Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism

Catalog description

This course will examine how Jews in the Second Temple era read and interpreted their sacred texts. After addressing how oral and written scriptures, which were once viewed as intertwined, evolved into two separate categories, we will turn to the earliest evidence for biblical interpretation, which appears in the books of Ezra-Nehemiah and Daniel. The bulk of this course will focus on varieties of Second Temple interpretation, which include the genre known as Rewritten Bible, as well as Qumran pesharim, allegorical readings by Alexandrian Jews, and messianic rereadings of the Hebrew Bible preserved in the New Testament. The course will close with a series of case studies that demonstrate the creative breadth of scriptural interpretation during this era.