The Medieval Peshat Tradition c.900-1300

Catalog description

In-depth survey of the medieval peshat school of Bible exegesis, with its roots in the philological analysis of Saadia Gaon and his Karaite contemporaries in the tenth century, subsequent developments in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) in the eleventh century, in Rashi's school in northern France in the twelfth century, in the Byzantine school in the tenth through twelfth centuries, and in the offshoots of the Andalusian tradition in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Nahmanides). Special focus on the notion of peshuto shel miqra and related hermeneutical concepts in Muslim and Christian scriptural interpretation.