Opening the Gates of Interpretation

Maimonides' Biblical Hermeneutics in Light of His Geonic-Andalusian Heritage and Muslim Milieu
Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-90-04-18932-4
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 48, 566 Seiten, Format (B × H): 164 mm x 246 mm, Gewicht: 1085 g

Reihe: Études sur le judaïsme médiéval

The biblical hermeneutics of the illustrious philosopher-talmudist Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) has long been underappreciated, and viewed in isolation from the celebrated philological schools of “plain sense” (peshat) Jewish Bible exegesis. Aiming to redress this imbalance, this study identifies Maimonides’ substantial contributions to that interpretive movement, assessing its achievements in cultural context. Like others in the rationalist Geonic-Andalusian school, Maimonides’ understanding of Scripture was informed by Arabic learning. Drawing upon Greco-Arabic logic, poetics, politics, physics and metaphysics, as well as Muslim jurisprudence, he devised sophisticated new approaches to key issues that occupied other exegetes, including a variety of interpretive cruxes, the reconciliation of Scripture with reason, a legal hermeneutics for deriving halakhah (Jewish law) from Scripture, and the nature of interpretation itself.

"It is a valuable contribution to the entire study of medieval biblical exegesis and will undoubtedly serve as the basis of all subsequent discussions of Maimonides' hermeneutics."
Daniel J. Lasker, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cohen, Mordechai Z

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien Heilige & Traditionstexte: Torah, Talmud, Mischna, Halacha
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien: Theologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien: Philosophie, Aufklärung, Wissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: THE GEONIC-ANDALUSIAN HERITAGE
CHAPTER 2: ZAHIR AL-NASS IN MAIMONIDES’ SYSTEM
CHAPTER 3. RATIONALE FOR THE COMMANDMENTS
CHAPTER 4: MASHAL AS HERMENEUTICAL MODEL
CHAPTER 5: HALAKHIC EXEGESIS AND MUSLIM JURISPRUDENCE
CHAPTER 6. MAIMONIDES’ RULE OF PESHAT PRIMACY
CHAPTER 7: TRANSFORMATION OF THE PESHAT PRINCIPLE
CHAPTER 8: INTEGRATING HALAKHAH AND PESHAT
CHAPTER 9: COORDINATING PESHAT AND ZAHIR
CHAPTER 10: THE GATES OF TA’WIL AND INTERPRETIVE CREATIVITY
CONCLUSION: MAIMONIDES IN THE EXEGETICAL CONSTELLATION
APPENDIX A: MEANING AND TRANSLATION OF THE PESHAT PRINCIPLE
APPENDIX B: THE TERM PESHAT IN MAIMONIDES’ OTHER WRITINGS
APPENDIX C: IBN EZRA’S LIST OF EXAMPLES IN YESOD MORA

Über Autor(innen)

Mordechai Z. Cohen, Ph.D. (1994) in Bible, Yeshiva University, is Professor of Bible and Associate Dean of the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University. He has published extensively on Jewish Bible interpretation, including Three Approaches to Biblical Metaphor (Brill, 2003).