Biblical Interpretation and Intellectual Freedom: The Clash between Traditions at Rouen

Catalog description

For a few years around 1150, Rouen, France, was home to two of the greatest biblical interpreters in Jewish history: Shmuel ben Meir, Rashbam, and Abraham ibn Ezra, a native of Spain who had travelled around Europe for the past 20 years. we know that they sharply disagreed about just how free and independent a Jewish reading of the biblical text could be. In this course, we will take as our focal point the controversy over the meaning of one verse, 'it was evening and it was morning of the first day' (Genesis 1:5), in which these issues came to a head, and we will also study selections from the rest of their writings which illuminate their philosophical approaches and textual methods. We will investigate the nature of the traditions in Ashkenaz that Rashbam was utilizing and reacting to and of the theorists of biblical interpretation who inspired Ibn Ezra. Other questions to be considered include: How does Jewish practice affect, or not affect, the ways of reading the Torah? Should it? How did these interpreters affect later thinkers? What are the implications of the medieval views today? Which can provide useful models for our own Torah study?