explain the shis in literary perspective of the persona in Lamentations.220 Rashbam’s alignment of peshuto shel miqra with the human literary dimension of the biblical text finds an instructive parallel in developments in Christian interpretation. As Alastair Minnis has shown, the privileging of the literal sense in

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Qara and Rashbam

157

medieval Latin learning was integrally linked with the emergence of more sharply defined conceptions of the Bible as literature and of the greater role granted to its human authors.221 Traditionally, the literal sense was of lesser interest in Christianity, by comparison with the spiritual sense associated with the “Holy Spirit” that endowed the words of the Bible with deeper meaning. Its human “authors” were seen as little more than scribes copying the words of God. Gregory the Great (c. 540–604), in his Moralia in Job, minimizes the importance of the biblical book’s human author:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

The search for the author of this book is certainly a vain one, because . . . the author is the Holy Spirit. The author of a book is the one who dictated it . . . who inspired it. . . . Suppose we receive a letter om some great person and we read the words but wonder by whose pen they were written; it would certainly be ridiculous, when we know who sent the letter and understand its imports, to search out by what scribe the words in it were written down. No, therefore, we know the book, and we know that its author is the Holy Spirit; so when we ask about the writer, what else are we doing but asking who the scribe is, whose words we are reading?222 Since the human writer of the book of Job was simply writing what was dictated by the Holy Spirit, Gregory reasons, he was simply fulfilling an ancillary instrumental role.223 This perspective largely prevailed until the thirteenth century. Generally speaking, in the twelh century, “God was believed to have controlled human authors in a way which defied literary description,” and therefore “literary criteria and classifications . . . were afforded a relatively unimportant place in Scriptural exegesis.”224 As a result, Minnis argues, the twelh-century commentators were preoccupied with allegorical interpretation. For Geoffrey of Auxerre (late twelh century), for example, it was not important to know who wrote the Song of Songs, for whether or not the human auctor knew what he was prophesying, “the inspirer (inspirator) most certainly knew.”225 What mattered was the prophecy itself, of the mystical marriage of Christ and holy Church. In the thirteenth century, emphasis came to be placed on the literal sense of the Scripture—and the exegetes’ interest in their texts became more literary, as the emphasis shied om the divine auctor to the human auctor of Scripture.226 New interest in the “intention of the speaker” emerged, namely, the human beings through whom the Holy Spirit communicated. Albert the Great, writing shortly aer 1270, maintained that “the intention of the speaker (intentio dicentis) as expressed in the letter (in littera) is the literal sense (litteralis sensus).”227 In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Christian scholars thus began to explore the roles played by the human authors of Scripture and the literary forms and devices they used, which were

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

158

Chapter 4

classified as features of the literal sense—as facets of their personal purposes in writing.228 This new appreciation for the human authors of Scripture even brought with it a new appreciation for pagan authors: “Writers om both camps, the Scriptural and the secular, were being credited with comparable literary and moral achievements.”229 Aristotle’s notion of multiple forms of causality was recruited to maintain the traditional hierarchy that granted supremacy to the spiritual sense attributed to the Holy Spirit, even while carving out a niche for the literal sense, defined as the intention of the human author. With the aid of Aristotelian terminology, the Holy Spirit was described as the “principal efficient cause” of Scripture—its ultimate source—whereas the divinely inspired human authors were characterized as the “instrumental efficient cause.”230 This allowed interpreters to give credit to the human authors of the Bible for their personal literary contributions. Nicholas Trevet, among the English “classicizing iars” of the early fourteenth century, defined the “literal sense” as “the expression of the prima intention”; it was provided by the inspired human auctor, whereas the mystical senses were the work of the Holy Spirit. His Psalms commentary “manifests the conviction that the Jews were, and are, adept at expounding the words of the human auctor, even though they fail to grasp the spiritual significance intended by the divine auctor.”231 These trends had roots in the twelh century. As Minnis notes, Abelard anticipated some of the literary attitudes widely held in the thirteenth century, as he showed interest in the individual literary work of the human auctor of Scripture, particularly the author’s intention and the rhetorical force of his writing.232 Gilbert of Poitiers, likewise, stands out in this respect, as he devoted much attention to the persuasive force of the Psalms, whereas his teacher, Anselm of Laon, “had little to say about the eloquence of the prophet David”; accordingly, in his view, “the Psalter’s modus tractandi remained . . . the property of the Holy Spirit, not of the human . . . authors of the Psalter.”233 Thierry of Chartres laid special emphasis on the literal sense; and Hugh of Saint Victor, likewise, invoked the need to ascertain the author’s intention in defending the importance of investigating the literal sense.234 This trend illuminates Rashbam’s attribution of the literary format of the Song of Songs to King Solomon (rather than the Holy Spirit) and his use of the analogy om the chansons d’amour sung by the trouvères in his time to elucidate peshuto shel miqra. Rashbam, of course, posits that the Song of Songs was composed with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and, as such, contains a divine prophetic message—conveyed by the midrash. His innovative move was to argue that it was Solomon, as a human author, adopting human literary conventions, who fashioned its literary form, which therefore must be interpreted as one would interpret any similar human composition—and this is the domain of peshuto shel miqra.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Qara and Rashbam

159

The implications of the dichotomy established by Rashbam were drawn out by a subsequent (anonymous) French peshat commentator, who remarks in his opening gloss:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

“The Song of Songs of Solomon”—Solomon . . . wrote many poems (lit., “songs”), as it is written “his poems numbered a thousand and one” (1 Kings 5:12). . . . From among his poetry the Wise Men selected these poems and combined them to impart a lesson about God and the Community of Israel. And this is what the opening verse means: “A poem that was prepared om Solomon’s poetry”—that they anthologized his poems and arranged (sidderu) this collection as a testimonial regarding God and the Community of Israel, and the remainder they did not use. For this book was composed (nityassed)235 with the Holy Spirit and was included in the Sacred Writings because it is holy of holies, for the Wise Men arranged the words of Solomon, as it is written: “These . . . are the proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah . . . copied.” (Prov. 25:1)236 Using the vocabulary of Rashi and Rashbam, this commentator boldly posits two aspects of the authorship of the Song of Songs. In his view, the book is a selection of love poems by King Solomon—what Rashi defined as the peshat layer of the book. However, a later group of editors, Hezekiah’s “Wise Men,” is responsible for the anthology of poems that makes up the Song of Songs in its current form. This, of course, is a traditional talmudic view, which was refined in Rashbam’s circle, as discussed above.237 The novel claim made by this commentator is that Hezekiah and his colleagues, inspired by the Holy Spirit, actually participated in the sanctification of this biblical book. Going a step beyond Rashbam, he argues that Solomon is responsible solely for the literary format of the Song of Songs and that the Holy Spirit inspired only those later “authors,” who endowed the text with its allegorical sense regarding the relationship between God and Israel. While this bold view was not advanced by Rashbam, it reflects a possibility for which he opened the door by distinguishing between the human and divine components of the Song of Songs and coordinating them using the peshat-derash dichotomy, aligning the peshat with the literary intentions of the human author and the midrashic sense with the prophecy conveyed by the Holy Spirit. Rashbam does seem to have advanced a novel perspective on the authorship of the Pentateuch.238 As mentioned in the Introduction, traditionally it was assumed that the Pentateuch is entirely the word of God, written by Moses om His dictation word for word. The Talmud establishes, as a principle of faith, that the entire Torah is “om the Almighty” and that it is heretical to suppose that Moses wrote even one verse of it “on his own.” As discussed in Chapter 1, the tenthcentury Karaite exegetes Qirqisani and Yefet spoke of Moses as the mudawwin of

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

160

Chapter 4

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

the Pentateuch; Yefet, in particular, regularly attributes to him various literary aspects of the Pentateuch, such as its arrangement and narrative perspective. This led some scholars to the conclusion that, according to Qirqisani and Yefet, Moses played an active role in the formulation of the Pentateuch, based on content that he received om God prophetically. The Karaites were not bound by talmudic doctrine. Yet, intriguingly, in two salient passages, Rashbam—who accepted talmudic authority implicitly—speaks in similar terms of Moses’ intentions as the author of the Pentateuch responsible for its literary arrangement. On Gen. 1:1–5, Rashbam addresses a question that had been raised by Rashi. Positing that the primary purpose of the “Torah” (lit., “the Law”) is to convey the precepts of Judaism (the mitzvot), Rashi pondered why it was necessary for it to begin with the account of Creation.239 Whereas Rashi drew upon midrashic sources to answer this question in a theological vein, Rashbam offers a literary solution, prefaced by an introductory comment in which he invokes the talmudic peshat maxim to underscore the importance of maintaining the integrity of peshuto shel miqra notwithstanding the primacy of midrash: Let the lovers of reason (sekhel) understand that all the words of our Rabbis and their derashot are valid and true. And this is what is said in b.Shabbat (63a): “I was eighteen years old and I did not yet know that ‘a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.’ ” And the essence of the halakhot and the derashot can be extracted om the redundancies of the verses or om their anomalous language, because the peshat of the verse240 is written in a way that one can deduce om it the essence of the midrashic derivation (derashah). For example: “Such is the story of the heaven and the earth when they were created” (Gen. 2:4), and the Sages derived midrashically, “[By the merit of the future actions of ] Abraham,”241 triggered by the redundancy of the language, since it did not need to say “when they were created.”242 And now I shall explicate the interpretations of the earlier ones on this verse, to inform people why I did not interpret as they did. Aer reviewing earlier interpretations that he rejects, Rashbam writes: But the following is the essential peshat of this verse, according to the manner of the Scriptures. For the Bible typically explicates something seemingly unnecessary ahead of time, in order to provide essential information about something mentioned further on in the biblical narrative. . . .243 Our Master Moses, likewise, composed this account of the work of [Creation in] six days as a proleptic introduction to clari what God would say . . . later, in the Ten Commandments: “Remember the Sabbath

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Qara and Rashbam

161

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

day to sancti it . . . for in six days, God created the heaven and the earth . . . and He rested on the seventh day” (Exod. 20:8). And this is what was written: “And it was evening and it was morning, the sixth day,” that is, the sixth . . . to which God referred later. Therefore Moses said to Israel, to inform them that God’s words are true, as if to say: “Do you think that this world always existed as you see now, filled with all that is good? It was not so. But rather . . . it was completely desolate, and had nothing upon it, at which point God labored for six days to create all that is in it now.”244 Rashbam goes on to explain the Creation account. When he reaches verse 5, “And God called the light ‘day,’ ” he makes a point of recording another aspect of his peshat commentary: “You must wonder, according to the peshat, why did God find it necessary to call the light ‘day’ when it was created? But this is what Moses wrote, as if to say that whenever we see in the words of God ‘day’ or ‘night,’ for example, ‘And day and night will not cease’ (Gen. 8:22), it means the light and darkness that were created on the first day—and God refers to them consistently as ‘day’ and ‘night.’ And this applies to every time it is written in this section ‘And God called X Y.’ ”245 The question that Rashbam ponders is why God had a need to give the special name “day” to the light, and “night” to the darkness. Rashbam’s answer is that this is not an actual account of God’s words at the time of Creation. Rather, it was a literary strategy that Moses employed when composing the Pentateuch. Indeed, it would seem that, according to Rashbam, Moses, rather than God, was the one who decided to include the Creation story in the Bible, and it is he who formulated it in order to provide clarification for the laws appearing later in the Pentateuch.246 Rashbam introduces, as part of his peshat program, an investigation of Moses’ literary intentions. Implicitly, Rashbam ascribes to Moses a key role in the literary design of the Pentateuch. Moses’ intentions in the literary design of the Pentateuch are also discussed by Rashbam in his analysis of the historical presentation of the sons of Jacob in Genesis 37. Here, too, Rashbam begins with the methodological-programmatic statement about the relation between peshuto shel miqra and midrash, a passage cited above (at n. 167), aer which he writes: Let the maskilim note how the earlier generations have interpreted: “These are the generations of Jacob,” meaning: these are the occurrences that befell Jacob. Now this is nonsense. Because every occurrence of the expression “These are the generations” in the Pentateuch or in the Writings spells out either the children or grandchildren of the individual named. . . . And thus, with respect to Jacob, it says earlier “And Jacob’s sons were twelve” (Gen. 35:22) . . . and now it writes “These are the generations of

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

162

Chapter 4

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Jacob”—meaning his grandchildren, who numbered seventy and how they were born. How did this occur? “Joseph was seventeen years old” (Gen. 37:2) and his brothers were jealous of him, and because of this Judah descended . . . and bore children . . . and through a chain of events, Joseph was taken to Egypt and he bore Manasseh and Ephraim . . . until they were seventy. Moses saw fit to write all this here because later he rebuked them, saying: “Your forefathers descended to Egypt numbering seventy souls.” (Deut. 10:22)247 Rashbam speaks of how Moses organized the historical narratives in Genesis to provide background for his speeches of “rebuke” to the Israelites in the desert recorded in Deuteronomy. Moses there invoked the ancient history of the forefathers, and how Jacob’s family descended to Egypt. It was therefore necessary to recount that history in Genesis.248 As Eleazar Touitou noted, these remarks suggest that Rashbam conceived of the Pentateuch having two distinct aims: to convey the precepts commanded by God; and to provide supporting narratives and Moses’ speeches of “rebuke” that make up Deuteronomy. Touitou argues further that Rashbam maintains, according to peshuto shel miqra, that the essence of the Pentateuch—the words that God Himself communicated—is limited to its main legal sections, whereas the narratives of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, as well as the entire book of Deuteronomy, were formulated by Moses—and were not dictated to him word for word by God—to provide a amework for the laws.249 Eran Viezel argues further that Rashbam ascribed to Moses a role in the literary formulation of the Pentateuch even in its legal sections.250 As Touitou and Viezel both observe, Rashbam does not clari his notion of the divine revelation of the Pentateuch, or how he might have reconciled his position with the traditional tenet of faith that “the Torah is om Heaven,” that is, the word of God Himself.251 Rashbam’s view seems especially problematic in light of the talmudic declaration that it is heretical to believe that “the entire Torah is om the Almighty except for a particular verse that was written by Moses on his own” (b.Sanhedrin 99b). Conceivably, Rashbam maintained that the content of the entire Pentateuch is divine, with none of it being fabricated by Moses “on his own,” but that Moses was indeed responsible for its literary arrangement—meaning that Moses recorded nothing but the historical and legal data that God conveyed to him; and, in this respect, he did not actually write a single verse of the Pentateuch “on his own.”252 Admittedly, this is not the simplest reading of the talmudic statements about the divine authorship of the Pentateuch. But it does provide an explanation of how Rashbam may have rationalized his novel approach, without crossing the boundary separating faith om heresy set in the Talmud.253

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Qara and Rashbam

163

Rashbam elsewhere appears willing to diverge om—or at least reinterpret— the talmudic attribution of authorship to the various books of the Bible. The Talmud states: “David wrote down the book of Psalms [which had been composed by] Ten Elders” (b.Bava Batra 14b), traditionally taken to mean that he compiled the final version of the Psalms.254 As discussed in Chapter 2, Moses Ibn Chiquitilla argued that some psalms were written much later, as suggested by the events recounted therein, such as the Babylonian exile in Psalm 137 and the return of the exiles to Zion in Psalm 126 (whereas Ibn Ezra embraced the traditional approach and argued that King David was granted prophetic vision by the Holy Spirit). There is no evidence that Rashbam knew Ibn Chiquitilla’s opinion. But he arrived at a similar conclusion and attributed a number of psalms to authors who lived long aer David’s time.255 Rashbam, for example, remarks in connection with the fieen “Songs of Ascents” in Psalms 120–134: “A Song of Ascents—according to the peshat, this refers to the pilgrimage (lit., ‘ascent’) to Jerusalem om the time of David and Solomon until the time between the First Temple and the Second Temple. These were hymns (lit., ‘songs’) composed about those ‘ascents.’ From that point onward, they recited them at all times in the Temple. There were also ‘songs of ascents’ composed during the emigration of Ezra and his group om Babylonia. This is clearly indicated by the language of these psalms.”256 As Aaron Mondschein notes, the preface of this comment (“according to the peshat”) is directed against Rashi’s reliance on midrash to explain the locution “A Song of Ascents.”257 Despite Rashbam’s willingness to circumvent the traditional view regarding Davidic authorship of Psalms, it is still puzzling that he diverged om the more central belief that Moses wrote down the Pentateuch word for word om divine dictation.258 I would like to suggest that the key to solving this conundrum requires consideration of the fact that the two central passages of Rashbam’s commentary that speak of Moses’ authorship of Genesis (on Gen. 1:1–5 and 37:2) also contain his apologia for interpreting peshuto shel miqra, notwithstanding the authority of midrash. In both passages, he explains that midrash operates by focusing on the special features of the language of Scripture—its anomalies and redundancies, which “hint” at deeper messages, the aggadot, derashot, and halakhot. This interpretive operation treats the sacred text as a God-given finished product, to be investigated deeply through the midrashic hermeneutical rules, as traditionally assumed. Rashbam’s exploration of peshuto shel miqra is based on a very different outlook. He seeks to understand how the Pentateuch was compiled by Moses, who committed God’s communications to writing and arranged them with a particular design in mind. To discover Moses’ intentions, Rashbam explores the style and structure of the text (rather than delving beneath its surface) within its historical context and by considering the literary conventions that can explain its seeming anomalies and redundancies.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

164

Chapter 4

The theory advanced here is that Rashbam maintained a dualistic approach to interpreting the Pentateuch and that this allowed him the eedom to investigate Moses’ intentions in shaping the text. On the one hand, it stands to reason that he implicitly accepted the talmudic account that Moses penned it at God’s dictation word for word, akin to Gregory’s characterization of human agency in the authorship of Scripture.259 In that sense, the Pentateuch is entirely a divine document, om which God’s eternal religious law and ethical norms are to be fathomed by midrashic interpretation. Yet Rashbam’s keen sensitivity to evidence of the process of biblical authorship and editing manifested in his commentaries on Psalms, Qohelet, and the Song of Songs seems to have prompted him to evaluate this traditional notion critically and conclude that Moses played an active role in shaping the text of the Pentateuch.260 The endeavor to understand Moses’ intentions—through literary analysis of the sort that one would apply to a humanly authored document—is what Rashbam terms peshuto shel miqra, and the legitimacy of its investigation derives om the talmudic peshat maxim. Rashi had initiated a literary approach to the Bible guided by the notion of authorial intention akin to the one applied in his Talmud commentary. Yet, still seeking the intention of the biblical authors inspired by the Holy Spirit, he did so in his Bible commentary to select midrashic readings most suited to the language and context. Within two generations, academic analysis of non-divine postbiblical literature grew more powerful and critical—as is evident in Qara’s piyyut (and perhaps midrash) commentaries and Rashbam’s Talmud commentaries. Rashi had opened the door to applying the tools of literary analysis to the Bible; but the dramatic development of those tools subsequently called for a new peshat approach. This need—felt acutely by the “lovers of reason” inspired by Rashi—was met by Qara and Rashbam, who directed their peshat analysis to discover the intentions of the Bible’s human authors. While in this respect, Qara was as profound as Rashbam, the latter more successfully conceptualized this new interpretive mode within a traditional amework. Rashbam recognized the theoretical difficulty of interpreting the Bible simply using the tools of analysis that one would apply to contemporary writings, which the commentator might even feel ee to adjust.261 Rashbam’s dual hermeneutic, based on the talmudic peshat maxim, addresses this difficulty: Scripture is indeed a divine work that must be analyzed midrashically for its hidden meanings; but the Rabbis acknowledged that the Bible also is subject to peshat interpretation, as one would interpret a human document. And this interpretation, as conceived by Rashbam, is aligned with the intention of the human author who served as the conduit for recording God’s word. Although it is clear that Rashbam had some interaction with Christians about the Bible, we do not know precisely how familiar he was with contemporary trends in Latin learning. Yet developments in the Christian notions of biblical authorship in his time help us understand Rashbam’s way of thinking. The

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Qara and Rashbam

165

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

emerging theories about relation between the human biblical authors’ intentions and the Holy Spirit responsible for the deeper meaning of the sacred text go a long way to explain how Rashbam might have conceptualized his novel peshat method. Consideration of the Latin intellectual context thus clarifies how Rashbam could speak of Moses as the author of the Pentateuch and explore his intentions in its composition by analyzing its language according to “the way of the world” (derekh ereṣ) and its stylistic conventions. All this was done “according to the peshat.” Yet within the hierarchy of Bible interpretation, peshat remained subservient to midrash, which reflects the deeper meaning of the text (and thus its halakhic authority) with which it was endowed as the word of God Himself.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Chapter 5

The Byzantine Tradition: A Newly Discovered Exegetical School

The very notion of a Rabbanite Byzantine exegetical tradition is something of a novelty in modern scholarship, for until recently only two major medieval Rabbanite exegetical schools were recognized: the Geonic-Andalusian school, pioneered by Saadia and epitomized by Abraham Ibn Ezra; and the northern French peshat school, pioneered by Rashi and his circle. (On the other hand, the Karaite Byzantine school, discussed in Chapter 1, has long been known.) It has now become clear that in the Byzantine orbit—Asia Minor, the Balkans, and southern Italy—a third Rabbanite school emerged. Long unknown or underappreciated, the exegetical works of this school have now come to light, thanks to a confluence of new findings and studies. The data are still incomplete, so the conclusions drawn must be tentative; but clearly, this Byzantine school must be taken into account to arrive at a full picture of the “grand narrative” of peshat.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Discovery of the Byzantine Exegetical School The Leqaḥ Ṭov commentary on the Pentateuch and Five Scrolls composed by Tobiah ben Eliezer around the turn of the twelh century has long been part of the traditional Jewish library. It was once thought that this largely midrashic work was composed in an Ashkenazic land, partly because the Pentateuch commentary is dedicated to the martyrs of the Mainz community massacred by crusaders in 1096.1 It has since been established that Tobiah was an important rabbinic figure in the Byzantine Jewish communities.2 His influence extended to southern Italy, culturally within the Byzantine orbit at the time. Abraham Ibn Ezra, who began writing commentaries in Italy in the 1140s, mentions Leqaḥ Ṭov—together with Or ‘Einayim, by Tobiah’s student Meir of Kastoria (a work no longer extant that seems to have been a similar to Leqaḥ Ṭov)—as being representative of “the manner of the sages in Greek and Roman lands, who do not heed the rules of grammar and rely instead upon the way of derash.”3

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Byzantine Tradition

167

Leqaḥ Ṭov proved to be pivotal within a vibrant twelh-century Byzantine commentary tradition, which has come into focus gradually over the twentieth century. In 1900, the Sekhel Ṭov Pentateuch commentary by Menahem ben Solomon was published for the first time. The commentary, heavily influenced by Leqaḥ Ṭov, was composed in 1139 in Italy, as indicated by the Italian vernacular glosses it contains. Although much of it is midrashic, Menahem ben Solomon manifested a distinct interest in grammatical and philological matters, for which he relied heavily on Menahem ben Saruq, as also is evident in his grammatical work Even Boḥan, completed in 1143.4 A third Pentateuch commentary, by Samuel of Rossano (a southern Italian city), was published in 1976 by Moshe Weiss, who first identified it as part of this Byzantine-Italian tradition.5 Penned in 1124, the commentary draws upon the ‘Arukh of R. Nathan of Rome and also appears to have been influenced by Leqaḥ Ṭov.6 The commentaries of Tobiah ben Eliezer, Samuel of Rossano, and Menahem ben Solomon have typically been dismissed as midrashic compilations of little interest to scholars of Bible exegesis.7 But in fact, they manifest a clear, albeit minor, interest in grammatical-philological interpretation.8 Tobiah ben Eliezer and Menahem ben Solomon cite the peshat maxim sporadically, though in a distinctive polemical manner: to justi the need for midrash, even though “Scripture does not leave the realm of its peshat.” It is as though their audience expected peshat exegesis. But which Byzantine audience would have had this orientation? That question—and the intriguing answers it raises—is addressed in this chapter. By itself, the Byzantine-Italian school of Tobiah and his successors may not seem to be of crucial significance in the “grand narrative” of peshat. By the time they were active, Rashi had already pioneered his peshat revolution in northern France, rendering inconsequential the minor peshat note in the largely midrashic Byzantine-Italian works. That would change in 1996, when Nicholas de Lange published a commentary by a certain Reuel on Ezekiel and the Minor Prophets that was discovered in the Cairo Genizah and determined to have been penned around 1000 in Asia Minor, perhaps in Byzantium.9 Written in Hebrew with occasional Greek glosses, the commentary manifests a robust contextual-philological mode of interpretation independent of midrash. As discussed in Chapter 1, a Karaite school thrived in Byzantium, with its roots in the eleventh-century project of Tobiah ben Moses, followed by Jacob ben Reuben, to translate Karaite works of the Jerusalem school om Arabic into Hebrew. But linguistic and stylistic analysis of Reuel’s writing indicates that he was a Rabbanite, not a Karaite.10 (On the other hand, the Byzantine commentary on 1 Kings published by de Lange has been demonstrated to be Karaite, perhaps penned by Tobiah ben Moses. It is also likely that the agmentary glosses on Genesis and Joshua published by de Lange are the remnant of a Karaite commentary.)11

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

168

Chapter 5

De Lange also presents another Byzantine commentary, a collection of glosses on Genesis and Exodus (“Scholia on the Pentateuch”), which shares features with Reuel’s commentary and seems to be om approximately the same time and place.12 Although the Pentateuch Scholia draws heavily on Talmud and midrash, it exhibits interest in philological-grammatical issues and resembles the other Byzantine commentaries, both Rabbanite and Karaite, in format and style. This suggests that Reuel’s commentary was not a unicum but rather represents the agmentary remnants of a school of exegesis among Rabbanite Jews in Byzantine lands. Conceivably, Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia were influenced by Karaite scholarship in Byzantium, though they never address Karaism explicitly (as Tobiah ben Eliezer, for example, would do). It is also possible that both the Karaites and Rabbanites were drawing upon an older tradition of Byzantine lexicographic study of the Bible evident om Hebrew-Greek Bible glossaries dating as early as 900.13 The newly discovered commentaries published by de Lange extended the Byzantine tradition of philological exegesis back into the very beginning of the eleventh century. Furthermore, linguistic and exegetical affinities between Tobiah ben Eliezer’s commentaries and those of Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia suggest the continuity of a Byzantine exegetical school.14 To be sure, conjecture is required to piece together the conceptions of peshat that developed in this tradition, because the extant attestations of its remarkably vibrant early stage—reflected in Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia—are agmentary. This necessitates using Tobiah ben Eliezer’s work to fill in the gaps by positing that he was drawing upon—and perhaps reacting to—a Byzantine exegetical tradition in the eleventh century. Admittedly, there is scant reference to the peshat maxim in the extant early Byzantine commentaries, and it is only in Leqaḥ Ṭov and Sekhel Ṭov that it plays an important role. Yet it is conceivable that the use of the peshat maxim in those works reflects conceptions developed earlier in the Byzantine school and transmitted orally or in writings that have been lost. And this may suggest an answer to the question raised above: an audience accustomed to philological commentary like that of Reuel could have prompted Tobiah ben Eliezer and Menahem ben Solomon to defend their midrashic focus. The aim of this chapter is to assess this possibility by tracing the development of the “rule of peshat” within the Byzantine school om its origins through the mid-twelh century. Although Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia predate Rashi, the latter’s peshat exegesis is a useful yardstick for assessing their exegetical advances. That was one reason for placing the current chapter aer the preceding two—on Rashi and on his students Joseph Qara and Rashbam—notwithstanding the break in chronological order this entails. Furthermore, it makes the most sense, chronologically speaking, to place the discussion of Tobiah ben Eliezer and his twelh-century Italian successors aer the chapters on Rashi and his school as it developed in the twelh century. Traces of Rashi’s influence may be discernible in Leqaḥ Ṭov. And

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Byzantine Tradition

169

the imprint of the Sage of Troyes, perhaps even of his grandson Rashbam, is evident in the work of Samuel of Rossano and, according to some scholars, in that of Menahem ben Solomon.15

Reuel and the Scholia on the Pentateuch Reuel and the Scholia manifest “a critical lack of linguistic terminology,” as Richard Steiner notes.16 Despite their grammatical and philological sensibilities, they are limited by the meager terminology found in rabbinic sources. By contrast, rich linguistic terminology had been coined by contemporaneous Karaite and Rabbanite authors in the Muslim East writing in Judeo-Arabic, who drew upon the formidable achievements of Arabic linguistics in the ninth century. As Steiner notes, the Karaite Byzantine commentary on 1 Kings draws upon that advanced terminology—rendered in Hebrew.17 Even Rashi had access to the linguistic works of Menahem and Dunash, of which there is no trace in Reuel’s commentary or the Pentateuch Scholia.18 Yet the sustained interest in linguistic matters in the Rabbanite Byzantine commentaries yielded significant results in this realm, making their discovery critically important for reconstructing the history of Jewish Bible exegesis.19 That discovery led rapidly to speculation about their possible impact on later streams of Jewish exegesis, especially on Rashi, as discussed in Chapter 3. Whether or not Rashi was actually influenced by this tradition, though, it is worth considering the extent to which the philological exegesis in Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia should be regarded as a precedent for his peshat methodology.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Features Shared with Rashi Though Menahem’s dictionary and Dunash’s critical glosses provided Rashi with access to the early linguistic achievements of the Judeo-Arabic school, those works are not Bible commentaries. Reuel’s commentaries and the Scholia on the Pentateuch, on the other hand, represent a pre-Rashi model of a running Bible commentary guided by linguistic concerns. As Ta-Shma notes, the early Byzantine commentaries manifest the following features comparable with those in Rashi: an endeavor to analyze the language of Scripture, rather than seeking its hidden messages beneath the surface, as typical of midrash; the use of vernacular glosses to clari words and expressions; and adherence to principles of philology and grammar, as well as the literary context.20 Steiner notes further distinctive stylistic and methodological parallels between the Byzantine commentaries and Rashi that are not typical of midrash, which stem om their shared aim to make the biblical text intelligible linguistically.21 Oen this simply entails clariing the referent of an otherwise vague pronoun. For example, on Gen. 18:10, “Then one said, ‘I will return to you next year. . . .’

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

170

Chapter 5

And Sarah was listening at the tent door, and it was behind him,” Rashi comments: “And it was behind him—the opening was behind the angel.”22 In the Scholia on this verse, we also find: “And it was behind him—the opening.”23 Steiner identifies the distinctive “lemma complement” format shared by Rashi and the Byzantine exegetes, “a quotation om the verse that continues—following the comment—om the point where the lemma le off, a quotation with no subsequent comment.”24 For example, on Exod. 14:20, “And it illuminated the night,” Rashi comments: “And it—the fire—illuminated the night.”25 The exact same gloss is found in the Scholia.26 At times, the analysis of a pronoun is followed by a further philological exposition. For example, on Exod. 17:15, “And Moses built an altar, and he called its name ‘The Lord is my miracle,’ ” Rashi comments: “He called its name—the name of the altar—‘The Lord is my miracle,’ meaning the Holy One, blessed be He, performed a miracle for us here.”27 Similarly, in the Scholia, we find: “He called its name—the name of the altar—saying, ‘The Lord is my miracle.’ ”28 A resemblance of exegetical concerns also emerges between Rashi and Reuel. For example, on Ezek. 21:28, “It shall be for them like empty divination in their eyes,” Rashi comments: “It shall be for them—what Nebuchadnezzar did shall be for Israel—like empty divination, and they will not believe that he will succeed.” Similarly, in Reuel’s commentary: “It shall be for them—for Israel, the divination that Nebuchadnezzar did—like empty divination in their eyes, for Israel was saying, ‘It is false, the divination of Nebuchadnezzar.’ ”29 At times, Reuel and Rashi share similar linguistic concerns, even though they comment on different words. A good example is Ezek. 7:19–20, “They shall throw their silver into the streets, and their gold shall be treated as something unclean. . . . And out of his beautiful ornament, in which they took pride, they made their images and detestable abominations. Therefore I will make them an unclean thing (niddah) to them.” Rashi comments on the first part of verse 20: “His beautiful ornament—of God—in which he took pride (ga’on)—that is the Holy Temple, which is called ‘pride. . . ,’ as it says, ‘Thus said the Lord God: I am going to desecrate my sanctuary, your pride (ga’on) and glory’ (Ezek. 24:21). They, their images and detestable abominations, which they made, etc.” Reuel, on the other hand, links the two verses: “In which he took pride—fine clothing he would don for pride. Therefore: because they used to make out of that gold and silver images and detestable abominations, I will make them—the gold and the silver—to them—to Israel—niddah (‘something distant’) . . . that the enemy will take and bring to Babylon.”30 Both commentators seek to explain the connection among the constituent elements in these verses on a simple linguistic level. Reuel manifests a philological outlook, as he regularly explains difficult locutions based on the immediate context and similar biblical expressions elsewhere— a method employed by his Andalusian contemporaries Menahem and Dunash,

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Byzantine Tradition

171

followed by Rashi. For example, on Ezek. 9:9 (“The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is very, very great, the land is full of bloodshed, and the city full of muṭṭeh [lit., ‘slanted’?]”), Reuel argues that the obscure word muṭṭeh in this context must mean “murder victims” “because [the associated phrase] ‘and the land is full of bloodshed’ will not allow you to interpret it in a different sense.”31 Intuitively, Reuel here follows the principle established by Menahem ben Saruq (which would be embraced in Rashi’s circle) that “the first half of the verse informs us about the second half,” meaning that one must determine the sense of a unique biblical term by comparison with the corresponding one in the parallel verset.32 Seeking stylistic and linguistic patterns in Biblical Hebrew, Reuel regularly uses the term “you will find” (timṣa’), or “you can oen find” (harbeh timṣa’) when pointing out that anomalous grammatical forms should be explained as regular biblical conventions—a departure om the midrashic tendency to seize upon anomalies in the language to extrapolate new information. He argues that the redundant particle et (usually the direct object indicator) in Ezek. 21:17 and 39:14 is not truly anomalous or particularly meaningful, as he demonstrates om its occurrence in Exod. 10:8: “Do not be troubled by the et because you can find many similar occurrences, for example, ‘And et Moses was brought back to Pharaoh’ (Exod. 10:8).”33 He similarly notes twice in his Ezekiel commentary that you can find words written defectively that must be interpreted as if they were written with a fuller spelling (plene)—an observation at odds with midrashic exegetical practice, as noted by Abraham Ibn Ezra (see Chapter 6).34 In his gloss on Ezek. 10:15, Reuel notes that “you find the word ḥayyah both in masculine and feminine,”35 implying that no special reason should be given for this variation (even though the norm is for Biblical Hebrew words to be consistently masculine or feminine). A similar observation appears in his gloss on Hosea 5:9 and in the Scholia on Gen. 32:8 and would feature in the “way of peshat” of Abraham Ibn Ezra.36 Even though hampered by the lack of terminology or systematic grammatical thought, Reuel marks a dramatic departure om midrash—the earliest attested among Jewish authors in Christian lands. As Steiner remarks, regarding Reuel’s work: “In this new era of exegesis, the task of the exegete is to find parallels for such forms instead of viewing them in isolation and providing a midrashic explanation. The search for parallels, the quest to eliminate anomalies . . . is such an integral part of medieval and modern peshat exegesis that we oen take it for granted, forgetting how subversive it was to the old order. Linguistic anomalies are the life-blood of midrash, and eliminating them reduces the number of pegs on which to hang didactic lessons.”37 These would become features of Rashi’s peshat exegesis, as illustrated in his gloss on Exod. 15:2, “The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become [wa-yehi] my salvation”: “Do not be puzzled about the expression wa-yehi, that it does not say hayah [the normally

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

172

Chapter 5

expected grammatical form], for there are verses worded this way, for example, ‘. . .against the walls of the house around the temple and the sanctuary, he made (wa-ya‘as) chambers around it’ (1 Kings 6:5). It should have said, ‘He made (‘asah) chambers around it’ [instead of wa-ya‘as].”38 Rashi expresses himself similarly elsewhere in his commentaries.39 What could have been the source of the philological-grammatical sensibilities of Reuel and the author of the Pentateuch Scholia? It is not unlikely that they had access to, and were inspired by, Hebrew-Greek glossaries that are attested as early as 900.40 It is also conceivable that they were aware of Karaite Byzantine exegesis. The shared linguistic features of Karaite and Rabbanite Byzantine works indeed suggests a common cultural milieu that might have lent itself to intellectual exchange. But this theory must be qualified, since the Rabbanite Byzantine commentators, as mentioned above, lack the grammatical-terminological sophistication of the Karaite exegesis. So if they were influenced by contact with Karaite learning, it would have been only in a rudimentary manner—a transfer of ideas through conversation rather than in-depth study of Karaite works.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

The Biblical Editor (Sadran) One distinctive aspect of the early Rabbanite Byzantine exegetical tradition points directly to Karaite influence. A striking feature shared by Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia is the concern they manifest—admittedly, in only a handful of cases—with what they perceived as the work of a biblical editor who arranged the words of the prophets in their current form in Scripture, based on earlier sources, written or oral. Reuel uses the term sadran (lit., “one who arranges,” i.e., the text) to refer to such an editor, and he attributes three anomalies in the book of Ezekiel to him. In two cases, Reuel presents the sadran as editing a single source; in the third, he portrays the sadran as dealing with multiple, divergent sources. As discussed in Chapter 1, this was one usage of the term mudawwin by Yefet ben Eli, who maintained that each prophet committed his own prophecies to writing, and those prophecies were subsequently edited by a mudawwin who decided which to include and how to arrange them. Given this similarity, it is conceivable that Reuel was influenced in this respect by Yefet, whose works became available in Byzantium with the transplantation of Karaite exegesis there in the eleventh century.41 One key task Reuel ascribes to the ancient sadran was to decide on the order of presentation in the biblical text and thereby regulate the flow of information to the reader. Working with a “pre-biblical” text—a written or oral record of Ezekiel’s prophecies—the sadran clarified it by inserting helpful information into the current biblical text as we have it. Reuel assumes that this information was already present elsewhere in the pre-biblical source text and that the sadran merely deployed it at an earlier point for the reader’s convenience. For example, Ezek. 8:3

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Byzantine Tradition

173

records the prophet’s words describing how “a spirit lied me up between heaven and earth, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looks toward the north, where the seat of the image of jealousy was.” Later, Ezekiel’s words are cited again: “And he said to me, son of man, turn your eyes toward the north. So I turned my eyes toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar was this image of jealousy in the entry” (Ezek. 8:5). On this verse, Reuel remarks: “ ‘This image of jealousy in the entry’—From here the sadran learned of it and mentioned it above.”42 Reuel argues that the sadran who committed Ezekiel’s prophecies to writing added the relative clause “where the seat of the image of jealousy was” in Ezek. 8:3—and that these words were not part of what Ezekiel originally said and wrote in that verse. Since the expression “and behold” (Heb., we-hinneh) implies surprise at seeing something for the first time,43 Reuel may have reasoned that the prophet only first perceived the “image of jealousy in the entry” when he subsequently lied his eyes to the north at the gate of the altar, as recounted in Ezek. 8:5. It is om that verse that the sadran learned of the image of jealousy and added it in verse 3 to give this information to the reader already at that point.44 A similar approach was adopted by Reuel with respect to the detailed description of the cherubs in Ezek. 1:8–21. The prophet seems to record his initial vision of cherubs in Ezek. 10:8–17, where he provides his own detailed description. On this, Reuel remarks: “From here he [the sadran] learned well what the cherubs were like, and mentioned them above.”45 Although the sadran is not mentioned explicitly here, Reuel’s language in this comment is so similar to his language in the first comment that there can be little doubt about the subject of this sentence (“he learned”). Here again, Reuel feels that the detailed description of the cherubs in 1:8–21 was not written by Ezekiel but was added by the sadran, apparently for the benefit of the curious reader, based on information given in 10:8–17. Reuel’s view, then, is that the author of Ezekiel le temporary lacunae in his written words, which the sadran filled. The second role that Reuel assigns to the sadran involves a bolder claim about the final editing of the prophetic books, at times om multiple and contradictory sources. On Ezek. 35:6, Reuel remarks: “The sadran found two manuscripts. In one was written: ‘Therefore, as I live, I shall give you over to blood and blood shall pursue you’; and in the other manuscript was written: ‘Therefore, as I live, says the Lord God, surely blood you hate and blood shall pursue you.’ ”46 Evidently disturbed by the redundant language of this verse, Reuel argues that the sadran—the editor of Ezekiel—preserved the different versions of the same sentence appearing in the two manuscripts with which he worked.47 There is a precedent for this bold presumption regarding the formation of the biblical text in the late rabbinic works Numbers Rabbah and Avot de-Rabbi Natan, which speak of “ten dotted expressions in the Torah”—words over which dots

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

174

Chapter 5

appear in the text.48 According to Avot de-Rabbi Natan and one opinion in Numbers Rabbah, Ezra the Scribe (fih century bce) dotted these words because he was unsure about the correctness of the text.49 The Pentateuch Scholia seems to be referring to this very tradition—and elaborates on it—in the gloss on one of the examples given in both rabbinic sources, “And Esau ran to meet him [Jacob], and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept” (Gen. 33:4): “Why is ‘And he kissed him’ dotted? Some say that Ezra found a manuscript in which it was written and another in which it was not written, and so he dotted it. And if you remove the phrase ‘and he kissed him,’ the verse is not diverted (ne‘ekav) om its peshat. And so it is with all the dotted words in Scripture.”50 According to the opinion cited here, the doubt that led Ezra to place dots over letters arose om a conflict between two manuscripts—the very same assumption that Reuel adopts on Ezek. 35:6. This diverges om the standard midrashic approach that the dotting indicates doubt not about the correctness of the text but rather about its literal truth or about the sincerity of the action it describes— as reflected in Rashi’s gloss on Gen. 33:4, which avoids the text-critical approach.51

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Lack of Grammatical and Methodological Awareness As mentioned above, the Byzantine exegetes did not have access to the Andalusian tradition of grammar—even to the works of Menahem and Dunash, which Rashi used. The result of this disparity can be seen by comparing Rashi with the Pentateuch Scholia on Gen. 29:27, in the account of Laban speaking with Jacob about marrying Rachel immediately aer having been tricked into marrying Leah. Laban utters a sentence that might—at first glance, and incorrectly—be rendered in English: “Let this week (shevu‘a zot) be completed.” The Scholia points to the fact that the pronoun zot (“this”) is feminine, whereas the Hebrew term for “week” (shavu‘a) is masculine: “Let the week of this (τούτης) one (Leah) [be completed]. For shavu‘a (week) is a masculine term.”52 The Scholia fails to make the more important grammatical distinction here: that the Hebrew term for “week” (shavu‘a) here is in the construct state, as indicated by its pointing (vocalization): shevu‘a, meaning “the week of.” By contrast, Rashi notes: Let the week be filled—the term for “week” is in the construct state (lit., “attached”; davuq), as indicated by the pointing of the shin with a shewa. And its meaning is thus: this girl’s seven-day period, the seven days of her wedding feast. . . . And it is not possible to say that it means an actual calendar week, because then the shin should have been pointed with a pataḥ (the term that Rashi uses for what is now called a qameṣ). Additionally, shavu‘a in the sense of “a week” is masculine. . . . Thus we must conclude that the term shavu‘a here means “a period of seven days,” septaine in the vernacular (la‘az).53

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Byzantine Tradition

175

Rashi’s concern is similar to that of the Scholia. But Rashi had more sophisticated terminology at his disposal that allows him to describe the construct state—using the term davuq, drawn om Dunash ben Labrat.54 (As Rashbam, following in Rashi’s footsteps, would remark: “davuq means: a word adjacent to another and the implied word ‘of ’ [shel] is omitted between them.”)55 Rashi supports his assertion that the term shevu‘a in this verse is in the construct state by taking note of its pointing and vocalization. Indeed, these matters were of prime importance to Rashi, for which he avidly consulted the masoretic notes and works available to him.56 At times, the comparison with Rashi brings to light the way in which the Byzantine commentaries negotiate tensions between midrashic interpretation and the philological method. The Scholia glosses Exod. 15:1, “Then Moses sang (yashir; lit., ‘will sing’),” in the following way: “Then Moses sang—[similarly] ‘Then Solomon built (yivneh; lit., “will build”; 1 Kings 11:7)’; in some cases, [the prefixed form yashir, yivneh] can connote the past tense, though in other cases it connotes future tense.”57 It is illuminating to contrast this with Rashi’s gloss here. Beginning by presenting an “an interpretation meant to settle its peshat,” Rashi cites prooexts om elsewhere in the Bible, including 1 Kings 11:7, that the prefixed form indicates an action someone intended to do, and did—that is, in the past. Hence, “Then Moses sang (yashir; lit., ‘will/would sing’)” means “when he saw the miracle (of the sea parting), the idea came to him that he would sing a song of praise.” Rashi goes on to cite a midrashic explanation—explicitly labeled as such—that the prefixed form indeed expresses the future tense and that “this is a hint (remez) in Scripture to the resurrection of the dead,” for at the end of days, Moses will once again sing this song.58 Rashi and the Scholia share a grammatical perspective toward this verse: they respect the context, which indicates that the verb yashir must be in the past tense, and cite a morphological pattern attested elsewhere in Biblical Hebrew to justi this analysis. Yet this example also reveals how Rashi differs om the Byzantine commentary, as he labels the grammatical analysis “peshat” and notes how it diverges om the midrash, which, in typical fashion, derives a theological tenet—faith in the resurrection of the dead—om the anomalous grammatical form. Indeed, the peshat-derash distinction is not made explicit in the Byzantine commentaries. Even where the Scholia on the Pentateuch juxtapose midrashic and philological interpretations as alternatives, they do not bear the labels peshat or derash.59 Reuel never invokes the maxim that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat,” nor does the term peshat ever appear in his extant commentaries.60 The peshat maxim is referred to just one time in the Scholia on Gen. 33:4, cited above, in connection with the dots above the expression “and he kissed him.” Aer explaining the dots as a technique used by Ezra to indicate that in one version of the Pentateuch before him, the expression appears, and in the other, it was

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

176

Chapter 5

missing (an explanation found in rabbinic sources), the Scholia adds: “And if you remove it [the word], the verse is not diverted (ne‘ekav) om its peshat. And so it is with all the dotted words [in Scripture].”61 This reacted use of the talmudic peshat maxim applies to a rather limited phenomenon—the ten expressions dotted in the masoretic text. The term peshat here does not connote the literal sense or the philological-contextual sense; the author of this gloss evidently means to say simply that the meaning/sense (peshat) of the verse is not affected if the dotted word is removed. Within the Byzantine tradition, the peshat maxim is first attested in connection with philological exegesis in Leqaḥ Ṭov, to which we now turn.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Tobiah ben Eliezer Aer Reuel and the Scholia on the Pentateuch, the next extant link in the chain of the Byzantine Rabbanite exegetical tradition is Leqaḥ Ṭov on the Pentateuch and Five Scrolls by Tobiah ben Eliezer. A native of Kastoria in western Macedonia, Tobiah played a leadership role in the Jewish communities of Greece and Byzantium in the late eleventh century.62 He was evidently involved in a messianic movement that sprang up in Salonika in 1096 on the eve of the Crusade, inspired by the possibility that the Holy Land would be liberated om the Muslims.63 Our knowledge of this movement comes mostly om a letter in the Cairo Genizah that relates a report of the appearance of the Prophet Elijah in Salonika and his performance of “signs and miracles” there, witnessed by “certain men of standing,” including one “Rabbi Eliezer, son of Rabbi Judah, son of Rabbi Eliezer the Great.”64 It is presumed that this R. Eliezer is none other than the father of Tobiah, the author of Leqaḥ Ṭov, as the very same document recounts that R. Tobiah, traveling om Thebes, had sent a report of these “signs and miracles” to the Jewish community of Constantinople.65 These messianic aspirations were dashed when it became clear that the crusaders, who massacred Jews on their journey through Europe to Palestine, would only increase Jewish suffering. Tobiah, in his commentary on Leviticus, laments the martyrdom of the Jewish community of Mainz in 1096 and dedicates his commentary—written a year later—to their memory.66 His detailed knowledge of the event suggests that there were open lines of communication between the Byzantine community and the Rhineland.67 Tobiah elsewhere in his Pentateuch commentary mentions 1097 as the year of its composition. But this may simply indicate that he was in the midst of writing the commentary in that year, as there is evidence that he continued working on it at least until 1108.68 Given this dating and his connections with the Rhineland, it is conceivable that Tobiah had learned of Rashi’s commentaries before concluding his work on Leqaḥ Ṭov. Rashi’s name is never mentioned in Tobiah’s commentaries, but there are parallels that suggest Tobiah’s awareness of the exegetical work

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Byzantine Tradition

177

of the Troyes master.69 In general, however, Leqaḥ Ṭov reflects Tobiah’s Byzantine cultural setting rather than an Ashkenazic one. He occasionally uses Greek words, and there are marked affinities between his commentaries and those of Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia, though he does not mention them by name.70 On the other hand, Tobiah cites the influential scholar Shabbetai Donolo (b. 913; d. aer 982), a Jewish physician born in Oria in Apulia, whose commentary on Sefer Yeṣirah was an important source for later medieval authors and even reached the Rhineland academies.71 Furthermore, Tobiah was acquainted with the thriving eleventh-century Byzantine Karaite community and could have been exposed to its scholarly works, including translations of the great Bible commentaries om the “golden age” of Karaism in the tenth century in Jerusalem (see Chapter 1). In any case, Tobiah regularly polemicizes with the Karaites, criticizing them for engaging in an independent philological analysis of Scripture without considering the rabbinic interpretive tradition.72

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

The “Peshat of Scripture” Versus Midrash The vast majority of Leqaḥ Ṭov is drawn om rabbinic sources, and it might even be considered a reworked midrashic commentary.73 However, it is not simply a midrashic anthology—which was a well-established rabbinic literary genre well into the medieval period.74 By contrast, a distinct authorial voice emerges in Leqaḥ Ṭov, in formulations like “thus says Tobiah ben Eliezer,” “it came to my mind to say,” and “I say,” some of which resemble formulas characteristic of Rashi.75 Tobiah manifests an agenda in selecting midrashic readings to convey particular theological, religious, and ethical guidance.76 In fact, the title Leqaḥ Ṭov is taken om Prov. 4:2, “For I give you good instruction (leqaḥ ṭov), do not forsake my teaching.” The commentary, then, is intended as Tobiah’s “instruction” to his audience. The title is also obviously a play on his name, Tobiah, an association he reinforces by beginning each section of the work—divided according to the weekly Torah portion read in the synagogue—with a biblical passage featuring the word ṭov (“good”). Also departing om traditional midrashic works, Tobiah refers to the peshat maxim about two dozen times throughout Leqaḥ Ṭov.77 In principle, then, he does not cite midrash unself-consciously, as he is ever aware of an alternative methodology labeled the “peshat of Scripture.” For example, on Gen. 1:27, “God created the man in his own image . . . male and female He created them,” Tobiah comments: Male and female He created them—Our Rabbis, of blessed memory, said that the first human was created “two-faced” (one side male, the other female) . . . and therefore God says, “I will make a helpmate beside him” (Gen. 2:18), implying that until that point the woman was not “beside

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

178

Chapter 5

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

him.” But the verse does not leave the realm of its peshat, that is, the sentence “male and female [He created them]” is merely a literary anticipation (lit., “early and late”; muqdam u-me’uḥar) of the later account of the creation of Eve that begins with the words “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). But here it abbreviated the matter, saying, “male and female He created them” because Scripture wished to complete the account of the six days of Creation, and aerward it provided details of the account of Eve’s creation, when God brought all the animals to the man, and it goes on to say, “but for man, there was not found a helpmate to stand by his side.” (Gen. 2:20)78 Tobiah begins with the traditional midrashic interpretation to resolve a contradiction between the accounts of the creation of man and woman in Gen. 1:27, where they are said to have been fashioned by God simultaneously, and Gen. 2:18–22, according to which man was initially created alone and God rectifies his loneliness by creating a woman om his rib (ṣela‘). The Rabbis posited that man and woman were originally created as two sides (“faces”) of a single being and that Genesis 2 depicts how one “side” (another construal of the word ṣela‘) was separated om the other. Tobiah’s peshat interpretation is based on the understanding that the initial account of the creation of man and woman in Gen. 1:27 is a summary of the full one given in Genesis 2. The expression muqdam u-me’uḥar used by Tobiah is attested in rabbinic sources, but it became associated with this sort of strategy of narrative analysis in the medieval exegetical tradition—for example, in the commentaries of Jacob Qirqisani and Samuel ben Hofni.79 It is worth comparing Leqaḥ Ṭov here with Rashi, who manifests identical methodological concerns: “Male and female He created them—but further on, it is said: ‘and He took one of his ribs etc.’ (Gen. 2:21)! The aggadic midrash relates: He created him at first with ‘two faces,’ and aerward He divided them. But the peshat of the verse is: here it informs you that both of them were created on the sixth day, and it does not explain to you how their creation took place; this it explains to you in another place.”80 Elsewhere, Rashi reveals that he drew this peshat interpretation om the “Baraita of R. Eliezer the Son of R. Jose the Galilean on the Thirty-Two Hermeneutical Principles by Which the Torah Is Interpreted.”81 Specifically, he used the eleventh principle, “a general statement followed by a detailed account,” for which Gen. 1:27 and Gen. 2:21 are cited as an example.82 The prevailing view among modern scholars is that this supposed “Baraita” actually originated in the geonic period, as it bears affinities to the systematic exegetical work of Samuel ben Hofni.83 While Rashi assumed that the Baraita was indeed the work of the second-century sage R. Eliezer the son of R. Jose the Galilean, he discerned that the approach it takes to this inner-biblical contradiction is not

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Byzantine Tradition

179

typical of midrashic interpretation. Rashi therefore classifies the literary solution as the “peshat of the verse.” Not surprisingly, Rashbam also adopts this literary peshat interpretation in his commentary on Gen. 1:27. The eleventh principle of the Baraita of R. Eliezer, a work om which Tobiah draws elsewhere,84 could have been the source of his peshat interpretation on Gen. 1:27. In fact, the expression muqdam u-me’uḥar used by Tobiah is found in the Baraita, though not in connection with this verse specifically.85 Yet the structural similarity between Rashi and Leqaḥ Ṭov on Gen. 1:27 is telling. Both begin with a midrashic solution to the contradiction, and then provide an almost identical alternative labeled the “peshat of Scripture,” based on the understanding that the biblical narrator initially presented a synopsis in Gen. 1:27, followed by a detailed account in Gen. 2:18–22. This raises the possibility that Tobiah was influenced by Rashi.86 In another seven instances in his Pentateuch commentary, Tobiah cites or alludes to the peshat maxim when contrasting the philological-contextual interpretation with a midrashic one.87 Two of these seven peshat interpretations find close parallels in Rashi’s commentary, which may have been Tobiah’s source.88 Since the other five do not, Tobiah must have either devised them independently, or drawn them om the tradition of earlier Byzantine interpretation that the Pentateuch Scholia and Reuel represent.89 But Rashi is the only known precedent for this double-commentary format, in which a midrashic interpretation is juxtaposed with a philological-contextual one labeled the “peshat of Scripture,” a term not used in the earlier Byzantine commentaries in this connection. And so the possibility must be raised that Tobiah was influenced by Rashi in this respect. There is, however, a distinctive way Tobiah cites the peshat maxim that is different om its usage in Rashi. In eight cases in his Pentateuch commentary, Tobiah acknowledges the integrity of the literal sense, invoking the peshat maxim, but goes on to emphasize the importance of midrash.90 For example, on Gen. 29:2, “There, before his eyes, was a well in the field; three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it, for the flocks were watered om that well,” a narrative describing Jacob’s arrival in Haran, Tobiah writes: “Our Rabbis of blessed memory said: ‘a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.’ Nonetheless, the midrashic interpreters wished to expand the meaning of the text, and to expound upon it regarding what would occur in history, and to teach that the Holy One, blessed be He, reveals the future om the beginning, and to inform us that the narratives of the patriarchs contain many aspects of the commandments. And thus R. Hama bar Hanina interpreted this verse in six ways in Genesis Rabbah.”91 In citing the peshat maxim, Tobiah acknowledges the self-evident peshat of this verse (by which he means its obvious literal sense), but goes on to privilege

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

180

Chapter 5

the midrash as its ultimate meaning. According to his characterization, midrash in general aims to extract meanings that are not self-evident om Scripture and that have relevance for later generations. Tobiah goes on to enumerate the six typological readings om Genesis Rabbah. For example, the first way: • Before his eyes, there was a well in the field—this represents the well that would appear for Israel in the desert (Num. 21:17); • Three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it—Moses, Aaron, and Miriam; • For the flocks were watered om that well—that all of Israel, following the order of their encampments, would draw water om it to their tents.92

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Aer citing all six of the ancient interpretations by R. Hama bar Hanina, Tobiah goes on to cite a seventh typological interpretation by his father, R. Eliezer: • Before his eyes there was a well in the field—this represents the Torah. • Three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it—these represent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, for in their merit three great presents were given to Israel: the manna through the merit of Moses, the clouds of God’s presence in Aaron’s merit, and the well in Miriam’s merit. • For the flocks were watered om that well—this represents Israel, who received the Torah to study it day and night. • And there was a large rock at the mouth of the well—these are the difficulties in each matter. • And the flocks would all gather there—these are the great sages. • And they would roll the stone om the mouth of the well—meaning that they would remove the difficulties om it, and aerward: • They would water the sheep—the people of Israel, who are called sheep, as it says, “and you are my sheep, the sheep that I tend” (Ezek. 34:31).93 Tobiah pays homage to the peshat; but his interests lie in the midrash. A similar outlook is evident in another gloss—on Pharaoh’s dream of seven cows grazing “in the marsh reeds” (Heb., aḥu) (Gen. 41:2): Aḥu signifies friendship, brotherhood (Heb., aḥwa). To be sure, a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat, that the cows were grazing in the marsh reeds, as in “Can marsh reeds (aḥu) grow without water?” (Job 8:11). Yet there is a midrash for everything in Scripture. Why is the language of iendship and brotherhood relevant here? It teaches that as long as there is plenty in the world, people become iends and extend brotherhood to one another, inviting them to eat, drink, and be merry.94

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Byzantine Tradition

181

Tobiah registers the philologically determined peshat sense of the term aḥu, evident om Job 8:11, which fits the context of Pharaoh’s dream of the grazing cows. Yet he privileges the midrashic construal of the term (drawn om Genesis Rabbah 89:5), which relates to the deeper symbolic significance of Pharaoh’s dream. Tobiah’s peshat reading finds a parallel in Rashi, which may have been his source: “In the aḥu, in the marsh; maresc (marsh, morass) in the vernacular (la‘az), as in ‘Can marsh reeds (aḥu) grow without water?’ (Job 8:11).”95 Yet Rashi offers only the philological construal—with the prooext and a vernacular rendering— avoiding the midrash om Genesis Rabbah, a source he used oen. It is likewise instructive to compare the glosses of the two commentators on Exod. 2:5, “The daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash in the Nile.” Rashi here addresses a simple linguistic issue regarding the sequence of the verse: “[The daughter of Pharaoh came down] to wash in the Nile—invert (sares) the verse to explain it: The daughter of Pharaoh came down to the Nile to wash herself in it.”96 As part of his peshat program, Rashi commonly makes such observations about the syntax of Biblical Hebrew.97 Tobiah, on the other hand, privileges the midrash that Rashi set aside: “You must understand that even though ‘a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat,’ the profound midrash is a fine way for learning deeply (lit., ‘understanding one thing om another’), to fit the words within the matter spoken in Scripture. And thus it is explained in tractate Soṭah (12b): ‘R. Johanan said in the name of R. Simon bar Yohai: this means that she went down to cleanse herself of the idolatry of her father’s household.’ ”98 Tobiah acknowledges that, according to the “peshat of the verse,” this narrative depicts Pharaoh’s daughter engaging in the mundane activity of bathing in the Nile. Yet he asserts that there must be something more to the story, a deeper meaning expounded in the Talmud, which casts Pharaoh’s daughter as a spiritual heroine abandoning her father’s idolatry. Tobiah elicits evidence for this interpretation om a midrashic construal of 1 Chron. 4:18, which refers to “Bithiah daughter of Pharaoh.” Noting the rabbinic maxim that “Chronicles was given specifically for the purpose of engaging in [midrashic] interpretation of the Torah,”99 Tobiah concludes that “the midrashic interpretations of the early ones, which the Sages expounded, is Torah absolutely.”100 The way the peshat maxim is cited by Tobiah indicates methodological awareness that his midrashic interpretations diverge om the “peshat of Scripture.” His need to do so suggests a level of self-consciousness about engaging in midrash, as though Tobiah had to justi his interpretive strategy by acknowledging the literal sense of Scripture, but then going beyond it. What could have made him feel so insecure about engaging in midrash, which had long been the norm of traditional Jewish interpretation? One might consider the possibility that Tobiah was contending with the Karaite tradition in Byzantium. Perhaps this animus could have prompted him to lower

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

182

Chapter 5

the profile of the “peshat of Scripture” and venerate midrash.101 Indeed, Tobiah’s midrashic expositions and extensive digressions on halakhah are at times accompanied by anti-Karaite polemics, evidently intended to bolster adherence to Rabbanite Judaism.102 On Exod. 34:27, “In accordance with these words I make a covenant with you and with Israel,” Tobiah lays the foundation for this orientation: “This refers to the prescriptions of the Talmud, and it teaches that the essential covenant was made on the basis of the [midrashic] interpretation of the Torah . . . for anyone who interprets a verse literally (ke-ṣurato; lit., ‘according to its form’; see b.Qiddushin 49a) without midrash and without the thirteen middot, about him Scripture says: ‘The fool walks in darkness’ (Qoh. 2:14).”103 Yet one can infer om this very passage—almost certainly directed against the Karaites—that Tobiah’s references elsewhere to the talmudic peshat maxim are intended to contend with a different sort of opposing viewpoint. Aer all, the Karaites had no need for the talmudic peshat maxim to validate their exegetical method, as they rejected talmudic authority. They engaged in what Tobiah, using a talmudic expression, characterized as “literal” interpretation that ignores midrashic tradition—what the Karaites oen termed the “apparent sense of the text” (ẓāhir al-naṣṣ) but not the “peshat of Scripture.” It would seem, rather, that Tobiah is polemicizing with—while making a concession to—a Rabbanite audience or a potential interlocutor who sought to interpret Scripture in accordance with the talmudic peshat maxim. Perhaps the first address that comes to mind is Rashi. As discussed above, it seems, in some cases, that Leqaḥ Ṭov was responding to Rashi’s philological glosses. If Rashi’s peshat program had become popular in Tobiah’s milieu, it could have spurred him to offer an apologia for his own heavy focus on midrash by citing the peshat maxim, as if to advertise his awareness of the “peshat of Scripture,” while justiing his choice to elaborate on its midrashic dimensions. Yet it is important to consider the alternative possibility that Tobiah was responding to an indigenous Byzantine tradition that privileged the “peshat of Scripture.” There is evidence, as already mentioned, that Tobiah knew of the earlier Byzantine commentaries of Reuel and the Scholia on the Pentateuch.104 At times, he seems to engage with them polemically. A comparison of the latter with Tobiah’s commentary on Exod. 15:1 is thus illuminating: “Then Moses sang (lit., ‘will sing’). . . . It does not say, ‘Then Moses sang (shar),’ but rather, ‘Then Moses will sing (yashir)’—to teach us the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Another interpretation: ‘Then Moses sang (lit., “will sing”; yashir)’—the yod connotes a past action, as in ‘Then Joshua spoke (lit., “will speak”; yedabber)’ (Josh. 10:12). . . . ‘Then Solomon built (lit., “will build”; yivneh)’ (1 Kings 11:7).”105 Tobiah was aware of the simple grammatical explanation in the Scholia (cited above) and offers it as “another interpretation.” But Tobiah gives priority to the midrashic interpretation that the yod prefix retains its usual grammatical function

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Byzantine Tradition

183

and connotes the future tense, providing support for the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Notwithstanding the peshat interpretation that he knew om the Scholia, Tobiah deemed the midrash necessary to articulate the “full” meaning of Scripture.106 Although neither the Pentateuch Scholia nor Reuel characterized their exegesis as the “peshat of Scripture,” Tobiah did—when seeking to circumvent their grammatical focus, which may have set a precedent within the Rabbanite Byzantine community that he could not ignore. To be sure, there are links missing in the eleventh-century Byzantine tradition. But conceivably, additional commentaries were written then, or oral interpretive traditions developed following the model set by Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia, in which the peshat maxim may have been invoked as justification for linguistic-grammatical analysis. If so, Tobiah was engaging in a reactionary use of the maxim to sidestep the “peshat of Scripture” and return to a more traditional midrashic mode.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Interpreting the Song of Songs A glimpse of the Byzantine exegetical tradition that Tobiah inherited may come into view in Leqaḥ Ṭov on the Song of Songs, in which Tobiah regularly cites interpretations in the name of his father, the aforementioned “Rabbi Eliezer, son Rabbi Judah, son of Rabbi Eliezer the Great.” While Leqaḥ Ṭov on the Song of Songs is, on the whole, midrashic, taking the book allegorically as a dialogue between God and Israel, in about a dozen places Tobiah addresses the literal sense—in some cases, in the name of his father. The most dramatic example relates to Song 8:11–14. This passage begins with an account of Solomon’s vineyard, which had been placed in the care of “guards” (v. 11). The narrative then shis to what seems to be a dialogue between Solomon and another interlocutor—perhaps the maiden who speaks elsewhere in the Song—referring to her vineyard (v. 12). The narrative shis again to a lover addressing the maiden in the name of “iends” (v. 13), eliciting her response to him as her “beloved” (v. 14): (11) Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-Hamon; he presented the vineyard to his guards to watch; every one for the uit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of silver. . . . (12) My vineyard, my very own, is before me; you may have the thousand, Solomon. . . . (13) O you who lingers in the gardens, iends listen for your voice, please let me hear it. (14) Hurry, my beloved, swi as a gazelle or as a young stag, to the hills of spices. Among the questions that this passage poses is what to make of the connections among Solomon’s vineyard, its guards, the maiden, and her lover. On this passage, Tobiah relates: “My father, my teacher, of blessed memory, interpreted ‘Solomon had a vineyard etc.’ literally (‘by way of mashal’) and allegorically (‘by way of

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

184

Chapter 5

meliṣah’).”107 Tobiah’s father made a clear demarcation between two ways to interpret the Song of Songs: “by way of mashal” and “by way of meliṣah,” terminology already used in this distinctive way by Reuel to connote the literal and allegorical senses of the biblical text, respectively.108 We shall revisit this terminology below, aer exploring how Eliezer, as conveyed by his son Tobiah, interprets the passage literally and allegorically. In his literal rendering, Eliezer explains how the two episodes—one about Solomon’s vineyards (vv. 11–12), the other a dialogue with the maiden (vv. 13–14)—are connected: Solomon owned a vineyard . . . and he presented it to his guards to watch over it, and they gave him a thousand pieces of silver to eat its uits. Now in the vineyard, there was a maiden. When the vineyard owner came to retrieve the maiden, the guards said: “All that is in the vineyard is ours!” As it says: “My vineyard, my very own, is before me,” for this is what we stipulated. “You may have the thousand, Solomon,” as compensation . . . but the maiden is ours. “O you who lingers in the gardens”—The vineyard owner says: “Let us ask her.”

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

If she wishes to remain with you, then let her remain with you. But if she does not wish to remain with you, then I will take her for myself. “The iends listen for your voice”—to know your wish—“Let me hear it.” And she answers: “Hurry, my beloved”—There is nothing I can do, as you have handed me over to the guards and I cannot escape om here. So become like a person who steals away, and disappear quickly “as a gazelle or a young stag,” and return to rescue me om here to bring me “to hills of spices”—to my land and birthplace.109 Eliezer extrapolated om these verses an episode in which a maiden is caught up in negotiations between the vineyard owner and the vineyard watchers who have seized her. Eliezer also interpreted these verses allegorically, as a dialogue between God (the lover / the vineyard owner) and Israel (the beloved)—a relationship threatened by the Gentile nations, Rome and her heirs in particular (the guards who imprison the maiden). On this account, the dialogue is about God rendering Israel into “the hands of the other nations, who are likened to the guards.” “The one who lingers in the gardens” refers to “Israel who dwells among the nations.” Likewise, the “iends” are “the nations of the world who concoct foreign gods.” At the end of the Song, Israel cries out: “ ‘Hurry, my beloved’—to bring an end

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Byzantine Tradition

185

to the exile and commence the redemption, and then ‘resemble a gazelle or a young stag’ and quickly lend your support and redeem me, and bring me ‘to hills of spices’—those are Mount Zion and the mountain of the holy temple, Mount Moriah.”110 This reading, reflecting Israel’s plight as an oppressed minority among the Christians but tenaciously clinging to the hope of future redemption, is in line with the midrashic understanding of the Song of Songs. What is remarkable about Eliezer’s interpretation is his clear distinction between two modes of analysis of the Song of Songs: the literal human love tale, and the allegorical-midrashic reading. To make this demarcation, Eliezer—as cited by Tobiah—used the pair of biblical terms mashal and meliṣah (Prov. 1:6) to connote the literal and allegorical senses, respectively. In the Bible, the meaning of these two terms is not entirely clear. They were recruited by Eliezer (or Tobiah characterizing his father’s interpretation) for his purposes as technical exegetical terms. This usage of the terms mashal and meliṣah is attested earlier in the Byzantine exegetical tradition, in Reuel’s glosses on Ezek. 13:5 and 13:10.111 But neither of those cases relates to midrashic allegorical interpretation; rather, Reuel uses this terminology to interpret what is clearly figurative language employed by the prophet Ezekiel.112 In the attested exegetical literature, Eliezer seems to have been the first to adapt this terminology to isolate the literal sense of the Song of Songs om the dominant and authoritative midrashic allegorical sense. Yet this remarkable methodological differentiation attributed to Eliezer in interpreting the Song of Songs is a unicum, attested nowhere else in Leqaḥ Ṭov. Furthermore, the distinction is not tied to the differentiation between peshat and derash—as it would be in Rashi. The peshat maxim is invoked one time in Leqaḥ Ṭov on the Song of Songs, in connection with the words of the lover to the beloved, “If you know not [where to find me], O thou fairest among women, go forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed your kids beside the shepherds’ tents” (Song 1:8). In the spirit of the midrash, Tobiah first interprets this verse as God’s exhortation to Israel in exile to follow “the way of the fathers” and bring them to “the shepherds’ tents,” which he glosses accordingly: “synagogues and study halls.”113 He then cites an interpretation of his father’s that he considers tenuous, leading him to comment: “And that is an interpretation by way of derash. But the biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat; so this means actual tents (lit., ‘dwelling places’), a place where the shepherds dwell, namely, synagogues and study halls.”114 In this case, Tobiah invokes the peshat maxim to indicate his preference for one midrashic interpretation over another, not to distinguish between the different layers of meaning of the biblical text. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that Tobiah seeks to identi the most fitting midrash based on philological analysis—which Rashi would call the “peshat of Scripture.”115 There are instances in which Tobiah engages in philological analysis, albeit without using the term peshat, as a precursor to his midrashic interpretation. For

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

186

Chapter 5

example, on Song 1:2, “May he kiss me (yishaqeni) with the kisses of his mouth,” he writes: “The expression yishaqeni means actual kissing. And in God’s great love for Israel, he mentions in connection with this kiss ‘his mouth,’ because the custom of eastern kings and southern kings is to kiss the hand. But here it says, ‘of the kisses of his mouth.’ And its interpretation (perush) is: this refers to the Torah, that He taught me wisdom.”116 He then goes on to offer an interpretation by his father: “My father interpreted yishaqeni to mean ‘may he puri me,’ as in mashaq gevim (Isa. 33:4),117 and as the Rabbis in the Talmud say, ‘on the Sabbath one may not bring water into contact (mashiqin) with stone vessels in order to puri them.’ And its interpretation (perush) also refers to the Torah, which purifies those who study it.”118 Both Tobiah and his father show concern for the literal construal of the words as a foundation for the allegorical interpretation, which Tobiah prefaces—in this and a handful of other instances—using the hermeneutical marker “and its interpretation (perush) is.”119 Based on the above-cited tendencies, Jonathan Jacobs has argued that the interpretive efforts of Tobiah’s father, Eliezer, may be regarded as a Byzantine precedent for Rashi’s peshat program in the Song of Songs.120 Although Jacobs is more reticent about suggesting that Eliezer’s interpretation of the Song of Songs came to Rashi’s attention, he does note that this precedent may strengthen Ta-Shma’s view that the Byzantine exegetical tradition was a source of inspiration for Rashi’s peshat program (as mentioned in Chapter 3). The argument might be developed along the following lines: although Leqaḥ Ṭov, for which the earliest dating is 1097,121 could not have exerted a formative influence on Rashi (and it is uncertain that the work ever came to Rashi’s attention),122 it is conceivable, historically speaking, that the Byzantine exegetical school represented by Eliezer, Tobiah’s father, was known to Rashi. If Tobiah’s citations of his father are genuine reflections of the latter’s formulations and terminology (and not exclusively those of Tobiah), then Eliezer’s interest in the literal sense of the Song of Songs as distinct om its allegorical sense could have been a source of inspiration for Rashi. Even if that historical scenario is plausible, it is important to note that Rashi’s robust peshat program differs substantially om the inchoate one attributed to Eliezer by Tobiah. References to the “peshat of Scripture” in Tobiah’s Song of Songs commentary relate only to individual words. In only one case is Eliezer said to have accounted for the literal sense of an extended narrative, Song 8:11–14; but he did not use the term peshat in this connection, nor do we have evidence that he did so consistently in the Song of Songs. By contrast, Rashi’s peshat program entails not only a philological analysis of individual words and verses but also a comprehensive understanding of the love story that emerges om a literal reading of the book—a perspective that opened the door for Rashbam to liken the Song

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Byzantine Tradition

187

to the chansons d’amour of the trouvères of medieval France, as mentioned in Chapter 4.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Interpreting Qohelet Intriguingly, the dual interpretive method employed by Rashi finds a parallel in Leqaḥ Ṭov on Qohelet. As Tobiah remarks, “You must know that the words of Qohelet are deeply profound (‘amuqim); they must be interpreted according to the sagacious midrash, and according to the literal sense (mashma‘) of the verses.”123 In this small biblical book, Tobiah employs the term peshat (the “peshat of Scripture,” “its peshat is”) nine times124 in a remarkably systematic manner, resembling Rashi’s double-commentary peshat-midrash format. Unlike Rashi, though, Tobiah emphasizes the inadequacy of peshat and necessity of midrash. This becomes clear in his introduction, which establishes the subject matter of Qohelet within a larger discussion of the works authored by King Solomon: “It is written, ‘And the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as He had promised him’ (1 Kings 5:26), and it is written, ‘He composed three thousand (alafim) proverbs; and his songs were a thousand (elef) and five’ (1 Kings 5:12). It is true that ‘a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.’ However, there is no evidence that Solomon actually ‘composed three thousand proverbs’ or ‘a thousand and five’ songs. We therefore must rely on the midrashim of the Sages.”125 Traditionally, Proverbs, Qohelet, and the Song of Songs are attributed to King Solomon;126 but nothing is known of his “three thousand proverbs” or “thousand and five songs.” Hence, even while nominally accepting the notion that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat,” Tobiah argues that 1 Kings 5:12 requires midrashic re-construal to be understood properly: “And thus my father, of blessed memory, said: He (Solomon) composed three alufim (learned treatises): Proverbs, Qohelet, and the Song of Songs, which emerge om five books of the Law. Now elef means: that they provide instruction to Israel, which they are meant to study. And we find that the root ’-l-f connotes study, instruction, learning, as it says, ‘elef of the shield hangs upon it’ (Song 4:4) referring to the teaching of God, who is ‘the shield.’ ”127 The purpose of his citation of the prooext becomes clear in light of how it is interpreted in Leqaḥ Ṭov on the Song of Songs: “A thousand (elef) shields hang upon it—elef is the Torah, as it says, ‘He commanded His word for a thousand generations’ (Ps. 105:8). . . . My father, R. Eliezer, explained: this is the teaching (illuf) of God, Who is the shield of Israel, as it is said, ‘He is a shield for all who trust in Him’ (Ps. 18:31).”128 As recounted by Tobiah in his introduction to Qohelet, Eliezer devised a midrash-like reading of 1 Kings 5:12, according to which the verse characterizes the three books attributed to Solomon as being integrally related to Torah study, a favorite midrashic theme. Tobiah continues: “Scripture altered his name in this

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

188

Chapter 5

book, saying, ‘The words of Qohelet, son of David’ (Qoh. 1:1). Just as it altered his name [instead of referring to him as Solomon, son of David], and there is a midrash to it, so, too, all his words have a hidden meaning, and some seem selfcontradictory. Yet all its midrashic interpretations are ‘straightforward to the intelligent man’ (Prov. 8:9).”129 Here Tobiah makes a second argument for the necessity of midrash, implicitly pointing to the inadequacy of peshat: the words of Qohelet, like the name Qohelet itself, have a hidden meaning brought out by midrash, which also serves to reconcile internal contradictions within the book. In accordance with his quasi-programmatic introduction, Tobiah consistently interprets the verses of Qohelet in reference to Torah study, observance of God’s law, or a theological point of instruction. In eight places, however, he makes the point of providing an alternative interpretation that he labels “its peshat.” For example, on Qoh. 10:9, “One who quarries stones will be anguished by them; he who splits wood will be endangered thereby,” he comments: According to its peshat, this means that a person cannot undertake important work unless he toils for it, and is brought to anguish, as in Gen. 3:17, “by toil (lit., ‘anguish,’ ‘sadness’) shall you eat of [the land].” And thus one who splits wood endangers himself. . . .

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Now its interpretation (perush) is this: if a person wishes to study Torah and wisdom, and to “quarry” such deep matters om their place . . . he must toil for them. . . . And “he who splits wood” refers to one who wishes to “open up (lit., ‘split’)” the matter and bring it to light.130 Tobiah first interprets this verse literally about the investment required for mundane human labor. But he then offers what he labels as the perush—interpretation of this verse—which takes it as advice on the intensive investment of energy required for Torah study. The term perush that Tobiah uses here suggests that for him, the midrashic reading is not merely a secondary sense of the verse but rather its most essential meaning—simply, “its interpretation.” In this vein, Tobiah writes in his Qohelet commentary that “the Torah is to be understood (lit., ‘learned’; nilmedet) through its interpretations (perusheha),” aer which he makes the remarkable statement: “no one could truly study or understand the Torah until King Solomon . . . established a way . . . for the wise sages to make inferences and interpret the Torah midrashically.”131 In another two places in his Qohelet commentary, and in five places in his Song of Songs commentary, Tobiah uses the term perush specifically to connote the midrashic interpretation.132 It is worth comparing Tobiah’s terminology with that of Rashi on the Song of Songs. Rashi used the term peshat to connote the love story that emerges om the literal sense, and dugma to connote

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Byzantine Tradition

189

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

the allegorical sense about the relationship between God and Israel, as discussed in Chapter 3. While Rashi believed the dugma to be the ultimate intention of the Song of Songs, his use of the peshat-dugma terminology suggests that both layers must be considered equally as “interpretations” of Scripture. In other words, Rashi would not use the unqualified word perush for the allegorical sense alone, which in his system is but one aspect of Scripture. Indeed, Rashi begins his introduction to the Song with the verse, “One thing God has spoken; two things have I heard” (Ps. 62:12), which he takes to hint at the peshat-derash dichotomy.133 So the sense of the biblical text, for Rashi, is double, as both peshat and derash must be considered together to make up the complete sense of Scripture. Rashi articulates this dual signification theory in his commentary on Proverbs as well. Much of the advice there, addressed to a young man, is to avoid the enticement of sinful beautiful women. Following midrashic tradition, Rashi understood this figuratively, as the enticement of idolaters—as he regarded the Christians of his time—seeking to lure the Jewish people away om their faith.134 As Rashi writes on Prov. 1:1, “Scripture speaks figuratively about the Torah as a good, faithful woman, and it speaks figuratively of idolatry as a harlot.”135 Yet, in his gloss on Prov. 1:6, Rashi emphasizes that the literal sense is inherently valuable: “To understand mashal and meliṣah”—one must endeavor to understand the verses of Scripture in two ways: the mashal (figurative sense) and the meliṣah (the words in their literal sense).136 One must understand what is symbolized by the meliṣah, without ignoring the meliṣah itself, which must be understood in its own right. When it says, “to save you om a foreign woman” (Prov. 2:16), idolatry is meant; this is the mashal. But since Scripture conveys the mashal through language about a woman, one must also understand and heed the meliṣah—and stay far away om a foreign woman.137 Rashi adheres to this program in his Proverbs commentary by identiing the meliṣah and mashal—two terms used in this introductory verse of Proverbs—as two levels of meaning throughout the book.138 As Sarah Kamin notes, Rashi’s use of the term meliṣah is comparable with his use of the term mashma‘ and peshat elsewhere in his commentaries.139 Tobiah ben Eliezer, on the other hand, does not emphasize the duality of scriptural signification as dramatically as Rashi does. To be sure, he records the talmudic maxim that “Scripture does not leave the realm of its peshat,” thereby acknowledging the integrity of the literal or philological-contextual sense. Yet in using the unqualified term perush, which simply means “interpretation,” to connote the midrashic sense in his commentaries on the Song of Songs and Qohelet,

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

190

Chapter 5

he privileges it as the essential meaning of Scripture, implicitly relegating the “peshat of Scripture” to the standing of an elementary step in the process of scriptural interpretation. In some respects, then, it might be likened to the status of the ẓāhir in Muslim and Judeo-Arabic hermeneutics, which has been termed the “pre-interpretive” sense.140

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Tobiah’s Influence In northern France, Rashi sparked interest in the “peshat of Scripture.” While his commentary retained a strong midrashic component, Rashi’s students would focus primarily on peshat exegesis. A different progression occurred in the Byzantine school. Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia engaged in philological analysis, which Tobiah identified as the “peshat of Scripture.” Yet Tobiah highlighted the centrality of midrash, a trend that continued among later interpreters influenced by him in the Byzantine orbit. Tobiah’s student Meir, said to have studied under him in Kastoria, composed the Pentateuch commentary Or ‘Einayim, which is no longer extant. The Bulgarian-Greek talmudist Judah Leon ben Moses Mosconi (b. 1328) reports that it was influential in his Balkan communities and that it consisted primarily of reworked midrash, following the model of Leqaḥ Ṭov.141 The impact of Leqaḥ Ṭov is also evident in a work known as Midrash Aggadah, a much later midrashic collection on the Pentateuch. The gloss in that work on Exod. 34:27 is particularly telling: “In accordance with these words I make a covenant with you and with Israel—This refers to the prescriptions of the Talmud, for the essential covenant was established with us on the basis of the [midrashic] interpretation of the Torah . . . for anyone who interprets a verse literally (ke-ṣurato; lit., “according to its form”; see b.Qiddushin 49a) without midrashic interpretation and without the thirteen midrashic hermeneutical principles, about him Scripture says: ‘The fool walks in darkness’ (Qoh. 2:14).”142 The virtually identical gloss appears in Leqaḥ Ṭov on this verse (as cited above) and expresses the centrality of midrash. Midrash Aggadah is believed to have been composed in the Muslim East, perhaps in Syria, in the fourteenth century; but it draws heavily upon midrashic traditions attested in Leqaḥ Ṭov, which seem to have circulated in the Byzantine orbit.143

Samuel of Rossano The model set by Leqaḥ Ṭov is followed in the Pentateuch commentary of one Samuel of “Rossia” (‫)רושיאה‬. This work is attested in three medieval manuscripts: Vatican Ebr. MS 56; Oxford Bodleian Or. MS 147; and New York JTS MS 01183. All three provide information that allows us to date this commentary with precision unusual for medieval Jewish writings. A current date and place are given in the gloss on Gen. 26:5, “today we are at 4,884 anno mundi (1124 ce), 1,056 years

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Byzantine Tradition

191

aer the destruction of the Temple, the year we composed this book in Rossia.”144 In the Oxford MS, a note is added, probably by the copyist: “But we are now at year 1086” om the Temple’s destruction, that is, 1154. In the Vatican MS, an added comment reads: “But we are now at year 1094,” that is, 1162.145 It would seem that 1124 is the date of the commentary’s composition and that it was subsequently copied in 1154 and 1162.146 The provenance of the commentary, on the other hand, has long been a puzzle. The name “Rossia” had led some to believe that the author hailed om Russia; but that theory has been discredited.147 Moshe Weiss, the twentieth-century editor of the commentary, demonstrates that Rossia refers to the town of Rossano in Calabria in southern Italy, which was under Byzantine control until 1059, when it was conquered by the Normans.148 This identification is consistent with the fact that the vernacular words used by the author are Italian and Greek.149 Additionally, the author cited with greatest equency in the commentary is R. Nathan of Rome, and his lexicon of the Talmud, the ‘Arukh.150 From the regularity and style of these citations, Weiss concludes that Samuel of Rossano actually studied with R. Nathan personally, probably at his academy in Rome.151 Many of Samuel of Rossano’s interpretations seem to be drawn om Leqaḥ Ṭov.152 More fundamentally, his interpretive program is informed by the hierarchy of peshat and derash in Leqaḥ Ṭov. Divided according to the weekly Sabbath Torah portion synagogue reading, Samuel’s commentary is then subdivided systematically. Each section begins with brief and highly selective verse-by-verse philologically oriented glosses, followed by extensive selections om midrash and Talmud. Samuel’s philological notes are usually om traditional rabbinic sources. For example, on Gen. 5:24, “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him,” Samuel remarks: “Took him—this means: he slew him. Another interpretation: he took him alive, as he did to Elijah.”153 The first interpretation is om Targum Onkelos. The second is based on Genesis Rabbah (25:1), which likens the “taking” of Enoch to the “taking” of Elijah described in 2 Kings 2. At times, it is difficult to tell whether Samuel devised a philological commentary independently or whether he was drawing om earlier sources. A good example is his grammatical note on Gen. 14:10, “and they that remained fled to the mountain (herah)”: “herah—means “to the mountain” (har). This is the rule: any word that requires a lamed prefix (meaning ‘to,’ ‘toward’), Scripture may use a heh suffix instead.”154 One may suppose that Rashi on this verse was Samuel’s source, as it contains the same gloss, with considerably more detail. But the same rule appears in Leqaḥ Ṭov on Gen. 12:11 and is already found in the Talmud (b.Yevamot 13b), so Samuel may have applied it to Gen. 14:10 without Rashi’s guidance. Stronger evidence for Samuel’s reliance on Rashi comes om the numerous cases in which nearly identical philological analysis is found in both their

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

192

Chapter 5

commentaries. For example, on Gen. 8:1–2, “And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided (wa-yashokku). The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped up (wa-yissakheru), and the rain om heaven was held back (wa-yikkale),” Samuel writes: Wa-yashokku—derived om the same language as “when the wrath of king Ahasuerus subsided (ke-shokh; Esther 2:1),” meaning: they quieted down. The Targum renders this: naḥu (they rested). Wa-yissakheru—derived om the same language as “the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped (yissakher; Ps. 63:12),” meaning “to close.”

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Wa-yikkale—this means: it was held back.155 These philological notes strongly resemble Rashi’s glosses on these verses and on Ps. 63:12.156 Indeed, Weiss argues that Rashi, in fact, was a key source of Samuel’s philological glosses.157 There is even evidence that Samuel composed a supercommentary on Rashi’s Pentateuch commentary, though it is no longer extant.158 There are indications that Samuel of Rossano used Rashbam’s commentaries on the Talmud and on the Bible, though they did not have a decisive influence on his exegesis.159 Even the more innovative aspects of Rashi’s peshat program are absent om his work. Samuel of Rossano never makes reference to the Andalusian linguists Menahem or Dunash, cited regularly by Rashi. Nor does Samuel ever draw upon any of Rashi’s sophisticated grammatical notes, philological digressions, or observations regarding biblical literary style and structure. TaShma argues that Samuel did not utilize Rashi at all and that the similarities between them are coincidental or reflect common usage of traditional sources.160 Ta-Shma overstates this argument; but it is correct to say that Samuel of Rossano’s interpretive outlook was shaped by his Byzantine-Italian heritage. His philological acumen can be traced primarily to R. Nathan of Rome, and his exegetical hierarchy to Leqaḥ Ṭov, in which the “peshat of Scripture” was a minor note. From Rashi, Samuel seems to have taken only those elements compatible with his Byzantine-Italian intellectual heritage, leaving aside Rashi’s more audacious innovations. Perhaps most strikingly, Samuel of Rossano never refers to the peshat maxim, nor does he even use the term peshat, both so ubiquitous in Rashi. As a result, his commentary lacks anything resembling Rashi’s keen methodological awareness, even though Samuel so clearly separated his philologically oriented verse-by-verse glosses om his more elaborate reworked midrash. Even Tobiah ben Eliezer invoked the peshat maxim; but, as discussed above, he oen does so in the context

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Byzantine Tradition

193

of privileging midrash. In failing even to acknowledge the “peshat of Scripture” as a distinct interpretive category, Samuel of Rossano returns to the format of the Pentateuch Scholia, with which he might have been familiar, as Byzantine works seem to have circulated in southern Italy. Like the Pentateuch Scholia, Samuel of Rossano’s verse-by-verse glosses are an amalgam of philological and other brief notes culled largely om traditional sources, supplemented by independent linguistic analysis.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Menahem ben Solomon Menahem ben Solomon’s Sekhel Ṭov Pentateuch commentary, penned in 1139, is now partially extant in two large manuscript agments (Bodleian Library, Neubauer Catalog MS 165 and MS 166) covering Gen. 15:1–Exod. 18:10, and a third small agment on the first verses of Leviticus (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Cod. hebr. 131).161 The work was edited and published in Berlin by Salomon Buber in 1900. The Italian provenance of Sekhel Ṭov is indicated by the Italian vernacular glosses it contains.162 Two extant responsa addressed to Menahem ben Solomon om Solomon ben Abraham ben Jehiel, a nephew of Nathan of Rome, suggest that he had a connection to the Rome rabbinic academy.163 Sekhel Ṭov bears the unmistakable imprint of Leqaḥ Ṭov—the clear source of many of Menahem’s interpretations.164 Indeed, Tobiah ben Eliezer is the only medieval interpreter cited explicitly in Sekhel Ṭov.165 Even the names of the two works are similar: leqaḥ connotes instruction, lesson; sekhel connotes wisdom, understanding. So Sekhel Ṭov (an expression appearing in Ps. 110:111) would mean “good wisdom,” “understanding.” Like Leqaḥ Ṭov, Sekhel Ṭov is made up largely of midrash, with a small but noticeable number of philological interpretations, some labeled explicitly the “peshat of Scripture.” Yet whereas the two interpretive forms are commingled in Leqaḥ Ṭov, Sekhel Ṭov is divided into two distinct layers: the first is a small collection of relatively brief verse-by-verse philologically oriented glosses; the second, which makes up the bulk of the commentary, is a collation of extensive halakhic and aggadic discourses drawn om rabbinic literature.166 Structurally speaking, then, Sekhel Ṭov follows the model of Samuel of Rossano’s Pentateuch commentary. The sections and subsections of Sekhel Ṭov, however, are demarcated more distinctively—not simply according to the weekly Torah portions but divided thematically into smaller sections, oen signaled with the formula “those who study this section may have a rest now, and acquire wisdom.”167 In many instances, Menahem ben Solomon seeks to explain the thematic coherence of the biblical sections that he demarcates, as well as their arrangement in the Pentateuch.168 Menahem ben Solomon mentions the talmudist R. Hananel ben Hushiel (c. 980–1055) by name just once; but it is clear that he relied on Hananel’s

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

194

Chapter 5

commentaries regularly for his understanding of the many talmudic passages he cites.169 This is not surprising, since Hananel seems to have been of Italian origin (as mentioned in Chapter 1). In any case, his Talmud commentary evidently circulated in Italy, as it was a key source for R. Nathan’s ‘Arukh.170 Menahem also used Isaac Alfasi’s abridgment of the Talmud, but without attribution.171 Menahem ben Solomon penned Even Boḥan, a dedicated work on biblical grammar, in 1143.172 This work draws heavily upon the Maḥberet of Menahem ben Saruq, though without attribution.173 From the Maḥberet, Menahem ben Solomon learned morphology and, more broadly, the philological method of linguistic analysis—both of which he would use extensively in the philological part of his Pentateuch commentary.174 Some scholars conclude that Menahem ben Solomon did not know of Rashi, whose name he never mentions.175 Yet Jacob Elbaum notes parallels between the two authors that suggest at least some familiarity with Rashi.176 Martin Lockshin even identified parallels between Sekhel Ṭov and Rashbam. While Lockshin argues that these suggest Menahem ben Solomon’s influence on Rashbam, he acknowledges that the opposite path of influence is conceivable.177

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Privileging the “Peshat of Scripture” The question of Rashi’s influence—and perhaps that of Rashbam—is important for determining the source of Menahem ben Solomon’s tendency to privilege the peshat of Scripture—specifically by making reference to the talmudic peshat maxim, precisely as Rashi and Rashbam had done. By itself, Menahem’s philological analysis, on the other hand, can be traced to other sources in the Byzantine tradition. Like Samuel of Rossano before him, Menahem ben Solomon most oen relied on the Aramaic Targums and on prooexts om other biblical verses.178 Furthermore, as already mentioned, Menahem ben Solomon was profoundly influenced by Menahem ben Saruq and the philological method presented in his Maḥberet. What is more distinctive about Sekhel Ṭov—and might suggest Rashi’s influence—is its tendency to differentiate explicitly between peshat and derash. For example, on Gen. 20:13, “And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander (lit., “stray”) om my father’s house,” Menahem ben Solomon opens with the following remarks: “Ezra the Righteous Priest, Prophet of God, indicated to us the cantillation of the verse in order to understand its peshat, distinct om the midrash of our Rabbis.”179 Menahem was probably referring here to the midrashic interpretations of this verse cited in Leqaḥ Ṭov. He, on the other hand, argues that the verse must also be understood according to “its peshat,” guided by the cantillation—musical notes for chanting the Pentateuch in the synagogue. These notes indicate the syntactic division of the biblical text and were set in writing by the masoretes. Traditionally,

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Byzantine Tradition

195

it is assumed that they are part of a more ancient oral tradition dating to Ezra, and therefore they were regarded by peshat commentators such as Rashi, Rashbam, and Ibn Ezra as a critical guide to proper Bible interpretation.180 On the basis of the cantillation notes, Menahem argues for a syntactic division of the verse into two distinct sentences: “According to the peshat of the verse, what he said was this: ‘When they caused me to wander,’ that is, Nimrod and his people, by casting me into the fiery furnace and I was saved’; ‘God took me om my father’s house.’ ”181 To grasp the exegetical considerations underlying this gloss, it is helpful to note the issues addressed explicitly by Rashi here: Onkelos translated this as he did. But it can be interpreted (lit., “settled”) otherwise in a way that is also fitting: “When the Holy One, blessed be He, led me forth om my father’s house to be a nomad, wandering om place to place. . . .” When God caused me to wander (lit., “stray”)—the verb is in the plural. Do not be surprised at this, for in many passages, words denoting divinity or authority are grammatically treated as plural—for example, “whom God went (halekhu) to redeem” (2 Sam. 7:23); “the living (ḥayyim) God” (Deut. 5:23); “a holy (qedoshim) God” (Josh. 24:19). . . .

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

And if you ask: Why does he use the term “caused me to wander”? I reply: anyone exiled om his place and is not settled is called “a wanderer,” as “And she went and strayed about in the wilderness” (Gen. 21:14), “I have gone astray like a lost sheep.” (Ps. 119:176)182 Rashi here identifies two difficulties in this verse caused by the seeming incompatibility between the verb “caused me to wander” and the subject “God.” First, the verb is in the plural form, whereas God is singular. Second, it seems out of character for Abraham to grumble that God caused him to “wander,” a statement for which there does not seem to be clear evidence in the Bible, in any case. Onkelos offers an Aramaic rendering of this verse that alleviates both difficulties: “When the other nations strayed in venerating their own handiwork, God brought me close to His worship.” Rashi, however, was unsatisfied with this rendering, which breaks up the continuity of the verse. He therefore cites prooexts to show that it is a common grammatical convention in Biblical Hebrew to use verbs in the plural form in reference to God. Furthermore, he shows that, philologically speaking, the verb “to wander” may simply connote a nomadic lifestyle, which actually was the case with Abraham. Menahem ben Solomon follows the syntactic approach of Onkelos to resolve both difficulties noted by Rashi. As implied by the Aramaic rendering in the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

196

Chapter 5

Targum, Menahem posits that “God” is not the subject of the verb “caused me to wander.” Of course, this approach is tenuous because there is no verb in what Menahem assumes to be a second clause, which he paraphrases as “God took me om my father’s house.” A literal rendering of the Hebrew, on the other hand, would simply be the agment “God om my father’s house.” Undoubtedly, this was a factor that caused Rashi to avoid that approach and devise a philologically oriented strategy to resolve the two difficulties, thereby allowing for these words, “when God caused me to wander om my father’s house,” to be construed as a single clause. This comparison of Sekhel Ṭov and Rashi is instructive because it reveals the stark incongruity of their respective philological analyses, notwithstanding their shared respect for the “peshat of Scripture.” A similar relationship emerges om a review of the two instances in which Menahem ben Solomon invokes the talmudic peshat maxim explicitly—in his glosses on Gen. 19:9 and Exod. 18:13—in an effort to emphasize the integrity of the “peshat of Scripture” notwithstanding an opposing midrash. But the peshat interpretations given by Menahem ben Solomon have no resemblance to Rashi’s. This complex relation between the two commentaries raises a question: What could have been the source of Menahem ben Solomon’s tendency to privilege the “peshat of Scripture”? While it would normally be natural to point to Rashi’s influence, the fact that Menahem ben Solomon’s interpretations are generally not drawn om Rashi requires consideration of the alternative possibility that Sekhel Ṭov reflects an organic development within the Byzantine tradition. He may have been working with the philological tradition partially reflected in Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia, but that presumably consisted of other works that have been lost. The integrity of the “peshat of Scripture” was, of course, a minor note in Leqaḥ Ṭov; yet this may have been sufficient to inspire Menahem ben Solomon to place greater emphasis on this dimension of scriptural interpretation. Indeed, a dialectic tension exists between the two commentators specifically on this matter. This is most evident in Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 45:22, a verse that describes Joseph’s gis to his brothers upon meeting them in Egypt, “To all of them he gave a change of clothing; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of clothing.” “R. Tobiah wrote in his Leqaḥ Ṭov commentary,” Menahem begins, followed by a full citation of the latter’s exposition, according to which Benjamin’s augmented gi had symbolic meaning by way of gematria, and alluded to the pivotal role that Mordechai—of the tribe of Benjamin—would play in the history of Israel in Persia. But Menahem continues: But those are words of midrash, whereas the interpretation by way peshat is this: Three hundred pieces of silver—for his ten sons . . . thirty for each.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Byzantine Tradition

197

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

And five changes of clothing—because it was typical of Joseph to think in terms of the number five, as it says, “and take a fih part of the land of Egypt” (Gen. 41:34), “and you shall give a fih to Pharaoh” (Gen. 47:24). And thus Benjamin’s portion was five times that of the gi to the other brothers.183 Tobiah took a midrashic route here—but did not label his interpretation as such. That methodological step was taken by Menahem ben Solomon, who also offered a more prosaic peshat interpretation that ascribes no symbolic meaning to Benjamin’s gis. Instead, Menahem explains Benjamin’s fivefold portion by noting a tendency of Joseph’s—attested elsewhere in Genesis—to base economic calculations on the number five. Although the preceding example is remarkable for the explicit way in which Menahem distinguishes his commentary om that of Tobiah, he oen cites Tobiah’s interpretation without attribution and classifies it as midrashic, while himself offering another interpretation according to the way of peshat. As discussed above, in Gen. 33:4, “And Esau ran to meet him [Jacob], and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him; and they wept,” the Hebrew word for “kissed him” is written with dots above it. This prompted the midrashic interpretation that Esau bit Jacob—cited in Leqaḥ Ṭov.184 Menahem cites this view, with the midrashic elaboration that Jacob’s neck miraculously turned to marble, causing Esau to weep in pain. But Menahem then adds that “those who delve deeply into the language of the peshat” maintain that Esau kissed Jacob and wept tears of joy at seeing his long-lost brother.185 While this interpretation is given as an alternative in Leqaḥ Ṭov, Menahem ben Solomon alone explicitly identifies it as peshat, a pattern repeated elsewhere in the two commentaries.186 It might be said, then, that Menahem treats Tobiah’s commentary as Rashi had treated midrash: important in its own right but requiring supplementary philological analysis by way of peshat. Indeed, the term peshat appears quite regularly in Sekhel Ṭov, far more than in Leqaḥ Ṭov. Privileging Midrashic Interpretation Notwithstanding the move toward privileging the “peshat of Scripture” in Sekhel Ṭov, the theoretical outlook of Menahem ben Solomon actually has much in common with that of Tobiah ben Eliezer, who privileged midrash. In earlier chapters, we saw how the episode of the “covenant between the parts” (berit bein ha-betarim, in which Abraham was instructed by God to bring a heifer, a goat, and a ram and cut each in half ) illustrated tensions between midrashic and philological-historical interpretation—as articulated by Saadia, Yefet ben Eli, and Rashi. Menahem ben Solomon expresses his view on Gen. 15:12, “A deep sleep fell upon Abraham, and a great dark dread descended upon him”:

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

198

Chapter 5

Certainly, these words are intended according to their peshat. Yet we also must understand their essential meaning. Aer revealing to him the order of the sacrifices, God revealed to him the future four kingdoms: In bringing upon him “dread,” He hinted (ramaz) to him regarding the Babylonian captivity at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. . . . “Darkness”—He hinted (ramaz) to him regarding the Kingdom of the Medes. . . . “Great”—He hinted (ramaz) to him regarding the Kingdom of Greece. . . .

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

“Descended upon him”—He hinted (ramaz) to him that the Roman kingdom will descend upon his progeny.187 This typological interpretation appears also in Leqaḥ Ṭov and is drawn om midrashic sources.188 But Menahem adds a crucial methodological point. While acknowledging the peshat of this verse, he indicates that consideration of its typological meaning is necessary to grasp its “essential meaning.” Indeed, throughout his commentary, Menahem introduces typological interpretations, regularly using the term remez (“a hint”) to indicate that the formulations of the biblical narrative foreshadow future events that would befall important individuals as well as the nation of Israel as a whole.189 As noted by Haya Ben-Shalom, it is especially striking that many of these typological readings appear in the first layer of Sekhel Ṭov, which is dedicated to philological-contextual interpretation.190 This suggests that Menahem ben Solomon regards typological reading as essential for understanding Scripture even on the most basic level and that a purely philological-contextual reading of the biblical text is therefore insufficient. The centrality of midrashic interpretation in his view is further indicated by the fact that the bulk of Sekhel Ṭov is devoted to the second layer of the commentary, which is entirely drawn om rabbinic sources and can only be characterized as midrashic. Indeed, in that section the peshat maxim is cited three times to emphasize the primacy of midrash—in a way that resembles its usage in Leqaḥ Ṭov. Given the importance of these three passages, we cite them here in full. 1. On Exod. 2:5, “And Pharaoh’s daughter descended to wash in the Nile,” Menahem closely follows the language of Tobiah’s gloss: “Even though ‘a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat,’ our Rabbis devised a midrash on this verse, to explain the matter properly (lit., ‘to fit the words upon their place’).191 It is taught in tractate b.Soṭah (12b): ‘R. Johanan said in the name of R. Simon bar

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Byzantine Tradition

199

Yohai: this means that she went down to cleanse herself of the idolatry of her father’s household.’ ”192 As Tobiah had done, Menahem goes on to cite other verses to support this reading. Although he recognizes that it is midrashic, rather than the “peshat of Scripture,” Menahem regards this reading as a manifestation of the Rabbis’ endeavor to interpret Scripture properly—“to fit the words, each in its proper place.” This adaptation of Prov. 25:11, “a word fitly spoken” can be traced to Leqaḥ Ṭov, though it also echoes a key motif in Rashi’s characterization of his exegetical method, which may point to the influence he exerted on Sekhel Ṭov.193 2. Jacob’s dream, described in Gen. 28:12, of a ladder reaching heaven with angels ascending and descending, invited various midrashic interpretations. Perhaps the most well-known of these is the one cited first in Sekhel Ṭov, that the “angels” symbolize the four nations that subjugated Israel: Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Although these nations will rise in power, they ultimately will fall, just as the angels descended the ladder. Upon concluding his presentation of this typological interpretation, Menahem remarks: “Now I say: even though the verse does not leave the realm of its peshat, the Rabbis supported (samekhu) the lore they possessed om the tradition on the words of the Torah, each according to the tradition he received. The midrashic interpretations do not contradict one another; rather, ‘They are all straightforward to the intelligent man, all right to those who have attained knowledge’ (Prov. 8:9).”194 Menahem goes on to offer other symbolic midrashic interpretations, which, as he acknowledges, seem mutually exclusive. Yet he argues that multiple midrashic interpretations can be valid simultaneously—evidently a reference to the traditional doctrine of the Bible’s polyvalence.195 Tobiah did not cite the peshat maxim on this verse; so its application here is Menahem’s innovation. But, of course, he does so in the spirit of Tobiah’s distinctive usage: to indicate the necessity of midrash. Furthermore, Menahem’s citation of Prov. 8:9 can be traced to Leqaḥ Ṭov, where this verse is cited to argue that seemingly contradictory midrashic interpretations can be correct simultaneously.196 3. On Gen. 29:2, in the narrative describing Jacob’s arrival in Haran and the three flocks of sheep he encountered at the well, Menahem writes: Even though “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat,” our Rabbis interpreted this matter in seven ways in order to support (lismokh) their traditions through the words of the Torah. There, before his eyes, was a well in the field [etc.]—The Holy One, blessed be He, showed him, through the Holy Spirit, the miracles that would occur to his descendants.197

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

200

Chapter 5

Menahem goes on to enumerate seven typological interpretations, all om Genesis Rabbah. As mentioned above, the peshat maxim was cited in a similar way in Leqaḥ Ṭov on this very verse, to serve as a springboard for seven typological midrashic readings. There is, however, a subtle difference between the rationale for privileging midrash given in the two works. By way of preface to his typological interpretations of Gen. 29:2, Tobiah says that “the midrashic interpreters wished to expand the meaning of the text, and to expound upon it regarding what would occur in history, and to teach that the Holy One, blessed be He, reveals the future om the beginning, and to inform us that the narratives of the patriarchs contain many aspects of the commandments.”198 Menahem, on the other hand, says—in connection with the same typological interpretations—that the Rabbis cited the words of the Torah to “support” the ancient traditions and lore they possessed. Menahem uses a similar formulation on Gen. 28:12, cited above. This might be taken to imply that the midrashic readings are merely attached to the biblical text in a secondary way and are not genuine interpretations (as Tobiah’s formulation would indicate). In fact, Menahem’s language resembles the argument of Abraham Ibn Ezra that the peshat is the single correct interpretation of the biblical text, although the Rabbis cited biblical texts by way of asmakhta to support their traditions (see Chapter 6). Despite this difference, it would seem that Menahem ultimately shares Tobiah’s outlook. Unlike Ibn Ezra, Menahem devotes the bulk of his commentaries to midrash, which indicates its centrality in his view. Furthermore, in the three of his glosses just discussed, Menahem adopts Tobiah’s distinctive usage of the peshat maxim—namely, to rationalize his focus on midrash. In fact, in these three cases, he does not even offer a construal of the “peshat of Scripture,” undoubtedly because he regarded it as self-evident. “Interpretation” is required to reveal the unstated, deeper meanings of Scripture, for example, its typological implications. The Biblical Narrator (Sadran) In one remarkable comment, Menahem ben Solomon suggests that the very conventions of biblical narrative provide a basis for the foundational rabbinic assumption that the Bible is a cryptic text—requiring midrashic analysis.199 In the Genesis narrative, Joseph’s brothers report to their father, Jacob, what the Egyptian viceroy (actually, Joseph in disguise) had told them, saying, “The man who is lord of the land said to us: ‘. . .bring your youngest brother to me, that I may know that you are not spies but honest men; I will then restore your brother to you, and you shall go about eely as merchants in the land’ ” (Gen. 42:33–34). In the earlier report, however, in which the narrator records Joseph’s words to his brothers directly (Gen. 42:15–20), the clause “and you shall go about eely as merchants in

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Byzantine Tradition

201

the land” is absent. Tobiah ben Eliezer had already noted this disparity in Leqaḥ Ṭov: “This teaches that one may always interpret midrashically and add to the words narrative, for the biblical narrator (sadran) had spoken elliptically, as the phrase ‘and you shall go about eely as merchants in the land’ is not said above. And yet, they told their father ‘and you shall go about eely as merchants in the land.’ ”200 This comment is elaborated upon by Menahem ben Solomon: “This reveals to us that ‘those who excel in strength’ (the Rabbis) have license to expound and to always add to the words of the biblical narrative, since the practice of the biblical narrator (sadran) is to abbreviate and then, in another place, to repeat and add new things. For above, you do not find that Joseph said, ‘And you shall go about eely as merchants in the land.’ It is only now that it comes and tells us this new matter.”201 As Steiner notes, Menahem points to the initial abbreviation of the dialogue between Joseph and his brothers to justi the midrashic practice of putting words into the mouths of biblical protagonists—a practice followed by Menahem in his commentary.202 More broadly, this remark aims to rationalize the midrashic assumption that a full understanding of the biblical text requires creative augmentation of what is stated explicitly. The Rabbis who did so are lauded as “those who excel in strength” (see Ps. 103:20), a phrase used elsewhere in Sekhel Ṭov to refer to the Rabbis in citing their midrashic expansions.203 The term ha-sadran, used here to connote the biblical narrator, is attested once more in Leqaḥ Ṭov and four more times in Sekhel Ṭov—just in the extant portion of the commentary.204 As discussed earlier in this chapter, the term hasadran was used by Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia and also echoes the Karaite use of the term al-mudawwin. While there may be shades of difference among these usages, the conceptual and terminological similarity suggests a continuous tradition—certainly within the Byzantine school, which perhaps can be traced to Karaite exegesis.205 Since the term ha-sadran in Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia connotes an editor who shaped the biblical text om earlier sources, Gershon Brin and Jacob Elbaum argue that in Leqaḥ Ṭov and Sekhel Ṭov, it should likewise be understood to connote an editor who shaped the narrative based on earlier source texts, a transcript of the words of Joseph’s brothers—for example, in Genesis 42.206 In fact, Brin argues that the sadran referred to by Leqaḥ Ṭov and Sekhel Ṭov here is a postMosaic editor, a possibility that Elbaum entertains as well. On the other hand, Aaron Mondschein and Eran Viezel convincingly argue that Tobiah ben Eliezer and Menahem ben Solomon used the term ha-sadran simply to connote the narrator of the Pentateuch: Moses.207 As Tobiah remarks at the beginning of Leqaḥ Ṭov, “our Master Moses wrote, through the Holy Spirit, the matter of the creation of the world, entirely as written in the Torah of Moses, the man of God, om the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

202

Chapter 5

mouth of the Almighty.”208 Although this is said specifically in connection with the account of Creation, it may be inferred that the assertion applies to the entire Pentateuch. Tobiah elsewhere also explicitly identifies Moses as the sadran in the Pentateuch: “Moses our Master arranged (sidder) in a book the entire account of Creation.”209 According to Elbaum, Tobiah’s use of the verb root s-d-r implies that Moses was responsible for the formulation of the Pentateuch based on ancient historical information and laws given to him by God.210 But it seems more likely—as Mondschein and Viezel argue—that Tobiah simply meant to identi Moses as the narrator’s voice in the Pentateuch, not to make a historical claim about the formation of the biblical text.211 I do acknowledge that this matter cannot be determined conclusively—much as a similar ambiguity occurs in Yefet’s characterization of Moses as the mudawwin of the Pentateuch, as discussed in Chapter 1. Perhaps some clarification can be gleaned om the other occurrence of the term ha-sadran in Leqaḥ Ṭov, in connection with the account of Moses’ sending of the spies: “When Moses sent them to scout the land of Canaan, he said to them: ‘Go up into the Negeb and on into the hill country . . . and see what kind of country it is . . . good or bad . . . and bring back some of the uit of the land.’ Now it happened to be the season of the first ripe grapes (Num. 13:17–20).” On the final sentence, Tobiah remarks: “These are the words of the sadran, informing us of the praise of the Land of Israel.”212 Brin argues that Tobiah here manifests a source-critical sensibility, ascribing this sentence to a post-Mosaic biblical “editor” adding to Moses’ own record of sending the spies.213 But it seems more likely that Tobiah is speaking of a “narrator” as a literary abstraction—to distinguish between Moses’ instructions quoted here and the voice of the sadran— that is, Moses in his role as the narrator, informing the reader of the time of year in which this episode took place. This example is quite similar to the observation of Yefet ben Eli that the sentence “And the land had rest forty years” (Judg. 5:31) is the words of the mudawwin (narrator) and is not part of Deborah’s victory hymn recorded in Judges 5.214 Indeed, whereas Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia clearly use the term hasadran to connote a biblical editor reworking earlier sources, it would seem that the use of this term by Tobiah and Menahem is closer to Yefet’s abstract literary concept of the mudawwin as the biblical narrator. For example, Gen. 41:1–4 offers a detailed depiction of Pharaoh’s dream: “Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing by the Nile. And, behold, out of the Nile came seven cows, handsome and sturdy. . . . And, behold, seven other cows came up om the Nile close behind them, ugly and gaunt . . . and the ugly gaunt cows ate up the seven handsome sturdy cows. And Pharaoh awoke.” On the last sentence, Menahem remarks: “This is the narration of the sadran.”215 There is no need to assume that he is referring to any

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Byzantine Tradition

203

editorial activity in the Pentateuch, as Elbaum argues.216 Rather, Menahem’s intention is to point out the different narrative perspectives at play: first, the interior perspective within Pharaoh’s mind; and then the exterior perspective of the narrator recounting that he awoke.217 Menahem at times observes that the biblical narrative diverges om chronological order for the sake of literary coherence. He notes, for example, that Dinah’s birth (Gen. 30:21) was told before the birth of her brother Joseph, whom Menahem assumes was older than Dinah (Gen. 30:23–24) “because it began recounting the children of Leah, and first completed all of them, and then it recounts the story of Rachel giving birth to Joseph, and this is the typical manner of Scripture (derekh ha-miqra).”218 More broadly, Menahem notes that Abraham’s death is told (in Gen. 25:8) before the narrative telling of the birth of Esau and Jacob to Isaac and Rebecca (Gen. 25:19ff.): “Abraham actually was alive to see Jacob at age fieen. . . . Now although it had earlier said, ‘And Abraham died’ (Gen. 25:8), and it even said, ‘And it came to pass aer the death of Abraham’ (Gen. 25:11), the Torah does not preserve chronological order (lit., ‘there is no before or aer in the Torah’). Rather, this is the manner of the Torah (derekh ha-torah): it begins the story of each person individually and completes the narrative about him.”219 Here and elsewhere in his commentary, Menahem notes that the biblical narrative is oen arranged thematically rather than strictly chronologically.220 This principle is applied by Menahem in commenting on the account in Genesis 26 of the wells dug by Isaac’s servants, beginning with the verse “And Isaac’s servants dug in the wadi and found there a well of living waters” (26:19). Ownership of the well was disputed by the herdsmen of Gerar, forcing Isaac’s servants to dig another well, which was also disputed, aer which they dug a third well, over which they finally did not quarrel (26:20–22). Later, we are told that Abimelech and his entourage came om Gerar to conont Isaac and how the two eventually came to an agreement and made a treaty, which they celebrated with a feast before parting (Gen. 26:26–31). Later, we read: “And it came to pass on that day, Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug, and said to him, ‘We have found water!’ ” (Gen. 26:32). Menahem argues that the expression “And it came to pass on that day” links the two separate stories within the narrative: it was on the very day that Isaac and Abimelech parted that the servants informed Isaac of the very first well that they had dug: This is the very same well about which is written above, “And Isaac’s servants dug in the wadi and found there a well of living waters” (Gen. 26:19), and here it tells you that [they told him] “We have found water!” Indeed, the Torah diverged om chronological order (lit., “there is no before or aer in the Torah”), since the sadran saw fit to . . . complete the entire

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

204

Chapter 5

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

account of the wells dug by Isaac’s servants before recounting the episode of Abimelech, and he then specifies the timing of the two episodes: that on the very day Isaac sent Abimelech and his entourage home, he received news of the first well.221 The observation about the structural features of biblical narrative that is elsewhere ascribed to “the manner of Scripture / the Torah” is here ascribed to the sadran, which would thus seem to be a literary abstraction.222 A different aspect of biblical narrative style is addressed in Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 47:26, “Joseph made it into a land law in Egypt—until this day—that a fih should be Pharaoh’s”: “ ‘Until this day’—these are the words of the sadran.”223 Menahem ben Solomon here evidently wishes to note that the biblical narrator is leaving the temporal ame of the story to say something to the audience of his time.224 In a similar way, aer recounting Jacob’s struggle with the angel in Genesis 32, there is a concluding statement: “That is why the Children of Israel to this day do not eat the thigh muscle . . . since Jacob’s thigh muscle was wrenched at the socket” (Gen. 32:32). On this Menahem writes: “This is the narrative (sippur) of Moses, peace upon him, who wrote the prohibition of the thigh muscle in the place where he told the story.”225 Menahem here identifies the voice of Moses as the narrator of the Pentateuch who mediates the ancient accounts of the forefathers to the audience of his time that received the Law om God—including the prohibition of the thigh muscle.226 It is thus not unreasonable to assume that in the preceding example om Genesis 47, Menahem believed that Moses was the sadran, noting to the audience of his day that the land law in Egypt established by Joseph was still in force. A more challenging case involves the register of Esau’s descendants in Genesis 36, including a list of “the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the Children of Israel” (Gen. 36:31). Some medieval exegetes noted the historical implausibility of Moses referring to the much later epoch of the Israelite monarchy and therefore regarded this passage as a postMosaic interpolation.227 Most, however, found alternative strategies to overcome this difficulty—for example, by positing that Moses was granted knowledge of the distant future through the Holy Spirit, as the Byzantine Karaite exegete Jacob ben Reuben explains.228 Menahem ben Solomon comments on this verse: “ ‘Before any king reigned over the Children of Israel’—. . .until Saul son of Qish reigned over Israel. The sadran listed all of Esau’s descendants together in order to dispense with them and henceforth direct attention exclusively to the history of Israel (lit., ‘to complete the subject of the straw, so as to remove it om the grain’ [Jer. 23:28]).”229 Elbaum argues that Menahem, sensitive to the historical problem, intends to say that a post-Mosaic editor—the sadran—added this verse.230 It seems, though,

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Byzantine Tradition

205

that Menahem did not have such a radical claim in mind. Rather, he was prompted by a literary problem: What is the point of including data about the later kings of Edom in the book of Genesis? In the spirit of his observation that “the manner of the Torah” (derekh ha-torah) is to preserve thematic unity even at the expense of strict chronological ordering, Menahem argues that the biblical narrator completed his discussion of the kings of Edom in Genesis 36 so that they would not have to be mentioned again until the book of Samuel. As for the historical problem—which Menahem does not address—perhaps he assumed that Moses was granted knowledge of the future through the Holy Spirit, just as he was granted knowledge of the Creation in primordial times.231 In emphasizing the possibility that Tobiah and Menahem, following Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia, identified the work of a biblical editor, perhaps even a post-Mosaic one, Brin (and, to a lesser extent, Elbaum) wishes to demonstrate that these medieval authors exhibited the sort of historical-critical sensibilities that would yield “higher criticism” in modern Bible scholarship.232 While such a tendency is evident in Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia in their use of the term ha-sadran, it seems that Tobiah and Menahem remained more firmly within the bounds of traditional rabbinic thought regarding biblical authorship. Within the amework of the “peshat of Scripture,” they used the term ha-sadran to ascribe literary strategies to the narrator of the Pentateuch. The clearest precedent for this usage is Yefet ben Eli’s literary conception of the mudawwin, discussed in Chapter 1. In this respect, then, Yefet’s literary sensibilities—quite remarkably— had a continuation in the twelh-century Rabbanite Byzantine tradition. It is conceivable that Tobiah, and perhaps even Menahem, had some exposure, direct or indirect, to Yefet’s commentaries, which were translated and summarized in Hebrew within the Byzantine Karaite school of their time—for example, by Jacob ben Reuben. Indeed, in the latter’s Sefer ha-‘Osher, the term ha-sofer (lit., “the scribe”) is used to connote the biblical narrator-editor, as Yefet used the term al-mudawwin.233

Conclusions and Open Questions Ibn Ezra disparaged the Byzantine commentaries Leqaḥ Ṭov and Or ‘Einayim as midrashic and superfluous. But the Byzantine school, in fact, advanced a unique construal of the peshat maxim that represents a distinct trajectory within the “grand narrative” of peshat. By the end of the tenth century, a robust philological methodology had emerged within the Rabbanite Byzantine community, as attested most strongly in Reuel’s commentaries and, with an admixture of midrashic exegesis, in the Pentateuch Scholia. To be sure, the level of methodological awareness within this early school—at least, in its extant form—was limited. Its paucity of grammatical terminology is visible by contrast to other schools that had access,

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

206

Chapter 5

even partially, to the Judeo-Arabic linguistic tradition—for example, the Karaites in Byzantium, whose library included translated works of the Karaite Golden Age; and Rashi, who avidly relied upon Menahem and Dunash. Even the talmudic term peshat is not used by Reuel or the Pentateuch Scholia to connote a philological method distinct om midrash—a usage so prominent in Rashi’s school. Conceivably, the early Rabbanite Byzantine exegetes developed their philological methodology under the influence of the Byzantine Karaites, as their usage of the term ha-sadran may suggest. But further research—and perhaps further data—is required to make such an argument definitively. What is clear is that both Reuel and the author of the Pentateuch Scholia were comfortable adopting the non-rabbinic philological mode characteristic of their Karaite neighbors. By the twelh century, that would change. Tobiah ben Eliezer regularly engaged in polemics with the Karaites in Leqaḥ Ṭov. Furthermore, he invoked the peshat maxim not only to ensure the integrity of the literal-contextual sense of Scripture but also to emphasize the importance of midrash—a model followed by his Italian successor Menahem ben Solomon. Nonetheless, in pursuing their (admittedly minor) goal of peshat exegesis, both these twelh-century Rabbanite Byzantine authors adopted the very same literary sensibilities associated with the Karaite notion of the mudawwin/sofer, whom they referred to as the sadran, following Reuel and the Pentateuch Scholia. Indeed, the robust philological approach manifested by Reuel and partially attested in the Pentateuch Scholia seems to have exerted influence within the Byzantine orbit for another two centuries. Although there is a “dark period” in the eleventh century, om which there are no extant written commentaries, the works produced in the first half of the twelh century by Tobiah ben Eliezer, Samuel of Rossano, and Menahem ben Solomon carry on the philological exegetical method. That Byzantine tradition would still be attested in the Bible commentaries of Isaiah of Trani (Italy, c. 1170–c. 1250) and Meyuhas ben Eliyahu (Greece or Turkey, fourteenth century).234 Interest in peshat exegesis within the Byzantine orbit is also reflected in the plethora of supercommentaries on Ibn Ezra’s Pentateuch commentary that had been written by the mid-fourteenth century, as attested by Judah Mosconi.235 There are some indications om twelh-century writings that allow us to conjecture regarding the trajectory of the rule of peshat during the dark period in the eleventh-century Byzantine school. Tobiah ben Eliezer and Menahem ben Solomon both manifest a fairly well-defined conception of philological interpretation, which they term the “peshat of Scripture.” But both cite the peshat maxim in a distinctive way, in order to justi their overwhelming focus on midrash, apparently engaging in a polemic with earlier commentators who did not do so. This may suggest that in the eleventh century, the rule of peshat was used to privilege the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Byzantine Tradition

207

philological method that had been developed earlier in the Byzantine school, as attested in Reuel’s commentary and in the Pentateuch Scholia. On the other hand, Tobiah and Menahem conceivably were vying with Rashi’s commentary, in which the peshat maxim was indeed central. Yet there is good reason to question that possibility in favor of the theory of organic development within the Byzantine school. To begin with, Rashi’s use of the peshat maxim does not imply a diminution of midrash, as demonstrated in Chapter 3. And so, midrashically oriented exegetes such as Tobiah and Menahem should not have felt the need to react polemically against Rashi. More important, as discussed in the current chapter, Rashi does not seem to have exerted a decisive influence upon the early twelh-century Byzantine-Italian exegetes—even if they used his commentaries. In any case, it is instructive to compare the trajectory of the rule of peshat in the Byzantine tradition with its trajectory in Rashi’s school. As detailed in the preceding two chapters, Rashi used the talmudic peshat maxim to justi an incipient philological method still closely tied to midrash. Qara and Rashbam would draw upon the peshat maxim to justi a more radical and refined philological method, honed by their remarkable literary sensibilities. The Byzantine school takes a different turn. Reuel’s commentaries adopt a robust philological method and depart dramatically om midrash, without recourse to the talmudic peshat maxim. In the Byzantine tradition, the philological method was initially applied without using the term peshat or the need for justification om the Talmud—precisely what occurred in the Judeo-Arabic school in the Muslim East, as discussed in Chapter 1. By the twelh century, and perhaps as early as the eleventh, the term peshat and the authority of the talmudic peshat maxim would be firmly attached to the philological method. However, by that point a reversal of attitude toward midrash had emerged in the Byzantine school. This prompted an apologetic use of the peshat maxim to limit the hegemony of peshat and allow for the dominance of midrash, which was considered essential to ascertain the full meaning of Scripture.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Chapter 6

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Abraham Ibn Ezra: Transplanted Andalusian Peshat Model

The dual hermeneutic that preserves the integrity of peshuto shel miqra while still granting interpretive authority to midrash was dominant in the eleventh century (Ibn Janah, Rashi—Chapters 2 and 3), and retained its vigor well into the twelh (Rashbam, Tobiah ben Eliezer, Menahem ben Solomon—Chapters 4 and 5). In effect, then, the hegemony of midrash had not yet been fully challenged. This step would be taken in the middle of the century, with the singular peshat model boldly advanced by Abraham Ibn Ezra (c. 1089–1164).1 He argued that the “way of peshat” reveals the exclusive, original signification of the biblical text, thus relegating midrash to an ancillary status.2 With the advent of Ibn Ezra, the rule of peshat—in the sense of dominion—reaches its zenith. Constructing a historical hierarchy, Ibn Ezra cast the “way of peshat” as a path that leads to the recovery of the original sense of the Bible, its only true signification, which had been occluded by midrash. In some ways, this resembles the Karaite perspective.3 But Ibn Ezra was a staunch Rabbanite, arguing that the “Oral Law” or “tradition” (kabbalah) transmitted by the Rabbis is necessary for understanding how to perform the mitzvot.4 Yet, om an exegetical perspective, where it conflicts with peshuto shel miqra, he asserts that midrash must be regarded as a homiletic exercise or projection onto the biblical text, rather than genuine exegesis. This way of thinking naturally appealed to modern scholars who viewed peshat as the correct, original sense of the Bible and looked askance at midrash. Ibn Ezra’s singular model was perceived as such a natural position for a pashtan to adopt that there seemed to be little reason to probe its complexities or to inquire how the twelh-century exegete arrived at it. I would like to argue that this move was groundbreaking in Ibn Ezra’s medieval intellectual context and that his reasons for making it are rooted in the culture clash that he encountered as an émigré educated in Spain and imbued with Geonic-Andalusian learning, newly exposed to the interpretive tendencies of Jews in Christian lands. To be sure, the Andalusian school produced powerful tools of linguistic analysis, which provided

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Abraham Ibn Ezra

209

the foundation of Ibn Ezra’s “way of peshat.” However, as noted in Chapter 2, the term peshuto shel miqra did not feature prominently in earlier Andalusian exegesis, which drew primarily on Arabic terminology. It was in Rashi’s commentaries— the popularity of which Ibn Ezra encountered at age fi in Italy—that peshuto shel miqra had become central. The argument put forth in this chapter is that the increased prestige of the concept of peshat in his new audience in Christian lands inspired Ibn Ezra to identi it with the Andalusian exegetical method and to go so far as to argue that it alone represents the singular true original intention of Scripture, not merely a valid interpretation alongside midrash.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Biographic and Bibliographic Background Ibn Ezra is believed to have been born in Tudela (in Navarre) before it was conquered by the Christians (in 1119), and it is fairly certain that he spent time in the great centers of learning in Cordoba and Granada.5 In Spain, Ibn Ezra became an accomplished poet, supported by wealthy patrons. He is mentioned, together with Judah ha-Levi, as one of the up-and-coming young poets of the day by Moses Ibn Ezra (evidently not a relation of his) in the latter’s Book of Discussion, composed in the 1130s.6 In 1140, Abraham Ibn Ezra le Spain and spent the rest of his life wandering om town to town in Italy, Provence, France, and England. In Christian Europe, where there was far less interest in Hebrew poetry, patrons commissioned Ibn Ezra to write expository works on Hebrew grammar, mathematics, astronomy, and astrology, as well as Bible commentaries.7 These works brought Andalusian learning, accessible at that time almost exclusively in JudeoArabic, to Jewish readers in Christian Europe, who were accustomed mostly to Talmud study and midrash.8 Some of Ibn Ezra’s astrological works were written in Latin, probably for Christian patrons, with the help of a scribe or a student.9 The Italian Christian Hebraist Nicholas Maniacoria (d. c. 1145), whose writings focus on the basic, literal meaning of the biblical text, seems to have utilized Ibn Ezra’s commentaries.10 Conceivably, Nicolas actually conversed with Ibn Ezra in Rome, where he reports having consulting “a Spanish Jew, learned in the writings of many languages.”11 Ibn Ezra’s Bible commentaries, which became highly influential, are attested in numerous medieval manuscripts, and a cottage industry of supercommentaries on Ibn Ezra’s Bible commentaries sprang up in the Mediterranean basin in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fieenth centuries.12 Extant today are his commentaries on the Pentateuch, Isaiah, the Latter Prophets, the Psalms, Job, the Five Scrolls, and Daniel.13 On a number of biblical books, Ibn Ezra wrote two commentaries (that typically reflect different stages of his career). He completed the first version of his Pentateuch commentary—on all five books—in Italy around 1145. In France in the mid-1150s, he composed a second commentary on Genesis

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

210

Chapter 6

(which evidently he did not complete), as well as a second, lengthier commentary on Exodus.14 Ibn Ezra penned important expository works related to Bible commentary. He translated Judah Hayyuj’s three grammatical works om Arabic into Hebrew in Rome between 1140 and 1142.15 He later penned his own grammatical commentary on the Pentateuch (which extended only until Gen. 15:20), following the model of Hayyuj’s al-Nutaf. In addition to the digressions on theological points in his commentaries and other writings, Ibn Ezra penned Yesod mora we-sod Torah (Foundation of reverence and secret of the Torah), a dedicated theological work guided by a Neoplatonic outlook, in London in 1158 (or 1159).16

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

The “Way of Peshat” Versus the “Way of Derash” Throughout his commentaries, Ibn Ezra emphasizes his adherence to the “way of peshat,” which he characterizes as being “bound by the cords of grammar and validated by the eyes of reason.”17 “Grammar”—the scientific study of Hebrew— and “reason” were both central values in the Andalusian exegetical school, which had reached its zenith by his time. Ibn Ezra openly acknowledges his debt to his predecessors, “elders of the sacred [Hebrew] tongue,” including Saadia, Menahem ben Saruq, Judah Hayyuj, Samuel ha-Nagid, Jonah Ibn Janah, Moses Ibn Chiquitilla, and Judah Ibn Bal‘am.18 Ibn Ezra also absorbed the works of Karaite exegetes, especially Yefet ben Eli. In Christian Europe, however, Ibn Ezra was exposed to commentaries by “the sages in Greek (i.e., Byzantine) and Roman (i.e., western Christian) lands, who do not heed the rules of grammar (lit., ‘the weights of the scales’),19 and rely instead upon the way of derash, such as Leqaḥ Ṭov and Or ‘Einayim.”20 As discussed in Chapter 5, these two Byzantine works—which evidently circulated in the Italian communities where Ibn Ezra resided—predominantly comprised citations om midrash and Talmud. He thus remarks that they are superfluous: “Now being that the midrashim are found in the books of our early Sages, why do these later scholars weary us by writing them a second time?”21 It seems to have been in Christian lands that Ibn Ezra first learned just how popular Rashi’s commentaries had become. Although Rashi set a peshat agenda, his commentaries did not meet this standard in Ibn Ezra’s view, as he remarks: Our early Sages . . . interpreted sections, verses, words, and even letters by way of derash in the Mishnah, Talmud, and Baraitas. Now there is no doubt that they knew the straight path as it is and therefore expressed the rule: “A biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat,” whereas the derash is an added idea (ṭa‘am). But the later generations made derash essential and fundamental, like Rabbi Solomon of blessed memory, who interpreted Scripture by way of derash. He thought that it is by way of

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Abraham Ibn Ezra

211

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

peshat, but the peshat in his writings is less than one in a thousand. Yet the sages of our generation celebrate them.22 Invoking the peshat maxim, Ibn Ezra argues that the Rabbis themselves distinguished between midrash and peshuto shel miqra (by which he means the true original sense of Scripture), and he criticizes Rashi for failing to adhere to this valuation, even though he announced a peshat program as his standard. In fact, Rashi’s popularity seems to have spurred Ibn Ezra to define the features of the “way of peshat,” by contrast with Rashi’s midrashic commentary.23 It is in his critiques of Rashi—both open and implied—that Ibn Ezra expresses, for example, the value he placed on adherence to the immediate literary context as an exegetical criterion. As noted in Chapter 3, he criticized Rashi’s interpretation of Ps. 42:7 that “disconnects it om the context (lit., ‘what comes before and aer it’)” and himself offers an alternative that adheres to “the sense of the [entire] passage” (ṭa‘am ha-parashah), a term he uses regularly.24 And whereas Rashi adopts the atomistic talmudic reading of Deut. 25:6 (in his gloss), Ibn Ezra, as noted in Chapter 1, deems it inconsistent with the “way of peshat.”25 A closely related theme of Ibn Ezra’s “way of peshat” is reflected in his motto “we adhere closely to (lit., ‘pursue,’ ‘chase aer’) Scripture” (aḥar ha-katuv nirdof ), that is, he bases his exegesis on what is stated clearly in the biblical text and avoids additional scenarios posited by the midrash. He uses this expression, for example, when questioning the rabbinic tradition that the Israelites in Egypt were spared miraculously om the plague of blood, since this is not mentioned explicitly in Scripture; only in the plagues of wild beasts, pestilence, and hail does the Bible say that God separated the Israelites om the Egyptians (see Exod. 8:19, 9:4, 9:26).26 Whereas Rashi relied on midrash to elaborate on the rebellious motives of the men of Shinar who built the Tower of Babel, as discussed in Chapter 4, Ibn Ezra relies only on what is written explicitly: “Behold, Scripture revealed their desire and very thoughts, to build a great city to dwell in and to build a tall tower to be a celebrated landmark,” as evident om the words of the tower builders recorded in the narrative, “Come let us build a city, and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered” (Gen. 11:4).27 Recognizing this hallmark of his exegesis, Nahmanides here revives the midrashic approach and disparagingly refers to Ibn Ezra and Radak (who accepted his interpretation) as “those who chase aer (rodefei) the peshat”28—an echo of Ibn Ezra’s pledge, aḥar ha-katuv nirdof. The absence of direct textual evidence, of course, was hardly a deterrent for the midrash to advance a scenario that supplements (at times, even contradicts) what is stated in the Bible explicitly. These scenarios were typically accepted by Rashi but questioned by Ibn Ezra. As discussed in the Introduction, for example,

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

212

Chapter 6

according to a midrash cited by Rashi, Abraham battled four kings aided by Eliezer alone, rather than “318 men” (Gen. 14:14), and the “the man” who encountered Joseph (Gen. 37:15) was actually the angel Gabriel. Ibn Ezra even questions the venerable midrashic tradition that Abraham, early in his life, was saved miraculously om the fiery furnace into which he was cast by Nimrod for his defiance of idolatry. As discussed in Chapter 3, this tradition is accepted by Rashi, Tobiah ben Eliezer, and even by Saadia, based on Gen. 11:28, “And Haran died in ont of his father, Terah, in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.” Whereas the midrash construed ur to mean “fire”—the fiery furnace—Menahem ben Saruq argued that ur means a “valley,” a philological insight that Rashi records, but without questioning the historical validity of the midrash.29 Ibn Ezra raises a doubt about the matter, since “this miracle is not mentioned in Scripture,” although he concludes that “if this is a genuine tradition (qabbalah), we shall accept it as firmly as we accept the words of the Torah itself.”30 In principle, Ibn Ezra accepts the notion of an oral tradition (qabbalah) filling in details not specified in the written Torah.31 Hence, he would submit to rabbinic authority on this matter—if it could be demonstrated that the miracle that occurred to Abraham was indeed received as such a tradition.32 Yet the very question that Ibn Ezra raised irked Nahmanides, who remarks: “Do not let Rabbi Abraham [Ibn Ezra] seduce you with his questions!” and he emphasizes that “the tradition (qabbalah) that the Rabbis received on this matter is the truth.”33 Generally speaking, Ibn Ezra rejected the midrashic assumption that the Bible is a cryptic document, the true meaning of which is not stated openly. In this vein, he criticized the Christians “who say that the entire Torah is made up of riddles (ḥiddot) and allegories (meshalim). . . . For instance, the seven nations of Canaan are a reference to hidden matters placed in the body . . . and also the number of the twelve tribes is a hint to the twelve apostles . . . and all of these are words of nonsense . . . without compare. Rather, the correct approach is to interpret every precept and matter and word as they are written.”34 Ibn Ezra evidently had some exposure to Christian Bible interpretation— perhaps om conversations with Christian patrons of his astrological works written in Latin or with scholars like Nicholas Maniacoria.35 As Ibn Ezra seems to have been aware, the belief that the Bible is written cryptically, as a sort of cipher (“riddles and allegories”) was a necessary foundation of Christian interpretation, which emphasized the Christological “spiritual” or “mystical” senses. For Ibn Ezra, on the other hand, this is a “path of darkness and gloom.”36 Naturally, Ibn Ezra would not entertain the possibility of a Christological reading of the Bible. But om a methodological perspective, as well, this notion was completely foreign to his way of thinking since he adhered to Saadia’s axiom that privileged the apparent sense (ẓāhir) of Scripture, as discussed in Chapter 1.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Abraham Ibn Ezra

213

This methodological perspective was not shared by the midrashically oriented Jews whom Ibn Ezra encountered in Christian Europe. As he records on Ruth 2:17, “she beat out what she gleaned and it was about an eiphah of barley”: “A man once asked me: What is the meaning of ‘about an eiphah of barley’? I said to him: there is no sense to that question, for Scripture simply records what occurred. Whereupon I lost respect in his eyes, and he insisted to me that it does have meaning. Yet I remained silent and did not ask him what it is.”37 Ibn Ezra goes on to record that this man later returned to him with a number of symbolic “meanings” by way of gematria. For this interlocutor, some “instruction” must be derived om every detail of the biblical narrative, a midrashic assumption that Ibn Ezra rejects.38 It was common for the Rabbis to draw inferences om supposed irregularities—unusual words or grammatical forms—in the biblical text, reflecting a belief in the omnisignificance of Scripture. To justi his departure om this traditional midrashic interpretive practice, Ibn Ezra uses the expression “there is no need” (ein ṣorekh), to explain such seeming irregularities, for which simpler explanations can be found.39 For example, addressing the disparity between two references (Jon. 2:1, 2) to the fish that swallowed Jonah, Ibn Ezra comments: “Some say that a female fish (dagah; Jon. 2:2) swallowed a male (dag; Jon. 2:1). However, there is no need (ein ṣorekh) for this explanation, because dagah and dag are both names of the species, just like ṣedeq and ṣedaqah (justice).”40 The elaborate midrashic scenario that one fish swallowed another is recorded by Rashi here. Ibn Ezra, on the other hand, adopted a twelh-century version of Occam’s razor and adhered to a principle of “exegetical economy”—that one must seek the most modest assumptions necessary for filling gaps and resolving exegetical difficulties in the biblical text.41 As noted by Uriel Simon, this value of interpretive economy guides much of Ibn Ezra’s exegesis.42 It even led him to criticize Saadia’s radical reinterpretations of the biblical text (ta’wīl) for the sake of theological or rational propriety (see Chapter 1). Though he shared these extra-textual concerns, Ibn Ezra found more subtle (“economic”) ways of reinterpreting Scripture to resolve rational or theological difficulties posed by the “apparent sense” (ẓāhir). For example, he alleviates the problem caused by the anthropomorphic depictions of God in the Bible by invoking the principle that “Scripture spoke in the language of men,” following an Andalusian strategy that can be traced to Judah ben Quraysh (see Chapter 2)—and rejects Saadia’s more drastic approach, since it does violence to the language of the text. Ibn Ezra thus cites Saadia’s reinterpretation of Gen. 6:6, “God regretted that He created man and was saddened in His heart” in his Tafsīr (“God threatened to punish those that He had made on earth and He brought sadness into their hearts”), but rejects it, arguing that “Scripture spoke in the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

214

Chapter 6

language of men [about God]” and imaginatively depicts Him as if He were human.43 The poetic outlook of Ibn Ezra’s Andalusian heritage enabled him to offer a peshat alternative to Rashi’s midrashic readings based on seeming redundancies in the Bible. In such cases, Ibn Ezra is guided by the principle exegetical economy, which counterbalances Rashi’s adherence to the omnisignificance doctrine. As James Kugel writes, “Rashi feels the necessity, just as the Rabbis had, to explain any form of repetition or other apparently superfluous usages—and to explain them not as a feature of rhetoric, but as signiing something.”44 For example, on Ps. 1:2, “the Torah of the Lord is his delight, and in His Torah he meditates day and night,” Rashi comments: “ ‘In His Torah he meditates’—First it is called ‘the Torah of the Lord,’ but aer he worked to study it, it is called ‘his Torah.’ ”45 This comment is drawn om the Talmud (b.‘Avodah Zarah 19a) and is based on the redundancy in this verse, as implicitly noted by Ibn Ezra: “ ‘In His Torah he meditates’—now it did not say more concisely ‘and in it he meditates.’ Yet this is simply the way of literary elegance (ṣaḥot),46 as, for example, we find the word ‘Israel’ five times in one verse (Num. 8:19).”47 Whereas Rashi had ascribed a special meaning to the seemingly superfluous expression “his Torah,” Ibn Ezra argues that such redundancies are commonly employed in the Bible for the sake of literary beauty—and have no further expressive value.48 In this vein, Ibn Ezra treats “synonymous parallelism”: two brief clauses in a single verse that repeat the same idea in different words, as discussed in Chapter 4 in connection with Rashbam. Whereas the midrash—followed by Rashi—oen aimed to distinguish between such clauses, Ibn Ezra, like Rashbam, recognized this form as a biblical literary convention. For example, on Deut. 32:7, “Ask your father, and he will inform you / Your elders, they will tell you,” Rashi comments: “Ask your father, and he will inform you—these are the prophets, who are called ‘fathers,’ as it says about Elijah, ‘My father, my father!’ (2 Kings 2:12) . . . Your elders—these are the Sages.”49 Ibn Ezra, on the other hand, comments: “Your elders—the idea is doubled (ha-ṭa‘am kaful), for this is the way of elegance (ṣaḥot).”50 Elsewhere, Ibn Ezra notes that this style is typical: “the idea is doubled (ha-ṭa‘am kaful), in accordance with the custom of Scripture, for its normal practice is to express the same idea (ṭa‘am) in different words (millot).”51 Ibn Ezra’s tendency to view redundancies and seeming irregularities in the biblical text in terms of literary convention and embellishment can be traced directly to earlier Andalusian authors. As discussed in Chapter 2, synonymous parallelism was identified by Menahem ben Saruq, and other forms of parallelism were described in detail by Moses Ibn Ezra. Ibn Janah treats parallelism within the broader amework of the many words in Scripture deployed merely for emphasis or for the sake of literary elegance, which he terms faṣāḥa (a cognate of Hebrew ṣaḥot) and balāgha.52

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Abraham Ibn Ezra

215

Ibn Ezra understood well that the Andalusian notion that words deployed for embellishment—in Scripture or in any literary text—are otherwise meaningless depends on a formalist, ornamentalist theory of poetics that views the aesthetic dimension of language in isolation om its expressive one. He articulates this conception in a discussion of the unique human ability to use language, where he comments that man must not pride himself on the ability to “speak with eloquence (ṣaḥot), for words are essentially nothing more than signs that indicate ideas. Hence, knowledge of language (da‘at ha-lashon) is not an inherently important discipline, as it is only a means to make another person understand something.”53 For Ibn Ezra, the function of language is to convey ideas; its embellishment is ancillary. This reflects a theory of language that separates form om content. Indeed, in Arabic poetics, lafẓ, the language expression or formulation, was deemed incidental to ma‘na, the idea it expresses.54 On this view, the same content might be expressed in different ways, more or less elegant, concise or verbose. Moses Ibn Ezra, writing in Arabic, had invoked this dichotomy in his poetics when describing the composition of prophetic literature: “The idea (ma‘na) is the spirit and the wording (lafẓ) the body. . . . A prophet must convey his message with words that make it penetrate the mind of his audience, though these might be different om the wording that he heard, but what must not change is the idea.”55 This dichotomy underlies Abraham Ibn Ezra’s characterization and analysis of “synonymous parallelism”—that the usual convention of Scripture “is to express the same idea (ṭa‘am) in different words (millot).”56 The notion that the wording (Ar., lafẓ; Heb., millot) is incidental to the content or idea (Ar., ma‘na; Heb., ṭa‘am) is the foundation upon which Ibn Ezra makes the assertion that the very same idea can be expressed in different words. Moses Ibn Ezra’s bold statement about the eedom granted to the prophet in conveying his prophecy was taken to a new level by Abraham Ibn Ezra in a defense of Saadia’s assessment of the relative literary merit of the various biblical prophets. Saadia had praised Isaiah’s style as being superior to that of all other prophets, whereupon he was criticized by Dunash ben Labrat, who argued that such comparative literary ranks are irrelevant since the entire Bible is God’s word.57 Coming to Saadia’s defense, Abraham Ibn Ezra remarks: “God introduces (lit., ‘creates’) ideas—which are like the spirits conveyed by the words—and images into the soul of the prophet. The prophet then articulates the meanings in accordance with the ability he received originally om God [at the time of his consecration], as well as his own nature and training.”58 According to Uriel Simon and Eran Viezel, Ibn Ezra here discounts the possibility that the biblical prophets ever received a verbal revelation om God.59 The singular exception to this rule is the Ten Commandments, which were the direct words of God to the entire people of Israel.60 As noted in Chapter 1, the Brethren

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

216

Chapter 6

of Purity (a source of influence on Ibn Ezra’s thought)61 maintained that the prophets received only a general message om God through “revelation” (waḥy) but that its formulation—its composition as a text (tadwīn)—was the responsibility of each individual prophet.62 It would seem that Ibn Ezra accepts this view— even with respect to the Pentateuch, generally believed to have been received by Moses om God. As discussed in Chapter 1, Qirqisani and Yefet explicitly referred to Moses as the mudawwin of the Pentateuch—the one responsible for its composition (tadwīn) and whose voice relates the narrative. Although Ibn Ezra does not use that term or any obvious Hebrew equivalent for it (such as sadran, mesadder, or sofer),63 in a handful of cases he does refer to Moses by name as the narrator of the Pentateuch, implicitly observing his function as the mudawwin.64 For example, on Gen. 6:7, “And Lord said in His heart: I will blot out om the earth the men whom I have created,” Ibn Ezra remarks: “Now these are the words of Moses, for it was only later that this secret was revealed to Noah, when he was told: ‘I have decided to put an end to all flesh’ (Gen. 6:13).”65 Likewise, on Num. 13:23, “And they came unto Wadi Eshkol, and there they cut down a branch with a single cluster (eshkol) of grapes,” Ibn Ezra remarks: “unto Wadi Eshkol—These are the words of Moses,” an echo of Yefet’s gloss that this is “the utterance of the mudawwin.”66 In these and other cases, Ibn Ezra distinguishes between the perspective of the characters in the story and the narrative voice of Moses, who was privileged with information inaccessible to them.67 As mentioned in Chapter 1, Haggai Ben-Shammai and Marzena Zawanowska argue that in casting Moses as the mudawwin of the Pentateuch, Yefet and Qirqisani indicate their belief that he was responsible for the formulation and arrangement of the biblical narrative, and did not simply receive it passively om God. Eran Viezel, on the other hand, maintains that there is insufficient evidence to draw the conclusion that Qirqisani or Yefet doubted the traditional view that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch om God’s dictation. In the case of Ibn Ezra, there is more room to apply the former interpretation—as Viezel notes.68 To begin with, Ibn Ezra’s statement in defense of Saadia that God implants only ideas and images into the mind of the prophet would appear to be categorical, and Ibn Ezra does not make an exception in the case of Moses—as Maimonides, followed by Radak, for example, would do.69 More fundamentally, the dichotomy that Abraham Ibn Ezra generally made between the ideas and their wording diminishes the importance of the precise formulation of Scripture—even of the Pentateuch. As already mentioned, the Talmud establishes, as a principle of faith, that the entire Torah is “om the Almighty” and that it is heretical to believe that Moses wrote even one verse of the Pentateuch “on his own.”70 Ibn Ezra’s form–content dichotomy allows him to avoid entering the domain of this heresy. According to Ibn Ezra, if God supplied

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Abraham Ibn Ezra

217

just the content of the Pentateuch, then indeed Moses did not write any of it “on his own,” even if he was the one responsible for its formulation—since, in any case, the formulation is purely incidental. Ibn Ezra makes this clear in the course of explaining the differences between the Ten Commandments in Exod. 20:2–13 and Deut. 5:6–17. He begins with a general statement about the workings of language, saying that it is typical of speakers to “vary their diction, sometimes speaking at length, at other times in brief words (millot), which is fine as long as the listener can understand their meaning (ṭa‘am).” He continues: “You must know that the words are like bodies and the meanings are like spirits. Now the body is merely a receptacle for the spirit. Therefore, all wise men in all languages typically preserve only the meaning (ṭa‘am), and have no misgivings about changing the words (millot), since they are identical in their meaning.”71 Accordingly, Ibn Ezra can assert that “this is what Moses did, for the Ten Commandments in this passage (Exod. 20:2–13) are the exact words of God, without addition or abbreviation . . . whereas the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy are the words of Moses.”72 Since Moses obviously had no intention of altering God’s words essentially, the slight changes of formulation between the two versions must be deemed inconsequential. Ibn Ezra thus cautions his reader: “Do not pay attention to the words (millot), because they are merely like bodies, while the meanings (ṭe‘amim) are like the spirits.73 Now cutting with two tools that have the same function is the same activity.”74 According to Ibn Ezra, one must not scrutinize the precise wording of Scripture—even in the Pentateuch. The content of Scripture alone is divine; but theoretically, it can be expressed equally in different formulations. Given this sharp dichotomy, it is understandable that Ibn Ezra could maintain that the task of Moses, like that of any prophet, was to articulate the divine message he received through revelation as a more abstract idea.75 In doing so faithfully, Moses was conveying the entire Torah “om the Almighty,” with not one verse being said “on his own.” Ibn Ezra’s argument that the formulation of the Pentateuch, and Scripture in general, is incidental to its content is based on his observations about the typical practice of “all wise men in all languages,” including Moses and the other biblical prophets. This, of course, is a departure om midrash, which is predicated on the notion that Scripture is a divine document essentially different om human ones and that therefore every nuance of its formulation—every word and every letter—bears inherent meaning. Ibn Ezra, on the other hand, aimed to reveal the essential content (ṭe‘amim) of Scripture without speculating about the incidental connotations of its exact words (millot). As he explains regarding the two formulations of the fourth Commandment, “Remember (zakhor) the Sabbath” (Exod. 20:8) / “Observe (shamor) the Sabbath” (Deut. 5:11): “The meaning

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

218

Chapter 6

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

(ṭa‘am) of ‘Remember’ is that one should remember every day which day of the week it is . . . in order to sancti the seventh day, by not performing labor on it. Hence, the meaning of ‘remembering’ is “to observe.” Thus, when God said, ‘Remember,’ all the listeners understood that the meaning is: “observe,” as if they were said at one time.”76 Ibn Ezra here undercuts a celebrated rabbinic distinction between two separate aspects of the Sabbath. According to the Talmud, to “observe” the Sabbath means to reain om doing labor, whereas to “remember” the Sabbath means to sancti it verbally, by reciting the qiddush.77 Ibn Ezra argues that this overly specific analysis is merely an asmakhta.78 Ibn Ezra’s divergence om the Rabbis’ interpretation of “Remember the Sabbath day” rankled Nahmanides, who attributed his Andalusian predecessor’s view to a lack of talmudic erudition.79 Nahmanides could not dispute Ibn Ezra’s observation that most of the discrepancies between the two versions of the Ten Commandments are inconsequential.80 But Ibn Ezra’s wholesale rejection of the midrashic doctrine of omnisignificance—and the implication that the Bible must be interpreted just as one would interpret a human document—was problematic for Nahmanides, who reasserted the traditional notion that the formulation of the Pentateuch is indeed divine and that Moses was merely a passive scribe. As Nahmanides writes in his introduction to Genesis: Moses our Master wrote this book of Genesis together with the whole Torah om the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He. . . . It thus would have been proper for him to write . . . “And God spoke to Moses all of these words, saying.” The reason it was written anonymously is that Moses our Master did not write the Torah in the first person like the prophets who did mention themselves . . . since he wrote the history of all former generations as well as his own genealogy, history, and experiences in the third person . . . like a scribe copying om an ancient book. Therefore he adopted an anonymous style of writing. One thing is clear, though: the entire Torah . . . reached the ear of Moses om the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, as said elsewhere, “He pronounced all these words onto me with His mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book.” (Jer. 36:18)81 Ibn Ezra does not state explicitly that Moses was responsible for the formulation of the Pentateuch; but this conclusion seems reasonable om his assertions about its language, which he equates with the way “all wise men in all languages” speak. Nahmanides, by contrast, emphasizes the divine authorship of the Pentateuch, a text to which he accords mystical status—as discussed in Chapter 8. As part of his argument that Scripture must be analyzed according to the conventions of human writing, Ibn Ezra records with chagrin that “people nowadays

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Abraham Ibn Ezra

219

seek a meaning for full and defective spellings,” that is, addition or omission of matres lectionis (lit., “mothers of reading”; optional letters to assist proper pronunciation).82 Ibn Ezra here takes aim at the midrashic endeavor to ascribe meaning to the variations in the spelling of words in Scripture, which he dismisses as derash.83 Aer all, he reasons, when a normal person writes a note in Hebrew, he does not typically concern himself with consistency in spelling, as variant forms are equally legitimate.84 From a rational standpoint, it was difficult for Nahmanides to counter this argument. However, the notion that Scripture is comparable to human writing was objectionable to him. Perhaps for this reason, Nahmanides found a way—through a mystical concept—to ascribe significance to every single letter in Scripture, including matres lectionis, as discussed in Chapter 8. Whereas Ibn Ezra’s rejection of rabbinic interpretive methods was thoroughgoing, he adopted a varied approach to the traditional views regarding biblical authorship—challenging some but accepting others. He daringly hints to a small number of post-Mosaic additions to the Pentateuch, a view that was radical even in al-Andalus.85 On the other hand, he retreats om other critical approaches advanced by his Andalusian predecessors. From Ibn Ezra’s citations, we know Ibn Chiquitilla’s radical view that many of the Psalms—a collection traditionally ascribed to King David86—were actually written by much later authors, as suggested by events depicted therein—for example, the destruction of the Temple (Psalm 79), the Babylonian exile (Psalm 137), and the return to Zion (Psalm 126).87 Ibn Ezra cites Ibn Chiquitilla’s views with respect but maintains the traditionally held view regarding the Psalms’ Davidic authorship.88 He explains that the “Holy Spirit” enabled King David to see future events prophetically and speak as if he were living at those later times.89 Elsewhere, however, Ibn Ezra adopts Ibn Chiquitilla’s rationalist-historical outlook—for example, in positing (albeit in enigmatic language) that Isaiah 40–66 was written by a later prophet during the Babylonian exile.90

The “Straight Path” It would appear that when Ibn Ezra was in France in the 1150s, he became aware of the mature manifestation of the peshat method that emerged in Rashi’s school.91 Rashi and Rashbam engaged in peshat exegesis as a supplement to midrash, which Rashbam characterized as the “essence of Torah” (‘iqqarah shel Torah).92 Ibn Ezra would have been familiar with this sort of strategy om his own Andalusian heritage, as Ibn Janah sidestepped midrash by positing that “the peshat of the verse is one thing, the halakhah another.” Whereas Rashi, Rashbam—and Ibn Janah before them—adhered to a dual hermeneutic that allows for the coexistence of peshat and midrash as genuine interpretive methods, Ibn Ezra advanced a singular hermeneutic, within which the “way of peshat” reveals the exclusive meaning of

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

220

Chapter 6

the biblical text. As evident om his programmatic statements discussed above, this is precisely how he construed the talmudic peshat maxim. In Ibn Ezra’s view, the rule that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat” teaches that peshat is the only genuine sense of the biblical text. It alone carries the authority of the word of God, and it is His intentions that Ibn Ezra aims to recover in his “way of peshat.” The “way of peshat” is the “straight path,” by contrast with derash, which is merely an “added idea,” and for Ibn Ezra it was thus scandalous that the misguided commentators of his day made midrash “essential and fundamental.”93 Elsewhere, Ibn Ezra clarifies the theoretical assumption underlying his construal of the rule of peshat: “The words of any author, whether a prophet or a sage, have but one meaning (ṭa‘am), although those with great wisdom (lit., ‘broadhearted’; i.e., the Rabbis) augment this and infer one thing om another thing . . . at times by way of derash or by way of asmakhta. About this, the early Sages, of blessed memory, said: ‘A biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.’ ”94 While giving credit to the Sages for ingenuity in drawing inferences om the biblical text, he insists that the “way of peshat” alone conveys its single true meaning. Ibn Ezra here reveals his fundamental axiom that any text, as a rule, conveys but a single meaning, which he identifies as the intention of the author. In applying this rule to all of Scripture categorically, he seems once again to indicate that even the Pentateuch was formulated by a human author—Moses—whose work should be judged by the standard of “the words of any author . . . prophet or sage.” In making this analogy, Ibn Ezra undercuts the fundamental axiom of midrash as traditionally understood—that Scripture bears multiple meanings and that the interpreter must therefore delve beneath the surface layer of the text to discern them.95 The clearest precedent for Ibn Ezra’s assertion of the singularity of scriptural signification is in the writings of Daniel al-Qumisi,96 though it is not clear if Ibn Ezra had access to them. Yet Ibn Ezra emphasizes his allegiance to the Rabbis by arguing that “they knew the peshat better than any of the later generations did”97 and even recognized its primacy: The midrashim of our righteous early Sages . . . are founded upon truth and firmly cast in knowledge, and all their words are like gold and silver purified sevenfold. But their midrashim are of many types. Some are riddles, mysteries, and allegories . . . some are homilies intended to revive exhausted hearts . . . and some aim to bring faith to those who falter or to educate the ignorant. Hence the actual meanings of the verses are like bodies, whereas the midrashim are like clothing on the body, some fine as silk, others thick as sackcloths. The way of peshat is the body. . . . They, the Sages, thus said that “Scripture is according to its peshat” (ha-miqra ki-peshuto).98

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Abraham Ibn Ezra

221

Echoing a critical attitude that can be traced to the geonim, Ibn Ezra argues that midrash was not necessarily intended to be taken literally, nor was it always formulated as genuine exegesis. In other words, the Rabbis regarded midrash as a supplement to the essential meaning of Scripture: peshat. Rabbinic literature, Ibn Ezra notes, contains peshat interpretations that reveal the true intent of Scripture like tight-fitting silk garments; but many midrashim conceal its true meaning, just as thick sackcloth hides the features of the body beneath. For Ibn Ezra, peshat alone represents the true meaning of Scripture, a doctrine he expresses here with the motto “Scripture is according to its peshat”—an adaptation of the talmudic peshat maxim that reveals how he construed it.99 Ibn Ezra makes a similar point, albeit less poetically, in Yesod Mora, where he writes, regarding rabbinic literature: “At times, the Sages find a clear prooext in the Pentateuch for a given law. But at other times, they rely on the way of derash, or asmakhta. And one who has a mind (lit., ‘heart’) will discern when they say peshat and when they say derash.”100 He thus emphasizes that even a talmudist must know the Bible, so that when a verse is cited in the Talmud, he will know “if it is by way of peshat or derash or merely an asmakhta, for in their great wisdom and sharp analysis the Sages deduce one thing om another. But they knew the peshat better than any of the later generations did.”101 This insistence that the Rabbis “knew the peshat” stands in stark opposition to Rashbam’s view that Rashi—and his followers—were innovators in developing the peshat method, in readings that “newly emerge every day” (see Chapter 4). Rashbam seems to be correct, historically speaking, in viewing peshat as a medieval innovation and departure om rabbinic interpretation. Ibn Ezra felt compelled to make the tenuous claim that peshat reflects the Rabbis’ understanding of Scripture—even though their exegesis is virtually entirely midrashic.102 His need to do so is a function of his bold new construal of the peshat maxim: since Ibn Ezra regarded peshuto shel miqra as the exclusive signification of the biblical text, he could not entertain the possibility that the Rabbis were unaware of it. By contrast, Rashbam regarded peshuto shel miqra as an ancillary aspect of the Bible, the essence of which is revealed through midrash. Although Ibn Ezra’s exegetical methods derive om his Geonic-Andalusian heritage, two novel aspects of his theoretical interpretive model require explanation. His construal of the maxim that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat” departed om earlier ones that circulated in al-Andalus. Furthermore, the very centrality of the concept of peshat within his exegetical system represents a substantial innovation, since the term did not play a key role in the earlier Geonic-Andalusian tradition, as mentioned in Chapters 1 and 2. To assess these innovations, it is helpful to chart the trajectory of the construal of the peshat maxim leading up to that of Ibn Ezra:

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

222

Chapter 6

(1) A weak reading of the maxim advanced by Samuel ben Hofni (Chapter 1) was still current in al-Andalus (Chapter 2): Scripture must be taken literally (according to its ẓāhir), unless there is a compelling reason to interpret it by way of ta’wīl, that is, nonliterally. On this reading, peshuto shel miqra, the literal sense (ẓāhir), is a default position, which must be deemed incorrect where ta’wīl is indicated. (2) Ibn Janah advanced a strong reading of the maxim (Chapter 2): peshuto shel miqra, the philological-contextual interpretation, always retains legitimacy, even in the face of an opposing—and authoritative—rabbinic halakhic interpretation. This construal, which allows for a dual hermeneutic, that peshat and midrash represent two coexisting, independent layers of scriptural signification, was adopted by Rashi, Rashbam, and the Byzantine-Italian commentators Tobiah ben Eliezer and Menahem ben Solomon (Chapters 3, 4, 5).

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

(3) Ibn Ezra, by contrast, advanced a very strong reading—“Scripture never leaves the realm of its peshat” means that peshat is its only genuine interpretation, no matter what other “readings” might be projected onto it by way of derash. For Ibn Ezra, peshat represents the “straight path” of interpretation, “the essence” (of Scripture), the “truth.”103 Midrash is merely “an added idea,” “inference,” or asmakhta.104 What made Ibn Ezra place such unprecedented emphasis on peshuto shel miqra? Perhaps more than any earlier Jewish interpreter, Ibn Ezra manifests keen awareness of alternative interpretive methods competing with his own, as evident in his detailed methodological introduction to the Pentateuch—both the “standard” and “alternate” versions105—where he asserts the superiority of his method, rooted in the Andalusian tradition, over four others: Christian, Karaite, geonic, and midrashic.106 To illustrate their relative value, Ibn Ezra uses a geometric analogy: “the truth” (ha-emet)—a reference to peshat, as he saw it—“is like the point at the center of the circle,”107 with the other methods closer or further om it. The logic of this metaphor would dictate that Ibn Ezra begin outside the circle (with the least cogent methods) and work his way inward until reaching the “truth” that is the point at the center.108 Indeed, in his later version of the introduction, he first addresses Christian interpretation, which, in his view, lies “outside the circumference of the circle”109 because it is based on the presumption that Scripture is all “riddles (ḥiddot) and allegories (meshalim).”110 While he could easily dismiss Christian interpretation, Ibn Ezra was hard-pressed to challenge Karaite commentators, whose work he utilized avidly. He thus remarks that “sometimes they are on the point, sometimes around it, and sometimes outside

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Abraham Ibn Ezra

223

of the circumference.”111 He ankly admits that their analysis is oen on target. His debate with the “path of the Sadducees,” that is, the Karaites,112 relates to the authority of “the transmitters of the tradition . . . our fathers upon whose authority we rely,” as “we received the Oral Law om their mouth.” Ibn Ezra reasons that “if the Oral Law is unreliable, then there is no remedy for the Written Law, for there is no miṣwah that is explained adequately in the Holy Torah.”113 Ibn Ezra’s critique of the geonim—among whom he names Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni—is quite mild. “Sometimes they hit upon the point at the center, but sometimes they circle it on the circumference.”114 Ibn Ezra recognized that geonic exegesis had provided the foundation for the Andalusian method. Yet, as he goes on to explain, the geonim obscured the distinct discipline of biblical exegesis by incorporating superfluous theological, philosophical, and scientific discussions into their commentaries.115 Ibn Ezra, by contrast, implicitly characterizes his commentary as a disciplined interpretive work that includes such digressions only when necessary for understanding the biblical text.116 In the early version of his introduction, Ibn Ezra expresses the above-cited harsh critique of contemporary authors “in Greek and Roman lands” who adopted midrashic methods because they were ignorant of Hebrew grammar (see n. 20 ). In the later version, written aer he had spent over a decade among Jews in Christian lands, he introduces the critique more gently, expressing respect for the “path paved by our elders, the one recorded in our Talmud.”117 As he continues: “They are on the point itself and also around it. . . . For sometimes they interpret Scripture correctly according to its peshat, though at other times they engage in derash.”118 By contrast, the “fih way”—Ibn Ezra’s own method—adheres consistently to the “way of peshat,” which he identifies with the “truth.”119 While Ibn Ezra’s exegetical methods derive almost entirely om his Andalusian heritage, he cast his hermeneutical model in a new way in Christian Europe, one that reflects his engagement with the other four interpretive streams he mentions in his introduction. In the Andalusian school, the term peshat was rarely used; but Ibn Ezra made it the centerpiece of his exegesis. Ironically, it appears that Rashi’s stated peshat agenda seems to have made a substantial impact on Ibn Ezra in this regard. Though he dismissed Rashi’s exegesis as derash (n. 22), he absorbed om his northern French predecessor the valuation of peshuto shel miqra. Later developments in Rashi’s school, coupled with Ibn Ezra’s observation regarding the popularity of Rashi’s purported peshat commentaries, point to the new prestige of peshuto shel miqra among Jewish audiences in Christian Europe. Ibn Ezra could capitalize on this prestige by claiming it for his own exegesis—guided by the Andalusian method. This move on Ibn Ezra’s part is illuminated by a parallel development in late medieval Christian hermeneutics. There is no question of influence here, because this Christian parallel occurred much later; it is simply instructive to compare the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

224

Chapter 6

ultimate reach of a similar new methodology with controversial roots within the two faith traditions. Though traditionally denigrated in Christianity as “external” or “superficial,” by contrast with the Bible’s inner, “spiritual sense,” the literal sense ultimately came to occupy a more central position in Latin learning in the late Middle Ages.120 Thomas Aquinas argued that only om the literal sense could a logical argument be made, but not om the spiritual senses.121 As Alfonso de Madrigal (c. 1400–1455) would expound, for Saint Thomas the literal sense “is the only sense of Scripture that is at once immediate and determinate, capable of verification, fulfillment and affording proof in argument.”122 Accordingly, the literal sense enjoyed a new, and higher, valuation. As Alastair Minnis puts it, the sensus litteralis was “the intellectually fashionable place to be,” as it “had come to be associated with logical rigor, historical accuracy, and . . . with secure textual transmission. The category bespoke prestige, inspired confidence.”123 The emphasis that Rashi placed on peshuto shel miqra—at least, in his programmatic statements—likewise increased its valuation among learned Jewish audiences in Christian lands. This would explain why Ibn Ezra, in this new milieu, aligned the exegetical achievements of his Andalusian heritage with the “way of peshat.” What still must be explained is how Ibn Ezra arrived at his “very strong” construal of the peshat maxim to argue that peshuto shel miqra represents the sole signification of Scripture. Aer all, this was not the approach taken by Ibn Janah—an Andalusian predecessor whom Ibn Ezra otherwise would have regarded as a precedent for identiing his exegesis as peshuto shel miqra. In this respect, Ibn Ezra was drawing upon the older geonic model still respected in al-Andalus. Rejecting Ibn Janah’s bifurcated peshat-derash mapping of Bible exegesis, Ibn Ezra adopted the geonic endeavor to produce a single interpretive result that harmonized all forms of knowledge. Rendering Saadia’s axiom in Hebrew, he writes: “I shall tell you a fundamental principle: if we find something in Scripture, Mishnah, any talmudic tractate or midrashic work, that contradicts one of three things, (1) sound reason, (2) another verse, or (3) transmitted rabbinic tradition, then we must adjust (le-taqqen; lit., ‘repair’) it . . . through figurative (mashal) interpretation or by adding a letter or word, according to the conventions of our language.”124 Following Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni, Ibn Ezra asserts that a correct interpretation of any verse must take into account the immediate and broader biblical context, as well as reason and tradition. Unlike Ibn Janah, the geonim felt compelled to address the disparity between the literal sense of a verse and the rabbinic halakhic tradition, at times embracing the latter at the expense of the former to arrive at (what they regarded as) the single correct sense of the biblical text. In rendering Saadia’s axiom in Hebrew, Ibn Ezra had to work out important linguistic correspondences. In the above-cited passage, he replaced Arabic majāz with Hebrew mashal, which was perhaps already an established convention.125 For ta’wīl, he seems to have been more original in coining the Hebrew equivalent

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Abraham Ibn Ezra

225

tiqqun, to “repair” the disruption caused by the literal sense through nonliteral interpretation.126 The most important terminological shi advanced by Ibn Ezra occurs in the semantic field of the term peshuto shel miqra, which Samuel ben Hofni—followed in al-Andalus by Samuel ha-Nagid and Isaac Ibn Barun—had equated with ẓāhir al-naṣṣ. Accordingly, peshuto shel miqra in their lexicon was the “obvious” or literal sense, a default position to be adjusted as necessary, and the talmudic peshat maxim was a rule made to be broken. Ibn Ezra, on the other hand, used the term ke-mashma‘o (according to its literal sense; lit., “as it sounds”) as an equivalent of ‘alā ẓāhirihi (according to its obvious sense),127 especially where the literal sense is untenable. As he remarks: “If we find a text in the Torah that reason does not tolerate, then we shall add or adjust (netaqqen) according to our ability by way of the rules of language. . . . And even in the commandments we shall do thus, if the matter in its literal sense (ke-mashma‘o) is impossible. For example, ‘Circumcise the foreskin of your heart’ (Deut. 10:16).”128 Ibn Ezra does not refer to the literal sense in such a case as peshuto shel miqra because it turns out to be an incorrect reading. Ibn Ezra’s “way of peshat” dictates the need for a figurative reading in order to harmonize the biblical text with reason and tradition. In his lexicon, the term peshuto shel miqra was thus reserved to connote the final product of the exegetical process—the methodologically correct interpretation that takes all relevant factors into consideration, not necessarily the “literal” sense. This paved the path for Ibn Ezra’s very strong reading of the peshat maxim, in which peshuto shel miqra represents the sole signification of Scripture. In sum, it might be said that Ibn Ezra arrived at his hermeneutical model by graing components om three interpretive streams: his analytic orientation derives om the Andalusian school, represented by Ibn Janah and his followers, as they provided him with a powerful exegetical toolbox to unlock the language and syntax of the biblical text; but the consistent characterization of the Andalusian method as the “way of peshat” would seem to reflect the prestige that this hermeneutical category had acquired in Christian lands—under the influence of Rashi; and the singularity of Ibn Ezra’s peshat model can be traced to the influence of geonic interpretation on his thought.

Peshat and the Halakhah The distinctive features of Ibn Ezra’s very strong reading of the peshat maxim emerge in his complex treatment of the halakhic sections of the Pentateuch, which allows us to discern his motives for adopting it—and rejecting the bifurcated hermeneutical model. In broad strokes, one can say that Ibn Ezra formulated his singular peshat model—and the unique approach to halakhic exegesis that it implies—to combat two other approaches that he found objectionable: the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

226

Chapter 6

Karaite approach, which he knew om his early education; and the dual hermeneutic of Rashbam, which he evidently came to know in Christian lands.129 Ibn Ezra’s polemical motives have been considered extensively in recent scholarship.130 Our chief goal in this study is to explore the resulting hermeneutical moves made by Ibn Ezra and to define their place within the trajectory of the rule of peshat. The impact of the Karaite threat on Ibn Ezra is evident in his introduction to the Pentateuch. There, aer boldly asserting that he will normally pursue an independent philological method (“in Torah, I shall not show favoritism,” i.e., to earlier authorities), Ibn Ezra prominently makes an exception in halakhic exegesis: “However, with respect to the laws, statutes, and decrees, if we find two interpretations for the verses, and one interpretation is according to the words of the transmitters of tradition, who were all righteous, then we shall undoubtedly rely on their true words confidently. And heaven forbid that we should join the Sadducees (Karaites), who say that their tradition contradicts Scripture and grammar. But our early Sages spoke correctly, and all their words are true.”131 In the case of an apparent contradiction between an independent grammatical analysis of the biblical text and the halakhic interpretation of the Rabbis, Ibn Ezra defers to the latter. There was, of course, the alternative advanced by Ibn Janah that “the peshat of the verse is one thing, the halakhah another,” which Ibn Ezra would have known om his youth in al-Andalus. Rashbam essentially adopted this view, as Ibn Ezra came to learn.132 This approach was rejected by Ibn Ezra, since, in his thinking, it was inconceivable that the halakhah could be at odds with peshuto shel miqra—the direct expression of God’s will in Scripture. In fact, upon learning of Rashbam’s analysis of Gen. 1:5, which contradicts the halakhic parameters of Sabbath observance as defined in the Talmud, Ibn Ezra composed a special treatise, “The Epistle of the Sabbath,” to refute it.133 Yet Ibn Ezra’s promise to take the halakhah into account in his interpretation by no means implies an endorsement of midrashic exegesis. His endeavor to reconcile peshuto shel miqra with rabbinic halakhic traditions is complex—a reflection of the challenges that Saadia before him had encountered in this area, which were compounded by the subsequent advances in philological exegesis in alAndalus. In reformulating Saadia’s fundamental axiom, Ibn Ezra emphasizes that the project of harmonizing Scripture with rabbinic traditions is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways, since rabbinic literature is also subject to reinterpretation where it conflicts with reason.134 Accordingly, he offers the following elaboration on the fourth part of the axiom, that ta’wīl is necessitated by a contradiction between the literal sense of Scripture and traditions of the Rabbis: “And this is what we shall do if we find in the tradition (kabbalah) something that contradicts Scripture. We shall determine which one is correct, and we shall adjust (netaqqen) the other that stands against it, for there are known places where the Rabbis engaged

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Abraham Ibn Ezra

227

in derash merely as a reminder (zekher) and asmakhta, although they knew the peshat.”135 The last segment of this passage—appearing in the late (French) recension of his introduction to the Pentateuch—was taken om the early (Italian) recension of his commentary on Exod. 21:8, where Ibn Ezra established the following rule:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Our Sages would oen use a scriptural verse as an asmakhta, though they knew the essence (‘iqqar, the true meaning of the verse).136 For example, “and he shall inherit it (otah; can also mean ‘her’)” (Num. 27:11), for it was known through tradition that a man inherits his wife’s possessions, and they interpreted this verse midrashically to serve as a sort of reminder (zekher). Now . . . everyone knows the meaning of the verse, and the peshat is according to its literal sense (mashma‘) . . . to which they added a meaning (or: idea; ṭa‘am) by way of tradition.137 Emphasizing that the Rabbis were well aware of the “essence” of Scripture, peshuto shel miqra, Ibn Ezra goes on to cite his stock example of the asmakhta principle, which relates to the talmudic comment “He shall inherit otah (it/her)—this teaches that the husband inherits his wife’s possessions” (b.Bava Batra 111b).138 The implausibility of such a reading is evident when one views this clause in the context of the entire verse: “And if his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance (naḥalato) to his kinsman who is next to him of his family, and he shall inherit it (otah).” It is quite clear that “his inheritance” (naḥalato) is the antecedent of the third-person feminine pronoun otah, not the wife, who is not mentioned in this verse. Most oen, Ibn Ezra treats halakhic derash according to the principle articulated here: most rabbinic halakhic “readings” of Scripture, in his view, are not the true source of the halakhah. Rather, they were devised secondarily to link the biblical text—by way of asmakhta—with ancient traditions om Sinai. Acutely aware of Karaite critiques, Ibn Ezra could thus posit that the Rabbis “knew the essence/ peshat” and never actually used midrashic methods to determine the meaning of Scripture—an echo of anti-Karaite argument made already by others in the Geonic-Andalusian tradition, such as Saadia and Judah ha-Levi.139 It is important to contrast this characterization of halakhic midrash with that of Rashbam. The great northern French pashtan, who was also an accomplished talmudist, invoked the peshat maxim to preserve the integrity of peshuto shel miqra but nonetheless argued that “the essence (‘iqqar) of Torah comes to teach and inform us of the haggadot (traditions, lore), halakhot (laws), and dinim (regulations) through the hints of the peshat,” using the midrashic middot.140 Rashbam regarded halakhic midrash as genuine exegesis that reveals the intended deeper meaning of the text—and thus as the true source of the halakhah. He simply

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

228

Chapter 6

argued that it operated on an interpretive plane separate om the “peshat of Scripture,” to which he devoted his energies. Advancing a singular hermeneutic and a very strong reading of the peshat maxim, Ibn Ezra could adopt a more consistent peshat approach by denying the exegetical status of midrash. Indeed, his critique of contemporary Jewish interpreters who “made all derash essential (‘iqqar) and fundamental” could perhaps be a reference to Rashbam’s characterization of midrash as the “essence” (‘iqqar).141 In any case, for Ibn Ezra, Scripture has but one meaning: peshuto shel miqra. Midrash, by this account, is “an added idea,” an inference, or an asmakhta. The Karaites had criticized the Rabbis of the Talmud for creating a halakhic system using the midrashic middot. As Saadia before him had done,142 Ibn Ezra undercut this Karaite critique by asserting that the Rabbis themselves never actually used the middot to interpret the Bible. Though it usually allows him to privilege peshuto shel miqra in an unprecedented way, Ibn Ezra had to pay a price for his very strong reading of the peshat maxim. Having separated peshuto shel miqra om the realm of halakhah, Rashbam could engage in his exegetical analysis independently, without any concern for its legal implications, since, in any event, the “halakhah uproots Scripture”— and it is derived om midrash.143 For Ibn Ezra, by contrast, peshuto shel miqra, as the sole intended meaning of the biblical text, must be authoritative halakhically. He therefore cannot countenance any case in which it contradicts the law of the Talmud. Here is where the second part of the above-cited rule applies: “if we find in the tradition (kabbalah) something that contradicts Scripture, [w]e shall determine which one is correct (lit., ‘true’), and we shall adjust (netaqqen) the other that stands against it.”144 Where the apparent sense of the biblical text contradicts the halakhah, it is subject to tiqqun—what Saadia had termed ta’wīl. A particularly instructive case, in which Ibn Ezra reveals the tensions in his thought process, relates to the laws of priestly defilement for close relatives in Leviticus 21: “(1) And the Lord said to Moses, Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: There shall be none defiled for the dead among his people, (2) Except for his kin (she’er) who is near to him, for his mother, and for his father, for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother, (3) and for his sister who is a virgin. . . . (4) A husband (ba‘al) among his people, he may not be defiled to profane himself (Lev. 21:1–4).” A priest is prohibited om contracting ritual impurity through contact with a dead body. Verses 2 and 3 make an exception for specific family relations, whom the priest would assist to bury. Though only six are mentioned explicitly in these two verses, talmudic tradition assumes that there are “seven close relatives” for whom a person is obligated to mourn145—and the priest permitted to defile himself—stating that “his she’er is his wife.”146 Yet verse 4, prohibiting “a

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Abraham Ibn Ezra

229

husband” om becoming defiled, seems to contradict this. The Talmud resolves the contradiction in the following way: a priest may defile himself by coming into contact with the dead body of his “proper” (halakhically permitted) wife to bury her, as indicated by verse 2, whereas verse 4 teaches that a priest may not defile himself for a wife who is halakhically unfit for him (e.g., a divorced woman), with whom he has “profaned himself.”147 Reflecting his Geonic-Andalusian philological background, Ibn Ezra insists that “by way of peshat, the wife is never called she’er” and that the Talmud’s “reading” of this word is merely an asmakhta.148 In theory, then, Ibn Ezra could have relied on his peshat reading to avoid the conflict between verses 2 and 4. As he remarks: “It would have seemed to us that . . . the meaning of . . . [v. 4] is that a husband may not defile himself for his wife. However, when we consider that our Rabbis transmitted the law that he may defile himself for his wife . . . we must conclude that this interpretation is invalid.”149 Ibn Ezra here brings us into the laboratory of his mind, revealing how he would have interpreted these laws on his own by means of the peshat methodology, that verses 2 and 3 permit the priest to become ritually defiled for six blood relatives, with verse 4 clariing that the wife does not share this status. He then explains why this path was closed to him. Though he was willing to classi the rabbinic interpretation of “his she’er” as an asmakhta, he would not accept a reading of a biblical verse (v. 4) that contradicts the halakhah attached to it. In stark contrast to Ibn Ezra’s willingness to suppress his philological insight, Rashbam writes on verse 4: “ ‘A husband (ba‘al) among his people, he may not be defiled’—No husband in the priestly class may defile himself for his wife; ‘to profane himself ’—because in doing so, he profanes his priesthood.”150 Crossing the boundary that Ibn Ezra had set, Rashbam asserts that according to the peshat, the Torah prohibits a priest to come into contact with his wife’s dead body in order to bury her. In accordance with his programmatic statements elsewhere, of course; for Rashbam, peshuto shel miqra does not carry any legal implications, as midrash alone determines halakhah, in his view.151 This sort of divergence between Rashbam and Ibn Ezra recurs elsewhere in their respective Pentateuch commentaries, as noted in Chapter 4. Whereas Rashbam could embrace anti-halakhic peshat interpretations because his dual hermeneutic allowed for an alternative midrashic layer of scriptural signification, Ibn Ezra’s singular model excluded this option. For him, there is no genuine signification of Scripture other than peshuto shel miqra. Hence, an anti-halakhic peshat interpretation would undermine the force of the halakhah—precisely what the Karaites aimed to do. He thus needed to incorporate the halakhah into his peshat exegesis. As Uriel Simon observed, Ibn Ezra’s belief in the exclusivity of the peshat—paradoxically—is responsible for his tendency at times to defer to

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

230

Chapter 6

rabbinic halakhic exegesis and sacrifice the more reasonable philological-contextual interpretation.152 Comparison with developments in late medieval Christian interpretation is helpful for assessing these implications of Ibn Ezra’s singular hermeneutic. As noted by Alastair Minnis, Latin scholars om the thirteenth century onward increasingly sought to support their doctrines on the basis of the literal sense of Scripture rather than on its spiritual senses. Remarkably, significations of Scripture that had once been classified as “spiritual” thus eventually came to be regarded as part of the “literal sense.” It was as though “the literal sense had invaded and occupied territory previously governed by allegory, a major redrawing of boundary lines being the consequence”; this was “not to say that allegory was made redundant” but rather that “its business had . . . been relocated, brought under new management, as it were.”153 This development, in turn, further amplified the importance that the literal sense acquired in Christian interpretation: “when a sense of Scripture is expanded and amplified in this way, its stock is indubitably high.”154 A similar “relocation” and “redrawing of boundary lines” was advanced by Ibn Ezra. Whereas Ibn Janah and Rashbam were satisfied to regard the halakhah as a product of midrash, Ibn Ezra insisted on bringing it under the dominion of peshuto shel miqra. This redrawing of the Jewish hermeneutical map, however, forced him to incorporate into his peshat category halakhic readings that he would have excluded otherwise.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Theological Dimensions of Scripture— a Component of Peshat? Ibn Ezra’s redrawing of the boundaries of peshuto shel miqra relates likewise to his exposition of the theological dimensions of the Bible, the subject of recent studies.155 In his Psalms commentary, he digressed occasionally to discuss, in philosophical (mostly Neoplatonic) language, matters such as God, the interrelated heavenly and earthly “worlds,” the nature of man’s soul and his will, man’s purpose and spiritual goal, divine providence, and so on. Ibn Ezra designated Psalms 16, 19, 23, 25, 49, 68, 73, 139, and 148 as “distinguished psalms” (mizmorim nikhbadim) with special theological content. Opening his commentary on Psalm 139, for example, he writes: “This psalm is most distinguished in the ways of God. . . . Only in accordance with one’s understanding of the ways of God and of the soul can one can delve into its meanings (Heb., ṭa‘amaw).” In other words, philological acumen alone is insufficient to fully grasp the meaning of a “distinguished” psalm, which also requires philosophical understanding. In her recent study of the theological digressions in Ibn Ezra’s Psalms commentary, Herzliya Wagner points to a seeming inconsistency that they raise in

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Abraham Ibn Ezra

231

his hermeneutical system. Ibn Ezra normally adheres to a strict contextualphilological—and historically sensitive—analysis of the biblical text. Indeed, as noted in Chapter 3, by contrast with Rashi’s midrashic approach, which reads the Psalms prophetically about the future history of Israel, Ibn Ezra interpreted the Psalms in a manner that accords with their ancient Israelite historical setting. As Wagner notes, this is consistent with the interpretive aim articulated in Ibn Ezra’s introduction to the Pentateuch “to interpret every verse properly, grammatically according to its peshat.”156 Yet, in Wagner’s view: “In his commentaries on the [Distinguished] Psalms . . . it is obvious that he abandoned the interpretation of the verses according to their peshat, by giving them an interpretation that suited his philosophical thinking.”157 “It might seem that Ibn Ezra sought to interpret the verses ‘by way of peshat.’ But actually he turned these [‘Distinguished] Psalms’ into a peg upon which to suspend a system of cosmological thought.”158 As she notes, it would appear that in his Psalms commentary, Ibn Ezra started to work out his theological notions, which he later would present in his dedicated theoretical work Yesod Mora in a more fully developed and organized system. Wagner’s evaluation makes eminent sense om the perspective of modern Bible scholarship. The philosophical-theological content that Ibn Ezra identifies in the Psalms does not—to a modern sensibility—seem likely to have been intended by King David or any other ancient Israelite any more than Rashi’s midrashic readings of the Psalms.159 But it seems that Ibn Ezra’s hermeneutical system must be assessed within his twelh-century intellectual amework. For the great Andalusian pashtan, King David was the consummate theologian and, as such, we must assume, conveyed the secrets of God’s interaction with this world and the spiritual goals of mankind—as argued by Uriel Simon.160 This might even be described in terms of Saadia’s axiom: Scripture must be interpreted in light of reason—which for him and his followers included philosophical speculation. As Wagner acknowledges, Ibn Ezra “endeavored to incorporate the philosophical interpretation that he offered in a smooth and natural manner within the general context of the glossed verse or chapter.”161 Ibn Ezra’s interpretation is, then, a sort of ta’wīl: he sought to incorporate his theology into the Psalms in a way that best fits the language and context of the biblical text. The “way of peshat,” for Ibn Ezra, is not a literary-philological reading of Scripture by itself any more than it is a strictly literal rendering. As a devotee of Saadia, Ibn Ezra took into account, within his calculus of peshat, what he regarded as truth based on other sources of knowledge—be it sense perception, science, philosophy, or tradition. And this, for Ibn Ezra, included theological reasoning. Hence, when seeking to explain Aaron’s key role in creating the Golden Calf “according to the way of peshat,” he rejects the possibility that it was designed to be an idol to be worshiped.162 Even though Aaron fashioned the calf in response

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

232

Chapter 6

to the people’s request, “Come, make us a god (elohim) who shall go before us” (Exod. 32:1), Ibn Ezra notes that Aaron was a great prophet, “sacred to the Lord,” and, as such, it was inconceivable that he would lead the Israelites into idol worship.163 He therefore explains, instead, that Aaron intended to create a physical form that would “contain” the presence of God and lead the Israelites through the desert in place of Moses.164 Ibn Ezra’s theological-exegetical concerns are rooted in earlier GeonicAndalusian interpretation, as evident in the following remarks of his regarding Psalm 89:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

In Spain, there was a very wise and pious man for whom this psalm was very difficult to comprehend, and he did not recite it, nor could he even listen to it, because this psalmist speaks harshly about God, the Exalted. Now [Saadia] Gaon does not offer any rectiing interpretation (tiqqun) of this psalm in his commentary. Rabbi Moses ha-Kohen [Ibn Chiquitilla] elaborates on this matter, and I have studied his book many times but could not understand his words. Now in my opinion, the essence (yesod) of this psalm is as follows. As the psalmist began “The kindnesses of God” (v. 1), he recounts God’s acts of kindness toward Israel and His promises to King David (v. 4). But otherwise, he is citing the language of the enemies who blaspheme and lie, as he mentions . . . “the abuses that your enemies have flung” (v. 52).165 This psalm posed a difficulty with which Ibn Ezra and his predecessors grappled: it seems blasphemous, since it accuses God of violating His promise to preserve the lineage of King David when the Judean kingdom was conquered, the Temple destroyed, and the people sent into exile in Babylon. From Saadia, Ibn Ezra expected an interpretation involving ta’wīl (what Ibn Ezra referred to in Hebrew as tiqqun). Without finding a ready-made solution in Saadia’s commentary, or a clear one in Ibn Chiquitilla’s, he resolves this theological difficulty by positing that the pious psalmist did not utter the blasphemous words but was merely citing the abusive words of Israel’s enemies. Although he can bring some support for this interpretation om a verse later in the psalm, it does not emerge naturally om it. Rather, it is necessitated by Ibn Ezra’s conviction that an Israelite psalmist would not, in fact, utter such blasphemy. This assumption, for Ibn Ezra, is a critical component in his calculus of peshat. Ibn Ezra’s general introduction to the Psalms includes what would seem to be a reference to a dual exegetical objective: “To reveal the secrets of grammar and words, and the explication of the ideas (ṭa‘amei) of the book of Psalms.”166 Wagner identifies here two different and, to some extent, conflicting goals. In

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Abraham Ibn Ezra

233

her view, the “way of peshat” is limited to commentary that “reveal[s] the secrets of [the] grammar and words” of the biblical text. By contrast, in speaking of “the ideas of the book of Psalms,” Ibn Ezra is referring to the theological content he introduces, which, according to Wagner, exceeds the boundaries of the “way of peshat.”167 On one count, I believe, Wagner is correct: Ibn Ezra does make a distinction between a purely grammatical-linguistic analysis and a deeper theological commentary. This sort of dichotomy emerges more dramatically in Ibn Ezra’s commentary on Job, which is actually divided into two separate sections.168 Ibn Ezra refers to the larger segment of the commentary as “explications of the words (millot) of Job,” which he characterizes as being “according to the grammar (diqduq) of the language.” To this, he appends a separate commentary titled “an explication of the ideas (ha-ṭe‘amim),” a meta-analysis that goes beyond philological analysis of individual words and verses to elucidate the philosophical views articulated by Job and his companions. As he explains in the introduction to that second commentary: “When I began to interpret Job, I found it necessary first to explain all of the words, as many involve difficult matters, and most of the commentaries of the early Sages on this book are not according to the grammar of the language, and some of them are by way of derash. Once I have completed elucidating all that I have mentioned, I shall explain the essential idea in each speech of Job and his iends.”169 Indeed, in the book of Job, the need for such a double commentary is acute, since even a full elucidation of the book’s language still leaves its theological import far om clear. Like many others in Jewish tradition, Ibn Ezra assumed that it offers a solution to the problem of why righteous people like Job suffer. But that solution is indeed elusive. Some modern scholars, in fact, point out that a reading of the book offers no clear theology and that the discussions among Job and his companions are repetitive, aimless rambling.170 Saadia, by contrast, had established in his Job commentary that theodicy is the aim of this biblical book. To identi clear philosophical positions in the words of the interlocutors, Saadia engaged in ta’wīl, showing that the seemingly aimless ramblings convey deeper, clearer theological meanings.171 Ibn Ezra followed this template when seeking the theological sense of Job in his “explication of the ideas.”172 Yet, in opposition to Wagner’s assessment, I believe that Ibn Ezra regarded his “explication of the ideas,” both in Job and Psalms, as an integral component of his “way of peshat,” since, in his view, both books convey philosophical content. As mentioned above, Ibn Ezra construes the peshat maxim in accordance with his general theory of singular signification—that “the words of any author, whether a prophet or a sage, have but one meaning (ṭa‘am).”173 This singular meaning, which he identifies with peshuto shel miqra, is distinct om midrashic inferences drawn by the Rabbis—but it would include the theological dimensions in his

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

234

Chapter 6

“explication of the ideas (ṭa‘amei) of the book of Psalms” and his “explication of the ideas (ṭe‘amim)” in Job.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

The Weight and Scope of Peshat Ibn Ezra reflects the encounter between two trajectories of the rule of peshat: the Geonic-Andalusian one that developed gradually in the Muslim East and migrated westward; and the northern French peshat method that emerged suddenly in the work of Rashi and was refined by his students within two generations.174 In the Judeo-Arabic exegetical tradition, the concept of peshat was significant theoretically but rarely the focus of attention. Its opposition to midrash was a point made by Ibn Janah but was mostly taken for granted. In Rashi’s school, on the other hand, the peshat–derash opposition was a constant focus, since Ashkenazic scholarship was saturated with rabbinic learning. The northern French pashtanim thus constantly grappled with the implications of their new philological methods and how to balance them with midrash. Abraham Ibn Ezra, transplanted om alAndalus, forged his exegetical outlook in Italy—where he seems to have first encountered Rashi’s commentary—and France, where he evidently learned of Rashbam’s. Unlike his Andalusian predecessors, Ibn Ezra was thus challenged to define his “way of peshat” by contrast with the midrashic methods dominant “in Greek and Roman lands,”175 and even by contrast with the strongly articulated Ashkenazic peshat models, which he found deficient both in practice (Rashi) and in theory (Rashbam). It has been said that Ibn Ezra was an eclectic, drawing opinions om earlier exegetes, mostly in the Judeo-Arabic tradition.176 Indeed, as we have seen, the key elements of Ibn Ezra’s exegetical methodology, his “way of peshat,” can be traced to predecessors. Ibn Ezra’s novel contribution was a new hermeneutical outlook that makes peshuto shel miqra the singular signification of Scripture—which he supports with his very strong construal of the peshat maxim. Ibn Janah, Rashi, and Rashbam had all invoked the talmudic peshat maxim to validate peshat analysis but still acknowledged the interpretive authority—even the supremacy—of midrash. In Leqaḥ Ṭov, which Ibn Ezra mentions, the peshat maxim plays a role as well; but there, it is even clearer that midrash remains the “essential” mode of interpretation (to borrow Rashbam’s characterization).177 Ibn Ezra granted exclusive interpretive authority to peshuto shel miqra, with midrash serving ancillary functions (homiletic, didactic, etc.) only. In his system, the peshat maxim had finally become the rule of peshat—in the sense of dominion. Though Ibn Ezra’s very strong construal of the peshat maxim is fundamentally new, it represents a synthesis of elements om his Andalusian heritage and—perhaps surprisingly—om the new outlook he encountered in Rashi’s

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Abraham Ibn Ezra

235

school. It is the latter’s concern over the peshat–derash dichotomy that Ibn Ezra embraces when making the peshat maxim a focus of his writings. And whereas the content of Ibn Ezra’s “way of peshat” derives om the Andalusian school, it is the singular hermeneutic of the geonim that he adopts, as opposed to Ibn Janah’s dual hermeneutic. It is instructive, once again, to compare the hermeneutical systems of Rashbam and Ibn Ezra—contemporaries who represent mature manifestations of different peshat trajectories. Rashbam’s bold forays into the realm of peshat were made possible by his assertion that midrash is the “essence of Torah,” the foundation of religious practice and theology. For him, peshat was an academic exercise, without halakhic ramifications. For Ibn Ezra, by contrast, peshuto shel miqra is the very “essence” (‘iqqar) of Scripture: it is the “truth” and the “straight path” of interpretation. Midrashic interpretation, in his view, cannot serve as a genuine source of halakhah or theological truth, since derash is merely a projection onto the biblical text, or, at most, an inference om it. This put greater pressure on peshuto shel miqra within his system. For Ibn Ezra, it had to serve as an essential foundation for halakhah and theology. The comparison with Rashbam highlights the unprecedented scope and prestige of peshuto shel miqra in Ibn Ezra’s hermeneutical system, which effectively “invaded territory previously occupied by derash,” to use Minnis’s metaphor.178 The secondary nature of peshat in Rashbam’s system allowed the northern French exegete great latitude to explore new interpretive possibilities, om which Ibn Ezra had to recoil, or at least think twice before embracing. Rashbam could always fall back on midrash; for Ibn Ezra, peshat is the sum total of genuine Bible exegesis. With the increased prestige he granted to peshat came heightened responsibility for Ibn Ezra as a pashtan. As a devout Rabbanite Jew, Ibn Ezra embraced the system of talmudic Judaism (as traditionally interpreted in the Geonic-Andalusian school) in practice and thought. Rashbam lived his Jewish life according to midrash, which he regarded as the “essence” of Torah, and this eed him to investigate the “peshat of Scripture,” wherever it took him. Ibn Ezra, on the other hand, regarded peshat as the “essence”—and it informed his Jewish outlook. But this also meant that the results of his peshat analysis were rigged: they had to match the talmudic data that he accepted implicitly. This circularity is most evident in cases of halakhah, which was sacrosanct for Ibn Ezra. He sometimes had to forgo the most plausible philological-contextual interpretation because of halakhic considerations.179 Indeed, it seems as though Ibn Ezra encountered a brick wall when it came to matters of halakhah, which he was unwilling to adjust one iota. Ibn Ezra would not entertain any revision of the halakhic system based on his exegetical

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

236

Chapter 6

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

determinations “by way of peshat.” Of course, neither did Ibn Janah; but that is the result of his strict separation between peshuto shel miqra and halakhah—as manifest in the work of Rashbam. Since Ibn Ezra integrated the two realms, one might have expected him to consider how the rule of peshat invites new perspectives on halakhah. But Ibn Ezra was not a talmudist and evidently felt unqualified to control such halakhic ramifications. That would change with Maimonides, a rabbinic master, who indeed drew upon the rule of peshat to reshape the halakhic system—which is the subject of the next chapter.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Chapter 7

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Maimonides: Peshat as the Basis of Halakhah

Moses Maimonides (1138–1204), a scion of the rich Andalusian tradition of Jewish learning, has long been celebrated as a preeminent talmudist. He was also expert in an array of Greco-Arabic disciplines, including logic, physics, metaphysics, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. Until recently, his contributions to Jewish Bible interpretation received scant attention, especially om scholars interested in the peshat schools. Indeed, Maimonides did not write running Bible commentaries. Nor does his treatment of biblical passages in his philosophical and halakhic works seem compatible with the “way of peshat” as defined, for example, by his older Andalusian contemporary Ibn Ezra. In fact, Maimonides has been said to “devalue” peshat, since he engages in figurative interpretation to harmonize Scripture with science and philosophy. Echoing a critique by Spinoza in the seventeenth century, Moshe Zvi Segal, for example, classified Maimonides’ interpretation “philosophical derash.”1 Furthermore, in his halakhic works, he adopts midrashic interpretations of biblical source texts. It is thus paradoxical that Maimonides formulates a rule of peshat that privileges this category further than ever in Rabbanite tradition. Yet because of his seemingly inconsistent exegetical practice, scholars have, by and large, dismissed Maimonides’ strongly formulated rule of peshat primacy. It is worth recalling Greenberg’s methodological cautionary note about twentieth-century assessments of Rashi by scholars who considered the definition of peshat to be so self-evident that they “saw no need to discern precisely how he understood it, and regarded his work as missing the mark rather than asking if he had set a different target than they imagined.”2 The argument put forth in this chapter is that Maimonides’ conception of peshat must be assessed in consideration of his Geonic-Andalusian exegetical heritage and Muslim intellectual milieu. On this basis, it will be argued further that he formulated a bold halakhic model of peshat that sheds uniquely valuable light on the “grand narrative” of the peshat tradition.3

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

238

Chapter 7

As discussed in Chapter 6, Abraham Ibn Ezra—a generation older than Maimonides—parted ways with the dual hermeneutic of earlier authorities and defined peshat as the single correct meaning of Scripture. Maimonides goes a step further, defining peshuto shel miqra as the exclusive source of the core of the halakhah that is of biblical authority, the 613 commandments (mitzvot). Maimonides’ model is not without its complications, as his critics would note. But his efforts to make peshuto shel miqra the ultimate basis of the halakhah—a distinction previously held by midrash—reflects the prestige that this hermeneutical category had acquired by his time, and which he raises to a new level.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bio-Bibliographic Background Maimonides was born into Cordoba’s cosmopolitan milieu and educated there by his father, the dayyan (religious judge) Maimon. The family was forced into exile in Fez in North Aica in his early years. Aer a brief sojourn in Palestine in the 1160s, Maimonides settled in Egypt.4 He composed a commentary on the Mishnah—his first major work, completed in 1168—that includes an important introduction outlining the development of talmudic halakhah and its basis in Scripture. Later that year, Maimonides composed his Book of the Commandments (Sefer hamitzvot), a systematic enumeration of the 613 precepts (mitzvot; “commandments”) of Judaism. That work served as a blueprint for Mishneh Torah, his magisterial codification of talmudic law, completed in 1178. Among Maimonides’ major writings, Mishneh Torah alone was penned in Hebrew and could thus be read by Jewish scholars in Christian lands, whereas his other major works, written in Judeo-Arabic, were accessible exclusively to Jewish readers in (or om) the Islamicate world.5 In his theological magnum opus, The Guide of the Perplexed, completed around 1190, Maimonides reverted back to Arabic, since it required a philosophic vocabulary as yet unavailable in Hebrew. Maimonides also penned influential epistles—some being mini-treatises—on theological matters, as well as numerous responsa, mostly on halakhic matters. Because of Maimonides’ great stature, most of his Judeo-Arabic writings were quickly translated into Hebrew. These translations took on a life of their own as a representation of Maimonides’ teachings for Jewish readers in Christian Europe, and have remained popular into the modern era.6 Biblical sources and their interpretation play a key role in Maimonides’ writings. In his halakhic works, he seeks to identi sources in the Pentateuch for the details of talmudic law—even where the Talmud is vague about this matter. Maimonides also critically evaluates the workings of rabbinic halakhic interpretation of the Bible. Furthermore, the Guide and some of his epistles, especially the Treatise on Resurrection, are replete with discussions about the proper methods of Bible interpretation and how the tenets of Judaism can be traced to Scripture.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Maimonides

239

Unlike exegetes who composed running commentaries, Maimonides was selective in his elucidation of biblical texts in his legal and theological writings. The great Andalusian codifier-philosopher was motivated by their relevance for other matters, om the details of the halakhah to theological issues such as prophecy, creation, divine providence, or the nature of God. Yet recent scholarship has shown that Maimonides’ systematic hermeneutical discussions manifest a keen understanding of the workings of biblical language and literary expression in line with his Geonic-Andalusian intellectual heritage.7 Against this backdrop, we can discuss how Maimonides harnessed the talmudic peshat maxim to reshape the system of halakhah.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

A New Halakhic Rule of Peshat Primacy Because Maimonides was a master codifier of the talmudic legal system, it was critical for him to distinguish between laws that are de-orayta (of biblical authority) and those that are de-rabbanan (of rabbinic authority only). This basic dichotomy appears in the Talmud and is one of the most important legal distinctions for any halakhic codifier or decisor (poseq) to make with respect to any given law or case.8 While halakhically observant Jews regard laws of biblical as well as rabbinic authority as binding, significant theoretical differences between the two categories at times manifest themselves in practice.9 But Maimonides seems to have been the first to harness exegetical criteria to establish a systematic way of determining which laws belong to each of these two categories. Refitting the talmudic maxim “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat” for this codificatory purpose, Maimonides made a categorical distinction between halakhot that stem om the text of the Pentateuch (peshuto shel miqra, which are de-orayta) and those that resulted om the Rabbis’ midrashic extrapolation—om “hints of the peshat” (to use Rashbam’s words)—which are de-rabbanan. This Maimonidean move was truly radical. As discussed in previous chapters, in the medieval period, the talmudic maxim that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat” stood in a tense balance with the fact that the halakhah is essentially based on midrash. As Maimonides states openly, “most of the regulations of our Law (sharī‘a) are extrapolated through the thirteen midrashic middot.”10 Ibn Janah relieved this tension by separating the two realms, arguing that “the peshat of the verse is one thing, the halakhah another,” a strategy adopted (independently) by Rashbam. Abraham Ibn Ezra rejected this bifurcation and insisted that peshat represents alone the genuine meaning of Scripture—its divine author’s intent. Yet Ibn Ezra, who was not a talmudist, did not dare adjust the halakhic system based on his exegesis. Maimonides breaks that barrier in his Book of the Commandments, where he criticizes the list of the 613 mitzvot in the introduction to the Halakhot Gedolot.11

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

240

Chapter 7

That enumeration was esteemed in al-Andalus and inspired poetic renditions known as azharot, used in the liturgy.12 Yet Maimonides deemed it haphazard and misguided, particularly because: (1) it makes no distinction between biblical and rabbinic laws; nor (2) does it differentiate between laws stated in Scripture and those derived midrashically. Aiming to set the record straight, Maimonides begins his Book of the Commandments with a methodical introduction that lays out his cardinal principles of enumerating the commandments. The first two principles address the aforementioned shortcomings of the earlier enumerations: Principle #1: “Nothing rabbinic may be counted in the sum of 613 commandments because this sum consists entirely of the texts (nuṣūṣ) of the Torah.”13 The enumeration of the 613 commandments must include only those that are of biblical (de-orayta) authority, not those instituted by the Rabbis (de-rabbanan), which have a lower legal status.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Principle #2: “It is not proper to count everything known through one of ‘the thirteen middot by which the Torah is interpreted’ or a redundancy (ribbuy).”14 Only laws stated in Scripture are of biblical authority, whereas all others derived by the Rabbis through the midrashic hermeneutical rules must be classified as rabbinic. Principle #1 is not revolutionary, though it departs om a common geonic tendency to blur the lines between biblical and rabbinic law.15 But Principle #2 was radical, since the categorical demotion of laws derived midrashically to derabbanan status is not even hinted at in the Talmud. Maimonides therefore saw the need to defend it by invoking the “principle that the Sages of blessed memory taught us. . . : ‘a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat’ and the fact that the Talmud in many places inquires: ‘The verse itself (gufeh di-qera), of what does it speak?’ when they found a verse om which many matters are learned by way of commentary (sharḥ) and inference (istidlāl).”16 Giving a new interpretation to the peshat maxim, Maimonides distinguishes between Scripture, peshuto shel miqra, which yields laws of de-orayta status, since it reflects the intention of God Himself; and midrash, which is merely of rabbinic (de-rabbanan) authority, since it is the product of human “interpretation and inference.” Citing an example to illustrate this principle of peshat primacy, Maimonides criticizes Halakhot Gedolot and those who followed in his path, because they enumerated as separate commandments . . . visiting the sick, consoling mourners, and burying the dead, on account of the derash on the verse “And you shall . . . show them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do” (Exod. 18:20). . . .

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Maimonides

241

The way—signifies deeds of loving-kindness;   they must walk—signifies visitation of the sick;   wherein—signifies burial;   and the work—signifies the laws;   that they must do—signifies [going] beyond the letter [lit., “inside the margin”] of the law (b.Bava Qamma 99b–100a).

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

They thought that every single one of those actions is a separate commandment. They did not understand that all those actions and the like are included in the single commandment . . . stated explicitly (manṣūṣ . . . bibayān) in the Torah . . . “Love your neighbor as yourself ” (Lev. 19:18).17 In Halakhot Gedolot, the midrashic interpretation of Exod. 18:20 seems to be taken uncritically, at face value as the “meaning” of the biblical text—and hence the source of several commandments. Maimonides, however, argues that only what is stated explicitly in Scripture can be enumerated—in this case, only the general commandment of behaving kindly toward others, as expressed in Lev. 19:18.18 On the other hand, the specific acts of kindness derived through the atomistic, acontextual talmudic reading of Exod. 18:20 do not have a genuine textual basis and therefore must be regarded as rabbinic enactments. As clarified in Mishneh Torah: “Even though all these mitzvot are rabbinic (mi-divreihem), they are included in ‘Love your neighbor as yourself ’ ” (Hilkhot Evel 14:1). The general principle alone is biblical; its implementation in the specific types of activity mandated in the Talmud is merely rabbinic. Principle #2 would seem consistent with Maimonides’ broad pronouncement in the Guide that derashot oen are nothing but “poetical conceits . . . not meant to bring out the meaning (ma‘na) of the text (naṣṣ) in question.”19 In this respect, he follows the view commonly expressed in the Geonic-Andalusian school that many rabbinic “readings” were not truly intended to be taken as interpretations of Scripture and thus cannot be regarded as an accurate reflection of God’s intent. Maimonides, like Ibn Ezra, thus oen used the term derash interchangeably with asmakhta to connote an artificial projection onto the biblical text, and he criticizes those who actually used such rabbinic readings as a guide to genuine exegesis.20 Maimonides instead drew heavily upon the tradition of philological exegesis of his Geonic-Andalusian heritage. Although Maimonides rarely acknowledges his medieval sources, he avidly used the writings of Saadia, Samuel ben Hofni, Menahem ben Saruq, Judah Hayyuj, Jonah Ibn Janah, Moses Ibn Chiquitilla, Judah Ibn Bal‘am, and perhaps Abraham Ibn Ezra.21 Maimonides probably cited the truly tenuous atomistic midrashic reading of Exod. 18:20 because it was an easy target for criticizing the Halakhot Gedolot. But Principle #2 actually excludes the more logical forms of rabbinic analysis of

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

242

Chapter 7

biblical texts in their systematic application of the “thirteen middot.” As Maimonides states: “Anything for which you do not find a [source] text (naṣṣ) in the Torah, if you find that the Talmud learns it through one of the thirteen middot . . . then it is a rabbinic law (de-rabbanan), since there is no [biblical] text (naṣṣ) indicating (yadullu) it.”22 The biblical text, which he identifies with the terms peshateh di-qera and gufeh di-qera, is the sole source of de-orayta law, with the middot producing laws that are only de-rabbanan. Maimonides applied this criterion, for example, in his commentary on the Mishnah that states: “A woman is betrothed (lit., ‘acquired’) in three ways . . . by money, by a document, or by intercourse” (m.Qiddushin 1:1): We deduced that she is betrothed with money om what it says, “If a man marries (lit., ‘takes’; yiqqaḥ) a woman” (Deut. 22:13, 24:1) and it says in connection with the field of Ephron, “I have given you the money for the field, take it (qaḥ) om me” (Gen. 23:13); one deduces one “taking” om another “taking” by way of gezerah shawah.23

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

And betrothal by a document . . . the allusion to it is the dictum “And when she has departed [out of his house, she may go] and be [another man’s wife]”—it links by way of heqqesh (legal association) “becoming” betrothed to “departing” (divorce); just as the “departure” is by a document—as it says in Scripture: “and he shall write her a bill of divorcement”—so, too, “becoming” is with a document. Yet . . . betrothal by intercourse is the type stated most clearly . . . and is explicit in the Torah, and this is the most binding of them, and this is the one considered betrothal according to the Torah (de-orayta), as it says, “[If a man marries a woman] and cohabits with her” (Deut. 22:13, 24:1)—with intercourse she becomes a married woman.24 The three biblical prooexts here are all taken om the Talmud (b.Qiddushin 4b–5a), where they are listed without differentiation. Applying his principle of peshat primacy, Maimonides imposes a hierarchy among them, distinguishing between the single mode of betrothal stated in Scripture, which is therefore deorayta, and those derived through gezerah shawah and heqqesh, which are merely rabbinic.25 Since The Book of the Commandments, like the Mishnah commentary, was written in Judeo-Arabic, the radical implications of Principle #2 did not become immediately apparent in the great centers of talmudic learning in Christian lands. But Maimonides was eventually prompted to clari his position in a Hebrew

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Maimonides

243

responsum to R. Pinhas the Dayyan in Alexandria, who was originally om France (probably Provence) and read Arabic with difficulty.26 As Maimonides writes: I have a composition in Arabic on the subject of the enumeration of the commandments . . . and in it . . . I explained that no matter derived by heqqesh, qal wa-ḥomer (a fortiori reasoning), gezerah shawah, or through any of the “thirteen middot by which the Torah is interpreted” is biblical unless the Sages say explicitly that it is “om the Torah.” . . .

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

In sum, nothing is biblical except for what is explicit in the Torah (meforash ba-Torah), such as sha‘aṭnez (clothing made om a blend of linen and wool; Lev. 19:19), kil’ayim (intermixing of breeds and species; Lev. 19:19), the Sabbath, and the forbidden sexual unions, or something that the Sages said is “om the Torah”—and those are but three or four things. And in that book I explained everything, and when you read it, it will become clear to you, even though it is in Arabic, because most of those chapters regarding the words of the Sages are in Hebrew.27 While the need to distinguish sharply between laws “explicit in the Torah” and those derived through the middot was not pressing for talmudists in Christian lands, it was designed to address a long-standing dilemma in Maimonides’ GeonicAndalusian heritage, since the midrashic middot—which do not conform to the normal rules of linguistic analysis—conflict with the philological method pioneered by Saadia and embraced by the subsequent tradition in al-Andalus.28 In response to this dilemma, Maimonides argues that the middot do not, in fact, illuminate the meaning of Scripture but were merely used by the Rabbis as legislative tools for augmenting the original biblical laws expressed in peshuto shel miqra. Taken together with Maimonides’ pronouncement about the poetic nature of the derashot, Principle #2 would seem to place him squarely within the camp of Ibn Ezra, who likewise took the talmudic rule of peshat as his motto and regarded peshuto shel miqra alone as the meaning of Scripture itself. As the great Catalan talmudist Nahmanides writes in his critique of The Book of the Commandments: “The second principle . . . is shockingly beyond my comprehension, and I cannot bear it, for . . . if so . . . the truth is the peshat of Scripture alone, not the matters derived midrashically, as he mentions om their dictum, ‘a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.’ And as a result, we would uproot the “thirteen middot by which the Torah is interpreted,” as well as the bulk of the Talmud, which is based on them.”29 This critique (reminiscent of Nahmanides’ barbed characterization of Ibn Ezra and Radak as those who “chase aer the peshat” and are skeptical of midrash)30 highlights the bold implications of what would seem to be Maimonides’ endeavor to clear the thicket of midrashic exegesis and establish a

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

244

Chapter 7

halakhic system anchored in the “peshat of Scripture.” This step was avoided even by Ibn Ezra, who drew no halakhic conclusions om his determinations regarding peshuto shel miqra. Maimonides thus represents a fourth construal of the peshat maxim: “Construal (4): a superstrong reading—peshat alone expresses the intent of Scripture and is the exclusive source of biblical law, whereas laws derived through the thirteen middot are of rabbinic authority only.” Diverging om all earlier pashtanim, Maimonides uses the rule of peshat as a key determinant of the halakhah. The implications of this added step that Maimonides takes can be illustrated by his treatment of Lev. 21:1–3, discussed in Chapter 6. These three verses present the laws of priestly defilement for close relatives: “(1) And the Lord said to Moses, speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: There shall be none defiled for the dead among his people, (2) except for his kin (she’er) who is near to him, for his mother, and for his father, for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother, (3) and for his sister who is a virgin.” While a priest may not come into contact with the dead, verses 2 and 3 make an exception for family relations, assumed in talmudic tradition to include “seven close relatives” for whom a person is obligated to mourn.31 In addition to the six mentioned explicitly in Scripture, the Talmud states that “his she’er is his wife.”32 Ibn Ezra, however, follows the opinion of Saadia and Ibn Janah that she’er simply means “a relative” and that the term here is used in that general sense, introducing the six relatives specified in the verse. Yet Ibn Ezra accepted the rabbinic halakhic tradition that a priest may defile himself for his deceased wife—and understood this to be a law that was transmitted orally. Maimonides, however, drew a halakhic conclusion om Ibn Ezra’s exegetical determination. Hence, he enumerates only six close relatives for the purposes of mourning (the general obligation that applies to priests and non-priests alike), with the wife added only by rabbinic decree: “These are the relatives a person must mourn according to Torah law: his mother, father, son, daughter, brother, and sister. And it is added in rabbinic law (mi-divreihem; lit., ‘om their words’) that a man mourns his wife.”33 It becomes clear that Lev. 21:2–3 is the source for this list when Maimonides subsequently discusses the exceptions to the prohibition of priestly defilement: “The law of mourning is so powerful that the prohibition of defilement is waived for close relatives so that the priest can be occupied with them [their burial] . . . as it says, ‘Except for his relative (she’er) that is close to him: for his mother [and for his father, for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother, and for his sister who is a virgin. . .] to her he shall be defiled,’ which is a positive commandment.”34 The positive commandment for a priest to defile himself for six relatives (to be engaged with their burial) is based on an explicit biblical text, peshuto shel miqra, and therefore is a biblical law. With Ibn Ezra, Maimonides regarded the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Maimonides

245

talmudic gloss “his she’er is his wife” as derash; that addition to the law of the six close relatives is therefore rabbinic, in the great codifier’s opinion. But this leads to a halakhic difficulty: How could the Rabbis allow the violation of a biblical law by permitting a priest to defile himself to be engaged with the burial of his wife? To resolve this problem, Maimonides devises a novel understanding of the halakhah: “A priest must defile himself for his wife. And this is only a rabbinic law (mi-divrei soferim; lit., ‘om the words of the scribes’).35 They accorded her the status of a ‘corpse le unburied’ (met miṣwah). Since he is her sole heir, no one else would be more diligent about burying her than the husband.”36 The Mishnah (m.Nazir 7:1) stipulates that even the high priest is permitted to contract ritual impurity in order to fulfill the obligation to bury an abandoned corpse. By subsuming the deceased wife within this halakhic category, Maimonides opened a path that was closed to Ibn Ezra. He could remain true to the Andalusian philological understanding of peshat and still affirm, with the Rabbis, that a priest may defile himself to bury his wife. Creatively reinterpreting talmudic law, Maimonides upheld the legal implications of the non-talmudic reading of Lev. 21:2 embraced by Ibn Ezra—even though the latter could not.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Privileging Peshat; Devaluing the “Literal Sense” (Ẓāhir) Maimonides’ boldly formulated rule of peshat primacy has been thought by some to conflict with his interpretive practice in The Guide of the Perplexed—a work in which he is said to “devalue” peshat. The stated purpose of that work is to resolve “perplexities” that emerge om the literal sense of Scripture: “The first purpose of this Treatise is to explain the meanings of certain terms occurring in the books of prophecy . . . to a religious man who . . . having studied the sciences . . . felt distressed by the literal sense of the verses of the Torah (Ar., ẓawāhir al-sharī‘a; Heb., peshatei ha-Torah).”37 As he goes on to explain, the biblical texts, taken literally, contradict what is known om science and philosophy, thereby creating “a state of perplexity.” Writing his Guide of the Perplexed to resolve this contradiction, Maimonides aims to instruct his readers how to determine the more correct nonliteral sense of such biblical texts. And so, it has been argued, peshat is not his guide to the ultimately correct sense of Scripture. It is “devalued” by Maimonides in light of other considerations.38 The “perplexity” addressed in the first fi or so chapters of the Guide stems om the many biblical depictions of God in human form (anthropomorphism), having a heart, eyes, ears, a mouth, hands, and feet, as well as exhibiting human feelings (anthropopathism) such as joy, sadness, jealousy, anger, and regret. These biblical depictions led people to incorrect conclusions, as Maimonides writes:

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

246

Chapter 7

Several groups of people pursued the likening of God to other beings and believed Him to be a body endowed with attributes. . . . All this was rendered necessary by their keeping to the literal senses (Ar., ẓawāhir; Heb., peshutei) of the books of the Torah.39 He who believes in this doctrine [of divine corporeality] was not led to it by intellectual speculation; he merely followed the literal senses (ẓawāhir; Heb., peshutei) of the biblical texts.40

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

To recti the mistaken impression given by the literal sense, Maimonides engages in full-scale metaphorical and otherwise figurative exegesis of these biblical texts.41 This strategy, termed ta’wīl, was well established within the Geonic-Andalusian tradition, as described in earlier chapters. Maimonides takes this approach further, though, in arguing that “not everything mentioned in the Torah concerning the account of Creation is to be taken in its literal sense (‘alā ẓāhirihi; Heb., ‘al peshuto),”42 whereupon he reinterprets Genesis 1 nonliterally in light of Aristotelian physics.43 And so, while willing to marginalize rabbinic derashot, Maimonides does not adhere to the philological-contextual sense of the text. Seemingly devaluing peshat, he engages in what has been termed “philosophical derash.”44 Even within his halakhic works, Maimonides oen seems to violate Principle #2 by ignoring peshuto shel miqra and relying instead on midrashic exegesis.45 In fact, Maimonides acknowledges that the traditional halakhic interpretation (which he endorses) may contradict the literal sense. In discussing the topic of false prophecy, he addresses the case of one who claims that God had sent him to change Torah law. Such a person is guilty of false prophecy, even if the literal sense of the text (Ar., ẓāhir al-naṣṣ; Heb., peshat hakatuv) supports him; for example, if he says, regarding the dictum in the Torah, “[If two men get into a fight with each other, and the wife of one comes up to save her husband om the hand of him who strikes him, and puts forth her hand, and grabs him by his private parts,] you shall cut off her hand . . .” (Deut. 25:11–12) that it is cutting off the hand literally (Ar., ḥaqīqa; Heb., be-emet) and not the monetary fine of one who causes embarrassment as the tradition has it (b.Bava Qamma 28a). And he attributes this to prophecy and says that “God said to me that His dictum ‘and you shall cut off her hand’ is according to its literal sense (Ar., ‘alā ẓāhirihi; Heb., ‘al peshuto).”46 As Maimonides goes on to explain in this passage, such an interpretation diverges om the traditional reading that “you shall cut off her hand” means monetary compensation.47 In Mishneh Torah, the verse is interpreted accordingly.48 So it

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Maimonides

247

would appear that Maimonides is not guided by peshuto shel miqra in determining the halakhah. To resolve these dilemmas and properly assess Maimonides’ place in the “grand narrative” of peshat, we must address two methodological points. The first concerns the very meaning of the term peshat and the associated peshat maxim. The second addresses the question of how Maimonides actually used his technical terminology—and how it has been misrepresented in the Hebrew translations of his works, which have colored their reception for centuries.49 The first point is that although the meaning of the term peshat, as well as the talmudic peshat maxim, is oen taken for granted, we have seen time and again in this study that they were used in different ways in the medieval tradition, which itself departed om their vague usage in rabbinic literature. It is true that by the mid-twelh century, the term peshat was being used widely in northern France in Rashi’s school and by Ibn Ezra in his travels throughout Christian Europe to connote a philological-contextual method of reading Scripture. But by all indications, Maimonides knew little of the northern French peshat school;50 and for him, Ibn Ezra was a newcomer on the Andalusian intellectual horizon still dominated by earlier authors of the Judeo-Arabic school. In that tradition, no consensus had yet been reached regarding the concept of peshat. In fact, those authors—like their Karaite colleagues—relied heavily on Arabic hermeneutical terminology and used the terms peshateh di-qera and peshuto shel miqra sparingly, as discussed in Chapter 2. In the Andalusian intellectual milieu that shaped Maimonides’ outlook, peshat was a marginal concept, perhaps still colored by its talmudic usage but certainly open for reinterpretation by a bold thinker, as he would prove himself to be.51 Second, naturally, when seeking to define Maimonides’ concept of peshat, it is necessary to identi precisely the corpus of examples in which he actually uses this term. First and foremost, this includes the above-mentioned Principle #2, where he cites the talmudic rule of peshat. He goes on to invoke the principle nine times in The Book of the Commandments, usually with the Aramaic term peshateh di-qera (“peshat of the biblical verse/Scripture”), but sometimes with the term gufeh di-qera (“biblical verse/Scripture itself ”), which he uses synonymously. These ten passages (Principle #2 and its nine explicit applications) exhaust Maimonides’ salient discussions of peshat—as related to the rule that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat”—in his major writings.52 In the entire expanse of Mishneh Torah, the term appears in only four marginal instances, none of which relates to his rule of peshat—to indicate exclusive halakhic authority.53 It does not appear at all in the Mishnah commentary or in The Guide of the Perplexed, even though Maimonides had ample opportunity to use it in his extensive exegetical discussions in both works. Some readers may be surprised by this assessment, since the term peshat appears numerous times in the Hebrew versions of Maimonides’ writings, especially his

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

248

Chapter 7

Guide of the Perplexed and, to a lesser extent, the Mishnah commentary. These occurrences—some of which are cited above—are brought as evidence by scholars who claim that Maimonides devalued peshuto shel miqra.54 But this characterization is based on a sort of optical illusion. While the Hebrew versions of these works have long shaped the reception of Maimonidean thinking, they are, aer all, translations that obscure the subtleties of Maimonides’ own terminological usages. In the original Judeo-Arabic texts of the Guide and Mishnah commentary, he never used the term peshat. That Hebrew/Aramaic technical term was chosen (perhaps less than fortunately) by translators—medieval as well as modern—to render Maimonides’ usage of Arabic ẓāhir, a term drawn om qur’anic hermeneutics used in the Judeo-Arabic tradition to connote the obvious or literal sense, as discussed in Chapter 1.55 Only in The Book of the Commandments does Maimonides actually use peshat as a technical term, which stands out in Hebrew (peshuto [shel miqra]) or Aramaic (peshateh di-qera) against the background of his Judeo-Arabic prose.56 While in some contexts, peshat would seem to be a reasonable equivalent for ẓāhir,57 Maimonides was careful to distinguish between the two concepts, especially when applying his halakhic rule of peshat primacy. A failure to isolate his distinctive use of the technical talmudic term peshat om the more numerous occurrences of the term ẓāhir in his writings thus leads to a distorted picture of his hermeneutical terminology and conceptions. For Maimonides, the rule of peshat primacy implies that the “peshat of Scripture”—a concept he defined uniquely, as discussed below—is the inviolate, unique source of laws of biblical authority. He appropriated the talmudic maxim to devise a boldly novel halakhic system, at the center of which stands a sharp delineation between laws that bear the authority of the biblical text, as opposed to later rabbinic legislation based on further legal inferences om Scripture. On the other hand, Maimonides’ supposed devaluation of peshat in Hebrew translations of the Guide and elsewhere is based on passages in which he rejects the apparent, strictly literal sense of Scripture—the ẓāhir—and instead applies ta’wīl (nonliteral interpretation). It is the ẓāhir—not peshuto shel miqra—that Maimonides rejects in his analysis of the biblical anthropomorphic depictions of God and the account of Creation in Genesis 1.58 And it is the ẓāhir that the halakhic tradition overrides by Maimonides’ account in the Mishnah commentary.59 In these respects, though, Maimonides is hardly atypical. Saadia had established that ẓāhir must be rejected where it contradicts reason, science, another verse, or rabbinic halakhic traditions. In such cases, Saadia avidly applied ta’wīl to harmonize Scripture with those other sources of knowledge, the veracity of which he accepted implicitly (as discussed in Chapter 1). This axiom was embraced in the Geonic-Andalusian school—and adapted in Hebrew by Ibn Ezra (as discussed in Chapters 2 and 6). The term ẓāhir in Maimonides’ lexicon thus does not carry the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Maimonides

249

authority of peshat. His willingness to override it does not violate his rule of peshat primacy, nor does it imply devaluation of peshat. It would be an overstatement to say that Maimonides’ conception of ẓāhir alnaṣṣ (“apparent sense of the text”) is completely unrelated to his rule of peshat. However, the relationship between them is complex, and defining it is an important key for understanding his hermeneutical theory. Indeed, Maimonides’ use of the terms ẓāhir and ẓāhir al-naṣṣ equently reveals his links to the philological exegetical tradition and his own ability to engage in linguistic-literary analysis. Yet he believed that this was only a first step toward a true understanding of Scripture, which must be augmented using other sources of knowledge, whether it be Aristotelian physics to understand the biblical account of Creation, psychology to describe the phenomenon of prophecy, metaphysics to interpret the biblical depictions of God, or the Oral Law transmitted in rabbinic tradition to reveal the legally binding intentions of the Written Law. Effectively, then, his use of the term ẓāhir—in the spirit of Saadia’s influential exegetical axiom— implies that to arrive at the true meaning of Scripture requires going beyond its immediately apparent literal sense. Maimonides’ more focused—and unique— use of the term peshat in his halakhic exegesis, on the other hand, reflects an endeavor to limit the scope of Scripture to an original core of 613 laws, with further legal midrashic derivations being sharply separated into a secondary category of rabbinic laws. In addressing the tension between the latter category and the philological method, the great codifier joins a venerable group of exegetes in the Geonic-Andalusian tradition. But in his role as an unrivaled talmudist, Maimonides succeeds in devising a bold new model of halakhah and legal exegesis based on his rule of peshat. To better appreciate Maimonides’ conception of peshuto shel miqra, it is helpful to consider his usage of the term ẓāhir (and ẓāhir al-naṣṣ) in further detail. In some instances, Maimonides uses the term to connote the manifestly correct sense of the biblical text, when it does not conflict with what is known om elsewhere (science, philosophy, or halakhah).60 In most cases, however, he uses the term ẓāhir to connote what is merely the superficial (“apparent”) sense of the text—in which case, ta’wīl is required. This occurs equently in the Guide, which instructs “perplexed” readers how to negotiate the seeming contradictions between the ẓāhir of the biblical text and what is known om science and philosophy. While this overall strategy can be traced to Saadia, Maimonides takes advantage of the further refinements developed in al-Andalus in the intervening two centuries. A number of times in the Guide, he invokes the rule that “Scripture spoke in the language of men” to address the problem of biblical anthropomorphism, reflecting the strategy employed within the post-Saadianic tradition om Judah Ibn Quraysh and Qirqisani to Abraham Ibn Ezra.61 Maimonides actually devises a

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

250

Chapter 7

new linguistic approach that retains elements of Saadia’s ta’wīl method but gras upon it the philological rigor of Ibn Janah’s dictionary. He applies this distinctive strategy in the expanse of the first section of the Guide in what have been called its “lexicographic chapters.”62 Most pertinent for our purposes, Maimonides at times uses the term ẓāhir to connote an interpretation that would be reasonable and even correct were it not for an opposing halakhic tradition that overrides it. The ẓāhir in such legal contexts is merely the “apparent” sense and thus does not express the law in his view. Yet it is noteworthy that he invests effort to acknowledge—and even explore— this facet of the biblical text. In the case cited above, for example, he acknowledges that the traditional halakhic interpretation of Deut. 25:11–12, “you shall cut off her hand,” does not agree with ẓāhir al-naṣṣ.63 More strikingly, Maimonides energetically explores the implications of ẓāhir al-naṣṣ at length in his detailed account of the rationale (lit. “reasons”) for the commandments (ṭa‘amei hamitzvot) in the Guide. As he states there programmatically: “I shall give reasons according to the [biblical] text (naṣṣ) in its apparent sense (ẓāhir)” and stipulates that his purpose in that context is “not to give reasons for the halakhah (al-fiqh).”64 Following that pronouncement, he engages in a comprehensive philologicalcontextual analysis of the legal sections of the Pentateuch, taking into consideration the historical circumstances in which it was originally given to the Israelites in its ancient Near Eastern context. The historical sensitivity that Maimonides manifests in that endeavor can perhaps be traced to earlier exegetes in the Andalusian school—most clearly, Moses Ibn Chiquitilla (Chapter 2)—but his analysis is original in its audacity, as he effectively constructs a non-talmudic “shadow” system of halakhah based his own reading of Scripture, akin to what Rashbam had done earlier in the twelh century in his independent explorations of peshuto shel miqra.65 It would seem, then, that for Maimonides, the ẓāhir may have theoretical exegetical value, even if the halakhic tradition overrides it. This can be demonstrated in the following example, om his Book of the Commandments, Negative Commandment #303: To embarrass another person . . . this prohibition . . . is om the verse: “You shall surely rebuke your kinsman, and you shall not bear a sin for (lit., ‘upon’) him” (Lev. 19:17). And in Sifra it says:   Should you rebuke him even until he becomes ashamed? No, for the verse [lit., “teaching”] says: “and you shall not bear a sin for him.” However, the apparent sense of the text (ẓāhir al-naṣṣ) is that it prohibits you to charge him with a sin in your heart and remember it.66

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Maimonides

251

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Maimonides first establishes the rabbinic halakhic reading as the basis for this commandment,67 even though the issue of embarrassment is neither mentioned nor even implied in this verse. He thus offers a contextual interpretation—labeled ẓāhir al-naṣṣ—that unifies this verse, which requires rebuking one’s kinsman over a perceived inaction rather than bearing a grudge.68 The great talmudist ultimately must accept the authority of the rabbinic reading; but he does not seem willing to relinquish the contextual one.69 The translators of this passage in The Book of the Commandments produced an internal Maimonidean contradiction by rendering the Arabic term ẓāhir using the Hebrew term peshat.70 This translation creates a mistaken impression, for if Maimonides really takes his contextual interpretation to be peshuto shel miqra—in opposition to the halakhic reading he cited first—the latter could not be the source of a biblical commandment according to Principle #2. The use of the term peshat to render Maimonides’ term ẓāhir in connection with the literal sense of Deut. 25:11–12 is likewise misleading.71 In neither case does Maimonides intend to grant the “literal sense” (ẓāhir) the authority of peshuto shel miqra. To understand how Maimonides conceived the relationship between the ẓāhir and peshuto shel miqra, we must recall om earlier chapters that Saadia—followed virtually universally in the Rabbanite Judeo-Arabic exegetical tradition—had established that where the traditional halakhic interpretation contradicts ẓāhir al-naṣṣ, the latter must be adjusted by way of ta’wīl accordingly. Maimonides adheres to this position as well but gives it a distinctive coloration within his account of how the Torah and the traditional halakhic interpretation were given. In his Mishnah commentary, Maimonides formulated thirteen principles of Jewish faith. Among them, Principle #8 is especially relevant: The principle that “the Torah is om heaven” —this means that we must believe that the entire Torah in its exact form today is the same Torah revealed to Moses and that it was given to him in its entirety om the Almighty. By this, I mean to say that all of it reached him om God—in a manner that we refer to figuratively as “speech,” the nature of which no one can comprehend fully except Moses, peace upon him, who actually experienced it—and that he was like a scribe who writes by taking dictation (lit., “they read to him and he writes”). This applies to the entire Torah: its histories, its narratives, and its laws. . . . Likewise, its transmitted interpretation (tafsīr marwī) is also om the Almighty. And what we practice today, for example, the sukkah, lulav, shofar, tzitzit, tefillin, and so on, is exactly how God told Moses and he told us, as he was simply transmitting the message faithfully.72 Here Maimonides takes a firm stand on the nature of Moses’ role in the composition of the Pentateuch—a matter subject to different opinions in the earlier

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

252

Chapter 7

tradition. As discussed in Chapter 1, Yefet ben Eli spoke of Moses as the mudawwin of the Pentateuch, which may suggest that he played an active role in shaping the biblical narrative. As discussed in Chapter 6, Abraham Ibn Ezra—who maintained that the formulation of any text is, in any case, incidental to its content— seems to have posited that Moses, like all other prophets, did not receive verbal communication om God at all (with the exception of the Ten Commandments) but only the content of the Law, which he then formulated independently. Although Maimonides here acknowledges the philosophical difficulty of conceiving of God Himself communicating with Moses verbally, he insists that such communication did occur—and that Moses played no role in composing the text of the Pentateuch. In his view, Moses was simply a scribe copying om dictation.73 In Mishneh Torah, likewise, Maimonides, paraphrasing the Talmud, states that “one who says that the Torah is not om God—even a single verse or a single word, if he says that Moses said it on his own, he is a nonbeliever.”74 Maimonides also emphasizes that the text of the Pentateuch dictated to Moses was accompanied by an interpretation transmitted to him by God, the dual nature of which is clarified in his general introduction to the Mishnah: “Know that every law that God revealed to Moses was revealed to him with its interpretation. Now God told him the text (naṣṣ), and then told him its tafsīr and ta’wīl. . . . And they (Israel) would write the text and commit the interpretive tradition (naql) to memory. And thus the Sages, peace upon them, say: the Written Law (Torah she-bikhtav) and the Oral Law (Torah she-be-‘al peh).”75 As discussed in Chapter 1, the Arabic terms tafsīr and ta’wīl both connote interpretation; but when juxtaposed, they have slightly different connotations. Tafsīr conveys what is obvious om the text (the ẓāhir), whereas ta’wīl is an interpretation that is not obvious—for example, a figurative reading. In stating that the oral “interpretation” that Moses received om God contained both tafsīr and ta’wīl, Maimonides means to say that sometimes the text of the Pentateuch is meant literally, but that at other times it was said figuratively or otherwise nonliterally. According to Maimonides, the correct nonliteral interpretation—ta’wīl— was built in to the original “Oral Law” that Moses received at Sinai and then passed down through the “tradition” (naql).76 This resulted in the authoritative halakhic readings transmitted by the Rabbis that diverge om ẓāhir al-naṣṣ—for example, that “you shall cut off her hand” (Deut. 25:12) actually connotes a monetary fine, or that “you shall not bear a sin for him” (Lev. 19:17) is a prohibition to embarrass another person.77 The notion that an authoritative oral tradition, especially in matters of halakhah, overrides ẓāhir al-naṣṣ is hardly a Maimonidean innovation.78 The unique claim that Maimonides makes is that the oral tradition recorded in the Talmud reflects the “transmitted interpretation” (tafsīr marwī)—a term that Maimonides coined and used regularly to connote an original interpretation given at Sinai to

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Maimonides

253

elucidate the biblical text.79 The non-ẓāhir halakhic interpretations that Maimonides endorses reflect (in his view) the original intention of the divine author communicated by the biblical text. For this reason, I would argue, Maimonides actually deems them genuine construals of peshuto shel miqra, which he thus does not devalue when dismissing ẓāhir al-naṣṣ. The argument that a nonliteral “transmitted interpretation” actually indicates the true meaning of the “peshat of Scripture” can be substantiated by a careful reading of Negative Commandment #299 in The Book of the Commandments: “We were prohibited om causing one another to fail (lit., ‘stumble’) in matters of opinion, that is, if someone should inquire . . . in a matter in which he is inexperienced, it is prohibited to misguide him . . . and that is His dictum, may He be exalted, ‘Before a blind man you shall not place an obstacle’ (Lev. 19:14). And the very wording of Sifra is: ‘Before a person who is “blind” in a particular matter, if he seeks advice om you, do not give him advice that is not fitting for him.’ ”80 This interpretation is certainly not ẓāhir al-naṣṣ. Saadia, in his Tafsīr, for example, had rendered this verse literally, as Maimonides would have known.81 He evidently considered the reading in Sifra to be an original halakhic interpretation given at Sinai, which thus overrides ẓāhir al-naṣṣ.82 The terminology that Maimonides uses in the continuation of his discussion is particularly revealing: “This prohibition, the Sages said, also includes one who assists or causes another to commit a sin, because . . . that person’s desire blinded his discernment. . . . They said (b.Bava Meṣi‘a 75b) about one who lends with interest and one who borrows with interest that both violate ‘And before a blind man you shall not place an obstacle’. . . . And they say about many similar things ‘he violates “before a blind man you shall not place an obstacle.”’ But the peshat of the verse (peshateh di-qera) is about what was mentioned first.”83 Invoking his principle of peshat primacy, Maimonides delineates two levels within this prohibition: what is indicated by peshateh di-qera; and further logical inferences. What is most important for our purposes is that Maimonides here explicitly uses the label peshateh di-qera in connection with a non-ẓāhir interpretation. We must recall that Maimonides uses the terms peshateh di-qera (the peshat of the verse) and gufeh di-qera (the verse itself ) interchangeably.84 For Maimonides, then, the source of the prohibition to offer bad advice (Negative Commandment #299) is Lev. 19:14, the biblical verse itself—peshateh di-qera/gufeh di-qera—just as the source of the prohibition to embarrass another person (Negative Commandment #303) is Lev. 19:17. For Maimonides, the oral interpretation given at Sinai defines what the biblical text means and the legal prescriptions it expresses. Yet these examples and others like them in which Maimonides cites a nonẓāhir reading as the source of a commandment of biblical authority—and thus implicitly as peshuto shel miqra—raise a question. If Maimonides is willing to embrace such seemingly midrashic readings, which de the rules of philological

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

254

Chapter 7

analysis (a point he sometimes acknowledges when offering a different analysis as ẓāhir al-naṣṣ), what does Principle #2, his principle of peshat primacy, actually exclude? In other words, what sort of conceptual distinction does he make between the midrashic readings of Lev. 19:14, 17, which he accepts as peshateh diqera, and the midrashic reading of Exod. 18:20 and others based on the midrashic middot, which do not produce laws of biblical authority? To answer these questions, we must explore the categories of interpretation that Maimonides delineates, and how they relate to his rule of peshat primacy.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Maimonidean Delineation of the Sources of the Halakhah In the course of explicating his principle of peshat primacy in The Book of the Commandments, Maimonides emphasizes the legislative validity of the halakhic midrashic exegesis of the Rabbis through the midrashic thirteen middot, even though he excludes the laws produced thereby om enumeration among the 613 commandments: “Perhaps you may think we reain om counting them because they are not certain (mutayaqqina; “authoritative”), or that we question whether the law derived om such a middah is valid (ṣaḥīḥ). But that is not the reason for their exclusion. The true reason, in fact, is that all laws so derived are merely derivatives of the principal laws (furū‘ min al-uṣūl; lit., ‘branches om the roots’) that were told to Moses at Sinai explicitly—and those alone are the 613 commandments.”85 The expression “branches om the roots” that Maimonides uses here to characterize laws derived through the middot can be traced to Muslim jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh; lit., “the roots of the law”). The system underlying that characterization is presented more fully in his introduction to the Mishnah, where Maimonides outlines his conception of the sources and development of the halakhah, drawing upon a range of terms and concepts om Muslim jurisprudence. Among the categories he defines there, two are of particular relevance. 1. As Maimonides outlines in the passage cited above om his introduction to the Mishnah, the primary source of Jewish law is the Pentateuch text (naṣṣ). The meaning of that text is determined by its original interpretation given by God to Moses at Sinai, which was transmitted in an oral tradition (naql). In that passage, Maimonides correlates the Arabic categories of naṣṣ and naql with the rabbinic concepts of “Written Law” and “Oral Law.”86 As he explains, that original interpretation was transmitted faithfully om biblical times by the Sages and is recorded in the Talmud. Throughout his Judeo-Arabic writings, Maimonides accordingly terms it the tafsīr marwī (“transmitted interpretation”). 2. The Sages were also authorized to apply midrashic hermeneutical rules— epitomized by the “thirteen middot”—to extrapolate additional laws om the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Maimonides

255

biblical text. We must recall that Maimonides believed that the very text of the Pentateuch was received by Moses through exact dictation om God. If so, it is understandable that this divine text could be subject to the type of midrashic inference that entails careful scrutiny of the very language of the Pentateuch, every word of which was given by God Himself. In the words of the northern French pashtan Rashbam: “the essence (‘iqqar) of Torah comes to teach and inform us of the haggadot (traditions, lore), halakhot (laws), and dinim (regulations) through the hints of the peshat, by way of redundant language, and through the thirty-two hermeneutical rules of R. Eliezer . . . and the thirteen rules of R. Ishmael.”87 Unlike Rashbam, Maimonides defined this midrashic analytic operation in conceptual terms by drawing upon the well-developed field of Muslim jurisprudence. Throughout his Arabic writings, Maimonides refers to the midrashic middot using the Arabic term qiyās,88 which Muslim theorists used to connote modes of legal inferences om the text of the Qur’an that go beyond what is stated explicitly in the text (naṣṣ, manṣūṣ).89 The basic difference between these two categories is hermeneutical: the transmitted interpretations define the Law expressed by God in the text of Scripture (naṣṣ), whereas the middot, like qiyās, draw out further legal implications om the biblical text—a process that Maimonides describes using the Arabic term istikhrāj (“extrapolation”; lit., “bringing out”).90 Moshe Halbertal has described this distinction as the difference between “interpretation” and “inference”: the tafsīr marwī reveals what the text itself communicates, whereas the middot are used to draw further legal inferences om it.91 There is also a crucial temporal-historical distinction between the two categories. The text—with its transmitted interpretation—embodies the original core of laws given at the one-time Sinaitic revelation. On the other hand, the derivation of new laws through the middot was a process that began subsequently in the time of Moses and was continued by the Sages in each generation through the talmudic era. It would seem to be these distinctions that Maimonides had in mind when referring to the original laws expressed by the text of the Pentateuch as the uṣūl (“roots”) and the later derivative laws extrapolated by the Rabbis as furū‘ (branches).92 Beyond both the hermeneutical and temporal-historical distinctions lies an epistemological one emphasized in uṣūl al-fiqh, which is of prime importance to Maimonides om a doctrinal perspective. The great codifier acknowledges that the reasoning involved in the application of qiyās is subjective and thus open to debate by its very nature.93 Indeed, Maimonides attributes to this very characteristic of qiyās the occurrence of debates in the Talmud over the halakhah derived through midrashic reading of biblical verses. By contrast, he insists that the laws conveyed in the original “transmitted interpretations” are known with certainty to be correct. To begin with, they reflect the intention of God—expressed in the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

256

Chapter 7

Pentateuch. Furthermore, Maimonides vociferously asserts that none of these “transmitted interpretations” was ever forgotten, as there was never any breakdown in their chain of transmission through the ages.94 This Maimonidean delineation departed sharply om the geonic conception that still had adherents in al-Andalus in the twelh century. The midrashic middot had posed a thorny problem for Saadia and his followers, since their use in the Talmud seems to imply that they were regarded by the Rabbis as guidelines for revealing the meaning of the biblical text. This was troubling for two reasons. First, the middot seem incompatible with the methods of philological analysis to which Saadia, Samuel ben Hofni, and their successors in al-Andalus adhered. Second, the Karaites pointed to the talmudic use of qiyās (a term that they also used to characterize the middot) as evidence that the Rabbis were not faithful to the original Law given at Sinai—altering it through their own novel interpretations.95 Saadia resolved both these issues by making the bold claim that the midrashic middot were never actually used by the Rabbis to serve as the basis for new interpretation or legislation. Rather, Saadia claimed, every detail of the Rabbanite halakhah was given at Sinai, and the middot were used merely secondarily as a way of classiing, organizing, and memorizing its details.96 This approach, which was adopted by Samuel ben Hofni and others in al-Andalus, including Abraham Ibn Daud (c. 1110–1180), effectively limited the creative legislative role of the Rabbis and conceived the halakhic process exclusively “as the transmission om generation to generation of an orally revealed body of halakhah.”97 Consequently, debates found in talmudic literature could only be the result of a “crisis in the transmission of tradition.”98 Maimonides rejected this possibility—but also conceded, as the Karaites claimed, that the Rabbis employed the middot creatively, to extrapolate new laws om the biblical text—just as qiyās is conceived in Muslim jurisprudence. To understand these two aspects of Maimonides’ departure om the geonic model, it is helpful to outline in further detail the basic concepts of Muslim jurisprudence om which he drew. By Maimonides’ time, Muslim legal scholars made essential distinctions among different sources of Muslim law (fiqh).99 The first two were the Qur’an (a written record of the divine word) and ḥadīth (oral narratives that report the practices [sunna] of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions, which were subsequently committed to writing).100 The proliferation of ḥadīth narratives, which were oen fabricated, made it necessary to establish their authenticity based on the principle of tawātur (lit., “continuity,” “constant recurrence”), the notion that reports transmitted through numerous continuous and recurrent channels could not possibly be fabricated (and only these were deemed genuine).101 Together, the Qur’an and ḥadīth (the subset of authenticated ḥadīth narratives) were regarded as “foundational texts,” and what was stated explicitly (manṣūṣ) therein was deemed to be known with absolute certainty to be correct, since it was

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Maimonides

257

transmitted by a reliable tradition (naql) traceable to the Prophet himself.102 Yet over subsequent generations, legal decisions had to be made by inference (istidlāl) om what was stated in the foundational texts, and these modes of inference came to be classified under the rubric of qiyās, legal analogy or syllogism.103 Unlike the laws stated in the Qur’an and ḥadīth, those produced via qiyās were known through the powers of human (legal) reason (‘aql) and speculation (naẓar), which were considered subjective and therefore less than certain.104 The former were referred to as uṣūl (“roots”), the latter as furū‘ (“branches,” “derivatives”). One can distinguish between these two classes by examining the basis of the law in question: the source or “indicator” (dalīl; lit., “what points to something”; om the verb dalla-yadullu) of a “root” law is always an explicit text (naṣṣ) in the Qur’an or ḥadīth, whereas the indicator of a derivative law (“branch”) is a legal syllogism, since such a law is not explicit in the texts (ghayr manṣūṣ).105 It would appear that the concept of tawātur is behind Maimonides’ strong claim that there were never any debates among the Sages regarding the “transmitted interpretations.” Working within a amework similar to the one developed in Muslim jurisprudence, Maimonides would have regarded such unanimity as an indication of authenticity, which, in turn, endows the “transmitted interpretations.”106 As a result, the laws expressed in the Pentateuch text—as defined by the “transmitted interpretations”—can be said to be known with certainty.107 The only way for Maimonides to protect this status was to isolate the “transmitted interpretations” om the numerous debates attested in the Talmud, which he attributes to the separate category of laws derived through the application of the midrashic middot. Likened by him to qiyās, these laws are based on human legal reasoning, which is subjective. In his Book of the Commandments, Maimonides opens Principle #2 by referring to the distinction among the sources of the halakhah delineated in his earlier work: “We have already explained in the introduction to our . . . Mishnah commentary . . . that most of the regulations of our Law (sharī‘a) are extrapolated through the thirteen midrashic middot . . . and that these may be debated. However, there is no debate about regulations that are ‘transmitted interpretations’ om Moses.”108 Principle #2 excludes om the enumeration of the 613 commandments all the laws derived through the middot, since, as Maimonides explains, they are furū‘ min al-uṣūl (“branches om the roots”)—derivatives om the principal laws conveyed explicitly in Scripture. At the conclusion of Principle #2, he explains that this differentiation is based on the epistemological distinction established in the Mishnah commentary: “Only what is a ‘transmitted interpretation’ is to be reckoned in the enumeration . . . for it is known om tradition (naql), not through legal reasoning (qiyās).”109 In The Book of the Commandments, then, Maimonides aims to delineate the 613 core commandments known to be correct with certainty—since they were

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

258

Chapter 7

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

transmitted faithfully om the time of Moses—as opposed to the thousands of laws derived through human legal reasoning, which is subjective. It is this fundamental epistemological distinction that he seeks to support by invoking the talmudic peshat maxim. In this light, we must reread his invocation of the “principle that the Sages of blessed memory taught us. . .: ‘a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat’ and the fact that the Talmud in many places inquires: ‘The verse itself (gufeh di-qera), of what does it speak?’ when they found a verse om which many matters are learned by way of commentary (sharḥ) and inference (istidlāl).”110 On this basis, he concludes: “Anything that you do not find as an explicit text (naṣṣ) in the Torah and you find that the Talmud deduces it through one of the thirteen middot . . . then it is rabbinic (de-rabbanan), since there is no text indicating (yadullu) it.”111 When Maimonides speaks of peshateh diqera, gufeh di-qera, and naṣṣ, he means the text of the Pentateuch according to the “transmitted interpretation”—as opposed to laws extrapolated through the middot. In his conception, a law based on a “transmitted interpretation” has a textual dalīl (“indicator”), since it is expressed by a verse of the Pentateuch, in accordance with its divine author’s intention, as conveyed to Moses at Sinai. It is thus clear that Maimonides’ peshat–derash dichotomy is not the same as that of Ibn Ezra, and certainly not as that of Rashbam. The distinction he makes is not primarily methodological (philological vs. non-philological interpretation), but rather epistemological. Within the Maimonidean system, peshateh di-qera, equivalent to gufeh di-qera, connotes the biblical text as originally interpreted, which is the exclusive source of Jewish law known with certainty through the unbroken interpretive tradition om the Sinaitic revelation, rather than through subsequent human legal reasoning through the midrashic middot, which is subject to debate. This epistemological fault line between peshat and derash is drawn om Muslim jurisprudence, as Table 3 illustrates.

Table 3. Maimonides’ Epistomological Peshat-Derash Distinction Traditional Jewish Terminology Used by Maimonides

Maimonides’ Arabic Term

peshateh di-qera, gufeh di-dera

midrash, thirteen middot

Muslim Equivalent

Source of Authority

Level of Certainty

naṣṣ [according Qur’an, to the] tafsīr ḥadīth marwī

transmission (naql) of the divine intention om Sinai

absolute; no debate possible

qiyās

human reason partial; (‘aql) therefore debate is possible

qiyās

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Maimonides

259

For Maimonides, peshateh di-qera is equivalent to the text (naṣṣ) of the Torah, the meaning of which is defined by the “transmitted interpretation” (tafsīr marwī). Parallel to the Qur’an and ḥadīth, Maimonides describes these two together as the source of the 613 “roots,” which are known with certainty, since they are based on an unbroken tradition. By contrast, subsequent applications of the middot, which he classifies as qiyās, have a lesser level of certainty, since they are the product of human reason and are regarded by him as the “branches,” or derivative laws. The most radical point that Maimonides advances in Principle #2 of The Book of the Commandments is that only laws known with certainty—those rooted in peshateh di-qera—have biblical (de-orayta) authority. These have a textual dalīl and reflect the will of God (akin to the Arabic notion of murād allah) transmitted in the Pentateuch text given at Sinai. As Maimonides explains in the eighth of his thirteen principles, both the exact text of the Pentateuch and its interpretation were given by God to Moses at that initial one-time revelation of the Law.112 On the other hand, laws extrapolated subsequently using the mechanism of qiyās (the midrashic middot) derive their authority om human legal reasoning and therefore must be classified as rabbinic (de-rabbanan) laws.

Complication and Controversy

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

The Maimonidean principle of peshat primacy articulated in The Book of the Commandments creates the following hierarchy: Peshuto shel miqra represents the strongest form of biblical signification and is the sole source that yields laws of biblical (de-orayta) authority. For example, “Love your neighbor as yourself ” (Lev. 19:18), which conveys the commandment to act kindly toward others (Positive Commandment #206), and “If a man marries a woman and cohabits with her. . .” (Deut. 22:13, 24:1), which teaches that a woman is betrothed through intercourse.113 This category includes, as well, laws that are stated in peshateh di-qera/gufeh di-qera as defined by the “transmitted interpretations.” For example, the prohibition to give bad advice to one who is gullible, based on Lev. 19:14 (Negative Commandment #299). Extrapolations of halakhah through the middot fall in second place, as they are merely inferences om the biblical text. As such, they produce laws that are only of rabbinic (de-rabbanan) authority. For example, the use of a gezerah shawah to establish that betrothal can be effected through the exchange of money.114 Further removed om the core signification of the biblical text are the more tenuous derashot, which are classified under the rubric of asmakhta.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

260

Chapter 7

These are not even genuine inferences om the biblical text but are merely artificial associations made to attach the words of the Pentateuch to legal precepts that have another source of authority, such as a rabbinic enactment. An example of this would be the atomistic talmudic reading of Exod. 18:20, which conveys specific acts of kindness mandated by the Rabbis.115

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Nahmanides feared that this strongly delineated hierarchy would undermine the talmudic halakhic system.116 But, in fact, the Maimonidean system takes talmudic law into account more than the simple hierarchy would suggest at first glance. A serious complication is introduced into Maimonides’ principle of peshat primacy because, as the great codifier notes, it must take into account that there are laws that the Talmud treats as biblical that seem to be based on derivations through the middot. As Maimonides writes regarding those laws that seem to have no biblical text (naṣṣ) and are derived in the Talmud through the middot: “if the Rabbis themselves clarified and said that this is a Torah principle (guf Torah) or that this is a biblical law (de-orayta), then it is proper to enumerate it, since the transmitters of the tradition said that it is biblical.”117 How can this be reconciled with Maimonides’ rule that the midrashic middot cannot produce laws that are of biblical authority? The answer is provided in the introduction to the Mishnah commentary, where Maimonides explains that, in some cases, legal inference (through the middot) is applied in the Talmud simply to confirm what was known through a “transmitted interpretation”: There is no debate whatsoever about the “transmitted interpretations” om Moses. For example, we never found a debate . . . among the Sages, at any time om Moses to Rav Ashi, where one of them said that one who blinds the eye of another person, his eye should be blinded because of the dictum of God, “eye for an eye” (Deut. 19:21), and the other said that he is liable only to pay monetarily. And we likewise did not find a debate about the dictum of God, “the uit of the beautiful tree” (Lev. 21:9), such that one said that it is the citron (etrog), and the other one said the quince or the pomegranate or something else. . . . And anything else like this with respect to any of the commandments—there is no debate about it because they are interpretations transmitted om Moses, and about these and those that are like them it is said, “All of the Torah, its principles and details were said om Sinai.” However . . . due to the wisdom of the revealed word, these interpretations can be extrapolated om it by means of syllogisms (qiyāsāt),

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Maimonides

261

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

prooexts (isnādāt), allusions (talwīḥāt), and indications (ishārāt) that occur in the text.118 And when you see the Rabbis in the Talmud contending with one another (yatanaẓarūna) and disagreeing in the manner of speculation (naẓar), and they bring a proof for one of these interpretations . . . it is not because the matter is in doubt for them such that they required to bring these proofs for it . . . but rather they sought an indication (ishāra) occurring in the text for this transmitted interpretation.119 Echoing a characterization expressed earlier in the Judeo-Arabic tradition,120 Maimonides argues that the middot are sometimes used in the Talmud to confirm laws known through the tradition, rather than to derive new laws. In such cases, the law was never actually in question; the Sages merely applied tools of legal inference to demonstrate that theoretically, the “transmitted interpretation” could have been extrapolated independently om the biblical text. For Maimonides, this procedure is possible “due to the wisdom of the revealed word,” the Pentateuch, the precise formulation of which was given to Moses at Sinai. It is as though God Himself placed “hints” in the text of the Pentateuch that could be used to extrapolate the particulars of the Oral Law given in the tafsīr marwī but not stated explicitly in the text. The methods of extrapolation may be subject to debate because they are based on legal reasoning and speculation (‘aql, naẓar); but the law is known with certainty through tradition (naql), and not human reasoning. It is helpful to illustrate this category by considering Maimonides’ analysis of the first example he cites, the law of lex talionis in Exod. 21:24–25 (“eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand . . . burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise”) and Lev. 24:19–20 (“if a man causes a blemish in his neighbor, as he has done, so shall be done to him . . . eye for eye, tooth for tooth”), which was interpreted by the Rabbis as monetary compensation, a reading that the Talmud (b.Bava Qamma 83b–84a) bases on a number of alternative midrashic inferences.121 In Maimonides’ scheme, however, the meaning of these verses would have had to have been determined already at Sinai. If so, why would the Talmud need to derive it through midrashic inference? He argues that the rabbinic interpretation was, in fact, received at Sinai, a claim he supports by noting the absence of debate on this point in rabbinic literature. This law, then, is known om tradition (naql). Yet the Rabbis demonstrated that it could have been inferred independently through the methods of qiyās, due to the “wisdom” of Scripture. As Maimonides writes in Mishneh Torah: “Eye for eye”—based on the tradition (shemu‘ah) they expounded that when it says “for,” it is to pay money. . . .

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

262

Chapter 7

For it says: “You shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer” (Num. 35:31)—for a murderer alone there is no ransom, but for loss of limbs or wounds there is ransom. . . . And how do we know that . . . “eye for (taḥat) eye” is payment? Since it says in this matter “bruise for (taḥat) bruise” (Exod. 21:25), and it says explicitly, “If one strikes another with a stone, or with his fist . . . he shall only pay for the loss of his time, and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed” (Exod. 21:18–19), you may deduce that “for” said in connection with a wound is payment. The same rule applies to “for” said in connection with an eye and other limbs.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Even though these matters are apparent om the sense of the Written Law, they are all clearly stated om Moses our Master om Mount Sinai . . . and our forefathers witnessed that the law was applied in this way in the court of Joshua and in the court of Samuel the Prophet of Ramah and in every court that arose om the days of Moses our Master until now.122 In theory, Maimonides could simply have codified this law based solely on the authority of “the tradition” (shemu‘ah),123 which was “clearly stated om Moses our Master om Mount Sinai” and confirmed by the practice in all subsequent courts of Jewish law. Yet following the talmudic precedent, he chooses to demonstrate that it can also be inferred om the “sense of the Written Law”124 using the rabbinic methods of legal reasoning.125 As Maimonides explains, a restrictive reading of Num. 35:31 (in his paraphrase: “for a murderer alone, there is no ransom”) implies that monetary compensation suffices in lesser offenses. He then notes that an explicit verse—Exod. 21:18–19—indicates that “bruise for bruise” in Exod. 21:25 must mean monetary compensation and not literal talion; by analogy, the same would apply to all the offenses listed in Exod. 21:24–25, beginning with “eye for eye.”126 While tacitly acknowledging that this is not a literal—or straightforward—reading of the text, Maimonides, ever the talmudist, shows that it can be supported through reasonable legal inference. It is important to emphasize that the “tradition” of which Maimonides speaks in cases like this is not the same as the one invoked by Abraham Ibn Ezra (following Saadia) as a supplement to the Written Law. For Maimonides, such “traditions” are conceived specifically as interpretive guidelines transmitted om Sinai that reveal the original meaning of a particular biblical text.127 We can illustrate this distinction between Ibn Ezra and Maimonides by comparing their treatment of Deut. 25:6, “and it shall be, the firstborn that she bears shall

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Maimonides

263

succeed to the name of his brother who is dead,” a verse discussed in Chapter 1. The Talmud applies an atomistic interpretation, invoking a gezerah shawah to take the words “and it shall be, the firstborn” to indicate that the obligation of the levirate marriage devolves upon the eldest surviving brother. In fact, according to the talmudic discussion, this is an exception to the rule that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.”128 Notwithstanding the talmudic discussion, the atomistic interpretation was regarded by Ibn Ezra as a classic example of asmakhta, and he argued that the law itself is not indicated by this verse but rather was passed down in a completely oral tradition.129 Against this backdrop, Maimonides’ analysis of the verse is noteworthy: “One who died and le many brothers, the obligation is upon the eldest to perform the levirate marriage . . . as it says, ‘And it shall be, that the firstborn that she bears. . . .’ Based on the tradition (shemu‘ah), they expounded that it refers to none other than the eldest of the brothers . . . and ‘that she bears’ means the one borne by the mother [of the brothers], and it does not mean the one that the levirate wife will bear.”130 Whereas the Talmud regarded this case as an exception to the peshat rule, Maimonides seeks to demonstrate that the halakhic reading can fit into the context grammatically—and can thus be a reasonable construal of peshuto shel miqra. Evidently, he was motivated by his own rule of peshat primacy, for which he did not wish to admit exceptions. He thus argues that the subject of the verb teled (“that she bears”) is the mother of the brothers mentioned at the beginning of verse 5. In the Mishnah commentary, he adds a further grammatical note: “The commandment of the levirate marriage devolves upon the surviving elder brother. This is based on the dictum of God, ‘And it shall be that the firstborn that she bears,’ since it means—that the mother of the deceased bore. And teled [she will bear] is used in the sense of yaldah [she bore], as verbs in the future tense are sometimes used in the sense of verbs in the past tense.”131 While this certainly is not ẓāhir al-naṣṣ, we now see that Maimonides has at least succeeded in showing how the verse as a whole was read by the “transmitted interpretation”: “And it shall be that the firstborn [eldest]132 that she [the mother of the deceased] bore shall succeed to the name of his brother who is dead.” Such a construal was deemed inconsistent with the “way of peshat” by Abraham Ibn Ezra. But it finds a precedent in the commentary of the philologically oriented exegete Judah Ibn Bal‘am. Following Saadia’s rule that rabbinic halakhic traditions override ẓāhir al-naṣṣ, Ibn Bal‘am argued that the talmudic reading of Deut. 25:6 is the single correct construal of that verse.133 Maimonides is known to have used Ibn Bal‘am’s Bible commentary, so it is likely that he regarded it as a reliable source for his own interpretation of this verse—making the halakhic reading peshuto shel miqra, even though Ibn Ezra deemed it an asmakhta.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

264

Chapter 7

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Assessing Maimonides’ Rule of Peshat Primacy In some striking instances, Maimonides’ rule of peshat primacy leads him to boldly reconfigure the lines of the previously accepted talmudic halakhic system. Most famous (and controversial) among these was his claim that betrothal through a document or the exchange of money is rabbinic, because these methods are derived through a heqqesh and gezerah shawah, respectively.134 An equally bold revision of talmudic law is his assertion that the prohibition of ṭerefah discussed in the Mishnah is rabbinic. The talmudic source text for this law is Exod. 22:30, “You shall not eat flesh that is ṭerefah (“torn up/to pieces by beasts”) in the field.” In Biblical Hebrew, the root ṭ-r-f connotes (an animal) tearing an(other) animal to pieces; hence, this verse prohibits explicitly the eating of an animal mortally wounded (“torn to pieces”) by beasts. However, in talmudic law, the term ṭerefah denotes a diseased animal that cannot live, which is prohibited to be eaten even if slaughtered properly. The Mishnah (Ḥullin 3:1) thus lists the defects referred to as ṭerefot and gives the following general rule: “If an animal with this defect could not continue to live, it is a ṭerefah.” In The Book of the Commandments, Maimonides cites Exod. 22:30 as the source of Negative Commandment #181, where he begins with the following commentary: “We were prohibited om eating an animal torn up by beasts, and that is God’s dictum: ‘You shall not eat flesh torn up by beasts in the field.’ ”135 But toward the end of this entry, he addresses the standard way in which the term ṭerefah is used in the Talmud: “As for an animal suffering om (lit., ‘in which occurred’) one of the ṭerefot (“defects,” “illnesses”) derived though qiyās (al-muqāyasa), it is prohibited to be eaten even if slaughtered properly, and one who slaughters it properly and eats of its flesh is given lashes for violating a rabbinic law.”136 For Maimonides, Exod. 22:30 (peshateh di-qera) prohibits eating the flesh of an animal attacked (“torn up”) by beasts, whereas the flesh of animals suffering om the defects classified in the Mishnah as ṭerefot are forbidden only rabbinically because that prohibition is derived through qiyās. As Maimonides would subsequently explain in Mishneh Torah, the Rabbis of the Talmud inferred om the law expressed explicitly in Exod. 22:30 that it is prohibited to consume the flesh of any animal soon to die—whether because it was attacked by another animal or because it became diseased.137 In what would seem to be an application of his principle of peshat primacy, Maimonides regards as rabbinic the prohibition derived through inference. Notwithstanding these striking examples and a handful of others like them,138 Maimonides’ rule of peshat primacy oen involves inductive reasoning working backward om the talmudic data. In some instances, Maimonides was willing to reshape the talmudic halakhah; but in the majority of cases, he accepts talmudic evidence that a given law is biblical (de-orayta) and assumes that it is based

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Maimonides

265

on peshuto shel miqra, even though its stated derivation in the Talmud is through what would seem to be a midrashic reading. Indeed, this is dramatically illustrated by Maimonides’ own retraction of one of his bolder adjustments of the halakhic system. Although the great codifier repeated his restrictive position (citation above at n. 24) on betrothal de-orayta in The Book of the Commandments,139 in Mishneh Torah he writes:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Once the Torah was given, Israel was commanded that if a man wishes to wed a woman, he must acquire her first in ont of witnesses and then she will be his wife, as it says, “If a man acquires a woman and cohabits with her” (Deut. 22:13, 24:1). And this “acquiring” is a positive commandment. And in one of three ways, a woman is acquired: with money, with a document, or with cohabitation. With cohabitation and with a document, betrothal is effected biblically (min ha-Torah). But with money, it is effected rabbinically (lit., “om the words of the scribes”; mi-divrei soferim).140 This ruling reflects a change in Maimonides’ position with respect to marriage by a document, which is here classified as biblical. A query on this very matter was the impetus for Maimonides’ responsum to R. Pinhas of Alexandria cited above.141 The query is summarized by Maimonides: “Why did I say that betrothal by a document and intercourse is biblical, whereas betrothal by money is rabbinic?. . . Are they not all deduced om the Torah?”142 It is to this question that Maimonides responded by laying down his rule that “no matter derived by heqqesh . . . or through any of the thirteen middot . . . is biblical”—but he adds, “unless the Sages say explicitly that it is ‘om the Torah.’ ”143 This last qualification enables him to explain the seeming inconsistency in his classification of the methods of betrothal in Mishneh Torah: Now one may certainly ask me. . .: Since money and a document are both derived through heqqesh,144 why do you say that a document is biblical, but money is only rabbinic (mi-divreihem; lit., “om their words”)? The answer to this is that I certainly would have said this—that money and a document are rabbinic because they are derived only by inference (min hadin). However, since it says explicitly in the Talmud (b.Qiddushin 9b) . . . that a woman could be betrothed biblically (min ha-Torah) with a document alone and without intercourse . . . I relied on that talmudic source and rendered my legal decision.145 Here Maimonides states what would have been his exegetical—and resulting legal—preference: to classi intercourse as the sole biblical manner of betrothal.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

266

Chapter 7

In light of the talmudic discussion, however, he had to abandon this line of reasoning and regard betrothal by a document as having biblical (de-orayta) force as well. Yet the ruling in Mishneh Torah still included the audacious Maimonidean classification of betrothal by money as having rabbinic force only. This position was sharply criticized, especially since Mishneh Torah, written in Hebrew, became available in the great French centers of talmudic learning. Maimonides’ most prominent critic, Rabad of Posquières (c. 1120–1197/1198), writes in his strictures (Hassagot) on Mishneh Torah: “This is a muddle, and a muddled interpretation misled him,”146 since the Talmud never indicates that a woman betrothed through money has a different status om one betrothed through intercourse or a document. Maimonides’ son, Abraham, records that his father eventually modified his position even further and classified all three modes of betrothal as de-orayta, and that he changed the text of Mishneh Torah to reflect this position.147 In the end, it seems that the talmudic evidence forced Maimonides to conclude that, in addition to the method of betrothal clearly stated in Scripture (intercourse), the “transmitted interpretation” specified another two ways in which “a man takes a woman” (a document, money). As for the “derivation” of the latter in the Talmud through heqqesh and gezerah shawah, he evidently posited that these were secondary associations meant to support what was already known om tradition. The Maimonidean rule of peshat is bolder in theory than in practice. As a talmudist, he sought to use the rule of peshat to strati the halakhic system. This forced Maimonides to devise the category of the “transmitted interpretation” to stretch the bounds of the peshat category beyond the parameters of what would have been acceptable, say, to Ibn Janah or Rashbam, who separated peshat om halakhah. In Chapter 6, we saw that Abraham Ibn Ezra’s singular model of peshat, as well as his very strong reading of the peshat maxim, already required him to take halakhic considerations into account when making any determination regarding peshuto shel miqra. Yet Maimonides goes a step further. His superstrong reading of peshat closes the loophole that Ibn Ezra could still use: the possibility that a law of biblical force may be based on a completely oral tradition and therefore would not need to have a source in peshuto shel miqra. Not so for Maimonides, who regarded peshuto shel miqra as the sole source of de-orayta (biblical) law. Accordingly, if he is unable to identi a source in peshuto shel miqra, he will be forced to demote the law in question to de-rabbanan (rabbinic) status. Yet since, in the end, even Maimonides generally recoils om reaching that conclusion in practice (by classiing many rabbinic interpretations as “transmitted interpretations”), we may ask what he sought to accomplish with his rule of peshat. In other words, if his peshat category is not as pure as that of, say, Ibn Janah or even Ibn Ezra, why does he go to such great lengths and invoke the rule of peshat to reconfigure the talmudic system of legal hermeneutics? True,

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Maimonides

267

Maimonides is able to distinguish broadly between peshateh di-qera and laws derived through the midrashic middot. But if the former category includes “transmitted interpretations,” what real meaning does this distinction have? Put differently, given this glaring problem with his system, we must wonder what could have motivated Maimonides to develop it in the first place. Why was it so important for him to anchor the halakhah in the text of Scripture—something other talmudists and exegetes seem to have regarded as superfluous? Why did he deem peshuto shel miqra the exclusive source of de-orayta law, and demote laws derived midrashically to de-rabbanan status? These questions can be answered only conjecturally, since Maimonides does not state his underlying motives, of which even he may not have been consciously aware. Yet we can consider three factors that might have been in play here:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

1. The challenge to the Rabbanite system posed by the Karaites148 2. The imposing theoretical structure of Muslim jurisprudence, which may have inspired Maimonides to establish a similar foundation for talmudic law149 3. The vibrant Andalusian school of philological-contextual exegesis, which had reached its zenith in Maimonides’ time, producing what Ibn Ezra termed the “way of peshat.” Let us weigh the relative impact of these three factors on Maimonides’ thought and their relevance to his rule of peshat primacy. 1. Maimonides was aware of the profound exegetical achievements of the Karaites, which lent force to their critique of the Rabbis for disregarding what would seem to be the clear and obvious sense of Scripture.150 This could have impelled him to endeavor to justi the Rabbanite system of halakhah in scriptural terms. Despite his professed disdain for Karaism, Maimonides builds his system by ceding key points to its critique of the traditional Rabbanite account of halakhah.151 He thus acknowledges (as the Karaites averred) that the Rabbis used the middot to extrapolate new laws, rather than arguing (as Saadia had done) that those laws were already known through an oral tradition and merely confirmed using the middot, a position that seems at odds with rabbinic practice in the Talmud.152 Nor could Maimonides return to a naïve reading of rabbinic literature and view the middot as genuine methods of interpretation, as talmudists unfamiliar with the peshat revolution might have been able to do. The possibility that remained for him was to create a stratified system to distinguish between the text of the Pentateuch (peshateh di-qera) and laws derived om it midrashically. 2. It cannot be denied that distinctive elements of uṣūl al-fiqh feature prominently in Maimonides’ rule of peshat: the delineation of the various “sources of law”—Qur’an and ḥadīth, on the one hand; and qiyās, on the other. The

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

268

Chapter 7

concomitant distinction between uṣūl (“roots”) and furū‘ (“branches”), and between manṣūṣ (“stated explicitly” in the Qur’an and ḥadīth) and ghayr manṣūṣ (“not stated explicitly”); the classification of dalālat al-naql (“indicated by tradition”) versus dalālat al-‘aql (“indicated by reason”). In the Talmud, Maimonides found a preexisting delineation of laws of de-orayta and de-rabbanan force, with an oen fuzzy correlation of the former to the text of the Pentateuch and the latter with rabbinic enactments. Muslim jurisprudence provided a set of theoretical categories that he could correlate with talmudic ones—peshateh di-qera versus the middot—to construct a more systematic account of the de-orayta/derabbanan classification.153 3. In privileging peshuto shel miqra, Maimonides participates in the trajectory of the rule of peshat in the Andalusian exegetical school, which otherwise influenced him profoundly.154 Although the peshat maxim is talmudic (a point that Maimonides emphasizes), he would have been well aware of its vibrant posttalmudic usage in al-Andalus. A century earlier, Ibn Janah had invoked the precedent of the “peshat commentaries” of Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni and established the talmudic rule of peshat as the theoretical basis of his linguistic work, which spurred the commentarial activities of Ibn Chiquitilla and Ibn Bal‘am—great authorities whom Maimonides acknowledges.155 The cogency of their interpretive enterprise led Abraham Ibn Ezra to conclude that peshuto shel miqra is the single correct construal of Scripture.156 It is evident that Maimonides came to share this perspective—either independently or under Ibn Ezra’s influence. But unlike Ibn Ezra, who was not a legal scholar, Maimonides considered the halakhic implications of this new valuation. He thus draws the logical legal-hermeneutical conclusion that the halakhic authority of the Pentateuch (the Torah, orayta) can derive only om peshuto shel miqra / peshateh di-qera, the text of the Torah. It is true that Maimonides effectively redefines peshuto shel miqra to incorporate elements that his Andalusian exegetical predecessors would have regarded as midrashic. But the need that compelled Maimonides to do so reflects the increasing prestige enjoyed by peshuto shel miqra in twelh-century al-Andalus.157 Ultimately, it may not be possible to untangle these influences on Maimonides’ thought, especially as he is known to have drawn upon and reacted to many sources of knowledge and learning. The Karaite critique would have made him dissatisfied with the traditional reading of the Talmud and even the newer geonic account of the middot (which incorporated elements om Muslim jurisprudence). But his knowledge of the peshat revolution in al-Andalus could have done so, as well, and also best accounts for his salient use of the talmudic peshat principle, which the Karaites did not invoke. Maimonides’ talmudic predecessors—om earlier enumerators of the commandments to the great Andalusian jurists Isaac Alfasi and Joseph Ibn Megas—seem unaware of the peshat revolution. Maimonides, on the other hand, cites its great achievements and, as an integrated

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Maimonides

269

thinker, evidently took it into account by making peshuto shel miqra a key component of his legal hermeneutics. As for Muslim jurisprudence, while it is theoretically possible to view it as an independent impetus for Maimonides’ stratification of Jewish law, it seems more likely that it played a supporting role in his endeavor to make peshateh di-qera central while creating space for laws derived through the midrashic middot. The great codifier took upon himself the task of creating a systematic stratification of talmudic law that was ostensibly based on an undifferentiated mass of rabbinic “readings” of Scripture, many of which lacked exegetical cogency—as was made plainly evident by the new philological methods of Bible exegesis practiced by Rabbanite and Karaite commentators alike. Borrowing a conceptual amework om the discipline of uṣūl al-fiqh, he was able to classi many such rabbinic “readings” as secondary inferences om Scripture (qiyās, istidlāl), rather than genuine exegesis. Invoking the talmudic rule of peshat, he argued that these also have a lower halakhic status, since they are not anchored in the biblical text (naṣṣ). By conceding this legal point, he could construct a scripturalist amework—to the extent possible for a Rabbanite—for his rendition of the talmudic halakhic system. Maimonides’ hermeneutical model contains elements drawn om predecessors and might be regarded as a continuation of the Geonic-Andalusian trajectory of the peshat principle om Samuel ben Hofni to Ibn Janah to Ibn Ezra. Yet it was plagued by complications reflected by the criticisms it invited and the resulting accommodations that Maimonides had to make in what at first might seem to be a straightforward rule of peshat primacy. Critiques by talmudists like Rabad and Nahmanides underscore the dissonance between the audacious Maimonidean rule and the tenor of the talmudic use of Scripture to support the system of halakhah. Apart om rewriting the theoretical inastructure of talmudic jurisprudence, Maimonides’ inclusion of “transmitted interpretations” within the rubric of peshuto shel miqra attenuates the very spirit of scripturalism that he ostensibly seeks to infuse into his legal system with his boldly stated initial principles in The Book of the Commandments. In practice, Maimonides is not quite as distant om talmudic interpretation as Nahmanides implies in his trenchant critique of Principle #2. Little wonder, then, that his model was not widely adopted: for other pashtanim, his exegesis was too talmudic, while for other talmudists the halakhic consideration he gave to peshuto shel miqra was too radical.158 His unique construal of the rule of peshat might thus be regarded as a branch of the peshat school that did not bear uit in the later tradition. Yet a proper understanding of Maimonides’ view is crucial for appreciating the range of interpretations given to the talmudic rule of peshat within the golden age of Jewish Bible exegesis. From the models of his predecessors, he draws logical conclusions that they avoided—out of respect for the conventional talmudic

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

270

Chapter 7

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

amework of jurisprudence. As such, Maimonides illustrates the potential reach of the rule of peshat within a Rabbanite system. Moreover, while his successors could reject his construal of the peshat maxim, they did do so by engaging in a dialogue with Maimonides rather than simply ignoring his position. This is amply illustrated by Nahmanides, whose critique of Principle #2—to which we turn in the next chapter—actually leads to a nuanced system that tacitly adopts critical Maimonidean elements and is hardly a simple return to older peshat models.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Chapter 8

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Nahmanides: A New Model of Scriptural Multivalence

The superstrong rule of peshat formulated by Maimonides in the third quarter of the twelh century represents a high-water mark within the peshat tradition, revealing the extent to which this newly devised medieval interpretive mode would be privileged. But it had gone too far for Nahmanides, the great talmudistkabbalist who worked in Girona in the environs of Barcelona in the second third of the thirteenth century. Crossing swords with Maimonides, Nahmanides would formulate a new rule of peshat that negotiates the narrow straits between the Andalusian exegetical tradition and the more talmudically oriented northern French conception of peshat. Following Abraham Ibn Ezra, Maimonides advanced a singular peshat model, quite different om the dual hermeneutic developed in Rashi’s school that balanced peshat and midrash. Nahmanides would devise a more complex model of scriptural multivalence that privileged peshat while making room for three other modes of scriptural signification brought forth by halakhic midrash, typological interpretation, and mystical kabbalistic readings. Anchored (as earlier peshat models had been) in the talmudic peshat maxim, the resulting fourfold Nahmanidean scheme embodies a new conception of scriptural multivalence that would remain influential in the subsequent tradition of Jewish interpretation. As a Sephardi, Nahmanides was a proud heir of the Geonic-Andalusian school of Jewish learning, which migrated into Christian Spain as the Reconquista progressed. Nahmanides probably did not read Arabic, though he knew people who could.1 He avidly absorbed a mediated version of Geonic and Andalusian learning in the Hebrew writings of Abraham Ibn Ezra and Radak. He also made extensive use of the recently composed Hebrew translations—by Judah Ibn Tibbon (c. 1120–1190), his son Samuel (c. 1160–1230), and Judah Alharizi (c. 1165–1225)— of works by Saadia, Ibn Janah, and Maimonides. Nahmanides was also directly influenced by his teachers, Judah ben Yaqar and Meir ben Nathan of Trinquetaille, who had studied in other centers of Jewish learning in Provence and northern France. From them, he absorbed the developing discipline of kabbalah, as well

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

272

Chapter 8

as the new Tosafist form of talmudic learning—an influence accompanied by deep respect for Rashi and his Bible commentaries. Traces of the refined peshat commentaries of Qara and Rashbam are found in Nahmanides’ writings;2 but for him, the northern French peshat school was represented chiefly by Rashi’s amalgam of peshat and derash. Nahmanides, who came to be regarded in his lifetime as a principal religious authority, composed influential Talmud commentaries and a variety of other important writings of various genres (monographs, letters, sermons, etc.) on halakhic and theological issues. He penned a commentary on the book of Job; but his masterful Pentateuch commentary was his chief exegetical work.3 Nahmanides revised the latter work throughout his lifetime, with substantial portions being added even in his last years (1267–1270), which he spent in Palestine.4 Dwelling in Acre among rabbinic figures who had come to the Holy Land om northern France, Nahmanides was exposed in those last years to books he had not known previously, and their imprint is evident in his Pentateuch commentary.5 Nahmanides’ Andalusian predecessor Maimonides, who had worked entirely in a Muslim intellectual milieu, had developed his singular peshat model by adapting hermeneutical conceptions om Muslim jurisprudence, as discussed in Chapter 7. The roots of that model can be traced to Saadia, who drew upon qur’anic hermeneutics, in which the “clear verses” (muḥkamāt) were prized in determining the will (murād) of God, as discussed in Chapter 1. Since Nahmanides worked in a Christian environment, it is worth considering the possible parallel between his innovative Jewish fourfold interpretive scheme and the theory of the “four senses” dominant in thirteenth-century Christian interpretation, as summed up in the popular couplet: Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia (The Literal teaches deeds, what you believe Allegory, Moral how you act, where you are going Anagogical).6 This Christian delineation is hardly set in stone, as the four senses are classified differently by different interpreters, with even the exact number of senses varying.7 Yet the prevalence of the medieval Christian fourfold scheme has led some scholars to explore the possibility that it influenced Jewish interpreters. Jewish four-layered exegetical models become more fully defined aer Nahmanides’ death, in the late thirteenth century. A delineation of four modes of interpretation is attested in the Pentateuch commentary of Bahya ben Asher (composed around 1291), a student of Nahmanides’ student Solomon Ibn Adret, and in the Zohar, penned in the circle of Moses de Leon (1250–1305), where it is associated with the acronym PaRDeS.8 Gershom Scholem and Moshe Idel have discussed parallels to the Christian fourfold scheme in connection with the Zohar, and Albert van der Heide has done so in connection with Bahya.9 None asserted a precise correspondence between the Christian and Jewish four senses; rather, they weighed the possibility that the general notion that the Hebrew Bible can be

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Nahmanides

273

read in four distinct ways was influenced by Christian thought. In the current chapter, this matter will be raised in connection with Nahmanides, considerably older than Bahya and de Leon, and a more pivotal figure in the Jewish exegetical tradition. It is important to emphasize at the outset that when discussing Christian “influence” on Nahmanides, we are not speaking simply of his passive absorption of notions current in his surroundings. Rather, we are suggesting that Nahmanides drew upon tools om his Latin intellectual milieu to answer pressing questions that arose in Jewish tradition due to the convergence of conflicting internal interpretive streams of thought. The extent of Nahmanides’ knowledge of Latin is unknown; but he conversed at length with Christians (probably in the medieval Catalan language) about their doctrines and Bible interpretation.10 He represented the Jewish faith in the 1263 Barcelona disputation convened by King James I of Aragon, against a group of Dominican scholars that included Pablo Christiani, a Jewish convert with whom Nahmanides had sparred earlier in Girona.11 The records of the event—one penned by Nahmanides in Hebrew, the other by an anonymous author in Latin with the seal of the Crown of Aragon—indicate that Nahmanides responded to various biblical and rabbinic sources brought by his adversaries to demonstrate the truth of Christianity.12 The most compelling evidence that Nahmanides borrowed elements of Christian learning is his pronounced method of typological interpretation, which resembles the well-defined Christian mode of reading whereby Old Testament narratives are said to prefigure events in the Gospel and in the later history of the Church, or that the six days of Creation symbolize the “six ages of the world,” as Augustine famously expounded.13 Nahmanides read the Pentateuch narratives as prefiguring events in Jewish rather than Christian history, using his typological readings to suggest that divine providence directly charts its course. To be sure, this sort of interpretive move can be traced to the Rabbis, as emphasized by Nahmanides. Yet Amos Funkenstein observes that his special terminology and typological conceptualizations betray the influence of Latin interpretive conceptions.14 The relationship among the various senses of the Bible was a hot topic in late medieval Latin learning.15 The early church fathers had hallowed the spiritual senses at the expense of the literal, following Paul’s dictum “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (2 Cor. 3:6). But in the thirteenth century, pointed questions about this dichotomy were posed and answered in innovative ways that altered the relative valuation of the literal and various “spiritual” senses of Scripture. Drawing upon the exegetical work of the Victorines, Latin authors om the 1230s onward began to use newly introduced Aristotelian learning to redefine the interrelation among the senses of scriptural signification.16 Ultimately, Albert the Great (1193 or 1206–1280) and his student Thomas Aquinas would equate the literal sense with intentio auctoris (“intention of the author”),

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

274

Chapter 8

thereby granting it greater authority than it ever had before.17 For Nahmanides to have been aware of developments in Christian learning in his time, he need not have read Latin himself. It would have been sufficient for him to have discussed Bible interpretation with Christian scholars, as he evidently did. In exploring the parallels between Nahmanides and late medieval Christian interpretation, we are not only seeking to identi influences on his thought but also to more sharply define internal dynamics within the Jewish interpretive tradition. We must ask why Nahmanides felt the need to adopt a typological mode of reading that resembled its Christian manifestation, and why he found it useful to employ a new fourfold scheme of interpretation such as the one he would have known om Christian sources. On his own, Nahmanides probably would have wished to distance himself om Christian strategies of reading the Bible. Evidently, there were new challenges posed by the convergence in the thirteenth century of the older Andalusian and northern French peshat traditions that Nahmanides was uniquely able to address by appropriating the typological mode of reading as part of a newly delineated fourfold scheme of scriptural signification.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Status of Halakhic Midrash vis-à-vis Peshuto shel Miqra Reflecting complex intellectual allegiances, Nahmanides elaborates in the poetic introduction to his Pentateuch commentary on his “love” for the commentaries of Rashi, which for him are “the lights of the pure candelabrum.”18 As for the Geonic-Andalusian school, Nahmanides aims a laconic remark toward its most visible representative: “and for R. Abraham Ibn Ezra, we shall have open rebuke and concealed love.”19 Despite this apparent ambivalence, Bernard Septimus and Miriam Sklarz demonstrate that Ibn Ezra provided the underlying template of Nahmanides’ exegesis.20 “Open rebuke and concealed love” likewise characterizes Nahmanides’ relation to Maimonides, who is subject to harsh criticism in his Pentateuch commentary, though the latter’s thought and strategies of interpretation influenced Nahmanides decisively.21 Nahmanides expresses a characteristically Andalusian position regarding midrash in his disputation with Pablo Christiani: “We have besides the Bible and Talmud a third kind of book called midrash, that is to say, ‘sermons’ (a transcribed Romance word embedded in Nahmanides’ Hebrew)—rather like the case should a bishop get up and preach a sermon. . . . If one believes in it—well and good— and if one doesn’t believe in it, there’s no harm in that. . . . We also call this . . . aggadah . . . that is to say, that they are merely things that one man tells another.”22 Even when incorporating midrashic elements into his commentary (whether through the conduit of Rashi, or by engaging directly with rabbinic literature), Nahmanides had to consider the implied rationalist critiques of midrash by Ibn

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Nahmanides

275

Ezra and Maimonides. As Septimus notes, for Nahmanides “[t]here could be no return to the innocence of Rashi.”23 Yet, as an admirer of Rashi and a student of the Tosafists, Nahmanides granted midrash a more central role in the formation of the halakhah than typically assumed in his Andalusian heritage. It is true that special authority was ascribed to halakhic midrash by earlier authors in the Geonic-Andalusian school (even those who questioned the authority of aggadot), as discussed in Chapter 1. But in Nahmanides’ case, this respect stems om the new talmudic learning of the Tosafists, whose dialectic style characterizes his Hassagot (“Critiques”) of Maimonides’ Book of the Commandments. There he rejects the latter’s radical rule of peshat primacy: “The second principle . . . is shockingly beyond my comprehension, and I cannot bear it, for . . . if so . . . the truth is the peshat of Scripture alone, not the matters derived midrashically, as he mentions om their dictum, ‘a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat.’ And as a result, we would uproot the ‘thirteen middot by which the Torah is interpreted,’ as well as the bulk of the Talmud, which is based on them.”24 Nahmanides puts his finger on the implications of Maimonides’ superstrong reading of the talmudic peshat maxim: “He maintains that a law lacking a biblical source text, that is derived through one of the middot . . . is merely of rabbinic authority (de-rabbanan), since Scripture was written only for its peshat, and not to extrapolate that law om it.”25 But Nahmanides argues that the talmudic peshat maxim as articulated by the Rabbis must be understood differently: “They did not say, ‘a biblical verse is [to be understood] only according to its peshat’; rather, it has its midrash and its peshat and does not leave the realm (lit., ‘hands’) of either one of them, since Scripture can bear all meanings, both being true.”26 For Nahmanides, both peshat and derash bring out genuine modes of scriptural signification. In making this assertion, Nahmanides parts company not only om Maimonides but also om Ibn Ezra, who regarded midrash as nothing more than “an added idea,” as opposed to what Scripture actually says—the peshat, which he also refers to as the “essence” and the “truth” (as discussed in Chapter 6). For Nahmanides, the midrashim relating to the commandments . . . are all included (nikhlalim) in the language of Scripture, even though the Rabbis extrapolate matters through redundancies (ribuyyim). . . . Scripture includes (yikhlol) all [derivations through the middot], for the peshat is not as claimed by those who are lacking in . . . understanding . . . and not as held by the Sadducees (i.e., the Karaites). For “the Torah of the Lord is perfect” (Ps. 19:8), with not a superfluous or missing letter; all were written with wisdom.27

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

276

Chapter 8

Rejecting the singular peshat model as characteristic of the Karaites (“Sadducees”), Nahmanides deems the Torah a special “perfect” text.28 Upholding the midrashic doctrine of omnisignificance, he posits that something significant must be inferred om all its redundancies and other stylistic features—as the Rabbis did in applying the middot.29 Nahmanides’ hermeneutical claim leads to a different legal valuation of the laws derived midrashically: “One of the essential principles of the Talmud is that all matters derived in the Talmud through one of the thirteen middot have biblical (de-orayta) status, as they are an interpretation (perush) of the Torah given at Sinai.”30 Maimonides had regarded the middot as rules of legal inference om the text of the Bible—akin to the mechanism of qiyās in Muslim jurisprudence. Nahmanides, on the other hand, viewed them as methods of interpretation (perush) that reveal the full meaning of the biblical text.31 Although Nahmanides argues that Scripture “includes” both peshat and midrash—and that both therefore establish halakhic precepts that are of biblical force—he does differentiate between the two mechanisms of interpretation. As he remarks: “the opinion of the Sages is that the middot are like what is stated in the Torah explicitly (meforash ba-Torah), even though they extrapolate (dorshim) [additional laws] through them with their own reasoning.”32 Peshat interpretation reveals what is “stated in the Torah explicitly”; the midrashic middot were used by the Rabbis to extrapolate new laws “with their own reasoning.” As Nahmanides goes on to explain, “the words were told to Moses plainly (stam), and the Sages were commanded to interpret the Torah . . . using the methods of the thirteen middot.”33 The Written Law revealed at Sinai was given as an open text subject to later interpretation—a process entrusted to the Rabbis, who were empowered to use the middot to fix its meaning.34 This is virtually the same as the account given by Maimonides, except that he had made the further claim that laws so derived have only a de-rabbanan status. Nahmanides also posits another sort of application of the middot. In these cases, he argues, the Rabbis did not apply the middot creatively; rather, those applications were given along with the Written Law: “they were received specifically; for example, we learned om the Almighty that betrothal is through money and that this is hinted at (nirmaz) in the Torah by [the gezerah shawah] ‘to take,’ ‘to take’ [the same word said in connection both with betrothal and with a land sale for money] or through a document, which is hinted at by the heqqesh ‘and she leaves his house and becomes the wife of another’ [linking the mechanisms of divorce and betrothal].”35 Nahmanides refers here to Maimonides’ controversial assertion (discussed in Chapter 7) that betrothal through money or a document is merely of rabbinic force, since these mechanisms are derived in the Talmud through the middot, as opposed to marriage through intercourse, which is stated explicitly in the biblical text (“If a man marries a woman and cohabits with her”;

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Nahmanides

277

Deut. 22:13, 24:1). According to Nahmanides, these two additional mechanisms of betrothal were conveyed orally by God as part of the original Sinaitic Oral Law—in a tradition that included their midrashic derivation. In this case, the Rabbis did not apply the middot creatively to extrapolate new laws; rather, they received a tradition that certain laws are “hinted at” in the biblical text. In using the term “hint” (remez) to characterize the midrashic derivation of betrothal through money and through a document, Nahmanides acknowledges that they must be distinguished om what is “explicit in the Torah,” peshuto shel miqra. He simply argues that “Scripture includes all” and that biblical authority is granted to both hermeneutical categories. This delineation is also evident in the following discussion by Nahmanides of a case in which the Rabbis seem to have augmented the original biblical law through an independent, creative application of the middot. In commenting on Exod. 20:8, “Remember the Sabbath day to sancti it,” Nahmanides writes:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

By way of peshat . . . its meaning is that our remembrance of it should be sacred—that our resting om work should be because it is a sacred day, for us to turn away om mental preoccupations and the vanities of the times, and instead to delight our souls in the ways of God, and to go to the sages and the prophets to hear the words of God, as it says [citing the husband of the Shunamite woman setting out to meet the prophet Elisha]: “Why are you going to him today? It is neither the new moon nor Sabbath” (2 Kings 4:23), for that was their usual custom.36 Citing evidence om the practices of a typical ancient Israelite woman recorded in the book of Kings, Nahmanides identified the “sanctification” of the Sabbath in Exod. 20:8 with the endeavor to seek out God’s word. This interpretation, taken without attribution om Ibn Ezra,37 is classified by Nahmanides as peshuto shel miqra, as it would seem to be the original intention of the biblical verse as understood in ancient times. Unlike Ibn Ezra, though, Nahmanides has room for another layer of scriptural signification beyond peshuto shel miqra, which prompts him to add: But our Rabbis also have a midrash . . . om the word “to sancti it,” that we should sancti it verbally, similar to the meaning of “Sancti the fiftieth year” (Lev. 25:10), which requires a pronouncement of sanctification by the religious court, to say in the Jubilee year: “It is sanctified, it is sanctified.” Here, too, it commands that we pronounce the Sabbath day sacred in order to sancti it. And thus they said in the Mekhilta: “. . . to sancti it—sancti it with a benediction” . . . and this is “sanctification of the day” (qiddush ha-yom). Now this is a biblical obligation (min ha-Torah),

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

278

Chapter 8

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

not an asmakhta. And thus they said: “even women are biblically obligated to recite qiddush.” (b.Berakhot 20b)38 Ibn Ezra had classified this midrash as an asmakhta.39 While Nahmanides concedes that it cannot be regarded as peshuto shel miqra, he argues that this reading is not a mere asmakhta but rather a genuine midrashic inference om the language of the biblical text.40 In the view of Ibn Ezra, such midrashic inferences have the status of “an added idea” and are extraneous to the true, singular meaning of the biblical text. For Maimonides, they have the status of qiyās and yield laws of rabbinic authority.41 Nahmanides here in his Pentateuch commentary applies his theory articulated in his Hassagot, positing that such inferences should be regarded as “hints” that are “included” in the language of Scripture, and thus yield precepts of biblical authority. Elsewhere in his Pentateuch commentary, as well, Nahmanides will offer a peshat interpretation distinct om the halakhic midrashic reading, which he accepts as authoritative.42 According to Nahmanides, the peshat maxim teaches that “a biblical verse . . . has its midrash and its peshat and does not leave the realm of either one of them, since Scripture can bear all meanings, both being true.”43 This resembles the dual hermeneutic—the notion that Scripture conveys both peshat and midrash as two layers of signification simultaneously—advanced by earlier authors discussed in preceding chapters of this volume. The echo of Ibn Janah is unmistakable. As discussed in Chapter 2, Ibn Janah cites the peshat maxim and pairs it with his paraphrase of the talmudic discussion, “the peshat of the verse is one thing, the halakhah another,” whereupon he adds that “it is not impossible that one language expression can bear two correct meanings.”44 He effectively separated the realms of peshat and halakhah, relegating the latter to the authority of midrash. This strategy would be developed further by Rashbam, who carves out a niche for the “peshat of Scripture” by citing the peshat maxim, while at the same time insisting the “the essence (‘iqqar) of Torah comes to teach and inform us the haggadot, halakhot, and dinim,” which are derived midrashically.45 Indeed, as discussed in Chapter 4, in this Tosafist-exegete’s system, midrash supersedes the authority of peshuto shel miqra, which is effectively irrelevant for legal purposes. Therefore, Rashbam had no compunctions about devising peshat interpretations that diverge om the halakhah. Comparison with Ibn Janah and Rashbam reveals the Maimonidean elements in Nahmanides’ dual hermeneutic. Nahmanides agrees with Maimonides that peshuto shel miqra is a primary source of the core of halakhah that has biblical authority—and rejects only Maimonides’ further claim that it is the only such source. The great Catalan talmudist was thus willing to formulate halakhic positions—at times, ones that are unattested in rabbinic literature—based on peshuto

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Nahmanides

279

shel miqra.46 His interpretation of Exod. 20:8 “by way of peshat” (cited above) is one such example. While the precept he derives there—to dedicate the Sabbath to spiritual pursuits—is not halakhically groundbreaking, it is noteworthy that he views the peshat interpretation as a compelling source of religious law, even though the same verse is interpreted differently in rabbinic literature, as he goes on to observe.47 A more dramatic case is Nahmanides’ peshat interpretation of Lev. 27:29, “No human being who has been proscribed can be ransomed; he shall be put to death.” Nahmanides begins his commentary on this verse by citing Rashi’s midrashic interpretation, which he supplements with another halakhic midrash. But Nahmanides then goes on to offer a novel interpretation “by way of peshat”— that this “proscription” (ḥerem) is a special legal mechanism by which a person, a group, or an entire population might be consigned to death by the king or religious leadership under extraordinary circumstances, especially in time of war.48 On this basis, he explains a number of troubling biblical episodes, including the annihilation of the people of the city of Jabesh-Gilead (Judges 21) and Jonathan’s death sentence during a battle with the Philistines (1 Samuel 14). In Nahmanides’ Pentateuch commentary, this analysis is given in a matter-of-fact way. But his tone in presenting it in another work of his, his halakhic monograph Mishpaṭ ha-Ḥerem (probably written in his younger years), is more apologetic— indicating Nahmanides’ awareness of how innovative this halakhic ruling is, given the fact that it is based entirely on his peshat reading of a Pentateuch verse and not on rabbinic halakhic sources. There he prefaces this reading: “I say, with a ‘perhaps,’ and aer begging forgiveness, that this is the peshat of the verse in the Torah.”49 Recognizing that this reading may spark criticism, Nahmanides adds: “And you should not reject this view (lit., ‘shut our mouth’) just because the Rabbis interpreted this verse midrashically for another matter. . . . For despite that, this verse does not leave the realm of its peshat, ‘One thing God has spoken; two things have I heard’ (Ps. 62:12), the verse can convey both meanings.”50 Nahmanides goes on to supply another case of this nature that would appear to be incontrovertible: Come and see that the Sages of blessed memory midrashically interpreted “Fathers shall not be put to death for sons” (Deut. 24:16)—on the testimony of sons, “nor sons be put to death for fathers” (ibid.)—on the testimony of fathers. . . . Nonetheless, “a verse does not leave the realm of its peshat,” as it is written [about Amaziah, king of Judah]. But he did not put to death the children [of the assassins], in accordance with what is written in the Torah of Moses, ‘Fathers shall not be put to death for sons’ (2 Kings 14:6). This indicates there are multiple true interpretations of the Torah.51

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

280

Chapter 8

By citing this example of scriptural multivalence, which had precedents in the Andalusian exegetical tradition,52 Nahmanides defends his reliance on peshuto shel miqra to support his novel halakhic analysis in the case of the ḥerem. In the three cases that we have seen, Nahmanides brought proof for his interpretation of peshuto shel miqra om practices recorded in the Bible. He surmised how ancient Israelites actually practiced the “sanctification” of the Sabbath based on the narrative of the Shunamite woman. He deciphered the “proscription” (ḥerem) of human beings in Lev. 27:29 with the aid of the episodes of the royal death decrees recorded in Judges 21 and 1 Samuel 14. And he showed how Deut. 24:16 was applied in biblical times om the citation of this very verse in 2 Kings 14:6 in connection with Amaziah’s judicial practices. In his peshat readings, Nahmanides aims to recover the original sense of the biblical text—the way it was understood and applied in ancient biblical times, before it was interpreted further by the Rabbis. The very possibility of analyzing peshuto shel miqra in a way that diverges om rabbinic halakhic exegesis is hardly Nahmanides’ innovation. It was precisely this eedom that Ibn Janah and Rashbam sought to establish by formulating their respective dual hermeneutical models. But those predecessors argued for the independence of peshuto shel miqra om the halakhic system, whereas Nahmanides regards peshuto shel miqra as a primary source of halakhah. For this reason, he will never adopt a peshat interpretation at odds with the halakhah—as was the striking tendency of Rashbam. Nahmanides, in fact, explicitly cites one such interpretation in Rashbam’s name on his talmudic commentary, and rejects it because it does not accord with the talmudic presentation of the halakhah.53 Nahmanides thus conceives of two channels om which the halakhah comes forth: peshuto shel miqra, what is stated in Torah explicitly (meforash ba-Torah); and midrashic derivations using the middot, by which the Rabbis draw out precepts that are not explicit but for which a “hint” (remez) in the text can be adduced. Interpretations of the first type aim to reveal the original intention of the biblical text—as conveyed by God at Sinai, and as the text was originally understood in ancient biblical times. On the other hand, interpretations of the second type allow for the creative analysis of the Rabbis. This two-layered conception of the halakhah owes much to the outline sketched by Maimonides in his introduction to the Mishnah and in his Book of the Commandments, as discussed in Chapter 7. The only aspect of Maimonides’ system that Nahmanides disputed was the halakhic claim that derivations through the middot produce laws that are only of rabbinic authority (de-rabbanan). But the conceptual hermeneutical hierarchy delineated by Maimonides could remain in place—with the caveat that even laws derived through “hints” in the text bear the authority of biblical (de-orayta) law. It would even seem that Nahmanides adopted another tendency om Maimonides that indicates a shared belief in the privileged status of peshuto shel miqra.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Nahmanides

281

As discussed in Chapter 7, Maimonides sought a source in peshuto shel miqra for every precept of biblical authority (de-orayta). This need is an inevitable result of his system, in which laws derived midrashically are merely of rabbinic authority (de-rabbanan). Nahmanides did not have the same compelling need—since for him, even laws derived midrashically have biblical force as well. Yet there are a number of striking instances in which Nahmanides makes an effort to identi sources in peshuto shel miqra for talmudic laws that are presented in rabbinic literature as being based on midrashic derivations.54 For example, the precept of sounding the ram’s horn (shofar) on the New Year (Rosh Hashanah) is drawn om Lev. 23:24 “in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe complete rest, a sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts (teru‘ah).” Nahmanides, in his sermon for New Year (delivered in Acre in his final years), makes the exegetical observation that the precise instrument of the “loud blasts” is not self-evident om the text of this verse, since the word teru‘ah in the Bible can be associated with cymbals (Ps. 150:5) and trumpets (Num. 31:6). He remarks that “the Rabbis in the Gemara offer midrashic inferences by way of gezerah shawah and heqqesh that this obligation of teru‘ah is with the ram’s horn.”55 Yet Nahmanides is not satisfied with this mode of halakhic reasoning, and adduces philological evidence that “this is the literal sense (mashma‘) of these verses.”56 For Rashbam, who regarded midrash as the “essence of the Torah” and as the ultimate source of the halakhah, there would be no point to seek evidence in peshuto shel miqra for a law attached in rabbinic sources to a midrashic derivation. Though Nahmanides was strongly influenced by the Tosafists, among whom Rashbam was prominent figure, the great Catalan talmudist had absorbed the valuation of peshuto shel miqra bequeathed to him by his great Andalusian predecessors Ibn Ezra and Maimonides. He therefore regarded peshuto shel miqra as the most direct and most compelling (though not the exclusive) source of de-orayta laws.57 Wherever possible, therefore, he sought to establish the basis of the halakhah on peshuto shel miqra, rather than om the “hints” drawn out through the midrashic middot, which he regarded as a secondary mechanism for extracting laws om the text of the Pentateuch—a distinctly Maimonidean move. This hermeneutical hierarchy also manifests itself in Nahmanides’ endeavor in a number of striking instances to demonstrate that what would seem, at first glance, to be a midrashic derivation is actually a reading that stems om a rational, philological-contextual analysis of the biblical text. A prime example is his commentary on Lev. 19:2, “You shall be holy,” a vague commandment that Rashi interpreted by citing a midrash. Following Rashi’s lead, Nahmanides delves into the rabbinic gloss of this verse: “You shall be self-restraining (perushim)” (Sifra), which Nahmanides takes to mean “abstinence,” “the self-control mentioned throughout the Talmud, which confers upon those who practice it the name of perushim” (Pharisees; lit., “separated ones”).58 There does not seem to be much

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

282

Chapter 8

philological or contextual basis for this interpretation—which is hardly atypical of midrash. Nahmanides, however, endeavors to demonstrate that it reflects a well-grounded contextual analysis: The meaning of this is as follows: The Torah has admonished us against illicit sexual relations and forbidden foods but otherwise permitted intercourse . . . and eating meat and wine. Therefore, a lustful glutton could find a way to be engaged in sex [lit., “filth”] with his wife or many wives . . . and eely speak all profanities, since this prohibition is not mentioned in the Torah, and thus he will become a sordid person within the permissible realm of the Torah. Therefore aer having listed all the matters prohibited altogether, Scripture followed them up by a general commandment that we practice moderation even in matters that are permitted. One should minimize sexual intercourse. . . . He should also sancti himself by using wine in small amounts. . . . Likewise he should guard his mouth and tongue om being defiled by excessive food and by lewd talk . . . and he should puri himself in this respect until he reaches the degree known as “self-restraint.”

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

It is in reference to these and similar matters that this general commandment [“You shall be holy”] is concerned, aer Scripture enumerated all individual deeds that are strictly forbidden. . . . For Scripture’s essential intention (lit., “the essence of Scripture”; ‘iqqar ha-katuv) is to warn us of such matters, that we should be clean and pure, and separated om the common people who dirty themselves with wanton luxuries and unseemly things.59 Nahmanides goes on to bring support for this analysis om two similar examples elsewhere in the Pentateuch, which demonstrate that “it is the manner of the Torah,60 that aer it lists certain specific prohibitions, it includes them all in a general precept.”61 In his exegetical treatment, what appears in rabbinic literature as a midrashic wordplay is shown to fulfill the criteria of his philological-contextual “way of peshat” to thus reveal the “essence of Scripture.”62

Typological Reading The well-delineated, elevated status of midrash vis-à-vis peshuto shel miqra articulated in Nahmanides’ Hassagot would seem to apply to halakhic midrash specifically. Regulated within the amework of the “thirteen middot,” that sort of midrashic interpretation was regarded by Nahmanides as being “included in” or

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Nahmanides

283

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

“borne by” the language of Scripture—in addition to, and distinct om, peshuto shel miqra. On the other hand, Nahmanides generally treats non-halakhic (aggadic) midrash through the prism of Ibn Ezra’s categories, subjecting it to critical scrutiny.63 In some cases, the Catalan talmudist will make an effort to show how a midrashic interpretation or rabbinic historical tradition can be rationalized or reinterpreted to make it internally coherent, or, in some cases, consistent with the rational-philological standards of peshuto shel miqra.64 But as a rule, Nahmanides cannot make room for a separate non-halakhic midrashic interpretation that coexists with peshuto shel miqra in the sort of dual hermeneutic articulated in his Hassagot, that a biblical verse “has its midrash and its peshat and does not leave the realm (lit., ‘hands’) of either one of them, since Scripture can bear all meanings, both being true.”65 The exception to this rule relates to a special subset of midrashic readings that Nahmanides defines by invoking a distinct hermeneutical conception of typological reading. At the beginning of his commentary on the patriarchal narratives in Genesis, Nahmanides introduces his typological mode of interpretation in the following remarks: I will tell you a principle by which you will understand all the coming portions of Scripture concerning Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is indeed a great matter that our Rabbis mentioned cryptically, saying that whatever has happened to the patriarchs is a “sign (siman)” for their progeny.66 It is for this reason that the verses narrate at great length the account of the journeys of the patriarchs, the digging of the wells, and other events. Now someone may consider them unnecessary and of no useful purpose. But they all serve as a lesson for the future: when an event happens to any one of the three patriarchs, what is decreed to happen to his children can be understood om that event. . . . Thus, the Holy One, blessed be He, caused Abraham to remain in the Land of Israel and created for him similitudes (dimyonot; sing., dimyon) to whatever He intended to do to his progeny.67 Nahmanides goes on to explain how the details of a number of the patriarchal episodes foreshadow events that would occur in the future to the people of Israel. For example, Abraham’s travel itinerary upon his arrival in Canaan symbolizes, according to Nahmanides, the map of the initial entry of the Jewish people into the Holy Land under Joshua’s leadership.68 Likewise, “Abraham’s exile into Egypt on account of the famine is an allusion (remez) to the exile of his children there,” and “Isaac’s exile . . . to the land of the Philistines . . . alludes to (yirmoz) the Babylonian exile.”69 As observed by Amos Funkenstein, this Nahmanidean strategy of reading bears a strong resemblance to the tendency of Christian interpreters to view Old

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

284

Chapter 8

Testament accounts as symbols or “types” of events and persons in the New Testament, especially Jesus Christ.70 Augustine had argued, for example, that the Genesis narratives about Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, the son they bore, were “heralds” of God and His son and that, accordingly, “Christ is to be sought” in those narratives—in what they said and did and in what happened to them.71 An elaborate system was thus developed whereby the New Testament served as a lens through which the deeper, figural, or symbolic meaning of the Old Testament was discovered. Events in the biblical narrative that seemed mundane or inconsequential were thereby endowed with historical and even ultimate significance. For example, not only was God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac viewed as a prefiguration of God sacrificing His only son, but Isaac’s carrying the wood for his sacrifice was identified as a symbol of the wooden cross that Christ would bear to his crucifixion.72 Beyond the obvious methodological similarity, Funkenstein notes that the terminology employed by Nahmanides—novel in the Jewish exegetical tradition—echoes that of Christian typological exegesis. Hence, in his review of the symbolic significance of the accounts of the patriarchs in Genesis, Nahmanides remarks: “In the book of Genesis, the book of Creation, the Torah completed the account of how the world was brought forth om nothingness and how everything was created, as well as an account of all the events that befell the patriarchs, who are a sort of creation to their seed. All the events that happened to them were ‘figures’ (ṣiyyurim; sing., ṣiyyur) of other events, indicating and foretelling all that was destined to come upon their progeny.”73 The distinctive Nahmanidean use of the Hebrew term ṣiyyur in this context unmistakably echoes the Latin term figura employed in connection with typological interpretation. Some might argue that one need not posit Christian influence on Nahmanides in order to explain his typological mode of reading, since he oen cites rabbinic sources in this context. Indeed, it is the midrashic statement “whatever has happened to the patriarchs is a sign (siman) to the children” that Nahmanides invokes as the basis for his typological reading strategy.74 Yet the meaning of that statement in its rabbinic context is hardly unequivocal. Furthermore, the examples that Nahmanides cites om rabbinic literature typically are simply observations about parallel language used to describe events that befell the patriarchs and later Israelite history. It is Nahmanides who imparts the rabbinic maxim with special hermeneutical coloring, as a system of reading, explaining that events told in the earlier accounts actually “hint at” later occurrences.75 A typological mode of interpretation that bears some similarity to that of Nahmanides is attested in the Sekhel Ṭov commentary by Menahem ben Solomon.76 There is no evidence that Nahmanides had access to this work.77 Nonetheless, the parallel is important because it demonstrates that typological reading could emerge organically within the Jewish interpretive tradition. Yet it also

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Nahmanides

285

underscores the distinctive elements that Nahmanides evidently drew om Christian interpretation: the special term ṣiyyur (figura) and the conceptualization of typological interpretation as a distinctive layer of scriptural signification or “sense” of Scripture. Nahmanides likewise adapts into a Jewish amework Augustine’s notion that the six days of Creation in Genesis symbolically represent the “six ages of the world” (sex aetates mundi). According to this doctrine, which was highly influential in the medieval Christian world, each day of Creation represents a thousandyear epoch of human history (based on 2 Peter 3:8, “one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”), om the formation of Adam to events of the Revelation. Within Augustine’s scheme, the sixth epoch (“age”) was ushered in by the advent of Christ, and the seventh—corresponding to the Sabbath—would bring eternal rest aer the final judgment and “end of time.”78 Nahmanides appropriates this scheme in his commentary on Gen. 2:3, “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, for on it he rested om all his work, which God created, making [lit., ‘to do’; Heb., la‘asot].” To explain the final word of this verse, which seems superfluous in the original Hebrew (as reproduced in our translation), Nahmanides first records the peshat interpretation of Ibn Ezra, followed by two alternative philologically oriented ones of his own. But then he continues: “Know, however, that the word ‘to do’ also includes a hint (remez) that the six days of Creation are all the days of the world—that its existence will be six thousand years. For this reason, the Rabbis have said: ‘A day of the Holy One, blessed be He, is a thousand years.’ ”79 Nahmanides goes on to speci, detail by detail, how the six-day Creation period serves as a hint (remez) to the sixthousand-year periods of world history. Although Nahmanides cites the Rabbis as the basis of his analysis, the method of reading he adopts is unmistakably Augustinian. As Funkenstein observes, many of Nahmanides’ typological equivalences are structured to counter Christian ones. The creation of Adam on the sixth day prefigures the coming of the Davidic messiah, rather than Christ; and, for Nahmanides, Esau prefigures the Roman Empire rather than the Jews who lost their legal primogeniture, as believed by Christian interpreters.80 Yet we should ask why Nahmanides found it necessary to adopt a typological mode of reading the Bible—which he would have known to be a Christian strategy. One cannot rule out a polemical motive—that Nahmanides wished to show that a typological analysis could be used to support a Jewish interpretation of history rather than a Christian one. But there are strong indications that Nahmanides found the typological mode of reading uniquely helpful to resolve internal tensions within the various Jewish exegetical traditions he inherited. Rather than regarding this “borrowing” simply as “Christian influence,” we might say, instead, that Nahmanides drew upon tools made available by his Christian intellectual surroundings to perfect his Jewish reading of the Bible.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

286

Chapter 8

As mentioned in the Introduction, a key tenet of midrash is that every episode in Scripture is written “for our instruction,” in order to teach a timeless lesson, and not simply to convey ancient history. This tenet was challenged by the peshat schools that emerged in the eleventh and twelh centuries. In northern France, new historical sensibilities were introduced by Rashi and developed by his students Joseph Qara and Rashbam (as discussed in Chapters 3 and 4). Yet among the great pashtanim in the Ashkenazi realm, peshuto shel miqra was an ancillary aspect of scriptural signification; and thus, eternal “instruction” could always be secure in midrash, characterized as the “essence of Torah” by Rashbam. A different approach developed in the Andalusian school—heavily influenced by the historically inclined interpretive outlook of Moses Ibn Chiquitilla (discussed in Chapter 2), which is represented, for example, in Maimonides’ historical account of the commandments in his Guide of the Perplexed (discussed in Chapter 7).81 When put into the context of Ibn Ezra’s singular peshat hermeneutic, which excluded midrash om the realm of genuine scriptural signification, this historicist outlook effectively undercut the ancient interpretive assumption that all details in Scripture were “written for our instruction.” Within the Andalusian school, the biblical narratives were instead valued for providing historical context for the Law but were not mined for detailed “instruction” per se.82 While developing separately in the twelh century, the northern French and Andalusian peshat schools functioned adequately, each with its own assumptions. But when they converged in the thirteenth century, a dilemma became apparent to authors who sought to integrate them: How could an adherent of Ibn Ezra’s rigorous peshat mode find moral or religious instruction in the biblical narratives?83 This dilemma faced the Provençal commentator Radak, whose father, Joseph Kimhi (c. 1105–1170), was an Andalusian émigré. The elder Kimhi brought the rich Judeo-Arabic learning of his heritage to Narbonne, which had previously been a bastion of midrash.84 As a proud Sephardi, Radak fashioned his peshat method aer that of Ibn Ezra and was an ardent Maimonidean.85 Yet this younger Kimhi, evidently influenced by his Provençal milieu, was also a devotee of midrash, and valued Rashi’s commentaries accordingly.86 Aware of the religious edification that midrash provides, Radak aimed to replicate it in his peshat exegesis by devising a distinctive style of extrapolating religious and moral lessons om the narratives in Genesis, oen prefaced with the formula “this story was written to inform us. . . .”87 Radak’s lessons, however, differ substantially om the instruction expounded by the midrash, which oen manufactures elaborate scenarios not stated in Scripture. Instead, Radak draws more modest conclusions om what is told explicitly in the biblical narrative. For example, he remarks: “Sarah acted neither morally, nor piously” in her harsh treatment of Hagar recounted in Genesis, “for it is improper to ruthlessly punish an underling.” Radak explains: “For this reason, the story was written in the Torah, to teach people good traits,

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Nahmanides

287

and discourage bad ones.”88 Nahmanides embraced this approach and even borrows his Provençal predecessor’s distinctive phraseology, noting some such lessons where Radak did—and, more important, applying the method independently.89 Yet Nahmanides also would have perceived the limitations of this endeavor. Since Radak reained om elaborate midrashic speculations, and limited himself to the most modest conclusions that are well supported by the text, he could offer only sparse coverage of the Genesis narratives—perhaps a dozen or so lessons in all. Nahmanides augmented this number a bit but could not go much further.90 More important, while lessons might be derived in this manner om each biblical episode as a whole, the details they contain elude deeper explanation. The midrashic impulse, of course, was to attribute significance even to the smallest details of the biblical narratives, in accordance with the doctrine of omnisignificance. But this analytic style was criticized as irrational by both Ibn Ezra and Maimonides.91 It would seem that the typological mode of reading resolved this dilemma for Nahmanides. Even while stipulating that peshuto shel miqra relates to the historical episodes only, he could attribute to their details a secondary symbolic significance. For example, in commenting on the episode of Isaac digging “a well of spring water” in the land of the Philistines (Gen. 26:19)—followed by the digging of another two wells—Nahmanides offers the following typological reading:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

“A well of spring water” hints (yirmoz) to the Temple of God that the descendants of Isaac will build . . . as it says, “God is a well of spring water” (Jer. 17:13). He called the first well ‘eseq (“contention”), which hints to the First Temple, concerning which the nations contended with us and instigated quarrels and wars with us until they destroyed it. He called the second well siṭnah (“enmity”), a name harsher than the first. This is the Second Temple, which was called thus in accordance with what is written about it: “. . . they wrote hateful words (siṭnah) against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem” (Ezra 4:6). . . . The third well he called reḥovot (“expanse,” “spaciousness”). This is the future Temple, which will . . . be done without quarrel or feud, and God will enlarge our borders.92 The impetus to engage in this sort of detailed typological analysis is provided by Nahmanides in the following programmatic remark: “Scripture gives a lengthy account of the matter of the wells. Now in the plain sense of the story (bi-peshutei

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

288

Chapter 8

ha-sippur), there would seem to be no benefit, or any great honor to Isaac. . . . Yet there is a hidden matter (‘inyan nistar) involved here, since Scripture’s purpose is to make known a future matter.”93 Nahmanides here clarifies the dilemma he faced: the peshat reading offers little of significance in terms of doctrine. So the question arises: Why were these details included in the Pentateuch? To answer this question, he posits that Scripture conveys a secondary level of signification: the typological one, in which these details allude to the future history of the people of Israel.94 While Nahmanides may have drawn the notion of a distinct typological layer of scriptural signification om his Christian intellectual milieu, his motives for adapting it into his own reading of Scripture emerged om an internal Jewish hermeneutical tension.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Kabbalistic Reading By the early thirteenth century, the study of kabbalah had reached maturity in the centers of Jewish learning in Provence and Catalonia. Nahmanides was deeply influenced by kabbalah and incorporates it into his Bible commentaries, at times prefaced with the explicit markers “by way of mystery” (sod) or “by way of truth” (emet), which might be compared with his corresponding marker “by way of peshat” inherited om Ibn Ezra and Radak. Much has been written about the kabbalistic strain in Nahmanides, and it is beyond the scope of the current study to describe this subject at length.95 We focus on how the kabbalistic dimensions of Nahmanides’ commentary interact with what he describes as peshuto shel miqra and other layers of scriptural signification. In his introduction to Genesis, Nahmanides expresses his views on the literary nature of the Pentateuch.96 There he states that the book of Genesis was given word for word by God at Mount Sinai, along with the “Law,” the legal sections of the Pentateuch, beginning with the Ten Commandments: “Moses our Master wrote this book of Genesis together with the Law om the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He.”97 In this respect, Nahmanides follows the strongly formulated position of Maimonides, that Moses received the Pentateuch word for word om God and played no role in shaping its textual format.98 Yet Nahmanides takes a step further and goes on to say, citing a midrashic tradition, that the entire Pentateuch text reflects a primordial formulation that was preexisting before the creation of the world, when it was inscribed in “black fire upon white fire.”99 Moses was thus indeed nothing more than “a scribe who copies om an ancient book.”100 It is striking that Nahmanides adopts this fantastic midrashic tradition, which is evidently a symptom of his kabbalistic outlook.101 It is conceivable that Nahmanides was reacting—consciously or unconsciously— to earlier views in various streams of the Jewish interpretive tradition that ascribed a role to Moses in the formulation of the Pentateuch. Perhaps he was aware of

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Nahmanides

289

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Rashbam’s tendency to identi the literary strategies employed by Moses in composing the biblical narrative.102 He may even have known of Yefet’s references to Moses as the mudawwin of the Pentateuch, which can be taken to imply that he actually shaped the biblical narrative.103 Abraham Ibn Ezra, with whom Nahmanides engages regularly, does not state his view clearly on this matter. Yet, as discussed in Chapter 6, it is possible to glean om Ibn Ezra’s remarks in Sefat Yeter about the nature of prophecy in general, as well as his sporadic references to Moses as the author of the Pentateuch, that, in his view, Moses received only its content om God and that he chose its formulation himself. For Ibn Ezra, in any case, the formulation of Scripture, like any other text, is incidental to its content. So Ibn Ezra could maintain that Moses, rather than God, was responsible for choosing the exact words of the Pentateuch without contradicting the talmudic axiom that the Torah is entirely “om Heaven,” because what counts is its content, not its precise wording. All these views are precluded by Nahmanides, who portrays Moses as a scribe copying the primordial Torah word for word as it was originally written “black fire upon white fire.”104 This axiom is closely associated with another point that Nahmanides makes in his introduction, regarding an esoteric layer of meaning in the Pentateuch that conveys the mysteries of Creation and the nature of God and His “emanations” (sefirot, in the kabbalistic tradition). The Talmud referred to such secret knowledge (gnosis) under the headings the “Account of Creation” (Ma‘aseh Bereishit) and the “Account of the Chariot” (Ma‘aseh Merkavah), which were related, respectively, to Genesis 1 and Ezekiel 1. The kabbalists elaborated on these subjects, as reflected in Nahmanides’ remarks: God informed Moses first of the manner of the creation of heaven and earth and all their hosts, that is, the creation of all things, high and low. Likewise He informed him of everything that has been said by prophecy concerning the esoterics of the Account of the Chariot and the Account of Creation, and what has been transmitted about them to the Sages. Moses was informed about these, together with an account of the four forces in the lower world. . . . With regard to all these matters—their creation, their essence, their powers and functions, and the disintegration of those of them that are destroyed—Moses our Master was apprised.105 Beyond simply claiming that Moses was granted this knowledge, Nahmanides goes so far as to say that “all of it was written in the Torah explicitly (be-ferush) or through a hint (be-remez).”106 The nature of this “hinting” is explained further by Nahmanides: “Everything that was transmitted to Moses our Master through the forty-nine gates of understanding was written in the Torah either explicitly or in hints—through the exact choice of words, in the gematria values, in the forms of

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

290

Chapter 8

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

the letters, that is, whether written normally or with some change in form such as bent or crooked letters and other deviations, or in the tips of the letters and their crownlets.”107 For Nahmanides, unlike Ibn Ezra, the precise wording of the Pentateuch is critical. Indeed, even the individual letters and their shapes convey esoteric matters. No wonder, then, that Nahmanides characterizes Moses as a mere scribe who copied the ancient, divine Pentateuch text—written in “black fire upon white fire”—word for word, letter for letter. Nahmanides again makes a point of the dual signification of Scripture in the following remark regarding the opening verse of Genesis: “You must know that by way of the truth, Scripture speaks explicitly about the lower realms and hints at (yirmoz) the higher realms. And the word bereshit (‘in the beginning’) hints to the emanation called Wisdom, which is the head of all beginnings.”108 Likewise, in his discussion of the biblical episode of the Garden of Eden, Nahmanides makes the following observation: “All these things are twofold (kefulim) in meaning, as the overt (galuy) and the concealed (ḥatum) meanings are both true (emet).”109 As he explains at greater length elsewhere: The Garden of Eden exists somewhere in this world. . . . Everything appearing in Scripture in the Creation section is true according to its peshat, and in none of them does “a verse leave the realm of its peshat.”. . . But the secret (sod) of the issue is that the matters are twofold in meaning, for the Garden of Eden, and the four rivers and the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge . . . all are literal (ke-mashma‘am) and according to their peshat, true and firmly established, but also written to convey a wondrous mystery (sod), for they are figures (ṣiyyurim) for other things to enable one to understand a deep mystery. . . . And similarly, the sacred design of the Tabernacle . . . its courtyard, tent and inner sanctum . . . and all the utensils in each place, and the design of cherubs—all enable one to understand the mysteries of the upper world, the middle, and the lower, and the hints of all the Divine Chariot are there.110 By combining the peshat maxim as he defined it in his critique of Maimonides with the notion of “figures” employed in his typological mode of reading, Nahmanides again presents a dual hermeneutic: even while preserving the integrity of peshuto shel miqra, he argues that Scripture also conveys another layer of meaning by hinting to esoteric knowledge. As already mentioned, Nahmanides takes the days of Creation typologically to represent six-thousand-year epochs of world history.111 But he also presents a mystical reading of the six days: “Know that the term ‘day’ as used in the account of the Creation was, in the case of creation of heaven and earth, a real day, composed of hours and seconds, and there were six days like the six days of the workweek, as

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Nahmanides

291

is peshuto shel miqra. But in the deeper sense, the emanations (sefirot) issuing om the Most High are called ‘days.’. . . The explanation of the order of the verses in terms of this profound interpretation is sublime and recondite. Our knowledge of it is less than that of a drop om the vast ocean.”112 In the spirit of his pronouncement that “Scripture speaks explicitly about the lower realms and hints at (yirmoz) the higher realms,” Nahmanides distinguishes between peshuto shel miqra, the first signification of Scripture, and the mystical layer to which it hints. This mystical layer of meaning is distinct in Nahmanides’ system om the other non-peshat modes of scriptural signification discussed above. It is clearly unlike halakhic midrash via the thirteen middot. On the other hand, Nahmanides’ use of the hermeneutical term ṣiyyur (“figure”) in this connection suggests a similarity to his typological mode of reading. In his mystical readings, Nahmanides posits that the mundane realities described in the “peshat of Scripture” (days of the week of Creation; the elements of the Garden of Eden, components of the Tabernacle) correspond on a metaphysical level to the divine reality composed of dynamic potencies or emanations. As Elliot Wolfson explains: “just as on the metaphysical level the divine reality (composed of the dynamic potencies or emanations) is reflected and expresses itself in the mundane world, so too on the textual level the divine is reflected and expresses itself in concrete symbols—culled om Scripture—that are comprehensible to the human mind. The literal meaning thus corresponds to events in this world and the symbolic to events in the divine realm: just as the two realms are parallel so too the two levels of meaning.”113 Whereas the transfer in Nahmanides’ typological readings involves the progression of history—events that occurred at one time are said to prefigure events in a later time—his mystical readings entail a conceptual transfer whereby entities in the lower, mundane reality symbolize ones in a higher, supernal one— not unlike Augustine’s discussion of the relation that holds between the “earthly” and “heavenly” Jerusalem.114 As Moshe Halbertal notes, Nahmanides conceives of the Garden of Eden and the Tabernacle as “isomorphic-symbolic” spaces that “enable . . . a . . . view of the system of the godhead itself.”115 We might ask why Nahmanides felt the need to posit that the biblical text hints at such mystical-theosophic knowledge. Even as a kabbalist, he could simply have maintained that such knowledge was transmitted purely within the Oral Torah.116 A possible answer is suggested by a discussion in Nahmanides’ gloss on Gen. 1:1, which immediately follows his introduction to the Pentateuch. There he cites the midrashic question posed by Rashi: Given that the Pentateuch is a book of Law, why does it include an account of Creation?117 In typical fashion, Nahmanides proceeds to challenge Rashi’s understanding of this midrashic question. Displaying the influence of Maimonides’ enumeration of the doctrinal tenets of Judaism, the Catalan exegete argues that the Creation account could not have been omitted om the Pentateuch, as it is a fundamental tenet of Judaism that

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

292

Chapter 8

the world was created by God and is not eternal, as Aristotle maintained.118 Yet as a talmudist, Nahmanides was unwilling to reject the midrashic remark itself and thus reinterprets it in the following way: the doctrine of Creation is conveyed briefly in Exod. 20:11 (“For in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth”); the midrashic question was why the Pentateuch “wastes words” on the detailed narrative of Creation. As Nahmanides writes: “It was not necessary for the Torah to begin with the . . . narration of what was created on the first day, what was done on the second and other days, as well as the prolonged account of the creation of Adam and Eve, their sin and punishment, and the story of the Garden of Eden.”119 This sort of question is typical of the midrashic outlook, which assumes that every detail of Scripture must contain instruction. Indeed, Rashbam devised a different approach to the matter by way of peshat, arguing that the elaboration on the Creation story is necessary for literary purposes—to provide a historical narrative background for the Law.120 Although Nahmanides reinterprets Rashi’s midrashic answer in the spirit of his own understanding of the question, he seems to recognize that the entire issue is not a peshat concern.121 Yet it is conceivable that the same type of thinking that motivated him to posit a typological layer of scriptural signification (as discussed above) motivated him to posit a mystical one. True, the details of peshuto shel miqra yield no specific instruction. However, on a deeper, mystical level, the biblical text is effectively omnisignificant, since the details of the six-day Creation narrative and the Garden of Eden, as well as the numerous minutiae of the Tabernacle, point to parallel elements in the divine realm and “enable . . . a . . . view of the system of the godhead itself.”122 It seems that a similar impetus plays a role in a different sort of kabbalistic reading that Nahmanides mentions in his Pentateuch introduction: “We have yet another mystical tradition that the whole Torah is composed of names of the Holy One, blessed be He, and that the letters of the words separate themselves into divine names when divided in a different manner.”123 According to this notion—which seems to have taken shape in kabbalistic circles a generation before Nahmanides—the text of the Pentateuch can be parsed as a string of the secret names of God.124 Nahmanides does not refer to this tradition elsewhere in his commentary, which is understandable because it really does not admit any further exegetical development. Yet in his follow-up remark, he reveals at least part of his motive for mentioning this alternative way of reading the Pentateuch: “It is for this reason that a Scroll of the Law in which a mistake has been made in even one letter’s being added or subtracted is disqualified . . . for this principle obligates us to disquali a scroll of the Torah in which one letter waw is missing . . . or added. . . . So it is in similar cases, even though it matters not one way or another on cursory thought.”125 Nahmanides here seeks to explain why a Torah scroll is disqualified even for the omission or addition of inconsequential letters, such as matres lectionis. This

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Nahmanides

293

appears to be a response to Abraham Ibn Ezra, who, as discussed in Chapter 6, argued that “Scripture preserves the meanings, but not the words”—that inferences should not be drawn om minute distinctions between similar formulations in the Bible. For example, the Rabbis distinguished between “Remember (zakhor) the Sabbath day” (Exod. 20:8) and “Observe (shamor) the Sabbath Day” (Deut. 5:11) in the two versions of the Ten Commandments, applying the doctrine of omnisignificance. Ibn Ezra dismisses this as midrashic overanalysis and adds with chagrin that “people nowadays seek a meaning for full and defective spellings,” addition or omission of matres lectionis.126 Nahmanides criticizes Ibn Ezra’s dismissal of this pillar of rabbinic interpretation and argues that nuances of formulation in the Bible— particularly the “remember”/“observe” distinction noted by the Rabbis—are indeed meaningful.127 But even Nahmanides could not dispute Ibn Ezra’s rational argument about the insignificance of full and defective spellings.128 It is with respect to this argument that the kabbalistic way of reading the Torah as an amalgam of divine names proves valuable: while true that matres lectionis are insignificant on the level of peshuto shel miqra, they are critically important on the kabbalistic level to spell the magical names of God properly—and are omnisignificant in that respect. Once again, such a view of the Pentateuch makes its precise wording and even spelling essential. It is dependent on the notion that Moses received this divine text word for word, even letter for letter, om God Himself. As Nahmanides describes it, Moses was merely like “a scribe who copies om an ancient book.”

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

New Valuation of Peshat in Light of Christian Models Nahmanides was not the first Jewish interpreter to adhere to the doctrine of scriptural multivalence, which can be traced to the ancient rabbinic saying that “the Torah has seventy faces.”129 That vague notion was refined by Rashi and Rashbam, who articulated a dual hermeneutic by distinguishing between peshuto shel miqra and midrash, and asserting that both inhere in Scripture.130 Nahmanides’ innovative move was to more sharply define three types of non-peshat scriptural signification: halakhic derivations using the midrashic middot; and typological and kabbalistic readings that expound the hints embedded in Scripture to future events and supernal realities, respectively. Whereas Rashi could cite halakhic and aggadic (including typological) midrashic interpretations in an undifferentiated way, Nahmanides defined distinct mechanisms by which such interpretations could be ascribed to Scripture more rationally. It is reasonable to conclude that he perceived this need in order to respond to critiques of midrash implicit in the singular peshat models formulated by Abraham Ibn Ezra and Maimonides. Even while criticizing those Andalusian predecessors, the Catalan talmudist could not “return to the innocence of Rashi”131 and had to justi his conception of scriptural multivalence theoretically.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

294

Chapter 8

In the case of halakhic midrash, Nahmanides needed only to modi the Maimonidean scheme that cast the middot as a secondary mechanism of extrapolation om the biblical text. As such, derivations through the middot are distinct om peshuto shel miqra, which is the primary source of halakhah. Nahmanides did not have to reject this hermeneutical hierarchy. Without questioning the conceptual primacy of peshuto shel miqra, he could simply argue that the secondary extrapolations also enjoy a de-orayta legal status (rejecting only their demotion to de-rabbanan status by Maimonides), since the Rabbis were endowed with the authority to interpret the biblical text actively and thereby augment the original body of halakhah given at Sinai. A different mechanism was required for non-halakhic midrash and readings that ascribe kabbalistic content to the biblical text. Here Nahmanides found it useful to adapt the Christian notion of “figuration,” which he terms ṣiyyurei davar/ devarim (“figures of things”). This hermeneutical model, as employed by Nahmanides, implies that the language of the biblical text has only one meaning, peshuto shel miqra. The things and events that the peshat signifies, in turn, hint at later events (typological readings) and supernal realities (kabbalistic readings).132 This has been termed “praxis symbolism,” as opposed to “logos symbolism.” In other words, where figuration is involved, each and every word (logos) of the Pentateuch does not signi later events or supernal realities directly; it signifies only peshuto shel miqra, “the fundamentum of history,” of which Christian interpreters spoke.133 Rather, it is the deeds (praxis) that make up the biblical history that are endowed with symbolic meaning, for they are figures of other deeds and things.134 There is little reason to impute significance to the fact that the precise number of senses of Scripture delineated by Nahmanides coincides with that of the Christian fourfold scheme. He arrives at his “four senses” almost coincidentally, as a by-product of aiming to balance the central value of peshuto shel miqra he inherited om the Andalusian school with the values of the older midrashic tradition that still permeated the Ashkenazic talmudically oriented outlook, which influenced him profoundly as well. Yet the fact that it was a commonplace within his broader (Christian) intellectual milieu that Scripture conveys four senses simultaneously may have made it easier for Nahmanides to break out of the straitjacket of the dual hermeneutic of his Jewish exegetical predecessors and construct his own four-layered scheme. More important, Nahmanides’ strategies for negotiating the complexities of the interrelation among the four modes of scriptural signification are comparable to some of those devised in contemporaneous Christian learning. As Rita Copeland explains, Thomas Aquinas built upon distinctions made by Augustine to devise a “definitive answer to the difficulties encountered by earlier generations of exegetes” by positing that “there are really only two senses of Scripture, the literal and the spiritual (the spiritual can be multiplied according to the Alexandrian

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Nahmanides

295

divisions of moral, allegorical, and anagogical). . . . Words point to things literally; and those things—events, objects, and facts—are ordained to yield up higher truths. This recalls Hugh of Saint Victor’s effort, especially in the Didascalicon, to save the literal sense. As Aquinas puts it, everything is grounded in the literal sense, which is the necessary vehicle of our perception of things and their higher meanings.”135 As Alastair Minnis observes, this perspective reflects “the new prestige and scope which the literal sense came to enjoy within thirteenth-century schools of theology and beyond.”136 It would, for example, profoundly influence Alfonso de Madrigal (Ávila; c. 1400–1455), who enumerated the “ways in which the literal sense may be judged as superior to the spiritual sense.”137 To be sure, the spiritual sense remained essential, even dominant, for late medieval Christian interpreters; the endeavor of those who took part in this new hermeneutical trend was to show how it is located in, or is at least tethered to, the literal sense.138 Nahmanides’ conception of figuration—a hermeneutical category he evidently drew om Christian sources—bears striking similarities to the one worked out by Aquinas. It would be a stretch to argue that Nahmanides was aware of the theories of Saint Thomas, who was a generation younger than him. (Aquinas’s theories would eventually reach Spain, as attested two centuries later by de Madrigal.) Yet Aquinas’s hermeneutical thought was part of a larger context of scholastic learning, represented, for example, by Robert Grosseteste (1175–1253), Guerric of Saint Quentin (d. 1245), Alexander of Hales (1185–1245), and Albert the Great (Aquinas’s own teacher). By the 1230s, those authors were beginning to draw upon newly introduced Aristotelian learning to understand the interrelation among the senses of scriptural signification in new ways.139 It is not inconceivable that some of those intellectual currents came to Nahmanides’ attention. In any case, Aquinas’s emphasis on the literal sense as the only direct signification of the words of Scripture illuminates Nahmanides’ endeavors to define the workings of the multiple layers of scriptural signification in relation to peshuto shel miqra. Both thirteenth-century thinkers endeavored to preserve the value of older, traditional forms of interpretation—whether midrashic or “spiritual”—in the face of the increasing prestige of the exegetical conceptions that emerged with new vigor in the twelh century (peshuto shel miqra and sensus litteralis). Indicative of this new valuation in Latin learning, Aquinas insisted that the literal sense alone can be used to make a logical argument.140 As Alfonso de Madrigal would expound, for Saint Thomas the literal sense “is the only sense of Scripture that is at once immediate and determinate, capable of verification, fulfillment and affording proof in argument.”141 It thus enjoys greater epistemological certainty than the spiritual senses, which are “mediated” and are not signified by Scripture directly. For Nahmanides, likewise, the non-peshat layers of scriptural signification were secondary to peshuto shel miqra, to which he ascribed the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

296

Chapter 8

highest authority. As already discussed, Nahmanides regarded peshuto shel miqra as the first, and ultimately the most compelling, source of halakhah. The Catalan exegete’s conception of figuration (ṣiyyurei devarim), which he employs in his typological and mystical readings, likewise preserves the integrity of peshuto shel miqra as the immediate sense of Scripture, with the further “senses” depending on it.142 Furthermore, there are many instances in which Nahmanides invokes kabbalistic learning not to expound a separate layer of signification, but rather to arrive at peshuto shel miqra—oen speciing that a satisfactory peshat interpretation is otherwise not possible.143 A striking example of this convergence of peshat and kabbalah relates to Deut. 25:6, “And it shall be that the firstborn that she bears shall succeed to the name of his brother who is dead, that his name be not blotted out of Israel,” an interpretive crux for earlier commentators, as discussed in previous chapters. According to the Talmud (b.Yevamot 24a), the peshat of this verse indicates that the first child produced by a levirate marriage should be named aer the deceased. But since this was not the accepted practice, this verse is classified as an exception to the rule that “a biblical verse does not leave the realm of its peshat” and construed atomistically as a source of other laws.144 Whereas Rashi adopted the atomistic talmudic reading (in his gloss on Deut. 25:6), Ibn Ezra classified it as an asmakhta, and argued that the verse must be construed according to its peshat.145 But since the peshat seems to contradict the halakhah, Nahmanides devised a third approach:

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

It is not to be taken literally (lit., “it is not according to its peshat”)146 that they call the first son by the name of the dead, e.g., Reuven or Shimon as his name was. . . . Rather, this verse, by way of the truth, is an assurance and thus it is according to its peshat. Our Rabbis, on the other hand, used this verse as an asmakhta for the following laws: that the eldest surviving brother contracts the levirate marriage; that a sterile woman may not be contracted for such marriage, nor may the wife of a eunuch, since his name was “blotted out.” Now, all these are merely supports by way of asmakhta because the laws of the sterile widow and the widow of the eunuch are derived om the very essence of the verses (gufeh di-qera).147 Adhering to the talmudic discussion, Nahmanides stipulates that this verse does not call for the child to be named for the deceased—as a literal reading of the verse might indicate. But, unlike the Talmud, Nahmanides does not give up the

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Nahmanides

297

endeavor to discover the true peshat of this verse. Furthermore, like Ibn Ezra, he classifies the atomistic talmudic “reading” as a mere asmakhta. Having excluded both options attested in the earlier exegetical tradition, Nahmanides offers his own peshat interpretation “by way of truth,” that is, according to kabbalah, namely that “it is an assurance” rather than a legal requirement. He construes the verse in the following way: the child that will be born om the levirate union will “succeed to the name of his brother who is dead.” From his writings elsewhere, it can be gathered that Nahmanides refers here to the kabbalistic notion of the transmigration of souls and interprets this verse as an assurance that the soul of the deceased will inhabit the body of the first child of the levirate union.148 For Nahmanides, this interpretation is peshuto shel miqra, the single philologically correct sense of this biblical verse, which is available only through recourse to kabbalistic knowledge. The example of Deut. 25:6 is especially revealing because the Talmud classified it as an exception to the rule, in which the verse does, in fact, “leave the realm of its peshat.” Nahmanides was unwilling to posit a gap in the coverage of peshuto shel miqra—which he successfully plugs by drawing upon his kabbalistic learning. In a similar way, Nahmanides elsewhere in his Pentateuch commentary draws upon kabbalah to avoid radical reinterpretations advanced by earlier Andalusian authorities whom he regarded as being inconsistent with the “way of peshat.” This Nahmanidean use of kabbalah is illustrated in his treatment of Abraham’s encounter with the three men—who turned out to be angels— recounted in Genesis 18. Maimonides, who maintained that pure spirit cannot take on physical characteristics, deemed it impossible for angelic beings to appear as humans.149 This narrative was especially problematic for him, as it describes how Abraham took the men/angels into his home and fed them cakes prepared by Sarah and a calf he had prepared, aer which two of the angels went on to Sodom and rescued Lot by dragging him and his family out of the city just before its destruction (Genesis 19). Maimonides’ approach is cited by Nahmanides in his commentary here: “In The Guide of the Perplexed, it is said that this portion of Scripture consists of a general statement followed by a detailed description. Thus Scripture first says that the Eternal appeared to Abraham in the form of prophetic visions, and then explains in what manner this vision took place, namely, that Abraham lied up his eyes in the vision, ‘and lo, three men stood by him’ (18:2).”150 Maimonides resolves the philosophical difficulty posed by this biblical episode by arguing that this encounter with the angels was merely a vision. Nahmanides criticizes this position: “But according to his words, Sarah did not knead cakes, nor did Abraham prepare a calf, and also, Sarah did not laugh. It was all a vision!”151 In fact, as Nahmanides observes, Maimonides’ assertion extends to the following episode, as well:

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

298

Chapter 8

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Now according to this author’s opinion, he will find it necessary for the sake of consistency to say similarly in the affair of Lot that the angels did not come to his house, nor did he bake for them “unleavened bread and they did eat” (Gen. 19:3). Rather it was all a vision! . . . And it follows that the account related in the verses, “And the angels hastened Lot, saying: Arise take thy wife. . . . And he said, Escape for thy life . . .” (Gen. 19:17ff ) as well as the entire chapter is a vision, and if so, Lot could have remained in Sodom! But the author of The Guide of the Perplexed thinks that the events took place of themselves, but the conversations relating to all matters were in a vision.152 Aer constructing what is the necessary outcome of Maimonides’ approach, Nahmanides raises his fundamental critique: “But such words contradict Scripture. It is forbidden to listen to them, all the more to believe in them!”153 In Nahmanides’ view, Maimonides’ reinterpretation goes too far and does violence to the text in its plain sense, as a straightforward reading of Genesis 18–19 indicates that these were real occurrences, not merely a vision of Abraham. Though sensitive to the philosophical difficulty that Maimonides grappled with, Nahmanides sought a solution that better respects the language of the biblical text. He begins by conceding the general point made by Maimonides: “In truth, wherever Scripture mentions an angel being seen or heard speaking, it is in a vision or in a dream, for the human senses cannot perceive the angels.”154 Yet in this case, Nahmanides argues, Scripture leaves no room for doubt about the physical manifestation of the angels. He therefore continues: “But where Scripture mentions the angels as ‘men,’ as is the case in this portion, and the portion concerning Lot . . . in the opinion of our Rabbis—in all these cases, there was a special ‘Glory’ created in the angels, called ‘a garment’ among those who know the mysteries of Torah, which is perceptible to the human vision of such pure persons as the pious and the disciples of the prophets. And I cannot explain any further.”155 In some exceptional instances, Nahmanides maintains, angels can adopt a physical form—and this must have been the case in Genesis 18 and 19. In those cases, the angels could actually be perceived by the senses because they participate in something referred to in kabbalistic lore as a “garment”—a notion that Nahmanides insists on withholding om his readers.156 Yet his reason for referring to this secret doctrine is clear: it enables Nahmanides to preserve the plain sense of the text, as opposed to Maimonides’ philosophical reading that does violence to it.157 Armed with kabbalah, Nahmanides could assert that Abraham, Sarah, and Lot really did see the angels, as stated in Scripture. The very existence of the doctrine of the “garment,” therefore, is important for all readers to know, even if its actual workings must remain a hidden kabbalistic secret.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Nahmanides

299

The preceding example represents a subset of cases in which Nahmanides addresses a difficulty with the biblical text posed within the rationalist tradition that he resolves using kabbalah—which enables him to arrive at a reading more consistent with peshuto shel miqra (in his view).158 In this latter respect, he follows in the footsteps of Abraham Ibn Ezra, who sought more subtle alternatives to Saadia’s heavy-handed ta’wīl-based interpretations—for example, of verses that depict God anthropomorphically, as noted in Chapter 6. To a large extent, Nahmanides shared the scientific and theological sensibilities of his geonic and Andalusian predecessors and therefore could not return to the uncritical attitudes reflected in midrashic literature and in Rashi. But he likewise rejected the radical philosophical reinterpretations advanced within the Geonic-Andalusian tradition. Kabbalah provided him with the tools to arrive at a more satisfactory peshat interpretation, while also retaining theological propriety.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

• In the eleventh century, the peshat maxim was invoked, both in al-Andalus (by Ibn Janah) and in northern France (by Rashi), to establish the validity of peshuto shel miqra alongside the more traditional forms of midrashic interpretation in what can be termed a “dual hermeneutic.” Even Rashbam, who greatly refined the peshat method, acknowledged midrash as the “essence” of Scripture, an attitude shared in the twelh-century Byzantine tradition. In the Andalusian tradition, however, the twelh century witnessed a dramatic strengthening of the rule of peshat, first by Ibn Ezra, and then most boldly by Maimonides, who argued that peshuto shel miqra alone conveys the meaning of the biblical text. For Nahmanides, those Andalusian pashtanim had gone too far, as he articulates in his Hassagot, where he formulates a trenchant critique of Maimonides. Seeming to revert back to the more moderate position of Ibn Janah, Rashi, and Rashbam, he argues that Scripture can “bear” multiple layers of meaning, including peshat and midrash. Yet the scuffle with Maimonides le an indelible mark on Nahmanides, whose notion of scriptural multivalence was fundamentally different om that of Ibn Janah and Rashbam. For those eleventh- and early twelh-century predecessors, midrash was, de facto, a point of departure: they were both seeking to carve a niche for peshuto shel miqra within a tradition dominated by rabbinic exegesis. But that battle no longer needed to be fought in Nahmanides’ mid-thirteenth-century Spanish milieu, where the dominion of peshat was complete. Now Nahmanides was beginning his exegetical road with peshuto shel miqra as his point of departure, beyond which he sought to account for the validity of midrash and other nonpeshat forms of scriptural interpretation. Therefore, even though Nahmanides delineates three non-peshat layers of scriptural signification, he always viewed peshuto shel miqra as the primary sense of Scripture. While the great Catalan talmudist grants authority to halakhic

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

300

Chapter 8

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

midrashic exegesis, he prefers to anchor the halakhah in peshuto shel miqra. And while he carves out special niches for the typological and mystical senses of Scripture, he consistently takes care to preserve the integrity of peshuto shel miqra in doing so. Finally, his mystical knowledge is employed not only to generate a separate layer of meaning parallel to peshuto shel miqra but also to get at the very essence of the biblical text, which he equated with peshuto shel miqra. The rule of peshat—in the sense of dominion over other senses—installed in the twelh century by Abraham Ibn Ezra and Maimonides thus remained central for Nahmanides in the thirteenth.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Notes

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Introduction 1. See J. Harris, “Midrash Halachah”; Shinan, “Midrashic, Targumic, and Payetanic Literature.” 2. See Gleave, Literalism. 3. See Whitman, “Literal Sense.” 4. See S. Burnett, “Strange Career”; idem, Christian Hebraism, 99–102. 5. See D. Stern, Jewish Bible, 117–126; Perani, Fragments, 23, 26; Perani and Baraldi, Modena, fig. 30. The terms “Rabbinic Bible” and Miqra’ot Gedolot are generally used interchangeably to connote a publication of the Bible with traditional Jewish commentaries. Cf. B. Levy, “Rabbinic Bibles,” who seeks to differentiate between the terms. 6. On the various editions of the Miqra’ot Gedolot, see D. Stern, Jewish Bible, 142–157. 7. See Smith, Glossa Ordinaria. 8. On the decisive influence of the Miqra’ot Gedolot on Jewish Bible study, see B. Levy, “Rabbinic Bibles,” 67. 9. See Chap. 3, n. 23. On the characterization of Lyre, see Minnis, Authorship, 86, 91–93. 10. See Chap. 3, nn. 25, 26. On Christian use of Jewish exegesis in general, see Dahan, Intellectuels chrétiens. 11. Smalley, Study, 41, 85, 88. 12. Ibid., 2. 13. Ibid. 14. See Minnis, “Figuring the Letter.” 15. See Japhet, Collected Studies, 17–34. When the nineteenth-century Rabbinic Bible interpreter Malbim (Meir Loeb ben Jehiel Michael, 1809–1879) wished to resist the trends of modern scholarship, he did so by rejecting the fundamental principles formulated by the great medieval pashtanim. See M. Z. Cohen, “Malbim.” 16. See Berlin, “Use.” 17. Comm. on Gen. 3:8. See Chap. 3, n. 38. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations om Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic in this study are my own. (Existing English translations cited are subject to slight revision.) 18. See, e.g., Rashi on Gen. 37:15, cited below. See also Rashi’s gloss on Gen. 15:10 and his introduction to the Song of Songs, both discussed in Chap. 3. The peshat maxim has been translated in a variety of ways. On the translation adopted here, see M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 495–499. The maxim appears three times in the Babylonian Talmud: b.Shabbat 63a and b.Yevamot 11b, 24a. See Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash, 54–61. 19. The term “Rabbanite” connotes a follower of the Rabbis, whose legacy is embodied in the Talmud, by contrast with the Karaites, who rejected their authority. See Rustow, Heresy and Politics, xv, and n. 59 below. Normally, the term is used to describe opponents of the Karaites. In this study, we at times employ the term “Rabbanite” in a broader sense, even where its polemical connotation is not pertinent. 20. Biblical verses are cited in this study according to the NJPS English translation (Philadelphia, 1985), with adjustments to reflect the understanding of the medieval exegetes under discussion.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

302

Notes to Pages 3–11

21. Rashi, comm. on Gen. 37:15–17, Berliner ed., 75. The “reading” is a wordplay based on the Hebrew ‫( נלכה דתינה‬nelkha dotayna, “Let us go to Dothan”), reconstrued as ‫( נכלי דתות‬nikhlei datot, “legal pretexts”). 22. Rashi on Gen. 37:15, Berliner ed., 75–76. 23. Ibn Ezra on Gen. 37:15, Weiser ed., I:107. 24. Kugel, Bible, 18. 25. See Elon, Principles of Jewish Law, 57–67; Kahana, “Halakhic Midrashim,” 13–16; Sion, Judaic Logic, 143–183; Enelow, “Midrash.” 26. Kugel, Bible, 19–20, citing 1 Cor. 10:11, regarding the narratives of the Israelites in the desert: “Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction.” 27. Kugel, Bible, 20–21. See also J. Harris, “Midrash Halachah,” 351. 28. Kugel, Bible, 21–22. 29. See Chap. 4, n. 222. 30. Chap. 7, n. 72. 31. B.Sanhedrin 99b. There is some ambiguity about this elsewhere in the Talmud, however, since there is a view that sections of Deuteronomy were formulated by Moses “on his own” (b.Megillah 31b). On the complexities and development of this doctrine within traditional Judaism, see Viezel, “Moses’ Role in Writing the Torah.” 32. See Schwartz, “On Peshat and Derash,” 72–73. 33. Rashi on Gen. 14:14, Berliner ed., 25–26. As Berliner notes, part of Rashi’s gloss here in the standard texts of the Miqra’ot Gedolot seems not to be original, as it does not appear in the editio princeps of his Pentateuch commentary. Our translation is based on the shorter version of Rashi’s gloss attested in MS Leipzig 1. The textual complexities of the printed editions and manuscripts of Rashi are discussed in Chap. 3. 34. Rashi on Gen. 14:14, Berliner ed., 26. This midrash appears in Genesis Rabbah 42:2, TheodorAlbeck ed., 416. Every Hebrew letter has a numerical value. The use of these values for interpretive purposes is a common midrashic endeavor known as gematria. 35. Leqaḥ Ṭov on Gen. 14:14, Buber ed., I:65. On Leqaḥ Ṭov, see Chap. 5. 36. Ibn Ezra on Gen. 14:14, Weiser ed., I:55. On his rejection of gematria, see Mondschein, “Attitude.” 37. See Chap. 5, n. 3. 38. See Chap. 6, n. 22. 39. See Mondschein, “One in a Thousand.” 40. Judeo-Arabic is a version of Middle Arabic written in Hebrew characters and was a dominant language of scholarship and correspondence among Jews in the Muslim orbit. 41. Rashbam, comm. on Gen. 37:2, Rosin ed., 49. 42. Greenberg, “Relationship,” 566–567. 43. For an explication of this passage, see Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash, 58–61. 44. J. Fraenkel, Aggadah, 11–12. 45. Ibid., 83–84; cf. Anchor, “Play,” 63–93. 46. See, e.g., Viezel, “Rise and Fall,” 48–53. 47. See nn. 38, 42 above, and n. 66 below. 48. See Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash, 53–79. See also Schwartz, “Peshat and Derash,” 74–75. 49. Kermode, “Plain Sense,” 190–191. 50. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates. 51. See Maman, “Linguistic School”; Simon, Four Approaches, 113–144. 52. See Chap. 1. 53. See Chap. 5. 54. I.e., the rule that every verb stem in Hebrew is made up of at least three letters. This was not self-evident, since in some declensions only two (and, in rare cases, only one) root letters appear.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 11–16

303

Hayyuj demonstrated that even in such cases, the original stem contains three letters (evident in other declensions) but that some letters, which are “weak,” tend to be dropped. 55. There is no evidence that Moses Ibn Ezra was related to his younger contemporary Abraham Ibn Ezra. Since Moses Ibn Ezra is cited in this study only sporadically, he will be referred to by his full name. On the other hand, Abraham Ibn Ezra will be cited simply as “Ibn Ezra,” unless there is room for confusion, in which case his full name will be used as well. 56. See M. Z. Cohen, “Aesthetic Exegesis”; Berlin, Biblical Poetry, 61–82. 57. See Brody, Sa‘adyah. The term “gaon” (“excellency”; pl., geonim) was used om the seventh to eleventh centuries to connote the heads of the rabbinic academies of Sura and Pumbedita, which ultimately relocated to Baghdad. Saadia was the gaon of Sura, as was his successor Samuel ben Hofni (discussed below). 58. See Chap. 1, n. 58, and Chap. 2, n. 87. 59. Karaism has long been characterized as a “sect” of Judaism. But the use of this term has been criticized, since it implies deviation om “normative” Judaism. That was the Rabbanite claim; but historians now prefer to employ more neutral terminology that respects Karaite selfcharacterizations and that reflects the currently held view that Karaism emerged out of long-standing non-rabbinic traditions. Some use the term “movement” to describe Karaism, which is the convention used in this work, though it has also been criticized, since it implies an ephemeral phenomenon, whereas Karaism was vibrant for centuries. Medieval Karaites (and some Rabbanites) referred to Karaism using the Arabic term madhhab, i.e., one among a number of schools of religious law. See Astren, Karaite Judaism, 5–10, 171–172; Ben-Shammai, “Karaite Controversy,” 10–12; Rustow, Heresy and Politics, xv–xix, xxvi–xxix; Seewald, “Kitāb ar-radd,” 37 (my thanks to Marzena Zawanowska for the last reference). 60. See Chap. 4. 61. See n. 41 above. 62. See Y. Berger, “Eliezer of Beaugency”; M. Z. Cohen, “Eliezer of Beaugency”; Jacobs, Bekhor Shoro. On the continued interest in peshat in the Ashkenazic milieu in the thirteenth century, see Kanarfogel, “Tosafists.” 63. See S. Rosenberg, “Biblical Exegesis”; Klein-Braslavy, Creation; idem, Adam Stories; idem, King Solomon. 64. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 243–346. 65. See M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 137–175; idem, Shekhinah; idem, Gates, 375–382. 66. A recent debate over Abraham Ibn Ezra illustrates this. While Uriel Simon maintains the traditional view of Ibn Ezra as a leading pashtan, Sara Japhet argues that his exegesis is not truly peshat, since Ibn Ezra, as a rule, adjusted his interpretations in accordance with halakhic and medieval scientific-philosophical considerations. See Japhet, “Ear Discerns Words” (review). 67. Greenberg, “Relationship,” 561. 68. See Kamin, Categorization, 11–22. 69. See Harrisville and Sundberg, Bible in Modern Culture, 30–45; Popkin, “Spinoza and Bible Scholarship.” 70. See Minnis, “Figuring the Letter.” 71. See n. 48 above. 72. See n. 21 above. 73. See Gleave, Literalism, 109. 74. See Lowry, “Legal Hermeneutics,” 35. 75. Summa Theologiae, I:9. See Minnis, Scott, and Wallace, Literary Theory, 243; Whitman, “Literal Sense,” 141. 76. See Garfinkel, “Clearing,” 131–132. 77. Japhet, “Tension,” 403. Cf. Kamin, Categorization, 11–22. 78. Rashi on Gen. 14:15, Berliner ed., 26. This midrash, om Genesis Rabbah 43:3, TheodorAlbeck ed., 417, is also reflected in Leqaḥ Ṭov, Buber ed., I:65.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

304

Notes to Pages 16–27

79. Rashi on Gen. 14:15, Berliner ed., 26. The biblical text reads ‫ ויחלק עליהם לילה הוא ועבדיו‬but Rashi argues that (according to the peshat) the verse must be understood as if it were “rearranged” thus: ‫ויחלק עליהם הוא ועבדיו לילה‬. This peshat reading does not appear in Leqaḥ Ṭov. 80. Tefillin are small leather boxes containing parchment inscribed with biblical passages. One box is tied upon the upper arm and the other attached to the forehead. 81. Rashi on Exod. 13:9, Berliner ed., 127. 82. Rashbam on Exod. 13:9, Rosin ed., 98; cf. Rashbam on Song 8:6, Japhet ed., 277. This resembles the interpretation given by the tenth-century Andalusian linguist Menahem ben Saruq, who might have been Rashbam’s source. See Chap. 2, n. 61. 83. On the expression “its profound peshat” (‘omeq peshuto) and others like it in Rashbam’s lexicon—‘iqqar peshuto (its essential peshat), amitat peshuto (its true peshat)—see Kamin, Categorization, 268. On literary context as a critical ingredient in the northern French concept of peshat, see Chap. 4, n. 93. 84. Long comm. on Exod. 13:9, Weiser ed., II:87. Ibn Ezra would have known this figurative interpretation om Menahem ben Saruq. See n. 82 above. 85. Short comm. on Exod. 13:9, Weiser ed., II:264. The term ke-mashma‘o (lit., “as it sounds”), unlike the term peshat, unequivocally connotes the literal, obvious sense—akin to Arabic ẓāhir. See Cohen, Gates, 78–79. On the possibility that Ibn Ezra came to know Rashbam’s commentaries, see Chap. 6, n. 91. 86. Short comm. on Exod. 13:9, Weiser ed., II:264. 87. See his comm. on Num. 12:7; Kamin, Jews and Christians, 89–112. 88. Standard introduction to the Pentateuch, Weiser ed., I:6. 89. Ibid. The term sod here is used in the sense of Arabic bāṭin. 90. Ibid., Weiser ed., I:6. See M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 36–37, and Chap. 6, n. 128. 91. Comm. on Deut. 10:16, Weiser ed., III:245–246. 92. Joseph Kimhi, Sefer ha-Berit, Talmage ed., 37–38. 93. See M. Z. Cohen, “Maimonides’ Attitude,” 474–476. 94. See Jacobs, “Plain Meaning,” 262. 95. Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium, 191; Frank, “Karaite Exegesis,” 126. 96. See Frank, “Karaite Exegesis,” 126–128. Byzantine Karaites in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries used the term peshat prominently—under the influence of Ibn Ezra. See Frank, “Karaite Exegetical and Halakhic Literature,” 535–546. On the assumption that Ibn Ezra was a clandestine Karaite, see Chap. 1, n. 45. 97. See n. 17 above. 98. E.g., there is no chapter devoted to this school in the comprehensive reference work Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation published in 2000. 99. See n. 37 above. 100. See M. Z. Cohen, “Qimhi Family,” 396–415; idem, Three Approaches, 272–331; Grunhaus, Challenge. 101. See Grunhaus, “Peshat and Halakhah.” Chapter 1 1. The scholarly literature on the Karaite-Rabbanite divide is extensive. See Polliack, Karaite Judaism; Walfish, Bibliographia. Although the literary record reflects bitter enmity between Rabbanites and Karaites, Marina Rustow (building on earlier archival work by Zvi Ankori, Mark Cohen, Shlomo Dov Goitein, Jacob Mann, and others) demonstrates that Karaites and Rabbanites in the Muslim East oen cooperated on social and political levels. See Rustow, Heresy and Politics. There is some debate over the meaning of the term “Karaite”; though generally taken to be a derivative of Aramaic qera (“Scripture”), other interpretations have been proposed. See Erder, “Sadducee Dilemma,” 198–215; Gil, “Origins,” 109. See also Khan, Early Karaite Tradition, 3, and n. 19 below. 2. See Ben-Shammai, “Jewish Wool Merchant”; Robinson, Asceticism, 115–133; Vajda, Commentaires, 118–157. See also n. 46 below.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 27–29

305

3. See the discussion in n. 305 below. 4. See Introduction, n. 57. Whereas Sura and Pumbedita dominated rabbinic learning in Iraq, it is difficult to pin down a Rabbanite “center” of learning in Palestine. See Brody, Geonim, 100–113. 5. See Brody, Geonim, 155–166; Fishman, People of the Talmud, 20–64. 6. Scholars question whether this introduction was, in fact, part of the original work. See Brody, Geonim, 229–230. Yet its attribution to Qayyara was accepted by medieval authors, e.g., Maimonides, as discussed in Chap. 7. 7. See Sacks, Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer, 3–8; Treitl, Pirke, 3–21, 133–266. As Treitl (ibid., 256–266) notes, there is a close connection between this late midrash and the piyyutim composed in Palestine (see n. 9 below). 8. See Flesher and Chilton, Targums, 87–89; 240–241; Churgin, Targum, 117–118. 9. On the vibrant school of piyyut production in Palestine—now much more accessible than before because of the Cairo Genizah—see, e.g., Zulay, Piyyutim, 85–215; J. Yahalom, Poetry and Society. On piyyutim—and piyyut commentaries—composed in the Franco-German (Ashkenazic) community, see Chap. 4. 10. In fact, Andalusian authors specifically criticized earlier payyetanim (composers of piyyut) for their reliance on midrash. See Fleischer, Liturgical Poetry, 10–13, 413–417. 11. Some argue that Aaron Ben-Asher was a Karaite, the target of Saadia’s polemical treatise against a certain “Ben-Asher.” See Brody, Sa‘adyah, 151–152; Drory, Emergence, 150–152; Erder and Polliack, “Canon,” 179. But this has been disputed based on what I consider compelling evidence. See Dotan, Creed, 11–64. 12. See Dotan, Awakening; Khan, Early Karaite Tradition, 17–22; Yeivin, Tiberian Masorah, 153. 13. See Astren, Karaite Judaism, 84–88; M. A. Cohen, “Anan”; Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 3–11; idem, “Reappraisal.” Anan may have drawn upon traditions om earlier Jewish sectarian groups. See Birnbaum, Karaite Studies, 3. 14. See Ben-Shammai, “Controversy”; idem, “Recensions.” 15. Cited in Birnbaum, Karaite Studies, 310; see also Ben-Shammai, “Controversy,” 18–19. 16. See Frank, Search, 2–3. Gezerah shawah is one of the “thirteen principles” (middot) by which the Rabbis interpreted the Torah. On the middot, see Introduction, n. 25. See also n. 94 below. 17. Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 8–9. 18. See M. A. Cohen, “Anan,” 138; Gil, “Origins,” 90. 19. See Astren, “Islamic Contexts,” 163; Gil, “Origins,” 109. The term ba‘alei miqra is used occasionally in the Talmud to connote experts in Scripture. 20. See Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 22–23; Ben-Shammai, “Controversy,” 23; Zucker, Translation, 165–167. 21. See Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 17–18. 22. See H. Wolfson, “Angel.” 23. Salmon ben Jeruhim, comm. on Psalm 69, Marwick ed., 97–98 (Ar.); Baron, History, V:232 (Eng.). Baron questions the historical precision of this scheme; but Moses Zucker argues that it matches what is known om other historical sources. Fred Astren argues further that Salmon accurately reflects how tenth-century Karaites conceptualized the development of their movement. See Zucker, Translation, 168–169; Ben-Shammai, “Fragments,” 260; Astren, Karaite Judaism, 83–98. 24. Baron, History, V:232, criticizes Salmon for failing to credit Benjamin for the designation “Karaite,” which (as Baron understands it) is a derivative of the term “men of Scripture” (benei miqra), which Benjamin used (n. 19 above). Zucker, Translation, 169n659, however, suggests that the designation “Karaite” is not the same as “men of Scripture.” Evidently, according to Salmon, Benjamin spoke of “men of Scripture” but did not yet represent a Karaite movement, which would emerge in the following generation. See Ben-Shammai, “Fragments.” 25. See Ben-Shammai, “Controversy,” 23–24; Zucker, Translation, 182–203. See also Walfish, Bibliographia, 394–395. Astren, Karaite Judaism, 94–95, refers to Anan and Benjamin as “ProtoKaraites.”

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

306

Notes to Pages 30–34

26. See Astren, Karaite Judaism, 66–76, and sources cited there. 27. The final words of this verse, ‫“( מצות אנשים מלומדה‬a commandment of men, learned by rote”), are usually taken to mean “laws performed in a routine manner,” i.e., without proper intention. 28. See his comm. on Hosea 2:10, 4:6, Markon ed., 4, 6; see also Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” I:105n24, and sources cited there. See also n. 152 below. 29. This was reported by Qirqisani. See Birnbaum, Karaite Studies, 265; Chiesa and Lockwood, Qirqisani, 94–95. 30. See Zucker, Translation, 172. Yefet ben Eli would likewise reject Benjamin’s view. See Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 99–100. 31. See Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 18–19, and literature cited there. 32. It is possible that David al-Muqammiṣ deserves this distinction, as he is said to have composed Bible commentaries (see n. 75 below)—presumably in Arabic. But they have not survived. 33. See Ben-Shammai, “Kalam,” 127–132; Stroumsa, “Saadya and Jewish Kalam”; Steiner, Translation, 109n–110n. 34. See Sklare, Samuel ben Hofni, 11–36; Brody, Geonim, 300–315. 35. On the lesser contributions of Aaron ben Sarjado and Hayya Gaon, see Brody, Geonim, 300–301, 330–331, and n. 145 below. 36. See Chap. 2, n. 87. 37. Many Karaite authors were well versed in rabbinic literature and thus could have cited the maxim. See Tirosh-Becker, “Rabbinic Sources.” See also Ravitsky, “Qirqisani’s Critique.” 38. Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 42. 39. Qirqisani might thus be characterized as a more strictly “intellectual” Karaite. His seeming lack of religious fervor may explain why he is not cited openly by later Karaite authors. See BenShammai, “Mourners,” 151; Erder and Polliack, “Canon,” 171. 40. See Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 69–82; Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 20–21. 41. See Frank, Search, 12–14. 42. Most of his commentaries are extant, though only a small number have been published or translated. For a survey of modern scholarship on Yefet, see Zawanowska, “Review.” 43. See Wechsler, Yefet on Esther, 3–4; Goldstein, Karaite Exegesis, 13–14. 44. See Frank, Search, 22–32; Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 62. 45. See Frank, “Ibn Ezra”; Ankori, “Inquiry,” 60–62. 46. See Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” I:101–111. Ben-Shammai (ibid., 105n24) suggests that this was a consistent tradition among the Karaite community of learning in Jerusalem established by al-Qumisi. 47. On this influence, see Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” passim. 48. See Goldstein, Karaite Exegesis; Khan, Early Karaite Tradition. 49. See Ben-Shammai, “Yeshuah.” 50. See Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium, 189. 51. See ibid., 415–451; idem, “Inquiry.” 52. Frank, “Karaite Exegetical Literature,” 532–533; Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium, 196–198. 53. See Frank, “Karaite Exegetical Literature”; Lasker, Hadassi to Bashyatchi; Walfish, Bibliographia, 410–413. 54. Lasker, Hadassi to Bashyatchi, 60–95. 55. We do not focus specifically on Salmon ben Jeruhim because he does not articulate exegetical principles as clearly as Qirqisani and Yefet do. 56. See Griffith, Church. 57. See Brody, Sa‘adyah; idem, Geonim, 235–332. 58. Mo’znayim, Paton ed., 4*. See Ben-Shammai, Leader’s Project, 374–375. The expression “the first speaker on all matters” occurs in the Talmud (e.g., b.Shabbat 33b), where it connotes the most authoritative speaker in all theological and halakhic discussions. Ibn Ezra, however, uses it primarily to indicate chronological priority, i.e., to indicate the pioneering nature of Saadia’s works in many fields of study.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 34–37

307

59. The Arabic word tafsīr means “explanation.” See n. 107 below. Saadia’s Tafsīr is an Arabic rendering of the Pentateuch, though it is sometimes a ee, rather than completely literal, translation. So it is a sort of interpretive translation, which may explain its appellation as Tafsīr, a term that usually connotes a commentary. 60. See Blau and Hopkins, “Beginnings.” 61. Steiner, Translation, 156. 62. Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash, 79. 63. Saadia’s rationalist bent is also evident in his commentary on the mystical Sefer Yeṣirah (Book of Creation), which he interprets philosophically. See Ben-Shammai, Leader’s Project, 83–90; Brody, Sa‘adyah, 46–50. 64. The Agron might be characterized as a “proto-dictionary,” since it does not seem to have been comprehensive, nor does it provide complete definitions. See Dotan, Awakening, 11–13. 65. See Brody, Sa‘adyah, 79–84. 66. See Dotan, Dawn, 94–110; Skoss, “Grammarian,” 23:64–67. 67. See Dotan, “Fragment,” 1–3. See Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 69–82, for Salmon ben Jeruhim’s critique of the Mishnah. Disdain for rabbinic literature—pronounced in the early phase of Karaism—was not shared by all Karaites. See Tirosh-Becker, “Rabbinic Sources.” 68. See Dotan, Dawn, 17–40, 82–93. 69. Baron, History, V:275. See also Malter, Saadia, 262, citing (and rejecting) the view that “everything Saadia has written in the numerous branches of Jewish literature had as its sole purpose the refutation of Karaite doctrines.” 70. Ed. and trans. into Hebrew by Seewald, “Kitāb ar-radd.” (I am grateful to Marzena Zawanowska for this reference.) 71. See Birnbaum, Karaite Studies, 89–127; I. Davidson, Polemic; Brody, Sa‘adyah, 144–147. See also n. 73 below. 72. See Drory, Emergence, 156–178. 73. Fragments of what may be Saadia’s polemics against al-Qumisi were published by Schechter, Saadyana, 41–42, 144–146. Although this identification is not certain (see Malter, Saadia, 46, 399), it is conceivable that Saadia encountered al-Qumisi’s commentaries in Palestine. Since Benjamin al-Nahawandi’s commentaries are not extant, it is difficult to determine if they manifested a philological method. Saadia knew of Benjamin and engaged in polemics with him. See Brody, Geonim, 257n32; Malter, Saadia, 198. See also n. 75 below. 74. See Malter, Saadia, 47–51; Altmann and Stern, Philosopher, xiii, xxii, 212, 217. 75. See Malter, Saadia, 66–67. On this thinker and his Bible commentaries, see the discussion in the conclusion of this chapter. On the ambiguity in the vocalization of the name Muqammiṣ/ Muqammaṣ, see Stroumsa, “Earliest Known Commentary,” 375–379. 76. See Malter, Saadia, 32–37; Steiner, Translation, 98–99. 77. See Brody, Sa‘adyah, 160–161. 78. See Ben-Shammai, Leader’s Project, 282. 79. See Steiner, Translation, 52–76, 94–128. On Christian Arabic Bible translation, see Griffith, Bible in Arabic. 80. Ben-Shammai, Leader’s Project, 277 (Ar.); Steiner, Translation, 1 (Eng.). The Arabic term naẓar is discussed below. The term āthār is used regularly by Saadia to connote the oral traditions of the Rabbis. See Ben-Shammai, Leader’s Project, 157n41. 81. See Steiner, Translation, 76–93. 82. Indeed, om his early days, interfaith (polemical) dialogue with Muslims would have been on Saadia’s intellectual horizon. The Muslim historian Abū al-Hasan ‘Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Mas‘ūdi (c. 896–956, Baghdad, Cairo) relates that he engaged in debates about theological matters with Saadia’s teacher Abū Kathīr in Palestine, and in the same passage he mentions that he had met Saadia. See Steiner, Translation, 98–99. 83. Radd ‘alā al-naṣārā, Finkel ed., 16 (Ar.); Finkel, “Risala,” 326 (Eng.). Miriam Goldstein argues that al-Jāḥiẓ misrepresented this matter, since some Jewish Arabic translations predating

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

308

Notes to Pages 37–41

Saadia’s already avoided anthropomorphism, as did some of the ancient Aramaic Targums. Of course, al-Jāḥiẓ may have been referring to the fact that many Jews were unaware of these translations and held anthropomorphic beliefs based on a literal reading of the Bible. In contrast to Steiner, Goldstein questions whether al-Jāḥiẓ’s polemic decisively influenced Saadia’s translation strategies with respect to anthropomorphism, which may simply be an organic inner-Jewish development om earlier Jewish translations. See Goldstein, “Sa‘adya’s Tafsir.” 84. Radd ‘alā al-naṣārā, Finkel ed., 28 (Ar.); Steiner, Translation, 101–102 (Eng.). 85. Steiner, Translation, 100–128. 86. Saadya on Genesis, Zucker ed., 17–18 (Ar.); 190–191 (Heb.); see also Brody, Geonim, 305. A similar formulation appears in Beliefs and Opinions 7:1, Kafih ed., 219. The rule also appears (in abbreviated form) in Saadia’s introductions to Isaiah and Job. See Ben-Shammai, “Tension,” 34–36; idem, Leader’s Project, 147–150. In his Genesis comm. and in Beliefs and Opinions, Saadia distinguishes between “sense perception” and “rational knowledge.” But in his introductions to Isaiah and Job, he combines them under the rubric of human reason, as opposed to Scripture and tradition. Cf. Ibn Ḥazm’s interchangeable use of ḥiss and ‘aql (n. 126 below). 87. See Gleave, Literalism, 49–52. 88. See Heinrichs, “Hermeneutics,” 257, 265–266; Wansbrough, “Periphrastic Exegesis,” 248–254. Although later authors used the term majāz specifically in the sense of figurative language, Saadia’s usage is far broader. See Ben-Shammai, Leader’s Project, 147–150; Fenton, Jardin, 275–286, 332–339; M. Z. Cohen, “Poet’s Exegesis,” 545–546. 89. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 43n42, 102n49. 90. Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash, 79–80. Halivni refers to Saadia’s formulation in Beliefs and Opinions, which he evidently read in Hebrew translation. 91. See Steiner, Translation, 77. That Targum begins: “And Gabriel, in the form of a man, found him,” and then puts into Gabriel’s mouth an elaborate prophecy about the future enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt. 92. Tafsīr, Derenbourg ed., 290. See also Zucker, Translation, 246–247. 93. B.Yevamot 24a. 94. As mentioned in n. 16 above, this is one of the thirteen midrashic middot. 95. Perez ed., 59 (Ar.); 111 (Heb.). 96. See Schlossberg, “Saadia’s Explanations,” 155. On such revisions of the Tafsīr, see Steiner, Translation, 45–51. 97. Short comm. on Exod. 21:8, Weiser ed., II:291–292. 98. See n. 132 below. 99. Zucker, Saadya on Genesis, 15–17 (Ar.); 181–191 (Heb.). See also Brody, Sa‘adyah, 31–33. 100. Zucker, Saadya on Genesis, 17 (Ar.); 191 (Heb.). 101. See Wild, “Sura 3:7,” 423. 102. There is another way of parsing this verse, which ultimately became dominant in Islam: “And no one knows its interpretation (ta’wīl) except Allah. But those firm in knowledge say, ‘We believe in it. All is om our Lord.’ ” According to the first reading above (favored among the Mu‘tazilites), there are people “firm in knowledge” capable of interpreting the ambiguous verses, whereas according to this reading, God alone knows their interpretation. See ibid., 424–425. 103. See Gleave, Literalism, 35, 68–72, 89, 153. 104. See Heinrichs, “Genesis,” 112, 121; Fenton, Jardin, 262–264. 105. See, e.g., the version of Saadia’s rule in Beliefs and Opinions, 7:1, Kafih ed., 220; see also Tobi, “Ta’wīl.” 106. See Poonawala, “Ta’wīl”; B. Weiss, Search, 470–479; Ben-Shammai, “Tension,” 40; Zucker, “Fragments,” 316–318, 320–321. The term is a verbal noun of the form II verb awwala, assumed to be derived om the root a-w-l (“to return”). As with many such terms, though, the lineage of its technical usage is unclear. It may be related to the term iyāla (“putting into right condition,” “managing properly”), also derived om the root a-w-l. This derivation is perhaps reflected in Ibn Ezra’s use of tiqqun (lit., “to repair”) as a Hebrew equivalent of ta’wīl. See Chap. 6, n. 126.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 41–45

309

107. See Poonawala, “Ta’wīl.” 108. Saadya on Genesis, Zucker ed., 18 (Ar.); 191 (Heb.). The term muḍmara (participle of ḍ-m-r; also referred to as iḍmār, the infinitive) is used elsewhere by Saadia and later exegetes such as Ibn Janah and Moses Ibn Ezra; see Fenton, Jardin, 280, 296, 339, and Chap. 2, nn. 94, 149. 109. Saadya on Genesis, Zucker ed., 78 (Ar.); 296 (Heb.) 110. See Fenton, Jardin, 279–280; Zucker, Saadya on Genesis, 455–456; cf. Wansbrough, “Periphrastic Exegesis,” 260–261. 111. This is a verse that al-Jāḥiẓ cited. See Steiner, Translation, 102, and nn. 83, 85 above. 112. Saadya on Genesis, Zucker ed., 18 (Ar.); 191 (Heb.). 113. Tafsīr, Derenbourg ed., 259. In Beliefs and Opinions 7:1, similarly, “for the punishment of the Lord your God is like fire” (Kafih ed., 219). 114. Tafsīr, Derenbourg ed., 12. 115. Saadya on Genesis, Zucker ed., 100–101 (Ar.); 333–334 (Heb.); see also Steiner, “Shi,” 217. 116. For the logic supporting this reading, see Saadia’s comm. on Ps. 2:4; M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 66–67. 117. See M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 65–76. 118. See Lane, Mu‘tazilite Commentary, 107–111. On Saadia’s Mu‘tazilite leanings, see n. 33 above. 119. See Reinert, “Madjāz”; Heinrichs, “Hermeneutics,” 256–257. 120. Jaṣṣāṣ, Uṣūl al-Fiqh, MS Cairo, Dār al-Kutub 229, fol. 64a, ll. 8ff., cited and trans. in Heinrichs, “Hermeneutics,” 258. Al-Jaṣṣāṣ is drawing upon earlier discussions and so reflects a Muslim interpretive tradition that would have been known to Saadia. See the following note. 121. Ibid. This example, too, is drawn om earlier discussions of Qur’an interpretation. See Gleave, Literalism, 109. Zucker, Saadya on Genesis, 44 (introduction), cites it om the ninth-century scholar Abū ‘Ubayda (see below). 122. See Wansbrough, “Periphrastic Exegesis,” 248–257. 123. Ibid., 259–265; Zucker, Saadya on Genesis, 35–45 (introduction). 124. Goldziher, Ẓahiris, 116–118. 125. Ibid., 115; for the translation of ḍarūrat ḥiss, see Ben-Shammai, “Tension,” 36, 45. 126. Goldziher, Ẓahiris, 115. These two categories correspond to Saadia’s first two reasons for applying ta’wīl (n. 86 above). 127. Saadya on Genesis, Zucker ed., 18 (Ar.); 192 (Heb.). On the term takhrīj (lit., “to bring out”), see Ben-Shammai, “Tension,” 43. 128. See Ben-Shammai, Leader’s Project, 339–340. This notion would be repeated throughout the Rabbanite tradition, e.g., by Dunash ben Labrat, Abraham Ibn Ezra, and Maimonides. See Introduction, n. 86; Chap. 2, n. 67; Chap. 7, n. 122. 129. Tafsīr, Derenbourg ed., 115; cf. Zucker, Translation, 358. 130. See Zucker, Translation, 319–441. In this respect, Saadia follows a tendency in the Aramaic Targums, which were a target of Karaite criticism for abandoning the ẓāhir; see Polliack, Translation, 66–69, and Chap. 2, n. 9. 131. On this rather equent occurrence in the Tafsīr, see Zucker, Translation, 442–479. 132. See J. Harris, Fragmentation, 76–78. While Saadia does not invoke the concept of asmakhta explicitly, this type of reasoning can be inferred om his argument that the midrashic thirteen middot were not actually used by the Rabbis to extrapolate halakhah om the biblical text, but rather were used to link laws known om the oral tradition to the text of Scripture. See Zucker, “Taḥṣīl,” 378; Sklare, Samuel ben Hofni, 45. On Saadia’s complex attitude toward midrash in general, see Ben-Shammai, Leader’s Project, 336–373. 133. See, e.g., Judah ha-Levi, Kuzari III:22, 68–73, and Abraham Ibn Ezra, short comm. on Exod. 21:8 (n. 97 above). See also M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 254–255. 134. Prooemium Talmudis, Abramson ed., 159 (Ar.); 184 (Heb.). (I am grateful to Haggai BenShammai for this reference.) 135. Zucker, Saadya on Genesis, 448 (Ar.); French trans. in Fenton, Jardin, 276. Zucker’s attribution of this agment (as well as the one cited in the next paragraph) to Samuel ben Hofni is questioned

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

310

Notes to Pages 45–48

by Haggai Ben-Shammai (personal communication). Yet Samuel ben Hofni’s equation of peshateh di-qera with ẓāhir al-naṣṣ in his glossary already suggests this application of the peshat maxim. 136. Zucker, Saadya on Genesis, 42–43 (introduction; Arabic with Hebrew trans.); French trans. in Fenton, Jardin, 277. On the question of the attribution of this agment to Samuel ben Hofni, see n. 135 above. 137. Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash, 90. 138. See Introduction, n. 74. 139. See numerous examples in Fenton, Jardin, 275–286. 140. See Sklare, Samuel ben Hofni, 28, 42; Ben-Shammai, “En Dor”; M. Z. Cohen, “En-Dor.” Samuel ben Hofni’s discussion is recorded in a Genizah agment. His view is also cited—and, in some cases, criticized—by later exegetes, including Judah Ibn Bal‘am (Sklare, ibid., 29), and Radak (on 1 Sam. 28:24). 141. See Sklare, Samuel ben Hofni, 42. 142. Ibid., 41 (Ar. text and Eng. trans.). 143. Zucker, Saadya on Genesis, 448 (Ar.); Brody, Geonim, 313 (Eng.). 144. See Brody, Geonim, 297–299, and n. 141 above. 145. Elbaum, Perspectives, 61–62. On the principle that “Scripture spoke in the language of men,” see n. 183 below, and Chap. 2, n. 6. On its association with the term mashal, see M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 45, 66, 85–93. 146. Hayya’s comments are in Hebrew; yet the locution ‘al peshateh seems influenced by Arabic ‘alā ẓāhirihi (see, e.g., n. 177 below, and n. 89 above). The normal talmudic locution is ki-peshateh; see, e.g., b.Zevaḥim 113a. 147. Zucker, Translation, 203. See also Polliack, Translation, 26–31. 148. On the state of al-Qumisi’s writings, see Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 18–19. 149. Polliack, Translation, 31. See also nn. 151, 161 below. 150. The biblical idiom nasa’ panim (“to li face”) connotes showing consideration. In legal contexts, it means “to favor,” “to show partiality,” as in Lev. 19:15, Deut. 10:17. See BDB, s.v. ‫נשא‬. Daniel interprets this idiom otherwise in this passage, as discussed below. 151. Although this commentary is in Hebrew, al-Qumisi here resorts to an Arabic translation gloss, which includes the technical exegetical term ta’wīl. See n. 155 below. 152. Markon ed., 78. See Gordon, “One Meaning,” 389. 153. Daniel perhaps believed that this betrayal had its roots in biblical times. Some Karaites traced it specifically to Jeroboam. See Astren, Karaite Judaism, 114–118, 144, 270–271. See also Yefet on Song 1:6 (n. 232 below). 154. On the expression “precepts taught by men,” see Frank, Search, 5; Zucker, Translation, 183n, and n. 28 above. The expression “shepherds of the exile,” common in Karaite writings, is taken om Jeremiah 23, where the prophet accuses the leadership of leading God’s flock astray. See n. 232 below. 155. Judeo-Arabic ‫אנכם רפעתם אלתאוילאת‬. In an anonymous Karaite commentary agment published by Jacob Mann, there is implied criticism of the symbolic midrashic interpretation of Abraham’s “covenant between the parts” (berit bein ha-betarim). (This would be a matter of contention in the tenth century as well between Yefet and Saadia; see n. 230 below. See also Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 72n42.) Aer summarizing the acts of the covenant described in Genesis 15, the commentator remarks: “And this is a true matter (devar emet; perhaps a calque of ḥaqīqa, in which case we might render the term ‘a literally true matter’), without allegory (mashal), and it has no further interpretation (Heb., middah; see Introduction, n. 25), and it does not call for further explication (pitaron, seemingly his Hebrew term for ta’wīl). Rather, God’s desire was simply to establish a covenant with Abraham to remove doubt om his heart” (Mann, “Commentaries,” 382). Mann later attributed this agment to Daniel al-Qumisi, but that attribution has been questioned; see Zucker, Translation, 182–183. 156. See n. 150 above. 157. See n. 158 below.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 48–52

311

158. Though Daniel uses the number forty-nine, the common rabbinic adage is that “the Torah has seventy meanings (panim).” See Mack, “Seventy Faces.” 159. Comm. on Ps. 74:5–6, cited in Polliack, Translation, 29n23; Gordon, “One Meaning,” 392. 160. See n. 101 above, and Polliack, Translation, 30–31. 161. Comm. on Hosea 11:4, Markon ed., 19. Daniel makes the point on this verse, which he construes as a reference to God’s presence descending on Mount Sinai and dwelling among Israel. This is an example of Daniel’s use of Arabic terminology within his Hebrew commentary. 162. See Zawanowska, “Anthropomorphisms.” 163. This, too, may be an echo of Qur’an 3,7. See n. 101 above. 164. Zucker, Translation, 179–181. 165. Kitāb al-anwār, Nemoy ed., I:3 (Ar.); Chiesa and Lockwood, Qirqisani, 94 (Eng.). 166. See also n. 163 above. 167. Comm. on Amos 6:14, Markon ed., 37. 168. See Gordon, “One Meaning”; Polliack, Translation, 29–31. 169. See Wieder, Scrolls. 170. Drory, Emergence, 106–110. 171. See Polliack, Pesher. 172. Polliack, Translation, 28. 173. Ibid., 27. 174. Ibid., 27n17. 175. See Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” I:319; idem, “Karaite Philosophy,” 344–352; Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 56–60. 176. See Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” I:108–111 (Ar.); Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 54–55 (Eng.). 177. Hirschfeld, Qirqisani, 43–44 (Ar.); Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 59–60 (Eng.). 178. See n. 86 above, and Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” I:50–70. 179. In Qirqisani’s view, such oral traditions are not reliable as such and must themselves be judged according to reason and their conformity to the apparent sense of the biblical text. See Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” 89–90, 94–95. 180. See Tirosh-Becker, “Rabbinic Sources.” 181. See Introduction, n. 25. 182. See Ravitsky, “Qirqisani’s Critique.” 183. Hirschfeld, Qirqisani, 45–46 (Ar.); Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 63 (Eng.). 184. It is used in the Talmud to express the view that seemingly redundant biblical words are merely incidental and do not convey deeper meanings, which is the prevailing midrashic assumption. See M. Z. Cohen, “Best of Poetry,” 35–36; Ben-Shammai, “Language,” 59–60. 185. See n. 145 above, and M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 73–74, 90–92, 210–216. Steiner considers it likely that Qirqisani here is referring to Judah ben Quraysh. See Chap. 2, n. 10. Ben-Shammai, “Language,” 61–62, on the other hand, maintains that this passage in Qirqisani is the earliest attested usage of the maxim that “Scripture spoke in the language of men” in this sense, though he allows for the possibility that Qirqisani was referring to its use by Saadia in this sense in one of his (many) lost writings. 186. See Drory, Emergence, 116–117; M. Z. Cohen, “Philosopher’s Peshat Exegesis,” 246–249. 187. Drory, Emergence, 114–121. 188. By the late tenth century, the Rabbanite school would share this tendency, as evident in the interpretive principles enumerated by Samuel ben Hofni. See Drory, Emergence, 117; Zucker, “Thirty-two Middot.” 189. Hirschfeld, Qirqisani, 43 (Ar.); Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 60 (Eng.). 190. Hirschfeld, Qirqisani, 39 (Ar.); Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 53 (Eng.). 191. See Polliack, “Narrator,” 353. 192. See Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 83, citing Epistles 35, 47 of the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

312

Notes to Pages 52–56

193. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity, Epistle 42, cited in Ben-Shammai, Mudawwin, 84. 194. Hirschfeld, Qirqisani, 51–52 (Ar.). 195. Ibid., 50 (Ar.). 196. Ibid., 49 (Ar.); Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 68 (Eng.). 197. Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 77. 198. See Introduction, nn. 30, 31. 199. See n. 190 above. 200. See Viezel, “Medieval Bible Commentators,” 133–135. Polliack (“Narrator,” 358–359), likewise, asserts that Qirqisani accepted the rabbinic doctrine that Moses received the exact wording of the entire Torah om God and that his role was “confined to the technical act of writing, with no degree of poetic eedom.” 201. See Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 10, and the literature cited there. 202. See ibid., 6–9; idem, “Review.” 203. See Walfish, Bibliographia, 400–410. 204. On Yefet’s dependence on Qirqisani, see Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” passim. On his attitudes toward Saadia, see Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 95–96, and literature cited there. 205. See Zawanowska, “Anthropomorphisms,” 179. 206. Ibid., 182. 207. Yefet, comm. on Dan. 11:1, Margoliouth, ed. 111 (Ar.), 56 (Eng.). Trans. here taken (with modification) om Frank, Search, 255. Yefet repeats this rule elsewhere in his commentaries, e.g., on Gen. 15:11, Ezek. 37:13–14. See Zawanowska, “Exegetical Terms,” 322–323. 208. This sort of observation is already attested in Daniel al-Qumisi’s writings. See n. 161 above. On Yefet’s tendency to apply ta’wīl to verses depicting God in anthropomorphic and anthropopathic terms, see Zawanowska, “Anthropomorphisms,” 179–196, 208–223. 209. Comm. on Jer. 23:24, cited in Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” I:21. For other occurrences of this rule in Yefet’s commentaries, see ibid., I:20–23. 210. See Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” I:23. Yefet acknowledges “tradition” as a valid source of knowledge—e.g., the tradition of Scripture itself. But he denies the reliability of rabbinic tradition. See ibid., I:91–100. 211. Ibid., I:16–17, II:267. 212. Ibid., I:106n29, 319–323. 213. Ibid., I:106. 214. Ibid., I:107, II:270. See also Vajda, Commentaires, 121–138. 215. See citation in Vajda, Commentaires, 122. 216. Ibid., 118–140. 217. See Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” I:103–105. 218. Ibid., I:105. 219. See n. 176 above. 220. See Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” I:105; idem, “Tenth Century,” 29n47. 221. See Yefet on 1 Sam. 28:8–25, cited in Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” II:201–205. 222. See Madelung, “ ‘Iṣma.” 223. See Zucker, “Problem,” 149–166; Frank, Search, 228. 224. Citation (Ar. with Heb. trans.) om Zucker, “Problem,” 167. Zucker notes that Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni both find other ways to reinterpret this passage—motivated by the same theological issue. 225. See al-Qumisi on Jon. 1:3, Markon ed., 41. 226. Frank, “Limits,” 77* (Ar.); 53* (Eng.). 227. For further discussion of the term basīṭ, see Chap. 2. 228. This tradition is reflected, e.g., in Rashi on Gen. 15:10. See Chap. 3, n. 47. 229. Comm. on Gen. 15:11, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS Suppl. héb. 31 (Cat. 279), fol. 237b, cited in Frank, “Limits,” 77* (Ar.); 54*–55* (Eng.).

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 56–59

313

230. Comm. on Gen. 15:11, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS Suppl. héb. 31 (Cat. 279), fols. 242b–243a, cited in Frank, “Limits,” 78* (Ar.); 54*–55* (Eng.), and in Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 82*–83* (Ar.); 96–97 (Eng.). Saadia’s commentary on this episode is incomplete. However, its symbolic nature can be inferred om its critique by Dunash. See Teshuvot Dunash ʻal Rabi Seʻadyah, Schröter ed., 3. (On the identity of this Dunash, see Chap. 2, n. 36.) Abraham Ibn Ezra, who responded Dunash’s critiques, defended Saadia by noting that the gaon here was following the precedent of the Rabbis. See Sefat Yeter, §7, Oshri ed., 63. 231. See Frank, Search, 154–164. Yefet follows in the footsteps of Salmon ben Jeruhim, who likewise composed an allegorical commentary on the Song of Songs that focused on the Karaite struggle. See ibid., 146–154. 232. Yefet on Song 1:6, Alobaidi ed., 33 (Ar.); 160 (Eng.). 233. Yefet actually discusses the fact that the Song of Songs is a special sort of biblical text that must be interpreted entirely by way of ta’wīl: “From beginning to end there is nothing in it that is according to its ẓāhir”; introduction to the Song comm., Alobaidi ed., 26 (Ar.); 148 (Eng.); cf. Frank, Search, 155. The distinction among biblical genres was a recognized strategy within Karaite Bible commentary. Cf. Salmon ben Jeruhim’s criticism of al-Nahawandi’s symbolic reading of Qohelet, cited in Drory, Emergence, 107–108. Salmon acknowledges the legitimacy of symbolic interpretation (which he refers to as ta’wīl in this context) for biblical books such as Proverbs; but he argues that Qohelet must be understood literally. 234. See Frank, Search, 165–166. 235. Ibid., 133–134, 188–198. 236. Ibid., 177–178. 237. See Wechsler, Yefet on Esther, 20–22; Polliack and Schlossberg, Yefet on Hosea, 17–21. 238. Wechsler, Yefet on Esther, 21. 239. See n. 233 above. 240. See Polliack, “Historicizing”; idem, “Major Trends,” 393–394; Polliack and Schlossberg, Yefet on Hosea, 21–25. 241. See Polliack and Schlossberg, Yefet on Hosea, 59–70. 242. See Drory, Emergence, 112–117. 243. A number of recent studies are devoted to this subject: see Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin”; Polliack, “Major Trends,” 398–410; idem, “Narrator”; Simon, Four Approaches, 88–93; Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 27–57; Wechsler, Yefet on Esther, 27–34. 244. See Ben-Shammai, Mudawwin, 98–99. 245. Comm. on Hosea 1:1, Polliack and Schlossberg ed., 142. See also Polliack, “Major Trends,” 399. 246. See nn. 192, 193 above. 247. Comm. on Hosea 1:1, Polliack and Schlossberg ed., 142. See also Marwick, “Order,” 453–454. As Marwick notes, Jewish tradition is not unanimous in the arrangement of the Latter Prophets. Yefet followed the arrangement accepted in his community. 248. Comm. on Hosea 1:1, Polliack and Schlossberg ed., 144 (Ar.); Polliack, “Major Trends,” 400 (Eng.). 249. See, e.g., 1 Kings 11:41; 14:19, 29. 250. This, of course, is an echo of the rabbinic statement that Scripture includes only “prophecies required for future generations” (b.Megillah 14a). See Polliack, “Major Trends,” 401n91. 251. Comm. on Ruth 1:1, Butbul ed., 483 (Ar.); 524 (Heb.); Marwick, “Order,” 458 (Eng.). 252. See Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 97–98. 253. Barges ed., 15, cited in Simon, Four Approaches, 88. 254. This would become a controversial matter. Saadia made a similar assumption, but Ibn Ezra rejected this endeavor as derash. See Simon, Four Approaches, 216–224. 255. Comm. on Ps. 85:2, om MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Heb. 37, cited in Simon, Four Approaches, 90.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

314

Notes to Pages 59–63

256. Comm. on Ps. 56:1, om MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Heb. 37, cited in Simon, Four Approaches, 89. 257. Comm. on Qohelet, Bland ed., 5 (Ar.); 147 (Eng.), cited in Simon, Four Approaches, 89; Goldstein, “Arabic Composition,” 256. 258. Comm. on Esther 7:10, Wechsler ed., 45* (Ar.); 272 (Eng.). 259. Comm. on Esther 1:1, Wechsler ed., 6* (Ar.); 167 (Eng.), cited here with slight variation. 260. Comm. on Esther 1:1, Wechsler ed., 6–7* (Ar.); 167–168 (Eng.). 261. Wechsler, Yefet on Esther, 31. 262. See Polliack, “Narrator”; idem, “Major Trends,” 402–410. 263. Comm. on Judg. 5:31, om MS Saint Petersburg, Russian National Library, Yevr.–Ar. 1:3354, 36b, cited in Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 91. 264. MS British Museum, Or. 8658 17b, cited in Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 91. 265. Comm. on Num. 13:23, MS Saint Petersburg, Institute of Oriental Studies, B366, 10b, cited in Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 89. 266. See, e.g., Sternberg, Biblical Narrative, 64, 74–75. Regarding Yefet’s sensitivity to this distinction, see Polliack, “Narrator,” 362–363. 267. Yefet, comm. on Deut. 34:5, MS Saint Petersburg, Institute of Oriental Studies, CO72, 159a–b, cited and trans. in Zawanowska, “Mudawwin,” 13*–15*. On Qirqisani’s view, see n. 189 above. 268. MS Saint Petersburg, Institute of Oriental Studies, B218, 155a, cited in Zawanowska, “Mudawwin,” 26*. 269. For a similar observation in modern Bible scholarship, see Berlin, Biblical Narrative, 66–67. On Yefet’s use of the term al-mudawwin elsewhere to make this distinction, see Polliack, “Narrator,” 368–371. 270. A different approach to the anonymity of the mudawwin is taken by Zawanowska, who argues that Yefet is hinting—at least, in some cases—to a later author/editor, aer the time of Moses, who gave the Pentateuch its final form. See Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 39–49. This interpretation of Yefet has been criticized sharply by Eran Viezel. See Viezel, “Medieval Bible Commentators,” 136–137. It is beyond the scope of this study to enter into this debate. I can say briefly, though, that in my opinion it makes sense, as Viezel argues, to explain Yefet’s conception of the mudawwin here as a literary abstraction rather than a reflection of his views on the historical process of the formation of the Pentateuch. See the discussion in n. 294 below. Yet I recognize that Yefet’s vague use of the term al-mudawwin makes it difficult to pin down his intentions; so Zawanowska’s interpretation cannot be ruled out. 271. See Polliack, “Major Trends,” 403–410; idem, “Narrator,” 363–368; Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 96–97. 272. See, e.g., Berlin, Biblical Narrative, 95–99, with further references. 273. Ibid., 99. 274. MS Saint Petersburg, Institute of Oriental Studies, B221, 136b–137a, cited and trans. in Polliack, “Major Trends,” 406. 275. MS Saint Petersburg, Institute of Oriental Studies, B217, 170b, cited in Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 96. 276. MS Saint Petersburg, Institute of Oriental Studies, B217, 177a, cited and trans. in Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 125. 277. Hirschfeld, Qirqisani, 49–50 (Ar.); Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 124 (Eng.). For a discussion of Yefet’s reliance on this principle, see Zawanowska, 124–125. 278. Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 97. 279. MS Russian National Library, Yevr.–Arab. I:54, 23b–24a, cited and trans. in Polliack, “Major Trends,” 407–408. 280. See Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 85–99, and n. 287 below. 281. Comm. on Gen. 3:23, MS Saint Petersburg, Institute of Oriental Studies, BO51, 171a–b, cited and trans. in Zawanowska, “Mudawwin,” 17*–18*.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 63–67

315

282. Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 80. 283. Comm. on Gen. 1:8, MS Saint Petersburg, Institute of Oriental Studies, CO51, 21a, cited and trans. in Zawanowska, “Mudawwin,” 20*. 284. Comm. on Gen. 4:1, MS Saint Petersburg, Institute of Oriental Studies, CO51, 177B, cited and trans. in Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 38n32. 285. Comm. on Gen. 2:17, MS Saint Petersburg, Institute of Oriental Studies, CO51, 126a, cited and trans. in Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 38n31. 286. See, e.g., b.Sanhedrin 56a. 287. Zawanowska, “Mudawwin,” 21*– 22*, following Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 85–99. 288. See nn. 198, 200 above. 289. Yefet’s comm. on Gen. 39:20, MS Saint Petersburg, Institute of Oriental Studies, B217, 119a–b, cited and trans. in Zawanowska, “Mudawwin,” 15*. See also Polliack, “Narrator,” 355–356. 290. Zawanowska, “Mudawwin,” 15*. 291. See nn. 192, 193 above, and Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 88–89. 292. Zawanowska, “Mudawwin,” 26*– 32*. 293. Yefet uses the term al-mudawwin in this literary sense in his commentaries on the Prophets and Writings. See n. 263 above. See also Polliack and Schlossberg, Yefet on Hosea, 57–58; Wechsler, Yefet on Esther, 32–34. 294. Viezel, “Medieval Bible Commentators,” 140–143. 295. Polliack, “Major Trends,” 409; see also idem, “Narrator,” 371–372. For a similar observation, see Wechsler, Yefet on Esther, 30–31. 296. Yefet cites but rejects the view of the “Tustarians” who asserted that Moses was responsible for the remarks appended to the direct quotation of God’s words in Gen. 1:26 and 3:22. See BenShammai, “Mudawwin,” 91–92; Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 103–104. This suggests that when Yefet refers to Moses’ role as the mudawwin elsewhere in the Pentateuch, he did not intend to make similar claims regarding its historical authorship. 297. See Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 38–39; Goldstein, Karaite Exegesis, 119–138; BenShammai, “Mudawwin,” 76, 99n112. 298. See Brin, “Editing the Scriptures,” 305–309. 299. On the minor use of this terminology by Saadia, see Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 106–110. 300. See Chap. 6. On Ibn Ezra’s avoidance of the notion of the mudawwin, see Steiner, “Redaction,” 153–167. 301. See Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” I:19, 35. Cf. Zawanowska, “Exegetical Terms,” who notes that Yefet generally uses the term mursal (“undefined speech”) instead of mutashābih. 302. See n. 73 above. 303. See n. 72 above. 304. Ben-Shammai, “Doctrines,” passim. 305. See Stroumsa, “Earliest Known Commentary”; idem, “Impact.” Cf. Drory, Emergence, 122–123. Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 75n7, suggestively remarks that Drory does not sufficiently consider the (Eastern) Christian influence on Judeo-Arabic exegesis, implying that further research would reveal such influence. Brody, Geonim, 307–308, makes a similar claim independently and refers to a forthcoming essay by Bruno Chiesa in a volume to be coedited by Brody and Ben-Sasson that promises to explore that subject. Unfortunately, we learn om the bibliographic note on p. 377 of the 2nd ed. of Geonim (published in 2013) that the preparation of the volume in which that essay was to appear has been abandoned. 306. See Stroumsa, Twenty Chapters, 15–16. 307. Ibid. 308. Stroumsa, “Soul-Searching,” 151*. 309. See n. 75 above. See also Stroumsa, “Earliest Known Commentary,” 385–387; idem, “Impact,” 90–91. 310. Hirschfeld, Qirqisani, 40 (Ar.); Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 54 (Eng.).

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

316

Notes to Pages 67–73

311. See Ben-Shammai, Leader’s Project, 336–373. 312. While Saadia at times uses the expression basīṭ naṣṣ al-Torah in some contexts and even associates it with the expression peshuto shel miqra, these occurrences are quite marginal in his exegesis and furthermore seem to reflect primarily a stylistic rather than substantive value. This usage by Saadia is discussed in Chap. 2, in connection with a unique interpretation of the talmudic peshat maxim attested in the anonymous Chronicles commentary ascribed to “a student of Saadia Gaon.” See also M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 44–50.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 2 1. Ta-Shma, Talmudic Commentary I:122–124; Blidstein, “Ideological Aspects.” 2. See Ta-Shma, Talmudic Commentary I:124n18. 3. Ibid., I:120–122, 125–145; Blidstein, “Ideological Aspects”; Dubovick, “Hananel.” 4. See Ta-Shma, Talmudic Commentary I:145–159. 5. Moznayim, Jiménez Patón and Sáenz-Badillos ed., 6*. 6. Risāla, 180–183; English trans. in Steiner, Translation, 77–78, 141. 7. On the talmudic usage of the maxim, see Chap. 1, n. 194. 8. Steiner, Translation, 76–84. 9. Kitāb al-Anwār wal-Marāqib, Nemoy ed., I:39–40, 121–122; also in Polliack, Translation, 294–295 (Ar.); 68–69 (Eng.). 10. See Steiner, Translation, 141. 11. See Chap. 1, n. 185, for the alternative view of Ben-Shammai. 12. See Chap. 1, n. 145. 13. See M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 73–74, 90–92, 210–216. 14. Joseph Kimhi, Sefer ha-Berit, Talmage ed., 34. On the source in Bahya, see Duties of the Heart, 1:10; and M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 208. Kimhi composed a partial translation of this work—and so it stands to reason that it influenced his thinking on this matter. 15. Comm. on Jer. 14:8. This rule is echoed equently in his commentaries; see, e.g., on Gen. 6:6, 8:1, 8:21, 9:15; Judg. 9:13; Hosea 4:6; Mic. 1:3; Ps. 104:31. 16. On this passage and Radak’s use of the term ha‘avarah (a loan translation of Arabic majāz), see M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 205–206. 17. See Viezel, “Anonymous Commentary on Chronicles”; idem, “Hidden Links.” 18. See Viezel, “Anonymous Commentary on Chronicles,” 415–418. For a reference to Arabic, see the comm. on 1 Chron. 26:18 (Kirchheim, Commentar, 43). 19. See Viezel, “Anonymous Commentary on Chronicles,” 418–426. 20. See the previous note, and Mondschein, “Ibn Ezra on Chronicles,” 403n13. 21. See Steiner, “Redaction,” 142–143. 22. See, e.g., comm. on 1 Chron. 2:3, 6, 16, 55; 11:22; 18:17. 23. Kirchheim, Commentar, 55. 24. See Viezel, “Anonymous Commentary on Chronicles,” 423–427, who also points to other strong parallels to the style and method of Rashi. 25. This midrashic interpretation appears, e.g., in Pesikta de-Rav Kahana §10, Mandelbaum ed., 167–168; and in Tanḥuma ha-Qadum, Re’eh §12, Buber ed., II:24. 26. Kirchheim, Commentar, 46. The appellation ba‘alei miqra (“masters of Scripture”) was adopted in the Karaite movement, as noted in Chap. 1. But this commentator was not referring to the Karaites with this term, which, aer all, is talmudic. On 1 Chron. 4:18, he says that “the men of Kairouan, masters of Scripture and Mishnah” diverged om the midrash in their interpretation. He uses the term again in his gloss on 1 Chron. 6:16. I am grateful to Eran Viezel for referring me to these sources. 27. Comm. on Prov. 30:1, Kafih ed., 244. 28. See Numbers Rabbah 10:4; Tanḥuma ha-Qadum, Wa-Era §2, Buber ed., II:18; Yalqut Shim‘oni on Prov. 30:1. 29. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 45n48, 46n53, 298.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 73–78

317

30. Tafsīr, Derenbourg ed., 4. See also Brody, Geonim, 302–303; M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 46; Polliack, Translation, 82. 31. Cf. the usage of the term basīṭ cited in Blau, Dictionary, s.v. ‫בסט‬: “abridged (book), short, ‫שרח תורה בסיט‬.” 32. This is Kugel’s formulation of a characteristic midrashic mode. See Introduction, n. 24. 33. See Gamliel-Barak, “Methods.” 34. See, e.g., Maḥberet, s.v. ‫הג‬, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 135*. 35. See Allony, “Vistas,” 37–43; Maman, “Peshat and Derash,” 345. 36. Scholars debate whether the same Dunash also penned Teshuvot Dunash ‘al Rabbi Saadia Gaon (The rebuttals of Dunash to Saadia). See Sáenz-Badillos, “Autor.” Recently, Raaya Hazon pointed to the different Hebrew style of the two works as evidence that they are not by the same author; see Hazon, “Author.” However, in a lecture at the Academy of the Hebrew Language in Jerusalem on December 26, 2017, Amir Gaash upheld the traditional attribution of both works to the same Dunash. Showing that the rebuttal of Saadia was probably written in Arabic (as were Saadia’s works) and later translated into Hebrew, Gaash argues that this accounts for the stylistic differences between the works. (I am grateful to Yosef Ofer of Bar-Ilan University for this reference.) This possibility was already raised briefly by Steiner, Translation, 135n34. 37. Maḥberet, s.v. ‫גו‬, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 101*–102*. Given that Ibn Quraysh is cited elsewhere in the Maḥberet, one may suppose that he was Menahem’s source for this interpretive strategy. 38. Teshuvot Dunash, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 46*–47*. Dunash repeats this principle in connection with Ezek. 6:9 on p. 85*. 39. See Maman, Philology, 14, 276–283. 40. Teshuvot talmidei Menahem, Benavente Robles ed., 54*–55*. See also Maman, Philology, 14–15, 283–288; Sáenz-Badillos, “Hebraists,” 104. 41. See, e.g., Teshuvot Dunash, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 88*–92*. See also Maman, Philology, 289–295. 42. See, e.g., Teshuvot Dunash, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 88*, 113*. Rashi on Prov. 30:15 accepted this interpretation of Menahem’s use of the term ka-mashma‘o. See also Maman, Philology, 276. 43. Teshuvot talmidei Menahem, Benavente Robles ed., 59*. See also Maman, Philology, 276–277, 282. In other words, Menahem used ka-mashma‘o as the Arabic terms ẓāhir and mashhūr were used, e.g., by Saadia, as discussed in Chap. 1. 44. See Wechter, Ibn Barun. 45. Maḥberet, s.v. ‫גלב‬, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 106*; cf. Sáenz-Badillos, “Hebraists,” 103. 46. See Maḥberet, s.v. ‫ שעטנז‬,‫ פרשז‬,‫ בחל‬,‫ אפריון‬,‫ צנם‬,‫ פצם‬,‫גלב‬. See also Allony, “Vistas,” 28–29. 47. Maḥberet, s.v. ‫אוב‬, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 17*. See also Maḥberet, s.v. ‫הי‬, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 137*–139*; Kugel, Idea, 176–177. This concept of parallelism would be developed in Rashi’s school and analyzed systematically in modern Bible scholarship. See Chap. 4, n. 102. 48. See, e.g., Maḥberet, s.v. ‫שער‬, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 385*. Cf. Ibn Ezra on Gen. 49:6. 49. Maḥberet, s.v. ‫גד‬, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 106*; see also Maman, “Peshat and Derash,” 351. 50. Ibn Ezra, long comm. on Exod. 23:19, Weiser ed., II:160–161. 51. Qirqisani, Kitāb al-Anwār II:386, V:1226–1227. See also Frank, Search, 10. 52. Al-Fāsī, Agron, Skoss ed., I:301–302. 53. Seventy Isolated Words, Allony ed., 41. 54. Maḥberet, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 20*; see also Allony, “Vistas,” 22–23. 55. Maḥberet, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 13*–14*. 56. Ibid., 20*; see also Allony, “Vistas,” 22–23. 57. Luma‘, 8 (Ar.); Riqmah, 19–20 (Heb.). See n. 83 below. 58. Maimonides, comm. on m.Terumot 1:1, Kafih ed., I:269. 59. Wars of the Lord, Davidson ed., 40 (Ar.); Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 75 (Eng.). See also Allony, “Vistas,” 23. 60. Seventy Isolated Words, s.v. ‫טוטפות‬, Allony ed., 58; English trans. om Maman, “Peshat and Derash,” 344. This approach would be adopted by Hayyuj and Ibn Janah. See Maman, “Peshat and

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

318

Notes to Pages 78–84

Derash,” 343–344. The analogy with Mishnaic Hebrew was given by the Tosafists (b.Menaḥot 34b), even though the Talmud provides a more tenuous analysis. Unlike Hayyuj and Ibn Janah, who knew Saadia’s work, the Tosafists made this connection independently. Similarly, BDB, s.v. ‫טוטפות‬, cites the Aramaic cognate ‫( טוטפתא‬headband) to explain this Biblical Hebrew term. 61. Maḥberet, s.v. ‫טף‬, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 200*. See also Maman, “Peshat and Derash,” 345. 62. Al-Fāsī, Agron, Skoss ed., II:19. 63. See Introduction, n. 86. 64. See b.Ḥullin 21b. 65. Comm. on Lev. 1:15, Weiser ed., III:8. 66. Maḥberet, s.v. ‫מלק‬, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 241*. 67. Teshuvot Dunash, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 97*. 68. See Chap. 1, n. 127. 69. Rashbam on Lev. 1:15, Rosin ed., 146. 70. Hakhra‘ot, Lasser ed., 291; Filipowski ed., 75. 71. Allony, “Vistas.” 72. See, e.g., Maman, “Peshat and Derash,” 345. But cf. Sáenz-Badillos, “Hebraists,” 99. 73. Tes̮ ubot, Sáenz-Badillos ed., 15*, 20. 74. Moses Ibn Ezra, Book of Discussion, 29b–30b. 75. Sefat Yeter §78, Oshri ed., 85. In his long comm. on Exod. 7:5, as well, Ibn Ezra refers to Hayyuj as “the first grammarian.” 76. See Maman, “Peshat and Derash,” 344–345; idem, Philology, 296–298. 77. See Maman, “Linguistic School,” 263. 78. See Nasir, Nutaf. 79. See Chap. 5, n. 3. 80. See Sefer ha-Galuy, Mathews ed., 2–3. 81. When speaking of authorities on Bible exegesis, Bahya Ibn Paquda mentions Saadia and Ibn Janah. See Duties of the Heart, introduction, Kafih ed., 17. On Ibn Janah’s influence on the subsequent tradition, see Maman, “Linguistic School,” 268. 82. This possibility is raised by Perez, “Vestige,” based on a agment of a Chronicles commentary he ascribes to Ibn Janah. 83. These works were translated into Hebrew—as Sefer ha-Riqmah and Sefer ha-Shorashim, respectively—by Judah Ibn Tibbon in the second half of the twelh century. 84. While this exact formulation does not appear in rabbinic literature, the Talmud occasionally makes such a distinction. See Kamin, Categorization, 32–37. 85. Luma‘, 8; Riqmah, 19. 86. On the coincidence of the ẓāhir and the philological-contextual reading (which Ibn Janah would term peshat), see M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 93–96, 130–137. 87. Luma‘, 8; Riqmah, 19. 88. Roots, s.v. ‫חרם‬, Neubauer ed., 248–249. 89. Luma‘, 346; Riqmah, 362–363. The rabbinic citation is om t.Makkot 5:8, Zuckermandel ed., 444. 90. Luma‘, 346–347; Riqmah, 363. 91. Luma‘, 347; Riqmah, 363. Seven prohibitions stemming om Lev. 19:26 are enumerated in b.Sanhedrin 34a to illustrate that “one verse can have a number of meanings.” In speaking about the possible problem of “increasing the number of the commandments,” Ibn Janah is referring to the science of the enumeration of the 613 commandments, for which he probably turned to the work of Ḥefeṣ ben Yaṣliaḥ. See Halper, Precepts, 103–104. The point he seems to be making here is that an additional, non-rabbinic interpretation—according to peshuto shel miqra—does not impinge on that enumeration. Ḥefeṣ ben Yaṣliaḥ endeavored to establish principles for a systematic enumeration of the commandments, which the Talmud fixes at precisely 613, a project that Maimonides would develop further. See Zucker, “Ḥefeṣ,” and Chap. 7. 92. See Roots, s.v. ‫ שקה‬,‫ חמש‬,‫ בקר‬,‫אור‬. See also M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 66n122.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 84–89

319

93. On Ibn Janah’s far-reaching use of Arabic grammatical works, see Becker, Sources. 94. Luma‘, 249; Riqmah, 263. 95. See Wansbrough, “Periphrastic Exegesis,” 247–248, 257. Heinrichs, “Genesis,” 123–124, renders this term “restitution of the natural sentence.” On taqdīr in Jewish interpretation, see Shy, “Taqdīr”; Fenton, Jardin, 259, 340; Khan, Angeles Gallego, and Olszowy-Schlanger, Grammatical Thought, xlvi; M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 399–400. 96. Luma‘, 250–251; Riqmah, 264–265. 97. See Wansbrough, “Periphrastic Exegesis,” 251. 98. Luma‘, 278–279; Riqmah, 293–294. It would seem that ta’kīd (’-k-d, form II) is an equivalent of tawkīd (w-k-d, form II); see Blau, Dictionary, s.v. ‫וכד‬. 99. Luma‘, 288–289; Riqmah, 303. On the terms faṣāḥa and balāgha (rendered ṣaḥot and hagga‘ah by the medieval translator Judah Ibn Tibbon) in the Jewish exegetical tradition, see M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 240–241. 100. See Heinrichs, “Hermeneutics,” 267. 101. See Introduction, n. 27. 102. Ibn Janah’s choice of Isa. 43:7 as an illustration may not be coincidental. It seems that this verse was interpreted in al-Andalus in his time according to the doctrine of omnisignificance, as such a reading is recorded by Moses Ibn Ezra, Book of Discussion, 87a. See also Kugel, Idea, 180, 290; M. Z. Cohen, “Best of Poetry,” 31–32. 103. Luma‘, 285; Riqmah, 299–300. 104. Nahmanides on Gen. 12:1, Chavel ed., I:75. 105. See Chap. 6, n. 39. 106. See Perez, “Substitution.” 107. Luma‘, 294; Riqmah, 307. 108. See Luma‘, 314–317; Riqmah, 330–333; M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 48–65, 80–81. On the parallel terminology in qur’anic hermeneutics and Arabic poetics, see Heinrichs, Hand, 30–38. 109. See Perez, “Substitution.” 110. See Simon, “Proponent.” 111. See M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 83–97, 245–263. 112. See Tene, “Literature,” 1136–1137. 113. See Perez, “Quotations.” 114. See Maman, “Linguistic School,” 267n, 276. 115. Ta-Shma, Talmudic Commentary I:161. 116. Kitāb al-Muwāzana, Kokozoff ed., 24–25; see also Wechter, Ibn Barun, 56–57. 117. See, e.g., Ibn Bal‘am, comm. on Num. 22:7, Perez ed., 34 (Ar.); 84 (Heb.). See also Perez, “Quotations,” 252–253, 255, 263, 264, 267, 277, 279–280 (on Ps. 73:10, 21; 76:6; 77:5; 91:6; 94:17, 20). 118. Treatise on Resurrection, Shailat ed., 329 (Ar.); 359 (Heb.). 119. Moznayim, Jiménez Patón and Sáenz-Badillos ed., 6*. 120. See Simon, Four Approaches, 113–114, and the discussion below. 121. See Simon, Four Approaches, 114–115. 122. Ibid., 184, 274; Wyrick, Authorship, 29–30, 57–58, 86–93. 123. See Simon, Four Approaches, 127–129. 124. Ibid. 125. Ibid., 187–199, 280–281, 314–317. 126. See 2 Kings 18–20, 2 Chronicles 29–32. Ibn Chiquitilla (whose comm. on Isaiah is not extant) is cited by Ibn Ezra on Isa. 11:1. For other such interpretations by Ibn Chiquitilla, as well as the controversies they sparked, see Simon, “Medievalism.” 127. See Maimonides, Treatise on Resurrection, Shailat ed., 329–331 (Ar.); 359–362 (Heb.). 128. See, e.g., Saadia, Beliefs and Opinions 8:6, Kafih ed., 251–252. Daniel al-Qumisi likewise interpreted this prophecy in reference to the messianic era. See his comm., Markon ed., 30. 129. Ibn Chiquitilla’s opinion is cited by Ibn Ezra on Joel 3:1, 4:1, Simon ed., 160–161, 165. 130. Moses Ibn Ezra, Book of Discussion, 139a. See Simon, Four Approaches, 113–114.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

320

Notes to Pages 89–93

131. See Maman, “Linguistic School,” 277–281; Ibn Bal‘am on Isaiah, Goshen-Gottstein ed., 18, 262–263; Ibn Bal‘am on Jeremiah, Perez ed., 11, 15, 159, 166; Ibn Bal‘am on Ezekiel, Perez ed., 15, 172. 132. Ibn Bal‘am on Deut. 4:24, Perez ed., 46 (Ar.); 97 (Heb.). See also Fenton, Jardin, 296–297. Ibn Bal‘am repeats this rule in his comm. on Josh. 7:25, Poznanski ed., 100. 133. Ibn Bal‘am seems less willing than Saadia and Samuel ben Hofni to reject ẓāhir al-naṣṣ on the basis of scientific implausibility. He criticizes Saadia for applying ta’wīl to Num. 22:28 (“And God opened the mouth of the ass, and she said to Balaam”). See Ibn Bal‘am, comm., Perez ed., 34 (Ar.); 85 (Heb.). He likewise criticizes Samuel ben Hofni’s rationalist reinterpretation on the episode of the witch of En Dor (Chap. 1, n. 140). 134. See Perez, “Contribution,” 159–163. 135. Ibn Bal‘am, comm., Perez ed., 48–49 (Ar.); 100 (Heb.). See also Perez, “Contribution,” 160–161. Apart om the rabbinic exegesis cited by Ibn Janah, Ibn Bal‘am adds the prohibition of erasing the sacred names of God, which the Rabbis derived om the juxtaposition “And you shall erase their names om that place. Do not do thus to the Lord your God.” See Sifrei Deuteronomy §61, Finkelstein ed., 126–127. 136. Elsewhere, Ibn Bal‘am harshly criticizes those who adopt “ẓāhir al-naṣṣ alone,” which, he argues, yields inaccurate readings of Scripture unless one also considers the rabbinic halakhic tradition. See his comm. on Deut. 23:11; Perez ed., 56 (Ar.); 108 (Heb.). On the other hand, Ibn Bal‘am was also willing to marginalize as mere derash a reading that Ibn Janah regarded as a viable alternative to his philological interpretation; see Ibn Bal‘am on Isa. 11:8, Goshen-Gottstein ed., 76; cf. Ibn Janah, Roots, s.v. ‫אור‬. 137. Comm., Perez ed., 58–59 (Ar.); 108–109 (Heb.). For the rabbinic citation, see n. 85 above. Saadia renders Deut. 24:16 literally in his Tafsīr, but the explanation that Ibn Bal‘am cites in his name is otherwise unknown. See Zucker, Translation, 479. 138. Although Maimonides did this precisely: in The Book of the Commandments, he interprets Deut. 24:16 exclusively according to the rabbinic halakhic reading without acknowledging ẓāhir al-naṣṣ; see M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 395–397. In this respect, he applies Saadia’s principle that the ẓāhir has no standing when contradicted by a halakhic tradition. 139. Admittedly, this results in something of an inconsistency in Ibn Bal‘am. In citing Ibn Janah’s proof that it is characteristic of the Rabbis to assume that a biblical text can bear multiple meanings, he implicitly acknowledges that this case is not an exception. Yet Ibn Bal‘am elsewhere strives to determine the single correct sense of Scripture—whether it be the ẓāhir or some other sense that overrides it. 140. See Simon, “Isaac ben Samuel”; Stauber, “Commentary on Samuel.” An edition of the comm. with Hebrew trans. is being prepared by Maaravi Perez. See Simon, Ear Discerns, 478. 141. See Chap. 1, nn. 143, 145. 142. See Stauber, “Commentary on Samuel,” 164n34. 143. See Brann, Compunctious Poet, 59–68. 144. See J. Yahalom, Halevi, 15–18, 42–44. 145. See Fenton, Jardin, 29–40; M. Z. Cohen, “Aesthetic Exegesis,” 282–301. 146. See Fenton, Jardin, 266–298, 304–309. 147. Maqālat al-Ḥadīqa, 27; French trans. in Fenton, Jardin, 302. 148. See M. Z. Cohen, “Imagination.” 149. See Fenton, Jardin, 332–374; M. Z. Cohen, “Poet’s Exegesis,” 543–556. 150. This is the stated objective of the work. See Book of Discussion, 5a–b. Modern scholars, however, have identified other cultural motives in this work; see Scheindlin, “Legitimacy”; Brann, Compunctious Poet, 70–83. 151. Book of Discussion, 118b; see also M. Z. Cohen, “Imagination,” 417–419. 152. Book of Discussion, 131a; see also M. Z. Cohen, “Poet’s Exegesis,” 555–556. 153. See M. Z. Cohen, “Aesthetic Exegesis,” 291–293.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Notes to Pages 93–97

321

154. Maqālat al-Ḥadīqa, 45–46; French trans. in Fenton, Jardin, 118. See also M. Z. Cohen, “Aesthetic Exegesis,” 287–288, on the application of this objective in The Treatise of the Garden. 155. See Chap. 1. 156. See Kugel, Idea, 96–109; M. Z. Cohen, “Aesthetic Exegesis,” 286–287. 157. See Chap. 6; see also M. Z. Cohen, “Best of Poetry,” 25–37. 158. Moses Ibn Ezra manifests great familiarity with Ibn Janah’s writings. He was also iends with Isaac Ibn Barun, who cited Samuel ha-Nagid’s construal of the rule of peshat (n. 116 above).

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 3 1. See Grossman, Rashi, 12–19. 2. See Grossman, France, 126, disputing the view that Rashi first studied with R. Jacob in Worms. On R. Gershom, see Grossman, Ashkenaz, 106–174. 3. See Grossman, France, 127–128; idem, Ashkenaz, 233–257. 4. See Grossman, France, 128; idem, Ashkenaz, 298–321. See also n. 6 below. 5. See Grossman, France, 128–129; idem, Ashkenaz, 266–292. 6. See Soloveitchik, Collected Essays II, 42–43, 50; Grossman, Ashkenaz, 316–318. 7. See Ta-Shma, Talmudic Commentary, I:35–40. 8. Soloveitchik, Collected Essays II, 159, 63. 9. See Brandin, Gloses françaises; Fudeman, Vernacular Voices, 103–104. 10. Soloveitchik, Collected Essays II, 50. 11. See Grossman, France, 129. 12. See Grossman, Rashi, 25–27, 149–158, 289–296. 13. See Grossman, France, 129. 14. See Grossman, Rashi, 133–148; Ta-Shma, Talmudic Commentary, I:36–56; Soloveitchik, Collected Essays II, 32–35, 62–64. 15. See Grossman, France, 166–174. 16. Gelles, Peshat and Derash, 13–14. See also nn. 38, 70, 194 below. 17. See Chap. 5. 18. See Viezel, “Targum Onkelos.” 19. See Pereira-Mendoza, Rashi as Philologist; Haas, “Criticisms”; Zohory, Grammarians; Mirsky, “Topics,” 100–108. 20. See Banitt, “Poterim”; Fudeman, Vernacular Voices, 103–104; Liss, Fictional Worlds, 21–22. On Christian vernacular glosses, see Vaciago, Glossae Biblicae. 21. These aspects of Rashi’s commentary will be discussed at length below. 22. See Grossman, Rashi, 42–49; Gross, “Spanish Jewry”; Lawee, “Reception.” 23. See Klepper, Insight; Geiger, “Nicholas”; idem, “Hebraism”; Hailperin, Rashi and Christian Scholars. See also Dahan, Intellectuels chrétiens, 289–322; idem, “Connaissance”; Stow, Alienated Minority, 141–146. 24. See van Liere, “Andrew and the Jews”; Leyra Curiá, In Hebreo; Smalley, Study, 149–156; van ’t Spijker, “Literal and Spiritual.” 25. See Goodwin, Herbert of Bosham; Smalley, “Hebraica”; de Visscher, Reading the Rabbis. 26. See Smalley, Study, 102–105, 364–366; Hailperin, Rashi and Christian Scholars, 105–110; Leyra Curiá, In Hebreo. 27. See Rashbam on Gen. 37:2, cited in Introduction, n. 41. 28. See Chap. 6, n. 22. 29. On the Reggio di Calabria edition, see http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/cajs/revealed/ revealed-med-det13.html. 30. See E. Touitou, “Original Version.” 31. In such cases, Touitou posits that Rashi originally offered only a single interpretation, to which others were added. Touitou thus challenged the conclusions of Sarah Kamin based on Rashi’s “double commentary” format. See n. 46 below, and E. Touitou, “Review of Kamin.”

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

322

Notes to Pages 98–102

32. See Grossman, “Literal Exegesis,” 333–334; idem, France, 187–193. On Shemaiah, see Grossman, France, 348–366. Shemaiah wrote extensive piyyut commentaries and perhaps some Talmud commentaries. It is unclear if he wrote independent Bible commentaries, which, in any case, have not survived. 33. The new Keter ed. of the Miqra’ot Gedolot utilizes manuscripts to correct the text of Rashi’s commentaries and places in brackets the glosses that seem not to be original. See, e.g., n. 37 below. 34. See Grossman, France, 360–362. 35. See Penkower, “Commentary on Ezekiel”; idem, “Corrections on Pentateuch”; idem, “Corrections on Prophets.” 36. See Introduction, n. 41. 37. This comment is not attested in all manuscripts and is therefore in brackets in the Keter ed. It is conceivable that this was a late addition to Rashi’s commentary. Rashi also cites Qara—who transmitted to him the interpretation of Menahem bar Helbo—on Isa. 10:24. 38. Comm. on Gen. 3:8, Berliner ed., 7–8, modified according to MS Leipzig 1 (where the words “and other midrashic works” appear). For other textual complexities of this passage, see Kamin, Categorization, 63n23. Rashi’s notion of “settling” the language of Scripture is discussed below. 39. Berliner ed., 9. For a detailed analysis of this passage, see Kamin, Categorization, 75–77. 40. Genesis Rabbah 21:9, Theodor-Albeck ed., 203–204. 41. Leqaḥ Ṭov on Gen. 3:24, Buber ed., I:28. 42. Menahem Banitt argued that when Rashi offers an Old French term, his intention is to negate an earlier Old French rendering. It is thus conceivable that an older Old French rendering here followed the midrashic reading and perhaps the Vulgate. See Banitt, Rashi, 6–7. 43. For other examples, see Gelles, Peshat and Derash, 9–14. 44. Rashi, comm. on Gen. 11:28, Berliner ed., 21–22. The midrashic interpretation is om Genesis Rabbah 38:13, Theodor-Albeck ed., 361–364. The citation of Menahem ben Saruq is om Maḥberet, s.v. ‫אר‬. 45. See Leqaḥ Ṭov on Gen. 11:28, Buber ed., I:55; Saadya on Genesis, Zucker ed., 111 (Ar.); 354–355 (Heb.). 46. See Kamin, Categorization, 158–208; Shapira, “Twofold Interpretations.” 47. See Rashi on Gen. 15:10, Berliner ed., 27, drawing upon Genesis Rabbah 44:9, Theodor-Albeck ed., 437. Saadia, likewise, offered a symbolic explanation of berit bein ha-betarim, which was criticized by Yefet ben Eli. See Chap. 1, n. 230. 48. Leqaḥ Ṭov on Gen. 15:9–10, Buber ed., I:69–70. 49. Rashi on Gen. 15:10, Berliner ed., 27. See Kamin, Categorization, 122–123. For a similar example of a double commentary, see Rashi on Gen. 14:18, by contrast with Leqaḥ Ṭov, which offers only a symbolic midrashic interpretation. See also the double commentaries of Rashi on Gen. 14:15 and 37:15 discussed in Introduction. 50. For other examples of this tendency, see Rashi on Gen. 14:15 (discussed in Introduction) and 14:18. On its development in the northern French peshat school, see Chap. 4. In his Talmud commentaries, as well, Rashi (followed by some of the Tosafists) manifests historical sensitivity—using rabbinic sources. See Fishman, People of the Talmud, 128–130, 148, 305; B. Cohen, “Historiographical Comments.” 51. See Ibn Ezra on Ps. 42:1, Miqra’ot Gedolot, Keter ed., 132. 52. Rashi on Ps. 42:3, Gruber ed., 825. 53. Ibn Ezra on Ps. 42:1, Miqra’ot Gedolot, Keter ed., 135. 54. This is hardly atypical in Rashi’s commentaries. See n. 195 below. On the phenomenon of Ibn Ezra’s implied critique of Rashi, see Mondschein, “One in a Thousand.” In the opening of his commentary on this psalm, Ibn Ezra indeed seems to refer to Rashi, as he remarks: “Some say that [the psalmist] speaks in the name of the people of the current exile” (comm. on Ps. 42:1, Miqra’ot Gedolot, Keter ed., 132). 55. Rashi, comm. on Ps. 42:7–9, Gruber ed., 826. 56. See Attias, “Eliahu Mizrahi”; Leibowitz, “Rashi’s Method.”

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 102–107

323

57. See Leibowitz, “How to Read a Chapter”; M. Z. Cohen, “Reproduction of the Text.” 58. Rashi on Job 2:10, Shoshana ed., 15. 59. Rashbam on Job 2:10, Japhet ed., 351. 60. See Me. Weiss, Story of Job’s Beginning, 72. 61. Either with Scripture as the direct object (“to settle the verse”), or indirect object prefaced by a preposition (“settled upon the verse,” “settled aer the verse”). See nn. 38, 67, 72, 196. 62. Gelles, Peshat and Derash, 33. 63. Ibid., 42. 64. See Kamin, Categorization, 57–157. 65. Ibid., 109–110. See also Kamin’s review of Gelles’s book in Jews and Christians, lxxviii–lxxx, and Japhet, Collected Studies, 26–27. 66. Kamin, Categorization, 109. 67. Rashi, introduction to Song of Songs, Kamin and Saltman ed., 81, which follows MS NY, JTS, Lutzki 778. The translation here, however, is based on the printed text of the Miqra’ot Gedolot, which, in my opinion, better reflects Rashi’s interpretive program. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 205. According to MS Lutzki 778, the translation of the last line of this passage would be: “and as for the midrashim, our Rabbis have set them one by one, each in its place.” On that reading, these words refer to the midrashic interpretations excluded om Rashi’s commentary. For analysis of this important passage and the variances between MS Lutzki 778 and the printed text, see Kamin, Categorization, 79–86, 123–124. 68. See Kamin, Jews and Christians, xxxii. 69. Living in a different intellectual climate—one that privileged peshat—the nineteenth-century Rabbinic Bible commentator Malbim argued that the allegorical reading is indeed the peshat of Song of Songs, since it is the intention of the work’s author, King Solomon. Rashi’s willingness to classi the allegorical sense as the midrashic interpretation of Song of Songs indicates that he did not privilege the peshat in the same way. Cf. Schwartz, “On Peshat and Derash,” 75–76. 70. Rashi, introduction to Song of Songs, Kamin and Saltman ed., 81. For analysis of this text, see Kamin, Categorization, 247–249. 71. Rashi read Song of Songs as an affirmation that God has not abandoned Israel—as averred by his Christian neighbors. On the polemical aspects of the commentary, see Kamin, Jews and Christians, 22–57. 72. Comm. on Exod. 6:9, Berliner ed., 112. 73. Ibid. For a detailed study of Rashi’s commentary on this verse, see Schwartz, “Reconsideration.” 74. See, e.g., Rashi on Gen. 3:22, 19:15, 33:20, 49:22; Exod. 11:4, 23:2, 33:13; 2 Sam. 23:3; Isa. 26:11; Jer. 33:25; Ps. 16:7, 51:7. There are no parallel methodological remarks in Leqaḥ Ṭov on the verses cited here om the Pentateuch. In fact, on some of them, Leqaḥ Ṭov incorporates the very midrashic interpretations that Rashi excluded. See Leqaḥ Ṭov on Gen. 19:15 (Buber ed., I:88), Exod. 11:4 (Buber ed., I:48). 75. Rashi’s admission, recorded by his grandson Rashbam, that his commentaries require adjustment according “to the peshat interpretations that newly emerge (ha-mitḥaddeshim) every day” (Rashbam on Gen. 37:2) might be taken as evidence to the contrary, i.e., that Rashi acknowledged failure in his exegetical project. But I believe that this admission implies nothing more than Rashi’s wish to have explicated peshuto shel miqra more consistently—alongside his critical selection of midrashic interpretation. See the discussion in Chap. 4 of Rashi’s revisions to his commentaries inspired by his students. 76. Ahrend, “Concept,” 245–246. Following the approach of Nehama Leibowitz, Ahrend (ibid., 248–259) argues that, on the contrary, Rashi reworked midrashic material and transformed it into genuine peshat interpretations. 77. See Grossman, France, 457–460; Viezel, “Rise and Fall,” 62–63, both citing earlier scholars. 78. See Grossman, France, 459.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

324

Notes to Pages 107–110

79. See Gelles, Peshat and Derash, 95–104. See also n. 19 above. 80. See Poznanski, Fragments, 13–17; Grossman, France, 340–347, Mack, “Bifurcated Legacy.” The extant agmentary commentaries of Menahem bar Helbo occasionally reflect a nascent contextualphilological method, though he most oen adopts a midrashic style of interpretation. (He is thought to have studied in Provence, where he could have been exposed to Jewish learning in neighboring Muslim Spain. Yet he manifests no familiarity with the discipline of Hebrew grammar as it emerged there.) This observation applies even more strongly to R. Moses the Preacher. I therefore find it difficult to regard his interpretive work as a precedent for Rashi’s peshat program—as argued by Hananel Mack in the above-cited study. See also n. 219 below. 81. See n. 20 above. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uziel can also be cited in this connection. However, these were readily available to Rashi’s predecessors and thus cannot be identified as a new impetus for his innovative exegetical agenda. 82. See Grossman, France, 471–473; idem, “Literal Exegesis,” 326–328. 83. This point is made by E. Touitou, Exegesis, 46–47. 84. See M. Z. Cohen, “Rashbam Scholarship,” 391–394; idem, “Spanish Source”; cf. Grossman, “Treatment of Grammar.” 85. Ta-Shma, Germany, 302–311; idem, Italy and Byzantium, 247–248. 86. See Chap. 5, n. 50. 87. See Chap. 5, n. 69. 88. Grossman, “Impact,” 364–367. 89. Grossman, France, 350–352, 364n55. 90. See Steiner, Stockmen from Tekoa, 23–24, and references cited there. 91. See Chap. 2, n. 21. 92. See Viezel, Commentary on Chronicles Attributed to Rashi, 44–47, 231, 235, 260. 93. See Viezel, “Anonymous Commentary on Chronicles,” 419–428. 94. See Baer, “Historical Reality”; Grabois, “Hebraica”; E. Touitou, “Rashi on Genesis”; Grossman, “Literal Exegesis,” 329–331. See also n. 201 below. 95. This notion was made famous by Charles Homer Haskins’s influential book The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (1927). However, it has since been challenged. See n. 104 below. 96. Smalley, Study, 41, 83–106, 112–196, 300–302; idem, “Andrew.” 97. Smalley, Study, 2. 98. Ibid. 99. E. Touitou, “Rashbam’s exegetical system”; Kamin, “Affinities.” See also M. Z. Cohen, “Rashbam Scholarship”; Grossman, France, 473–480; idem, “Literal Exegesis,” 328–331; idem, Rashi, 14–15, 32–42, all with further references. 100. See n. 214 below. 101. See Kamin, “Affinities,” xxxiv. Cf. Touitou, “System,” 62. Conceivably, Hugh actually met Rashbam (who spent time in Paris—see his comm. on Gen. 11:35). See Smalley, Study, 104; Leyra Curiá, In Hebreo, 338. 102. Kamin, “Affinities,” xxxv; Touitou, “System.” 103. Jaeger, Envy of Angels, 1. 104. See Jaeger, “Pessimism”; Benson and Constable, Renaissance and Renewal. 105. See Minnis, “Figuring the Letter.” 106. The valence of the term “mystical” in this context is somewhat different om what it would be in Nahmanides’ kabbalistic readings (“by way of truth”), discussed in Chap. 8. Nahmanides’ kabbalistic readings take the biblical text to refer to esoteric theosophic matters, usually connected with the divine sefirot (emanations). In the Christian contexts discussed here, the term “mystical” connotes readings that go beyond the apparent sense of the biblical text by interpreting it to refer to the life of Christ and his teachings. 107. See de Lubac, History and Spirit, 159–171; Paget, “Alexandrian Tradition,” 509–512, 521–526; Wright, “Augustine,” 704–707, 722–727. 108. See Fredrickson, “Allegory and Reading God’s Book,” 139–149.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 110–112

325

109. Adriaen ed., 5–6 (sec. 4 of the dedicatory epistle to Leander). 110. See Smalley, Study, 33–35; Minnis, Authorship, 37–38. 111. See n. 231 below. See also Kessler, “Gregory the Great,” 140–142. 112. See n. 229 below. 113. See Dahan, “Aquinas,” 50–51; idem, “Langton”; Smalley, “Langton and the Four Senses.” 114. See Minnis, Scott, and Wallace, Literary Theory, 239–243; Dahan, “Aquinas,” 51–70. 115. See de Lubac, Exégèse médiéval, II/1.238–262, II/2.334–367. See also Harkins, Reading, 188–189; Minnis, “Figuring the Letter.” 116. This is the general argument made in Minnis, Authorship. See also Allen, Friar. For a different view, see Ocker, Biblical Poetics. 117. Quia vero sensus litteralis est, quem auctor intendit (Summa theologiae I:9). See Minnis, Scott, and Wallace, Literary Theory, 242; Whitman, “Literal Sense,” 140. 118. See Smalley, Study, 101; Minnis, Scott, and Wallace, Literary Theory, 67. 119. Minnis, Authorship, 79. 120. Ibid., 81–85. 121. Ibid., 86–90. See also Copeland, “Rhetoric and the Literal Sense,” 335–357; Kennedy, Aquinas; Klepper, Insight. 122. See Jaeger, Envy of Angels. 123. Giraud, Per Verba Magistri, 8. 124. For recent scholarship on the Gloss, see Smith, Glossa Ordinaria. For a critique of that work, see Andrée, “Laon.” 125. See Evans, Language and Logic, 38. 126. Giraud, Per Verba Magistri, 40–42. 127. Ibid., 42–47. 128. Ibid., 47–49, citing J. Williams, “Cathedral School,” 669. See also Andrée, “Laon,” 260. 129. Lananc composed a commentary on the Pauline Epistles that draws upon the arts of the trivium, especially dialectic and rhetoric. See Gibson, “Lananc’s Commentary”; Collins, Teacher. But it is difficult to compare with Rashi on the Hebrew Bible. Some believe that Lananc composed a Psalms commentary, but it is not known to have survived. See Collins, Teacher, 25. Anselm of Canterbury devoted attention to questions of interpretive theory but did not write commentaries. See Châtillon, “Anselm”; Leclercq, Monastic Commentary, 41–42; Sweeney, Anselm, 175–181; Evans, Language and Logic, 17–24. (A similar observation can be made about Anselm’s younger colleague Gilbert Crispin; see Evans, Language and Logic, 25–26. See also Abulafia and Evans, Crispin, xxxiii– xxxv.) On the controversies surrounding the Bible commentaries attributed to Manegold (in any event, mostly not extant), see Ziomkowski, Manegold. 130. Colish, Psalterium, 531. Bruno also composed a comm. on the Pauline Epistles. See I. Levy, “Bruno.” 131. The comm. was published in 1611 and repr. in PL 152. Though its attribution to Bruno was questioned in the 1950s, his authorship has been reconfirmed by recent scholarship. See J. Williams, “Cathedral School,” 668; Kraebel, “Grammatica”; Mews, “Scholastic Culture,” 52; I. Levy, “Bruno,” 13–16 (also addressing questions raised regarding the authenticity of the comm. on the Pauline Epistles). 132. On that tradition in Western Christian learning, see Copeland and Sluiter, Grammar and Rhetoric. 133. PL 107:395. English trans. om I. Levy, “Bruno,” 18–19. See also Irvine, Textual Culture, 1–22. 134. See Kraebel, “Allegory”; idem, “Prophecy and Poetry”; idem, “Grammatica”; Mews, “Scholastic Culture.” 135. See Kraebel, “Poetry and Commentary.” See also Mews, “Scholastic Culture,” 56. 136. See Kraebel, “Poetry and Commentary,” 230. 137. See Copeland and Sluiter, Grammar and Rhetoric, 125–147. 138. See Kraebel, “Grammatica,” 75.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

326

Notes to Pages 113–116

139. See J. Williams, “Cathedral School,” 668–669; Kraebel, “John of Rheims”; idem, “Grammatica,” 84–85; Mews, “Bruno and Roscelin”; I. Levy, “Bruno,” 14 (citing Smalley). Regarding Bruno’s possible influence on Anselm, see n. 128 above; and Mews, “Scholastic Culture,” 80. 140. Mews, “Scholastic Culture,” 52–53. 141. Ibid., 53–57. 142. See the discussion below of Bruno’s mortuary roll. 143. See I. Levy, “Bruno,” 5; Mews, “Scholastic Culture,” 49, 60–62. 144. See Mews, “Scholastic Culture,” 79–81. 145. An annotated edition with English and German translation is now available; see Beyer, Signori, and Steckel, eds., Bruno and His Mortuary Roll. 146. See Steckel, “Doctor Doctorum,” 88–89. 147. Ibid., 89–116; Mews, “Scholastic Culture,” 50–51; J. Williams, “Cathedral School,” 667–668; Kraebel, “Grammatica,” 66–68. 148. See Copeland and Sluiter, Grammar and Rhetoric, 63–64; Kugel, Idea, 164–167. 149. See n. 130 above. 150. See Kraebel, “Grammatica,” 75; idem, “Prophecy and Poetry,” 453. 151. See PL 153:126c, 393c; I. Levy, “Bruno,” 24. On Gregory’s threefold scheme, see n. 111 above. The famous “four senses of Scripture” enumerated, e.g., by Aquinas, would later become dominant in Christian learning. See nn. 113, 114 above. 152. Per allegoriam, id est per alium intellectum quam sit litteralis hic habendum. PL 153:306D. Trans. om I. Levy, “Bruno,” 24. 153. PL 152:1258B. 154. PL 152:1029D–1030A, Aniorté trans., 608. The interpretation of Asaph as “synagogue” was common in patristic tradition. Cassiodorus writes: “Asaph in Hebrew means ‘synagogue,’ or in Latin collectio, a gathering” (Expositio in Psalterium, 709; Walsh trans., II:250). Cassiodorus, in turn, probably relied on Jerome or Augustine. Jerome writes “Asaf—congregans” (Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominum, 118). Cf. Augustine’s similar remark in his comm. on Ps. 72:1. Asaph is a proper name; but the Hebrew root ’-s-f (asaf) means “to gather” and can thus be construed as “synagogue” (a congregation, assembly, a “gathering” of people). 155. Jerome comments on the similar heading of Psalm 73 (MT 74): “The title ‘intellectus’ is designated beforehand, because a twofold captivity follows, i.e., literal (carnal) and spiritual” (Ideo intellectus in titulo praenotatur, quia duplex captivitas sequitur, et carnalis videlicet et spiritalis; Commentarioli in Psalmos, 217). Augustine remarks similarly on the heading of our psalm: “For it is not without reason inscribed, ‘Understanding of Asaph’: but it is perchance because these words require a reader who does perceive not the voice which the surface utters, but some inward sense” (comm. on Ps. 77:1 [MT 78:1], Coxe trans., 730). Cf. with the gloss of Remigius on this title: Sane quod in titulo intellectus praemittitur, innuitur omnia quae iuxta historiam narrantur spiritualiter esse intellegenda (“Indeed, that which is announced in the title ‘intellectus’ indicates that everything that is narrated historically must be understood spiritually”; MS Rheims 132, fol. 127va, cited in Kraebel, “Allegory,” 211n14). Cassiodorus does not interpret the heading intellectus in this vein. 156. PL 152:1030A, Aniorté trans., 608. 157. PL 152:1030A–B, Aniorté trans., 608. 158. Kraebel, “Allegory,” 211. 159. Ibid., 212. 160. Kraebel, “Prophecy and Poetry,” 419, 446. 161. Kraebel, “Poetry and Commentary,” 247–248. 162. Rheims, Bibliothèque municipale MS 132, fol. 26rb: “Clamauerunt, nec erat qui saluos faceret, ad Dominum. Ordo uerborum est: Clamauerunt ad Dominum, nec erat qui faceret.” Cited in Kraebel, “Poetry and Commentary,” 232. 163. See Kraebel, “Poetry and Commentary,” 232; Baswell, Virgil in Medieval England, 49. 164. See Cassiodorus, Expositio I, 165.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 116–121

327

165. Miqra’ot Gedolot, Keter ed., 264. 166. See, e.g., his comm. on Gen. 14:15, cited in Introduction, n. 79, and Exod. 2:5, cited in Chap. 5, n. 96. See also Shereshevsky, “Inversions.” 167. See nn. 67, 73 above. 168. PL 152:810a, Aniorté trans., 308. For similar examples, see PL 152:734d, 1196d, 1924c. 169. PL 152, 954cd, Aniorté trans., 507–508. 170. See Kraebel, “Poetry and Commentary,” 239. On the term aequipollens and its usage in late eleventh-century Bible commentary and in the liberal arts curriculum, see Gibson, “Lananc’s Commentary,” 104–105, 105n1. 171. Cassiodorus, Expositio in Psalterium, 452–453; Walsh trans., I:493. 172. See Kraebel, “Prophecy and Poetry,” 444. 173. See Minnis, Authorship, 105. 174. PL 152:860C: In hac historia figura continetur, quae, tametsi ad huius intentionem psalmi non videtur attinere, non tamen dicenda est audientium utilitate carere. Aniorté trans., 379. See Kraebel, “Allegory,” 210. 175. Cassiodorus, Expositio in Psalterium, 1268; Walsh trans., III:399–400. On this reading of the term intellectus in the patristic tradition, see n. 155 above. 176. PL 152:1380B. 177. PL 152:1380B–C: Allegoria autem hujus historiae, non usquequaque persequenda, talis est. Aniorté trans., 1088. 178. Kraebel, “Prophecy and Poetry,” 450. 179. PL 152:1153C: Vel potest hoc allegorice legi . . . omnes termini terrae, id est omnes terminantes in se terrenitate. Aniorté trans., 776. This allegorical interpretation is cited neither by Augustine nor by Cassiodorus in their Psalms commentaries on this verse. 180. PL 152:1153D: Caeterum priori sententiae ad litteram melius videntur sequentia concordare. Aniorté trans., 776. See Kraebel, “Allegory,” 215–216. 181. See Kraebel, “Prophecy and Poetry,” 456–459. 182. See nn. 67, 73 above. 183. See nn. 1, 8 above. 184. See Soloveitchik, Collected Essays II, 157–194. 185. See Gelles, Peshat and Derash, 136–138. 186. Ibid., 17–19. 187. Rashi on b.Sukkah 40a. 188. Rashi uses the term shiṭṭah in his Talmud commentary in this sense. Rashi does not use the term peshat in connection with his talmudic exegesis, as there is no counterpart “midrashic” Talmud interpretation. 189. See Rashi on Ps. 16:1, Lam. 3:20, Qoh. 8:14. See also Prebor, “Use of Midrash,” 213–221. 190. See Grossman, France, 459. 191. See n. 139 above. 192. See Chap. 4, n. 167. See also Kamin, Categorization, 272–273. 193. The chronology of Rashi’s works is not known with certainty. Yet it is clear that his talmudic commentaries were rooted in his early studies in the Rhineland academies—though they were subject to later revision and rewritings—with the biblical commentaries coming later. See Gelles, Peshat and Derash, 136–143; Soloveitchik, Collected Essays I, 186–189. In any case, it is safe to say that Talmud commentary in the mode perfected in the Rhineland academies was part and parcel of Rashi’s earliest studies, inherited om his teachers (see Soloveitchik, Collected Essays I, 4), whereas the distinctive method of Bible commentary that he would go on to develop independently represents a subsequent phase in his scholarly career. 194. Gruber ed., 816. 195. Cf. Rashi on Ps. 42:7 cited above (n. 55); see also Rashi on Psalm 13. 196. Gruber ed., 829.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

328

Notes to Pages 121–124

197. See n. 145 above. 198. See Holmes, Chrétien, 9. On the scope of the Troyes fairs in Rashi’s time, see Taitz, Medieval France, 96, 246n82. 199. See Holmes, Chrétien, 12–17. 200. See Bruno and His Mortuary Roll, 171–172. 201. Rosenthal, “Polemic,” 105–106; S. Cohen, “Comparison,” 450–461. In his commentary on b.Rosh ha-Shanah 17a, Rashi glosses the talmudic term minim with the following remark: “minim are the students of Jesus the Nazarene, who violated the words of the living God for evil.” 202. The literature on this subject is vast. See, e.g., Dahan, Intellectuels chrétiens. For a broad review of approaches to medieval Christian anti-Semitic attitudes, see D. Berger, “Crusades to Blood Libels.” On the attitudes of Christians toward Jews in and around medieval Troyes, see Holmes, Chrétien, 71, 120–122. 203. See Japhet, Collected Studies, 294–309. 204. Stercal, Harding, 1–3, 18–20. 205. Ibid., 37–50. 206. Ibid., 54–55. See also Grabois, “Hebraica,” 617–618. 207. See his comm. on Exod. 20:13, Lev. 19:19. 208. Rashi on Ezek. 2:1, Miqra’ot Gedolot, Keter ed., 10. See also A. Levy, Rashi on Ezekiel, 6–7. 209. See Grossman, Rashi, 56–63. 210. See E. Touitou, “Rashi on Genesis,” 163. 211. See D. Berger, “Mission.” 212. See Urbach, Arugat ha-bosem, II:220. 213. See Schmitt and Novikoff, Conversion, 20, 11–43, 204–211, including deliberations in recent scholarship regarding the historicity of Herman’s autobiography. 214. See Chazan, “Daniel”; Garzon, “Anti-Christian Polemics”; Gevaryahu, “Psalms”; Grossman, “Psalms”; idem, “Rashi on Isaiah”; E. Touitou, “Rashi on Genesis”; n. 71 above. S. Cohen, “Comparison,” questions the existence of a polemical motive in Rashi on the Pentateuch but recognizes it as a key factor elsewhere in his commentaries. 215. For this text, see Gevaryahu, “Psalms,” 253, citing early Rashi manuscripts. The printed text, following some other manuscripts, was altered to read: “Our Rabbis interpreted the matter regarding the King Messiah.” See Gruber, Rashi on Psalms, 180. On the expression “as a response to the minim,” see S. Cohen, “Comparison,” 454, and further references there. Cf. Gruber, ibid., who renders teshuvat haminim “a challenge to the Christians.” 216. Esra Shereshevsky identified a number of instances in which Rashi’s interpretations are opposed to Jerome’s and argued that he intended to refute them. See Shereshevsky, “Christian Interpretations.” Lasker, “Rashi on Christianity,” 3–14, rejects his conclusions. Although Shereshevsky’s evidence is not compelling, the scenario he posits is plausible. See n. 208 above. 217. Indeed, Rashi need not have spoken with Bruno to have become acquainted with the latter’s method of interpretation, since exposure to one of Bruno’s students would have been sufficient. As mentioned above (see nn. 161, 178), Bruno’s exegesis reflects a growing trend in the cathedral schools in northern France. And so, there were many Christian sources om which Rashi could have learned about the interpretive mode exemplified by Bruno. 218. See n. 192 above. 219. On the midrashic nature of R. Moses the Preacher’s interpretations cited by Rashi, see Mack, Mystery, 133–141. The traces of Leqaḥ Ṭov in Rashi’s commentary would seem to be later additions by his students or copyists. See Chap. 5, n. 69. 220. See n. 80 above. 221. Luma‘, 8; Riqmah, 19. 222. See n. 67 above. 223. See Kamin, Jews and Christians, xxxii–xxxiii. 224. M. Z. Cohen, “Possible Spanish Source,” 358–371. 225. Ibid., 372–374.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Notes to Pages 124–130

329

226. Grossman, “Treatment of Grammar,” 434–436. 227. See n. 38 above. 228. See Kamin, Categorization, 71–77, and the citations om Rashi in n. 67 above. 229. Hugh, Didascalicon, bk. 6, chaps. 2–3, Taylor trans., 135–136. For a discussion of the implications of this metaphor, see Coolman, “Pulchrum Esse,” 189–194. 230. Hugh, Didascalicon, bk. 6, chap. 3, Taylor trans., 138. 231. Ibid. The citation is om sec. 3 of the dedicatory epistle to Leander in Gregory’s Moralia in Job, Adriaen ed., 4; Kerns trans., 51. 232. See de Lubac, Exégèse médiéval, I:434–439, who traces this image to Origen and Jerome.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 4 1. See Jacobs, Bekhor Shoro; M. Z. Cohen, “Eliezer of Beaugency”; Grossman, “Literal Exegesis,” 363–371. 2. See Japhet, Collected Studies, 21–29. See also Brin, Qara. 3. See n. 153 below. 4. See Kamin, Jews and Christians, xxi–lxxiv; Touitou, Exegesis, 11–33; Leyra Curiá, In Hebreo. 5. See his comm. on 2 Sam. 23:5. On Menahem bar Helbo, see Chap. 3, n. 80. 6. See Ahrend, Qara on Job, 26–27n; see also Poznanski, “Introduction,” XXIV, who cites a reference to pitronei ha-qara’im (“interpretations of the Bible experts”) in Qara’s comm. on Isa. 23:13. The term almost certainly does not refer to the Karaites, a movement virtually unknown to FrancoGerman Jews. 7. See Grossman, France, 305–307. Manuscripts containing Qara’s commentaries reveal evidence of having been augmented by later scribes. See Poznanski, “Introduction,” XXV–XXXI; Eppenstein, Qara, 10–24. Japhet, “Compilatory Commentaries,” argues that the Job comm. attributed to Qara is actually a compilation that includes citations om Rashi, Rashbam, and others. Avraham Grossman has shown that the Isaiah comm. printed in the Lublin ed. of the Miqra’ot Gedolot, based on JTS MS Lutzki 777, is far less accurate than the version attested in JTS MS Lutzki 778. 8. Berliner’s attribution of a agmentary commentary on Deuteronomy to Qara has been questioned. Grossman made a stronger case for a Pentateuch commentary by Qara (in any case, now lost) based on anonymous agments (in what has been termed the “Italian Genizah”) that resemble Qara’s exegetical style. See Berliner, Pletath soferim, 6–11; Grossman, France, 290–302. 9. See Berliner, Pletath soferim, 12–25. See also Poznanski, “Introduction,” XXV. 10. Berliner, Pletath soferim, 19–20, 23, om Qara’s notes on Rashi’s glosses on Exod. 27:19, 30:13, 34:9; Lev. 11:43, 16:16, 26:44; Deut. 24:14, 27:20. 11. Berliner, Pletath soferim, 19, om Qara’s note on Rashi’s gloss on Exod. 32:1. 12. See Berliner, Pletath soferim, 21, om Qara’s note on Rashi’s gloss on Num. 17:5. 13. See Berliner, Pletath soferim, 13, 15, om Qara’s note on Rashi’s gloss on Gen. 19:9, 28:17. 14. See Grossman, France, 339–340. A commentary on Genesis Rabbah pseudonymously attributed to Rashi was attributed to Qara by Berliner, but Eppenstein argued that it is the work of R. Kalonymus of Rome, augmented by Qara. Grossman, on the other hand, believes that the interpretations by Qara in the work were culled by a later author om a separate complete commentary on Genesis Rabbah that Qara, like R. Kalonymus, composed. 15. See Grossman, France, 325–339; Hollender, Piyyut, 36–40. 16. Grossman, France, 510–528; Hollender, Piyyut, 30–36. 17. Grossman, France, 254–255; cf. Hollender, Piyyut, 37. 18. See Grossman, France, 257. 19. See Chap. 3, n. 32. 20. Cf. the observation by Hollender, Piyyut, 8, on the noncanonical status of piyyut. 21. Grossman, France, 257, citing Oxford Bodleian Library, MS Mich. 543 (Neubauer 1212), 82v. According to Grossman, even if this gloss is not by Qara, it must have been penned by someone in his circle, perhaps Shemaiah. As such, the attitude it expresses would be an accurate reflection of Qara’s thinking. 22. See, e.g., Rashbam on Gen. 37:13.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

330

Notes to Pages 130–133

23. See E. Touitou, Exegesis, 208–225. 24. See Jacobs, “Rashbam’s Commentary Not Disseminated,” 51; Viezel, Commentary on Chronicles Attributed to Rashi, 320–323. 25. See Mondschein, “Lost Commentary,” 91–129, and the introductions to the editions of Rashbam’s commentaries on Job, Song of Songs, and Qohelet. I am inclined to accept the attributions of these commentaries to Rashbam as argued by Japhet, Salters, and Mondschein in their editions. Some scholars, however, question whether these commentaries are by Rashbam himself or by someone else in his circle. See Kalman, “Methodological Challenges”; Liss, “Song of Songs.” Some of Rashbam’s no longer extant commentaries are cited by later authors and in so-called compilatory commentaries. See Japhet, “Introduction to Lamentations.” 26. See Merdler, “Rashbam and Hebrew Grammar,” 309–315. 27. Some scholars considered Dayyaqut to be a late work of Rashbam’s and thereby explained why the grammatical commentary remained unfinished; but Yosef Ofer argues that it was an early work. See Ofer, “Dayaqot.” 28. See Merdler, “Grammatical Commentary,” 255n. Kislev, “Incense,” argues that Rashbam knew Ibn Ezra’s commentaries; but he does not draw specific conclusions about the latter’s grammatical commentary. 29. See Kanarfogel, Medieval Ashkenaz, 1–110. 30. Ta-Shma, Talmudic Commentary, I:58. 31. Ibid., I:59–61. 32. Ta-Shma, Germany, 43–61. 33. See Friedman, Tosafot. 34. Comm. on b.Bava Batra 80a. See also, e.g., his comm. on b.Bava Batra 104b. 35. See, e.g., Rashbam’s glosses on b.Bava Batra 39a, 43a, 51a, 65b, 69a. 36. See n. 167 below. 37. Ibid. 38. See Chap. 6. 39. See, e.g., Rashbam on Gen. 1:1, Exod. 3:11, Rosin ed., 3, 83. 40. Comm. on 1 Sam. 1:20, Eppenstein ed., 48. 41. See the preceding citation om Qara and Rashbam on Gen. 1:1, 37:2, Exod. 21:1 (cited in nn. 167, 171, 244 below). See also E. Touitou, Exegesis, 11–15, 98–99, 101–105. 42. See nn. 55, 58 below. 43. See Soloveitchik, “Rabad,” 14; idem, “Three Themes,” 339; Ta-Shma, Talmudic Commentary, I:71–92. 44. See Kanarfogel, Medieval Ashkenaz, 2–9. 45. Soloveitchik, “Three Themes,” 341–342. Cf. Marcus, “History”; Fishman, People of the Talmud, 185–198. 46. Soloveitchik, “Three Themes,” 345–346. On the portrait of Rashi’s personality, see Grossman, Rashi. 47. Soloveitchik, “Three Themes,” 343–344. 48. Ibid., 344. 49. See n. 171 below. 50. This last statement is offered only as a possibility, since ḥasidei Ashkenaz did not oppose study of the religious texts of Judaism that had no direct religious application. They even favored study of the talmudic orders Qodashim and Ṭoharot, which pertain to the era of the Holy Temple and have no contemporary halakhic import. What would be objectionable about the peshat project is that it takes the text of the Bible, which—om the midrashic perspective—is replete with halakhic and religious significance, and strips it of those normative dimensions, making the study of the sacred text an intellectual pursuit only. 51. Jaeger, “Pessimism.” 52. Jaeger, Envy of Angels, 4–17. 53. Ibid., 217–219.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 133–138

331

54. Ibid., 236. 55. See Minnis, Scott, and Wallace, Literary Theory, 68. 56. See Minnis, Authorship, 58–63. 57. See Copeland and Sluiter, Grammar and Rhetoric, 22–23. 58. Jaeger, Envy of Angels, 244–268. 59. Abelard, Letters, 62. 60. Jaeger, Envy of Angels, 230. 61. See Smith, Glossa Ordinaria, 6–7. 62. Citation om Rashbam in MS Oxford Bodleian Library, Opp. 34 (Neubauer 186), fol. 116. Published in Sokolow, “Rashbam—New Material,” 72, 78–79. 63. See Jacobs, “Rashbam’s Major Principles.” 64. See n. 167 below. See Jaeger, Envy of Angels, 218, 230; Novikoff, Disputation, 68–70. 65. See n. 167 below. See Grossman, France, 184–193, 359–366. See also Chap. 3, n. 35. 66. Citation in Grossman, France, 211–212; Penkower, “Textual Transmission,” 223. 67. See nn. 12, 13 above. 68. See, e.g., the interpretations ascribed to Joseph Qara in Rashi on Prov. 5:14, 6:23, 18:22 in the printed edition of the Miqra’ot Gedolot. 69. Berliner, Raschi, ix–xiv. See also Penkower, “Corrections on Joshua,” 217–219. 70. Rashi on Exod. 15:6, Berliner ed., 133. 71. Buber ed., I:94–95. 72. Rashbam on Exod. 15:6, Rosin ed., 102. 73. Indeed, a key element of Rashbam’s peshat methodology is to identi biblical stylistic tendencies, what he refers to as derekh ha-miqra’ot (“the way of the Scriptures”), as we shall see below. See also E. Touitou, Exegesis, 126–134. According to Japhet (Rashbam on Job, 170), “Parallelismus membrorum is the central subject in the area of [biblical] style that Rashbam investigated.” 74. The importance of these textual witnesses for establishing the correct text of Rashi was discussed in Chap. 3. 75. See Berliner, Raschi, ix–x. 76. See E. Touitou, Exegesis, 229–237. 77. See Eppenstein, Qara, 18–20; cf. Ahrend, Qara on Job, 23–25. 78. This comment is not attested in all manuscripts. It is conceivable that this was a late addition to Rashi’s commentary. Rashi also cites Qara (who transmitted to him the interpretation of Menahem bar Helbo) on Isa. 10:24. 79. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS Heb. 32, 75r, cited in Poznanski, “Introduction,” XLV. 80. See Berliner, Raschi, ix. Japhet, Rashbam on Job, 172n37, questions this conclusion and argues that these comments were added to Rashi’s commentary by other scribes aer his death. 81. Comm. on Judg. 5:4, Eppenstein ed., 25. 82. Comm. on 1 Sam. 1:17, Eppenstein ed., 47. 83. As Martin Lockshin defines peshat for Rashbam: “exegetical conclusions reached without recourse to traditional midrashic exegesis.” See Lockshin, “Tradition or Context,” 174n3. 84. See Rashi on Gen. 11:1, 4. The midrashic tradition appears in Genesis Rabbah 38:6, TheodorAlbeck ed., 354. 85. Comm. on Gen. 11:4, Rosin ed., 12. 86. Standard comm. on Gen. 11:3, Weiser ed., I:48. 87. This is a good example of a peshat interpretation that is figurative, in contrast to the literal midrashic reading, a phenomenon mentioned in the Introduction. 88. See E. Touitou, Exegesis, 123–124, 183; Japhet, Rashbam on Job, 134; Grossman, “Literal Exegesis,” 352–353. 89. This may suggest that one influenced the other. (On the overall question of whether Rashbam and Ibn Ezra were familiar with each other’s works, see Chap. 6, n. 91.) Since Ibn Ezra’s approach is consistent in his standard and alternate Genesis commentaries, the first written in Italy around

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

332

Notes to Pages 139–143

1145, the second in northern France in 1153 (as discussed in Chap. 6), it stands to reason that, if anything, Rashbam learned this interpretation om Ibn Ezra, and not the other way around. Moreover, Ibn Ezra’s conception of the Tower of Babel episode seems to be drawn om Karaite interpretation—which he knew om his youth in Spain. See Goldstein, Karaite Exegesis, 155–159. 90. Alternate comm. on Gen. 11:4; Weiser ed., 1:187–188. For Ibn Ezra, “Be fertile and increase and fill the earth!” is not an actual command that could have been violated by the tower builders, but rather God’s blessing that mankind thrive. (See his comm. on Gen. 1:26, Weiser ed., 1:19; for the rabbinic view, see b.Sanhedrin 59b and Rashi on Gen. 9:7.) Moreover, in adding that “these are the words of Moses,” Ibn Ezra argues that they were never communicated to Adam and Noah (as a literal reading of Gen. 1:28 and 9:1 suggests) but merely represent God’s unexpressed sentiment later recorded by Moses in Scripture, in his role as an omniscient narrator privy to God’s inner thoughts. Ibn Ezra’s tendency to note Moses’ role as the biblical narrator is discussed in Chap. 6. 91. Standard comm. on Gen. 11:7; Weiser ed., 1:49. 92. See Chap. 2, n. 46. 93. On literary context as a critical ingredient in the northern French concept of peshat, see Japhet, Rashbam on Job, 56–78, 148–149; Ahrend, Qara on Job, 13–14; R. Harris, “Literary Hermeneutic,” 280–301. 94. Comm. on Lev. 19:26, Rosin ed., 162. 95. See Kahana, “Halakhic Midrashim,” 14–15. See also, e.g., b.Sanhedrin 86a, b.Ḥullin 115b. 96. Comm. on Isa. 42:3, Miqra’ot Gedolot, Keter ed., 273. 97. See, e.g., Berliner, Pletath soferim, 19 (a marginal comment by Qara opposed to Rashi’s midrashic interpretation of Exod. 30:13). 98. See Jacobs, “Rabbi Joseph Kara”; idem, “Anticipation Principle,” 251–254. 99. Rashbam on Gen. 1:1, Rosin ed., 3–4. For Qara’s application of this principle, see, e.g., his comm. on 1 Sam. 1:3 and his gloss on Rashi’s commentary on Gen. 22:13, cited in Berliner, Pletath soferim, 14. See also Jacobs, “Rabbi Joseph Kara.” 100. E. Touitou, Exegesis, 112–121, 145–164. 101. On Rashbam’s literary awareness, see Lockshin, “Literary Exegete”; Japhet, Rashbam on Job, 65–69, 170–187. 102. See R. Harris, Discerning Parallelism, 1–13, 55–73. (On Rashi’s incipient awareness of parallelism, see ibid., 35–47.) On parallelism in modern Bible scholarship, see Watson, Hebrew Poetry, 114–159. Lowth is generally credited for the “discovery” of biblical parallelism and the systematic analysis of its workings, though he certainly drew upon earlier European Bible scholarship that adumbrated this poetic notion. See Kugel, Idea, 266–273. Kugel challenges Lowth’s analysis of parallelism, devising an alternative account of its workings om a modern literary perspective. See Kugel, Idea, 1–58. See also Alter, Biblical Poetry, 3–26. 103. Lowth, Lectures, II:34. 104. Ibid. 105. Ibid., II:35. 106. See R. Harris, Discerning Parallelism, 72–73, and further references cited there. 107. Rosin ed., 228, with the textual emendation (based on MS) in n. 18. 108. Lowth, Lectures, II:45. 109. Ibid., II:45–46. 110. Japhet and Salters, ed., 128–129. 111. Lowth, Lectures, II:48–49. 112. See n. 72 above. 113. See M. Z. Cohen, “Rashbam vs. Moses Ibn Ezra,” 204*–208*; Schippers, “Symmetry,” 161–170. 114. Japhet, Rashbam on Job, 177. 115. See n. 79 above. 116. See the citation in n. 171 below. 117. See Japhet, Rashbam on Job, 148–149, and n. 219 below. 118. Rashi on Gen. 1:2, Berliner ed., 1.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 143–147

333

119. Comm. on Gen. 1:2, Rosin ed., 4–5. 120. Rosin ed., 100. 121. See Saadya on Genesis, Zucker ed., 29 (Ar.); 214 (Heb.). See Ibn Ezra, (standard) comm., Weiser ed., I:14. 122. See Dutton, Glosae. Recent scholarship challenges the long-held view of the “School of Chartres” as “the nurse of humanist values and intellectual eedom in the early twelh century”; see Wetherbee, “Philosophy,” 21. (See also Jeauneau, School of Chartres; Southern, “Paris and Chartres.”) Yet by most accounts, the “Chartres School” reflects intellectual trends (regardless of how revolutionary) in Latin learning, and thus provides a context for Rashbam’s work. 123. See Elford, “William.” 124. See C. Burnett, Adelard; idem and Ronca, Adelard. 125. See Jeauneau, School of Chartres, 20–21, 52–54. 126. See Dronke, “Thierry.” 127. Thierry, De sex dierum operibus, Harring ed., 553. English trans. om White, Nature, 77. See also Dronke, “Thierry,” 375–382. 128. See E. Touitou, Exegesis, 145. 129. See Kamin, Jews and Christians, lxi–lxix. 130. On the endeavor to identi a rationale for the commandments in the northern French peshat school, see Grossman, France, 302–304; E. Touitou, Exegesis, 182. 131. Rosin ed., 154. On the term minim and “responses” to them, see Chap. 3, nn. 201, 215. 132. Comm. on Lev. 11:3, Rosin ed., 153. A similar explanation is given by Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, III:48. 133. See E. Touitou, Exegesis, 143–144. 134. Rashbam on Deut. 22:6, Rosin ed., 220. 135. Rashbam on Exod. 23:19, Rosin ed., 121. 136. See E. Touitou, Exegesis, 144. 137. See m.Bava Qamma 1:4. 138. See m.Niddah 10:8. 139. See Jaeger, Envy of Angels, 27–35, 245, 292–296, 325–326; idem, Origins of Courtliness, 135–136. See also Scaglione, Knights and Courts, 47–51. 140. One can likewise discern a historical sensibility in the work of the Tosafists in their analysis of the Talmud. See Fishman, People of the Talmud, 148. 141. See Smalley, Study, 100–102, 145–149; White, Nature, 79. 142. Rashi on Gen. 24:2, drawing upon Genesis Rabbah 59:8, Theodor-Albeck ed., 636, and Tanḥuma ha-Qadum, Ḥayyei Sarah §6, Buber ed., I:120. 143. This comment is attributed to Rashbam in a marginal note on Rashi’s commentary on Gen. 24:2 in Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS Heb. 23 (thirteenth or fourteenth century), where many such comments by Rashbam, Qara, and others appear in the margins. See E. Touitou, Exegesis, 192. In the Rosin edition, Rashbam’s commentary on Gen. 24:2 is much briefer, though it reflects the same basic approach. 144. Ibn Ezra on Gen. 24:2, Weiser ed., I:74. 145. See n. 89 above. 146. See Schmelzer, Poems, 9–11. 147. Berliner ed., Pletath soferim, 18. 148. Comm., Rosin ed., 106. See also E. Touitou, Exegesis, 139. 149. See M. Z. Cohen, “Eliezer of Beaugency.” The expression “the manner of those who [do such and such]” appears also, e.g., in Rashbam’s commentaries on Gen. 19:17 and Exod. 32:19. This expression is attested already in Rashi’s commentary on Abraham’s “covenant between the parts”; see Chap. 3, n. 49. 150. See n. 2 above. 151. This is an imprecise citation (a very liberal adaptation?) of the talmudic statement: “One who studies Scripture—that is a somewhat meritorious manner of study (lit., ‘a manner, but not a manner’; middah we-einah middah) . . . one who studies Talmud, there is no manner [of study]

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

334

Notes to Pages 147–151

greater than this” (b.Bava Meṣi‘a 33a). Elsewhere, Qara repeats this point: “There is no manner [of study] in Scripture greater than the peshat of the matter, for even where there is a midrash, our Rabbis expounded: ‘Scripture does not leave the realm of its peshat’ ” (comm. on Isa. 1:18, Miqra’ot Gedolot, Keter ed., 9). Rashbam cites this talmudic statement more precisely. See n. 166 below. 152. Qara on Isa. 5:9, Miqra’ot Gedolot, Keter ed., 37. The remainder of this passage is cited in n. 157 below. 153. This distinction was made by the Karaites to reject rabbinic authority (see Chap. 1), though there is no evidence that Qara knew this. Sara Japhet has argued that Rashbam likewise considered peshat to be the single original meaning of the biblical text, what he elsewhere refers to as “the truth of its peshat” (comm. on Lev. 10:3), whereas derash is the product of subsequent rabbinic exegesis. The latter is the exclusive determinant of halakhah, “fundamental” for Jewish practice, “but it does not represent the meaning of the biblical text as is”; hence “midrashic interpretation is not the ‘high road’ of the biblical text,” a distinction held by peshat alone. See Japhet, “Tension,” 413, 421–422. Although this would explain Rashbam’s adherence to peshat, it is out of character for an Ashkenazic talmudist. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 450–453. An alternative account of Rashbam’s peshat model is thus offered below. 154. See n. 40 above. 155. See Grossman, France, 327–339. 156. Ibid., 317. 157. Comm. on Isa. 5:9, Miqra’ot Gedolot, Keter ed., 37, cited in n. 152 above. 158. See the examples cited in Grossman, France, 298. 159. Comm. on 2 Sam. 12:30, Eppenstein ed., 87–88. 160. Comm. on Judg. 5:4, Eppenstein ed., 24. 161. On Qara’s use of the verb y-sh-v, see Gelles, Peshat and Derash, 32. 162. Comm. on 1 Sam. 17:55, Eppenstein ed., 67. 163. Modern scholars resolve this difficulty by positing that the two accounts reflect different sources of the biblical narrative that record different traditions as to how David came to be a member of Saul’s court. 164. When speaking of “the hints of the peshat,” Rashbam uses the term peshat in the sense of the biblical text itself. See also his comm. on Gen. 1:1 (see n. 240 below) and E. Touitou, Exegesis, 99. 165. This is a paraphrase of b.Berakhot 28b (“Keep your children om recitation [higayon]”). The meaning of higayon (lit., “articulation of language”) is subject to debate. According to one interpretation in Rashi on that talmudic passage (evidently the understanding that Rashbam had in mind), it means the study of Scripture. Jews in Muslim lands took higayon to mean “logic,” which was known in Arabic as manṭiq (lit., “speech”). 166. This is a precise citation of the talmudic statement, as opposed to its adaptation by Qara (see n. 151 above). 167. Rashbam on Gen. 37:2, Rosin ed., 49. 168. See nn. 65, 66, 78, 79 above. 169. See n. 166 above. 170. See n. 167 above. 171. Comm. on Exodus 21, introduction, Rosin ed., 113. See E. Touitou, Exegesis, 105. 172. See n. 127 above. 173. See E. Touitou, Exegesis, 126–139; Japhet, “Tension.” 174. Rosin ed., 144–145. See Kislev, “Preface.” 175. See Lockshin, “Tradition or Context,” 184. 176. See Introduction, n. 82. As noted there, Rashbam probably drew this interpretation om the Maḥberet of Menahem ben Saruq. 177. See Japhet, “Tension”; Lockshin, “Tradition or Context”; Simon, Ear Discerns, 100–133. 178. Rosin ed., 5. 179. See Simon, Ear Discerns, 68–133.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 151–155

335

180. See E. Touitou, Exegesis, 54–55; Simon, Ear Discerns, 123–124; Lockshin, “Tradition or Context.” A different account of Rashbam’s peshat model (to which I do not subscribe) is given by Sara Japhet; see n. 153 above. Working in a vastly transformed intellectual milieu that privileged peshat absolutely (partly in the face of modern historical-critical scholarship), the nineteenth- and twentieth-century rabbinic Bible interpreters Malbim, D. Z. Hoffmann, and M. S. Hakohen endeavored to show that the halakhah is actually based on peshuto shel miqra. In their view, derash has legitimacy only insofar as it can be shown to be “the peshat-in-depth.” Of course, this absolute commitment to peshat in theory forced them to classi as peshat highly tenuous readings that earlier pashtanim would have classified simply as derash. See Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash, 31–33; Schwartz, “On Peshat and Derash,” 75–76. 181. See E. Touitou, Exegesis, 54. 182. See Kamin, Jews and Christians, lxii–lxxiv. 183. Ibid., xxi–xxxv. See also Viezel, “Rashbam on Moses’ Role,” 185–186. 184. See Smalley, Study, 112–186; van Liere, “Andrew.” 185. See Smalley, Study, 83–111. 186. See Evans, Language and Logic, 67–71; and Chap. 3, nn. 229, 231. 187. See Zemler-Cizewski, “Rupert”; van ’t Spijker, “Literal and Spiritual.” 188. See, e.g., nn. 131, 134 above. See also his comm. on Gen. 3:22. 189. Comm. on Exod. 20:13. The extent of Rashbam’s knowledge of Latin is unclear. See Japhet, Collected Studies, 294–309. 190. See, e.g., Rashbam on Num. 11:35; Leyra Curiá, In Hebreo, 335–338; and the references cited in Japhet and Salters, Rashbam on Qohelet, 13. 191. See b.Bava Batra 14b–15a; Simon, Four Approaches, 182–186. 192. See Wyrick, Authorship, 28–29, 32–56. 193. See Toorn, Scribal Culture, 44–46. 194. Japhet and Salters ed., 92–93. 195. Ibid., 212–213. 196. See Japhet and Salters, Rashbam on Qohelet, 34–35. 197. See M. Z. Cohen, “Eliezer of Beaugency.” 198. Commentary on Ezek. 1:1, Poznanski, ed., 1–2. See R. Harris, “Literary Hermeneutic,” 210; idem, “Awareness,” 294. Trans. om Steiner, “Redaction,” 129. 199. Comm. on Ezek. 1:1, Miqra’ot Gedolot, Keter ed., 2. 200. Japhet, “Anonymous Commentary,” 231. A comment appearing in the printed edition of Rashi on Prov. 1:7 likewise seems to attribute the first seven verses of that book to an editor rather than to Solomon. But this remark, missing in many manuscripts, appears to be an addition by a later scribe or commentator—perhaps Rashbam or a student of his. See Viezel, “Formation of Biblical Books, According to Rashi,” 39–40. 201. Japhet, “Anonymous Commentary,” 229–230. 202. See Grossman, Transformations, 122–140. 203. See Chap. 1, n. 298. 204. See Jacobs, “Rashbam Familiar with Leqaḥ Ṭov.” 205. See Ben-Shammai, Mudawwin, 106; Steiner, “Redaction,” 133–135. 206. See, e.g., Alster, “Love,” 13–16; Japhet, “Anonymous Commentary.” 207. See Japhet, Rashbam on Song of Songs, 9–51. See also n. 23 above. 208. Japhet ed., 233. 209. Presumably, he felt that this better captures the spirit of playful, youthful love in the Song of Songs—and did not wish to read these retrospectively, as Rashi had done. 210. Japhet ed., 234. 211. See Chap. 3, n. 70. 212. See n. 208 above. 213. Rashbam’s choice to use the term katav (“wrote”) instead of Rashi’s term yasad (“composed”) may also hint at his desire to declare independence om his grandfather at this point. In connection

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

336

Notes to Pages 156–161

with the allegorical interpretation, Rashbam does use Rashi’s term yasad (see n. 210 above). Generally speaking, the use of the root y-s-d (lit., “to establish”) in the sense of composing a literary work is distinctive to medieval Ashkenazic Hebrew. See Spiegel, Jewish Book, 452–454. (My thanks to Simcha Emanuel for this reference.) Cf. Mack, Mystery, 138–139. 214. Rashbam on Song 3:5, Japhet ed., 250. 215. See Liss, “Song of Songs,” 23–24. On the literary traditions relating to courtly love in Provence and France in the eleventh and twelh centuries, see Dronke, Medieval Lyric, 109–131; O’Donoghue, Courtly Love, 96–100, 162–166; O’Neill, Love Songs, 1–12; Frappier, Chrétien de Troyes, 7; Harf-Lancner, “Literary Background,” 29–30. 216. See Japhet, Rashbam on Song of Songs, 133–146; Liss, “Song of Songs” and Fictional Worlds. It is noteworthy that Abraham Ibn Ezra, in his introduction to Song of Songs, makes a deliberate effort to distinguish this biblical book om profane Arabic love poetry. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 206. 217. Rashbam’s commentary on Lamentations has not survived. However, his introduction to the book and some of his interpretations of individual verses are cited in a later compilatory commentary on Lamentations. See Japhet, “Introduction to Lamentations,” 231–232. 218. Rashi on Lam. 1:1, based on b.Bava Batra 15a. This opinion was also adopted by early Christian authorities. It is reflected in the placement of Lamentations immediately following the book of Jeremiah in Jerome’s Vulgate and in subsequent Christian versions of the Bible. 219. Japhet, “Introduction to Lamentations,” 232–233. On Rashbam’s characteristic terminology in this passage (shiṭṭah, nohag she-ba-‘olam), see nn. 34, 35, 117 above. 220. See Japhet, “Introduction to Lamentations,” 237–238. 221. See Minnis, Authorship, 33–117. 222. Moralia in Job, Adriaen ed., 8–9; Kerns trans., 57–58. 223. Minnis, Authorship, 37. 224. Ibid., 58. 225. Ibid., 38. 226. Ibid., 39. 227. Intentio dicentis expressa in littera est litteralis sensus. See Whitman, “Literal Sense,” 140–141. 228. Minnis, Authorship, 74. 229. Ibid., 75. 230. Ibid., 78–79. 231. Ibid., 85–86. 232. Ibid., 58–60. 233. Ibid., 49–50. 234. See n. 127 above; Minnis, Scott, and Wallace, Literary Theory, 66–67; Smalley, Study, 94–95. 235. On the use of the root y-s-d to connote literary composition, see n. 213 above. 236. Eppenstein, “Fragment,” 243–244. 237. See nn. 194, 195, 200 above. 238. See E. Touitou, Exegesis, 112–121; Viezel, “Rashbam on Moses’ Role.” 239. See Rashi on Gen. 1:1, Berliner ed., 1. 240. In this context, the words “the peshat of the verse” connote the verse itself. See n. 164 above. 241. Genesis Rabbah 12:8, Theodor-Albeck ed., 107. 242. Hebrew ‫בהבראם‬, which can be “rearranged” to spell Abraham (‫)אברהם‬. 243. See n. 99 above. 244. Rashbam on Gen. 1:1, Rosin ed., 3–4. For a detailed analysis of Rashbam’s commentary in this passage and the next, see Kislev, “Creation.” 245. Rashbam on Gen. 1:5, Rosin ed., 5. 246. See E. Touitou, Exegesis, 113–114; Viezel, “Rashbam on Moses’ Role,” 169–171. As discussed in Chap. 1, a similar perspective on Moses’ role in composing the Pentateuch, particularly the Creation

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 162–167

337

story, is implicit in Yefet’s commentary, as argued by Marzena Zawanowska. However, Yefet’s words are not entirely clear—and may mean simply that Moses speaks in the Pentateuch as the narrator—om God’s dictation. In this vein, Martin Lockshin argues that Rashbam’s words “This is what Moses wrote” do not necessarily imply that Moses wrote parts of the Pentateuch independently of God’s dictation. See Lockshin, “Moses Wrote the Torah.” It seems, however, that Rashbam considered Moses to be the author of the Torah—according to the peshat. As discussed below, the dual hermeneutic granted Rashbam this latitude because it allowed him to retain the perspective of the Torah as a completely divine text according to the midrash, which he regarded as the “essence.” 247. Rashbam on Gen. 37:2, Rosin ed., 50. 248. See Viezel, “Rashbam on Moses’ Role,” 171. 249. E. Touitou, Exegesis, 112–121. 250. Viezel, “Rashbam on Moses’ Role,” 171–175. 251. E. Touitou, Exegesis, 121n24; Viezel, “Rashbam on Moses’ Role,” 175–176. 252. As we shall see in Chap. 6, this seems to be the view of Abraham Ibn Ezra, who, in any case, maintains that the formulation of any text is completely incidental to its content. 253. For another possible way of interpreting the talmudic doctrine to allow for greater flexibility regarding the authorship of the Pentateuch, see Shapiro, Orthodox Theology, 112–113. 254. See Chap. 2, n. 122. 255. See Ta-Shma, Germany, 283–284. On the attribution of this commentary to Rashbam, see Mondschein, “Lost Commentary.” The view that Psalm 137 was written by the Jews exiled to Babylonia—and not by King David—is articulated in an anonymous agment of a commentary on Psalms dating to the twelh century, which may be by Joseph Qara. See Ta-Shma, Germany, 283–284, 278–281. If so, Rashbam was following his older colleague’s lead on this matter. 256. Mondschein, “Lost Commentary,” 130. 257. Ibid., 125. Cf. Rashi on Ps. 120:1, Gruber ed., 698–699. 258. It is true that other medieval Jewish commentators essentially faithful to the traditional rabbinic view regarding Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch likewise modified it by positing that some verses are post-Mosaic additions. See Shapiro, “Orthodox Theology,” 106–112. Ta-Shma, Germany, 273–281, cites examples in thirteenth-century Ashkenazic commentaries. Simon, Ear Discerns, 407–464, discusses Ibn Ezra’s view to this effect. Nonetheless, advancing such a position would have been perceived as heretical in some traditional circles. For this reason, no doubt, Ibn Ezra merely alluded to his opinion on this matter rather than stating it openly (as noted in Chap. 6). It seems that in Ashkenazic circles, this was less of a concern, perhaps because critique of the integrity of the biblical text was not common in the surrounding intellectual milieu—as it was in the Muslim orbit. See Lazarus-Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds; Soloveitchik, “Two Notes.” 259. See n. 222 above. 260. See Viezel, “Rashbam on Moses’ Role,” 176–178. 261. See n. 21 above. Chapter 5 1. See Buber, Leqaḥ Ṭov, introduction, I:18. Some scholars also identified Tobiah’s father, Eliezer, with the well-known eleventh-century Mainz scholar R. Eliezer ben Isaac, cited, e.g., by Rashi. Buber, however, dismisses this theory. See Buber, Leqaḥ Ṭov, introduction, I:16–18. 2. See n. 62 below. 3. See Ibn Ezra, Standard Introduction to the Pentateuch, Weiser ed., I:7. 4. Buber, Sekhel Ṭov, introduction, I:X–XIII, XVI–XXIII; Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 293–294; Elbaum, “Anthology,” 72. 5. Earlier, it was thought that Samuel hailed om “Russia.” See n. 147 below. 6. See nn. 150, 152 below. 7. See Elbaum, “Anthology,” 71. 8. Martin Lockshin notes parallels between Sekhel Ṭov and Rashbam that indicate a shared peshat methodology, and even suggests that Rashbam was influenced by Sekhel Ṭov. See n. 177 below.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

338

Notes to Pages 167–174

9. De Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 165–294. 10. Steiner, “Byzantine Commentaries,” 260*–262*. 11. Ibid., 246*–260*. 12. See de Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 85–116. 13. See ibid., 71–84; idem, “Early Glossary”; Tchernetska, Olszowy-Schlanger, and Lange, “Hebrew-Greek Glossary.” 14. See Brin, Reuel, 449–462. 15. See Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 266n25; Mo. Weiss, Sefer Rushaina, 15–16; Elbaum, “Anthology,” 72–76, esp. nn. 8, 15. 16. Steiner, “Lemma Complement,” 368–369. 17. Ibid., 369. 18. Ibid., 370. 19. Ibid., 368. 20. Ta-Shma, Germany, 302–311; idem, Italy and Byzantium, 241–247. 21. The discussion and examples below are taken largely om Steiner, “Rabbanite Commentaries.” 22. Rashi on Gen. 18:10, Berliner ed., 34. 23. De Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 88–89. 24. Steiner, “Lemma Complement,” 370. 25. Rashi on Exod. 14:20, Berliner ed., 131. 26. De Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 104–105. 27. Rashi on Exod. 17:15, Berliner ed., 141. 28. De Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 106–107. 29. Ibid., 212–213. 30. Ibid., 172–173. Reuel’s construal of the word niddah (for which he provides an unknown Greek equivalent; ibid., 172n66) must be surmised om the context. 31. De Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 176–177. 32. See Chap. 2, n. 47; Chap. 4, n. 102. 33. Reuel on Ezek. 21:17 in de Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 210–211. Cf. Rashi’s formulation “do not be surprised at this.” See n. 182 below. 34. See Reuel on Ezek. 39:26 (“You oen find [harbeh timṣa’] words spelled defectively that are to be interpreted as though they were written plene”; de Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 234–235). A similar gloss appears on Ezek. 13:18. 35. De Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 178–179. 36. See Chap. 6, n. 40. 37. Steiner, “Rabbanite Commentaries.” 38. Berliner ed., 132–133. 39. See, e.g., Rashi on Gen. 20:13, 24:21, 26:26; Exod. 3:2, 15:9; Josh. 3:1; Ps. 10:3, 118:14. 40. See n. 13 above. 41. See Ben-Shammai, “Mudawwin,” 106. 42. De Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 174–175. 43. See Berlin, Biblical Narrative, 62–72, 91–95. 44. See Steiner, “Redaction,” 125. 45. Comm. on Ezek. 10:8, de Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 178–179. 46. De Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 226–227. 47. See Steiner, “Redaction,” 135. 48. On this phenomenon, see Kelley, Mynatt, and Crawford, Masorah, 32–34; Butin, Ten Nequdoth, 113–117. 49. See Avot de-Rabbi Natan, version B, chap. 37, Schechter ed., 97–98; Numbers Rabbah 3:13. See also Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash, 139–140; Steiner, “Redaction,” 138–139. 50. De Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 94–95. 51. See Shinan, “Ten Dotted Passages,” and n. 184 below.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 174–179

339

52. De Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 90–91. 53. Berliner ed., 60. The last part of this comment (om the words “And it is not possible to say”) is absent in the first printed edition of Rashi (as indicated by Berliner) and in MS Leipzig 1, and thus may be an addition to Rashi’s original commentary. Yet the observation that shevu‘a means a “period of seven days,” Old French septaine, is attested in Rashi’s commentary on Exod. 10:22, which may suggest that the comment here is indeed Rashi’s. 54. See Steiner, “Rabbanite Commentaries”; Valle Rodríguez, Terminologie, 50–52. 55. Dayaḳot, Merdler ed., 26. See also Merdler, “Rashbam and Hebrew Grammar,” 226–227. 56. See Himmelfarb, “Masorah.” See, e.g., Rashi’s commentaries on Gen. 24:2, 37:32; Exod. 5:16, 28:11; Lev. 22:10; Num. 6:5; Deut. 4:41, 25:2, 32:13, 32:14. 57. De Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 104–105. Medieval grammarians assumed that the prefixed form properly connotes the future tense and the suffixed form the past tense. It is this conception we follow in presenting the views of the medieval commentators. Modern scholars, on the other hand, regard these as imperfective and perfective conjugations of the verb—a system that better accounts for the complex relation between these forms and the future–past tense dichotomy known in European languages. See Waltke and O’Connor, Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 455–518. 58. Rashi on Exod. 15:1, Berliner ed., 132. The midrash is om b.Sanhedrin 91b. 59. See Brin, Reuel, 334n. 60. Ibid., 335. 61. See n. 50 above. 62. See Molho and Mevorah, Histoire, 11–12; Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 260–261. 63. See Buchanan, Revelation and Redemption, 106–112. 64. See Sharf, “Unknown Messiah,” 60–61. 65. Ibid., 61–62. 66. Leqaḥ Ṭov on Lev. 22:33, Buber ed., II:123. Tobiah refers again to the martyrdom of the Mainz community in his commentary on Song 1:3. See Jacobs, “Allegorical Exegesis,” 86. 67. See Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 177–187. 68. See Buber, Leqaḥ Ṭov, introduction, I:18–23. 69. See Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 266n25. Some of these parallels will be discussed below. Intriguingly, there seem to be traces of Leqaḥ Ṭov in Rashi’s commentary. But Touitou argues that these are later interpolations, as they are absent both in early Rashi manuscripts and in the Reggio di Calabria printed edition. See E. Touitou, “Traces.” 70. See n. 14 above. See also Jacobs, “Rashbam Familiar with Leqaḥ Ṭov,” 482. 71. See Buber, Leqaḥ Ṭov, introduction, I:23–24; Sharf, Byzantium, 160–177. 72. Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 265–281. 73. Ibid., 282–292. 74. See Elbaum, “Yalqut Shimʿoni.” A good example of such an anonymous midrashic compilation is Midrash Aggadah, which seems to have been influenced by Leqaḥ Ṭov. See n. 143 below. 75. See Buber, Leqaḥ Ṭov, introduction, I:32; cf. Chap. 3, n. 16. 76. See Buber, Leqaḥ Ṭov, introduction, I:32; I. Touitou, “Methodology,” 6. 77. See I. Touitou, “Methodology,” 8–21, and Ben-Shalom, “Method,” 16–19. The occurrences of the peshat maxim in Leqaḥ Ṭov are all specified in the discussion and notes below. 78. Buber ed., I:15–16. The rabbinic tradition that Tobiah cites can be found, e.g., in Genesis Rabbah 8:1, Theodor-Albeck ed., 55. 79. Steiner, “Hysteron Proteron,” 37–39. 80. Comm. on Gen. 1:27, Berliner ed., 4. 81. In his commentary on Gen. 2:8, Berliner ed., 6. 82. See Thirty-Two Hermeneutic Rules, Enelow ed., 24–25. 83. See Zucker, “Thirty-Two Middot.” For the opposing view that the thirty-two middot indeed have ancient roots, see Enelow, “Midrash”; Steiner, “Hysteron Proteron,” 39–40. 84. See Buber, Leqaḥ Ṭov, introduction, I:36. 85. See Steiner, “Hysteron Proteron,” 41.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

340

Notes to Pages 179–186

86. See n. 69 above. 87. See Leqaḥ Ṭov on Gen. 28:11, 38:18, 39:1 (interpreting Hosea 11:4), 40:9; Exod. 25:8; Num. 11:10, 20:29. See also Leqaḥ Ṭov on Ruth 3:15; Lam. 2:13. 88. Cf. Leqaḥ Ṭov on Num. 11:10, 20:29, with Rashi’s commentaries. 89. Unfortunately, there is no way to check this in the extant agments of the Scholia and Reuel’s commentaries, as they do not cover any verses in which Tobiah makes reference to the peshat maxim. 90. These cases are enumerated and discussed in I. Touitou, “Methodology,” 22–23; Ben-Shalom, “Method,” 18–19. 91. Leqaḥ Ṭov, Buber ed., I:144. Buber’s text, “in three (‫ )שלשה‬ways,” is clearly an error. The correct reading must be ‫( ששה‬six), as Tobiah goes on to enumerate six interpretations. Furthermore, Tobiah’s source in Genesis Rabbah 70:8, Theodor-Albeck ed., 805–808, also mentions the six ways in which R. Hama bar Hanina interpreted this verse. 92. Leqaḥ Ṭov, Buber ed., I:144–145. 93. Ibid., I:146. 94. Ibid., I:204–205. 95. Berliner ed., 81. 96. Ibid., 104. 97. See Chap. 3, n. 166. 98. Leqaḥ Ṭov, Buber ed., II:9. 99. This statement is found in Leviticus Rabbah 1:3, Margulies ed., 8, and in Ruth Rabbah 2:1, Lerner ed., II:42. 100. Leqaḥ Ṭov, Buber ed., II:9. 101. This is the view of I. Touitou, “Methodology,” 22–23, and Ben-Shalom, “Method,” 18–19. 102. See Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 265–279. 103. Leqaḥ Ṭov, Buber ed., I:208–209. 104. See n. 70 above and n. 111 below. 105. Leqaḥ Ṭov, Buber ed., II:91. 106. Cf. also Leqaḥ Ṭov’s midrashic interpretation of Gen. 32:9, Buber ed., I:165, which appears to be directed specifically against the simple grammatical analysis of the Scholia, de Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 92–93. See also Brin, Reuel, 260–262. 107. Leqaḥ Ṭov on Song 8:11, Greenup ed., 104. 108. See n. 111 below. 109. Leqaḥ Ṭov on Song 8:11, Greenup ed., 104. 110. Ibid., 104–105. 111. De Lange, Greek Jewish Texts, 185–187, 187–189. Cf. Steiner, “Linguistic Aspects,” 43–47. Rashi, likewise, used these two terms to distinguish between the literal and allegorical sense, except that he reverses the two, using meliṣah to connote the literal sense, and mashal to connote the allegorical sense. See n. 136 below. 112. On the distinction between the interpretation of biblical figurative language (on the basis of internal textual and contextual indications) and midrashic allegorical interpretation, see M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 36–48. 113. Leqaḥ Ṭov on Song 1:8, Greenup ed., 26. 114. Ibid. 115. See Jacobs, “Lekaḥ Ṭov on Song of Songs,” 228. 116. Leqaḥ Ṭov on Song 1:2, Greenup ed., 12. 117. It is unclear precisely how Tobiah or Eliezer understood this verse. 118. Leqaḥ Ṭov on Song 1:2, Greenup ed., 12. The rabbinic citation is om t.Shabbat 16:11, Zuckermandel ed., 135. 119. See Jacobs, “Lekaḥ Ṭov on Song of Songs,” 229–230. 120. Ibid., 240–241. 121. See n. 68 above.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 186–192

341

122. See n. 69 above. 123. Comm. on Qoh. 1:5, Feinberg ed., 7. 124. In his introduction to Qohelet (discussed below), and his glosses on 1:7, 4:8, 4:9, 5:11, 9:5, 10:9 (discussed below), 10:10, 11:10. 125. Comm. on Qohelet, introduction, Feinberg ed., 3–4. 126. The superscriptions of Song of Songs and Proverbs mention Solomon explicitly. The Rabbis identified “Qohelet son of David” in the superscription of Qohelet as Solomon. See Song of Songs Rabbah 1:10, Dunski ed., 3; Qohelet Rabbah 1:1, Hirshman ed., 2; Wyrick, Authorship, 84–86. Although the Talmud (b.Bava Batra 15a) states that these three books were “written” by “Hezekiah and his group,” this was taken to mean that they recorded and edited Solomon’s words. See Simon, Four Approaches, 182–186; Wyrick, Authorship, 28–29, 32–57. 127. Comm. on Qohelet, introduction, Feinberg ed., 4. 128. Comm. on Song 4:4, Greenup ed., 59. 129. Comm. on Qohelet, introduction, Feinberg ed., 4. 130. Comm. on Qoh. 10:9, Feinberg ed., 47. 131. Comm. on Qoh. 12:9, Feinberg ed., 54–55. 132. See Leqaḥ Ṭov on Song 1:2 (three occurrences), 5:11, 6:2; Qoh. 10:10, 11:10. 133. See Chap. 3, n. 67. 134. See, e.g., Rashi on Prov. 7:8, 9. 135. See Grossman, “Text of Rashi,” 46–58. 136. For this analysis of Rashi’s terminology, see M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 147–150. On the usage of the terms mashal and meliṣah in the Byzantine tradition, see n. 111 above. 137. Rashi on Prov. 1:6. 138. See, e.g., Prov. 19:15, 27:27, 31:13, 31. 139. Kamin, Categorization, 116–119. Rashi limits his use of this terminology to his Proverbs commentary, probably because he viewed Prov. 1:6 as that book’s heading, as Kamin notes. 140. See Introduction, n. 74. 141. See Buber, Leqaḥ Ṭov, introduction, I:20. 142. Midrash Aggadah, Buber ed., 186. 143. Kosofsky, “Midrash Aggadah,” 215–216; 237–239, xxiii (English summary). 144. Weiss ed., I:70. The Temple’s destruction was traditionally dated to 68 ce. 145. Mo. Weiss, Sefer Rushaina, introduction, 7–8, 49–51; Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 296. 146. See Mo. Weiss, Sefer Rushaina, introduction, 7–8. Ta-Shma disagrees with Weiss and maintains that the date 1124 refers to the copyist’s transcription of the work, not its original composition. See Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 296. The extant manuscripts themselves were copied om these originals much later. MS JTS was copied in 1378, and MS Oxford was copied in 1452. There is no date on MS Vatican. See Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 296. 147. See Weinryb, “Samuel of Russia.” 148. Mo. Weiss, Sefer Rushaina, introduction, 7–14. See also Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 298. 149. Mo. Weiss, Sefer Rushaina, introduction, 46–48. 150. Ibid., 24–28; Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 298–300. 151. Mo. Weiss, Sefer Rushaina, introduction, 24. This theory is accepted by Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 299–300. 152. Mo. Weiss, Sefer Rushaina, introduction, 34–35. Ta-Shma argues that this influence cannot be determined with certainty. See Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 303–304. 153. Weiss ed., 16. 154. Weiss ed., 41. Herah is thus equivalent in meaning to la-har (toward the mountain). 155. Ibid., 17. 156. Samuel’s analysis resembles Rashi’s far more closely than it does the more rudimentary philological analysis offered in Leqaḥ Ṭov on these verses. 157. Mo. Weiss, Sefer Rushaina, introduction, 30–31.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

342

Notes to Pages 192–200

158. Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 312. 159. Mo. Weiss, Sefer Rushaina, introduction, 31–34; Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 298. 160. Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 297–298. 161. Buber, Sekhel Ṭov, introduction, I:XLIX–L. 162. Ibid., I:IX–X. 163. Ibid., I:LIX–LX. 164. On the affinities between the two commentaries, see Ben-Shalom, “Method,” 45–48. 165. Buber, Sekhel Ṭov, introduction, I:XXXIII. 166. Ben-Shalom, “Method,” 7. 167. Ibid., 7, 49–53. 168. Ibid. 169. Buber, Sekhel Ṭov, introduction, I:XXXIII. 170. See Kohut, ‘Arukh, introduction, XXII–XXIII. 171. Buber, Sekhel Ṭov, introduction, I:XXXIII. 172. Ibid., I:L. 173. Ibid., I:XXXIII. 174. Ibid., I:LI–LIX. 175. See Lockshin, “Connection,” 136. 176. Elbaum, “Anthology,” 73n5. See also n. 193 below. It is beyond the scope of this study to investigate this matter fully, but it should be noted that Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 15:17–18 bears striking similarities to Rashi. 177. See Lockshin, “Connection.” 178. Ben-Shalom, “Method,” 8. 179. Buber ed., I:48. 180. See Kogut, Biblical Accentuation, 38–39, 41–54. 181. Buber ed., I:48. 182. Rashi on Gen. 20:13, Berliner ed., 40. 183. Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 45:22, Buber ed., I:287. 184. Leqaḥ Ṭov on Gen. 33:4, Buber ed., I:86, following Genesis Rabbah 78:9. 185. Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 33:4, Buber ed., I:178. 186. Cf., e.g., Sekhel Ṭov and Leqaḥ Ṭov on Gen. 16:6, 33:14; see also Ben-Shalom, “Method,” 24–26. 187. Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 15:12, Buber ed., I:3. 188. See Chap. 3, nn. 47, 48. 189. See Ben-Shalom, “Method,” 12–14. As Ben-Shalom notes, this tendency in Sekhel Ṭov foreshadows the method of typological interpretation—also marked with the term remez—that would be developed by Nahmanides, as discussed in Chap. 8. 190. See Ben-Shalom, “Method,” 12. 191. The expression Menahem uses—‫(—להדביר הדברים על אפניהם‬cf. Prov. 25:11) is an elaboration of Tobiah’s words ‫ לדבר דבר על אופן העניין‬in his commentary on this verse (n. 98 above). On the usage of these expressions in the works of both authors, see Ben-Shalom, “Method,” 26–27. 192. Sekhel Ṭov, Buber ed., II:15. 193. See Elbaum, “Anthology,” 76n15. As Elbaum notes, the usage of the expression ‫דבר דבור‬ ‫על אפניו‬, “a word fitly spoken” (Prov. 25:11) in connection with proper interpretation can perhaps be traced to Menahem ben Saruq. 194. Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 28:12, Buber ed., I:141. 195. See Chap. 1, n. 158. 196. See n. 129 above. 197. Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 28:12, Buber ed., I:143–144. 198. See n. 91 above. 199. See Introduction, n. 24.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 201–206

343

200. Comm. on Gen. 32:34, Buber ed., I:210–211. 201. Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 42:34, Buber ed., I:265. Translation (with adjustment) om Steiner, “Redaction,” 128. Yefet ben Eli discusses this very verse and ascribes a similar strategy to the narrator (mudawwin). See Chapter 1, n. 275. 202. Steiner, “Redaction,” 128. 203. See Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 21:1, 39:6, 43:1. 204. See Elbaum, “Anthology,” 82–93; Steiner, “Redaction,” 126–128. 205. See n. 201 above. 206. Brin, “Sadran,” 292–294; idem, Reuel, 35–37; Elbaum, “Anthology,” 87–88, 94–95. 207. Mondschein, “Additional Comments,” 334–335; Viezel, “Medieval Bible Commentators,” 116–117. 208. Leqaḥ Ṭov on Gen. 1:1, Buber ed., I:1–2. 209. Leqaḥ Ṭov on Gen. 1:31, Buber ed., I:16. 210. Elbaum, “Anthology,” 93–95. 211. See n. 207 above. 212. Leqaḥ Ṭov on Num. 13:20, Padua ed., 210. 213. Brin, Reuel, 35n. 214. See Chap. 1, n. 263. A similar comment is made by Rashi on Judg. 5:31, Miqra’ot Gedolot, Keter ed., 114: “These are not the words of Deborah; rather, they are the words of the one who wrote the book (kotev ha-sefer).” See Viezel, “Medieval Bible Commentators,” 122. 215. Buber ed., I:250. 216. So Viezel, “Medieval Bible Commentators,” 117, rejecting the view of Elbaum, “Anthology,” 89–90. 217. On this distinction, see Berlin, Biblical Narrative, 62–63. 218. Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 30:21, Buber ed., I:150. 219. Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 25:26, Buber ed., I:98. 220. See Elbaum, “Anthology,” 84–85. 221. Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 26:32, Buber ed., I:107. 222. I thus question the emphasis that Elbaum (“Anthology,” 84–85) places on the sadran as a “concrete personality” whose identity must be determined. 223. Buber ed., I:298. 224. On this feature of biblical narrative, see Berlin, Biblical Narrative, 57–58. 225. Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 32:32, Buber ed., I:176. 226. See Elbaum, “Anthology,” 92–93. 227. See Viezel, “Medieval Bible Commentators,” 130–131. 228. Sefer ha-‘Osher 21b, on 1 Chron. 1:43. See Viezel, “Medieval Bible Commentators,” 131–133; Brin, “Editing the Scriptures,” 316. 229. Sekhel Ṭov on Gen. 36:31, Buber ed., I:210. 230. Elbaum, “Anthology,” 86–87. 231. See n. 208 above. 232. See Brin, Reuel, 35–44. Cf. Elbaum, “Anthology,” 92–93. 233. See Chap. 1, n. 298. 234. On Isaiah of Trani, a talmudist heavily influenced by Rashi, see Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 9–23. On Meyuhas ben Eliyahu, see Ta-Shma, Italy and Byzantium, 214–217. As Ta-Shma notes, Meyuhas drew upon Rashi, Maimonides, Radak, and Nahmanides. On the Byzantine influence on Isaiah of Trani and on Meyuhas ben Eliyahu, see Brin, Reuel, 38, 47–48, 449–452. Neither commentator advances a distinctive construal of the rule of peshat. Furthermore, because they were heavily influenced by non-Byzantine commentators, they can no longer be regarded as genuine representatives of the Byzantine tradition. For these reasons, they are excluded om the discussion in this study. 235. See Simon, “Supercommentaries,” 94–110.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

344

Notes to Pages 208–211

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 6 1. These dates follow the generally accepted scholarly consensus. Kislev, “Relationship,” argues that Ibn Ezra’s dates were actually 1091/1092–1167. 2. Qara, at times, speaks in such terms, but he does not work out the hermeneutical implications of this singular model (see Chap. 4)—as Ibn Ezra would do. 3. A number of Karaites regarded Ibn Ezra as secretly being one of their own, even a student of Yefet ben Eli. See Chap. 1, n. 45. 4. See, e.g., n. 113 below, and Yesod Mora, 1:3, 6:1–2; Cohen and Simon ed., 70–77, 130–134. This argument was made by Saadia Gaon, undoubtedly Ibn Ezra’s source. See Saadya on Genesis, Zucker ed., 181–184; J. Harris, Fragmentation, 77. 5. Earlier scholarship had identified Toledo as his birthplace. See Simon, “Ibn Ezra,” 378. 6. Book of Discussion, 42b. 7. See Sela, Science; Sela and Freudenthal, “Chronological Listing”; Freudenthal, “Cultural Intermediaries.” 8. The works of Menahem ben Saruq and Dunash ben Labrat, written in Hebrew, are the exception to this rule. But they predate Hayyuj and thus did not bring the most advanced findings of Andalusian Hebrew grammar to Jews in Christian lands, as noted by Joseph Kimhi, Sefer haGaluy, 3. 9. See Sela, Science, 22–36. 10. See Linde, “Basic Instruction.” 11. Ibid., 11. 12. See Kreisel, Supercommentaries; Simon, “Supercommentaries”; Visi, “Early Supercommentaries.” 13. It is unclear if he wrote commentaries on other biblical books. The commentaries on Proverbs and Ezra-Nehemiah appearing in his name in the Miqra’ot Gedolot are by Moses Kimhi. 14. See Simon, Four Approaches, 145–153; Kislev, “Relationship.” The editio princeps of Ibn Ezra’s Pentateuch commentary, incorporated into the Miqra’ot Gedolot in the sixteenth century, is based mostly on the first version, except for Exodus, for which the second version was used. The early version on Genesis is referred to as the “standard commentary,” since it appears in the traditional editions of the Miqra’ot Gedolot. The second, agmentary version—included in some new editions of the Miqra’ot Gedolot—is referred to as the “alternate commentary.” As for the Exodus commentary, the French recension, which appears in the traditional editions of the Miqra’ot Gedolot, is referred to as the “long commentary,” whereas the Italian recension—also reintroduced in some new editions of the Miqra’ot Gedolot—is referred to as the “short commentary.” 15. See Sela and Freudenthal, “Chronological Listing,” 18, 24. 16. Ibid., 22, 46. 17. Standard introduction to the Pentateuch, poetic preface, Weiser ed., I:1. See also Simon, “Ibn Ezra,” 378–379; idem, Ear Discerns, 13–30. 18. See Moznayim, Jiménez Patón and Sáenz-Badillos ed., 4*–6*. 19. Heb., mishqal mo’znayim. Ibn Ezra’s own grammatical work is titled Sefer Mo’znayim. 20. Standard introduction to the Pentateuch, “fourth way,” Weiser ed., I:7. 21. Ibid. 22. Safah Berurah, Ruiz González and Sáenz-Badillos ed., 4*. This work was written in Verona in 1146. See Sela and Freudenthal, “Chronological Listing,” 19, 32–33. 23. See Mondschein, “One in a Thousand.” 24. See Chap. 3, n. 53. The expression ṭa‘am ha-parashah is used in a similar way by Ibn Ezra on Exod. 33:3 (short), 33:21 (long); Isa. 33:7, 43:7, 50:11, 53:12; Amos 1:2 (criticizing Rashi’s acontextual interpretation). On the centrality of the contextual peshat criterion in Ibn Ezra’s thought, see Simon, Ear Discerns, 14–15n3. 25. See Chap. 1, n. 97. 26. See Ibn Ezra, long comm. on Exod. 7:24; Weiser ed., II:54. Cf. Exodus Rabbah 9:10, Shinan ed., 218. For similar examples, see Ibn Ezra’s comm. on Exod. 9:10 (long); Exod. 16:4, 35:3 (short).

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 211–215

345

See also Simon, Four Approaches, 129–130. It is conceivable that this locution of Ibn Ezra’s was influenced by Yefet, who writes in Arabic (in his comm. on Gen. 1:5): “Our practice is to follow the text (fa-sabīluna an natba‘ al-naṣṣ) and to act in accordance with what the exalted text requires.” See Zawanowska, Abraham Narratives, 79. 27. Ibn Ezra on Gen. 11:3, Weiser ed., I:48. 28. Nahmanides on Gen. 11:2, Chavel ed., I:71. 29. See Chap. 3, n. 44. 30. Ibn Ezra on Gen. 11:28, alternate comm., Weiser ed., I:188. 31. See n. 4 above. 32. On Ibn Ezra’s criteria for determining whether a particular midrashic view is a genuine tradition, see Maori, “Ibn Ezra’s Attitude Toward Midrash.” 33. Nahmanides on Gen. 11:28, Chavel ed., I:72–73. On Nahmanides’ reaction to Ibn Ezra in this passage, see Sklarz, “Nachmanides’ Exegesis of Midrash,” 250. 34. Alternate introduction to the Pentateuch, Weiser ed., I:137. See also Introduction, n. 88. 35. See nn. 9, 11 above. 36. Standard introduction to the Pentateuch, Weiser ed., I:6. 37. For a discussion of this critical passage, see Mondschein, “Attitude,” 138–140. On the popularity of these modes of interpretation among Jews in Christian Europe, see Mack, Mystery, 96–98. 38. This is apart om his objection to gematria in general. See Introduction, n. 36. 39. See M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 233–238. 40. Ibn Ezra, comm. on Jon. 2:2. 41. For a discussion of further examples of this methodological distinction between Rashi and Ibn Ezra, see Mondschein, “One in a Thousand,” 230–234. 42. See Simon, Four Approaches, 181. 43. See Ibn Ezra on Gen. 6:6 (standard and alternate), Weiser ed., I:36, 175; and Chap. 1, n. 114. For other examples in which Ibn Ezra rejects Saadia’s applications of ta’wīl, see M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 73–79. 44. Kugel, Idea, 104. 45. Gruber ed., 811. 46. Ibn Ezra used the term ṣaḥot (which appears once in Scripture, in Isa. 32:4) as a Hebrew cognate of Ar. faṣāḥa, a coinage established by Saadia. Although this term properly connotes pure, correct speech, it came to be used in the sense of literary elegance. See M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 238n37, 240n44. 47. Miqra’ot Gedolot, Keter ed., 2. 48. Cf., e.g., Rashi on Gen. 23:1 with Radak, who applied this principle of Ibn Ezra’s to undercut the midrashic reading guided by the omnisignificance principle. 49. Berliner ed., 409. Rashi’s source is Sifrei Deuteronomy §310, Finkelstein ed., 351. 50. Weiser ed., III:308. 51. Comm. on Num. 23:7; Weiser ed., III:183. See also Ibn Ezra on Ps. 2:3, 73:2; Kugel, Idea, 174. 52. See Chap. 2, n. 99. 53. Short comm. on Exod. 23:20, Weiser ed., II:305. On the importance of this passage for understanding the function of language in Ibn Ezra’s view, see Charlap, Linguistic System, 259. 54. See Brann, Compunctious Poet, 72, 190–191. 55. Book of Discussion, 77b. 56. See n. 51 above. 57. See Teshuvot Dunash ʻal Rabi Seʻadyah, Schröter ed., 28–29. On the identity of Dunash, see Chap. 2, n. 36. 58. Ibn Ezra, Sefat Yeter, §89, Oshri ed., 88. There are a number of textual and philological complexities in this passage, which is rendered here based on Simon, Ear Discerns, 222, and Viezel, “Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Views,” 389–390. Cf. Kugel, Idea, 184. 59. Simon, Ear Discerns, 222; Viezel, “Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Views,” 389–390. 60. See n. 72 below.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

346

Notes to Pages 216–219

61. See Cohen and Simon, Yesod Mora, introduction, 26. 62. See Chap. 1, nn. 192, 193. 63. See Steiner, “Redaction,” 153–167. 64. See Brin, “Questions of Composition and Editing”; Simon, Four Approaches, 108–109. 65. Ibn Ezra on Gen. 6:7, alternate version, Weiser ed., I:175. 66. Ibn Ezra on Num. 13:23, Weiser ed., III:151. For Yefet’s comm. on this verse, see Chap. 1, n. 265. 67. On this strategy of biblical narrative, see Berlin, Biblical Narrative, 52. For other examples in which Ibn Ezra notes the narrative role of the voice of Moses, see his commentaries on Gen. 20:16, 28:11, 32:21 (standard comm.), Gen. 2:18, 11:5 (alternate comm.; see Chap. 4, n. 90); Exod. 3:2 (long comm.). 68. See Viezel, “Medieval Bible Commentators,” 144. 69. See Viezel, “God’s Revelation in the Writings of Kimhi,” 276–278, 282–283; idem, “Moses’ Role in Writing the Torah,” 12–14. 70. See Introduction, n. 31. 71. Long comm. on Exod. 20:1, Weiser ed., II:127. 72. Long comm. on Exod. 20:1, Weiser ed., II:129. 73. Ibn Ezra invokes this metaphor throughout his writings. See Charlap, Linguistic System, 258; see also Ibn Ezra, Yesod Mora, 1:1, Cohen and Simon ed., 66–67; Yesod Diqduq, Allony ed., 85. 74. Comm. on Deut. 5:5, Weiser ed., III:230. 75. See Viezel, “Medieval Bible Commentators,” 144. 76. Comm. on Exod. 20:1, Weiser ed., II:127. See Mondschein, “One in a Thousand,” 245, who argues that Ibn Ezra’s comments here are directed against Rashi. 77. See b.Berakhot 20b; b.Pesaḥim 106a. Maimonides accepted this distinction. See Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Shabbat 1:1, 29:1, 30:1. Accordingly, the verses are listed separately in his Book of the Commandments. Deut. 5:11 is cited in Negative Commandment #320 as a prohibition to engage in labor on the Sabbath, and Exod. 20:8 in Positive Commandment #155 as an obligation to sancti the Sabbath verbally. On Maimonides’ treatment of these verses and its relation to his rule of peshat, see M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 377–380. 78. See Ibn Ezra, short comm. on Exod. 20:8, Weiser ed., II:285. Unlike Maimonides (see previous note), he thus maintains that there is only one biblical Sabbath commandment (the prohibition of labor), not two. See Ibn Ezra, Yesod Mora, 2:12, Cohen and Simon ed., 106–107. 79. Aer citing the talmudic interpretation of the two versions of the fourth commandment, Nahmanides writes: “This explanation can be tolerated only by someone who is not accustomed to Talmud” (comm. on Exod. 20:8, Chavel ed., I:398; see Mondschein, “One in a Thousand,” 243). 80. See M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 243. 81. Nahmanides, introduction to Genesis, Chavel ed., I:1–3. 82. Long comm. on Exod. 20:1, Weiser ed., II:128. 83. Pentateuch, standard introduction, the “fih way,” Weiser ed., I:10. See Mondschein, “Fabricated Explanations.” As Mondschein (ibid., 277–282) notes, in this vein Ibn Ezra rejects even Saadia’s attempt to find meaning in discrepancies between the qere and ketiv. 84. Long comm. on Exod. 20:1, Weiser ed., II:128. 85. See his commentaries on Gen. 12:6 (standard) and Deut. 1:2. On these and similar passages in Ibn Ezra and their interpretation in his supercommentaries, see Simon, Ear Discerns, 407–464; Shapiro, “Orthodox Theology,” 107–110. 86. The Talmud states: “David wrote down the book of Psalms [which had been composed by] Ten Elders” (b.Bava Batra 14b), traditionally taken to mean that David is responsible for the final form of the book. 87. See Ibn Ezra’s commentaries and the two versions of his introduction to the Psalms edited critically by Simon, Four Approaches, 312–315, 330–333. 88. See Simon, Four Approaches, 177–186. Ibn Ezra actually misquotes the Talmud as saying that the “Men of the Great Assembly” composed the book of Psalms. Yet he goes to great lengths to

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 219–223

347

defend the commonly held notion of the Psalms’ Davidic authorship by arguing that King David was capable of writing about future events aided by the “Holy Spirit.” See the following note. 89. See Simon, Four Approaches, 187–199, 280–281, 314–317. 90. See his comm. on Isa. 40:1, and Simon, “Medievalism and Modernism.” 91. It appears that Ibn Ezra and Rashbam—who were contemporaries—eventually became aware of each other. They may have even met in Rouen, where both lived for a time. See Simon, Ear Discerns, 100–133; Jacobs, “Does Rashbam Acknowledge Ibn Ezra?”; Kislev, “Creation”; idem, “Incense”; Merdler, “Response.” See also n. 132 below. 92. See Rashbam on Gen. 37:2, and Chap. 4, n. 167. 93. See the passage in Safah Berurah cited above (n. 22). If we could be more confident that Ibn Ezra had read Rashbam’s commentary before writing these words (in Verona in 1146; see Sela and Freudenthal, “Chronological Listing,” 19), we might conclude that he was specifically targeting Rashbam’s characterization of midrash as the “essence of Torah” (see n. 92 above). 94. Yesod Diqduq, Allony ed., 86. 95. Ibn Ezra does not deny that in some biblical texts—those specifically written as metaphor or allegory (what he terms mashal)—the true meaning lies beneath the surface. But those cases, in his view, are exceptional. See M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 36–39, 46–48; Simon, Ear Discerns, 25–27. 96. See Chap. 1, n. 159. 97. See n. 101 below. 98. Introduction to Lamentations. In this last sentence, he is paraphrasing the talmudic maxim that “Scripture does not leave the realm of its peshat,” a point discussed below. 99. Compare Nahmanides’ critique of Maimonides’ Principle #2 in The Book of the Commandments that the Rabbis of the Talmud “did not say, ‫( אין מקרא אלא כפשוטו‬a biblical verse is [understood] only according to its peshat)” (Chavel ed., 45; see Chap. 8, n. 26). Ibn Ezra—like Maimonides—understood the peshat maxim precisely in this way. 100. Yesod Mora, 6:1, Cohen and Simon ed., 131. 101. Yesod Mora, 1:4, Cohen and Simon ed., 77–78. 102. He does cite proof for the antiquity of peshat om the Aramaic Targums on the Pentateuch (Onkelos) and Prophets (Jonathan ben Uziel). See Pentateuch, standard introduction, the “fih way,” Weiser ed., I:10. 103. See nn. 107, 114 below. 104. See the citations in nn. 22, 94, 100, 101 above. 105. The “standard” version was penned in Italy by 1145; the “alternate” version in France about a decade later. See n. 14 above. As might be expected om a later revision, the alternate introduction is more clearly organized than the “standard” one. See nn. 106, 114 below. 106. This is the order of the rejected methods in the alternate commentary, which proceeds logically om the furthest to the closest to Ibn Ezra’s own method. The ordering in the standard introduction is less logical. He begins with his critique of the geonic method (perhaps because it loomed largest on his native Andalusian intellectual horizon, or because it best fits his geometric model [see n. 114 below]), and om there moves to criticize the Karaite, Christian, and midrashic methods. 107. Introduction to the Torah, standard and alternate, Weiser ed., I:1, 137. 108. See n. 106 above. This geometric model might be compared with Maimonides’ parable of the King’s palace in The Guide of the Perplexed, III:51–54, in which the relative intellectual perfection of various classes of people is delineated according to their proximity to the king’s inner chambers. See Kasher, “King’s Palace.” 109. Standard introduction, Weiser ed., I:6. 110. See n. 34 above. 111. Weiser ed., I:138. 112. In medieval Rabbanite literature, the Karaites were at times identified with the Sadducees, the Second Temple sect of Judaism that opposed the Pharisees, regarded as the forerunners of

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

348

Notes to Pages 223–226

rabbinic Judaism. Some Karaites rejected this association, but others accepted it. See Astren, Karaite Judaism, 81–82; 256–258; Erder, “Sadducee Dilemma,” 215–221. 113. Alternate introduction, “second way,” Weiser ed., I:138. On this argument, see n. 4 above. 114. Alternate introduction, “third way,” Weiser ed., I:138–139. In the standard introduction, he is less complimentary and writes more harshly, “if the truth is like the point at the center of the circle, this way [of the geonic authors] is like the circumference that surrounds it” (Weiser ed., I:1). In the standard introduction, this is where he first introduces the geometric model, almost as if he thought of it in the course of characterizing geonic interpretation. In the alternate introduction, the analogy appears in the preface to all five of the methods he cites (Weiser ed., I:137), since it is useful as a gauge by which to assess them comparatively. 115. On the nature of this critique, see Sela, Astrology, 29–30. Although Ibn Ezra mentions the great length of the geonic digressions as their main flaw, it is possible that he is hinting at his more fundamental objection to Saadia’s sometimes radical reconstruals of the biblical text by way of ta’wīl in order to conform with philosophical, scientific and halakhic data. See n. 43 above. 116. This critique notwithstanding, Ibn Ezra incorporated lengthy digressions into his own commentaries to discuss matters of philosophy, language, and science. See Sela, Astrology, 29–30. 117. Alternate introduction, “fourth way,” Weiser ed., I:139. 118. Weiser ed., I:139. 119. Ibid., I:141–142. 120. See Whitman, “Literal Sense.” 121. See Minnis, Scott, and Wallace, Literary Theory, 204, 242. 122. Minnis, “Thomistic Literalism,” 274. 123. Minnis, “Figuring the Letter,” 178. 124. Alternate introduction, “fourth way,” Weiser ed., I:139. An earlier, more rudimentary, Hebrew version of this rule was articulated by the eleventh-century Karaite exegete Jeshua ben Judah (whom Ibn Ezra cites occasionally); see Fenton, Jardin, 269. Ibn Ezra refers to this principle (in briefer form) elsewhere in his commentaries; see Pentateuch, standard introduction, the “third way,” Weiser ed., I:6–7; long comm. on Exod. 13:9 (Weiser ed., II:87). The stock example he typically cites is Deut. 10:16, “circumcise the foreskin of your heart,” which he interprets figuratively; see n. 128 below, and Introduction, n. 91. 125. See Chap. 1, n. 145. On this equivalence in Ibn Ezra’s lexicon, see M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 43–65. 126. See M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 42; Simon, Ear Discerns, 20. 127. For other examples of this equivalency in the medieval exegetical tradition, see Ben-Shammai, “Tension,” 37; M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 42, 79, 117. 128. Alternate introduction, “first way,” Weiser ed., I:137. See M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 36–37. As mentioned in n. 124 above, this was a stock example that Ibn Ezra cited elsewhere. 129. See n. 91 above, and n. 132 below. 130. See, e.g., Japhet, “Tension”; Kislev, “Incense”; idem, “Relationship”; Lockshin, “Tradition or Context.” See also the references in n. 91 above. 131. Pentateuch, standard introduction, “fih way,” Weiser ed., I:10. Cf. his formulation in the alternate version of the introduction, cited in n. 119 above. Ibn Ezra’s distinction between halakhah and non-halakhic derash can be traced to Samuel ben Hofni, as discussed in Chap. 1. 132. See Simon, Ear Discerns, 65–68, 100–104, 107–111. 133. Ibid., 68–133. 134. Symptoms of this dual allegiance can be found throughout Ibn Ezra’s writings. On the one hand, he vigorously criticizes the Karaites for believing that “the tradition of the Rabbis contradicts Scripture and grammar” (standard introduction to Pentateuch, “fih way,” Weiser ed., I:8). Yet he was well aware that rabbinic interpretation does seem to do just that. It was to parry this contradiction that Ibn Ezra devised his views on the nature of rabbinic “readings of Scripture,” as expressed, e.g., in his introduction to Lamentations (cited above); see also standard introduction to Pentateuch, “fourth way,” Weiser ed., I:7.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 227–231

349

135. Alternate introduction, “fourth way,” Weiser ed., I:140–141. 136. In the parallel passage just cited om his alternate introduction to the Pentateuch, Ibn Ezra uses the term peshat (“they knew the peshat”) to replace the term ‘iqqar (“essence”). The two notions were synonymous, in his view. 137. Short comm. on Exod. 21:8; Weiser ed., II:292. 138. Ibn Ezra also used this example to illustrate this rule in Safah Berurah, Ruiz González and Sáenz-Badillos ed., 4* (in the continuation of the passage cited in n. 22 above), and the alternate version of his Pentateuch introduction (cited in n. 135 above). 139. See Chap. 1, nn. 132, 133. 140. Comm. on Gen. 37:2; see Chap. 4, n. 167. 141. See nn. 22, 93 above. 142. See Chap. 1, n. 130. 143. See Chap. 4, n. 171. 144. See n. 135 above. 145. There is a debate about whether the obligation to mourn is biblical or rabbinic. Maimonides—following Isaac Alfasi—maintains that the obligation is biblical but only on the single day of death and burial (whereas the weeklong mourning period is of rabbinic origin). See Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Evel 1:1, with Radbaz and Kesef Mishneh. The expression “seven close relatives” (shiv‘ah qerovim) is not stated explicitly in the Talmud, but it does appear in the early post-talmudic literature, e.g., the She’iltot and Halakhot Gedolot; see Brody, Textual History, 160–161. 146. B.Yevamot 22b. 147. B.Yevamot 22b. Not surprisingly, this resolution is adopted by Rashi in his gloss on this verse. It is also mentioned by Rashbam (cited below). 148. Alternate introduction to the Pentateuch, “fourth way”; Weiser ed., I:141. This follows Saadia’s construal of the word she’er, which was adopted subsequently in the Andalusian tradition. See Zucker, Translation, 387. 149. Comm. on Lev. 21:2, Weiser ed., III:72. 150. Comm. on Lev. 21:4, Rosin ed., 163. 151. He thus goes on in his commentary here to cite the reconciliation of vv. 2 and 4 “according to the words of the Sages.” 152. Simon, Ear Discerns, 133. For examples of this tendency, see Japhet, “Tension,” 407–413. In Japhet’s view, this disqualifies Ibn Ezra’s standing as a pashtan. See Japhet, “Ear Discerns Words (Review),” 295–296. Japhet, however, is employing a modern standard of peshat to evaluate Ibn Ezra, rather than seeking to understand the medieval exegete’s own conception of peshat. See Introduction, n. 66. 153. Minnis, Authorship, xi. 154. Ibid., ix–x. 155. See, e.g., Cohen and Simon, Yesod Mora, introduction; Halbertal, Concealment and Revelation, 34–48; Sela, Astrology; idem, Science; Wagner, “Distinguished Chapters.” 156. See n. 119 above. 157. Wagner, “Distinguished Chapters,” 105–106. 158. Ibid., 112. 159. This very point is made by Japhet to argue that Ibn Ezra was not true to the peshat ideal. See Japhet, “Ear Discerns Words (Review),” 296–298. 160. Simon, Ears Discerns, 26–27n27. 161. Wagner, “Distinguished Chapters,” 106. 162. Long comm. on Exod. 32:1; Weiser ed., II:204. Cf. Yesod Mora 9:2, Cohen and Simon ed., 168. See also Judah ha-Levi, Kuzari, I:97. Although Ibn Ezra was distinctive in aligning this interpretation with the “way of peshat,” he was hardly alone in claiming that the sin of the Golden Calf did not involve actual idol worship—a common Jewish position also used to combat the Christian view of this troubling episode in the history of the ancient Israelites. See E. Touitou, “Controversy,” 147–151.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

350

Notes to Pages 232–239

163. Long comm. on Exod. 32:1; Weiser ed., II:204. Cf. this with the Mu‘tazilite doctrine of prophetic infallibility embraced by Saadia, Samuel ben Hofni, and Yefet ben Eli (Chap. 1, n. 223). Ibn Ezra’s inclination to justi Aaron’s actions may reflect this predisposition. Ibn Ezra on Qoh. 10:1 (Gómez Aranda ed., 103*–104*) likewise aims to minimize the sins attributed to King Solomon in the Bible. There, however, Ibn Ezra may be reacting to a critique by Ibn Ḥazm, who sought to bring evidence that the Jews forged the Bible om its depictions of prophetic shortcomings— something that Ibn Ḥazm deemed inconceivable. See Simon, Ear Discerns, 213. 164. Long comm. on Exod. 32:1; Weiser ed., II:205. 165. Ibn Ezra on Ps. 89:1, Keter ed., II:61–62. 166. ‫ ופירוש טעמי ספר תהלות‬,‫לגלות מסתרי דקדוק ומלות‬. This line appears in the agmentary alternate comm. on Psalms published (with a translation) in Simon, Four Approaches, 308–309. (I have altered the translation slightly.) 167. Wagner, “Distinguished Chapters,” 11–12. 168. See Gómez Aranda ed., 90*, 94* and the citation at the next note. 169. Gómez Aranda ed., 6*. 170. See Pope, Job, lxxv. 171. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 218–222. By contrast, the northern French pashtanim identified what might be termed an ethical message in the book of Job. See M. Z. Cohen, “Maimonides vs. Rashi.” 172. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 222–224. 173. See n. 94 above. 174. There is no clear evidence that Ibn Ezra’s peshat model was influenced by the Byzantine exegetical tradition. See n. 177 below. 175. See n. 20 above. 176. See Simon, “Ibn Ezra,” 387. 177. It is unclear whether, and to what extent, his exposure to Leqaḥ Ṭov might have played a role in shaping Ibn Ezra’s peshat response to midrash. He does mention the work disparagingly as a midrashic compilation (see n. 20 above), and it did circulate in Italy in his time, as discussed in Chap. 5. It is also conceivable he was exposed to Sekhel Ṭov in Italy, though he does not mention the work. Further research may shed light on these open questions. 178. This trend would be developed further by Ibn Ezra’s Provençal adherent Radak. See Chap. 8, n. 87. 179. See n. 152 above. Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 7 1. Segal, Introduction, 995–1000; Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise, 114–118. See also Rosenberg, “Biblical Exegesis,” 88–89. 2. See Greenberg, “Relationship,” 561, cited in the Introduction. 3. Much of this chapter is based on my monograph Opening the Gates of Interpretation: Maimonides’ Biblical Hermeneutics in Light of His Geonic-Andalusian Heritage and Muslim Milieu. 4. On Maimonides’ early life in Muslim Spain and North Aica, see Kraemer, Maimonides, 23–93; H. Davidson, Maimonides, 3–28. Even as an adult in Egypt, Maimonides continued to identi culturally with his rich Andalusian intellectual heritage. See Blau, “Andalus.” 5. On Maimonides’ choice to write Mishneh Torah in Hebrew, see Twersky, Code, 325–336. On his professed regret over having composed The Book of the Commandments in Arabic, see Responsum #447, Blau ed., II:725. 6. See C. Fraenkel, Transformation. 7. See Klein-Braslavy, Creation; idem, Adam; idem, Solomon; Rosenberg, “Biblical Exegesis”; M. Z. Cohen, Gates. 8. See Elon, Principles of Jewish Law, 9–10. 9. Violation of biblical law may incur the most severe punishments—such as death, whether execution by the court or “death at the hands of heaven” (mitah bi-yedei shamayim; karet [lit., “cutting

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 239–245

351

off ”]); but violation of rabbinic law incurs only “flogging for rebelliousness” (makkat mardut). Although Jewish courts in the Diaspora, as a rule, did not actually dispense these punishments, this stratification signaled the demand for more stringent observance of biblical law and possible leniency with respect to rabbinic law in extenuating circumstances. A talmudic rule of thumb, regularly invoked by halakhic decisors through the ages, is that where a doubt (safeq) arises, one rules stringently in a biblical law but leniently in a rabbinic law. See b.Beṣah 3b, b.‘Avodah Zarah 7a. Accordingly, within responsa literature, establishing whether a law is rabbinic or biblical is foundational and will oen determine the direction of the decision ultimately rendered. See, e.g., Maimonides, Responsum #308, Blau ed., II:567. 10. Book of the Commandments, Kafih ed., 12. See the full citation at n. 108 below. 11. On that ninth-century work and its introduction (which does not seem to have been part of the original work, though it was regarded as such by Maimonides), see Chap. 1. 12. See Book of the Commandments, introduction and Principle #10 (Kafih ed., 4–5, 43); H. Davidson, Maimonides, 170–171. Among those influenced by the enumeration in the introduction to the Halakhot Gedolot, Maimonides mentions Kitāb al-Shara’i‘ of Ḥefeṣ ben Yaṣliaḥ and the “many azharot compiled in our place in al-Andalus,” probably a reference to the azharot of Solomon Ibn Gabirol and perhaps of Saadia Gaon (though his azharot were obviously not written in al-Andalus). 13. Kafih ed., 12. 14. Ibid. 15. Earlier authors, e.g., enumerated rabbinically instituted laws such as kindling the Hanukkah lights and reading the scroll of Esther. This is attested in Halakhot Gedolot, Saadia, Ḥefeṣ ben Yaṣliaḥ, and Ibn Gabirol. See Zucker, “Studies,” 97–100. 16. Kafih ed., 14. 17. Ibid. 18. See Book of the Commandments, Positive Commandment #206, Kafih ed., 163. Maimonides does not cite a specific rabbinic source for this straightforward reading, nor can it be traced to any of the (rather remote) legal derivations in rabbinic literature; see, e.g., b.Ketubbot 37b, Qiddushin 41a, Sanhedrin 45a, 84b, Niddah 17a. 19. Guide III:43, Pines trans., 573; Munk-Joel ed., 419–420. 20. Bacher, Bibelexegese, 31. 21. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 21–26; Twersky, “Did Ibn Ezra Influence Maimonides?” 22. Book of the Commandments, Kafih ed., 13. 23. On gezerah shawah, see Chap. 1, n. 16. 24. Mishnah comm., Kafih ed., III:280–281. 25. Maimonides later retracted this bold application of his principle of peshat primacy. See nn. 145, 147 below. 26. See Frenkel, Elite, 122. 27. Responsum #355, Blau ed., II:632. Qal wa-ḥomer and gezerah shawah are actually two of the thirteen middot. 28. As discussed in Chaps. 1, 2, and 6. 29. Hassagot, Chavel ed., 31. 30. See Chap. 6, n. 28. 31. On the notion of the “seven close relatives,” see Chap. 6, n. 145. 32. B.Yevamot 22b. 33. Hilkhot Evel 2:1. 34. Hilkhot Evel 2:6. 35. On Maimonides’ use of the term mi-divrei soferim, see Neubauer, Divrei Soferim. Clearly, in this context, he uses it to connote a rabbinic enactment, as opposed to a biblical law. See n. 158 below. 36. Hilkhot Evel 2:7. The notion that the Rabbis could declare a wife met miṣwah is not Maimonides’ innovation completely, as it is found in the Talmud, b.Yevamot 89b. But there it is applied in only a limited case. Indeed, in his Talmud commentary. Nahmanides criticizes Maimonides for

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

352

Notes to Pages 245–248

making this a general rule. Otherwise, this interpretation by Maimonides seems to be unprecedented. 37. Guide, introduction, Pines trans., 5; Munk-Joel ed., 2. Medieval Hebrew translation (cited here) is by Ibn Tibbon, Even Shmuel ed., 5. The term sharī‘a was used by Muslims to refer to Islamic religious law, and Maimonides oen uses it likewise to refer to Jewish religious law (halakhah). But in many instances, as in this case, he uses it to refer to Hebrew Scripture. The medieval translators typically render this term “Torah,” which can accommodate both these senses. See Kraemer, “Naturalism,” 49–51. 38. See J. Stern, Problems and Parables, 84. See also n. 44 below. 39. Guide I:51, Pines trans., 114; Munk-Joel ed., 77. Hebrew trans. om Ibn Tibbon, Even Shmuel ed., 97. 40. Guide I:53, Pines trans., 119; Munk-Joel ed., 81. Hebrew trans. om Ibn Tibbon, Even Shmuel ed., 101. 41. For details of his analysis, see M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 201–210. 42. Guide II:29, Pines trans., 347; Munk-Joel ed., 243. Hebrew trans. om Ibn Tibbon, Even Shmuel ed., 304. 43. See Klein-Braslavy, Creation; M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 216–223. 44. See n. 1 above. See also J. Harris, Fragmentation, 292–293; Kaplan, “Problems,” 362; J. Stern, Problems and Parables, 67–86. 45. See Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash, 87; H. Davidson, Maimonides, 182–184. See also nn. 66, 80, 122, 130 below. 46. Introduction to the Mishnah, Shailat ed., 330 (Ar.). The Hebrew terms peshat ha-katuv, emet, and peshuto are om Alharizi’s Hebrew trans., Rabinowitz ed., 16–17. 47. Introduction to the Mishnah, Shailat ed., 337 (Ar.); Rabinowitz ed., 31–32 (Heb.). 48. Hilkhot Ḥovel u-Mazziq 1:9. 49. See n. 6 above. 50. See Friedman, “Use of Rashi,” 403–438. Neither Rashi nor any other northern French peshat commentator is ever mentioned by Maimonides. 51. Sidestepping these considerations, the recent studies of Maimonides’ notion of peshat—which find it self-contradictory—simply borrow the commonly used definitions coined in modern scholarship for other commentators, such as Rashi, Rashbam, and Ibn Ezra: “the obvious and simple understanding,” “straightforward sense,” “simple or plain meaning.” See H. Davidson, Maimonides, 132; Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash, 80; Sagi, “Nahmanides,” 128. But Maimonides was not part of the emerging culture of peshat in Christian Europe, so we cannot simply assume that he would have used the term in the same sense. 52. For a detailed study of these ten passages, see M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 293–335. 53. Ibid., 500–509, where the sporadic occurrences of the term peshat in his responsa are discussed. 54. See n. 44 above. 55. Modern Hebrew translators consistently use the term peshat to render Arabic ẓāhir. Among medieval translators, this was a common convention, though the terms nir’eh (“apparent”), nigleh (“obvious”), and ḥiṣon (“external”) were also used. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 13, 18, 43, 78–79, 87–88, 102, 103, 117, 118, 136–137, 330, 343, 398, 411–412. 56. In The Book of the Commandments, Maimonides also occasionally uses the term ẓāhir, which he clearly intends to differentiate om peshat. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 114–117. 57. Indeed, this corresponds to the common—but at times inaccurate—definition of peshat as the “literal sense,” discussed in the Introduction. More precise Hebrew translations of ẓāhir would be nigleh or nir’eh, used occasionally by medieval translators (see n. 55 above). But the technical exegetical term ẓāhir actually has a range of connotations. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 87–105. 58. See nn. 37, 39, 40, 42 above. 59. See n. 46 above.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 249–255

353

60. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 93–96. 61. As discussed in Chaps. 1, 2, 6. On this Maimonidean strategy, see M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 210–216. 62. See M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 201–206. 63. See n. 46 above. 64. Guide III:41, Pines trans., 558, 567; Munk-Joel ed., 409, 415. 65. See Chap. 4. See also M.  Z. Cohen, “Non-Halakhic Legal Exegesis”; idem, Gates, 130–184. 66. Kafih ed., 322–323. The rabbinic citation is om Sifra, Qedoshim 4:8, Weiss ed., 89a. 67. In Mishneh Torah, Maimonides likewise codifies this as a distinct prohibition; see Hilkhot De‘ot, introductory enumeration of commandments, and 6:8. 68. Maimonides’ translation of this verse (‫ )לא תשא עליו חטא‬would be something like: “Do not bear (i.e., recall or ‘carry’) his sin in your heart.” It is conceivable that this reading was standard in the Andalusian school, as it is attested in Abraham Ibn Ezra on this verse (Weiser ed., III:63). 69. In this case, ẓāhir al-naṣṣ appears to have influenced his halakhic thinking. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 124–125. 70. Moses Ibn Tibbon (Heller ed., 177) renders ẓāhir al-naṣṣ in Hebrew ha-peshat min ha-pasuq. See also M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 124n121. 71. See n. 46 above. 72. Introduction to Pereq Ḥeleq, Shailat ed., 372–373 (Ar.); 27 (Heb.). 73. On the implications of this passage and its influence, as well as the possibility that Maimonides’ openly stated doctrine expressed here may represent only his “exoteric” view (and that he held a different position “esoterically”), see Viezel, “Moses’ Role in Writing the Torah,” 12–14. See also Shapiro, “Orthodox Theology,” 115–121. 74. Hilkhot Teshuvah 3:8. For the talmudic source, see Introduction, n. 31. 75. Introduction to the Mishnah, Shailat ed., 327 (Ar.); 27 (Heb.). 76. This usage was common in the Geonic-Andalusian tradition. See Chap. 1, n. 143; Chap. 2, n. 88. 77. See nn. 46, 66 above. For other such cases, see M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 115–127. 78. See n. 76 above. 79. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 261–264. In the Maimonidean system, the “transmitted interpretation” differs om the category of “law [given] to Moses om Sinai” (halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai). The latter expression is talmudic and was adopted by medieval scholars to connote rabbinic oral traditions in general. Maimonides, however, defines halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai as a specific, rather minor, category of laws—ones that have absolutely no basis in the biblical text, as opposed to the “transmitted interpretations,” which always are attached to, and define the meaning of, a specific verse. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 276–278, 280–281, 291–292, and n. 127 below. 80. Kafih ed., 320–321. The reference is to Sifra, Qedoshim 2:14, Weiss ed., 88b. 81. See Tafsīr, Derenbourg ed., 172. 82. Maimonides never codifies the prohibition to actually place a stumbling block in ont of a blind man; see Minḥat Ḥinnukh, Miṣwah 332 (II:114); see also Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash, 88. 83. Kafih ed., 321. 84. See n. 16 above. See also M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 295–298. 85. Kafih ed., 15. 86. In its proper sense, the term “Oral Law,” for Maimonides, connotes only the original interpretation given at Sinai. See Blidstein, “Oral Law,” 110–111. On the possibility that Maimonides also uses the term in a more general sense (to connote all laws that are not explicit in the biblical text), see Blidstein, Authority, 27; idem, “Tradition,” 13. 87. See Chap. 4, n. 167. 88. See n. 103 below. This Arabic term is a cognate of Hebrew heqqesh, which is one method of midrashic inference (see, e.g., n. 27 above). When used by Maimonides, of course, the term qiyās connotes the midrashic middot in general, and not only heqqesh.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

354

Notes to Pages 255–260

89. Introduction to the Mishnah, Shailat ed., 328, 335 (Ar.); 28–29, 36–37 (Heb.). See also M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 264–266. On the mechanism of qiyās in Muslim jurisprudence, see n. 103 below. 90. On this term, its Hebrew translation (using the root y-ṣ-’ in the hif‘īl form), and some Arabic synonyms Maimonides uses interchangeably with it, see M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 266–267. 91. Halbertal, People, 59–63. 92. See n. 85 above. See also M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 266–268, 466–467. 93. See the passages of the introduction to the Mishnah cited in n. 89 above. 94. Introduction to the Mishnah, Shailat ed., 339 (Ar.); 40–41 (Heb.). See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 268–269. 95. See, e.g., Chap. 1, n. 152. 96. See Sklare, Samuel ben Hofni, 160–161 (Ar. text and Eng. trans.); Zucker, “Taḥṣīl,” 378 (Ar. text with Heb. trans.). See also M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 243–247. 97. Halbertal, People, 54–59; see also Blidstein, Authority, 38; J. Harris, Fragmentation, 292. 98. Halbertal, People, 57. 99. See B. Weiss, Search, 151–157; idem, Spirit, 38, 66–68, 122–127; Hallaq, Origins, 122–128; Schacht, Introduction, 59–61, 114–115; Lowry, “Shāfi‘ī.” The term fiqh was also used by Judeo-Arabic authors to refer to halakhah; see Blau, Dictionary, s.v. ‫פקה‬. 100. See B. Weiss, Search, 161–180; Hallaq, Origins, 69–76, 128–134. 101. See B. Weiss, Search, 271–282; Hallaq, Origins, 102–109, 134–138. Aiming to reflect the proportion of authentic to inauthentic reports, Hallaq writes: “Indicative of the range of such forgeries is the fact that the later traditionists—who flourished during the third/ninth century [AH/CE]— accepted as ‘sound’ only some four or five thousand ḥadīths out of a corpus exceeding half a million. This is one of the most crucial facts about the ḥadīth, a fact duly recognized by the Muslim tradition itself ” (Origins, 104). 102. See B. Weiss, Spirit, 38; Hallaq, Origins, 119. 103. The term qiyās (lit., “to measure”) was coined to connote legal inference by analogy, which was conceived as “measuring” one thing (i.e., a legal case) against another. On the efforts of Muslim legal theorists to define the parameters of this procedure precisely, see B. Weiss, Search, 155, 551–558, 633–654; idem, Spirit, 66–87; Hallaq, Origins, 140–145; idem, “Non-Analogical Arguments.” 104. The so-called demonstrative syllogism (al-qiyās al-burhānī) was considered incontrovertible; but the “juridical syllogism” (al-qiyās al-fiqhī), the sort of qiyās employed by jurists, was classified as a subtype of the “dialectical syllogism” (al-qiyās al-jadalī), the conclusions of which were subject to debate. See Lameer, Syllogistics, 233–258; B. Weiss, Search, 655–660. See also Maimonides, Treatise on Logic, chap. 6, Eos ed., 16 (Ar.); 47 (Eng.). See also Book of the Commandments, introduction, Kafih ed., 54–55. 105. See B. Weiss, Search, 42–46; Hallaq, “Non-Analogical Arguments,” 290. 106. Levinger, Techniques, 183, regards this as a manifestation of the notion of ijmā‘. However, as recent scholarship of uṣūl al-fiqh has demonstrated, the authenticity of ḥadīth reports are guaranteed by tawātur, not ijmā‘ (a concept that Maimonides applies to some laws “extrapolated” through the middot, as mentioned above). See Zysow, Economy, 13–22, 113–125. 107. One must distinguish between Maimonides’ conception of the “transmitted interpretations”—essentially a commentary on the biblical text—and the ḥadīth, a collection of oral traditions that are not necessarily interpretations of the Qur’an. Maimonides did not simply copy the Muslim concept of ḥadīth; rather, he adapted it for his purposes. 108. Book of the Commandments, Kafih ed., 12. 109. Ibid., 15. 110. Ibid., 14. 111. Ibid., 13. 112. See n. 72 above. 113. See nn. 17, 24 above. 114. See n. 24 above. 115. See n. 17 above.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 260–265

355

116. See n. 29 above. 117. Book of the Commandments, Kafih ed., 13. For the expression guf torah, see, e.g., m.Ḥagiga 1:8, b.Ḥagiga 11b. 118. These three terms (isnād, ishāra, and talwīḥ) are used here by Maimonides to denote a type of reasonable inference om Scripture that is equivalent in rank to the syllogism (qiyās). See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 272. 119. Introduction to the Mishnah, Shailat ed., 337 (Ar.); 38 (Heb.). 120. See Chap. 1, n. 132. 121. Introduction to the Mishnah, Shailat ed., 337 (Ar.); 38–39 (Heb.). This blatant contradiction of the literal sense was especially troubling for authors living in the shadow of Karaite literalism. Cf. Kuzari 3:46–47. 122. Hilkhot Ḥovel u-Mazziq 1:2–6. 123. In using the expression “based on the tradition (mi-pi ha-shemu‘ah) they expounded” (Maimonides’ Heb. equivalent of Arabic tafsīr marwī), he acknowledges that the “transmitted interpretation” does not accord with the straightforward literal reading of Exod. 21:24 and Lev. 24:20. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 263. Maimonides actually discusses the implications of the literal reading in Guide III:41; see n. 64 above. See also Levinger, Philosopher, 56–67. 124. Maimonides occasionally makes this type of observation with respect to other laws: see Hilkhot Nedarim 3:8, Miqwa’ot 1:2, Shegagot 10:5, Melakhim 9:1. See also Twersky, Code, 57. 125. The endeavor to rationalize the rabbinic interpretation of lex talionis was quite common in the tradition that Maimonides inherited. See Saadia on Exod. 21:24, Ratzaby ed., 115–116; ha-Levi, Kuzari 3:46–47, Baneth and Ben-Shammai ed., 127; Abraham Ibn Ezra, long and short comm. on Exod. 21:24, Weiser ed., II:152, 295. 126. The inference om Num. 35:31 appears in b.Bava Qamma 83b. Maimonides’ analysis of the word taḥat resembles the talmudic application of a gezerah shawah om Exod. 21:36, “He shall surely pay ox for (taḥat) . . . ox.” See b.Bava Qamma 84a. 127. In the Maimonidean system, this differs om the separate category of purely oral traditions termed “halakhah to Moses om Sinai,” which he regarded as a minor subset that does not carry biblical (de-orayta) authority. See n. 79 above. 128. See Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash, 56–57. 129. See Chap. 1, n. 97. 130. Hilkhot Yibbum wa-Ḥaliṣah 2:6. 131. Comm. on m.Yevamot 2:8 (Kafih ed., III:15). While its application here might be disputed, this sort of grammatical observation was not uncommon in the medieval exegetical tradition. See, e.g., Zucker, Translation, 260 (citing Samuel ben Hofni); Ibn Ezra on Exod. 12:17 (short comm.), Exod. 33:7 (long comm.); Deut. 32:8; Joel 4:3; Ps. 73:17, 103:7. On medieval conceptions of the Hebrew tense system, see Chap. 5, nn. 57, 58. 132. Cf. Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Naḥalot 3:7. See also b.Bekhorot 52a. 133. See Chap. 1, n. 95. 134. See n. 24 above. 135. Negative Commandment #181, Kafih ed., 270. 136. Kafih ed., 270–271. On the text of this passage—as attested in the various manuscripts of The Book of the Commandments—see M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 419n92. 137. See Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Ma’akhalot Asurot, 4:6–9. See also M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 418–420. 138. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 401–425. 139. See Positive Commandment #213, Kafih ed., 167. 140. Hilkhot Ishut 1:2. (On the basis of this formulation, he eventually revised his wording in the Mishnah commentary. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 414n81.) See also Hilkhot Ishut 3:20, where Maimonides repeats the view that betrothal by money is merely “om the words of the scribes” and is not biblical. On the possibility that Maimonides later reversed even that view, see M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 415n83.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

356

Notes to Pages 265–269

141. See n. 27 above. 142. Responsum #355, Blau ed., II:631. 143. See n. 27 above. 144. Betrothal through money is actually derived through a gezerah shawah, and not heqqesh (see n. 24 above). But Maimonides seems to be using the latter term in the sense of Arabic qiyās, i.e., legal inference, a term he uses to denote the entire class of the midrashic middot. 145. Responsum #355, Blau ed., 631–632. 146. Rabad, Hassagot, on Ishut 1:2. In his hassagah on Hilkhot Ishut 3:20, Rabad (who had the original version of that passage; see n. 140 above) clarifies this comment, stating that Maimonides based his position on (what Rabad regarded as a mistaken understanding of ) a talmudic formulation in b.Ketubbot 3a. (Rashi cites—and rejects—the view of his teachers, who also inferred om the discussion there that betrothal by money is merely de-rabbanan.) Maimonides knew of Rabad and praised him as an important rabbinic scholar; but it is unclear whether he ever actually saw the latter’s Hassagot. See Twersky, Rabad, 195–196. Aer his death, Maimonides’ position was criticized by Daniel ben Saadia ha-Bavli in his correspondence with Abraham Maimonides, prompting the latter to write a defense in his father’s name; see Neubauer, Divrei Soferim, 152–153. 147. See Birkat Avraham, Responsum #44, Goldberg ed., 78. Surprisingly, some later scholars disputed this testimony. See Neubauer, Divrei Soferim, 153–154. Kafih, in his note on Hilkhot Ishut 1:2, acknowledges that virtually all the extant early manuscripts reflect Maimonides’ original position, although he accepts Abraham Maimonides’ testimony absolutely, which is supported by textual evidence in Hilkhot Ishut 3:20 (n. 140 above). 148. Some scholars maintain that Maimonides was motivated, in part, to compose his Book of the Commandments and Mishneh Torah to counter the Karaite threat. See Twersky, Code, 84–86. 149. See Levinger, Techniques, 183–184. 150. This critique was well-known to Maimonides’ Rabbanite predecessors, e.g., ha-Levi (see Kuzari III:22, Baneth and Ben-Shammai ed., 112) and Abraham Ibn Ezra (see Chap. 6, n. 131). On Maimonides’ familiarity with Karaite learning, see Lasker, “Karaism,” 146–150. 151. Indeed, Maimonides’ openly negative attitude did not preclude his adoption of certain Karaite views that he deemed reasonable. See Lasker, “Karaism,” 150–161. 152. While the geonic view is difficult to disprove absolutely, it does not seem consistent with the data in rabbinic literature. See Blidstein, “Halakhah”; idem, “Oral Law”; M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 243–251. Indeed, it is probably for this reason that the geonic view was challenged in al-Andalus before Maimonides’ time. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 252–257. 153. Muslim jurisprudence does not make a comparable legal distinction. Rather than slavishly following uṣūl al-fiqh, Maimonides adapts its categories to explain what he regards as the essential system of the Talmud. See also n. 107 above. 154. See nn. 61–65 above. 155. See Chap. 2, n. 118. 156. This was a step that even Ibn Janah did not take, as mentioned in Chap. 2. 157. Cf. the observation by Alastair Minnis regarding the increased prestige of the “literal sense” in late medieval Christian interpretation. See Chap. 6, nn. 153, 154. 158. One strategy employed (since the fourteenth century) to blunt the sharp edge of Maimonides’ view was to reinterpret Principle #2. In this version of the Maimonidean model, laws derived through the middot are indeed of biblical force, and when classiing them as “rabbinic” (de-rabbanan), Maimonides meant only to say that they cannot be enumerated among the original 613 commandments given at Sinai. For a detailed survey of this tradition, see Neubauer, Divrei Soferim, 30–75. This, of course, is not how Nahmanides understood the matter (as indicated in his critique), and modern scholars generally agree that Maimonides meant that such laws are indeed de-rabbanan; see Neubauer, Divrei Soferim, 24–30, 81–86; Levinger, Techniques, 46–50. Yet the apologetic reinterpretation has been revived in a more nuanced form in some recent studies; see Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash, 83; Ben-Menahem, “Roots,” 20–25.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Notes to Pages 271–276

357

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 8 1. See Septimus, “Open Rebuke,” 12. For an alternative view, see Jospe, “Arabic.” 2. Nahmanides never cites Qara or Rashbam by name in his Bible commentaries, though he does occasionally cite the latter’s talmudic interpretations in his own talmudic commentaries. There is indirect evidence that Nahmanides knew some of Rashbam’s interpretations on specific verses—and perhaps these were transmitted orally. See Novetsky, “Influences”; Jacobs, “Ramban Familiar with Rashbam?” 3. The Song of Songs commentary attributed to Nahmanides is not his, and appears to have been written by his older contemporary Ezra ben Solomon of Gerona (d. c. 1240), a kabbalistic master. See Kitvei Ramban, Chavel ed., II:473–475. It is unclear why, beyond the Pentateuch commentary, Nahmanides limited his exegetical work to the book of Job. It is conceivable that he saw a need to compose that commentary as a platform for discussing the critical problem of evil and theodicy in depth. Nahmanides’ opinion that this biblical book was penned by Moses may have also been a motivating factor. See Kitvei Ramban, Chavel ed., I:9–10. 4. See Ofer and Jacobs, Addenda. 5. See Jacobs, “Books Encountered.” 6. This couplet is attributed to the Danish Dominican Augustine of Dacia (d. 1285). See Harrington, “Augustine of Dacia.” On the four senses of Scripture as manifested in medieval Christian exegesis in general, see de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale. 7. See Chap. 3, nn. 107, 108, 111. 8. See van der Heide, “PARDES”; Idel, Absorbing Perfections, 429–434; M. Z. Cohen, “Bahya ben Asher.” 9. See references in the preceding note. 10. See Lasker, “Jewish Knowledge,” 106–107. See also E. Touitou, “Controversy.” 11. See Chazan, Barcelona and Beyond; Caputo, Nahmanides in Catalonia. 12. See Chazan, Barcelona and Beyond, 39–45, 57–64; Caputo, Nahmanides in Catalonia, 91–93. 13. See nn. 71, 72, 78 below. 14. Funkenstein, “Symbolical Reading.” 15. See Whitman, “Literal Sense,” and the following note. 16. See Minnis, Authorship, 73–112. 17. See Chap. 3, n. 117, and Whitman, “Literal Sense,” 140–143. 18. Nahmanides’ Pentateuch commentary, introduction, Chavel ed., I:16; Chavel trans., I:5. (In this chapter, Chavel’s translation is used with slight adjustments.) 19. Ibid. Cf. Prov. 27:5. See also following note. 20. See Septimus, “Open Rebuke,” 11–34; Sklarz, “Ibn Ezra in Nachmanides’ Commentary.” 21. See, e.g., M. Z. Cohen, “Great Searchings”; idem, “Shekhinah.” 22. Kitvei Ramban, Chavel ed., I:308. Trans. om Septimus, “Open Rebuke,” 21. 23. Septimus, “Open Rebuke,” 19. 24. Hassagot, Chavel ed., 31. This passage was cited in Chap. 7. 25. Hassagot, Chavel ed., 32. 26. Ibid., 45. 27. Ibid., 44. 28. Joseph Qara inferred something very different om the notion of the Torah’s “perfection” as described in Ps. 19:8. See Chap. 4, n. 82. 29. Cf. Rashbam’s notion that midrashic interpretation is derived om “the hints of the peshat.” See n. 45 below. 30. Hassagot, Chavel ed., 37. 31. See Halbertal, Way of Truth, 45. This might be compared with the use of the term perush in Leqaḥ Ṭov to connote the deeper interpretation of the Song of Songs and Qohelet, as discussed in Chap. 5.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

358

Notes to Pages 276–282

32. Hassagot, Chavel ed., 32. 33. Ibid., 37. 34. Halbertal, People, 63. 35. Hassagot, Chavel ed., 37. This is not the same as Maimonides’ account of how the Rabbis employed the midrashic middot to identi “allusions” and “hints” in the biblical text for laws that were known through a “transmitted interpretation.” (See Chap. 7, n. 118.) According to him, these applications of the middot are the product of rabbinic interpretive creativity. According to Nahmanides, they were given at Sinai and were only transmitted by the Rabbis. 36. Nahmanides on Exod. 20:8, Chavel ed., I:400; Chavel trans., II:312. For analysis of this passage of Nahmanides’ commentary in relation to Ibn Ezra, see Sklarz, “Disparity Between Peshat and Derash,” 206–208. 37. Long comm. on Exod. 20:8, Weiser ed., II:136–137. 38. Nahmanides on Exod. 20:8, Chavel ed., I:401; Chavel trans., II:313–314. The midrashic source he cites is Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, ha-Ḥodesh §7, Horovitz-Rabin ed., 229. 39. See Chap. 6, n. 78, and Yesod Mora 6:2, Cohen and Simon ed., 131. 40. Given the reasoning Nahmanides offers for this derivation (the analogy to “Sancti the fiieth year” in Lev. 25:10), it is conceivable that he regarded it as a case of gezerah shawah (see n. 35 above), though the Mekhilta does not mention this parallel. 41. Since Maimonides (following the talmudic evidence that would be noted by Nahmanides) treated the recitation of qiddush as a biblical precept, he was forced to regard the Mekhilta reading as a genuine construal of peshuto shel miqra. Had it been classified as a midrashic derivation, Maimonides would have been forced to classi the precept it yields as being de-rabbanan only. See M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 377–380. 42. See S. Yahalom, “Barcelona Disputation,” 29. 43. See n. 26 above. 44. Luma‘, 8; Riqmah, 19. 45. See Rashbam Gen. 37:2, cited in Chap. 4, n. 167. 46. See Erel, “Ramban’s Approach,” 117–133. 47. For a similar example, see his comm. on Exod. 21:8. 48. Nahmanides on Lev. 27:29, Chavel ed., II:193. 49. Mishpaṭ ha-Ḥerem, 206. 50. Ibid. This is a clear echo of the dual hermeneutical theory articulated by Rashi in his introduction to the Song of Songs. See Chap. 3, n. 67. 51. Mishpaṭ ha-Ḥerem, 206. 52. Judah Ibn Bal‘am made a similar observation about coexistence of these two readings of this verse—but without invoking the rule of peshat. See Chap. 2, n. 137. 53. See Nahmanides on b.Bava Meṣi‘a 41b. In his commentary on the relevant verses, Exod. 22:6–9, Nahmanides adjusts Rashbam’s peshat interpretation to fit with the halakhah, as he does in his comm. on Exod. 21:8. The parallels between the two commentators suggest that Nahmanides knew of Rashbam’s Pentateuch commentary, at least in oral form. See Novetsky, “Influences,” 9, and n. 2 above. 54. See Erel, “Ramban’s Approach,” 133–143. 55. Kitvei Ramban, Chavel ed., I:226. 56. Ibid. 57. For a striking parallel in contemporaneous accounts of the literal sense in Christian hermeneutics, see n. 135 below. 58. Comm. on Lev. 19:2, Chavel ed., II:115; Chavel trans., III:282. 59. Comm. on Lev. 19:2, Chavel ed., II:115–116; Chavel trans., III:282–283. 60. Heb., derekh ha-Torah. Cf. Rashbam’s citation of the typical manner of biblical style (derekh ha-miqra’ot) discussed above in Chap. 4. 61. Comm. on Lev. 19:2, Chavel ed., II:116; Chavel trans., III:283.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 282–287

359

62. His Hebrew term ‘iqqar ha-katuv may be influenced by Ibn Ezra’s reference to peshat as the “essence” (‘iqqar); see Chap. 6, n. 137. Cf. also the term ‘iqqar peshuto [shel miqra] used occasionally by Rashbam; see, e.g., his comm. on Gen. 1:1, 26:5, 32:7; Exod. 3:11; see also M. Z. Cohen, “Rashbam Scholarship,” 398. 63. See Septimus, “Open Rebuke,” 21–22; Sklarz, “Disparity Between Peshat and Derash.” 64. In his commentaries on Gen. 10:8, 11:28, e.g., Nahmanides criticizes Ibn Ezra for his skeptical attitude toward midrashic historical scenarios, but subjects them to some sort of adjustment or reinterpretation. For examples in which Nahmanides reinterprets a midrashic interpretation to make it more reasonable, see his commentaries on Gen. 1:1, 30:1, 37:17. See also Sklarz, “Nachmanides’ Exegesis of Midrash.” 65. See n. 26 above. Uriel Simon argues that Nahmanides’ endeavor to rationalize aggadic midrash “is entirely consistent” with his dual hermeneutic. See Simon, Ear Discerns, 335–336. It seems more pertinent that these two Nahmanidean perspectives on midrash are quite different om each other. 66. Tanḥuma Lekh Lekha, §9. 67. Chavel ed., I:77; Chavel trans., I:168–169. 68. Chavel ed., I:77; Chavel trans., I:170. 69. Comm. on Gen. 26:1, Chavel ed., I:148; Chavel trans., I:325. 70. Funkenstein, “Symbolical Reading,” 138, notes that Nahmanides’ typological mode of reading introduces new elements not found in Christian sources. See also Halbertal, Way of Truth, 223–228; 279–280. 71. Sermon 2, in The Works of Saint Augustine, Hill trans., 179–180. 72. See Griffith, “Disclosing the Mystery.” 73. Nahmanides, introduction to Exodus, Chavel ed., I:279; Chavel trans., II:3. 74. See n. 66 above. 75. See Funkenstein, “Symbolical Reading,” 135–136, 148–149. Cf. the observation made about Rashi’s innovative usage of the talmudic peshat maxim. See Kamin, Categorization, 57–59. 76. See, esp., Chap. 5, n. 189. 77. I am grateful to Jonathan Jacobs for confirming this in a personal communication. Nahmanides does seem to have encountered Leqaḥ Ṭov, but only at the end of his life, when he was in the Land of Israel. See Jacobs, “Books Encountered,” 8–10. 78. Augustine, On Genesis, Teske trans., 83–87; see also G. Williams and Bibire, Sagas, Saints and Settlements, 3–4. 79. Comm. on Gen. 2:3, Chavel ed., I:30–31; Chavel trans., I:61. The citation is om Genesis Rabbah 8:2, Theodor-Albeck ed., 57. 80. Funkenstein, “Symbolical Reading,” 140–141. 81. See Chap. 7, n. 65. Nahmanides was critical of Ibn Chiquitilla’s rationalist-historical outlook, as well as of Maimonides’ rationalist-historical account of the commandments. See Nahmanides on Lev. 1:9 and his “Treatise on Redemption,” in Kitvei Ramban, Chavel ed., I:165–166. See also J. Stern, Problems and Parables, 67–86. 82. See Bahya Ibn Paquda, Duties of the Heart, introduction, Kafih ed., 41–42; Maimonides, Guide III:50—a passage cited approvingly by Nahmanides; see Kitvei Ramban, Chavel ed., I:144. 83. On the approaches to this dilemma among other authors, see Pedaya, Nahmanides, 128. 84. See Twersky, “Provençal Jewry.” 85. See Talmage, David Kimhi, 27–39, 118–134. 86. See Grunhaus, Challenge. 87. See, e.g., Radak on Gen. 14:1, 27:1. See also M. Z. Cohen, “Qimhi Family,” 410–413. 88. Radak on Gen. 16:6. Nahmanides, probably influenced by Radak, likewise is critical of Sarah in this episode. The license to offer such ank criticism of the patriarchs and matriarchs is hardly to be taken for granted. It would seem that this is a distinctive strain initiated by Radak and developed by Nahmanides. See M. Z. Cohen, “Qimhi Family,” 411.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

360

Notes to Pages 287–291

89. See M. Z. Cohen, “Qimhi Family,” 411. The fourteenth-century Provençal exegete and philosopher Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides) brought this endeavor to new heights by systematically deriving a moral lesson (to‘elet; “benefit,” “use”) om each and every biblical narrative. 90. I hope to document this more fully in a future study. 91. See Chap. 6, and M. Z. Cohen, Gates, 191–203. 92. Comm. on Gen. 26:20, Chavel ed., I:152; Chavel trans., I:334–335. 93. Comm. on Gen. 26:20, Chavel ed., I:152; Chavel trans., I:334. 94. Intriguingly, the early church father Origen similarly noted that some of the historical details of the Old Testament, as well as some of its laws—taken literally—have little to offer in terms of faith and doctrine and that their value emerges only when interpreted spiritually. See Paget, “Alexandrian Tradition,” 513. 95. See Halbertal, Way of Truth; Idel, “Spiritual Leadership”; Pedaya, Nahmanides; E. Wolfson, “Way of Truth.” 96. Some of the discussions in this introduction find parallels in his sermon “The Law of the Lord Is Perfect” (Kitvei Ramban, Chavel ed., I:139–175). See Pedaya, Nahmanides, 127–129. 97. Chavel ed., I:1; Chavel trans., I:7. 98. See Chap. 7, n. 72. 99. Comm., Chavel ed., I:2; Chavel trans., I:8. 100. Chavel ed., I:1; Chavel trans., I:7. 101. See Pedaya, Nahmanides, 129–130. 102. See Chap. 4. On Nahmanides’ possible awareness of Rashbam’s work, see nn. 2, 53 above. 103. As discussed in Chap. 1, modern scholars debate this matter. Yet Yefet undeniably opens the door to such inquiry, a door that Nahmanides closes. Interestingly, in one case where Yefet used the term al-mudawwin to refer to Moses’ role as the Pentateuch narrator, Nahmanides uses the neutral term ha-katuv (“Scripture”). See Nahmanides on Exod. 2:1, compared with Yefet (see Chap. 1, n. 279). On this distinction, see Viezel, “Medieval Bible Commentators,” 122n75; Elbaum, “Anthology,” 88–89. Admittedly, there is no evidence that Nahmanides had direct access to Yefet’s commentaries, about which he would have known om citations in Ibn Ezra. 104. Chavel ed., I:1; Chavel trans., I:7. 105. Chavel ed., I:3; Chavel trans., I:9. 106. Ibid. 107. Chavel ed., I:4; Chavel trans., I:10. On these categories, see Pedaya, Nahmanides, 135–137. 108. Nahmanides on Gen. 1:2, Chavel ed., I:15; Chavel trans., I:27. 109. Nahmanides on Gen. 3:22, Chavel ed., I:42; Chavel trans., I:86. 110. Kitvei Ramban, Chavel ed., II:295–297. On this passage and its implications, see E. Wolfson, “Way of Truth,” 122–123. Nahmanides elsewhere acknowledges his source in Ibn Ezra’s remark, “In the Tree of Knowledge there is a pleasant secret (sod), but the things are also true according to their literal sense (ke-mashma‘am).” See Kitvei Ramban, Chavel ed., I:180; Ibn Ezra, Standard Pentateuch Introduction, Weiser ed., I:7. Unlike Nahmanides, Ibn Ezra regarded this sort of dual scriptural signification as the exception rather than the rule. See Simon, Ear Discerns, 21–26. 111. See n. 79 above. 112. Nahmanides on Gen. 1:3, Chavel ed., I:16; Chavel trans., I:28. For an explanation of the correspondence between these “days” and the sefirot, see E. Wolfson, “Way of Truth,” 121. 113. E. Wolfson, “Way of Truth,” 120. 114. See Whitman, “Textual to Temporal.” In Christian hermeneutics, this sort of conceptual transfer is associated with the technique of allegory, as opposed to typology. 115. Halbertal, Concealment and Revelation, 91. 116. Nahmanides acknowledges that some kabbalistic doctrines may have been transmitted orally only; but he specifies that others are “written in the Torah.” See Kitvei Ramban, Chavel ed., I:163. See also E. Wolfson, “Way of Truth,” 118–119. 117. Rashi on Gen. 1:1, Berliner ed., 1, 424, drawing upon Tanḥuma ha-Qadum, Bereshit §11, Buber ed., I:7.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Notes to Pages 292–296

361

118. See Nahmanides on Gen. 1:1, Chavel ed., I:9; Chavel trans., I:17. Cf. Principle #4 of Maimonides thirteen principles of faith in his introduction to Pereq Ḥeleq, Shailat ed., 370 (Ar.); 141–142 (Heb.). 119. Nahmanides on Gen. 1:1, Chavel ed., I:9; Chavel trans., I:18. 120. See Chap. 4, n. 244. 121. See Nahmanides on Gen. 1:1, Chavel ed., 9–10. 122. See n. 115 above. 123. Chavel ed., I:7; Chavel trans., I:13. 124. See Scholem, Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, 37–44; Idel, Absorbing Perfections, 321–324; E. Wolfson, “Way of Truth,” 109–110, 117n44. 125. Chavel ed., I:7; Chavel trans., I:14. 126. See Chap. 6, n. 82. 127. Nahmanides on Exod. 20:8, Chavel ed., I:398–399. 128. Probably for this reason, he remains silent on this point in his commentary on Exod. 20:8, even when criticizing Ibn Ezra for his skepticism about the doctrine of omnisignificance. 129. See Mack, “Seventy Faces.” This doctrine was rejected openly by the Karaite exegete alQumisi. See Chap. 1, n. 152. But it was also attenuated tacitly by the singular hermeneutical models of Ibn Ezra and Maimonides, as discussed below. 130. See Kamin, Jews and Christians, xxxii–xxxiii. 131. See n. 23 above. 132. See Funkenstein, “Symbolical Reading,” 134–139. 133. See Chap. 3, n. 232. 134. In some instances Nahmanides applies “logos symbolism” (by the definition given here) in his kabbalistic readings, e.g., his reading of Gen. 1:1 cited in n. 108 above. The point is that figuration is a mechanism more congenial to the rule of peshat and therefore seems to have been attractive to Nahmanides. 135. Copeland, “Rhetoric and the Literal Sense,” 340. See also Evans, Language and Logic, 51–59. On this valuation of the literal sense by Hugh of Saint Victor, see Chap. 3, n. 229. 136. Minnis, Authorship, ix. 137. Ibid., x. 138. See Minnis, “Material Swords,” 292–308. 139. See Minnis, Authorship, 73–112. 140. See Chap. 6, n. 121. 141. See Chap. 6, n. 122. 142. Alfonso de Madrigal similarly concluded om Aquinas’s valuation that whereas the literal sense is the “immediate” sense of Scripture, the spiritual or mystical senses are “mediate”: they are not the senses of the littera but rather of the things that the littera signifies. See Minnis, “Figuring the Letter,” 170. 143. See D. Berger, “Miracles,” 112–113; Septimus, “Open Rebuke,” 21; E. Wolfson, “Way of Truth,” 131–142. 144. See Chap. 1, n. 93. 145. See Chap. 1, n. 97. Furthermore, on Deut. 25:6, Weiser ed., III:287, Ibn Ezra glosses: “The first born whom she bears—will be called by the name of his brother [the deceased].” In principle, Ibn Ezra does not allow for peshat interpretations that contradict the halakhah. Yet it is unclear here how he resolved the contradiction—of which he may have not been fully aware, as he was not a talmudic scholar. 146. Nahmanides here uses the term peshat the way Saadia used the Arabic term ẓāhir, what would appear to be the sense of the verse—if not for other considerations that indicate otherwise. See Chap. 1, n. 86. 147. Chavel ed., II:465; Chavel trans., V:304–305. In his editorial note, Chavel explains the last lines of Nahmanides’ comment in the following way: “since the purpose of the levirate marriage is as stated by Scripture that ‘the name of the dead be not blotted out om Israel,’ by definition a

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

362

Notes to Pages 297–299

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

sterile woman is excluded om the commandment for she cannot fulfill that function. . . . Similarly, the widow of the eunuch may not be contracted for such a marriage since his name was already ‘blotted out’ when yet alive and no special verse is necessary to exclude his widow om such a marriage. These laws, therefore, are derived om the very essence of the chapter.” In his insistence that these laws are actually expressed clearly by gufeh di-qera, i.e., Scripture, and are not truly derived om the midrashic readings given in the Talmud, Nahmanides reveals his Maimonidean tendency to ground the halakhah in peshuto shel miqra. See n. 54 above. 148. See Nahmanides on Gen. 38:8, Chavel ed., I:214–215. See also Idel, “Kabbalistic Tradition,” 52–54. 149. See Guide II:6 and II:42. 150. Nahmanides on Gen. 18:1, Chavel ed., I:103; Chavel trans., I:226–227. 151. Chavel ed., I:103; Chavel trans., I:227. 152. Chavel ed., I:104; Chavel trans., I:227–228. 153. Chavel ed., I:104; Chavel trans., I:228. 154. Chavel ed., I:104; Chavel trans., I:228. It is on the basis of this belief that Nahmanides raises the possibility of reinterpreting the account of Balaam’s donkey “seeing” an angel in Num. 22:23; see his comm. 155. Chavel ed., I:105–106; Chavel trans., I:231. 156. On this doctrine in Nahmanides and other kabbalists, see E. Wolfson, “Garment.” 157. For attempts by later Maimonidean commentators to harmonize his approach with Scripture, see M. Z. Cohen, Three Approaches, 199–200. 158. For other examples of this sort, see M. Z. Cohen, “Shekhinah.” See also J. Stern, Problems and Parables, 84.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Bibliography

Primary Sources The Hebrew Bible is cited according to the NJPS translation, with minor adjustments. Medieval Jewish Bible commentaries are cited om critical editions where available, as listed below, and otherwise om the Rabbinic Bible (Miqra’ot Gedolot), which has been published in a number of versions. For the Pentateuch, Torat Ḥayyim, ed. Mordechai Katzenellenbogen (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1986–1993), was used. Miqra’ot Gedolot ha-Keter, ed. Menachem Cohen (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1990–), was used where available (to date, the following volumes have been published: Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Psalms). r abbinic works cited

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

The Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds are cited in this volume according to the traditional printed editions. Other rabbinic texts are cited either om the standard printed editions or, where available, om critical editions, as enumerated below, each according to its own paragraph system and/or pagination, as applicable. Avot de-Rabbi Natan, ed. Solomon Schechter. New York: Feldheim, 1967. Exodus Rabbah, ed. Avigdor Shinan (chaps. 1–14). Jerusalem: Devir, 1984. Genesis Rabbah, ed. Julius Theodor and Chanoch Albeck. Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1965. Leviticus Rabbah, ed. Mordecai Margulies. Jerusalem: Ministry of Education, 1953–1960. Mekhilta (Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael), ed. Saul Horovitz and Israel A. Rabin. Jerusalem: Bamberger and Wahrmann, 1960. Midrash Aggadah, ed. Salomon Buber. Vienna, 1894. Mishnat Rabbi Eliezer (The Mishnah of Rabbi Eliezer or the Midrash of Thirty-Two Hermeneutic Rules), ed. Hyman G. Enelow. New York: Bloch, 1933. Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, ed. Bernard Mandelbaum. New York: JTS, 1962. Qohelet Rabbah (Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 1–6), ed. Marc Hirshman. Jerusalem: Schechter Institute, 2016. Ruth Rabbah (“Book of Ruth in Aggadic Literature and Midrash Ruth Rabba”), ed. Myron B. Lerner. Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1971. Sifra (Sifra de-Bei Rav / Torat Kohanim [on Leviticus]), ed. Isaac H. Weiss. Vienna: Schlossberg, 1862. Sifrei Deuteronomy (Sifre ad Deuteronomium), ed. Louis Finkelstein. New York: Wahrmann, 1969. Song of Songs Rabbah (Midrash Rabbah Shir ha-Shirim), ed. Samson Dunski. Jerusalem: Devir, 1980. Tanḥuma ha-Qadum, ed. Salomon Buber. Jerusalem: Ortsel, 1964. Tosefta, ed. Moses S. Zuckermandel. Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1963. other primary sources Abelard, Peter. The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, trans. Betty Radice. London: Penguin, 2003. Aquinas, Thomas. Summa theologiae, ed. Pietro Caramello. 5 vols. Turin: Marietti, 1952–1956.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

364

Bibliography

Augustine. On Genesis, trans. Roland Teske. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001. ———. Enarrationes in Psalmos, ed. Eligius Dekkers. Turnhout: Brepols, 1956. English: Saint Augustine: Exposition on the Book of Psalms, trans. A[rthur] Cleveland Coxe. Vol. 8 of A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1886. ———. The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century. Sermons I:1–19 on the Old Testament, trans. Edmund Hill. Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1990. Bruno the Carthusian. Commentaire des Psaumes attribué à saint Bruno, trans. A. Aniorté. Le Barroux: Sainte Madeleine, 2017. Cassiodorus. Expositio in Psalterium in Magni Aurelii Cassiodori senatoris opera. Turnhout: Brepols, 1958. English: Cassiodorus: Explanation of the Psalms, trans. Patrick G. Walsh. New York: Paulist Press, 1990. David ben Abraham al-Fāsī. The Hebrew-Arabic Dictionary of the Bible, Known as Kitāb Jāmiʻ AlAlfāẓ (Agrōn) of David ben Abraham al-Fā sī, ed. Solomon Leon Skoss. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1936. Dunash ben Labrat. Teshuvot Dunash ha-Levi ben Labrat, ʻal Rabi Seʻadyah Ga‘on, ed. Robert Schröter. Jerusalem: Vagshal, 1986. ———. Tes̮ ubot de Dunas̮ ben Labrat, ed. and trans. [Spanish] Angel Sáenz-Badillos. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1980. Gregory the Great. Moralia in Job, ed. Marcus Adriaen. Turnhout: Brepols, 1979. English: Moral Reflections on the Book of Job, trans. Brian Kerns. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press / Cistercian Publications, 2014. Halakhot Gedolot, Introduction (Haqdamat Sefer Halakhot Gedolot), ed. Naali Z. Hildesheimer, in Sefer Halakhot Gedolot, ed. Ezriel Hildesheimer, III:25–112. Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1987. Hugh of Saint Victor. Didascalicon, ed. Charles Henry Buttimer. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1939. English: The Didascalicon of Hugh of Saint Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts, trans. Jerome Taylor. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Ibn Bal‘am, Judah. Rabbi Judah Ibn Bal‘am’s Commentary on Ezekiel, ed. and trans. Maaravi Perez. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2000. ———. Rabbi Judah Ibn Bal‘am’s Commentary on Isaiah, ed. and trans. Moshe Goshen-Gottstein and M. Perez. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1992. ———. Rabbi Judah Ibn Bal‘am’s Commentary on Jeremiah, ed. and trans. Maaravi Perez. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2002. ———. “Rabbi Judah Ibn Bal‘am’s Commentary on Numbers and Deuteronomy,” ed. and trans. Maaravi Perez. M.A. thesis, Bar-Ilan University, 1970. ———. Commentary on Joshua (“Perush ‘al sefer Yehoshu’a le-R. Yehuda ibn Bal‘am”), ed. Samuel Poznanski. In Festschrift zum siebzigsten Geburtstage A. Berliners, ed. Aron Freimann and Meier Hildesheimer, 91–107. Frankfurt am Main: J. Kauff mann, 1903. Ibn Barun, Isaac. Kitāb al-Muwāzana, ed. Paul Kokozoff. Saint Petersburg, 1890; repr., Jerusalem: Kedem, 1971. Ibn Ezra, Abraham. Pentateuch Commentary (Perushei ha-Torah le-rabbenu Avraham Ibn Ezra), ed. Asher Weiser. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1977. ———. Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Two Commentaries on the Minor Prophets, ed. Uriel Simon. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1989. ———. El Commentario de Abraham Ibn Ezra al Libro de Job: Edición crítica, traducción y estudio introductorio, ed. and trans. Mariano Gómez Aranda. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2004. ———. Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Commentary on the Canticles, ed. and trans. Henry J. Mathews. Oxford: Trübner, 1874. ———. El Comentario de Abraham Ibn Ezra al Libro del Eclesiastés, ed. and trans. M. Gómez Aranda. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1994.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

365

———. Safah Berurah, ed. and trans. [Spanish] Enrique Ruiz Gonzá lez and Á ngel SáenzBadillos. Cordoba: El Almendro, 2004. ———. “Sefat Yeter (The Book of Defense on Rabbi Saadiah Gaon),” ed. Igal Oshri. M.A. thesis, Bar-Ilan University, 1988. Earlier ed., Meir Letteris. Pressburg: Anton Édlin fon Shmid, 1838. ———. Sefer Moznayim, ed. and trans. [Spanish] Lorenzo Jiménez Patón and Á ngel SáenzBadillos. Cordoba: El Almendro, 2002. ———. Yesod Diqduq, ed. Nehemya Allony. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1985. ———. Yesod Mora ve-Sod Torah (The foundation of piety and the secret of the Torah), ed. Joseph Cohen and Uriel Simon. 2nd ed. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2007. Ibn Ezra, Moses. Book of Discussion and Conversation (Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa-l-Mudhākara] Sefer ha-‘Iyyunim we-ha-Diyyunim]), ed. and trans. Abraham S. Halkin. Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1975. ———. The Treatise of the Garden on the Matter of Majāz and Ḥaqīqa (Maqālat al-Ḥadīqa fi Ma‘na l-Majāz wa-l-Ḥaqīqa), MS Jerusalem, National Library of Israel 8°5701. Ibn Janah, Jonah. Kitāb al-Luma‘ (Le livre de parterres fleuris: Grammaire hébraïque en arabe d‘Abou’l-Walid Merwan Ibn Djanah de Cordoue), ed. Joseph Derenbourg. Paris: F. Vieweg, 1886. Hebrew trans. Judah Ibn Tibbon, Sefer ha-Riqmah, ed. Michael Wilensky. 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Academy of the Hebrew Language, 1964. ———. Kitāb al-Uṣūl: The Book of Hebrew Roots, ed. Adolf Neubauer. London: Clarendon, 1875. Hebrew trans. Judah Ibn Tibbon, Sefer ha-Shorashim, ed. Wilhelm Bacher. Berlin: Itzkowski, 1893. Ibn Paquda, Bahya ben Joseph. Duties of the Heart (Al-Hidāya ilā Farā’iḍ al-Qulūb: Sefer Torat Ḥovot ha-Levavot), ed. and trans. Joseph Kafih. New York: Feldheim, 1984. Jacob ben Reuben. Sefer ha-‘Osher. In Aaron ben Joseph, Mivḥar yesharim, ed. Abraham Firkowitsch. Eupatoria: n.p., 1835. Jāḥiẓ, Abu Uthman Amr b. Baḥr al-. Refutation of the Christians (Radd ‘alā al-naṣārā). In Three Essays of Abu Othman Amr ibn Baḥr al-Jaḥiẓ, ed. Joshua Finkel. Cairo: Al-Maṭbaʻa al-Salaa, 1926. Jerome. Hebraicae quaestiones in libro Geneseos, Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominum, Commentarioli in Psalmos, Commentarius in Ecclesiasten, ed. Paul de Lagarde. Turnhout: Brepols, 1959. Kesef Mishneh, commentary on Mishneh Torah by R. Joseph Karo, printed in standard editions of Mishneh Torah (see below, under Moses Maimonides). Kimhi, Joseph. Sefer ha-Berit, ed. Frank Talmage. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1974. ———. Sefer ha-Galuy, ed. Henry Mathews. Berlin: Itzkowski, 1887. ha-Levi, Judah. Kuzari: Kitāb al-Radd wa-d-Dalīl fī d-Dīn adh-Dhalīl, ed. David Z. Baneth and Haggai Ben-Shammai. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977. Maimonides, Abraham ben Moses. Birkat Avraham, ed. Baer Goldberg. Lyck: Petzall, 1859. Maimonides, Moses. Book of the Commandments (Sefer ha-Mitzvot), ed. and trans. Joseph Kafih. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1971. Medieval Hebrew trans. Moses Ibn Tibbon, ed. Hayyim Heller. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1946. ———. Guide of the Perplexed (Dalālāt al-Ḥa’irīn), ed. Salomon Munk and Issachar Joel. Jerusalem: J. Junovitch, 1930. English trans., Shlomo Pines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963. Medieval Hebrew translation, Moreh ha-Nevukhim, by Samuel Ibn Tibbon, ed. Yehuda Even Shmuel. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 2000. ———. Introduction to the Mishnah, Introduction to Pereq Ḥeleq (m.Sanhedrin X) (both part of Maimonides’ Mishnah Commentary). In Haqdamot ha-Rambam la-Mishnah, ed. and trans. Isaac Shailat. Jerusalem: Maaliyot Press, 1992. Medieval Hebrew translation of the Introduction to the Mishnah by Judah Alharizi, in R. Moshe ben Maimon: Haqdamot le-perush haMishnah, ed. Mordekhai D. Rabinowitz. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1960. ———. Mishnah Commentary. Mishnah ‘im perush R. Moshe ben Maimon, ed. and trans. Joseph Kafih. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1963–1968.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

366

Bibliography

———. Mishneh Torah (Code of Jewish Law), ed. Joseph Kafih based on Yemenite manuscripts. Jerusalem: Mekhon Mishnat ha-Rambam, 1983–1996. Standard printed version with traditional commentaries. Jerusalem: Shabsai Frankel, 2016. ———. Responsa, ed. and trans. Joshua Blau. 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1986. ———. Treatise on Logic (Maqāla fī Ṣinā‘at al-Manṭiq: Maimonides’ Treatise on Logic, the Original Arabic and Three Hebrew Translations), ed. Israel Eos. New York: American Academy of Jewish Research, 1938. ———. Treatise on Resurrection (Maqāla fi Teḥiyyat ha-Metim), ed. and trans. Isaac Shailat, in Letters and Essays of Moses Maimonides. Jerusalem: Maaliyot, 1987–1988, I:315–374. Menahem ben Saruq. Maḥberet, ed. and trans. [Spanish] Angel Sáenz-Badillos. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1986. Menahem ben Saruq, disciples of. Teshuvot Talmidei Menahem (Těšubot de los discipulos de Měnaḥem contra Dunaš ben Labrat), ed. and trans. [Spanish] Santiaga Benavente Robles. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1986. Menahem ben Solomon. Sekhel Ṭov, ed. Salomon Buber. Berlin: Itzkowski, 1900. Nahmanides, Moses. Commentary on the Torah (Perush ha-Ramban ‘al ha-Torah), ed. Chaim D. Chavel. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1976. English: Ramban: Commentary on the Torah, trans. Charles B. Chavel. New York: Shilo, 1971–1976. ———. Commentary on Job, in Kitvei Ramban (see below) I:9–128. ———. Commentary on Talmud Baba Meṣi‘a (Ḥiddushei ha-Ramban ʻal Masekhet Baba Meṣi‘a). Jerusalem: Mekhon Ma‘arava, 1991; Yevamot, in Ḥiddushei ha-Ramban ʻal Masekhtot Yevamot, Ketubot, Soṭah, Mishpaṭ ha-Ḥerem. Zikhron Yaʻaḳov: Ha-Makhon le-hotsaʼat sefarim ṿekhitve yad shele-yad ha-Merkaz le-ḥinukh Torani, 1992. ———. Hassagot (Sefer ha-Mitzvot ‘im Hassagot ha-Ramban [Critique of Maimonides’ Book of the Commandments]), ed. Chaim D. Chavel. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1981. ———. Kitvei Ramban (Nahmanides’ writings), ed. Chaim D. Chavel. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1963–1964. ———. Mishpaṭ ha-Ḥerem. In Ḥiddushei ha-Ramban ʻal Masekhtot Yevamot, Ketubot, Soṭah, Mishpaṭ ha-Ḥerem (see above). Qara, Joseph. Commentary on Former Prophets (Perushei Rabbi Yosef Qara li-nevi’im rishonim), ed. Simon Eppenstein. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1972. ———. Rabbi Joseph Kara’s Commentary on Job, ed. Moshe Ahrend. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1988. Qirqisani, Jacob. Kitāb Al-Anwār wal-Marāqib: Code of Karaite Law, ed. Leon Nemoy. New York: Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation, 1939–1942. al-Qumisi, Daniel. Commentarius in Librum Duodecim Prophetarum (Pitron Shneim ‘Asar), ed. Isaac D. Markon. Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1947. Rabad (R. Abraham ben David), strictures (hassagot) on Mishneh Torah, printed in the standard editions of Mishneh Torah (see above, under Maimonides). Rashbam (Samuel ben Meir). Pentateuch Commentary (Perush ha-Torah asher katav Rashbam), ed. David Rosin. Breslau: Shottlender, 1881. Newly edited by Meir (Martin) Lockshin. Jerusalem: Horev, 2009. ———. The Commentary of Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam) on the Book of Job, ed. Sara Japhet. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2000. ———. The Commentary of Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam) on the Song of Songs, ed. Sara Japhet. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2008. ———. The Commentary of R. Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam) on Qoheleth, ed. and trans. [English], Sara Japhet and Robert Salters. Jerusalem and Leiden: Magnes and Brill, 1985. ———. Dayyaqut me-Rabbenu Shemuel [ben Meʼir (RaSHMBaM)], ed. Ronela Merdler. Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1999. Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac). Pentateuch Commentary (Raschi: Der Kommentar des Salomo B. Isak über den Pentateuch), ed. Abraham Berliner. 2nd ed. Frankfurt am Main: J. Kauffmann, 1905.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

367

———. Song of Songs Commentary, according to JTS MS Lutzki 778, in Sarah Kamin and Avrom Saltman, Secundum Salomonem: A Thirteenth-Century Latin Commentary on the Song of Songs, 81–99 (Hebrew sec.). Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1989. ———. Rashi’s Commentary on Psalms, ed. Mayer I. Gruber. Leiden: Brill, 2004. ———. The Book of Job with the Commentaries of Rashi, Rabbenu Jacob b. Meir Tam and a Disciple of Rashi, ed. Avraham Shoshana. Jerusalem: Ofeq Institute, 2000. Saadia Gaon. Tafsīr (Pentateuch translation), in Oeuvres complètes de R. Saadia ben Iosef al-Fayyoûmî, ed. Joseph Derenbourg. Paris: E. Leroux, 1893. ———. Saadya’s Commentary on Genesis, ed. and trans. Moshe Zucker. New York: JTS, 1984. ———. Rav Saadya’s Commentary on Exodus, ed. and trans. Yitzchak Ratzaby. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1998. ———. Psalms Commentary (Tehillim ‘im tirgum u-ferush ha-ga’on Rabbenu Se‘adya), ed. Joseph Kafih. Jerusalem: Qeren ha-rav Yehuda Leib we-ishto Ḥannah Epstein, 1966. ———. Proverbs Commentary (Mishlei ‘im tirgum u-ferush ha-ga’on Rabbenu Se‘adya), ed. Joseph Kafih. Jerusalem: Ha-wa‘ad le-hoṣa’at sie Rasag, 1973. ———. Beliefs and Opinions (Kitāb al-Mukhtār fi-l-Amānāt wa-l-I‘tiqādāt; Sefer ha-Nivḥar beEmunot we-De‘ot), ed. and trans. Joseph Kafih. Jerusalem: Ministry of Education, 1993. ———. Explanation of the Seventy Isolated Biblical Words (Tafsīr al-sab‘īn lafẓah al-mufradah), ed. Nehemya Allony. In Nehemya Allony, Studies in Medieval Philology and Literature: Collected Papers (Hebrew), I:27–88. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1986. Salmon ben Jeruhim. The Arabic Commentary of Salmon ben Yeruham. the Karaite, on Psalms Chapters 42–72, ed. Lawrence Marwick. Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1956. ———. Book of the Wars of the Lord, ed. Israel Davidson. New York: JTS, 1934. Samuel ben Hofni Gaon. Rabbi Shmuel B. Chofni: Liber Prooemium Talmudis, ed. and trans. Shraga Abramson. Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1990. Samuel ben Meir. See under Rashbam. Samuel of Rossano. Pentateuch Commentary (Sefer Rushaina), ed. Moshe Weiss. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1976. Solomon ben Isaac. See under Rashi. Tam, Rabbenu Jacob. Hakhra‘ot (“Rabbeinu Tam’s Resolution Treatise on the Conontation Between Menahem ben Saruq and Dunash ben Labrat”), ed. Gedalia Lasser. Ph.D. diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2011. Older ed., Herschell Filipowski in Teshuvot Dunash ben Labrat, London, 1855. Thierry of Chartres, De sex dierum operibus. In Commentaries on Boethius by Thierry of Chartres, ed. Nicholas M. Haring, 553–575. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1971. Tobiah ben Eliezer. Pentateuch Commentary (Midrash Leqaḥ Ṭov). Genesis and Exodus, ed. Salomon Buber (2 vols.). Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, ed. Aaron Moses Padua. Vilnius: Rom, 1884. ———. The Commentary of Rabbi Tobia ben Elieser on Canticles (Perush Leqaḥ Ṭov ‘al Shir haShirim), ed. Albert Greenup. London: n.p., 1909. ———. Tobia ben Elieser’s Commentar zu Koheleth (Leqaḥ Ṭov), ed. Gerson Feinberg. Berlin: Itzkowski, 1904. Yefet ben Eli. Yefet ben Eli’s Commentary on Hosea, ed. and trans. Meira Polliack and Eliezer Schlossberg. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2009. ———. The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben ‘Eli on the Book of Proverbs, ed. and trans. Ilana Sasson. Leiden: Brill, 2016. ———. The Commentary of Yefet ben ʿEli the Karaite on the Book of Ruth, ed. and trans. Sagit Butbul. Sefunot: Studies and Sources on the History of the Jewish Communities in the East 23 (2003): 459–571. ———. Old Jewish Commentaries on the Song of Songs I: The Commentary of Yefet ben Eli, ed. and trans. Joseph Alobaidi. Bern: Peter Lang, 2010. ———. “The Arabic Commentary of Yephet ben ʻAli on the Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapters 1–6,” ed. and trans. Richard M. Bland. Ph.D. diss., University of California, 1982.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

368

Bibliography

———. The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben Eli the Karaite on the Book of Esther, ed. and trans. Michael Wechsler. Leiden: Brill, 2008. ———. A Commentary on the Book of Daniel by Rabbi Japhet the Karaite, ed. and trans. David Samuel Margoliouth. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889.

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Secondary Sources Abulafia, Anna Sapir, and Gillian R. Evans. The Works of Gilbert Crispin, Abbot of Westminster. London: Oxford University Press, 1986. Ahrend, Moshe. “The Concept Peshuto Shellamiqra’ in the Making” (Hebrew). In Japhet, Bible in Light of Its Interpreters, 237–261. ———. Qara on Job. See under Qara, Joseph, in Primary Sources. Allony, Nehemya. “Vistas caraistas en el Mahberet de Menahem” (Hebrew). Tesoro de los Judios Sefardies 5 (1962): 21–54. Alster, Baruch. “Human Love and Its Relationship to Spiritual Love in Jewish Exegesis on the Song of Songs” (Hebrew). Ph.D. diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2006. Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Poetry. New York: Basic Books, 2011. Altmann, Alexander. “Saadya’s Conception of the Law.” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 28 (1944): 320–339. ———, and S. M. Stern. Isaac Israeli: A Neoplatonic Philosopher of the Early Tenth Century. London: Oxford University Press, 1958. Anchor, Robert. “History and Play: Johan Huizinga and His Critics.” History and Theory 17 (1978): 63–93. Andrée, Alexander. “Laon Revisited: Master Anselm and the Creation of a Theological School in the Twelh Century.” Journal of Medieval Latin 22 (2012): 257–281. Ankori, Zvi. “Elijah Bashyatchi: An Inquiry into His Traditions Concerning the Beginnings of Karaism in Byzantium” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 25 (1955): 44–65. ———. Karaites in Byzantium: The Formative Years, 970–1100. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959. Astren, Fred. “Islamic Contexts of Medieval Karaism.” In Polliack, Karaite Judaism, 145–177. ———. Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004. Attias, Jean-Christophe. “Eliahu Mizrahi, sur-commentateur de Rashi (Constantinople, XVe–XVIe siècles): Questions de méthode.” In Rashi, 1040–1990: Hommage à Ephraïm E. Urbach. Congrès européen des Etudes juives [IV, 1990], ed. Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, 475–481. Paris: Cerf, 1993. Bacher, Wilhelm. Die Bibelexegese Moses Maimûni’s. Budapest, 1896; repr., Farnborough: Gregg International, 1972. Baer, Isaac. “Rashi and the Historical Reality of His Time” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 20 (1949): 320–332. Banitt, Menahem. “Les Poterim.” REJ 125 (1966): 21–33. ———. Rashi, Interpreter of the Biblical Letter. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1985. Bar-Asher, Meir M., et al., eds. A Word Fitly Spoken: Studies in Mediaeval Exegesis of the Hebrew Bible and the Qur’ān Presented to Haggai Ben-Shammai Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2007. Bar-Asher, Moshe, et al., eds. Shai le-Sara Japhet: Studies in the Bible, Its Exegesis and Its Language. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2007. Baron, Salo W. A Social and Religious History of the Jews. New York: Columbia University Press, 1952. Baswell, Christopher. Virgil in Medieval England: Figuring the Aeneid from the Twelfth Century to Chaucer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Becker, Dan. The Arabic Sources of R. Jonah Ibn Janāḥ’s Grammar (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1998. Ben-Menahem, Hanina. “Maimonides’ Fourteen Roots: Logical Structure and Conceptual Analysis.” Jewish Law Annual 13 (2000): 3–29. Ben-Shalom, Haya. “Le-shiṭato ha-parshanit shel R. Menahem ben R. Shelomo be-perusho al ha-Torah Sekhel Ṭov” (On the exegetical method of R. Menahem ben Solomon in his

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

369

Pentateuch commentary Sekhel Ṭov). In Turim: Studies in Jewish History and Literature Presented to Dr. Bernard Lander, vol. 2, ed. Michael A. Shmidman, ‫( א–נח‬1–58). New York: Touro College Press, 2008. Ben-Shammai, Haggai. “A ‘Different’ Theological-Political Thinking: The Karaite Mourners of Zion” (Hebrew). In Zionism and the Return to History: A Reappraisal (Hebrew), ed. Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt and Moshe Lissak, 149–154. Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 1999. ———. “The Doctrines of Religious Thought of Abū Yūsuf Yaʻqūb al-Qirqisānī and Yefet ben ʻElī” (Hebrew). Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 1977. ———. “Fragments of Daniel al-Qumisi’s Commentary on the Book of Daniel as a Historical Source.” Henoch: Studi storicofilologici sull’ebraismo. Torino 13, no. 3 (1991): 259–281. ———. “From Rabbinic Homilies to Geonic Doctrinal Exegesis: The Story of the Witch of En Dor as a Test Case.” In Exegetical Crossroads: Understanding Scripture in Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Pre-Modern Orient, ed. Georges Tamer et al., 163–197. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018. ———. “Jewish Thought in Iraq in the 10th Century.” In Judaeo-Arabic Studies: Proceedings of the Founding Conference of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies, ed. Norman Golb. 15–32. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997. ———. “A Jewish Wool Merchant in Tenth-Century Mosul Defends Resorting to ‘the Sages of the Nations’: An Early Encounter Between Jewish Bible Exegesis and Graeco-Arabic Philosophy.” In Pesher Nahum: Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages Presented to Norman (Nahum) Golb, ed. Joel L. Kraemer and Michael G. Wechsler, 11–31. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2012. ———. “Kalam in Medieval Jewish Philosophy.” In History of Jewish Philosophy, ed. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, 115–148. London: Routledge, 1997. ———. “The Karaite Controversy: Scripture and Tradition in Early Karaism.” In Religionsgespräche im Mittelalter, ed. Bernard Lewis and Friedrich Niewöhner, 11–26. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1992. ———. A Leader’s Project: Studies in the Philosophical and Exegetical Works of Saadya Gaon (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2015. ———. “Major Trends in Karaite Philosophy and Polemics in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries.” In Polliack, Karaite Judaism, 339–362. ———. “On the Mudawwin—Editor of the Biblical Books—in Judeo-Arabic Exegesis” (Hebrew). In From Sages to Savants: Studies Presented to Avraham Grossman, ed. Joseph R. Hacker, Yosef Kaplan, and B. Z. Kedar, 73–110. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2010. ———. “Recensions and Versions of Yefet ben Eli’s Commentary on the Bible” (Hebrew). Alei Sefer 2 (1976): 17–32. ———. “The Tension Between Literal Interpretation and Exegetical Freedom.” In McAuliffe et al., Reverence for the Word, 33–50. ———. “ ‘ The Torah Speaks in a Language of Humans’: How Much ‘a Language of Humans’? Comparative Observations on the Approaches of R. Saadya Gaon and His Contemporary Karaites” (Hebrew). In Japhet and Viezel, Plain Meaning, 59–69. ———. “Yeshuah ben Yehudah: A Characterization of a Karaite Scholar of Jerusalem in the Eleventh Century” (Hebrew). Pe‘amim: Studies in the Cultural Heritage of Oriental Jewry 32 (1987): 3–20. Benson, Robert L., and Giles Constable, with Carol D. Lanham, eds. Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. Berger, David. “From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions: Some New Approaches to Medieval Anti-Semitism.” In Berger, Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue, 15–39. ———. “Miracles and the Natural Order.” In Twersky, Ramban, 107–128. ———. “Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts in the Polemical Literature of the High Middle Ages.” In Berger, Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue, 177–198. Originally appeared in American Historical Review 91 (1986): 576–591. ———. Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2010.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

370

Bibliography

———. “Study of the Early Ashkenazic Rabbinate” (Hebrew; review of Avraham Grossman, The Early Sages of Ashkenaz). Tarbiz 53 (1984): 479–487. Berger, Yitzhak. “The Contextual Exegesis of Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency and the Climax of the Northern French Peshat Tradition.” Jewish Studies Quarterly 15 (2008): 115–129. Berlin, Adele. Biblical Poetry Through Medieval Jewish Eyes. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. ———. “On the Use of Traditional Jewish Exegesis in the Modern Literary Study of the Bible.” In Tehillah le-Mosheh: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg, ed. Mordechai Cogan, Barry L. Eichler, and Jeff rey H. Tigay, 173–183. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997. ———. Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative. 2nd ed. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994. Berliner, Abraham. Pletath soferim: Beiträge zur jüdischen Schriftauslegung im Mittelalter. Breslau, 1872; repr., Jerusalem: Maqor, 1971. ———. Raschi. See under Rashi in Primary Sources. Beyer, Hartmut, Gabriela Signori, and Sita Steckel. Bruno the Carthusian and His Mortuary Roll: Studies, Text, and Translations. Turnhout: Brepols, 2014. Birnbaum, Philip. Karaite Studies. New York: Hermon Press, 1971. Blau, Joshua. “At Our Place in Andalus, at Our Place in the Maghreb.” In Perspectives on Maimonides: Philosophical and Historical Studies, ed. Joel Kraemer, 293–294. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. ———. A Dictionary of Mediaeval Judeo-Arabic Texts (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Academy of the Hebrew Language, 2006. ———, and Simon Hopkins. “The Beginnings of Judaeo-Arabic Exegesis According to an Old Glossary to the Book of Psalms” (Hebrew). In Bar-Asher et al., Word Fitly Spoken, 235–284. Blidstein, Gerald J. (Yaakov). Authority and Dissent in Maimonidean Law (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2002. ———.“Maimonides on ‘Oral Law.’ ” Jewish Law Annual 1 (1978): 108–122. ———. “Notes on Some Ideological Aspects of R. Hananel’s Commentaries to the Talmud” (Hebrew). Sidra: A Journal for the Study of Rabbinic Literature 15 (1999): 5–11. ———. “Tradition and Institutional Authority: On Oral Law in Maimonides” (Hebrew). Da‘at 16 (1986): 11–27. ———. “Where Do We Stand in Maimonides’ Halakhah?” In Studies in Maimonides, ed. Isadore Twersky, 1–30. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. Brandin, Louis. Les gloses françaises (Loazim) de Gerschom de Metz. Paris: A. Durlacher, 1902. Brann, Ross. The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity in Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Brin, Gershon. “The Issue of Editing the Scriptures According to Karaite Exegetes” (Hebrew). Beit Miqra 47 (2002): 305–321. ———. “Problems of Composition and Redaction in the Bible According to R. Abraham Ibn Ezra” (Hebrew). In Te‘uda 8: Studies in the Works of Abraham Ibn Ezra, ed. Israel Levin, 120–135. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1992. ———. Reuel and His Friends: Jewish Byzantine Exegetes from Around the Tenth Century CE (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2012. ———. “The Sadran and the Mesadder” (Hebrew). Leshonenu 66 (2004): 291–295. ———. Studies in the Biblical Exegesis of R. Joseph Qara (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, 1990. Brody, Robert. The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013. ———. Sa‘adyah Gaon, trans. Betsy Rosenberg. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2013. ———. The Textual History of the She’iltot (Hebrew). New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1991.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

371

Buber. Leqaḥ Ṭov. See under Tobiah ben Eliezer in Primary Sources. ———. Sekhel Ṭov. See under Menahem ben Solomon in Primary Sources. Buchanan, George Wesley. Revelation and Redemption: Jewish Documents of Deliverance from the Fall of Jerusalem to the Death of Nahmanides. Dillsboro: Western North Carolina Press, 1978. Burnett, Charles S. F. Adelard of Bath: An English Scientist and Arabist of the Early Twelfth Century. London: Warburg Institute, 1987. ———, and Italo Ronca. Adelard of Bath, Conversations with His Nephew: On the Same and the Different, Questions on Natural Science, and on Birds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Burnett, Stephen G. Christian Hebraism in the Reformation Era (1500–1660): Authors, Books, and the Transmission of Jewish Learning. Leiden: Brill, 2012. ———. “The Strange Career of the Biblia Rabbinica Among Christian Hebraists, 1517–1620.” In Shaping the Bible in the Reformation: Books, Scholars and Readers in the Sixteenth Century, ed. Matthew McLean and Bruce Gordon, 63–83. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Butin, Romain F. The Ten Nequdoth of the Torah: Or, the Meaning and Purpose of the Extraordinary Points of the Pentateuch (Massoretic Text). A Contribution to the History of Textual Criticism Among the Ancient Jews. Baltimore: J. H. Furst, 2009. Caputo, Nina. Nahmanides in Medieval Catalonia: History, Community and Messianism. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Charlap, Luba. Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Linguistic System (Hebrew). Beersheva: Ben-Gurion University, 1999. Châtillon, Jean. “Sainte Anselm et l’écriture.” In Les Mutations socio-culturelles au tournant des Xie–Xiie siècles, ed. Raymonde Foreville, 431–442. Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1984. Chazan, Robert. Barcelona and Beyond: The Disputation of 1263 and Its Aftermath. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. ———. “Rashi’s Commentary on the Book of Daniel: Messianic Speculation and Polemical Argumentation.” In Rashi et la culture juive en France du Nord au moyen âge, ed. Gilbert Dahan, Gérard Nahon, and Elie Nicolas, 111–121. Paris: E. Peeters, 1997. Chiesa, Bruno, and Wilid Lockwood. Ya‘qūb al-Qirqisānī on Jewish Sects and Christianity. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1984. Churgin, Pinkhos. The Targum to Hagiographa (Hebrew). New York: Horeb, 1945. Cohen, Barak S. “Rashi’s Historiographical Comments About Babylonian Amoraim” (Hebrew). JSIJ 6 (2007): 55–73. Cohen, Martin A. “Anan ben David and Karaite Origins.” JQR 68 (1978): 129–145; 224–234. Cohen, Mordechai Z. “The Aesthetic Exegesis of Moses Ibn Ezra,” HBOT I/2: 282–301. ———. “Bahya ben Asher.” EBR 3 (2011): 345–348. ———. “ ‘ The Best of Poetry’: Literary Approaches to the Bible in the Spanish Peshat Tradition,” Torah U-Madda Journal 6 (1995/96): 15–57. ———. “Eliezer of Beaugency.” EBR 7 (2013): 674–677. ———. “En-Dor, Medium of.” EBR 7 (2013): 873–874. ———. “Great Searchings of the Heart: Psychological Sensitivity in Nahmanides’ Commentaries on the Torah and Job” (Hebrew). In Teshura le-Amos: Collected Studies in Biblical Exegesis Presented to ‘Amos Hakham, ed. Moshe Bar-Asher, Noah Hacham, and Yosef Ofer, 213–233. Alon Shevut: Tevunot, 2007. ———. “Imagination, Logic, Truth, and Falsehood: Moses Ibn Ezra and Moses Maimonides on Biblical Metaphor in Light of Arabic Poetics and Philosophy” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 73 (2005): 417–458. ———. “Interpreting ‘The Resting of the Shekhinah’: Exegetical Implications of the Theological Debate Among Maimonides, Nahmanides, and Sefer ha-Hinnukh.” In The Temple of Jerusalem: From Moses to the Messiah, ed. Steven Fine, 237–274. Boston: Brill, 2011.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

372

Bibliography

———. “Maimonides’ Attitude Toward Christian Biblical Hermeneutics in Light of Earlier Jewish Sources.” In New Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations: Collected Studies in Honor of David Berger, ed. Elisheva Carlebach and Jacob J. Schacter, 455–476. Leiden: Brill, 2011. ———. “Maimonides vs. Rashi: Philosophical, Philological and Psychological Approaches to Job.” In Kanarfogel and Sokolow, Rashi and Maimonides, 319–342. ———. “Malbim: Rabbinic Scholar, Biblical Exegete.” In The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, ed. Gershon D. Hundert, 1145–1147. New York: YIVO, 2008. ———. “The Non-Halakhic Legal Exegesis of Two Talmudists: Maimonides’ Independent Biblical Hermeneutics in Light of Rashbam’s Peshat Project.” In Built by Wisdom, Established by Understanding: Essays on Biblical and Near Eastern Literature in Honor of Adele Berlin, ed. Maxine L. Grossman, 269–304. Bethesda: University Press of Maryland, 2013. ———. Opening the Gates of Interpretation: Maimonides’ Biblical Hermeneutics in Light of His Geonic-Andalusian Heritage and Muslim Milieu. Leiden: Brill, 2011. ———. “A Philosopher’s Peshat Exegesis: Maimonides’ Literary Approach to the Book of Job and Its Place in the History of Biblical Interpretation” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 15 (2005): 213–264. ———. “A Poet’s Biblical Exegesis.” JQR 93 (2003): 533–556. ———. “A Possible Spanish Source for Rashi’s Concept of Peshuto Shel Miqra” (Hebrew). In Grossman and Japhet, Rashi, 353–379. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2008. ———. “The Qimhi Family.” HBOT I/2: 388–415. ———. “Rashbam Scholarship in Perpetual Motion.” JQR 98 (2008): 389–408. ———. “Rashbam vs. Moses Ibn Ezra: Two Perspectives on Biblical Poetics.” In Bar-Asher et al., Shai le-Sara Japhet, 193*–217* (English sec.). ———. “Reproduction of the Text: Traditional Biblical Exegesis in Light of the Literary Theory of Ludwig Strauss.” Torah U-Madda Journal 17 (2015/16): 1–33. ———. Three Approaches to Biblical Metaphor: From Abraham Ibn Ezra and Maimonides to David Kimhi. Leiden: Brill, 2003. ———, and Adele Berlin, eds. Interpreting Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Overlapping Inquiries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Cohen, Shaye D. “Does Rashi’s Torah Commentary Respond to Christianity? A Comparison of Rashi with Rashbam and Bekhor Shor.” In The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel, ed. Hindy Najman and Judith H. Newman, 449–472. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Cohen and Simon. Yesod Mora. See under Ibn Ezra, Abraham, in Primary Sources. Collins, Ann Ryan. Teacher in Faith and Virtue: Lanfranc of Bec’s Commentary on Saint Paul. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Coolman, Boyd Taylor. “Pulchrum Esse: The Beauty of Scripture, the Beauty of the Soul, and the Art of Exegesis in Hugh of St. Victor.” Traditio 58 (2003): 175–200. Copeland, Rita. “Rhetoric and the Politics of the Literal Sense in Medieval Literary Theory: Aquinas, Wycliffe, and the Lollards.” In Rhetoric and Hermeneutics in Our Time, ed. Michael Hyde and Walter Jost, 335–357. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997. ———, and Ineke Sluiter, eds. Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: Language Arts and Literary Theory, AD 300–1475. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Coulter, Dale M. “Historia and Sensus Litteralis: An Investigation into the Approach to Literal Interpretation at the Twelh-Century School of Saint-Victor.” In Transforming Relations: Essays on Jews and Christians Throughout History in Honor of Michael A. Signer, ed. Franklin T. Harkins, 101–124. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010. Dahan, Gilbert. “La connaissance de l’exégèse juive par les chrétiens du XIIe au XIVe siècle.” In Rashi et la culture juive en France du Nord au moyen âge, ed. Gilbert Dahan, Gérard Nahon, and Elie Nicolas, 343–359. Paris: E. Peeters, 1997. ———. Les intellectuels chrétiens et les juifs au Moyen Age. Paris: Cerf, 1990. ———. “Thomas Aquinas: Exegesis and Hermeneutics.” In Reading Sacred Scripture with Thomas Aquinas: Hermeneutical Tools, Theological Questions and New Perspectives, ed. Piotr Roszak and Jörgen Vijgen, 45–70. Turnhout: Brepols, 2015.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

373

Dana, Joseph. Poetics of Medieval Hebrew Literature According to Moshe Ibn Ezra (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Devir, 1982. Davidson, Herbert A. Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Davidson, Israel. Saadia’s Polemic Against Ḥiwi al-Balkhi. New York: JTS, 1915. Dotan, Aron. The Awakening of Word Lore: From the Masora to the Beginnings of Hebrew Lexicography (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Academy of the Hebrew Language, 2005. ———. Ben Asher’s Creed: A Study of the History of the Controversy. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977. ———. The Dawn of Hebrew Linguistics: The Book of Elegance of the Language of the Hebrews by Saadia Gaon: Introduction and Critical Edition (Hebrew). Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1997. ———. “A New Fragment of Saadiah’s Sab‘īn Lafẓah.” JQR 80 (1989): 1–14. Dronke, Peter, ed. A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. ———. The Medieval Lyric. Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002. ———. “Thierry of Chartres.” In Dronke, Twelfth-Century Philosophy, 358–385. Drory, Rina. The Emergence of Jewish-Arabic Literary Contacts at the Beginning of the Tenth Century (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1988. Dubovick, Yoseif Mordechai. “Rabbenu Hananel and the Geonim of Babylonia: Rabbenu Hananel’s Commentarial and Legal Methodology” (Hebrew). Ph.D. diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2015. Dutton, Paul Edward, ed. Glosae super Platonem of Bernard of Chartres. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1991. Elbaum, Jacob. “The Anthology Sekhel Ṭov: Derash, Peshat, and the Issue of the Redactor (Sadran)” (Hebrew). In Bar-Asher et al., Word Fitly Spoken, 71–96. ———. Medieval Perspectives on Aggadah and Midrash (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2000. ———. “Yalqut Shimʿoni and the Medieval Midrashic Anthology.” Prooftexts 17 (1997): 133–151. Elford, Dorothy. “William of Conches.” In Dronke, Twelfth-Century Philosophy, 308–327. Elon, Menachem. The Principles of Jewish Law. Jerusalem: Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1975. Enelow, H. G. “The Midrash of Thirty-Two Rules of Interpretation.” JQR 23 (1933): 357–367. Eppenstein, Simon. “Fragment d’un commentaire anonyme du Cantique des Cantiques.” REJ 53 (1907): 242–254. ———. Perushei Rabbi Yosef Qara li-nevi’im rishonim. See under Qara, Joseph, in Primary Sources. Erder, Yoram. “The Karaites’ Sadducee Dilemma.” Israel Oriental Studies 14 (1994): 195–226. ———, and Meira Polliack. Ha-qanon ha-kara’i ba-me’ot ha-teshi‘it ‘ad ha-aḥat ‘esreh (The Karaite canon in the ninth to eleventh centuries). In Canon and Hebrew Scriptures (Hebrew), ed. Yaʻakov Shavit, 165–210. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2009. Erel, Yossi. “Ramban’s Approach Toward the Plain Meaning of the Biblical Text Versus His Commitment to Halakha” (Hebrew). JSIJ 8 (2009): 117–152. Evans, Gillian R. The Language and Logic of the Bible: The Earlier Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Fenton, Paul. Philosophie et exégèse dans le jardin de la métaphore de Moïse Ibn ‘Ezra. Leiden: Brill, 1997. Fishbane, Michael, ed. The Midrashic Imagination Jewish Exegesis, Thought, and History. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Fishman, Talya. Becoming the People of the Talmud. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Fleischer, Ezra. Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in the Middle Ages (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Keter, 1975. Flesher, Paul V. M., and Bruce Chilton. The Targums: A Critical Introduction. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

374

Bibliography

Fraenkel, Carlos. From Maimonides to Samuel ibn Tibbon: The Transformation of the Dalālāt alḤā’irīn into the Moreh ha-Nevukhim (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes, 2007. Fraenkel, Jonah. Darkei ha-Aggadah we-ha-Midrash. Givatayim: Yad la-Talmud, 1991. Frank, Daniel. “Ibn Ezra and the Karaite Exegetes Aaron ben Joseph and Aaron ben Elijah.” In Abraham Ibn Ezra y su tiempo (Abraham Ibn Ezra and His Age), ed. Fernando Díaz Esteban. 99–107. Madrid: Asociación Española de Orientalistas, 1990. ———. “Karaite Exegesis.” HBOT I/2: 110–128. ———. “Karaite Exegetical and Halakhic Literature in Byzantium and Turkey.” In Polliack, Karaite Judaism, 529–558. ———. “The Limits of Karaite Scripturalism: Problems in Narratives Exegesis.” In Bar-Asher et al., Word Fitly Spoken, 41*–82*. ———. Search Scripture Well: Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of the Jewish Bible Commentary in the Islamic East. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Frappier, Jean. Chrétien de Troyes: The Man and His Work, trans. Raymond J. Cormier. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1982. Fredrickson, Paula. “Allegory and Reading God’s Book: Paul and Augustine on the Destiny of Israel.” In Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity to the Modern Period, ed. Jon Whitman, 125–149. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Frenkel, Miriam. “The Compassionate and Benevolent”: The Leading Elite in the Jewish Community of Alexandria in the Middle Ages (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2006. Freudenthal, Gad. “Abraham Ibn Ezra and Judah Ibn Tibbon as Cultural Intermediaries: Early Stages in the Introduction of Non-Rabbinic Learning into Provence in the Mid-Twelh Century.” In Exchange and Transmission Across Cultural Boundaries: Philosophy, Mysticism and Science in the Mediterranean World, in Memory of Professor Shlomo Pines, ed. Haggai BenShammai, Shaul Shaked, and Sarah Stroumsa, 52–81. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2013. Friedman, Shamma. “Maimonides’ Use of Rashi’s Commentaries: A Reevaluation.” In Grossman and Japhet, Rashi, 403–464. ———. Mi-tosafot Rashbam la-Rif. Qoveṣ al yad 8 (1976): 187–225. Fudeman, Kirsten A. Vernacular Voices: Language and Identity in Medieval French Jewish Communities. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Funkenstein, Amos. “Nahmanides’ Symbolical Reading of History.” In Studies in Jewish Mysticism, ed. J. Dan and F. Talmage. 129–152. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. Gamliel-Barak, Esther. “Exegesis Methods of the Bible in the Dictionary of the Karaite David ben Abraham Alfasi ‘Kitab Jami al-Alfaz’ ” (Hebrew). Bet Miqra 59, no. 4 (2014): 76–128. Garfinkel, Stephen. “Clearing Peshat and Derash.” HBOT I/2: 129–134. Garzon, Yaakov Raphael. “Sharp Anti-Christian Polemics in Rashi’s Commentaries to Genesis 1:1” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 21 (2012): 77–217. Geiger, Ari. “A Student and an Opponent: Nicholas of Lyra and His Jewish Sources.” In Nicolas de Lyre, franciscain du XIVe siècle: Exégète et théologien, ed. Gilbert Dahan, 167–203. Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes; Troyes: Médiathèque, 2011. ———. “What Happened to Christian Hebraism in the Thirteenth Century?” In Jews and Christians in Thirteenth-Century France, ed. Elisheva Baumgarten and Judah D. Galinsky, 49–63. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Gelles, Benjamin. Peshat and Derash in the Exegesis of Rashi. Leiden: Brill, 1981. Gevaryahu, Gil‘ad. “Nusḥa’ot Rashi le-Tehillim we-ha-ṣenzurah” (The text of Rashi on Psalms and censorship). In Haim M. I. Gevaryahu Memorial Volume (Hebrew sec.), ed. Ben-Zion Luria, 248–261. Jerusalem: World Jewish Bible Center, 1989. Gibson, Margaret. “Lananc’s Commentary on the Pauline Epistles.” Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 22 (1971): 86–112. Gil, Moshe. “The Origins of the Karaites.” In Polliack, Karaite Judaism, 73–118.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

375

Giraud, Cédric. Per verba magistri: Anselme de Laon et son école au XIIe siècle. Turnhout: Brepols, 2010. Gleave, Robert. Islam and Literalism: Literal Meaning and Interpretation in Islamic Legal Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011. Goldstein, Miriam. “Arabic Composition 101 and the Early Development of Judaeo-Arabic Bible Exegesis.” Journal of Semitic Studies 55 (2010): 451–478. ———. Karaite Exegesis in Medieval Jerusalem: The Judeo-Arabic Pentateuch Commentary of Yūsuf ibn Nūḥ and Abū al-Faraj Hārūn. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011. ———. “Sa‘adya’s Tafsir in Light of Muslim Polemic Against Ninth-Century Arabic Bible Translations.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 36 (2009): 173–199. Goldziher, Ignac. The Ẓahiris: Their Doctrine and Their History, trans. Wolfgang Behn. Leiden: Brill, 1971. Goodwin, Deborah. Take Hold of the Robe of a Jew: Herbert of Bosham’s Christian Hebraism. Leiden: Brill, 2006. Gordon, Nehemia. “Does Scripture Really Have Only One Meaning? A Study of Daniel alQumisi’s Exegetical Approach in Pitron Shneim ‘Asar” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 86 (2007): 353–384. Grabois, Aryeh. “The Hebraica Veritas and Jewish–Christian Intellectual Relations in the Twelh Century.” Speculum 50 (1975): 613–634. Greenberg, Moshe. “The Relationship Between Rashi and Rashbam to the Pentateuch” (Hebrew). In Isaac Leo Seeligmann Volume, ed. Alexander Rofé and Yair Zakovitch, II:559– 567. Jerusalem: E. Rubinstein, 1983. Griffith, Sidney. The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the People of the Book. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013. ———. The Church in the Shadow of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. ———. “Disclosing the Mystery: The Hermeneutics of Typology in Syriac Exegesis.” In Cohen and Berlin, Interpreting Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, 46–64. Gross, Avraham. “Spanish Jewry and Rashi’s Commentary on the Pentateuch” (Hebrew). In Rashi Studies, ed. Zvi A. Steinfeld, 27–56. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1993. Grossman, Avraham. “The Commentary of Rashi on Isaiah and the Jewish-Christian Debate.” In Studies in Medieval Jewish Intellectual and Social History, in Honor of Robert Chazan, ed. David Engel, Lawrence H. Schiff man, and Elliot R. Wolfson, 47–62. Leiden: Brill, 2012. ———. The Early Sages of Ashkenaz: Their Lives, Leadership, and Works (900–1096) (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes, 1981. ———. The Early Sages of France (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes, 1995. ———. “The Impact of Rabbi Samuel of Spain and Reuel of Byzantium on Rashi’s School” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 82 (2014): 447–467. ———. “Nusaḥ perush Rashi le-Nakh we-ha-pulmus ha-yehudi-noṣri” (The text of Rashi on the prophets and writings and Jewish–Christian polemics). Sinai 137 (2006): 36–58. ———. “Peirush Rashi le-Tehillim we-ha-pulmus ha-Yehudi-Noṣri” (Rashi’s commentary on Psalms and the Jewish–Christian debate). In Meḥqarim ba-Miqra u-be-ḥinnukh, ed. Dov Rappel, 59–74. Jerusalem: Touro College, 1996. ———. Rashi. Trans. Joel A. Linsider. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2012. ———. “Rashi’s Rejection of Philosophy.” Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts 8 (2009): 95–118. ———. “The School of Literal Jewish Exegesis in Northern France.” HBOT I/2: 321–371. ———. Transformations in Medieval Jewish Society (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2017. ———. “The Treatment of Grammar and Lexicon in Rashi’s Commentaries: Rashi’s Ties with the Islamic Lands” (Hebrew). Leshonenu 73 (2011): 425–448. ———, and Sara Japhet, eds. Rashi: The Man and His Work (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2008. Gruber, Mayer I. Rashi’s Commentary on Psalms. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Grunhaus, Naomi. The Challenge of Received Tradition: Dilemmas of Interpretation in Radak’s Biblical Commentaries. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

376

Bibliography

———. “Peshat and Halakhah in Radak’s Exegesis.” In Kanarfogel and Sokolow, Rashi and Maimonides, 343–364. Haas, Jair. “Rashi’s Criticism of Maḥberet Menahem” (Hebrew). In Zer Rimonim: Studies in Biblical Literature and Jewish Exegesis Presented to Professor Rimon Kasher, ed. Michael Avioz, Elie Assis, and Yael Shemesh, 449–463. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013. Halbertal, Moshe. By Way of Truth: Nahmanides and the Creation of Tradition (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Shalom Hartman Institute, 2006. ———. Concealment and Revelation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. ———. People of the Book: Canon, Meaning and Authority. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. Hallaq, Wael B. “Non-Analogical Arguments in Sunni Juridical Qiyās.” Arabica 36 (1989): 286–306. ———. The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Halper, Ben-Zion, ed. and trans. A Volume of the Book of Precepts by Ḥefeṣ ben Yaṣliaḥ (Hebrew). Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1915. Harf-Lancner, Laurence. “Chrétien’s Literary Background.” In A Companion to Chrétien de Troyes, ed. Norris J. Lacy and Joan T. Grimbert, 26–42. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2005. Harrington, Jay, O.P. “Augustine of Dacia, O.P. (†1285) and the Fourfold Sense of Scripture: The Bible in the Thirteenth Century.” In Christian Faith and the Power of Thinking: A Collection of Essays Marking the 800th Anniversary of the Founding of the Order of Preachers in 1216, ed. Jay Harrington, O.P., 37–71. Chicago: New Priory Press, 2017. Harris, Jay M. How Do We Know This? Midrash and the Fragmentation of Modern Judaism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. ———. “Midrash Halachah.” In The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 4: The Late-Roman Rabbinic Period, ed. Steven T. Katz, 336–368. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Harris, Robert A. “Awareness of Biblical Redaction Among Rabbinic Exegetes of Northern France” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 12 (2000): 289–310. ———. Discerning Parallelism: A Study in Northern French Medieval Jewish Biblical Exegesis. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2004. ———. “The Literary Hermeneutic of R. Eliezer of Beaugency.” Ph.D. diss., JTS, 1997. Harrisville, Roy A., and Walter Sundberg. The Bible in Modern Culture: Baruch Spinoza to Brevard Childs. Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans, 2002. Hazon, Raaya. “Sefer Tiqqun Shegagot: Its Author and Other Issues” (Hebrew). In Mas’at Aharon: Linguistic Studies Presented to Aron Dotan, ed. Moshe Bar-Asher and Chaim E. Cohen, 289–304. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2009. Heide, Albert van der. “PARDES: Methodological Reflections on the Theory of the Four Senses.” JJS 34 (1983): 147–159. Hailperin, Herman. Rashi and the Christian Scholars. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963. Heinrichs, Wolfhart P. The Hand of the Northwind: Opinions on Metaphor and the Early Meaning of Isti‘āra in Arabic Poetics. Wiesbaden: J. Steiner, 1977. ———.“On the Genesis of the H ạ qīqa–Majāz Dichotomy.” Studia Islamica 59 (1984): 112–140. ———. “Scriptural Hermeneutics and Literary Theory in Islam.” Zeitschrift für Geschichte der arabische-islamischen Wissenschaften 7 (1991/92): 253–284. Himmelfarb, Lea. “On Rashi’s Use of the Masorah Notes in His Bible Commentary” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 15 (2005): 167–184. Hirschfeld, Hartwig. Qirqisani Studies. London: Jews College, 1918. Hollender, Elisabeth. Piyyut Commentary in Medieval Ashkenaz. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008. Holmes, Urban T., and M. Amelia Klenke. Chrétien, Troyes, and the Grail. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

377

Idel, Moshe. Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002. ———. “Nahmanides: Kabbalah, Halakhah and Spiritual Leadership.” In Jewish Mystical Leaders and Leadership in the Thirteenth Century, ed. Moshe Idel and Mortimer Ostow, 15–96. Northvale, NJ: Rowan and Littlefield, 1998. ———. “We Have No Kabbalistic Tradition on This.” In Twersky, Ramban, 51–74. Irvine, Martin. The Making of Textual Culture: “Grammatica” and Literary Theory, 350–1100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Jacobs, Jonathan. “The Allegorical Exegesis of Song of Songs by R. Tuviah ben ’Eliezer—Lekaḥ Ṭov, and Its Relation to Rashi’s Commentary.” AJS Review 39 (2015): 75–92. ———. “The ‘Anticipation Principle’ in the Biblical Commentary of R. Joseph Bekhor Shor.” HUCA 87 (2017): 251–277. ———. Bekhor Shoro Hadar Lo: R. Joseph Bekhor Shor Between Continuity and Innovation (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes, 2017. ———. “Books Encountered by Ramban Aer He Arrived in the Land of Israel” (Hebrew). JSIJ 11 (2012): 1–14. ———. “Does Rashbam’s Commentary on the Torah Acknowledge the Commentaries of Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra?” JJS 61 (2010): 291–304. ———. “The Lekaḥ Ṭov Commentary on Song of Songs: Its Place in the History of Biblical Exegesis and Its Relationship with the Commentary of Rashi” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 23 (2014): 225–241. ———. “The Plain Meaning of the Text” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 22 (2013): 255–273. ———. “Rabbi Joseph Kara as an Exegete of Biblical Narrative: Discovering the Phenomenon of Exposition.” Jewish Studies Quarterly 19 (2012): 73–89. ———. “Rashbam’s Major Principles of Interpretation as Deduced om a Manuscript Fragment Discovered in 1984.” REJ 170 (2011): 443–463. ———. “To What Degree Was Rashbam Familiar with Midrash Leqaḥ Ṭov?” (Hebrew). In Ta-Shma: Studies in Judaica in Memory of Israel M. Ta-Shma, ed. Avraham Reiner et al., 475–499. Alon Shevut: Tevunot, 2011. ———. “Was Ramban Familiar with Rashbam’s Commentary on the Torah?” (Hebrew). Jewish Studies 46 (2009): 85–108. ———. “Why Was Rashbam’s Commentary Not Widely Disseminated?: A Reexamination” (Hebrew). Bet Mikra 62, no. 1 (2017): 41–79. Jaeger, C. Stephen. The Envy of Angels. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994. ———. The Origins of Courtliness Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals, 939–1210. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. ———. “Pessimism in the Twelh-Century Renaissance.” Speculum 78 (2003): 151–183. Japhet, Sara. “The Anonymous Commentary on the Song of Songs in MS Prague” (Hebrew). In Japhet and Viezel, Plain Meaning, 206–247. ———, ed. The Bible in Light of Its Interpreters: Sarah Kamin Memorial Volume. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1994. ———. Collected Studies in Biblical Exegesis (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2008. ———. “Ear Discerns Words: Studies in Ibn Ezra’s Exegetical Methodology by Uriel Simon” (book review) (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 23 (2014): 293–298. ———. “The Nature and Distribution of Medieval Compilatory Commentaries in the Light of Rabbi Joseph Kara’s Commentary on the Book of Job.” In Fishbane, Midrashic Imagination, 98–130. ———. Rashbam on Job. See under Rashbam in Primary Sources. ———. Rashbam on Song of Songs. See under Rashbam in Primary Sources. ———. “Rashbam’s Introduction to His Commentary on Lamentations” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 19 (2009): 231–243.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

378

Bibliography

———. “The Tension Between Rabbinic Legal Midrash and the ‘Plain Meaning’ (Peshat) of the Biblical Text—an Unresolved Problem? In the Wake of Rashbam’s Commentary on the Pentateuch.” In Sefer Moshe: The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume, ed. Chaim Cohen, Avi Hurvitz, and Shalom M. Paul, 403–425. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004. ———, and Eran Viezel, eds. “To Settle the Plain Meaning of the Verse”: Studies in Biblical Exegesis (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2011. Japhet and Salters. Rashbam on Qohelet. See under Rashbam in Primary Sources. Jeauneau, Édouard. Rethinking the School of Chartres, trans. Claude Paul Desmarais. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. Jospe, Raphael. “Ramban (Nahmanides) and Arabic” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 67 (1987): 67–93. Kahana, Menahem. “The Halakhic Midrashim.” In The Literature of the Sages, Second Part: Midrash and Targum, Liturgy, Poetry, Mysticism, Contracts, Inscriptions, Ancient Science and the Languages of Rabbinic Literature, ed. Shmuel Sa ai, 3–106. Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2006. Kalman, Jason. “When What You See Is Not What You Get: Rashbam’s Commentary on Job and the Methodological Challenges of Studying Northern French Jewish Biblical Exegesis.” Religion Compass 2, no. 5 (2008): 844–861. Kamin, Sarah. “Affinities Between Jewish and Christian Exegesis in 12th Century Northern France.” Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies 9, Panel Sessions: Bible Studies and Ancient Near East (1988): 141–155; repr. in Kamin, Jews and Christians, xxi–xxxv (English sec.). ———. Jews and Christians Interpret the Bible. Ed. Sara Japhet (Hebrew). 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2009 ———. Rashi’s Exegetical Categorization in Respect to the Distinction Between Peshat and Derash (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986. Kanarfogel, Ephraim. The Intellectual History and Rabbinic Culture of Medieval Ashkenaz. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013. ———. Jewish Education and Society in the High Middle Ages. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991. ———. “Tosafists as Peshat Exegetes: A Century Aer S. A. Poznanski’s Introduction to Biblical Exegesis in Northern France” (Hebrew). Michlol 1 (2016): 147–160. ———, and Moshe Sokolow, eds. Between Rashi and Maimonides: Themes in Medieval Jewish Thought, Literature and Exegesis. New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2010. Kaplan, Lawrence. “Review of Josef Stern, Problems and Parables of Law.” AJS Review 26 (2002): 361–364. Kasher, Hannah. “‫( ”משל ארמון המלך במורה נבוכים כהנחיה לתלמיד‬The parable of the king’s palace in the Guide of the Perplexed as a guide to the student). AJS Review 14 (1989): 1–19 (Hebrew sec.). Kelley, Page H., Daniel S. Mynatt, and Timothy G. Crawford. The Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: Introduction and Annotated Glossary. Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans, 1998. Kennedy, Robert G. “Thomas Aquinas and the Literal Sense of Sacred Scripture.” Ph.D. diss., University of Notre Dame, 1985. Kermode, Frank. “The Plain Sense of Things.” In Midrash and Literature, ed. Geoff rey H. Hartman and Sanford Budick, 179–194. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986. Kessler, Stephan Ch. “Gregory the Great: A Figure of Tradition and Transition in Church Exegesis.” HBOT I/2: 135–147. Khan, Geoff rey. The Early Karaite Tradition of Hebrew Grammatical Thought. Leiden: Brill, 2000. ———, Maria Angeles Gallego, and Judith Olszowy-Schlanger. The Karaite Tradition of Hebrew Grammatical Thought in Its Classical Form. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Kirchheim, Raphael, ed. Ein Commentar zur Chronik aus dem 10ten Jahrhundert. Frankfurt am Main: H. L. Brönner, 1874. Kislev, Itamar. “The Commentaries of Ibn Ezra and Rashbam and the Dispute over the Ingredients of the Altar Incense” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 78 (2009): 61–80.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

379

———. “ ‘Exegesis in Perpetual Motion’: The Short Commentary of Ibn Ezra as a Source for Rashbam in His Commentary on the Pentateuch.” Tarbiz 79 (2010): 413–438. ———. “Rashbam’s Commentary on the Story of the Creation” (Hebrew). JSIJ 10 (2012): 95–107. ———. “The Relationship Between the Torah Commentaries Composed by R. Abraham Ibn Ezra in France and the Significance of This Relationship for the Biographical Chronology of the Commentator.” JJS 60 (2009): 282–297. ———. “ ‘Whoever Has Heeded the Words of Our Creator’: Rashbam’s Methodological Preface to Leviticus and the Relationship Between Rashi’s and Rashbam’s Commentaries” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 73 (2004): 225–237. Klein-Braslavy, Sara. King Solomon and Philosophical Esotericism in the Thought of Maimonides (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996. ———. Maimonides’ Interpretation of the Adam Stories in Genesis (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1986. ———. Maimonides’ Interpretation of the Story of Creation (Hebrew). 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1987. Klepper, Deanna. The Insight of Unbelievers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian Readings of Jewish Texts in the Later Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. Kogut, Simcha. Correlations Between Biblical Accentuation and Traditional Jewish Exegesis (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes, 1994. Kohut, Alexander, ed. Sefer ʻArukh ha-shalem me-et Natan ben Yeḥiʼel. Jerusalem: Makor, 1969. Kosofsky, Ziva. “The So-Called Midrash Aggadah: Prolegomenon and an Example of a Critical Edition of Selected Sections.” Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 2015. Kraebel, Andrew B. “Grammatica and the Authenticity of the Psalms-Commentary Attributed to Bruno the Carthusian.” Mediaeval Studies 71 (2009): 63–97. ———. “John of Rheims and the Psalter Commentary Attributed to Ivo II of Chartres.” Revue bénédictine 122 (2012): 252–293. ———.“The Place of Allegory in the Psalter-Commentary of Bruno the Carthusian.” Mediaeval Studies 73 (2011): 207–216. ———. “Poetry and Commentary in the Cathedral School at Rheims: Reading Virgil, Reading David.” In Cohen and Berlin, Interpreting Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, 227–248. ———. “Prophecy and Poetry in the Psalms-Commentaries of Saint Bruno and the PreScholastics.” Sacris erudiri 50 (2011): 413–459. Kraemer, Joel L. Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds. New York: Doubleday, 2008. ———. “Naturalism and Universalism in Maimonides’ Thought.” In Me’ah She‘arim: Studies in Medieval Jewish Spiritual Life in Memory of Isadore Twersky, ed. Ezra Fleischer et al., 47–81. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2001. Kreisel, Howard, ed. Five Early Commentators on R. Abraham Ibn Ezra: The Earliest Supercommentaries on Ibn Ezra’s Torah Commentary. Beersheva: Ben-Gurion University Press, 2017. Kugel, James. The Bible as It Was. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Press, 1997. ———. The Idea of Biblical Poetry. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981. Lameer, Joep. Al-Farabi and Aristotelian Syllogistics. Leiden: Brill, 1994. Lane, Andrew J. A Traditional Mu‘tazilite Qur’anic Commentary. Leiden: Brill, 2006. Lange, Nicholas R. M. de. “An Early Hebrew–Greek Bible Glossary om the Cairo Genizah and Its Significance for the Study of Jewish Bible Translations into Greek.” In Studies in Hebrew Literature and Jewish Culture Presented to Albert van der Heide on the Occasion of His SixtyFifth Birthday, ed. M. F. J Baasten and Reinier Munk, 31–39. Dordrecht: Springer, 2007. ———. Greek Jewish Texts from the Cairo Genizah. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1996. Lasker, Daniel J. From Judah Hadassi to Elijah Bashyatchi: Studies in Late Medieval Karaite Philosophy. Leiden: Brill, 2008. ———. “The Influence of Karaism on Maimonides” (Hebrew). Sefunot n.s. 5 (1991): 145–161.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

380

Bibliography

———. “Jewish Knowledge of Christianity in the Twelh and Thirteenth Centuries.” In Studies in Medieval Jewish Intellectual and Social History: Festschrift in Honor of Robert Chazan, ed. David Engel, Lawrence Schiff man, and Elliot Wolfson, 97–109. Leiden: Brill, 2012. ———. “Rashi and Maimonides on Christianity.” In Kanarfogel and Sokolow, Rashi and Maimonides, 3–21. Lawee, Eric. “The Reception of Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah in Spain: The Case of Adam’s Mating with the Animals.” JQR 97 (2007): 33–66. Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava. Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. Leclercq, Jean. “Monastic Commentary on Biblical and Ecclesiastical Literature om Late Antiquity to the Twelh Century,” trans. A. B. Kraebel. Medieval Journal 2, no. 2 (2012): 27–53. Leibowitz, Nehama. “How to Read a Chapter in Tanakh.” In Nehama Leibowitz on Teaching Tanakh, 1–13. ———. Nehama Leibowitz on Teaching Tanakh: Three Essays, trans. Moshe Sokolow. New York: Torah Education Network, 1986. ———. “Rashi’s Method in Citing Midrashim in His Torah Commentary.” In Nehama Leibowitz on Teaching Tanakh, 31–70. Levinger, Jacob. Maimonides as Philosopher and Codifier (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1989. ———. Maimonides’ Techniques of Codification (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes, 1965. Levy, Abraham. Rashi’s Commentary on Ezekiel 40–48: Edited on the Basis of Eleven Manuscripts. Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1931. Levy, Barry B. “Rabbinic Bibles, Mikra’ot Gedolot, and Other Great Books.” Tradition 25 (1991): 65–81. Levy, Ian Christopher. “Bruno the Carthusian: Theology and Reform in His Commentary on the Pauline Epistles.” In Analecta cartusiana 300, ed. James Hogg, Alain Girard, and Daniel Le Blévec, 5–61. Salzburg: FB Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 2013. Leyra Curiá, Montse. In Hebreo: The Victorine Exegesis of the Bible in the Light of Its NorthernFrench Jewish Sources. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017. Liere, Frans van. “Andrew of Saint-Victor and His Franciscan Critics.” In van ’t Spijker, Multiple Meaning, 291–310. Boston: Brill, 2009. ———. “Andrew of Saint Victor, Jerome, and the Jews: Biblical Scholarship in the TwelhCentury Renaissance.” In Scripture and Pluralism: Reading the Bible in the Religiously Plural Worlds of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Thomas J. Heffernan and Thomas E. Burman, 59–75. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Linde, J. Cornelia. “Basic Instruction and Hebrew Learning: Nicolaus Maniacoria’s Suff raganeus Bibliotheca.” Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 80, no. 1 (2013): 1–16. Liss, Hanna. “The Commentary on the Song of Songs Attributed to R. Samuel ben Meïr (Rashbam).” Medieval Jewish Studies 1 (2007): 1–27. ———. Creating Fictional Worlds: Peshaṭ-Exegesis and Narrativity in Rashbam’s Commentary on the Torah. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Lockshin, Martin. “The Connection Between R. Samuel ben Meir’s Torah Commentary and Midrash Sekhel Ṭov” (Hebrew). Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division A: The Bible and Its World, 135–142. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1993. ———. “Moses Wrote the Torah: Rashbam’s Perspective.” Hebrew Union College Annual, 84–85 (2013–14): 109–125. ———. “Rashbam as Literary Exegete.” In McAuliffe et al., Reverence for the Word. 83–91. ———. “Tradition or Context: Two Exegetes Struggle with Peshat.” In From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Intellect in Quest of Understanding: Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox, ed. Jacob Neusner et al., II:173–186. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989. Lowry, Joseph. “The Legal Hermeneutics of al-Shāfiʿī and Ibn Qutayba: A Reconsideration.” Islamic Law and Society 11 (2004): 1–41.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

381

Lowth, Robert. Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, trans. G. Gregory. 2 vols. London: J. Johnson, 1787. Lubac, Henri de. Exégèse médiévale: Les quatre sens de l’Ecriture. Paris: Aubier, 1961. ———. History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture According to Origen. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007. Mack, Hananel. “The Bifurcated Legacy of Rabbi Moses Hadarshan and the Rise of Peshat Exegesis in Medieval France.” In Regional Identities and Cultures of Medieval Jews, ed. Javier Castaño, Talya Fishman, and Ephraim Kanarfogel, 73–91. London: Littman Library, 2018. ———. The Mystery of R. Moses Hadarshan (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2010. ———. Shiv‘im panim la-Torah: Le-mahalakho shel bittuy (The Torah has seventy faces: Development of an expression). In Rabbi Mordechai Breuer Festschrift: Collected Papers in Jewish Studies, ed. Moshe Bar-Asher, II:449–462. Jerusalem: Akademon, 1992. Madelung, Wilferd. “ ‘Iṣma.” EI 4:182–184. Malter, Henry. Saadia Gaon: His Life and Works. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1921. Maman, Aharon. Comparative Semitic Philology in the Middle Ages. Leiden: Brill, 2004. ———. “The Linguistic School.” HBOT I/2: 261–281. ———.“Peshat and Derash in Medieval Hebrew Lexicons.” In Israel Oriental Studies XIX, Compilation and Creation in Adab and Lugha: Studies in Memory of Naphtali Kinberg (1948–1997), ed. Albert Arazi, Joseph Sadan, and David J. Wesserstein. 343–357. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999. Mann, Jacob. “Early Karaite Commentaries.” JQR 15 (1924/25): 361–388. Maori, Yeshayahu. “The Meaning of the Term ‫ דברי יחיד‬in the Commentary of Ibn Ezra on the Torah: On Ibn Ezra’s Attitude Toward Rabbinic Midrash” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 13 (2002): 201–246. Marcus, Ivan G. “History, Story and Collective Memory: Narrativity in Early Ashkenazic Culture.” In Fishbane, Midrashic Imagination, 255–279. Marwick, E. Lawrence. “The Order of the Books in Yefet’s Bible Codex.” JQR n.s. 33 (1943): 445–460. Matter, E. Ann. The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. McAuliffe, Jane D., Barry D. Walfi sh, and Joseph W. Goering, eds. With Reverence for the Word: Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Merdler, Ronela. “Dayyaqut me-Rabbenu Shemuel: Rashbam’s Grammatical Commentary on the Bible and Its Exegetical Contribution” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 14 (2004): 241–255. ———. “R. Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Response to the Grammatical Commentary of R. Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam)” (Hebrew). In Bar-Asher et al., Shai le-Sara Japhet, 195–215. ———. “Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam) and Hebrew Grammar, His Grammatical View on Topics of Phonology and Morphology, His Place in the History of Hebrew Linguistics, and His Character as a Grammarian” (Hebrew). Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 2004. Mews, Constant. “Bruno of Reims and Roscelin of Compiègne on the Psalms.” In Latin Culture in the Eleventh Century, ed. Michael Herren et al., 129–152. Turnhout: Brepols, 2002. ———. “Bruno of Reims and the Evolution of Scholastic Culture in Northern France, 1050– 1100.” In Beyer, Signori, and Steckel, Bruno and His Mortuary Roll, 49–81. Minnis, Alastair J. “Fieenth-Century Versions of Thomistic Literalism: Girolamo Savonarola and Alfonso de Madrigal.” Neue Richtungen in der hoch- und spätmittelalterlichen Bibelexegese, ed. Robert E. Lerner and Elisabeth Müller-Luckner, 163–180. Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1996. ———. “Figuring the Letter: Making Sense of Sensus Litteralis in Late-Medieval Christian Exegesis.” In Cohen and Berlin, Interpreting Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, 159–182. ———. “Material Swords and Literal Lights: The Status of Allegory in William of Ockham’s Breviloquium on Papal Power.” In McAuliffe et al., Reverence for the Word. 292–308.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

382

Bibliography

———. Medieval Theories of Authorship. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988. ———, and A. B. Scott, with David Wallace, eds. Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism c. 1100–c. 1375: The Commentary Tradition. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991; repr., 2001. Mirsky, Hananel. “Shalosh sugyot me-ḥokhmat ha-lashon mi-beit midrasho shel Menaḥem ben Saruq” (Three topics in the discipline of language om the school of Menahem ben Saruq). Meḥkarim be-Lashon 14–15 (2013): 99–131. Molho, Michael, and Abraham Mevorah. Histoire des israélites de Castoria. Thessaloniki: M. Molho, 1938. Mondschein, Aharon. “Additional Comments on ha-Sadran and ha-Mesadder” (Hebrew). Leshonenu 67 (2005): 331–346. ———. “Concerning the Interrelationship of the Commentaries of R. Abraham Ibn Ezra and R. Samuel ben Meir to the Pentateuch: A New Appraisal” (Hebrew). In Te‘uda 16–17: Studies in Judaica, ed. Yair Hoff man, 15–46. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2001. ———. “Did Ibn Ezra Compose a Commentary on Chronicles?” (Hebrew). In Studies in Bible and Exegesis, VII: Presented to Menahem Cohen (Hebrew), ed. Shmuel Vargon, 399–423. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2005. ———. “ ‘ The Masoretes’ Fabricated Explanations for Full and Deficient Spellings’: On Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Struggle Against the (Ab)use of Biblical Spelling as an Exegetical Tool” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 19 (2009): 245–321. ———. “On Rashbam’s Rediscovered ‘Lost Commentary’ on Psalms” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 79 (2010): 91–141. ———. “On the Attitude of R. Abraham Ibn Ezra to the Exegetical Use of the Hermeneutic Norm Gematria” (Hebrew). In Te‘uda 8: Studies in the Works of Abraham Ibn Ezra, ed. Israel Levin, 137–161. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1992. ———. “Only One in a Thousand of His Comments May Be Called Peshat”: Toward Ibn Ezra’s View of Rashi’s Commentary to the Torah” (Hebrew). Studies in Bible and Exegesis V: Presented to Uriel Simon, ed. Moshe Garsiel et al., 221–248. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2000. Nasir, Basal, ed. and trans. Kitab al-nutaf le-R. Yehudah Ḥayug. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2001. Nemoy, Leon. “Anan ben David: A Reappraisal of the Historical Data.” In Semitic Studies in Memory of Immanuel Löw, ed. Sándor (Alexander) Scheiber, 239–248. Budapest: Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation, 1947; repr. in Birnbaum, Karaite Studies, 309–318. ———. Karaite Anthology: Excerpts from the Early Literature Translated from Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1952. Neubauer, Yequtiel Y. Ha-Rambam ‘al Divrei Soferim. Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1957. Novetsky, Hillel. “The Influences of Rabbi Joseph Bekhor Shor and Radak on Ramban’s Commentary on the Torah.” M.A. thesis, Yeshiva University, 1992. Novikoff, Alex J. The Medieval Culture of Disputation: Pedagogy, Practice, and Performance. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. O’Donoghue, Bernard. The Courtly Love Tradition. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982. Ofer, Yosef. “When Was Dayaqot—R. Shmuel ben Meir’s Grammatical Treatise—Written?” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 17 (2007): 233–251. ———, and Jonathan Jacobs. Nahmanides’ Torah Commentary Addenda Written in the Land of Israel (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Herzog Academic College and the World Union of Jewish Studies, 2013. O’Neill, Mary J. Courtly Love Songs of Medieval France: Transmission and Style in the Trouvère Repertoire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

383

Paget, J. N. B. Carleton. “The Christian Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Alexandrian Tradition.” HBOT I/1: 478–542. Pedaya, Haviva. Nahmanides: Cyclical Time and Holy Text (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2003. Penkower, Jordan. “The Canonization of Rashi’s Commentary on the Pentateuch” (Hebrew). In Study and Knowledge in Jewish Thought (Hebrew), ed. Howard Kreisel, 123–146. Beersheva: Ben-Gurion University Press, 2006. ———. “Corrections and Additions to Rashi’s Commentary on Joshua by Rashi, His Students, and Anonymous Correctors” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 16 (2006): 205–229. ———. “Rashi’s Commentary on Ezekiel: On the Occasion of Its New Edition in Miqra’ot Gedolot Haketer” (Hebrew). Studies in Bible and Exegesis VII: Presented to Menachem Cohen, ed. Shmuel Vargon et al., 425–474. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2005. ———. “Rashi’s Corrections to His Commentary on the Pentateuch (Hebrew).” JSIJ 6 (2007): 141–188. ———. “Rashi’s Corrections to His Commentary on the Prophets” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 15 (2005): 185–212. ———. “The Textual Transmission of Rashi’s Commentary on Ezekiel 27:17” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 63 (1994): 219–234. Perani, Mauro, ed. Fragments from the “Italian Genizah.” Jerusalem: Jewish National and University Library, 1999. ———, and Luca Baraldi, eds. Inventari dei manoscritti delle biblioteche d’Italia. v. 115: I frammenti ebraici di Modena. Florence: L. S. Olschki, 2012. Pereira-Mendoza, Joseph. Rashi as Philologist. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1940. Perez, Maaravi. “The Contribution of R. Yehuda Ibn Bal‘am to the Philological Exegesis of the Bible in Spain” (Hebrew). Bar-Ilan Annual 20–21 (1983): 151–171. ———. “Quotations om Kitāb al-Istighnā by R. Shmuel ha-Nagid in an Anonymous Commentary on the Book of Psalms” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 12 (2002): 241–287. ———. “Substitution of One Word for Another as an Exegetical Method Used by Medieval Scholars” (Hebrew). In Studies in Bible Exegesis 2, ed. Uriel Simon. 207–228. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1986. ———. “A Vestige of R. Jonah Ibn Janah’s Commentary on the Book of Chronicles” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 58 (1989): 283–288. Polliack, Meira. “Historicizing Prophetic Literature: Yefet ben ’Eli’s Commentary on Hosea and Its Relationship to al-Qūmisī’s “Pitrōn.” In Pesher Nahum: Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages Presented to Norman (Nahum) Golb, ed. Joel L. Kraemer and Michael G. Wechsler, 149–186. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2012. ———. “Karaite Conception of the Biblical Narrator (Mudawwin).” In Encyclopaedia of Midrash: Biblical Interpretation in Formative Judaism, ed. J. Neusner, A. J. Avery-Peck, and W. S. Green, I:350–374. Leiden: Brill, 2004. ———, ed. Karaite Judaism: A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources. Leiden: Brill, 2003. ———. The Karaite Tradition of Arabic Bible Translation. Leiden: Brill, 1997. ———. “Major Trends in Karaite Biblical Exegesis.” In Polliack, Karaite Judaism, 363–413. ———. “Wherein Lies the Pesher? Re-Questioning the Connection Between the Medieval Karaite and Qumranic Modes of Biblical Interpretation.” JSIJ 4 (2005): 151–200. Polliack and Schlossberg. Yefet on Hosea. See under Yefet ben Eli in Primary Sources. Poonawala, Ismail. “Ta’wīl.” EI 10:390–392. Pope, Marvin. The Anchor Bible: Job. New York: Doubleday, 1973. Popkin, Richard H. “Spinoza and Bible Scholarship.” In The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, ed. Don Garrett, 383–407. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

384

Bibliography

Poznanski, Samuel A. Fragments de l’exegese biblique de Menahem bar Helbo. Warsaw: Schuldberg, 1904. ———. “Introduction to the Northern French Bible Commentators” (Hebrew; Mavo ‘al ḥakhmei ṣorfat mefarshei ha-miqra). In Kommentar zu Ezechiel und den XII kleinen Propheten von Eliezer au Beaugency. Warsaw: Mekize Nirdamim, 1913. Prebor, Gila. “The Use of Midrash in Rashi’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 19 (2009): 209–229. Ravitsky, Aviram. “Ya‘qūb al-Qirqisānī’s Critique of Talmudic Legal Hermeneutics” (Hebrew). Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought, 22 (2011): 123–157. Reinert, Benedikt. “Madjāz.” EI 5:1025–1026. Robinson, James T. Asceticism, Eschatology, Opposition to Philosophy: The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Salmon ben Yeroham on Qohelet (Ecclesiastes). Leiden: Brill, 2012. Rosenberg, Shalom. “ ‘Al parshanut ha-miqra be-sefer Moreh Nevukhim” (On biblical exegesis in the Guide of the Perplexed). Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 1 (1981): 85–157. Rosenthal, Judah. “Ha-pulmus ha-anti noṣri be-Rashi ‘al ha-Tanakh” (Anti-Christian polemic in Rashi on the Bible). In idem, Studies and Texts in Jewish History, Literature and Religion, 101–116. Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1967. Rustow, Marina. Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008. Sacks, Steven D. Midrash and Multiplicity: Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer and the Renewal of Rabbinic Interpretive Culture. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009. Sáenz-Badillos, Angel. “Early Hebraists in Spain: Menahem ben Saruq and Dunash ben Labrat.” HBOT I/2: 96–109. ———. “Sobre el Autor de las Tesubot al Seadyah.” In Exile and Diaspora: Studies in the History of the Jewish People Presented to Professor Haim Beinart (Hebrew), ed. Avraham Grossman, Yosef Kaplan, and Aharon Mirsky, 2:26–43. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute / Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1991. Sagi, Avi. “Canonic Scripture and the Hermeneutical Challenge: A Critical Review in Light of Nahmanides” (Hebrew). Da‘at 50–52 (2003): 121–141. Scaglione, Aldo. Knights and Courts: Courtliness, Chivalry, and Courtesy from Ottonian Germany to the Italian Renaissance. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Schacht, Joseph. An Introduction to Islamic Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964. Schechter, Solomon. Saadyana: Geniza Fragments of Writings of R. Saadya Gaon and Others. Cambridge: Deighton and Bell, 1903. Scheindlin, Raymond P. “Rabbi Moshe Ibn Ezra on the Legitimacy of Poetry.” Medievalia et Humanistica 7 (1976): 101–115. Schippers, Arie. “Symmetry and Repetition as a Stylistic Ideal in Andalusian Poetry: Moses Ibn Ezra and Figures of Speech in the Arabic Tradition.” Amsterdam Middle Eastern Studies, ed. Maned Woidich, 160–173. Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert, 1990. Schlossberg, Eliezer. “Be’urei Rav Saadia Gaon be-perush ha-mishnah shel Rav Natan av hayeshivah” (Rav Saadia Gaon’s explanations in the Mishnah commentary of Rav Natan Av ha-Yeshivah). Asufot 8 (1994): 149–160. Schmelzer, Menahem H. Isaac ben Abraham Ibn Ezra: Poems (Hebrew). New York: JTS, 1979. Schmitt, Jean-Claude, and Alex J. Novikoff. The Conversion of Herman the Jew: Autobiography, History, and Fiction in the Twelfth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. Scholem, Gershom. On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: Schocken, 1965. Schwartz, Baruch J. “On Peshat and Derash, Bible Criticism, and Theology.” Prooftexts 14 (1994): 71–88. ———. “Rashi’s Commentary on Exodus 6:1–9: Reconsideration” (Hebrew). In Japhet and Viezel, Plain Meaning, 100–112.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

385

Seewald, Yudah. “Kitāb ar-radd ʻala ʻAnan le-RaSaG” (Saadia Gaon’s Book of Refutation Against Anan). In Koveṣ Hiṣei Giborim, IX:1–80. Lakewood, NJ: Mechon Plitat Soferim, 2016. Segal, Moshe Zvi. Mavo ha-Miqra (Introduction to the Bible). Jerusalem: Qiryat Sefer, 1977. Sela, Shlomo. Abraham Ibn Ezra and the Rise of Medieval Hebrew Science. Leiden: Brill, 2003. ———. Astrology and Biblical Exegesis in Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Thought (Hebrew). Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1999. ———, and Gad Freudenthal. “Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Scholarly Writings: A Chronological Listing.” Aleph 6 (2006): 13–55. Septimus, Bernard. “ ‘Open Rebuke and Concealed Love’: Nahmanides and the Andalusian Tradition.” In Twersky, Ramban, 11–34. Shapira, Amnon. “Rashi’s Twofold Interpretations (Peshuto and Midrasho): A Dualistic Approach?” (Hebrew). In Japhet, Bible in Light of Its Interpreters, 287–311. Shapiro, Marc B. The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2011. Sharf, Andrew. Jews and Other Minorities in Byzantium. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1995. ———. “An Unknown Messiah of 1096 and the Emperor Alexius.” JJS 7 (1956): 59–70. Shereshevsky, Esra. “Inversions in Rashi’s Commentary (Mikrah Mesoras).” In Gratz College Anniversary Volume: On the Occasion of the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the College, 1895–1970, ed. Isidore David Passow and Samuel Tobias Lachs, 263–268. Philadelphia: Gratz College, 1971. ———. “Rashi’s and Christian Interpretations.” JQR 61 (1970): 76–86. Shinan, Avigdor. “The Late Midrashic, Targumic, and Payetanic Literature.” In The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 4: The Late-Roman Rabbinic Period, ed. Steven T. Katz, 678–698. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. ———. “The Midrashic Interpretations of the Ten Dotted Passages of the Pentateuch” (Hebrew). In Japhet, Bible in Light of Its Interpreters, 198–214. Shy, Hadassa. “Taqdir and Its Counterparts in Medieval Judaeo-Arabic.” In Genizah Research After Ninety Years, ed. Joshua Blau and Stefan Reif, 144–154. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Simon, Uriel. “Abraham Ibn Ezra.” HBOT I/2: 377–387. ———. The Ear Discerns Words: Studies in Ibn Ezra’s Exegetical Methodology (Hebrew). Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2013. ———. Four Approaches to the Book of Psalms: From Saadiah Gaon to Abraham Ibn Ezra, trans. Lenn Schramm. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. ———. “Ibn Ezra Between Medievalism and Modernism: The Case of Isaiah XL–LXVI,” Vetus Testamentum Supplement 34 (1985): 257–271. ———. “Interpreting the Interpreter: Supercommentaries on Ibn Ezra’s Commentaries.” In Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra: Studies in the Writings of a Twelfth-Century Jewish Polymath, ed. I. Twersky and Jay M. Harris. 86–128. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. ———. “Isaac ben Samuel al-Kanzi.” HBOT I/2: 372–376. ———. “Peshat Exegesis of Biblical Historiography: Historicism, Dogmatism, and Medievalism” (Hebrew). In Tehillah le-Mosheh: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg, ed. Mordechai Cogan, Barry L. Eichler, and Jeff rey H. Tigay, 171*–204* (Hebrew sec.).Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997. ———. “Who Was the Proponent of Lexical Substitution Whom Ibn Ezra Denounced as a Prater and a Madman?” In Frank Talmage Memorial Volume I, ed. Barry Walfish, 217–232. Haifa: Haifa University Press, 1993. Simon and Cohen. Yesod Mora. See under Ibn Ezra, Abraham, in Primary Sources. Sion, Avi. Judaic Logic: A Formal Analysis of Biblical, Talmudic and Rabbinic Logic. Geneva: Slatkine, 1997. Sklare, David. Samuel ben Hofni Gaon and His Cultural World. Leiden: Brill, 1996.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

386

Bibliography

Sklarz, Miriam. “Contending with the Disparity Between Peshat and Derash: Nahmanides in the Footsteps of Ibn Ezra” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 22 (2013): 189–222. ———. “Nahmanides’ Exegesis of Midrash in His Commentary on the Torah” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 23 (2014): 243–262. ———. “The Place of Abraham Ibn Ezra in Nahmanides’ Commentary to Genesis” (Hebrew). Ph.D. diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2002. Skoss, Solomon L. The Hebrew–Arabic Dictionary of the Bible, Known as Kitāb Jāmiʻ Al-Alfāẓ (Agrōn) of David ben Abraham Al-Fā sī. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1936. ———. “Saadia Gaon, the Earliest Hebrew Grammarian.” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 21 (1952): 75–100; 22 (1953): 65–90; 23 (1954): 59–73. Smalley, Beryl. “Andrew of Saint Victor, Abbot of Wigmore: A Twelh-Century Hebraist.” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 10 (1938): 358–373. ———. “A Commentary on the Hebraica by Herbert of Bosham.” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiéval 18 (1951): 29–65. ———. “Stephen Langton and the Four Senses of Scripture.” Speculum 6 (1931): 60–76. ———. The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages. 3rd ed. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983. Smith, Lesley. The Glossa Ordinaria: The Making of a Medieval Bible Commentary. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Sokolow, Moshe. “Rashbam’s Pentateuch Commentary: New Manuscript Material.” Alei Sefer 11 (1984): 72–80. Soloveitchik, Haym. Collected Essays. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2013 (vol. 1), 2014 (vol. 2). ———. “Rabad of Posquières: A Programmatic Essay.” In Studies in the History of Jewish Society Presented to Professor Jacob Katz on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday, ed. Immanuel Etkes and Yosef Salmon, 7–40. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1980. ———. “Three Themes in Sefer Ḥasidim.” AJS Review 1 (1976): 311–357. ———. “Two Notes on the ‘Commentary on the Torah’ of R. Yehudah he-Hasid.” In Turim: Studies in Jewish History and Literature Presented to Dr. Bernard Lander, vol. 1, ed. Michael A. Shmidman, 241–251. New York: Touro College Press, 2007. Southern, R. W. “The Schools of Paris and the School of Chartres.” In Benson and Constable, Renaissance and Renewal, 113–137. Spiegel, Yaakov. Chapters in the History of the Jewish Book: Writing and Transmission (Hebrew). Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2005. Spijker, Ineke van ’t, ed. “The Literal and the Spiritual: Richard of Saint-Victor and the Multiple Meaning of Scripture.” In van ’t Spijker, Multiple Meaning, 225–248. ———. The Multiple Meaning of Scripture: The Role of Exegesis in Early Christian and Medieval Culture. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Spinoza, Benedict de. Theologico-Political Treatise, trans. R. H. M. Elwes. New York: Dover, 1951. Stauber, Shimon. “The Commentary on Samuel by R. Isaac ben R. Samuel the Spaniard: Between East and West” (Hebrew). In Meḥqarim ba-Miqra’ u-be-Ḥinnukh Muggashim le-Professor Moshe Ahrend, ed. Dov Rappel, 159–170. Jerusalem: Touro College, 1996. Steckel, Sita. “Doctor Doctorum: Changing Concepts of ‘Teaching’ in the Mortuary Roll of Bruno the Carthusian (d. 1101).” In Beyer, Signori, and Steckel, Bruno and His Mortuary Roll, 83–116. Steiner, Richard C. A Biblical Translation in the Making: The Evolution and Impact of Saadia Gaon’s Tafsir. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. ———. “The Byzantine Biblical Commentaries om the Genizah: Rabbanite vs. Karaite.” In Bar-Asher et al., Shai le-Sara Japhet, 243–262. ———. “A Jewish Theory of Biblical Redaction om Byzantium: Its Rabbinic Roots, Its Diff usion and Its Encounter with the Muslim Doctrine of Falsification.” JSIJ 2 (2003): 123–167.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

387

———. “The ‘Lemma Complement’ in Hebrew Commentaries om Byzantium and Its Diff usion to Northern France and Germany.” Jewish Studies Quarterly 18 (2011): 367–379. ———. “Linguistic Aspects of the Commentary on Ezekiel and the Minor Prophets in the Hebrew Scrolls om Byzantium” (Hebrew). Leshonenu 59 (1996): 39–56. ———. “ ‘Muqdam u-Me’uḥar’ and ‘Muqaddam wa-Muaḥḥar’: On the History of Some Hebrew and Arabic Terms for Hysteron Proteron and Anastrophe.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 66, no. 1 (2007): 33–45. ———. “The Rabbanite Biblical Commentaries om the Genizah and Their Place in the History of Biblical Exegesis.” MS. ———. “Saadia vs. Rashi: On the Shi om Meaning-Maximalism to Meaning-Minimalism in Medieval Biblical Lexicology.” JQR 88 (1998): 213–258. ———. Stockmen from Tekoa, Sycomores from Sheba: A Study of Amos’ Occupations. Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2003. Stercal, Claudio. Stephen Harding: A Biographical Sketch and Texts, trans. Martha F. Krieg. Trappist, KY: Cistercian Publications, 2008. Stern, David. The Jewish Bible: A Material History. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017. Stern, Josef. Problems and Parables of Law. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Sternberg, Meir. The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. Stow, Kenneth R. Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Stroumsa, Sarah. Dāwūd ibn Marwān al-Muqammiṣ’s Twenty Chapters (ʻIshrūn Maqāla). Leiden: Brill, 1989. ———.“From the Earliest Known Judeo-Arabic Commentary on Genesis.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 27 (2002): 375–395. ———. “The Impact of Syriac Tradition on Early Judeo-Arabic Bible Exegesis.” ARAM Periodical 3 (1991): 83–96. ———. “Saadya and Jewish Kalam.” In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, ed. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, 71–90. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ———. “Soul-Searching at the Dawn of Jewish Philosophy: A Hitherto Lost Fragment of alMuqammas’s Twenty Chapters.” Ginzei Kedem 3 (2007): 137–161. Sweeney, Eileen C. Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire for the Word. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012. Taitz, Emily. The Jews of Medieval France: The Community of Champagne. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. Talmage, Frank E. David Kimhi: The Man and the Commentaries. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975. Ta-Shma, Israel M. Studies in Medieval Rabbinic Literature (Hebrew). Vol. 1: Germany. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2004. Vol. 3: Italy and Byzantium. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2005. ———. Talmudic Commentary in Europe and North Africa (Hebrew). Part I: 1000–1200. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999. Part II: 1200–1400. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2000. Tchernetska, Natalie, Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, and Nicholas de Lange. “An Early Hebrew– Greek Biblical Glossary om the Cairo Genizah.” REJ 166 (2007): 91–128. Tene, David. “Hebrew Linguistic Literature.” Encyclopaedia Judaica 16:1352–1390. Jerusalem: Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1972. Tirosh-Becker, Oa. “The Use of Rabbinic Sources in Karaite Writings.” In Polliack, Karaite Judaism, 319–338. Tobi, Yosef. “The Implementation of Ta’wīl in Sa‘adia Gaon’s Tafsīr” (Hebrew). In Sha‘arei Lashon: Studies in Hebrew, Aramaic and Jewish Languages Presented to Moshe Bar-Asher, ed. Aharon Maman, Steven E. Fassberg, and Yohanan Breuer, vol. 1: Biblical Hebrew, Masorah and Medieval Hebrew, 140–161. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2007.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

388

Bibliography

Toorn, K. van der. Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. Touitou, Eleazar. “Concerning the Presumed Original Version of Rashi’s Commentary on the Pentateuch” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 56 (1987): 211–242. ———. “The Controversy with the Christians in Nahmanides’ Commentary on the Pentateuch” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 20 (2010): 137–166. ———. Exegesis in Perpetual Motion: Studies in the Pentateuchal Commentary of Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (Hebrew). Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2003. ———. “Rashi’s Commentary on Genesis 1–6 in the Context of Judeo-Christian Controversy,” HUCA 61 (1990): 159–183. ———. Review of Sarah Kamin, Rashi’s Exegetical Categorization in Respect to the Distinction Between Peshat and Derash (Hebrew). Tarbiz 56 (1987): 439–447. ———. “Shiṭato ha-parshanit shel Rashbam ‘al reqa‘ ha-meṣi’ut ha-hisṭorit shel zemano” (Rashbam’s exegetical system within the context of the historical reality of his time”). In Studies in Rabbinic Literature, Bible and Jewish History [Dedicated to Professor Ezra Zion Melammed], ed. Y. D. Gilat, Ch. Levine, and Z. M. Rabinowitz, 48–74. Ramat Gan: BarIlan University Press, 1982. ———.“Traces of Leqaḥ Ṭov in the Text of Rashi’s Commentary to the Torah” (Hebrew). ‘Alei Sefer 15 (1988/89): 37–44. Touitou, Inbal. “The Exegetical Methodology of Rabbi Tobias ben Eliezer in His Commentary Leqaḥ Ṭov to the Pentateuch” (Hebrew). M.A. thesis, Bar-Ilan University, 2005. Treitl, Eliezer. Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer: Text, Redaction, and a Sample Synopsis (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Talmud and Halakhah (Dissertation series), 2012. Twersky, Isadore. “Aspects of the Social and Cultural History of Provençal Jewry.” Journal of World History 11 (1968): 185–207. ———. “Did R. Abraham Ibn Ezra Influence Maimonides?” (Hebrew). In Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra: Studies in the Writings of a Twelfth-Century Jewish Polymath, ed. Isadore Twersky and Jay M. Harris, 21–48 (Hebrew sec.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. ———. Introduction to the Code of Maimonides. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980. ———. Rabad of Posquières: A Twelfth-Century Talmudist. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962. ———, ed. Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban): Explorations in His Religious and Literary Virtuosity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983. Urbach, Eaim E. Arugat ha-bosem. Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1939. Vaciago, Paolo. Glossae Biblicae. Turnhout: Brepols, 2004. Vajda, Georges. Deux commentaires karaïtes sur l‘Ecclésiaste. Leiden: Brill, 1971. Valle Rodríguez, Carlos del. Die grammatikalische Terminologie der fruehen hebraeischen Grammatikern. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1982. Viezel, Eran. “The Anonymous Commentary on the Books of Chronicles Attributed to a Student of Saadia Gaon: Its Status in the History of the Jewish Peshat Exegesis” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 76 (2008): 415–434. ———. A Commentary on Chronicles Attributed to Rashi (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes, 2010. ———. “The Formation of Some Biblical Books, According to Rashi.” Jewish Theological Studies 61 (2010): 16–42. ———. “God’s Revelation to the Biblical Authors in the Writings of R. David Kimhi” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 24 (2016): 267–284. ———. “Hidden Links (Qesharim Daqim): The Methodology of the Anonymous Commentary on Chronicles Attributed to a Student of Saadia Gaon” (Hebrew). HUCA 81 (2010): 65*–83*. ———. “Medieval Bible Commentators on the Question of the Composition of the Bible: Research and Methodological Aspects” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 84 (2016): 103–158.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

389

———. “Moses’ Role in Writing the Torah: The History of a Jewish Fundamental Tenet.” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 39 (2014): 3–44. ———.“On Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Views Regarding Moses as the Editor of the Pentateuch.” Tarbiz 80 (2012): 387–407. ———. “Rashbam on Moses’ Role in Writing the Torah” (Hebrew). Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 22 (2013): 167–188. ———. “The Rise and Fall of Jewish Philological Exegesis on the Bible in the Middle Ages: Causes and Effects.” Review of Rabbinic Judaism 20 (2017): 48–88. ———. “Targum Onkelos in Rashi’s Exegetical Consciousness.” Review of Rabbinic Judaism 15 (2012): 1–19. Visi, Tamás. “Ibn Ezra, a Maimonidean Authority: The Evidence of the Early Ibn Ezra Supercommentaries.” In The Cultures of Maimonideanism: New Approaches to the History of Jewish Thought, ed. James T. Robinson, 89–131. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Visscher, Eva de. Reading the Rabbis: Christian Hebraism in the Works of Herbert of Bosham. Boston: Brill, 2014. Wagner, Herzliya. “The ‘Distinguished Chapters’ in Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Commentary on the Book of Psalms: Philosophy and Biblical Exegesis” (Hebrew). Ph.D. diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2012. Walfish, Barry D. Bibliographia Karaitica: An Annotated Bibliography of Karaites and Karaism. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Waltke, Bruce K., and M. O’Connor. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990. Wansbrough, John E. “Majāz al-Qur’an: Periphrastic Exegesis.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 33 (1970): 247–266. Watson, Wiled G. E. Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to Its Techniques. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986. Wechsler, Michael. Yefet on Esther. See under Yefet ben Eli in Primary Sources. Wechter, Pinchas. Ibn Barun’s Arabic Works on Hebrew Grammar and Lexicography. Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1964. Weinryb, Bernard D. “The Myth of Samuel of Russia, 12th Century Author of a Bible Commentary.” In The Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Volume of the Jewish Quarterly Review, ed. Abraham A. Newman and Solomon Zeitlin, 528–543. Philadelphia: Jewish Quarterly Review, 1967. Weiss, Bernard G. The Search for God’s Law: Islamic Jurisprudence in the Writings of Sayf al-Din al-Amidi. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1992. ———. The Spirit of Islamic Law. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998. Weiss, Meir. The Story of Job’s Beginning: Job 1–2, a Literary Analysis. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1983. Weiss, Moshe. Sefer Rushaina. See under Samuel of Rossano in Primary Sources. Weiss Halivni, David. Peshat and Derash. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Wetherbee, Winthrop. “Philosophy, Cosmology and the Twelh-Century Renaissance.” In Dronke, Twelfth-Century Philosophy, 21–53. White, Hugh. Nature, Sex and Goodness in a Medieval Literary Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Whitman, Jon. “From the Textual to the Temporal: Early Christian ‘Allegory’ and Early Romantic ‘Symbol.’ ” New Literary History 22 (1991): 161–176. ———. “The Literal Sense of Christian Scripture: Redefinition and Revolution.” In Cohen and Berlin, Interpreting Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, 133–158. Wieder, Naphtali. The Judean Scrolls and Karaism. London: East and West Library, 1962. Wild, Stefan. “The Self-Referentiality of the Qur’an: Sura 3:7 as an Exegetical Challenge.” In McAuliffe et al., Reverence for the Word, 422–436. Williams, Gareth, and Paul Bibire, eds. Sagas, Saints and Settlements. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Williams, John R. “The Cathedral School of Rheims in the Eleventh Century.” Speculum 29 (1954): 661–677.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

390

Bibliography

Wolfson, Elliot R. “By Way of Truth: Aspects of Nahmanides’ Kabbalistic Hermeneutic.” AJS Review 14 (1989): 103–178. ———. “The Secret of the Garment in Nahmanides.” Da‘at 24 (1990): xxv–xlix (English sec.). Wolfson, Harry A. “The Pre-Existent Angel of the Magharians and al-Nahāwandī.” JQR 51 (1960): 89–106. Wright, David F. “Augustine: His Exegesis and Hermeneutics.” HBOT I/1: 701–730. Wyrick, Jed. The Ascension of Authorship: Attribution and Canon Formation in Jewish, Hellenistic, and Christian Traditions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. Yahalom, Joseph. Judah Halevi: A Life of Poetry (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes, 2008. ———. Poetry and Society in Jewish Galilee of Late Antiquity (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1999. Yahalom, Shalem. “The Barcelona Disputation and the Status of Aggadah in Nahmanides’ Teachings” (Hebrew). Zion 69 (2004): 25–43. Yeivin, Israel. Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah, trans. E. J. Revell. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1980. Zawanowska, Marzena. The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben ʻEli the Karaite on the Abraham Narratives (Genesis 11:10–25:18). Leiden: Brill, 2011. ———. “The Bible Read Through the Prism of Theology: The Medieval Karaite Tradition of Translating Explicit Anthropomorphisms into Arabic.” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 24 (2016): 163–223. ———. “Islamic Exegetical Terms in Yefet ben ʿEli’s Commentaries on the Holy Scriptures.” JJS 44 (2013): 306–325. ———. “Review of Scholarly Research on Yefet ben ‘Eli and His Works.” REJ 173 (2014): 97–138. ———. “Was Moses the Mudawwin of the Torah? The Question of Authorship of the Pentateuch According to Yefet ben ‘Eli.” In Studies in Judeo-Arabic Culture; Proceedings of the Fourteenth Conference of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies, ed. Haggai Ben-Shammai et al., 7*–35*. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2014 Zemler-Cizewski, Wanda. “The Literal Sense of Scripture According to Rupert of Deutz.” In van ‘t Spijker, Multiple Meaning, 203–224. Ziomkowski, Robert. Manegold of Lautenbach: Liber Contra Wolfelmum. Paris: Peeters, 2002. Zohory, Menahem. Grammarians and Their Writings in Rashi’s Commentaries (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Carmel, 1994. Zucker, Moshe. Fragments om Rav Saadya Gaon’s Commentary to the Pentateuch” (Hebrew). Sura 2 (1955/56): 313–355. ———. “Fragments of the Kitāb taḥṣīl al-sharā’i‘ al-samā‘īyah” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 41 (1972): 373–410. ———. “Qeṭa‘im ḥadashim mi-sefer ha-mitzvot le-r. Ḥefeṣ ben Yaṣliaḥ” (New agments of the Book of the Commandments of Ḥefeṣ ben Yaṣliaḥ). PAAJR 29 (1961): 1–68. ———. “Le-pitron be‘ayat l”b middot u-mishnat Rabi Eliezer” (On the resolution of the problem of the thirty-two middot and Mishnat Rabbi Eliezer). PAAJR 23 (1954): 1–39. ———. “The Problem of ‘Iṣma: Prophetic Immunity to Sin and Error in Islamic and Jewish Literatures” (Hebrew). Tarbiz 35 (1965): 149–173. ———. Rav Saadya Gaon’s Translation of the Torah (Hebrew). New York: Feldheim, 1959. ———. Saadya on Genesis. See under Saadia in Primary Sources. ———. “Iyyunim we-he‘arot” (Studies and notes). PAAJR 49 (1982): 97–104. Zulay, Menahem. Eretz Yisrael and Its Poetry: Studies in Piyyutim from the Cairo Genizah (Hebrew), ed. Ephraim Hazan. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1995. Zysow, Aron. The Economy of Certainty: An Introduction to the Typology of Islamic Legal Theory. Atlanta: Lockwood Press, 2013.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

General Index

Aaron ben Joseph, 10, 32, 65 Abelard, Peter, 133, 134, 152, 158 Abū ‘Ubayda, 43 Account of Creation, 63, 160, 202, 246, 248, 249, 289, 291 Account of the Chariot, 289 Adelard of Bath, 143 Aḥa of Sabḥa, 28. See also She’iltot Ahrend, Moshe, 106 al-Baṣīr, Yūsuf, 32 Albert the Great, 157, 273, 295 Alexander of Hales, 295 al-Fāsi, David ben Abraham, 74, 76, 78, 80 Alfasi, Isaac, 69, 95, 130, 194, 268 Alharizi, Judah, 271 Allony, Nehemia, 79 Anan ben David, 28–31, 33, 35, 50, 76, 78 Andrew of Saint Victor, 97, 109, 152 anonymous Chronicles commentary, 71–73 Anselm of Canterbury, 112, 325 Anselm of Laon, 111, 113, 134, 152, 158 ‘aql, 42, 43, 51, 54, 257, 258, 261, 268 Aquinas, Thomas, 16, 109–11, 224, 273, 294–95 Aristotle, 54, 111, 158, 246, 249, 273, 292, 295 ‘Arukh. See Nathan of Rome asmakhta, 40, 44, 200, 218, 220–22, 227–29, 241, 259, 263, 278, 296, 297 āthār, 36 Augustine, 110, 114, 117–18, 273, 284–85, 291, 294 Augustine of Dacia, 357 ba‘alei miqra, 29, 72 Babylonian Talmud, passages cited ‘Avodah Zarah, 19a, 214 Bava Batra, 111b, 227; 14b, 88, 163; 15a, 4, 102, 153 Bava Meṣi‘a, 33a, 149; 75b, 253 Bava Qamma, 28a, 246; 83b, 261; 83b–84a, 261; 84a, 261; 99b–100a, 241 Bekhorot, 52a, 355

Berakhot, 20b, 278; 28b; 31b, 51 ‘Eruvin, 21b, 57 Menaḥot, 34b–37b, 17 Qiddushin, 4b–5a, 242; 9b, 265; 49a, 182, 190 Sanhedrin, 34a, 81, 103; 99b, 162 Shabbat, 63a, 7, 149, 160; 86b, 144 Soṭah, 12b, 181, 198 Yevamot, 13b, 191; 24a, 296 badal, 86, 93 Bahya ben Asher, 26, 272 Bahya Ibn Paquda, 70, 318 balāgha, 85, 214 Baron, Salo, 35 basīṭ, 56, 72, 73, 316 bāṭin, 15, 16, 20 Bede, 114, 125 Bekhor Shor, Joseph, 12, 18, 127 Ben-Asher family, 28 Benjamin al-Nahawandi, 29, 33, 36 Ben-Shalom, Haya, 198 Ben-Shammai, Haggai, 52–53, 63–66, 216 berit bein ha-betarim (“covenant between the parts”), 56, 100, 197, 310 Berlin, Adele, 61 Berliner, Abraham, 97, 98, 134–37 Bernard of Chartres, 143 Bernard of Clairvaux, 133, 143 biblical authorship in Christian interpretation. See under Christian interpretation Esther, 153 Ezekiel, 58, 153, 173 general, 4, 152–53 Isaiah, 219 Job, 157 Lamentations, 156 literary prophets, 58 Pentateuch, 4, 52, 53, 60–65, 159–64, 201–5, 217–20, 252, 255, 288–89, 293 Psalms, 87, 158, 162, 219, 163 Qohelet, 187

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

392

General Index

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

biblical authorship (continued) Song of Songs, 154–58 talmudic views of, 88, 153, 156, 162, 187, 219. See also Torah is om Heaven See also under Ibn Chiquitilla; Ibn Ezra, Abraham; Maimonides; Nahmanides; Pentateuch Scholia; Qara; Rashbam Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-ṣafā’), 52, 58, 64, 215 Brin, Gershon, 201–2, 205 Bruno the Carthusian applied Christological interpretation selectively, 116–20, 123 biography, 112–13 grammatical method, 112, 116–18 literal vs. spiritual sense, 114–15 mortuary roll, 113, 121 parallels to Rashi, 113, 116, 119–21, 125 Psalms commentary, 112, 114–18, 123 Byzantine school, tenth-eleventh century influence (possible) on northern French school, 155 Karaism and, 201, 206 lacked access to Andalusian grammar, 174 no explicit peshat-derash distinction, 175 resemblance to Rashi, 108, 169 See also Pentateuch Scholia; Reuel Byzantine school, twelh century midrash and, 207, 210, 299 Rashi and, 207 See also Leqaḥ Ṭov; Menahem ben Solomon; Samuel of Rossano; Sekhel Ṭov; Tobiah ben Eliezer Cairo Genizah, 9, 167, 176 cantillation, 194 Cassiodorus, 114, 116–18 chansons d’amour, 155–56, 158, 187 Chrétien de Troyes, 156 Christian interpretation allegorical interpretation of the law, 18 atomistic readings by the Church fathers, 118 biblical authorship in, 111, 157–58, 164 cathedral schools, 111, 120, 125, 133 Christological interpretation, 114–17, 123 four senses of Scripture, 25, 110, 272, 294 Jewish collaboration, 121 literal vs. spiritual sense, 109–11, 114–15, 120, 125, 128, 152, 156–58, 212, 224, 230, 273, 294, 295 of the Lord’s servant in Isaiah, 139 prefiguration, 25, 139, 273, 284–85, 294

rationalism, 143 six ages of the world, 273, 285 Sola Scriptura, 13 in Syriac, 27, 66–67 circumcision, 18, 145 Copeland, Rita, 294 dalīl, 257–59 de Lange, Nicholas, 167, 168 de Madrigal, Alfonso, 224, 295, 361 Dead Sea Scrolls, 50 de-orayta laws, 24, 239–42, 259–60, 264–68, 276, 280–81, 294 de-rabbanan laws, 24, 239–42, 258, 259, 266– 68, 275–76, 280–81, 294, 356 derekh qeṣarah, 42 dotted letters in the Bible, 173–74, 176 Drory, Rina, 35, 50, 52, 58, 66 Dunash ben Labrat, 9 biography, 74 conflict with Menahem, 21, 73, 75, 78–79 critique of Saadia Gaon, 215 influence on northern French school, 74, 123, 125, 130, 175 influence on Rashi, 174–75, 206 interpretation of anthropomorphism, 74 on prophecy, 215 Elbaum, Jacob, 194, 201–5 Eliezer of Beaugency, 12, 127, 147, 153–54 enarratio poetarum, 112, 119 En Dor, witch of, 45, 55 enumeration of the 613 mitzvot, 28, 238, 240, 254, 257 faṣāḥa, 85, 214 First Crusade, 11, 32, 113, 166, 176 four senses of Scripture. See under Christian interpretation Fraenkel, Jonah, 7 Funkenstein, Amos, 273, 283–85 Garden of Eden, 63, 98, 290–92 Gelles, Benjamin, 103, 119 gematria, 5, 6, 196, 213, 289 Geonim conflict with Karaites, 30 Muslim interpretation and, 33 rationalism, 46 See also Saadia Gaon; Samuel ben Hofni gezerah shawah, 29, 39–40, 242–43, 259, 263– 66, 276, 281 Gilbert of Poitiers, 133, 158

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

General Index

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Gilbertus Universalis, 113 Giraud, Cédric, 111 Glossa Ordinaria, 1, 111, 133 grammatica, 112, 116–20 Greenberg, Moshe, 6, 13, 22, 237 Gregory the Great, 3, 110, 114, 125, 157, 164 Griffith, Sidney, 34 Grosseteste, Robert, 295 Grossman, Avraham, 97, 107, 108, 120, 122, 124 Guerric of Saint Quentin, 295 gufeh di-qera, 240, 242, 247, 253, 258–59, 296 Hadassi, Judah, 10, 20, 32 ḥadhf, 43, 84, 85 ḥadīth, 256–259, 267, 268 halakhah basis in midrash, 2, 21–22, 151, 227–28, 239, 247, 251, 257, 266, 276, 278 basis in peshat, 12, 230, 235, 238, 244–45, 249, 250, 267–68, 278–81 contradicts peshat/ẓāhir, 89, 90, 150, 226–30, 246, 296 transmitted orally, 24, 40, 229, 244, 256 Halakhot Gedolot, 28, 33, 239–41 Halbertal, Moshe, 255, 291 Hananel ben Hushiel, 68–69, 95, 130, 193–94 hapax legomena, 35, 75–76 ḥaqīqa, 1, 41–45, 84–85, 87, 91–93, 246 Harding, Stephen, 121–22 Hārūn, Abū al-Faraj, 9, 20, 32 Hasdai Ibn Shaprut, 73, 79 Hayya Gaon, 45–46, 55, 68, 70 Hayyuj, Judah, 9, 68, 74–75, 82 advanced triliteral Hebrew root principle, 11, 80 biography, 79 influence, 80–81, 87, 89, 91 pioneer of Hebrew grammar, 80 works, 80 Hefeṣ ben Yaṣliaḥ, 318 heqqesh, 29, 242–43, 264–66, 276, 281, 353, 356 Herbert of Bosham, 2, 97 Herman of Cologne, 122 ḥilluf, 47, 86 Hiwi al-Balkhi, 35 Hugh of Saint Victor, 2, 97, 109–10, 124–25, 152, 158, 295 Huizinga, Johan, 7–8 Ibn Bal‘am, Judah, 87–91, 94, 26, Ibn Barun, Isaac, 75, 87, 225, 321 Ibn Chiquitilla, Moses, 87–91, 93–94, 130, 163, 219

393

Ibn Daud, Abraham, 256 Ibn Ezra, Abraham asserted that the “Rabbis knew the peshat,” 131, 220–21, 227 attitude toward midrash, 12, 208–12, 219– 23, 226, 234, 278, 287, 293 on biblical authorship, 162, 216, 219, 289 on biblical style, 138 biography, 11, 209 critique of Christian interpretation, 212–22 critique of geonim, 223 critique of Ibn Janah, 86 critique of Leqaḥ Ṭov, 166, 210 critique of Menahem ben Saruq, 76 critique of Rashbam, 219, 226–27 critique of Rashi, 6, 97, 210–11, 223 deferred to Rabbis in exegesis related to halakhah, 18, 24, 225, 229, 235 definition of peshat, 225, 231 distinguished Psalms, 230–31 dual scriptural signification the exception, 290 Epistle of the Sabbath, 151, 226 interpretation of anthropomorphism, 213, 299 Job commentary, 233 Karaism and, 21, 31, 32, 76, 78, 208, 210, 222, 226–28 method: asmakhta, 40, 200, 218, 220–22, 227–29, 241, 263, 297; exegetical economy, 86, 213–14; formulation incidental, 214–17; notion of literary elegance, 214; pursuit of Scripture, 211; ṭa‘am ha-parashah, 211; tiqqun, 41, 225, 228, 232 parallel in Christian interpretation, 230 programmatic statements, 210, 215, 217, 218, 220, 222, 224, 226–27, 230, 232 on prophecy, 215–16, 289 Psalms commentary, 230–33 Rashbam and, 17, 138, 146, 151, 227, 229, 235 rationalism, 139, 143 rejected gematria, 5 Sefat Yeter, 215, 289, 313 singular hermeneutic, 24, 151, 208, 219–21, 225–36, 239, 268, 286 sources of influence, 69, 80, 87, 107, 123, 138, 143, 208, 210–15, 220–26, 229, 231–35, 244 supercommentaries on, 206, 209 theology, 231–33 theory of language, 215–17, 293 translated works of Hayyuj, 80, 210 viewed peshat as “the essence” (‘iqqar), 40, 227, 235

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

394

General Index

Ibn Ezra, Abraham (continued) works, 209–10 Yesod Mora, 210, 221, 231 Ibn Ezra, Moses, 80, 209, 215 aesthetic evaluation of Scripture, 93 Arabic poetics, 92, 94, 142, 215 biography, 91 critique of Ibn Chiquitilla, 89 majāz-ḥaqīqa dichotomy, 91–92 on parallelism, 142 sources of influence, 93–94 theory of language, 215 works, 91 Ibn Ḥazm, Abū Muhammad ‘Alī, 43–44 Ibn Janah, Jonah attitude toward midrash, 85 biography, 81 critique of Menahem ben Saruq, 77 dual hermeneutic, 21, 24, 82–84, 222, 236, 239, 278 influence on Andalusian tradition, 224 lexical substitution, 86 Muslim interpretation and, 84–85 the peshat of the verse is one thing, the halakhah another, 81–82, 104, 226, 239, 278 sources of influence, 11, 31, 82 taqdīr, 85, 86 works, 81 Ibn Nūḥ, Yūsuf, 9, 20, 32, 65 Ibn Tibbon, Judah, 271, 318, 319 Ibn Tibbon, Samuel, 271 Idel, Moshe, 272 iḍmār, 42, 43, 84, 93 Ikhwān al-ṣafā’. See Brethren of Purity Isaac ben Samuel al-Kanzi, 91 Isaiah of Trani, 206 isti‘āra, 86, 92–93 istidlāl, 240, 257–58, 269 istikhrāj, 255 Jacob ben Reuben, 10, 20, 32, 65, 154, 167, 204, 205 Jacobs, Jonathan, 186 Jaeger, Stephen, 109, 133 Jāḥiẓ, Abū ‘Uthman al-, 37, 43, 307–8 Japhet, Sara, 16, 141–42, 154, 156, 303, 329, 330, 331, 334, 335, 349 Jaṣṣāṣ, Abū Bakr al-, 43 Jerome, 110, 114, 117, 122 Jerusalem Talmud (citation om), Rosh ha-Shanah 3:5, 62 Jeshua ben Judah, 9, 20, 32, 65, 348

John of Rheims, 113 Joseph Ibn Megas, 268 Judah ha-Levi, 10, 11, 91, 209, 227 Judeo-Arabic learning, interpretive tradition, 6, 14, 16, 30, 67, 73–75, 91, 93, 206–9, 234, 247, 251, 261, 286 Kairouan, 21, 35, 68, 69, 71, 316 kalām, 30, 34 Kamin, Sarah, 13, 14, 22, 103, 105, 106, 109, 111, 124, 189, 321 Karaism, Karaite tradition, learning definition, 27 early stages, 28–34, 50 identified with Sadducees, 223, 226, 276 influence on Andalusian tradition, 91 Jerusalem school, 31–32, 55, 57, 65, 167, 177 Karaite Byzantine school, 32, 65, 167–68, 172, 177, 181, 205–6 Karaite-Rabbanite divide, 11, 27–31, 35, 40, 47, 50, 66, 79, 227, 267 Muslim interpretation and, 34, 48–51 67, 247 opposition to external sciences, 32–33, 48, 55 Kermode, Frank, 8, 18 Kimhi, David (Radak), 1, 10, 12, 21, 25, 70–71, 93, 211, 216, 243, 271, 286–88 Kimhi, Joseph, 10, 12, 18, 70, 80, 286 Kraebel, Andrew, 112, 118 Kugel, James, 3, 85, 214 la‘az. See vernacular lafẓ, 215 Lananc of Bec, 111–12 Langton, Stephen, 110 Leibowitz, Nehama, 102 Leqaḥ Ṭov author speaks in his own voice, 177 double-commentary format, 187 Ibn Ezra’s critique of, 166 influence on later Byzantine interpreters, 190 influence on Midrash Aggadah, 190 influence on Samuel of Rossano, 191 influence on Sekhel Ṭov, 193, 194, 197–200 midrashic interpretation, 6, 100, 123, 135, 177–81, 196 peshat interpretation, 178 provenance, 22, 166, 177 Qohelet commentary, 187–88 Song of Songs interpretation, 183–85

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

General Index

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

traces of Rashi in, 169 use in the northern French school, 155 levirate marriage, 38–40, 263, 296–97 lex talionis, 261 literal sense. See under Christian interpretation; peshat; sensus litteralis Liss, Hanna, 156 Lockshin, Martin, 194 Lowth, Robert, 140–41, 332 Ma‘aseh Bereishit. See Account of Creation Ma‘aseh Merkavah. See Account of the Chariot ma‘na, 91, 93, 215, 241 Maḥberet. See Menahem ben Saruq Maimonides Abraham Ibn Ezra and, 241, 244–45, 247, 262 adjusts halakhah based on peshuto shel miqra, 245, 264–65 attitude toward midrash, 241, 246, 254, 278, 287 on biblical authorship, 251, 255 biography, 237–38 Book of the Commandments, 14, 28, 29, 238– 43, 247, 248, 250, 251, 253–59, 264–65, 269, 275, 280 conception of peshat, 14, 238, 240, 247, 253– 54, 263, 270, 278 critique of Halakhot Gedolot, 239–41 defense of Mishnaic Hebrew, 77 Guide of the Perplexed, 12, 32, 35, 238, 241, 245–50, 286, 297–98 halakhic exegesis based on ẓāḥir, 240, 244, 249, 251 halakhic exegesis following midrash, 247, 253–54, 262–63 interpretation of anthropomorphism, 245, 249 Karaism and, 256–67 on laws of mourning, 244, 349 legal theory: biblical vs. rabbinic laws, 24, 239–42, 251, 255, 259–70, 280; departure om geonic model, 256, 268; epistemology, 255, 258; halakhah le-moshe mi-sinai, 353; naṣṣ (explicit biblical verse as source of law), 24, 242, 254–55, 258–59. See also under middot (of midrash) Mishnah Commentary, 77, 246, 252, 255–56, 260–61, 263 Mishneh Torah, 238, 241, 244–47, 251–52, 261–66

395

Oral Law, 252–55 Principle #2, 240–47, 251, 254–59, 269–70 tafsīr marwī (transmitted interpretations), 251–61, 266–67, 269 on talmudic debates, 255, 257 parable of the king’s palace, 347 on prophecy, 251 rationale for the commandments, 250 rationalism, 297 sources of influence, 87, 241, 243, 246–47, 249–51, 262–63, 267–68 Treatise on Resurrection, 87–88, 238 use of Muslim jurisprudence, 24, 254–59, 268–69 works, 238, 247 See also under ta’wīl; ẓāhir majāz, 37, 41–45, 48–49, 54, 66, 85–87, 91– 93, 224 Manegold of Lautenbach, 111–12, 325 Maniacoria, Nicholas, 209, 212 mashal, 46, 70, 71, 183–85, 189, 224 mashhūr, 37, 317 mashma‘, 17, 40, 75, 104, 187, 189, 225, 227, 281, 290 maskilim (appellation of northern French peshat interpreters), 131–32, 142, 147, 161 Masoretes, 28, 36, 194 matres lectionis, 219, 292–93 meliṣah, 155, 184–85, 189 Menahem bar Helbo, 107, 123, 125, 129, 322 Menahem ben Saruq attitude toward rabbinic interpretation, 21 avoided comparing Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew, 76 avoided comparing Hebrew and Arabic, 75 biography, 73 influence on northern French school, 74, 123, 125, 130, 139 influence on Rashi, 174, 206 ‘inyano yoreh ‘alayw, 75, 139 Karaism and, 77, 79 Maḥberet, 81, 139, 194 on parallelism, 75, 171, 215 sources of influence, 71, 73 Menahem ben Solomon characterization of midrash, 200–201 dual hermeneutic, 222 follows Onkelos, 195 influenced by Menahem ben Saruq, 167, 194 privileged midrash, 206 Rashbam and, 194

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

396

General Index

Menahem ben Solomon (continued) Rashi and, 194–96, 199 Rome rabbinic academy connection, 193 works, 167, 194 See also Sekhel Ṭov Mews, Constant, 112 Meyuhas ben Eliyahu, 206 middot (of midrash), 3, 79, 150–51, 190, 239–40 13 middot of R. Ishmael, 3, 139, 149, 255 32 middot of R. Eliezer, 3, 149, 178, 255 conflict with peshat, 243, 256 Karaite view of, 256, 267 Maimonides classified as qiyās, 24, 242–43, 254–61, 265, 267, 243, 276 Nahmanides’ view of, 243, 276, 282 Qirqisani’s view of, 51 Saadia Gaon’s view of, 243, 256, 267 used to confirm “transmitted interpretation” (in Maimonides’ opinion), 261–62 midrash, 91, 118, 212–13 aggadic vs. halakhic, 46, 91 assumptions of: Bible as book of instruction, 3–4, 16, 213, 286, 292; Bible as cryptic document, 3, 126, 137, 147, 200, 212; Bible as omnisignificant (see omnisignificance); Bible is word of God (see Torah is om Heaven) dominance in Ashkenaz, 147–48, 299 Midrash Aggadah, 190 Midrashic works cited Genesis Rabbah, 8:2, 359, 25:1, 191; 70:8, 340; 89:5, 181 Leviticus Rabbah, 1:3, 340 Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, ha-Ḥodesh, §7, 358 Numbers Rabbah, 3:13, 338 Qohelet Rabbah, 1:1, 341 Ruth Rabbah, 2:1, 340 Sifra Qedoshim, 1:1, 281; 2:14, 353; 4:8, 353 Sifrei Deuteronomy, §310, 345 Song of Songs Rabbah, 1:10, 341 Minnis, Alastair, 16, 110, 156–58, 224, 230, 235, 295 miqra mesoras. See Rashi, word inversion Miqra’ot Gedolot. See Rabbinic Bible Mishnah, citations om Ḥagiga, 1:8, 355 Ḥullin, 3:1, 264 Nazir, 7:1, 245 Qiddushin, 1:1, 242 Rosh ha-Shanah, 3:8, 146 Sanhedrin, 10:1, 4 Shabbat, 6:1, 78

Mishnaic Hebrew, controversy over its standing, 26, 76–77, 80 mishpaṭ ha-lashon, 85 Mizrahi, Elijah, 26, 102 Mondschein, Aaron, 6, 71, 163, 201–2 Mosconi, Judah Leon ben Moses, 190, 206 Moses the Preacher (ha-darshan), 107, 123, 324 Mu‘tazilite thought, learning, 11, 19–20, 30–37, 43–44, 48–50, 54, 55 mudawwin definition, 20, 58, 60–65 function: abridged biblical narrative, 61–63; added introductory verses, 60; arranged biblical narrative, 53, 58–59; arranged the Psalms, 59; narrative voice, 60–61; used historical sources selectively, 58–59 Hebrew rendering, 65, 154 identity, 53, 60–64, 216 Qirqisani’s view of, 52–53 Yefet ben Eli’s view of, 58–65, 172, 202, 216, 289 See also tadwīn muḥkam, 40–41, 45, 48, 54, 65, 272 Muqammiṣ, David, 36, 66–67, 306 murād, 41, 86, 259, 272 Muslim interpretation, 43, 58, 65, 85 impact on Jewish learning, 67 Muslim jurisprudence, legal theory. See uṣūl al-fiqh; ḥadīth; qiyās; sunna; tawātur mutashābih, 40–41, 50, 66 Nahmanides attitude toward midrash, 85, 274–75, 282, 294 Barcelona disputation, 273–74 on biblical authorship, 218, 288–90, 293 biography, 271–73 Christian interpretation and, 25, 272, 274, 284–85, 288, 294–95 conception of peshat, 276–77, 280–82, 296 critique of Abraham Ibn Ezra, 25, 211, 218, 243, 274, 293, 359 critique of Ibn Chiquitilla, 286 critique of Maimonides, 25, 243, 260, 269– 71, 274–76, 290, 297–99, 346, 351–52 critique of Radak, 211, 243 draws upon Abraham Ibn Ezra: with attribution, 285, 360; without attribution, 277 dual hermeneutic, 25, 276–78, 283, 290–91 exegetical economy, 86 four layers of scriptural interpretation, 25, 271–74, 293–94, 299

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

General Index influence on later commentators, 26 Karaism and, 275 legal theory, 276–77, 294 mysticism, 151, 261, 288–93 non-talmudic peshat interpretation of legal passages, 278, 279–82, 296–97 peshat as primary source of law, 279–82, 296, 300 programmatic statements, 218, 243, 283–84, 287–88, 292 Rashi and, 274–75, 291 relation to peshat, 291–92, 296–300 ṣiyyur, ṣiyyurei devarim, 284–85, 290–91, 294, 296 sod, 25, 288, 290 sources of influence, 271, 274–75, 280–81, 287–88, 291, 299 Torah as names of God, 292 typological interpretation/prefiguration, 273, 283–88, 291–96, 300 works, 272 Nathan of Rome, 68, 91, 119, 167, 191–94 Natronai Gaon, 28 naẓar, 36–37, 54–55, 257, 261 Nicholas of Lyre, 2, 13, 97, 111 Nicholas Trevet, 158

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

omnisignificance, 3, 4, 85, 102, 135, 213–14, 218, 276, 287, 293 ordo, ordo verborum, 116, 119 Or ‘Einayim, 166, 190, 205, 210 Origen, 110, 329 parallelism, 75, 136, 140–42, 214–15. See also under Ibn Ezra, Moses; Menahem ben Saruq; Rashbam Pentateuch authorship. See biblical authorship, Pentateuch Pentateuch Scholia on dotted biblical letters, 174 on Ezra’s role in fi xing the biblical text, 174 lacks grammatical sophistication, 174 lemma complement format, 170 Leqaḥ Ṭov and, 182 method, 168–72 resemblance to Rashi, 169–70, 174–75 sources of influence, 172 use of the term sadran, 202, 205–6 peshat definition, 4, 7, 15–16, 72–73, 137, 186, 237, 247–48 described as “newly emerging” interpretations, 6, 12, 98, 131, 134, 136, 149, 221, 323

397

dynamic vs. static conception of, 6–8, 13–14, 18–19 equated with ẓāhir, 20–21, 45, 225 in light of Christian interpretation, 14–15, 18, 22, 223 in light of Karaite interpretation, 15 in light of Muslim interpretation, 14–15 and literal sense, 15–18, 21, 40, 45, 187–89, 225, 227, 281, 291, 296 may be a figurative interpretation, 15–16, 138 privileged in modern scholarship, 2, 6, 7, 13, 126–27, 147, 151, 208, 231, 233, 237 peshateh di-qera, 24, 44, 242, 247–48, 253–54, 258–59, 264, 267–69 peshat maxim construal: strong reading, 82–84, 124, 222; super-strong reading, 24, 244, 266, 271, 275; very strong reading, 24, 222–25, 228, 234, 266; weak reading, 21, 45, 82, 87, 222 use by Abraham Ibn Ezra, 24, 210, 219, 221, 224–28, 233–36, 299 use by Ibn Janah, 21, 81–84, 91, 97, 104, 124–25, 278, 299 use by Maimonides, 14, 24, 239–43, 247, 258, 266–69, 275, 299 use by Nahmanides, 271, 275, 278, 290 use by Qara, 147–49 use by Rashbam, 149–50, 160, 165, 278 use by Rashi, 21, 97–100, 104, 106, 124, 149, 299 use by Samuel ben Hofni, 19–21, 30, 45, 82, 87 use by Samuel ha-Nagid, 86–87 use in anonymous Chronicles commentary, 71, 108 use in Leqaḥ Ṭov, 177–82, 185–89, 206–7 use in Pentateuch Scholia, 108, 175 use in Sekhel Ṭov, 194–200, 206 use in the Talmud, 2, 6, 8, 40, 149, 160, 240, 263, 297 use in twelh-century Byzantine school, 23, 207, 167–68, 172, 183, 207. See also use in Leqaḥ Ṭov; use in Sekhel Ṭov pesher, 50 pitaron, 48, 310 piyyut, 28, 33, 35, 71, 122, 128–31, 148, 164, 305. See also under Qara, Joseph; Shemaiah Plato, 54, 143–44 Polliack, Meira, 50, 57, 65 poterim, 96, 107, 123, 125 prophetic infallibility (Mu‘tazilite doctrine), 55, 350

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

398

General Index

qal wa-ḥomer, 243, 351 Qara, Joseph attitude toward midrash, 137, 148, biography, 128 Christian interpretation and, 122, 128, 139 glosses on Rashi, 98, 129, 134, 136, 332, 333 influence on northern French school, 127 method: biblical stylistic conventions (hergelo shel leshon ha-miqra), 140; context (seder ha-miqra, hillukh ha-ketuvim, hillukh ha-parashah), 139; contextual interpretation, 148; historical sensitivity, 145–46, 286 midrash commentary, 128, 164, 329 piyyut commentaries, 128–29, 148, 164 programmatic statements, 135, 147 rationalism, 142 sources of influence, 128–29 works, 127, 129 Qayyara, Simon. See Halakhot Gedolot Qirqisani, Jacob biography, 31 Book of Lights and Watchtowers, 31, 50–51 disparaged Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uziel, 70 epistemology, 50 interpretation of anthropomorphism, 51, 70 method, 50–52, 62, 65, 76 Muslim interpretation and, 52 qiyās, 24, 255–61, 264, 267, 269, 276, 278 Qumisi, Daniel alasserted that Scripture has only one interpretation, 48 biography, 11, 29 first Karaite scripturalist, 33 method, 48, 50 opposition to external sciences, 55 polemics against Rabbanites, 47–49 prognostic interpretation, 49 works, 47 Quraysh, Judah ben, 9, 21, 71, 74–75, 213, 249; interpretation of anthropomorphism, 51, 69–70 Rabad of Posquières, 266, 269, 356 Rabanus Maurus, 112, 125 Rabbenu Gershom, 95, 96, 119, 129, 132 Rabbinic Bible (Miqra’ot Gedolot), 1, 8–12, 15, 97, 127 Rashbam Abraham Ibn Ezra and, 214, 227–29, 235 amitat peshuto shel miqra, 127

anti-Christian polemics, 144, 152. See also teshuvah la-minim attitude toward midrash, 22, 131, 150, 160– 65, 221, 227–29, 235, 278, 281, 286, 299 on biblical authorship, 153–64, 289 on biblical style, 136, 138, 140, 160, 163 biography, 130 Christian interpretation and, 122, 128, 144– 45, 150–52, 156, 164 contrast with Andalusian tradition, 138, 142 Dayyaqut, 130 derekh tarbut, 145 dual hermeneutic, 24, 149–51, 164, 221–22, 227–29, 235, 239, 278 followed Dunash ben Labrat, 79 glosses on Rashi, 136, 333, 335 influence on northern French peshat school, 127 Latin knowledge, 121 method: be-nohag she-ba-‘olam, 142, 156, 336; davar lamed me-‘inyano, 139; derekh ereṣ, 142–44, 145, 150, 165; derekh ha-miqra’ot, 140, 331; haqdamah (literary anticipation), 140; historical sensitivity, 145–46, 286; self-sufficiency of peshat, 137 non-talmudic peshat interpretation of legal passages, 17, 22, 150–51, 229, 250 on parallelism, 136, 141–42 programmatic statements, 149–51, 160–61 Rashi and, 6, 131, 134, 136, 149–50 rationale for the commandments, 144 rationalism, 138, 142–43 Song of Songs interpretation, 155–56, 186 sources of influence, 194 Talmud commentary, 128, 130, 164 viewed midrash as “the essence (‘iqqar) of Torah,” 149–52, 219, 227, 255, 278 works, 127, 130 Rashi anti-Christian polemics, 121–23 attitude toward midrash, 12, 97, 103–5, 120–25, 137, 145 biography, 95, 96, 121 Bruno the Carthusian and, 113, 119–26 Christian interpretation and, 109, 116, 120–26 cited by Christian interpreters, 2, 97 double-commentary format (peshat vs. midrash), 3, 99, 100, 119, 135–36, 145, 178–79, 187, 189 dual hermeneutic, 208 grammatical sophistication, 175 influence, 97

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

General Index lemma complement format, 170 method: engaged in peshat and midrashic exegesis, 104; on parallelism, 140, 214; seems to ignore his peshat criteria, 103; used midrash selectively, 104–5, 120, 126, 164 midrashic interpretations, 51, 98, 101, 120, 137, 142, 145–46, 160, 163, 175, 189, 211–14, 279, 281, 296 personal traits, 132 peshat pioneer, 96, 104–7, 127, 192, 286 philological analysis, 98, 141, 196 precursors, 72 programmatic statements, 2, 98, 103–4, 155, 223 Proverbs commentary, 189 revised his commentary, 134, 137 seeks instruction om Scripture, 101, 105, 189 sensitive to “sequence” of the biblical text, 103, 105, 116, 120, 181 Song of Songs interpretation, 103–5, 119, 186–88 sources of influence, 96, 106–9, 119, 123–25, 175, 186, 206 supercommentaries on, 102, 192 Talmud commentary, 96, 107, 119–20, 125, 128, 164, 266 text of, 97–98, 134–36 use of the term dugma, 103, 119, 188–89 word inversion (sirus ha-miqra/miqra mesoras), 16, 116, 181 Rāzi, Abū Ḥatim al-, 41 Remigius of Auxerre, 112, 114, 116–17 Reuel, 9, 23, 167 on the editing of the biblical text, 173 lemma complement format, 170 method, 169–71, 184, 206 resemblance to Rashi, 170–71 sources of influence, 172 use of the term sadran, 172–74, 201–6 Rhineland rabbinic academies, 6, 95, 113, 128, 149, 177 piyyut commentary in, 129 Talmud commentary in, 95–96, 107, 119, 128, 132 Roscellinus of Compiegne, 113 Rupert of Deutz, 122, 125, 152 Saadia Gaon Arabic and, 36 attitude toward midrash, 39, 256 azharot, 240

399

Bible translation, 36–39, 42–43. See also Saadia Gaon, Tafsīr biography, 11, 30 Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 34–36 epistemology, 40 “first speaker on all matters” (appellation by Abraham Ibn Ezra), 11, 34, 36, 67 fourfold axiom, 37, 87, 212, 224, 231, 248 influence on Andalusian tradition, 72, 82, 93, 126, 143, 212, 224, 228, 231, 244, 248, 251, 256, 272 Job commentary, 233 Karaism and, 35–36, 40, 66, 256 linguistic comparisons with Arabic, 75–76 method, 43 midrashic interpretations, 67 Muslim interpretation and, 37, 43, 65, 272 non-halakhic interpretation, 39, 44 precursors, 34, 36, 66 on prophecy, 215, 232 Tafsīr, 34–44, 70, 73, 87, 93, 213, 252–53 use of term basīṭ/peshat, 72–73 viewed Psalms as prophecy, 88 works, 35 See also under ta’wīl; ẓāhir Sabbath, 7, 28, 79, 151, 160, 186, 191, 217–18, 226, 243, 277, 279, 280, 285, 293 sadran, 23, 65, 153–54, 172, 173, 200–206, 216. See also Leqaḥ Ṭov; mudawwin; Pentateuch Scholia; Reuel; Sekhel Ṭov ṣaḥot, 214–15, 319, 345 Saint Victor, school of, 128, 152. See also Andrew of Saint Victor; Hugh of Saint Victor Salmon ben Jeruhim, 29, 31, 77 Samuel ben Hofni Gaon, 44–46, 55, 88, 224, 256 Samuel ha-Nagid, 9, 21, 86, 87, 89, 94, 210, 225 Samuel of Rossano, 190–93 Scholem, Gershom, 272 Scripture spoke in the language of men, 46, 51, 69–70, 74, 213–14, 249, 311 seder, seder ha-miqra’ot (sequence of the verses), 103–4, 116, 119, 121, 139 Sefer Ḥasidim, 132 Segal, Moshe Zvi, 237 Sekhel Ṭov differentiation between peshat and derash, 194 method, 197 midrashic interpretation, 193, 197–200 notes manner of biblical narrative, 203–5 responds to Leqaḥ Ṭov, 196–97

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

400

General Index

Sekhel Ṭov (continued) separates between midrash and philological interpretation, 193 sources of influence, 196 text and provenance, 193 typological interpretation, 284 use in northern French school, 154 use of the term sadran, 201–6 See also Menahem ben Solomon sensus litteralis (literal sense), 1, 2, 13, 16, 128, 157, 224, 295. See also under Christian interpretation Septimus, Bernard, 274–75 Servius, 112, 115–16 Shabbetai Donolo, 177 sharī‘a, 239, 257, 352 She’iltot, 27–29, 33, 349 Shemaiah (Rashi’s secretary), 98, 108, 123, 134, 137, 322 shiṭṭah (typical manner, style—of Scripture, Talmud), 119, 131, 156, 327 Simon, Uriel, 213, 215, 229, 231, 303, 359 sirus ha-miqra. See Rashi, word inversion Sklarz, Miriam, 274 Smalley, Beryl, 2, 109–10 sofer, ha-sofer (biblical editor), 65, 153–54, 205–6, 216 Solomon Ibn Adret, 26, 272 Soloveitchik, Haym, 96, 119, 132 Song of Songs interpretation, 57, 103–5, 154–59, 183–86 Spinoza, Benedict, 13, 237 spiritual sense. See under Christian interpretation Steiner, Richard, 34, 36–37, 70–71, 169–71, 201 Stroumsa, Sarah, 66 sunna, 256 Syriac Christian interpretation. See under Christian interpretation tadwīn, 52–53, 58, 64–65, 216 tafsīr, 41, 52, 252. See also under Maimonides, legal theory; Saadia Gaon, Tafsīr takhrīj, 44–45 ta’kīd, 85 Tam, Rabbenu Jacob, 74, 79, 130, 132 taqdīr, 85–86 taqlīd, 49 Targums, 28, 38, 69, 99, 191 Jonathan ben Uziel, 70 Onkelos, 70, 191, 195 Pseudo-Jonathan, 28, 38

tashbīh, 86, 93 Ta-Shma, Israel M., 108, 169, 186, 192 tawātur, 256–57, 354 ta’wīl applied by al-Qumisi, 48–49 applied by Ibn Bal’am, 89 applied by Maimonides, 246, 248–49, 297 applied by Qirqisani, 50 applied by Saadia Gaon, 20, 41–43, 57, 213, 226, 233, 248, 299 applied by Samuel ha-Nagid, 87 applied by Yefet ben Eli, 55, 57 definition, 41 Muslim interpretation and, 41 rationalism, 45, 54, 81 unwarranted non-literal interpretation, 48, 56, 69 used to interpret anthropomorphism, 51 tefillin, 17, 78, 151, 251, 304 teshuvah la-minim, 121–22, 144, 328 Thierry of Chartres, 143–44, 150, 158 tiqqun. See under Ibn Ezra, Abraham, method Tobiah ben Eliezer biography, 22, 166, 176 characterization of midrash, 179–81 cites his father, 180, 183–87 method, 186 philological interpretation, 186 polemics against Karaites, 168, 177, 181–82, 206 privileged midrash, 206 Rashi and, 176, 179, 182, 186 sources of influence, 179–85, 205 use of the term perush, 186, 188–89 use of the term sadran, 200–202, 205 See also Leqaḥ Ṭov Tobiah ben Moses, 10, 20, 32, 167 Torah is om Heaven (talmudic doctrine), 4, 162, 251, 289 Tosafists, 68, 108, 130, 132, 275, 281, 318, 333 Tosefta (citation om), Makkot, 5:8, 318 Touitou, Eleazar, 97, 109–11, 136, 140, 162, 321, 339 Tower of Babel, 137–39, 211, 332 twelh-century renaissance, 109–10, 133 uṣūl al-fiqh (Muslim jurisprudence), 11, 254– 55, 267–69, 354, 356 Van der Heide, Albert, 272 vernacular (la‘az), 5, 71, 96, 99, 108, 146, 167, 169, 174, 181, 193

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

General Index Viezel, Eran, 53, 64, 71, 162, 201–2, 215–16, 314 Virgil, 112, 115–16 Wagner, Herzliya, 230–33 Wechsler, Michael, 57, 60 Weiss, Moshe, 167, 191–92 Weiss Halivni, David, 8, 34, 38, 40, 45 William of Champeaux, 152 William of Conches, 143 Wolfson, Elliot, 291

sources of influence, 54–55 works, 54, 57 See also under mudawwin; ta’wīl; ẓāhir ẓāhir, 52, 82, 84, 91 conflicts with reason, 42, 50, 54 conflicts with tradition, 44, 89–90, 251, 263 definition, 16, 37 first assumption, 20, 41, 44–45, 50, 65, 82, 87, 89, 248 and peshat, 1, 16, 40; distinct om peshat, 248–53; equated with or rendered as peshat, 4, 38, 245–48, 251; overlap between the categories, 38 as “pre-interpretive” sense, 16, 45, 190 privileged by Saadia Gaon, 19, 37, 41, 44 privileged by Yefet ben Eli, 20, 54–57 rendered nir’eh, nigleh, 37 use of the term by Maimonides, 245–53 Ẓahiri school of Muslim jurisprudence, 43 Zawanowska, Marzena, 63–65, 216, 337 Zohar, 272

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Yefet ben Eli biography, 31 critique of Saadia Gaon, 54, 56 influence on Byzantine Rabbanites, 205 method, 54–56, 62, 65 Muslim interpretation and, 58 opposition to external sciences, 55 prognostic interpretation, 57 on prophecy, 350 rationalism, 55 Song of Songs interpretation, 57

401

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

This page intentionally left blank

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Index of Scriptural References

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Hebrew Bible Genesis 1, 246, 248, 289 1:1, 130, 291, 330, 332, 334, 336, 343, 359, 360, 361 1:1–5, 160, 163 1:2, 142–43, 332, 333, 360 1:3, 63, 360 1:5, 63, 151, 226, 345 1:6, 63 1:7, 95 1:8, 315 1:9, 143 1:26, 315, 332 1:27, 177–79, 339 1:28, 138–39, 332 1:31, 343 2, 178 2:3, 285 2:4, 160 2:8, 171, 339 2:12, 53 2:14, 53 2:17, 315 2:18, 177–78, 346 2:18–22, 178–79 2:20, 178 2:21, 178 3:8, 301, 322 3:17, 188 3:20, 42 3:22, 63, 315, 323, 335, 360 3:23, 63, 314 3:24, 98–99, 322 4:1, 315 5:24, 191 6:13, 216 6:6, 42, 69–70, 74–75, 213, 316, 345 6:7, 216, 346 8:1, 316 8:1–2, 192

8:21, 316 8:22, 161 9:1, 138–39, 332 9:18, 140 9:25, 140 10:8, 359 11:1–4, 101, 331 11:2, 345 11:3, 331, 345 11:4, 137, 211–12, 332 11:5, 48 11:7, 138, 332 11:8, 138 11:28, 99, 212, 322, 345, 359 11:35, 324 12:1, 85, 101, 319 12:6, 346 12:11, 191 13:10, 53 14:1, 359 14:10, 191 14:14, 5, 101, 302 14:15, 16, 302, 303, 304, 322, 327 14:18, 322 15:1, 193 15:7–20, 56, 100, 145 15:9–10, 322 15:10, 301, 312, 322 15:11, 56, 312 15:12, 197, 342 15:17, 56, 100, 146, 342 15:18, 100, 342 15:20, 210 16:6, 342, 359 17:11, 18 18, 297, 298 18:1, 362 18:10, 169, 338 19, 297, 298, 19:3, 298 19:9, 196, 329 19:15, 323

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

404

Index of Scriptural References

19:17, 298, 333 20:13, 194, 338, 342 20:16, 346 21:1, 343 21:14, 195 22:13, 332 23:1, 345 23:13, 242 24:2, 145, 333, 339 24:21, 338 25:11, 203 25:19, 203 25:8, 203 25:26, 343 26:1, 359 26:5, 190, 359 26:19, 203, 287 26:20, 203, 360 26:26, 203 26:26–31, 203 26:32, 203, 343 27:1, 359 27:42, 42 28:11, 340, 346 28:12, 199–200, 342 28:17, 329 29:2, 179, 199, 200 29:27, 174 30:1, 359 30:21, 203, 343 30:23–24, 203 31:6–7, 61 32, 56, 204 32:7, 359 32:8, 171 32:9, 340 32:21, 346 32:32, 204 32:34, 343 33:4, 174, 175, 197, 342 33:14, 342 33:20, 323 35:22, 161 36:31, 204 37, 161 37:2, 162–63, 302, 321, 323, 330, 334, 337, 347, 349, 358 37:13, 329 37:15, 3, 212, 301, 302, 322 37:15–17, 3, 38, 302 37:17, 15, 359 37:32, 339

38:8, 362 38:18, 340 39:1, 340 39:6, 343 39:20, 315 41:1–4, 202 41:2, 180 41:34, 197 42:7–20, 62 42:15–20, 200 42:29–34, 62, 200 42:34, 62, 343 43:1, 343 45:22, 196, 342 47:24, 197 47:26, 204 48:6, 39 49:6, 317 49:22, 323 Exodus 2:1, 62 2:1–2, 62 2:5, 181, 198, 327 3:2, 61, 338, 346 3:11, 330, 359 4:14, 46 4:24, 42, 320 4:41, 339 5:5, 346 5:6–17, 217 5:11, 217, 293 5:16, 339 5:23, 195 6:2–9, 105 6:9, 323 7:5, 318 7:24, 344 8:15, 48 8:19, 211 9:1, 138 9:3, 46 9:4, 211 9:10, 344 9:26, 211 10:8, 171 10:22, 339 11:4, 323 12:17, 355 13:3–10, 17 13:9, 17, 151, 304, 348 14:20, 170

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Index of Scriptural References 14:21, 143 15:1, 175, 182 15:2, 171 15:6, 101, 134, 137, 331, 339 15:9, 322 16:4, 344 17:11, 146 17:15, 170 18:10, 193 18:13, 196 18:20, 240–41, 254, 260 20:1, 346 20:2–13, 217 20:8, 161, 217, 277–79, 293, 346, 358, 361 20:11, 151, 292 20:13, 122, 328, 335 21, 334 21:1, 330 21:8, 227, 308, 309, 349, 358 21:18–19, 262, 308 21:24, 261–62, 355 21:25, 261–62 21:36, 355 22:6–9, 358 22:30, 264 23:2, 323 23:19, 44, 75, 144, 317, 333 24:10, 51 25:8, 340 27:19, 329 28:11, 339 30:13, 329, 332 32:1, 232, 329, 349, 350 32:19, 333 33:3, 344 33:7, 355 33:13, 323 33:21, 344 34:27, 182, 190 34:9, 329 35:3, 344

19:14, 253, 254, 259 19:15, 48, 310 19:17, 250, 252, 253, 254 19:18, 241, 259 19:19, 122, 243, 328 19:26, 84, 90, 139, 318, 332 21:1–4, 228, 244–45, 349 21:9, 260 22:10, 339 22:23, 83 22:28, 144 22:33, 339 23:24, 281 24:19–20, 261 24:20, 261, 355 25:10, 277 26:44, 329 27:29, 279, 280, 358

Leviticus 1:9, 359 1:15, 78, 318 5:8, 78 10:3, 127, 334 11:3, 333 11:34, 144 11:43, 329 16:16, 329 19:2, 281, 358

Deuteronomy 1:2, 346 1:28, 138 2:13, 85 10:16, 18, 225, 304, 348 10:17, 310 10:22, 162 11:18, 78 12:2–6, 83 12:4, 89

Numbers 6:5, 339 7:11, 5 8:19, 214 11:10, 340 11:35, 324 12:7, 304 13:17–20, 202 13:20, 343 13:23, 60, 216, 314, 346 13:24, 60 17:5, 329 17:27, 85 20:29, 340 21:17, 180 22:7, 319 22:23, 362 22:28, 320 23:7, 345 27:11, 227 31:6, 281 35:31, 355, 262

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

405

406

Index of Scriptural References

19:21, 260 22:6, 144 22:13, 242, 259, 265, 277 23:11, 320 24:1, 242, 259, 265, 277 24:14, 329 24:16, 90, 279, 280 25:2, 339 25:5–6, 38 25:6, 38, 40, 44, 262, 263, 296, 297 25:11–12, 246, 250, 251 25:12, 252 26:5, 101 27:20, 329 31:19, 52 32:7, 214 32:8, 355 32:13, 339 32:14, 339 32:23, 141 34:5, 314

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Joshua 3:1, 338 7:25, 320 10:12, 182 24:19, 195 Judges 5, 60, 202 5:4, 331, 334 5:31, 60, 202, 314, 343 8:6, 146 9:13, 316 21, 279, 280 1 Samuel 1:3, 332 1:17, 331 1:20, 330 14, 279, 280 16:19–23, 148 17:55, 148 24, 118 28, 45, 55 28:24, 310 2 Samuel 7:23, 195 11, 117 12:30, 334 18:42, 116

22:9, 46 23:3, 323 23:5, 329 1 Kings 4:31, 55 5:12, 159, 187 5:26, 187 6:5, 172 11:7, 175, 182 11:41, 313 14:19, 313 14:29, 313 18:4, 89 18:13, 89 2 Kings 2, 191 2:3–7, 89 2:12, 214 4:23, 277 4:38–4, 89 14:6, 90, 279, 280 16–17, 89 18–20, 319 Isaiah 1:18, 334 5:9, 334 10:24, 322, 331 11:1, 88 11:1–10, 88 11:8, 99, 320 23:13, 329 24:15, 99 26:11, 323 29:13, 30 32:4, 345 33:4, 186 33:7, 344 40:1, 347 40:20, 141 40–66, 219 41:4, 85 42:3, 332 43:7, 85, 319, 344 50:11, 344 53:12, 344 57:19, 78 59:16, 74 63:9, 74 64:3, 98, 136

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Index of Scriptural References Jeremiah 5:5, 85 14:8, 316 17:13, 287 23, 57, 310 23:24, 312 23:28, 204 33:25, 323 34:18, 146 34:19, 100 36:18, 218

Amos 1:2, 344 6:14, 49

Ezekiel 1, 289 1:1, 335 1:2–3, 153 1:8–21, 173 2:1, 122, 328 6:9, 317 7:19–20, 170 8:3, 172–73 8:5, 173 9:9, 171 10:8, 338 10:8–17, 173 10:15, 171 13:5, 185 13:10, 185 13:18, 338 21:17, 171, 338 21:28, 170 24:21, 170 34:31, 180 35:6, 173, 174 37:13–14, 312 39:14, 171 39:26, 338 42:10, 134

Zechariah 5:9–11, 31

Hosea 1:1, 313 2:7, 104 2:10, 306 4:6, 316, 306 5:9, 171 11:4, 311, 340 Joel 3:1, 319 3–4, 88 4:1, 319 4:3, 355

Jonah 1:3, 55 2:1, 213 2:2, 213 Micah 1:3, 316

Malachi 1:6, 146 2:8–11, 47 3:17, 93 3:22, 52 Psalms 1, 59 2:1, 122 2:3, 345 2:4, 309 10:3, 338 13, 327 16, 121, 230 16:1, 327 16:7, 120, 323 16:8, 78 17:42, 116 18:9, 46 18:31, 187 19, 230 19:8, 137, 141, 274, 357 25, 230 30:1, 5 33:18, 46 40:3, 116 41:3, 116 42, 101 42:1, 322 42:3, 322 42:7, 211, 327 42:7–9, 101, 322 45:1, 57 45:4, 7 50:1, 116 51:1, 116 51:7, 121, 323

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

407

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

408 56, 59 56:1, 59 62:12, 103, 189, 279 63:12, 192 67:5, 116 67:6, 116 67:10, 116 68, 230 68:10, 116 69, 305 69:1, 57 73:1, 319 73:2, 345 73:10, 319 73:17, 355 74, 57, 88 74:1, 326 74:5–6, 311 76:6, 319 77, 114–15, 118–19, 326 77:1, 326 77:5, 319 78:1, 326 79, 57, 219 80:1, 57 84, 59 85, 59 85:2, 313 89, 88, 232 89:1, 232 89:4, 232 89:52, 232 91:6, 319 92:10, 135, 136 93:3, 135 94:3, 136 94:17, 319 97:3, 118 98:3, 118 103:7, 355 103:20, 201 104:31, 70, 316 105:8, 187 110:111, 193 118, 114 118:14, 338 119, 114 119:176, 195 120:1, 337 120–34, 163 126, 163, 219 137, 88, 163, 219

Index of Scriptural References 139, 230 141:1, 117 142:1, 117 Proverbs 1:1, 59, 154, 341, 189 1:6, 59, 185, 189, 341 1:7, 335 1:9, 17 2:4–5, 137 2:16, 189 4:2, 177 5:14, 331 6:1, 146 6:21, 78 6:23, 331 7:8, 341 7:9, 341 8:9, 188, 199 18:22, 331 22:6, 5 22:17, 147 25:1, 153, 159 25:11, 98, 199, 342 27:5, 357 27:6–7, 141 27:27, 341 30:1, 72, 316 30:15, 317 31:13, 341 31:31, 341 Job 1:11, 102 1:22, 102 2:10, 102 8:11, 180 22:2, 141 Ruth 1:1, 59 2:17, 213 3:15, 340 Song of Songs 1:1, 154, 159 1:2, 154, 186, 340, 341 1:3, 339 1:6, 57, 310, 313 1:8, 185 2:1–2, 57 2:11, 85

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Index of Scriptural References 3:5, 336 4:4, 341 5:11, 341 6:2, 341 8:6, 17 8:11, 346, 340 8:11–14, 183, 186 8:12, 183 Qohelet 1:1, 154, 188 1:1–2, 59, 153–54 1:7, 341 2:14, 182, 190 4:13, 141 5:11, 341 8:14, 327 9:5, 341 10:1, 350 10:9, 188, 341 10:10, 341 Esther 1:1, 314 2:1, 192 7:10, 314 Daniel 11:1, 54

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Ezra 4:6, 287 1 Chronicles 1:43, 343 2:3, 316 2:16, 316 4:18, 181, 316

6:16, 316 11:22, 316 17:5, 85 18:17, 316 26:18, 316 27:25, 72–73 2 Chronicles 17–20, 89 29–32, 319 36:13, 71 New Testament Matthew 12:15–21, 139 Romans 2:29, 18 1 Corinthians 10:11, 3 2 Corinthians 3:6, 273 Galatians 4:24, 114 5:2–5, 18 2 Peter 3:8, 285 Qur’an 3:7, 41, 44, 48, 65, 126, 311 12:82, 15 33:57, 43

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

409

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

This page intentionally left blank

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Acknowledgments

The preparation of this volume benefited om learned colleagues in an array of fields related to Jewish Bible interpretation, as well as its Christian and Muslim contexts. It is my pleasant task to acknowledge these individuals. This project was nourished at an early stage during a sabbatical leave in 2010– 2011 when I had the privilege to direct (with Meir Bar-Asher) the semester-long international research group “Encountering Scripture in Overlapping Cultures: Early Jewish, Christian and Muslim Strategies of Reading and Their Contemporary Implications” at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem. I thank Meir Bar-Asher, Adele Berlin, Rita Copeland, Robert Gleave, †Wolfhart Heinrichs, Andrew Kraebel, James Kugel, Alastair Minnis, Meira Polliack, and Jon Whitman—members of the group who took particular interest in The Rule of Peshat in its initial phase. Each of the fourteen group members submitted a chapter to the volume Interpreting Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Overlapping Inquiries (Cambridge University Press, 2016), which I edited with Adele Berlin, with editorial assistance om Meir Bar-Asher, Rita Copeland, and Jon Whitman. The chapters of that volume, which run om antiquity to the twentieth century, attest to the depth of the underlying comparative project, which has enriched the current volume in immeasurable ways. The chapters of this volume benefited om review by learned colleagues. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Talya Fishman and Baruch Schwartz, both of whom commented in detail on the entire manuscript. Their constructive criticisms, both substantive and stylistic, prompted me to rethink and sharpen the arguments made throughout this study. Marzena Zawanowska offered critical insights on Judeo-Arabic interpretation that improved Chapter 1. Lengthy discussions with Andrew Kraebel and Alastair Minnis about medieval Christian Bible interpretation are at the foundation of Chapters 3 and 4. The precision of the arguments in those chapters was enhanced by Rita Copeland, who shared with me her learned perspectives on medieval Latin learning. Haym Soloveitchik, my teacher, helped refine the arguments in Chapter 4 regarding the complex Ashkenazic intellectual milieu of Rashi’s school as it developed in the twelh century. The discussion of piyyut commentary in that chapter benefited om the wisdom of Elisabeth Hollender. Chapter 8 was delivered orally in 2013 as a presentation at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies in Philadelphia—and benefited om learned

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

412

Acknowledgments

comments by colleagues there, especially Rita Copeland, Ehud Krinnis, and Pierro Capelli. An early version of that chapter was published in Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority, and Transmission in Thirteenth-Century Jewish Cultures (ed. Elisheva Baumgarten, Ruth Mazo Karras, and Katelyn Mesler; University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), the volume of studies by the group at the Katz Center that year. An early version of Chapter 3 was published in Viator 48, no. 1 (2017). Deserving special mention is David Berger, dean of the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University, with whom I have been privileged to work closely as associate dean since 2008. To begin with, David made insightful comments regarding Rashi’s possible reactions to Christian interpretation (discussed in Chapter 3) and Nahmanides’ responses to Christian doctrines (Chapter 8). More fundamentally, David deserves immense credit for ably steering our graduate school through oen turbulent waters to uphold its quality and ensure support for faculty research. As anyone who knows him will affirm, David’s very intellectual presence inspires awe, matched only by his integrity— both scholarly and personal. I am grateful to other key administrators at Yeshiva University, my cherished home institution. President Ari Berman has been a close iend for over three decades. Having recently assumed leadership of YU, he has already made clear the importance of quality research and collaborative, interdisciplinary studies in the twenty-first century. These values are skillfully fostered and implemented by our provost, Selma Botman, and her senior advisor Stu Halpern. I am likewise grateful to Karen Bacon, dean of the undergraduate faculty of arts and sciences, and to Ephraim Kanarfogel, chairman of the Rebecca Ivry Judaic Studies Department at Stern College for Women, for creating an academic atmosphere congenial to genuine scholarship. Shia Schapiro reviewed and copyedited the entire manuscript, enhancing its logic and readability. She also composed the indexes. Zvi Erenyi, Mary Ann Linahan, and Moshe Schapiro of the Yeshiva University Library helped locate the necessary volumes for my research. Moshe also reviewed the entire manuscript to ensure the completeness and consistency of the references. At the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts of the National Library of Israel, I benefited om the gracious help of Yael Okun and Ezra Schwatt. I am grateful to Jerry Singerman, senior humanities editor at the University of Pennsylvania Press, for inviting me to submit this work for publication and for patiently guiding it through the manuscript stages. My thanks also to Erica Ginsburg, managing editor at the University of Pennsylvania Press, for overseeing the production of this volume with insight and professionalism, This volume is dedicated to two people who had a lasting impact on my life, one directly, the other indirectly. My mom, Yolanda Cohen, raised me until her untimely death, when I was a few months shy of my fourteenth birthday. She

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim

Copyright © 2020. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Acknowledgments

413

shaped my character through her nurturing, so personality and loving devotion. She also instilled in me the value of hard work, responsibility, and caring for others, which she undoubtedly learned om her father, Dr. Moriz Zalman, who practiced law as an attorney in Vienna om 1913 until his deportation by the Nazis in 1938. An expert on pension law, my grandfather worked tirelessly (and oen without pay) to alleviate the misery of aggrieved workers, a problem that became especially acute during the Great Depression. He penned a number of volumes on pension law, as well as the more hopeful book Die Welt ohne Gold und Hunger (“The World Without Gold and Hunger”; Vienna, 1933). As Nazism gained popularity and power in Germany and Austria in the 1930s, he also turned his attention to fighting against racial hatred. He worked with his colleague Irene Harand to combat the rise of the Nazi party and its anti-Semitic ideology. The two banded together to form the “World Movement Against Racial Hatred and Human Misery”—an organization dedicated to fighting Nazism through politics and publication. Together they also founded a weekly anti-Nazi newspaper called Gerechtigkeit (“Justice”), which had up to 20,000 readers and was published for almost five years. Zalman assisted Harand in writing her well-known book Sein Kampf (“His Struggle: An Answer to Hitler”), which refuted Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Naturally, his public stand against Nazism made him a target of the Nazi government. Soon aer the Anschluss in March 1938, Moriz Zalman was arrested and deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, outside Berlin. Aer two years of unspeakable horror in the brutal camp conditions, my grandfather was murdered on May 29, 1940. His ashes were later buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery, where the epitaph reads Hier ruht von seinen Kampfen und Leiden der Anwalt des Rechtes und Alles Guten: Dr. Moriz Zalman (“Here rests om his struggles and sufferings the advocate for rights and all goodness: Dr. Moriz Zalman”). I am grateful to my son Shai for helping compose the lines about my grandfather in the previous paragraph. Shai has traveled several times in recent years to Berlin and Vienna to research the heroic life and career of Moriz Zalman—which have become a source of inspiration for our family. My wife, Suzanne, has provided essential emotional support as I devoted many hours, days, weeks, and months to this project. Herself an ardent student and teacher of the Bible, Suzanne values the subject matter of The Rule of Peshat, which we have shared in many lengthy discussions about Bible commentary over the years. Our children—Yaffa, Shai, Miri, Gila, and Elisha—deserve honorable mention for their patience with a mom and dad enamored of the study of old books. As they have matured, our kids offer important perspectives that enrich our scholarship—and our lives, of course.

Cohen, Mordechai Z.. The Rule of Peshat : Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim