Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies (BRGS): Faculty Publications
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The Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num. 21:14–20): Philology and Hydrology, Geography and Ethnography.
(American Oriental Society, 2020-07)Num. 21:14 contains one of the most enigmatic phrases in the Pentateuch: אֶת־וָהֵב בְּסוּפָה . The usual interpretations of אֶת turn the phrase into gibberish because they require the presence of a verb, which is nowhere ... -
“He Said, He Said”: Repetition of the Quotation Formula in the Joseph Story and Other Biblical Narratives.
(Society of Biblical Literature, 2019)Repetition of the quotation formula ( ויאמר and the like) is a common literary device used in biblical narrative to signal discontinuity. The discontinuity often involves a pause in the discourse. Instead of—or in addition ... -
Between Liturgy and Social History: Priestly Power in Late Antique Palestinian Synagogues?
(Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, 2005) -
Archaeology and the Search for Non-Rabbinic Judaism, from: Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology.
(Cambridge, 2005)This chapter explores the usable history of Jewish material culture in primarily American scholarship of the second half of the last century as a window into larger historiographic, communal and theological trends during ... -
Daf Yomi Daily Lecture Series
(2020-12-23) -
Review of Lapin, --Rabbis as Romans: The Rabbinic Movement in Palestine, 100–400 CE--.
(Society of Biblical Literature, 2013-03) -
Understanding the Trajectory of Medieval Jewish Studies
(New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 2020)Much of the North American scholarship in medieval Jewish studies during the past four decades has not kept pace with this development. Israeli manuscript scholarship is at times so overwhelming that the ideas of history ... -
From Germany to Northern France and Back Again: A Tale of Two Tosafist Centres.
(London : The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization ; Liverpool : in association with Liverpool University Press, 2018)"Though the existence of Jewish regional cultures is widely known, the origins of the most prominent groups, Ashkenaz and Sepharad, are poorly understood, and the rich variety of other regional Jewish identities is often ... -
Assessing the (Non-)Reception of Mishneh Torah in Medieval Ashkenaz.
(New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2020)Several studies published during the past two decades have sought to explain why Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah is hardly cited in the rabbinic literature of northern Europe at least until the mid-thirteenth century.1 This ... -
The Best of Poetry...’: Literary Approaches to the Bible in the Spanish Peshat Tradition
(New York, NY: RIETS, Yeshiva University, 1995)Traditional Jewish biblical exegesis, spanning many centuries lands, offers a number of interpretive approaches to the Holy tures (kitvei ha-kodesh). Despite significant differences, the Midrash, the medieval French and ... -
Hesed: Divine or human? The syntactic ambiguity of Ruth 2:20.
(New York, NY : Michael Sharf Publication Trust of the Yeshiva University Press ; Hoboken, NJ : distributed by Ktav, 1997., 1997)Clarity may be cherished by biblical interpreters; but ambiguity evokes their ingenuity, generating vibrant debate. Ruth 2:20, a turning point in the tale of two destitute widows who suddenly perceive a silver lining on ... -
A poet’s biblical exegesis.
(Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003-01)The Jewish Quarterly Review, XCIII, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 2003) 533-556 Review Essay A POET'S BIBLICAL EXEGESIS1 Mordechai Z. Cohen, Yeshiva University Paul Fenton. Philosophie et exégèse dans le Jardin de la métaphore ... -
Logic to Interpretation: Maimonides' Use of al-Fârâbî's Model of Metaphor.
(Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic Publishers, c2002- ; Brill, 2002)Maimonides' interests in language and interpretation converge in the exegetical sections of his Guide of the Perplexed, in which he often invokes the notion of metaphor (Ar. isti"ara; Hebr. hash'alah), a concept defined ... -
Maimonides' Disagreement with 'The Torah' in His Interpretation of Job.
(Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic Publishers, c2002- ; Brill, 2004)Maimonides is celebrated in Jewish intellectual history both as a bold innovator and vigorous champion of rabbinic tradition. The tensions implied by this combination emerge in his reading of Job in The Guide of the ... -
Rashbam scholarship in perpetual motion.
(Philadelphia : Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, U Pennsylvania, 2008)Over the past quarter century, Elazar Touitou has substantially enhanced our understanding of the hermeneutics of Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam; c. 1080–1160), one of the greatest proponents of the peshat method in the ... -
A Talmudist’s Biblical Hermeneutics: A New Understanding of Maimonides’ Principle of Peshat Primacy.
(Ramat-Gan, Israel : Faculty of Jewish Studies, Bar-Ilan University, [2002-, 2012)The clarification of Maimonides’ peshat model does more than simply demonstrate his connection to the celebrated peshat school of Jewish interpretation; it reveals how he shatters hermeneutical barriers and ... -
Reproduction of the Text: Traditional Biblical Exegesis in Light of the Literary Theory of Ludwig Strauss.
(New York, NY : RIETS, Yeshiva University, c1989-, 2016)About sixty years ago, Nehama Leibowitz (1905-1997) penned what would become one of her most fundamental programmatic essays, “How to Read a Chapter of Tanakh.”1 First delivered as a lecture in memory of her mentor ... -
Rashi’s Literary Outlook as Reflected in his Conception of the Biblical Narrator: His use of the term ha-meshorer (“the poet”) and its impact in the northern French peshat school.
(Jewish Studies Internet Journal (JSIJ), 2020)This study, however, will focus on Rashi’s distinctive use of the term ha-meshorer (“the poet”) to express his conception of a narrator or implied author, a literary construct, an imagined persona who ... -
A New Perspective on Rashi of Troyes in Light of Bruno the Carthusian: Exploring Jewish and Christian Bible interpretation in eleventh-century Northern France.
(Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, 1970- Turnhout, Belgium : Brepols Publishers, 2017)Departing from the norm in eleventh-century Ashkenazic learning, Rashi advanced peshat (plain sense) interpretation as a yardstick to evaluate midrashic readings of scripture. While he drew upon Jewish sources such as the ... -
Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin: A Tale of Two Brothers from the Aramaic Text in Demotic Script.
(J Gabalda & Cie Editeurs, 1985-01)This is the third of a series of articles dealing with the Aramaic text in demotic script, 2 and the most ambitious one to Our first article 3 (and parts of our second) 4 dealt with a short (8-line), simple passage, ...
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