Journal articles: 'Rabbinical commentary'

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Lawrance, Jeremy. "Jewish Forerunners of the Spanish Biblia romanceada: A Thirteenth-Century Witness (Bodleian MS Hunt. 268)." Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 138, no. 2 (June 1, 2022): 399–421. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/zrp-2022-0018.

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Abstract Despite Church prohibitions, almost twenty medieval Bibles in Spanish survive. The Old Testament versions derived in many cases from translations from Hebrew made by Jews. These were characterized by a unique rabbinical “calque-language” that would be preserved by Sephardim for centuries after the Expulsion in 1492; but the Inquisition destroyed the medieval Jewish copies. This article studies a new witness, the oldest known: a thirteenth-century Hebrew commentary on the Hagiographa with Spanish glosses. These fully confirm the amazing continuity of the Ladino scriptolect.

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Shochetman, Eliav. "Israeli Law and Jewish Law — Interaction and Independence: A Commentary." Israel Law Review 24, no. 3-4 (1990): 525–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021223700010050.

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The focus of the article written by my colleague, Prof. Brahyahu Lifshitz, was the extent of the influence of Jewish law on the legal system of the State of Israel during the forty years since its establishment. In my view, a symposium on “Forty Years of Israeli Law” ought also to include a study of the innovations and developments which have taken place within Jewish law during this period, since to a certain extent, Jewish law is an integral part of Israeli law. A comprehensive analysis of this issue is clearly beyond the scope of this paper. Nevertheless, one major question should be dealt with, i.e. to what extent does the legal system of the State find expression in modern Rabbinical case law? Has the new political reality of statehood, achieved after many centuries of exile, and the ramifications of this reality in the field of law, in any way affected modern Rabbinic decisions in the years following the establishment of the State—decisions which are meant to reflect the changes and developments that have taken place in the world of Jewish law?In the opening section of his article, Prof. Lifshitz describes the influence of Israeli law upon Jewish law in the following terms: The generally accepted view is that Jewish law does not respond to, nor is shaped by, developments in the legislative or judicial organs of the State of Israel.

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Sidorenko, Natalia V. "Aramaic targums and daily religious life." Tyumen State University Herald. Humanities Research. Humanitates 9, no. 2 (2023): 6–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.21684/2411-197x-2023-9-2-6-25.

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The connection between the written Targums, which are translations of Sacred Scripture into Aramaic, and the oral Targums used in synagogues is not well understood. Rabbinical tradition suggests that the Targums were written to make Scripture understandable to ordinary people during synagogue readings. However, the article argues that the Targums were also associated with various aspects of daily religious life, reflecting the ideas and realities of the 4th–5th c. CE when they were created. We discuss discrepancies between written rules and real-life practices, individual and communal study of Targums, their place in translation and commentary traditions, and traces of oral speech in their language. We also explore their use in protective spells inscribed on “magic cups.” Finally, we draw typological parallels between Targumic texts and Church Slavonic liturgical language in the early 20th c., both designed to preserve sacred languages in worship.

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Blankovsky, Yuval. "R. Hayyim Soloveitchik and Academic Talmudic Hermeneutics." Review of Rabbinic Judaism 18, no. 2 (July 8, 2015): 260–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341287.

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This article offers a detailed description of R. Hayyim Soloveitchik’s commentary on the Talmudic discussions about the requirement for proper intention when making Jewish ritual objects, i.e., Sefer Torah, Mezuzah, etc., and a comparison to the academic commentary on that issue. It describes the relationship between the two genres of commentary, academic and rabbinic, and illustrates the differences and similarities between the commentaries of these two parallel interpretive communities. In this way, the paper sheds new light on the character of R. Hayyim as a Talmudic commentator.

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Stern. "REVIEW: David L. Lieber, Jules Harlow, Rabbinical Assembly and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. TEACHING TORAH IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: THREE JEWISH BIBLE COMMENTARIES: ETZ HAYIM: TORAH AND COMMENTARY. Richard Elliott Friedman.Commentary on the Torah. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, Michael Fishbane. THE JEWISH STUDY BIBLE." Prooftexts 25, no. 3 (2005): 376. http://dx.doi.org/10.2979/pft.2005.25.3.376.

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Fishbane, Michael. "“Seeing the Voices”." Levinas Studies 13 (2019): 11–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/levinas2019131.

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Rabbinic Talmudic tradition is marked by chains of tradition, integrating written Scripture (as prooftext) and oral Traditions (as exegesis). The interrelation of word, voice, and instruction is paramount. Levinas’s reading of Talmudic texts follows this format and continues this tradition, by superimposing his voice and philosophical concerns. I have chosen his reading of Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Makkot 10a as an exemplum. In the process, Levinas’s style and method can be seen as a contemporary meta-commentary on the ancient rabbinic source.

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Blankovsky, Yuval. "Rabbinic Inquiry (Hakirah) as the Place Rabbinic and Academic Talmudic Discourse Meet: The Case of “Two Hold a Cloak”." Review of Rabbinic Judaism 21, no. 1 (March 12, 2018): 82–107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341338.

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Abstract This paper explores the common ground and differences between academic and rabbinic Talmudic hermeneutics. It does this by situating R. Elhanan Bunem Wasserman’s (1874–1941) inquiry pertaining to the much beloved Talmudic debate over “Two Hold a Cloak” within the context of the critical academic commentary on that Talmudic discourse.

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Visotzky, Burton L., and Samuel Tobias Lachs. "Lochs's "Rabbinic Commentary on the New Testament"." Jewish Quarterly Review 78, no. 3/4 (January 1988): 340. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1454656.

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Viezel, Eran. "The Secret of the Popularity of Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah." Review of Rabbinic Judaism 17, no. 2 (August 13, 2014): 207–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341268.

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How can we account for the popularity of Rashi’s commentary on Torah? Scholars have suggested that Rashi’s personality and his public and literary activities, on the one hand, and the special style of his commentary, on the other, account for the popularity of the commentary. The author proposes that in addition to these factors, it was a unique methodology that caused Rashi’s Torah commentary to become so universally loved: Rashi explained the Torah, above all, by means of aggadot meyashevot, i.e., aggadot that fill gaps in the text but preserve the sequence and meaning of the narrative plot. As far as can be determined, there is no other exegete who invented similar criteria for selecting rabbinic aggadot. The aggada meyashevet has a unique effect upon the Torah, which can be called “thickening:” the reader enjoys the benefit of following the narrative plot, as well as interwoven and integrated subplots. Rashi’s Torah commentary creates an expanded Torah which is loved by its readers far more than the Torah itself, without the aggadot that thicken it.

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Jacobs, Jonathan. "The Allegorical Exegesis of Song of Songs by R. Tuviah ben ’Eliʽezer—Lekaḥ Tov, and Its Relation to Rashi's Commentary." AJS Review 39, no. 1 (April 2015): 75–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0364009414000658.

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This article examines three facets of R. Tuviah ben ’Eliʽezer's commentary,Lekaḥ tov, on Song of Songs: (a) his unique approach to allegorical interpretation; (b) his participation in Judeo-Christian polemics; and (c) the question of a connection between his commentary on Songs and Rashi's. R. Tuviah proposes to read the verses of Songs as simultaneously describing the past, the present, and the future of the Jewish nation, a type of reading that is extremely rare in rabbinic midrashim, which R. Tuviah adopts to create a systematic allegorical commentary. There are similarities between the interpretations of R. Tuviah and those of Rashi; while not numerous, all the same these two scholars were the first to propose a literal interpretation of Songs, they both engaged in similar Judeo-Christian polemic, and they interpreted Songs on the allegorical level in a similar fashion. These points of similarity support the possibility that Rashi was exposed to reports of R. Tuviah's commentary on Songs.

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Ilan, Tal. "A Feminist Commentary on the Mishnah: Tractate Pe'ah as an Example of Silencing." Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues 43, no. 1 (2024): 40–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.2979/nsh.00004.

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Abstract: This feminist introduction to Tractate Peah in the Mishnah, the Tosefta and the Jerusalem Talmud exposes a process of silencing. It shows how the widow, one of the prime recipients of charity in the Bible, disappears from the group of charity recipients in rabbinic literature. Women who have no families, who are considered generically poor in most literatures, lose this status in rabbinic law and at most become themselves objects given in charity.

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Stefański, Jacek. "Medieval Karaite Exegesis as Evidenced in Selected Examples from Yefet Ben Eli’s Commentary on the Book of Hosea." Collectanea Theologica 90, no. 5 (March 29, 2021): 335–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.21697/ct.2020.90.5.14.

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For many years, Karaite exegesis was relatively unknown to numerous Biblical scholars. This situation has been changing with an increasing access to source materials. As a result, more and more Karaite exegetical treasures representing the trends of Karaite Judaism have come to the fore. Among them, there is the Commentary on the Book of Hosea by Yefet ben Eli, one of the most significant representatives of Karaism in the tenth century. Yefet ben Eli exhibits a remarkable knowledge of Hebrew etymology, which enables him to provide unique answers to the interpretative problems in the Masoretic Text. His apologetic concern for prospective Muslim readers of his commentary is also noteworthy. Although, in general, Karaism sought to concentrate on the literal sense of the Scripture, Yefet ben Eli does not shy away from recourses to rabbinic oral tradition. Nevertheless, his exegetical contribution remains unique, as clearly demonstrated by the selected examples from his Commentary.

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Lawee, Eric. "From Sepharad to Ashkenaz: A Case Study in the Rashi Supercommentary Tradition." AJS Review 30, no. 2 (October 27, 2006): 393–425. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0364009406000183.

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Though much has been done in the past half century to clarify boundaries and crossing points on the religious-intellectual maps of “Ashkenaz” and “Sepharad,” a large body of evidence that advances this complex exercise in cultural cartography has been wholly neglected: supercommentaries on Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah. Though it was produced in that part of Europe that Jews came to call (perhaps under Rashi’s influence) “Ashkenaz,” the Commentary traveled to points far and wide. Among the diverse responses that it elicited in its new homes, the vast supercommentary literature that came to surround the Commentary stands out. Though scholars working in diverse cultural orbits produced this literature, Sephardic and Ashkenazic writers created most of it. This genre continues to flourish, at times in new forms. Yet although some of the major rabbinic figures (e.g., Judah Loew of Prague) produced Rashi supercommentaries, and although these works reflect significant trends in premodern Judaism, the genre’s neglect among scholars has been well-nigh total.

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Marx, Farina. "Medieval Rabbinic Literature Seen in a New Light: The Sources of Yalkut Shimoni on the Book of the Twelve Prophets." Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques 78, no. 3 (September 1, 2024): 599–628. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/asia-2023-0027.

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Abstract The Yalkut Shimoni compiles important annotations from rabbinic literature to each book of the Hebrew Bible. The voluminous commentary cites more than 50 traditional rabbinic texts including sources which have been lost. Most academic research on the Yalkut Shimoni has focused on reconstructing these lost sources such as Midrash Yelamdenu, other research issues about Yalkut Shimoni have been neglected. This paper will focus on the Yalkut Shimoni on the Book of the Twelve Prophets. The author of the Yalkut Shimoni was not able to rely on consecutively commentaries on the Twelve Prophets such as for example the commentaries on the book of Numbers. This paper will therefore focus on the question of compilation techniques. Consequently, the author had to use pieces of commentaries on the Torah or other biblical books where Minor Prophets are cited used these to compile them to a new commentary. Furthermore, he puts these fragments together without naming the sources or introducing them to the text. This paper will show how the author combines the Palestinian and the Babylonian tradition. The author uses different techniques to cut and inweave different commentaries. Furthermore, the focus lays on the ongoing discussion whether the Yalkut Shimoni can be seen as a compilation at all. If this important work can be proofed to be no compilation, it has severe consequences especially for the reconstruction of lost sources quoted inside the Yalkut Shimoni.

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Treiger, Alexander. "John of Scythopolis on Divine Darkness." Vigiliae Christianae 74, no. 1 (January 23, 2020): 76–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700720-12341419.

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Abstract The present article provides a commentary on the sixth-century Christian bishop John of Scythopolis’ scholion on Dionysius the Areopagite’s Mystical Theology I.3. In this scholion, John discusses the various Greek translations of Ex. 20:18/21. He also refers to a Jewish cosmological tradition about the seven heavens. Various rabbinic parallels to John of Scythopolis are discussed. The article argues that John most likely has recourse to an oral Jewish tradition, transmitted to him by a Jewish informant in Scythopolis. John of Scythopolis’ scholion thus provides important evidence on Christian-Jewish contacts in Byzantine Palestine.

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Ruff, Tibor. "The Problem of Monogamy vs. Polygamy and Its Regulation in the Mosaic Law as well as in Later Jewish and Christian Commentaries." DÍKÉ 6, no. 2 (June 17, 2023): 155–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.15170/dike.2022.06.02.11.

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The essential difference between the Jewish and the Christian traditions is, that the Mosaic Law, the Torah has been regarded in Judaism as a legal and state-creating, constituent factor, i.e. as a source of law; whereas in the Christian tradition, in accordance with the strict hermeneutic specified in the epistles of the Apostle Paul, it is not binding on non-Jewish believers and is only of a teaching nature. All the other books of the Old Testament are understood by both traditions as commentaries of divine origin and authority for the correct interpretation of the Torah, while the rest of the Jewish commentary literature on the whole Old Testament from antiquity to the present is known collectively as rabbinic literature. A – Christian – commentary of the Torah is also the New Testament itself, which also has divine authority in the Christian tradition. Through the Pauline hermeneutic, the Mosaic Law could only have influenced indirectly the development of medieval European ecclesiastical and secular legal systems as wisdom literature and exemplary texts reinterpreted by the New Testament, and not as a direct source of law. This paper examines the question of monogamy and polygamy in Mosaic Law and its commentaries. The Torah suggests monogamy as an ideal state, while at the same time allowing polygamy both ethically and legally. Nowhere does the New Testament explicitly prohibit polygamy except in the case of presbyters. Therefore, there was already a debate on the issue even in antiquity, in the vast textual ocean of rabbinic tradition, but the clearly lenient Torah rules made the obligatory abolition of polygamy out of the question.

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Magid, Shaul. "Loving Judaism through Christianity." Common Knowledge 26, no. 1 (January 1, 2020): 88–124. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/0961754x-7899599.

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This contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium on xenophilia examines the life choices of two Jews who loved Christianity. Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik, born into an ultra-Orthodox, nineteenth-century rabbinic dynasty in Lithuania, spent much of his life writing a Hebrew commentary on the Gospels in order to document and argue for the symmetry or symbiosis that he perceived between Judaism and Christianity. Oswald Rufeisen, from a twentieth-century secular Zionist background in Poland, converted to Catholicism during World War II, became a monk, and attempted to immigrate to Israel as a Jew in 1958. Rufeisen, while permitted to move to Israel to join a Carmelite monastery in Haifa, was denied the right to immediate citizenship of Israel which the Law of Return guarantees to all bona fide Jews. And this particular Soloveitchik has largely been forgotten, given the limits of Jewish interest in the New Testament and of Christian attention to rabbinic literature. This article explores the complex and vexing questions that the careers of these two men raise about the elusive distinctions between Judaism and Christianity, on the one hand, and, on the other, between the Jewish religion and Jewish national identity.

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Talshir, David, B. Grossfeld, and L. H. Schiffman. "Targum Neofiti 1: An Exegetical Commentary to Genesis, Including Full Rabbinic Parallels." Journal of the American Oriental Society 122, no. 1 (January 2002): 111. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3087671.

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McNamara, M. "Targum Neofiti 1: An Exegetical Commentary to Genesis including full Rabbinic Parallels." Journal of Semitic Studies 47, no. 2 (September 1, 2002): 352–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jss/47.2.352.

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Schlossberg, Eliezer. "Between Old and New in Yemenite Midrashic Literature." Review of Rabbinic Judaism 23, no. 1 (April 14, 2020): 75–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341364.

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Abstract The Midrashim mentioned and described briefly in this article—R. Avraham ben Shlomo’s commentary on the early and later prophets, the Midrash Shoʿel U-Meshiv, and the anonymous Midrash on the Torah written at the beginning of the sixteenth century—represent the transitional stage between the classic and the later Yemenite Midrash. The former are written in a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic, based on rabbinic writings and on the teachings of great medieval scholars such as R. Saadia Gaon and Maimonides, while the latter are written almost solely in Hebrew and based mainly on esoteric, symbolic, allegorical, and kabbalistic elements. Those written in the intermediate period between the old and the new combine all these characteristics.

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Freer, Alexander. "Faith in Reading: Revisiting the Midrash–Theory Connection." Paragraph 39, no. 3 (November 2016): 335–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/para.2016.0205.

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In the 1980s there was a brief but intense period of interest among literary critics and theorists in Classical Rabbinic interpretation, and, in particular, the genre of commentary known as Midrash. Interest concentrated around the apparent similarities between Midrash and the commentaries and criticism of Derrida, Lacan, Freud, Barthes and others. This essay examines this connection between Midrash and theory in light of the persistent charge from Foucault and others that all hermeneutics is essentially theological. It proceeds by drawing out the aims and frustrations of the literary critics and Jewish scholars involved, and considers in what ways the questions which arose in these years might be pertinent for contemporary literary criticism, theory and institutional practice.

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Wolfson, Elliot R. "By Way of Truth: Aspects of Naḥmanides' Kabbalistic Hermeneutic." AJS Review 14, no. 2 (1989): 103–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0364009400002592.

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Perhaps no one figure is more responsible for the legitimization of kabbalah as an authentic esoteric tradition of Judaism than Moses ben Nahman (1194–1270). Although from the beginnings of its literary history kabbalah was associated with men of rabbinic standing, such as R. Abraham ben David of Posquieres, no one before Nahmanides had attained a reputation for excellence in halakhic and mystical matters and had written extensively in both domains. Nahmanides' involvement with kabbalah, especially in the context of a commentary on the Torah written for the layman, as the author plainly states in his introduction, surely lent a stamp of approval to the whole enterprise. R. Shem Tov ibn Gaon in hisBaddei ha-'Aron u-Migdal Hananelgave the following characterization of Nahmanides' kabbalistic literary activity:The great rabbi, Moses ben Naḥman, may his memory be for a blessing, wrote his book [i.e., the commentary on the Torah] and a book [on] Job. He alluded to hidden matters in every place () to arouse [people's awareness] as is appropriate and according to what he received. However, he concealed his words to a high degree, for it is written, “Honey and milk are under your tongue” (Song of Songs 4: 11).

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Berger, Yitzhak. "Peshat and the Authority of Hazal in the Commentaries of Radak." AJS Review 31, no. 1 (April 2007): 41–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0364009407000220.

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In the study of medieval biblical interpretation, the tension between commentators' fidelity to rabbinic midrash and their independent quest for peshat continues to command serious attention. The place of the important Provençal exegete R. David Kimhִi (Radak, ca. 1160–ca. 1235) in the history of peshat commentary is of particular interest, influenced as he was by an especially wide range of traditions. On one hand, Radak's family, which was of Spanish origin, produced grammatical works and commentaries that exemplify the strict text-based approach of the Andalusian exegetes. Indeed, R. Abraham Ibn Ezra, the most prominent representative of this school, influenced Radak considerably. Furthermore, Radak's dedication to Maimonidean rationalism, which has been amply demonstrated by scholars, would only have sharpened his resistance to fanciful midrashic speculation.

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Bergo, Bettina. "How many messiahs, how many alephs? Levinas’ talmudic “messianic texts” in three numbers, and André Neher’s biblical response." Revista Ética e Filosofia Política 1, no. 25 (January 5, 2023): 199–224. http://dx.doi.org/10.34019/2448-2137.2022.39964.

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This article approaches Levinas’s 1963 Talmudic reading entitled “Messianic Texts” in light of the metaphoric numbers 0, 1, and 2. “Zero” will refer to unforeseen silences in the Talmudic text in question (here, Rabbi Eleazar’s sudden silence in the debate about the conditions of redemption, as well as commentator Rashi’s silence on Talmudic discussions about a certain “identity” of the messiah. The number “one” concerns a textual hapax: Rabbi Hillel’s historicist dismissal of the messiah as promise and open future—a position virtually anathema to rabbinics (inter alia) but nevertheless preserved by the Talmud. My metaphoric numbers strategy turns, finally, to the curious presence of “allegorical doubles” in the Bible, which Levinas describes as a configuration of textual “eidetics.” Using my three numbers (0, 1, 2) as an elementary analytic grid, I turn from Levinas’ “Messianic Texts” to André Neher’s biblical commentary on Levinas’s presentation—a commentary similarly concerning messianism but no longer in the Talmud. My purpose is dual: to sketch the context of this complex Talmudic reading, to offer one (idiosyncratic) reading-strategy focusing on two events of “silence,” the future anterior of the “messiah” who will have been but will come no more, and finally the play of identity-in-difference in the biblical doubles. Keywords: “Messianic Texts,” Vladimir Jankélévitch, André Neher, messianisms, world-to-come, the Samozvanetz.

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Walton, Michael T., and Phyllis J. Walton. "In Defense of the Church Militant: The Censorship of the Rashi Commentary in the Magna Biblia Rabbinica." Sixteenth Century Journal 21, no. 3 (1990): 385. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2540275.

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Vermes, Geza. "A Rabbinic Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke." Journal of Jewish Studies 39, no. 1 (April 1, 1988): 123–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.18647/1391/jjs-1988.

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Cohen, Oded. "Eager to Belong : A Palestinian Jew in Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam*." Studia Rosenthaliana: Journal of the History, Culture and Heritage of the Jews in the Netherlands 46, no. 1 (November 1, 2020): 211–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.5117/sr2020.1-2.010.cohe.

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Abstract In the middle of the eighteenth-century, Mordechai Tama, a Jew from Hebron, left his hometown carrying a manuscript containing his grandfather’s commentary on Midrash Mekhilta, with the aim of printing it in Amsterdam. That plan was unsuccessful, but once in Amsterdam, Tama did become a member of scholarly circles of the Portuguese-Jewish community. He absorbed that community’s blend of Rabbinic learning and Spanish literary tastes and, in turn, was valued for his knowledge of Arabic. This article examines the encounter in Amsterdam between Western Sephardi and Levantine Jewish learned cultures by a close reading of the paratexts of the two books Tama produced in Amsterdam, published there in 1765: Pe’er ha-Dor (a Hebrew translation of the Responsa of Maimonides from a Judaeo-Arabic manuscript that had belonged to Jacob Sasportas) and Maskiyot Kessef, a medieval glossary of homonyms by Solomon b. Meshullam Dapiera.

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Ha, Polly. "Who Owns the Hebrew Doctors? Oriental Scholarship, Historical Proportionality, and the Puritan “Invention” of Avant-Garde Conformity." Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 53, no. 1 (January 1, 2023): 55–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/10829636-10189015.

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Puritan and conformist divines both sought to “own the Hebrew doctors” just as they had appealed to patristic sources in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The puritan Walter Travers drew upon the rabbinic commentary of Abraham Ibn Ezra to argue for the refashioning of the church in the 1570s. Elizabethan ecclesiastical controversy in turn helped “invent” central features of avant-garde conformity by prompting Richard Hooker's use of Jewish precedent to stabilize the church from the 1580s onward. Mutual claims to the Hebrew doctors exposed disagreement over how to proportion the New Testament church in relation to layered Jewish tradition. Yet, by the early seventeenth century, the separatist Henry Ainsworth began to make more extensive, even promiscuous, use of Maimonides. This signaled movement away from simply attempting to “own the Hebrew doctors” to conscripting Jewish authorities as more active, and less mediated, participants in early modern debate.

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Yedidya, Asaf. "Scales of Justice by Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer: From Rabbinic Tradition to Public Participation." Religions 14, no. 2 (February 6, 2023): 218. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel14020218.

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Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalisher (1795–1874), best known for his proto-national thinking and advocacy of settlement in the Land of Israel in the third quarter of the 19th century, was crowned a preeminent ”Precursor of Zionism”. However, his halakhic teachings, which have never been properly researched, represent a fount of perspectives that help refine our understanding of his ideological and activist program. This article focuses on Moznayim LaMishpat (1855) and his unfinished halakhic work that attempted to complete the Ḥoshen Mishpat codex, not by composing another commentary on the Shulkhan Arukh or an independent halakhic treatise but by glossing the text of the Shulkhan Arukh itself, as did Isserles. Apart from all the halakhot that were renewed by commentators and the halakhic approaches of the medieval sages that were absent from the Shulkhan Arukh and the Isserles glosses, this codex also contains the sources and reasons for the halakhot. Finally, Kalischer sought to restore the authority of communal autonomy that had eroded in the 19th century and had rendered the relevance of the laws of Ḥoshen Mishpat questionable by emphasizing public consent as an alternative to transcendent authority. He even extended the idea of public consent to the legislative, executive, and punitive powers of the monarchial legal system (Mishpetei ha-Melukhah) by arguing that these rested on the authority of the general public, just as they are vested in the king. In his view, public authority is not limited to community legislation or repealing the regulations of the Sages; it also wields the power of the monarchial legal system, which parallels the halakhic legal system.

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Monnickendam, Yifat. "Late Antique Christian Law in the Eastern Roman Empire." Studies in Late Antiquity 2, no. 1 (2018): 40–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/sla.2018.2.1.40.

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To date, early Christian sources have drawn the scholarly attention of theologians, scholars of biblical commentary, and historians, but not of legal historians, presumably because such sources do not offer sufficiently substantial material for legal historical research. Nevertheless, a few studies have blended legal history and late antique Christianity, and an analysis of these studies shows they are based on a “centralist,” or “formalist–positivist,” conceptualization of law. In this paper I review the scholarship of legal traditions in the eastern Roman Empire— namely, Roman law and Greek legal traditions, the halakha in rabbinic literature, and the halakhic traditions in Qumranic literature and in the New Testament—and contextualize it within developments in legal theory and legal sociology and anthropology (that is, the rise of legal pluralism). This review shows that developments in legal theory, in legal sociology and anthropology, and in legal history of the late antique world are producing new paradigms and models in the study of late antique legal history. These new models, together with new methods in reading early Christian non-legal texts of the eastern Roman Empire, can be utilized in the study of early Christianity, thereby opening gateways to the study of its legal traditions and revealing independent legal traditions that have remained hidden to date.

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Bretherton, Luke. "Soteriology, Debt, and Faithful Witness: Four Theses for a Political Theology of Economic Democracy." Anglican Theological Review 98, no. 1 (September 2016): 71–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000332861609800107.

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The essay seeks to understand what is theologically at stake when challenging the power of money in shaping our common life. To do so it sets out four theses, with commentary, that are suggestive of how we might go about generating a critically constructive and theologically attuned vision of an earthly oikonomia within the contemporary context. The first thesis is that envisioning a contemporary economics of mutual and ecological flourishing necessitates teasing out how Christian doctrines of God and soteriology legitimate oppressive conceptions of debt, and, at the same time, can help dismantle capitalism as an all-encompassing social imaginary to which there is no alternative. The second thesis is that as part of reenvisioning contemporary soteriology we must reengage with scriptural, patristic, scholastic, and medieval rabbinic and Islamic conceptions of property, debt, and usury in order to generate robust theological frameworks through which to analyze finance capitalism and the forms of domination it produces. The third thesis is that a vision for a common life must move beyond notions of recognition and redistribution as the basis for a just public life. And the last thesis is that we need to recover a consociational vision of democratic citizenship and a commitment to economic democracy.

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NELSON, ERIC. "‘TALMUDICAL COMMONWEALTHSMEN’ AND THE RISE OF REPUBLICAN EXCLUSIVISM." Historical Journal 50, no. 4 (November 8, 2007): 809–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x07006395.

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ABSTRACTThis article makes the case that modern ideological republicanism has its roots, not in Athens or Rome, but in Jerusalem. It begins from the observation that republican political theory underwent a dramatic transformation in the middle of the seventeenth century. Before 1650, republicanism had always been a ‘relative’ position: those who argued in favour of republican government did so because they believed that republics were better than monarchies for various reasons. None of them had any interest in arguing that monarchy was an illegitimate constitutional form. In the second half of the seventeenth century, however, we see for the first time the appearance of what we might call republican ‘exclusivism’, the claim that republics are the only legitimate regimes. This article argues that the ‘exclusivist’ turn was prompted by the Christian encounter with a tradition of rabbinic commentary on two chapters of the Hebrew Bible (Deut. 17 and 1 Sam. 8), according to which the Israelite request for a mortal king was regarded as an instance of the sin of idolatry. It further demonstrates that the English pamphleteers at the centre of this story – John Milton, James Harrington, and Algernon Sidney – were themselves deeply conscious of the degree to which their views had been shaped by the writings of the ‘Talmudical commonwealthsmen’.

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Stewart, Devin. "Historical Dictionary of Prophets in Islam and Judaism." American Journal of Islam and Society 21, no. 1 (January 1, 2004): 124–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v21i1.1823.

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As the compilers of this dictionary point out, Qur’anic and Islamic viewsof prophecy have been studied largely in isolation, despite the obvious connectionsbetween Islam and the Biblical tradition. Comparative studieshave focused on what Islam has taken, or borrowed, from Biblical sources,often implying that this material has been manipulated for tendentiousmotives.The present dictionary works toward a less polemical comparativestudy of prophecy, investigating the complex relationships between Islamic, Biblical, and other Near Eastern views. The dictionary has beendesigned to examine shared traditions, promote interdisciplinary dialogue,and include a wide range of material not only from the Qur’an andthe Bible, but also from extra-Biblical and extra-Qur’anic texts, withoutclaiming to be comprehensive. Such texts include Rabbinic literature ofmany types; Christian pseudepigrapha, apocrypha, and commentaries;Qur’anic commentary (tafsir), histories, geographies, biographical dictionaries,stories of the prophets (qisas al-anbiya’), and theological discussionsof prophetology (dala’il al-nubuwah).It also includes several extremely useful additions: a general introduction(pp. xxiii-xxxvii), a chronology (pp. xix-xxii), a brief history ofprophecy in the Near East (pp. xxiii-xxxvii), a list of entries (Appendix I:pp. 357-64), a list of prophets (Appendix II: pp. 364-68), a bibliography,and an index. The bibliography, arranged by topic, is extensive andextremely useful for those interested in exploring the topic further (pp.368-480) ...

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Menn, Esther M. "Praying King and Sanctuary of Prayer,Part I: David and the Temple's Origins in Rabbinic Psalms Commentary (Midrash Tehillim)." Journal of Jewish Studies 52, no. 1 (April 1, 2001): 1–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.18647/2310/jjs-2001.

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Sperber, David. "The Liberation of G-D: Helène Aylon’s Jewish Feminist Art." IMAGES 12, no. 1 (October 24, 2019): 122–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18718000-12340105.

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Abstract Helène Aylon (b. 1931) is among the first generation of feminist artists who identified and challenged traditional patriarchal and misogynist readings of ancient religious texts. This article analyzes the discourse and examines the reception of Aylon’s work The Liberation of G-d (1990–1996) within the Jewish art world and the American Conservative Jewish community, and her contribution to these two diverse audiences. Despite the work’s confrontation with tradition, some rabbis from the Conservative movement played a significant role in the acceptance of the work and its exhibition in the Jewish Museum in New York and other Jewish institutions. However, they reduced its radicalism, reframing the work as a Midrashic interpretation (a form of traditional rabbinic commentary) that operates within the framework and rules that delineate the traditional Jewish interpretive community. This article analyzes how the rabbis tamed the artist’s activist and critical work. I argue that Aylon challenges the Jewish community with a radical feminist discourse that is often omitted from the dominant discourse of the traditional Jewish community. By analyzing the engagements with and reception of Aylon’s work within the Jewish art world and the Jewish Conservative community, I demonstrate how the artist seeks real social engagement that reaches beyond the walls of the museum, challenging the structures of religious patriarchy while engaging in a dialogue with its representatives.

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Menn, Esther M. "Praying King and Sanctuary of Prayer, Part II: David’s Deferment and the Temple’s Dedication in Rabbinic Psalms Commentary (Midrash Tehillim)." Journal of Jewish Studies 53, no. 2 (October 1, 2002): 298–323. http://dx.doi.org/10.18647/2428/jjs-2002.

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Nanos, Mark. "Paul's Reversal of Jews Calling Gentiles 'Dogs' (Philippians 3:2): 1600 Years of an Ideological Tale Wagging an Exegetical Dog?" Biblical Interpretation 17, no. 4 (2009): 448–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156851508x329692.

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AbstractThe commentary tradition on Philippians 3:2 (and on Matt. 15 and Mark 7 too) has been claiming at least since Chrysostom that Jews commonly called Gentiles dogs, thereby legitimating a pattern of calling Jews dogs. Contemporary commentaries indicate no awareness of the harmful legacy or the continued implications of the polemic to which it contributes when perpetuating this invective. Moreover, evidence of this supposed common prejudice is often not provided, and when it is, usually consists of sayings attributed to Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician or Canaanite woman—thus available to us only in documents that post-date Paul, representing early "Christian" polemic. In addition to being anachronistic and not likely known to Paul's audience in Philippi, upon examination, it is also not clear that these Gospel sayings provide the proof supposed. Sometimes an appeal is made to Psalm 22 and other Jewish texts, but under examination, none of these substantiate the claim. Likewise, the many supposed cases in rabbinic literature—which could only provide anachronistic evidence at best—do not in fact substantiate that Jews ever called Gentiles dogs, much less that Jews commonly did so, even long after Christians habitually called Jews dogs. This essay examines the texts and challenges the interpretive tradition's claims, as well as its failure to exhibit hermeneutical distance when repeating this supposed invective against Jews and Judaism. Having exposed this ideological tale, several exegetical options worth exploring are noted.

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Wolf, Sarah. "‘From Where Are These Words?’ The Reception of the Bible in the Babylonian Talmud." Journal of the Bible and its Reception 9, no. 2 (November 1, 2022): 227–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jbr-2021-0032.

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Abstract This article addresses the paradox of the Bible’s reception in the Babylonian Talmud: that despite the Bible’s centrality to many of the discussions and stories in the Talmud, the Talmud ultimately recontextualizes the Bible by creating a new version of the Jewish study canon. It argues that this paradox cannot be understood without recognizing that there are essentially two different concepts of the Bible held by the late rabbis; that is, a material Bible and a memorized Bible. The Bible makes an appearance in the Talmud as a physical object or set of objects, composed of words on parchment, and consisting of a specific collection of works, which are accorded special status. However, the Bible as a memorized study text plays a different role in Talmudic hermeneutics, in which the redactors of the Talmud present the Bible in atomized form as one of many sources that are all subject to the same type of discussion and interpretation. By analyzing the complexity of the Bible’s role in the Talmud, this article stakes a middle ground between the argument that the Talmud and other works of rabbinic literature are in some fundamental sense part of a continuous line of revision and commentary that dates back to the earliest forms of inner-biblical exegesis; and, on the other hand, the position that the rabbis either are uninterested in or represent an active rupture from modes of reading the Bible.

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Derrett, J. Duncan M. "Samuel Tobias LACHS, A Rabbinic Commentary on the New Testament. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, KTAV/ADL, New York 1987, xxix and 468 pp., paper $ 16.85, cloth $ 29.50." Journal for the Study of Judaism 19, no. 1 (1988): 108–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006388x00138.

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PEREZ FERNANDEZ, Miguel. "Gary G. PORTON, Understanding Rabbinic Midrash. Texts and Commentary (The Library of Judaic Learning. Volume V. Edited by Jacob Neusner), Ktav Publishing House, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey 1985. XXIV and 232 pp., paper, $ 11.95." Journal for the Study of Judaism 17, no. 2 (1986): 267–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006386x00563.

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Lasker, Daniel J. "The Karaite Mourners of Zion and the Qumran Scrolls. On the History of an Alternative to Rabbinic Judaism, written by Yoram Erder The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben ‘Eli on the Book of Proverbs, vol. 1, Edition and Introduction, written by Ilana Sasson Historical Consciousness, Haskalah, and Nationalism among the Karaites of Eastern Europe, written by Golda Akhiezer." European Journal of Jewish Studies 15, no. 1 (August 17, 2020): 169–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1872471x-bja10008.

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Cohen, Naomi G. "Samuel BELKIN, The Midrash of Philo-The Oldest Recorded Midrash Written in Alexandria by Philo (c. 20 B. C. E. -45 C. E.) Before the Formulation of Tannaitic Literature, Vol. I, Genesis II-XVII; Selected Portions from Philo's Questions and Answers and from his other writings, translated into Hebrew from the Armenian and Greek with a Commentary Based upon Parallels from Rabbinic Literature, edited by Elazar HURVITZ, Yeshiva University Press, New York, NY 1989, 32 and 299 pp. (Hebrew)." Journal for the Study of Judaism 23, no. 1 (1992): 100–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006392x00322.

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Bazak, Aliza. "Shaming in Rabbinical Court Rulings in Israel: A Modern Commentary on Medieval Rabbinic Sanctions in Divorce Cases." TRADITION- A JOURNAL OF ORTHODOX JEWISH THOUGHT 56, no. 1 (February 4, 2024). http://dx.doi.org/10.54469/9hj2n546f.

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Eisenstat, Yedida. "Reception of Scripture in Rashi’s Torah Commentary." Journal of the Bible and its Reception, November 28, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jbr-2021-0034.

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Abstract The most influential biblical commentary in Jewish history is that of the late eleventh century scholar, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzḥaki (“Rashi”) of northern France. This essay examines Rashi’s Torah Commentary as a midrashic anthology and examines Rashi’s reception of the Bible through the lens of his use of midrash. After highlighting shared traits of first-millennium midrashic corpora and Rashi’s Torah Commentary, I offer a new reading of Rashi’s “methodological statement.” I then turn to Rashi’s historical context to suggest that the Commentary’s lemmatized form demonstrates that Scripture cannot be properly understood without its rabbinic accompaniment, the midrash of the rabbis’ Oral Torah. Finally, I offer examples of the range of ways Rashi employed midrash in his Commentary, the primary lens through which traditional Jews have received Scripture for a millennium.

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Dohrmann, Natalie B. "Means and End(ing)s: Nomos Versus Narrative in Early Rabbinic Exegesis." Critical Analysis of Law 3, no. 1 (March 20, 2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.33137/cal.v3i1.26450.

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Rabbinic literature shares a suggestive array of literary features with later Latin literary sources: commentary, fragmentation and quotation, and a granular attention to language. In this material narrative tends to be lost; classical source texts, such as Vergil, are fetishized, broken apart, and repurposed. In this essay I ask of one corpus--early rabbinic midrash (biblical commentary)--what is the origin and impact of its fragmented and finally incoherent narrative project? At the risk of over-simplifying, I will focus on the rabbis as a case study in the etiology of a more general phenomenon. I will argue that the fragmentation so typical of aggadic midrash is the result of the application of a specifically legal hermeneutic to nonlegal, specifically narrative, sources. As a result, rabbinic midrash beginning in the third century consistently undercuts its own narrative aims. Metaliterary, anthologized, pastiched, commentarial forms become standard in the late antique Roman repertoire, with rabbinic texts we can historicize and contextualize one such transformation, and in so doing center law, legal thinking and forms into literary genealogies.

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Fuchs, Uziel. "The Alfaẓ al-Mishnah Commentary by R. Saadiah Gaon." Zutot, December 1, 2022, 1–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18750214-bja10031.

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Abstract This article presents a commentary on the Mishna composed by R. Saadiah Gaon, who served as head of the Sura yeshivah in Baghdad at the beginning of the 10th century. The commentary is a Hebrew-Arabic glossary defining difficult words in the Mishnah. The commentary is well referenced in writings from early periods, and a large portion of the manuscript was recently identified in the Cairo Genizah. I present a number of proofs that R. Saadiah Gaon authored the commentary and show that many adaptions were made to this commentary in several manuscripts. This unpublished commentary is the earliest systematic commentary on rabbinic literature.

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Lightner, Charles R. "The Hidden Bones Apocalypse: The Marker, Its Message, and their Hiddenness." E-Journal of Religious and Theological Studies, March 24, 2023, 72–133. http://dx.doi.org/10.38159/erats.2023931.

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There is an unusual phrase that occurs only fourteen times in the Hebrew Bible. Those fourteen occurrences mark the accounts of ten highly consequential days. The essential messages of those ten accounts, when taken together, create and convey a unified and coherent communication. The presence of the phrase, its uniqueness to those days, and the message it creates, are hidden in translations. Readers of the biblical text in English, Greek, Latin, and German versions have no reason to associate the ten marked days. The phrase and its message are effectively hidden even from those who use the Hebrew text; having been obscured by the tradition of interpretation extending through rabbinic literature and commentary. The message created by reference to those ten marked days is representative of early Jewish apocalypse literature. This paper identifies and analyses the marker phrase, identifies the days that it marks, interprets the message created, demonstrates the hiddenness of that message, and argues its character as an apocalypse. Keywords: Hebrew Bible, Apocalypse, Bible Translation, Early Rabbinic Literature, Rabbinic Commentary

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Wikander, Ola. ""Go Out from Your Sign": Rashi to Genesis 15:5 as a Reference to Astrological Primary Direction -Its Background in Rabbinic Literature and Parallels in Abraham bar Hiyya." Old Testament Essays 33, no. 33 (2020). http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2020/v33n3a11.

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ABSTRACT This article suggests that Rashi's exegetical commentary to Gen 15:5, in which Abram counts the stars, is meant to invoke an association with the astrological technique known as Primary Directions (based on equating one degree of Right Ascension in the rotation of the earth around its axis with one year of life), which was one of the main methods of prognostication in pre-modern astrology - beginning already in Hellenistic times and quite central in Mediaeval astrological thinking. Rabbinic sources discussing the relevant biblical passage and the idea of Abraham as a supreme astrologer are analysed, along with parallel material from Abraham bar Hiyya and Ibn Ezra. The article examines both what Rashi kept and what he removed from his Rabbinic sources, and elaborates on the role of astrological thinking in his milieu. Keywords: Rashi, Genesis 15:5, Abraham, Astrology, Primary Directions, Bar Hiyya, Ibn 'Ezra; bShabbat 156 a-b, Genesis Rabbah, Divination, istagntnút

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Zucker, David J. "Jephthah: Faithful Fighter; Faithless Father Ancient and Contemporary Views." Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture, July 5, 2021, 014610792110187. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/01461079211018763.

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Jephthah (Judges 11–12) is the eighth of the twelve charismatic/military leaders in the book of Judges. Prior to a crucial battle he vows that if he is successful and returns safely “then the one who comes out of the doors of my house to meet me … shall be offered up by me as a burnt offering to yhwh” (Judg 11:31). It is difficult to know what Jephthah means by these words. The Hebrew verb used ( ha-yotzey) in this context could mean equally “the one that comes out,” “whatever comes out,” or “whoever comes out.” In the event it is his only child, a daughter who greets him. Jephthah feels unable to revoke his vow and so appears actually to sacrifice her. This article considers how three sources address this narrative: ancient Rewritten Bibles; early as well as medieval and 18th/19th century Rabbinic commentary; and Contemporary scholarship.

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Harris, Robert A. "The Book of Leviticus Interpreted as Jewish Community." Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations 6, no. 1 (October 3, 2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.6017/scjr.v6i1.1783.

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

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Journal articles on the topic 'Rabbinical commentary'

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