This study highlights the contributions of the great philosopher-talmudist Moses Maimonides to the rationalist, “plain sense” (peshat) tradition of Jewish Bible exegesis, assessing his place in the Geonic-Andalusian school and showing how he harnessed Greco-Arabic learning to open new hermeneutical possibilities.

An exploration of the theoretical underpinnings of the philological method of Jewish Bible interpretation known as peshat Within the rich tradition of Jewish biblical interpretation, few concepts are as vital as peshat, often rendered as the "plain sense" of Scripture. Generally contrasted with midrash—the creative and at times fanciful mode of reading put forth by the rabbis of Late Antiquity—peshat came to connote the systematic, philological-contextual, and historically sensitive analysis of the Hebrew Bible, coupled with an appreciation of the text's literary quality. In The Rule of "Peshat," Mordechai Z. Cohen explores the historical, geographical, and theoretical underpinnings of peshat as it emerged between 900 and 1270. Adopting a comparative approach that explores Jewish interactions with Muslim and Christian learning, Cohen sheds new light on the key turns in the vibrant medieval tradition of Jewish Bible interpretation. Beginning in the tenth century, Jews in the Middle East drew upon Arabic linguistics and Qur'anic study to open new avenues of philological-literary exegesis. This Judeo-Arabic school later moved westward, flourishing in al-Andalus in the eleventh century. At the same time, a revolutionary peshat school was pioneered in northern France by the Ashkenazic scholar Rashi and his circle of students, whose methods are illuminated by contemporaneous trends in Latinate learning in the Cathedral Schools of France. Cohen goes on to explore the heretofore little-known Byzantine Jewish exegetical tradition, basing his examination on recently discovered eleventh-century commentaries and their offshoots in southern Italy in the twelfth century. Lastly, this study focuses on three pivotal figures who represent the culmination of the medieval Jewish exegetical tradition: Abraham Ibn Ezra, Moses Maimonides, and Moses Nahmanides. Cohen weaves together disparate Jewish disciplines and external cultural influences through chapters that trace the increasing force acquired by the peshat model until it could be characterized, finally, as the "rule of peshat": the central, defining feature of Jewish hermeneutics into the modern period.

This comparative study traces Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptural interpretation from antiquity to modernity, with special emphasis on the pivotal medieval period. It focuses on three areas: responses in the different faith traditions to tensions created by the need to transplant scriptures into new cultural and linguistic contexts; changing conceptions of the literal sense and its importance vis-à-vis non-literal senses, such as the figurative, spiritual, and midrashic; and ways in which classical rhetoric and poetics informed - or were resisted in - interpretation. Concentrating on points of intersection, the authors bring to light previously hidden aspects of methods and approaches in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This volume opens new avenues for interdisciplinary analysis and will benefit scholars and students of biblical studies, religious studies, medieval studies, Islamic studies, Jewish studies, comparative religions, and theory of interpretation.

Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority, and Jewish Culture in the Thirteenth Century provides a multifaceted account of Jewish life in Europe and the Mediterranean basin at a time when economic, cultural, and intellectual encounters coincided with heightened interfaith animosity.

"The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion has been the go-to resource for students, scholars, and researchers in Judaic Studies since its 1997 publication. Now, The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, Second Edition focuses on recent and changing rituals in the Jewish community that have come to the fore since the 1997 publication of the first edition, including the growing trend of baby-naming ceremonies and the founding of gay/lesbian synagogues. Under the editorship of Adele Berlin, nearly 200 internationally renowned scholars have created a new edition that incorporates updated bibliographies, biographies of 20th-century individuals who have shaped the recent thought and history of Judaism, and an index with alternate spellings of Hebrew terms. Entries from the previous edition have been be revised, new entries commissioned, and cross-references added, all to increase ease of navigation research." -- Provided by publisher.

In this volume, Mordechai Z. Cohen explores the interpretive methods of Rashi of Troyes (1040–1105), the most influential Jewish Bible commentator of all time. By elucidating the 'plain sense' (peshat) of Scripture, together with critically selected midrashic interpretations, Rashi created an approach that was revolutionary in the talmudically-oriented Ashkenazic milieu. Cohen contextualizes Rashi's commentaries by examining influences from other centers of Jewish learning in Muslim Spain and Byzantine lands. He also opens new scholarly paths by comparing Rashi's methods with trends in Latin learning reflected in the Psalms commentary of his older contemporary, Saint Bruno the Carthusian (1030–1101). Drawing upon the Latin tradition of enarratio poetarum ('interpreting the poets'), Bruno applied a grammatical interpretive method and incorporated patristic commentary selectively, a parallel that Cohen uses to illuminate Rashi's exegetical values. Cohen thereby brings to light the novel literary conceptions manifested by Rashi and his key students, Josef Qara and Rashbam.

A broad, systematic account of one of the most original and creative kabbalists, biblical interpreters, and Talmudic scholars the Jewish tradition has ever producedRabbi Moses b. Nahman (1194–1270), known in English as Nahmanides, was the greatest Talmudic scholar of the thirteenth century and one of the deepest and most original biblical interpreters. Beyond his monumental scholastic achievements, Nahmanides was a distinguished kabbalist and mystic, and in his commentary on the Torah he dispensed esoteric kabbalistic teachings that he termed “By Way of Truth.”This broad, systematic account of Nahmanides’s thought explores his conception of halakhah and his approach to the central concerns of medieval Jewish thought, including notions of God, history, revelation, and the reasons for the commandments. The relationship between Nahmanides’s kabbalah and mysticism and the existential religious drive that nourishes them, as well as the legal and exoteric aspects of his thinking, are at the center of Moshe Halbertal’s portrayal of Nahmanides as a complex and transformative thinker.