From:  Signer, Michael A.  "How the Bible Has Been Interpreted in Jewish Tradition." In New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 1, 65-82.  Nashville: Abingdon, 1994.

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Please note that some of the italicized words are English transliterations of Hebrew words; that the bold hot-link numbers in parenthesis are links to endnotes (click on the number to jump to the endnote page); and the numbers in red brackets refer to the upcoming page number of the article.  The latter will help for citation purposes.
  

[65] HOW THE BIBLE HAS BEEN INTERPRETED IN JEWISH TRADITION
by MICHAEL A. SIGNER

        From the return of the community after the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BCE, the Bible and its interpretation played a central role in the life of the Jewish people. In Neh 8:1-8, Ezra reads from the book of the Law of God. He is surrounded by the priests who translate and interpret it to the people. These two activities of reading the word of God and making the divine message comprehensible so that it may be applied in the life of Israel provide the boundaries for all descriptions of biblical studies in Judaism. Generations of teachers and students have demonstrated concern for the sacred character of its words and their transmission. In addition, they have continually reinterpreted these words in the light of their contemporary milieu. This dynamic approach to the possibility of interpreting the word of Cod has provided Judaism with the opportunity for renewal throughout its history.
        The term Bible is somewhat alien to Jewish religious discourse. Scripture is referred to as Miqra', "what is read" or Kitbe Qodes, "sacred writings". The most frequently used word is Tora, "teaching". When referring to the entire corpus of biblical books, Jews use the Hebrew acronym TNK, which represents the threefold division of the canon into Tora (the Five Books of Moses), Nebi'im (Prophets - Joshua-2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets, and Ketubim, Writings - Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1-2 Chronicles). This order of the books, which appears in the Babylonian Talmud tractate Baba Batra 14b, indicates that for Jews the canon of Scripture ends with a narration of the return of the Jewish community to its homeland by the order of Cyrus.
        All three sections of Scripture are called "Torah" in an effort to maintain the unity within divine revelation. However, it is clear that the Five Books of Moses have, since antiquity, been understood as the most sacred. Passages from the Prophets or Writings are always interpreted to harmonize with the Pentateuch.
        The scroll of the Pentateuch has been part of the liturgical life of the synagogue since the classical rabbinic period. There is a body of laws that govern the material to be used for writing, how it is sewn together, and how it is used during worship. By contrast, the prophetic books and hagiographa, which were written on scrolls during the Tannaitic and Amoraic periods (the first five hundred years of the Common Era), have been read from codices in the synagogues since the Middle Ages.
        Torah is understood as the "Tree of Life" that provides a path for Jews to fulfill the will of their creator. Until the modern period, the task of interpretation [66] was assumed by the Rabbis. Their exegesis was developed through many genres: Midrash (Homilies), Perush (Commentaries), Piyyut (religious poetry), Legal Codes and Responsa (responses to questions), and philosophical and mystical treatises. It would be fair to conclude that no genre of post-biblical Jewish literature is unrelated to the explication of Scripture.
        At the core of Jewish scriptural interpretation is the conviction that the Hebrew language is sacred because it is identified with the divine speech. For this reason the Rabbis, as early as the second century CE, attempted to define the limits of interpretation. There were those who believed that every word or, indeed, every letter could form the basis for interpretation. These rabbis, whom we might call "maximalists," thought that even the decorations or crowns on the letters should be interpreted. In contrast, other rabbis thought that "Scripture speaks in human language." The position of the "minimalists" was that God had accommodated human beings, endowing them with reason, and had revealed Torah in terms that required a logical approach to exegesis. From their perspective, Scripture was subject to the same rules of interpretation as any language. Words could not be fragmented, or twisted out of context. The tension between "minimalist" and "maximalist" types of interpretation can be translated in two technical terms used throughout the history of Jewish exegesis:  Peshat, or "plain meaning" and Derash, or "homiletical meaning". In the medieval and modern periods, there has been a preference to claim that Peshat has represented the higher aim of Jewish interpretation. However, a survey of Jewish biblical exegesis indicates that Derash has been a constant impetus for creativity. It may be claimed that what was Peshat for one generation became Derash for the next. As a religious community, Jews sought to ground the reinterpretation of their traditions within the context of Scripture and its language. Therefore, both Peshat and Derash in dialectical tension provide vital elements for interpretation.
        One can chart the most significant reformulations of Judaism throughout its history by noting the developments within scriptural interpretation. In each era there are three significant spheres of exegetical activity. The first is at the lexical or philological level. The ancient Rabbis and their successors were concerned with the interpretation of Scripture so that it could be appreciated by the community. In the medieval and modern periods one can discern that translation of the Bible into the contemporary vernacular is a significant part of exegetical activity. The second area is a focus on the sequence or coherence of the biblical text. Innovations in grammar and syntax made this a particularly creative field of Jewish exegesis. This area brought contemporary concerns into tension with classical rabbinic explanations of Scripture so that Peshat and Derash could be harmonized. The third domain of exegetical reformulation concentrated on harmonizing the traditional concerns of Scripture with elements of contemporary culture. As philosophical or scientific developments in non-Jewish culture became the subject of controversy, the genre of biblical interpretation became a significant locus for Jewish self-expression and polemics about the boundaries of the secular world and sacred text.

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THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD

        Jewish biblical studies in the medieval period begin with the division of the world of late antiquity into Islamic and Christian cultures. From the eighth and ninth centuries, focus on the Bible moves beyond the genres of Talmud, Midrash, and Targum into the development of commentary (Perush). Individual authors writing commentaries on individual books replace collective or pseudonymous authorship of anthologies. Each section of the canon - Torah, Prophets, Hagiographa - has its own history of exegesis. The preponderance of commentaries was written on the Pentateuch, but works from the Hagiographa, such as Psalms and Song of Songs, generated many works of interpretation.
        In their writings, medieval exegetes maintain a reverential attitude toward the authority of the ancient Rabbis. They share with their forebears a belief in the simultaneous revelation of the written and oral Torah, and the obligation to carry on the task of eliciting their complementary nature. However, medieval authors reveal the exigencies of their own intellectual milieu. Toward that end, they [71] engage in arguments with one another, and in polemics with both Islamic and Christian scholars. Religious apologetics and controversy become a significant focus in medieval exegetical writings.
        Despite the shared religious goal of expounding the biblical text, the study of the Bible by Jews during the medieval period was influenced by geographic and cultural factors. Jewish authors who lived in areas of Islamic culture in the East, North Africa, and Spain from the eighth until the fifteenth centuries developed a different approach to the Bible than those who resided in Europe during the same period. The assimilation of the linguistic and philosophical heritage of Hellenistic civilization by Arabic writers made a profound impression upon the Jews who lived among them. Appropriation of these disciplines extended to the fact that commentaries on Jewish sacred scripture were composed in Arabic by acknowledged rabbinic authorities. Ideas and concepts from these arabic commentaries would find their way into the Hebrew lexicon due to the efforts of the twelfth-century immigrants from Spain to Provence.
        In European centers of Jewish learning, where the literature of biblical exegesis emerged only in the eleventh century, rabbinic Hebrew was utilized exclusively. Although philosophical speculation and interest in grammar and lexicography were by no means absent, the European Rabbis did not develop the technical vocabulary that their colleagues appropriated from Islamic culture. They did not write dictionaries or grammars of the Bible. They composed commentaries and collections of Midrash.
        After the fifteenth century, Jewish biblical exegesis developed a greater sense of homogeneity. After their expulsion in 1492, Spanish Jews, known as Sephardim, had thoroughly assimilated the writings of the northern European Rabbis, called Ashkenazim. Jewish authors from the European centers moved eastward into Poland and the Ukraine. The language of biblical exegesis until this later medieval period was exclusively Hebrew. Much of the creative spirit in biblical studies moved from the genre of commentary (Perush) to homiletics (Derush). Important developments in the field of Jewish mystical literature, Kabbalah, have significant bearing on the language and thought of biblical exegesis.
        The first major exegete of rabbinic Judaism in the medieval period was Saadia ben Joseph al-Fayyumi (882-942). His intellectual activity was stimulated by a major challenge to the fundamental principle of rabbinic Judaism, that the oral Torah was divinely revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai and the Rabbis were its legitimate inheritors. After the rise of Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries, the studies of oral and written Torah continued in the rabbinic academies of the newly conquered lands. The heads of the Talmudic academies in Baghdad continued the activity of their predecessors, spreading the interpretation of rabbinic Judaism. Their efforts to consolidate the teachings of previous generations of Rabbis extended to written Torah. They canonized the Targum of Onqelos (Aramaic translation) and began to compose codes of law.
        By the eighth century, however, some Jewish authors challenged the divine origin of the oral Torah, one of the primary assumptions of rabbinic Judaism. These theologians, who were later called Karaites, a name derived from Hebrew Miqra, or Scripture, insisted that divine revelation was to be found only in the Tanakh. The oral Torah was exclusively the creation of the Rabbis, lacking divine sanction. Therefore, Karaite exegetes claimed that all Jewish ritual practice must be derived exclusively from the text of Scripture based on rules of grammar and syntax. Karaite biblical hermeneutics led to religious practices that diverged from those of the Rabbis with respect to laws of Sabbath, marriage, and diet. Commentaries by Karaite authors were written in Arabic on the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa. These exegetical works focused on grammar and syntax, often challenging rabbinic interpretations that were founded on loose association with the biblical text itself.
        Saadia ben Joseph's writings on the Bible represent a defense of the divinely revealed character of the Oral Torah as the only legitimate interpretation of written Torah. He promoted this justification of the rabbis by creating new genres in scriptural exegesis. At the lexical level, he wrote the first dictionary of the Hebrew Bible (HB), Sefer HaEgron. More important, he prepared a translation of the Hebrew Scripture into Arabic (Tafsir). Saadia demonstrated the importance of translation for biblical studies. His goal was to translate Scripture into the vernacular and make it comprehensible to Jews and non-Jews. This results in a translation that permits the reader to enter the textual world of the biblical context. He is determined always to transmit the [72] sense of a passage, no matter how difficult it might be in the original. This requires him to translate according to context within the sentence. Often the use of the conjunction and is expanded into complex sentences with adverbial conjunctions or other subordinate clauses. These smooth and readable translations were based on Saadia's conclusion that one should translate according to the plain meaning except under specific circumstances, such as (a) when experience or sense data contradict the plain meaning; (b) when reason contradicts the plain meaning; (c) when two verses contradict each other; (d) when the written text contradicts the rabbinic tradition; (e) when Scripture uses anthropomorphism.
        To accompany his translations, he wrote commentaries (Sharkh), sometimes in two versions, on the Pentateuch, Psalms, Proverbs, and Job. An introduction preceded each of these commentaries, focusing on the fundamental idea of the book and how this idea was coherent with its rhetorical form. In his insistence on the congruity of rhetorical form and theological content, we can see that the principles of translating the biblical text became the foundations for Saadia's introduction to his commentaries. The contents of Scripture are constituted through narratives about the past through which Jews are led to the service of God. In addition, Scripture provides promises that are validated only when they are fulfilled.
        For Saadia, the Pentateuch focuses on the importance of educating humanity about its obligations to God. These obligations, or commandments, are formulated in three types of locutions. At times they are framed as a simple command that does not reveal its purpose. Commandments expressed in this manner provide an opportunity for obedience to the One who gave them. A second type of commandment is revealed together with its reward and punishment. In this formulation of commandment, Saadia discerns a higher level than the first, because we have a choice to obey or disobey. The most important formulation of divine commandment in the Pentateuch appears in the form of a narrative that reveals what happened to those who obeyed and experienced success, or those who disobeyed and were punished.
        Improvement of the moral and spiritual character of the Jewish people constitutes the central theme of Saadia's investigations of the books in the Hagiographa. In his introduction to Proverbs, Saadia calls it the book of knowledge or wisdom. The central theme of the book is discerned in recognizing twelve topics and their opposites, which helps the reader to acquire wisdom or knowledge. The division of a biblical book into topics also provides the framework in his introduction to the book of Psalms. Saadia claimed that there were five basic forms of speech: direct address, interrogation, narrative, commandment or admonition, and prayer or petition. These five elementary forms yield eighteen rhetorical modes that constitute "the totality of edification." Saadia concludes that what is common to all forms of speech in Psalms is that they focus on commandment and prohibition, what humanity is obliged to do and what is prohibited. The book of Job provides an occasion for Saadia to explore the theme of theodicy. Human suffering ultimately serves a pedagogic purpose. In the speeches of Job's comforters, Saadia discerns two ways of understanding suffering. People suffer so that they might change their evil ways or as punishment for their sins. Saadia rejects these formulations, and argues that suffering comes as a test for the individual, who will be rewarded in the end. Each of Saadia's commentaries, in its introduction and exegesis of individual chapters, presents a coherent monograph on a specific theme.
        Complementing his translation and exegetical works, Saadia wrote The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, a philosophical treatise presenting his theology of the coherence of scriptural revelation and rabbinic tradition of Judaism. Although the form of the book is entirely philosophical, the major themes within this treatise focus on Scripture: creation, commandment, reward, and punishment. Saadia asserted that scriptural revelation is entirely congruent with human reason when the latter is properly used. He argued that the report of reliable witnesses or tradition is a source of knowledge equivalent to what can be learned by the senses or through logical deduction.
        The consistency of Saadia's views throughout the variety of genres makes him one of the most significant exegetes of the Bible in Judaism. His commentaries were well-known in Arabic-speaking Jewish communities. To those Jews who read only Hebrew, his commentaries were transmitted by quotations in the writings of Jewish exegetes in Spain.
        Biblical studies continued in Spain. During the tenth and eleventh centuries, the authors wrote in Arabic. They drew upon the rich traditions of Arabic language, with its well-developed disciplines of philology, [73] lexicography, and poetics. In addition, they were heir to the philosophical polemics and religious apologetics that had been developed in the eastern Mediterranean. Karaite exegesis presented a continuing challenge for these authors to justify rabbinic interpretation of Scripture.
        In the tenth and eleventh centuries, a specialization in grammar and lexicography dominated the exegetical efforts of Jewish authors in Spain. They produced dictionaries and grammars of biblical texts. For example, Menahem ibn Saruq (c. 960) wrote a dictionary, while Jonah ibn Janah (c. 950-1040) composed a systematic work on the Hebrew language, focusing on problems of metathesis (exchange of letters within a single word), syntax, and poetics. Biblical commentaries written during this period focus almost exclusively on linguistic problems.
        Abraham ibn Ezra (1092-1167) wrote commentaries on almost all books of the Bible, often producing two recensions of a commentary to the same book. By his extensive quotation, Ibn Ezra transmitted much of the Arabic writings of his predecessors to audiences who read only Hebrew. Ibn Ezra subtly shifts from specialization in linguistic problems to the synthetic effort to apply the insights derived from philological study to the classical literature of the rabbis.
        In his introduction to the commentary on the Pentateuch, Ibn Ezra describes his program for Scripture exegesis in comparison to other contemporary Jewish, Karaite, and Christian methods. He builds his method on the foundation of human reason. Reason, for ibn Ezra, is the "angel" that mediates between God and humanity. Therefore, understanding any obscurity in Scripture commences with an investigation of its language, which is designed to accommodate human beings. This leads him to focus on the written text of Scripture as it had been transmitted by tradition, and limit the use of rabbinic exegesis that relied on changes in the orthography of the Hebrew text.
        When the biblical text contradicts human experience, Ibn Ezra attempts to harmonize them. At times he relies on a solution that suggests that the chronological distance between scriptural language and the contemporary reader accounts for the difficulty. On other occasions he relies on metaphor to explain away these contradictions. For example, he maintained that God's request for Hosea to marry a harlot was in conflict with the pattern of divine behavior in the Bible, and that these passages could be explained as occurring only in a vision. His insistence on the rational and historical basis for explaining what happened to biblical characters led him to deny the validity of narrations created by the Rabbis to explain the events in Scripture. For example, he cast doubt on Jeremiah's authorship of Lamentations, denying that it was the book burned by Jehoiakin.
        Ibn Ezra did not argue for the exegete's complete reliance on historical and rational explication. Rabbinic tradition provided the only reliable guide to explain Jewish law. The lack of complete explanations for all the commandments in the Pentateuch was a clear indication that the oral Torah was required. In his introduction to the Pentateuch commentary, Ibn Ezra demonstrates that the lack of details for calculating the monthly and yearly calendar implies the necessity for further rabbinic elaboration. The use of grammar alone to explicate these scriptural passages would lead to erroneous interpretation were it not for the comprehensive rules for the calendar, which were provided by the Rabbis. The conclusions of the Rabbis could be set aside only if one could demonstrate that a legal decision was based on an opinion of one sage. In all other cases, Ibn Ezra's exegetical system insisted on the rigorous use of grammar within the framework of classical rabbinic literature.
        We now turn from Ibn Ezra's mid-twelfth-century synthesis of the exegetical achievements of Jewry under Islamic culture to the developments within the northern European or Ashkenazi communities. Jewish scholars began to settle the areas in the Rhineland and present-day Alsace-Lorraine, and Champagne as early as the ninth century, emigrating from northern Italy. By the eleventh century, the first literary works of the Ashkenazi Rabbis emerge, focusing on the explication of the Talmud and the composition of liturgical poetry.
        The Jews who inhabited these regions also seem to have been in contact with learned Christians who inquired about the meaning of passages in Hebrew Scriptures. In the late eleventh century, Gilbert Crispin, Abbot of Westminster, composed a "dialogue" with a learned Jew from Mainz about the interpretation of Scripture. The goal of the dialogue was to convince the Jewish interlocutor about the truth of Christianity. By contrast, Stephen Harding, Abbot of Citeaux, described a meeting at the abbey where Jews were invited to respond to his inquiries [74] about the Hebrew basis for textual problems in the Vulgate. The contrast between his description of an intellectual encounter and the missionary spirit of Crispin's Dialogus provides the background to Jewish exegetical developments in Ashkenaz.
        In the exegetical writings of Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac of Troyes (1040-1105), known as Rashi, the HB receives its classical Jewish garment. Having studied at the Rhineland academies, Rashi transmitted the accumulated learning of the Ashkenazi Rabbis to the soil of France. He was profoundly interested in explicating the complex dialectics of the Talmud into an orderly argument that students could follow. As one who composed liturgical poetry, Rashi was aware of the multiple meanings of biblical words when they were used in different semantic contexts.
        In Rashi's exegetical framework, Scripture and the Rabbis constitute a single world. Therefore, one may derive the meaning of one from the other. His commentaries fuse rabbinic literature and the HB into a seamless text. At the same time, they insist upon discovering the Peshuto shel Miqra, bringing out the plain meaning of the biblical text in a narrative order that reduces the number of rabbinic midrashim relevant to a specific passage in Scripture.
        Both the integrity of rabbinic interpretation and its defense in the presence of Christian argument shape Rashi's exegesis. His prefatory remarks to Gen 1:1 provide an excellent example of these concerns. Citing a passage from Midrash Tanhuma, he raises the question of why the Pentateuch begins with the creation narrative rather than the mandate of the Passover (Exod 12:1) which was the "first commandment God gave to Israel." Rashi's response was grounded on a passage in Ps 111:6, which asserts that God declared his mighty acts to Israel, providing them with an inheritance among the nations. Thus if the nations of the world accused Israel of robbing the seven Canaanite nations of their territory, Israel could respond that all the earth belongs to God, who created it and gave it to whoever was upright from the divine perspective. By God's will it passed to the Canaanites, and by God's will it was given to Israel. The apologetic nature of this passage is patent. Rashi focuses on interpreting the creation narrative as an argument that the Pentateuch is not simply a book of divine mandates that regulate Israel's conduct, but the revelation of a covenant between God and the Jewish people.
        The interpretation of the Song of Songs provided another opportunity for Rashi to present a hermeneutical framework grounded on the language of Scripture itself, but indicated that the rabbinic allegorical interpretation of the Canticle of God's love for Israel was correct. He asserted that Solomon had composed the Canticle through the power of the Holy Spirit to show that Israel would endure one exile after another, and would mourn for its former glory when it was God's chosen among all the nations. Israel would then recount God's merciful acts and her own misdeeds. Solomon composed this narrative on the example of a young widow who longs for her husband, recounting his youthful love for her. Her husband mourns for her, recalling her beauty and the powerful bonds of love between them, and says that her exile is not permanent and that he will return to her in the future. The commentary itself explicates both the narrative of the lovers and the stages in the relationship between God and Israel from the creation of the world until the end of Israel's exile in the messianic era.
        Rashi's commentary on Psalms reveals his exegetical method of relocating passages, which the Rabbis interpreted in an eschatological manner, within the framework of the Bible itself. Psalm 2 had been interpreted as a description of the messianic battle at the end of history by the rabbis. Rashi repeats their explanation, but also provides a Teshuba le Minim, a refutation of the heretics. He asserts that the opening verses of the Psalm refer to 2 Sam 5:17, in which the Philistines gather to overthrow David, who had been crowned in Jerusalem. Rashi ascribes Ps 2:10-12 to the "Prophets of Israel" who rebuke the nations of the world to turn aside from their evil ways and obey God. This exegetical technique responds to Christian interpretation by a positive Jewish assertion that the passages in question contain a positive promise of the future redemption of Israel.
        Rashi's younger colleague, Rabbi Joseph Kara, and scholars in the generation of Rashi's grandson, Rabbi Samuel ben Meir, continue to develop his exegetical techniques. Their search for the Peshuto shel Miqra, or plain meaning, often leads them to more intense focus on the biblical text, which, in turn, diminishes their effort to harmonize rabbinic interpretation with Scripture. Some of the rabbis, such as Rabbi Joseph of Orleans, engage in refutations of Christian typological interpretation.
[75]         The commentaries written by Christian scholars, such as Hugh, Richard, and Andrew at the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris, during the twelfth century reflect contact with the exegesis of Rashi and his disciples. Particularly in the exegesis written by Andrew of St. Victor one can discover "traditions of the Hebrews" in Latin translation that have direct parallels in the commentaries of Rashi, Rabbi Joseph Kara, and Rabbi Samuel ben Meir. It is remarkable that Andrew at times accepts these Jewish interpretations, preferring them to those of the Church Fathers or the writings of his own teachers. Andrew's pupil, Herbert of Bosham, who was part of the scholarly community of Thomas a Beckett, indicates a greater capacity for utilizing rabbinic literature in his own commentary on the psalter. Christian utilization of Rashi and his pupils continues into the writings of other scholars, such as the fourteenth-century Franciscan, Nicholas of Lyra.
        Ashkenazi Rabbis of the thirteenth century turned their efforts toward a more dialectical study of the Bible. Rashi became their point of departure from the biblical text. They then use various passages from both Scripture and rabbinic literature to resolve the contradictions they discern behind Rashi's question. For example, they might dispute Rashi's argument in the introduction to his Torah commentary, mentioned above, that Exod 12:1 was the first commandment God gave to Israel. These Rabbis were known as Tosafot, "those who added." They did not compile independent commentaries on biblical books, but their interpretations were transmitted as parts of anthologies. In addition to compiling anthologies of Tosafot commentaries, these same scholars composed new anthologies of classical midrashim on the books of Scripture, such as the Yalqut Shim'oni.
        The creativity in biblical studies among the Rabbis in northern Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had its parallel in Iberia and the Mediterranean world. However, the rise of the Reconquista from the north and the invasion of the intolerant Almohades from the south changed the intellectual atmosphere. Emigration meant that new centers of study would flourish in Egypt, Provence, and in the new Christian monarchies of Spain.
        Moses Maimonides (1135-1205), known in most circles as a philosopher, did not write in the genre of biblical commentary. However, one could argue that the entire scope of his writings focuses on Scripture, providing various approaches for its proper interpretation. Moreover, subsequent generations of Jewish students of Scripture drew upon his writings as the basis for their own work.
        The introduction to the Commentary on the Mishnah, written in Arabic, weaves both biblical text and rabbinic midrash into a coherent narrative of how the divine Word was transmitted from Moses through Aaron and the elders to the children of Israel. In his Book of the Commandments, Maimonides provides one of the first attempts to delineate precisely which of the scriptural admonitions constitute the rabbinically prescribed number of 613 positive and negative commandments. In the Mishneh Torah, the first effort to codify the written and oral Torah, Maimonides presents an accounting of how each category of Jewish law had developed from pre-scriptural times through the age of the rabbis.
        Building a bridge between the God of Moses and Aristotle would seem to be the purpose of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed. However, the reconciliation between philosophical perspectives and Jewish revealed tradition shaped the Guide into a treatise on the hermeneutics of Scripture. Maimonides stated, "The first purpose of this Treatise is to explain the meaning of certain terms occurring in the books of Prophecy. [The] second purpose [is] the explanation of very obscure parables occurring in the books of the prophets but not explicitly identified as such."
        Consistent with these purposes, the first part of the Guide provides a lexicon of biblical terms that are used with respect to God, and suggests how they might be understood. Part two offers an exposition of the nature of biblical prophecy with particular emphasis on the unique character of Moses. Maimonides concluded the Guide with a discussion on divine providence (which is presented as a commentary on the book of Job) and an examination of the character of divine legislation or commandments.
        In Maimonides' hermeneutical system, all of the divine commandments had an inner meaning. With his emphasis on the significance of the "inner meaning" of Scripture, allegorical interpretation moves to the core of proper biblical exegesis and is not simply an apologetic embellishment. This approach to Scripture emphasizes the necessary connection between learning, moral perfection, and knowledge of God.
        Provence and northern Spain inherited the linguistic and philosophical traditions of the previous [76] generations as well as the challenge of Maimonides' synthesis of Aristotle with Judaism. Philosophical interpretation had to be defended against those Rabbis who argued that the divine Word as transmitted in written and oral Torah was sufficient. These rabbis asserted that too much allegorization would have led Maimonides to deny concepts such as creation ex nihilo or the resurrection of the dead. Turning the Torah into parables would undermine observance of the commandments; perhaps even worse, it would validate Christian claims to the true interpretation of Jewish Scripture.
        The Kimchi family, Joseph (c. 1105 - c. 1170) and his two sons, Moses (d. c. 1190) and David (c. 1160 - c. 1235), moved to Narbonne from Spain and wrote commentaries on Scripture, responding to the rabbis who attacked philosophical and allegorical methods. Rabbi Joseph Kimchi composed The Book of the Covenant to defend Jewish interpretation of Scripture against Christian typological exegesis. The use of rationalism in this treatise demonstrates how philosophical methods could be used to support traditional rabbinic understanding of legal and prophetic passages. Rabbi David Kimchi, known as RaDaK, asserted that rationalist approaches to understanding the miracles in Scripture or prophecy were simply an extension of the original efforts of the classical Rabbis. Wherever possible, RaDaK argued that rigorous examination of biblical language yielded the most satisfactory explanations of figurative language. In addition, rational inquiry provided the best answers to Christian typological interpretations. For RaDaK, philosophy was one more weapon in Israel's arsenal for reclaiming the truth of its interpretation of Scripture despite its condition of exile. In his commentary on Jer 9:23, RaDaK asserts that Israel's covenant with God was the covenant of reason.          The most extensive exegetical writings of the Kimchi family come from David. He wrote a systematic treatise on the textual criticism of the Bible, Et Sofer (The Scribe's Pen), which describes manuscript variants and the problems of the Massorah. In addition he wrote a grammar book, Sefer Mikhlol (The Compendium), containing both a dictionary and a description of Hebrew grammatical rules. He wrote commentaries on Genesis, all the Prophets, Psalms, Proverbs, and Chronicles. In addition, he wrote allegorical commentaries on the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, and the first chapter of Ezekiel. These commentaries reflect the approach developed by his father, and also by Abraham ibn Ezra, where rigorous philological analysis is combined with a rationalist approach. He maintains a strict division between the pursuit of plain meaning and homiletical meaning. However, he uses the Talmudic Aggadah to develop moral and ethical lessons.
        Like his father, David Kimchi actively pursued polemics against Christian allegorical interpretations of the HB. Many of these polemical interpretations appear in his commentary on the book of Psalms. Many of David Kimchi's works were translated into Latin and were influential for Christian Hebraists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
        Maimonides' emphasis on "inner meaning" of Scripture stimulated the growth of an alternative nonphilosophical method of biblical hermeneutics in both Provence and Spain during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This method of interpretation, known as Kabbalah ("received tradition"), was associated with esoteric traditions of the classical Rabbis. The Kabbalists asserted that Scripture had an inner meaning that was to be discovered through their theosophic teachings rather than by philosophical categories.
        The teachers of these kabbalistic doctrines were well-known rabbinic authorities who wrote commentaries on the Talmud, produced codifications of Jewish law, and answered inquiries on how Jewish law should be practiced. In writing their treatises they drew upon the language of classical rabbinic midrash rather than philosophical language that was translated from Arabic into Hebrew. Their primary concerns were with a profound understanding of how God was manifest in the universe and how the observance of the commandments bound the Jewish people to the cosmos.
        The key to kabbalistic systems was grounded in the axiom that Scripture was the language of God. Therefore, its words and letters were more than conventional means of communication. They represented a concentration of energy and express a [77] wealth of meaning that could not be fully translated into human language.
        Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (1194-1270), known as Nachmanides, wrote a commentary on the Pentateuch that is one of the first literary witnesses to the kabbalistic approach to Scripture. In his introduction, he argues that the "entire Torah consists of the names of God, and that the words we read can be divided in a very different way." Nachmanides suggested that the Torah was originally revealed as a continuous string of letters. Moses was then presented with the divisions of these words so that the text could be read as the commandments. However, he was also given an oral tradition that transmitted the esoteric reading of the text as a sequence of divine names. The reader of Scripture who had studied the esoteric tradition could have access to both levels of meaning. However, Nachmanides set his own task as an interpreter of the Torah according to the traditional modes of rabbinic plain meaning and Aggadah, drawing upon the commentaries of Rashi and Abraham ibn Ezra, and occasionally alluding to those passages that were pregnant with esoteric meaning.
        By the end of the thirteenth century, Jewish biblical interpretation continued its role as the vehicle for expanding upon philosophical or kabbalistic themes. Levi ben Gershom (1288-1344) in Provence promoted his philosophical and ethical teachings in his biblical commentaries. Rabbi Bachya ben Asher of Saragossa wrote commentaries on the Pentateuch. Bachya ben Asher introduced a four-level division for the interpretation of scriptural verses: peshat, or "plain meaning"; derash, or "rabbinic aggadah"; derekh hassekhel, or "philosophical"; and sod, or "kabbalistic." Under Bachya ben Asher's influence, or perhaps from the surrounding Christian culture, the fourfold interpretation of Scripture, also known by the acronym pardes, "the garden", became a popular schema for the composition of biblical commentaries after the fourteenth century.
        The later medieval period, from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries, witnessed another development in biblical commentary. Marc Saperstein has demonstrated that the sermons delivered in synagogues were rewritten into commentaries on Scripture (12). These "commentaries" became the literary vehicles for expanding on philosophical, kabbalistic, or moral themes. They provide a window into the theological concerns, ritual practices, and moral problems of the communities throughout the Jewish dispersion.

 

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