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Rashi, Biblical Interpretation, and Latin Learning in Medieval Europe

A New Perspective on an Exegetical Revolution

Mordechai Z Cohen author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:29th Apr '21

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Rashi, Biblical Interpretation, and Latin Learning in Medieval Europe cover

A new look at Rashi's innovative commentary that sheds unique light on medieval Jewish and Christian learning and Bible interpretation.

Offers new perspectives on the revolutionary interpretive methods and literary conceptions of Rashi (Troyes 1040–1105), the most influential Jewish Bible commentator of all time, by comparison with contemporaneous trends in Latin learning, especially parallels to the Psalms commentary of Rheims Cathedral Master Bruno the Carthusian (1030–1101).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.

'… Cohen's handsomely produced book [is] a highly informative, extremely fastidious exploration of important developments in biblical scholarship in the central Middle Ages and their complex intra- and interreligious interlacings.' Eric Lawee, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies

ISBN: 9781108470292

Dimensions: 150mm x 230mm x 20mm

Weight: 620g

350 pages