Table of Contents

Introduction: On Comparative Biblical Exegesis-Interpretation, Influence, Appropriation -David Stern 1. Interpreting Torah Traditions in Psalm 105 -Adele Berlin 2. Cain: Son of God or Son of Satan? -Israel Knohl 3. Manumission and Transformation in Jewish and Roman Law -Natalie B. Dohrmann 4. Lessons from Jerome's Jewish Teachers: Exegesis and Cultural Interaction in Late Antique Palestine -Megan Hale Williams 5. Ancient Jewish Interpretation of the Song of Songs in a Comparative Context -David Stern 6. Patriarchy, Primogeniture and Polemic in the Exegetical Traditions of Judaism and Islam -Reuven Firestone 7. May Karaites Eat Chicken?-Indeterminacy in Sectarian Halakhic Exegesis -Daniel Frank 8. Early Islamic Exegesis as Legal Theory: How Qur'anic Wisdom Became the Sunna of the Prophet -Joseph Lowry 9. Interpreting Scripture in and through Liturgy: Exegesis of Mass Propers in the Middle Ages -Daniel Sheerin 10. Exegesis and Polemic in Rashbam's Commentary on the Song of Songs -Sara Japhet 11. Literal versus Carnal: George of Siena's Christian Reading of Jewish Exegesis -Deeana Copeland Klepper 12. Christians and Jews on Job in Fifteenth-Century Italy -Fabrizio Lelli Notes List of Contributors Index

Promotional Information

Biblical interpretation is not simply study of the Bible's meaning. This volume focuses on signal moments in the histories of scriptural interpretation of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the ancient period to the early modern, and shows how deeply intertwined these religions have always been.

About the Author

Natalie B. Dohrmann teaches in the Religious Studies Department and is the Director of Publications at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. David Stern is Ruth Meltzer Professor of Classical Hebrew Literature at Penn. He is author of Midrash and Theory: Ancient Jewish Exegesis and Contemporary Literary Studies and Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in Rabbinic Literature.

Reviews

"No other anthology of scholarship on the Jewish interpretation of the Hebrew Bible covers the same chronological span (ancient through early modern) or has the same comparative and contextual emphasis (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Karaite) as this."--Steven Fraade, Yale University