From the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, edited by Michael Groden and Martin Kreisworth, 1994
Biblical Criticism: Midrash and Medieval Commentary
Tzvee Zahavy
The text of the Old Testament, known by the acronym Tanakh
— i.e., Torah, Nevi`im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings) — for
centuries has been subjected to critical scrutiny by Jewish scholars.
Rabbinic authorities in late antiquity [called Tannaim and Amoraim]
developed some of the best known and most influential forms of
traditional interpretive theories of the text of the Bible. The
contributions of these scholars has been preserved in numerous volumes
of midrash compilations and in the Talmud (the definitive compilation
of rabbinic laws, legends and interpretation from the first to sixth
centuries).
During the middle ages Jewish scholars developed
several types of biblical criticism. These derived from diverse
sources: (1) the traditions of conventional rabbinic exegesis; (2)
medieval mystical traditions within Judaism; (3) grammatical,
syntactical and other critical advances of the middle ages. Many of the
commentaries and expositions of that period are eclectic mixtures of
these strands of interpretation.
Midrash
The Hebrew word "midrash" means
interpretation. It most commonly refers to (1) classic compilations of
Bible interpretation in early rabbinism (first to sixth centuries
C.E.), (2) some of the major interpretive styles associated with those
compilations, and (3) some types of contemporary interpretations of
texts (of Scripture or of fiction) that bear resemblances to the
classic rabbinic modes.
Classical rabbinic midrash is a complex and
diverse sort of writing compiled and written over a period that spans
several centuries and fills many discrete volumes. Midrash most
frequently takes the form of a commentary to biblical verses. There are
brief narrative segments embedded in midrash compilations. But even the
most casual reader of midrash knows that this form of textual
expression bears little sustained resemblance to the genres of fiction
and poetry common to western literature.
Midrash emphasizes national themes, dwells on
religious themes and theological issues, and bears barely concealed
political messages. In contrast to the biblical text it seeks to
illuminate, one finds in it few of the major themes of literature and
verse. As a theological genre, it is rarely interested in human stories
of love or hate, war or peace, loyalty or duplicity, or in the personal
struggles of individuals in a society of open choices. Nearly all the
messages of rabbinic midrash are rigorously controlled within
structured religious schemata. Consequently, scholars have yet to apply
extensively the general methods of literary criticism to the corpus of
midrash texts. More groundwork is now underway employing current
literary theory to illuminate the meanings of midrash.
Some critics view the methods of midrash as an
early process of deconstructing a text and apply the term to describe
more recent techniques of interpretation. The fact that midrash
traditions "do not seem to involve the privileged pairing of a
signifier with a specific set of signifieds... has rendered midrash so
fascinating to some recent literary critics (Boyarin viii)."
Nevertheless contemporary theorists mold the term midrash according to
their own needs and stop short of inquiring into its diverse
implications in late antique rabbinism.
The privilege of rabbinic authority is central to
the concept of midrash. Implied in the classical uses of the term is
the notion that the results of interpretations of the sacred texts are
themselves in some sense sacred. The early rabbis voiced this by
suggesting that their writings constituted an oral Torah tradition that
had been given to Moses at the revelation at Mount Sinai along with the
text of the Israelite written Torah. The dual-Torah-idea signifies that
the authority of the text and of the interpretation are correlative.
Many works of classical rabbinic exegesis share
common strategies toward the texts of the Bible. Midrash tends to
atomize a canonical text and to associate with each segment in order
one or more interpretive remarks. These may be alternate or
contradictory explanations, expansions or even entirely independent
traditions.
In the early scholarship of the nineteenth
century, authors tended to search for the specific unifying features of
the genre "midrash." They frequently assumed that they could identify
and distill the exact rules of midrash and thereby describe a unified
paradigm of rabbinic interpretive principles. These efforts did not go
far enough into defining the essence and function of Midrash. The
features and rules they cataloged were in fact either too general to be
meaningful or, in some cases, incorrect and misleading. The study of
midrash improved and accelerated in the nineteen-eighties. Recent
research in the field builds on novel and more modern paradigms of
inquiry.
Accordingly it is useful to provide some examples
to illustrate the progress in Midrash-scholarship. It was commonly
asserted in earlier work that midrash falls into two content specific
categories: halakhic (legal) and aggadic (homiletical).
To be sure since many of the texts of Tanakh can be categorized as
legal or nonlegal there appears to be some strong basis for this
distinction. However the validity of this dichotomy derives from an
allegorical-philosophical polemic frequently associated with Maimonides
and his successors within medieval rabbinism (see below). By contrast,
more modern approaches investigate the hermeneutical moves or motives
of the various rabbinic compilers who used midrash-techniques in their
compositions.
Scholarship earlier in this century frequently invoked the distinction between styles of exegesis: peshat, i.e., plain meaning, and derash,
i.e., fanciful interpretation to define the nature of midrash and its
later derivatives in medieval rabbinic Bible commentaries. This
division was first articulated by the rabbis themselves. Of course many
midrash-moves do fall into the categories of literal or imaginative.
Nevertheless this differentiation confines the focus to the
micro-exegetical-moves of the processes. Current research attempts to
provide a more substantial window into the larger intent of
exegete/compiler/author of midrash or of commentary.
Recent scholarship on the subject of midrash
insists that because rabbinic Judaism was not a monolithic movement we
ought not limit the academic exploration of Midrash to searching for
independent principles of Jewish hermeneutics. Instead we now ought
consider how each of its major works of interpretive textual study
contributes its own substantive methods of text study. Each author or
compiler, it is argued, responds in some way to his particular inner
dynamic and to his social and historical circumstance.
Unfortunately, little is known of the lives of
the authors and compilers of the midrash books. What can be retrieved
inductively from the texts themselves demonstrates a diversity of both
style and substance within the various works. The recent work of Jacob
Neusner and his students embodies various productive functional
approaches to text found in the classic midrash compilations. I
summarize here a few of the basic points of Neusner's research into
Midrash.
Neusner identifies three trends in classical
rabbinic Bible interpretation: exegetical, propositional, and
narrative. In the classic work Sifra, the Tannaitic midrash to Leviticus, and in Sifré to Numbers,
Neusner finds the interpretation as a form of exegesis yielding
propositions. The discourse of such texts is sustained by the anchoring
of each of the brief excurses to a successive verse in the text of
Torah.
The second form of midrash-interpretation starts with propositions and yields exegeses. From the texts of Genesis Rabbah, Leviticus Rabbah, and Pesiqta derab Kahana
we can easily observe the "overriding themes and recurrent tensions
that precipitated Bible interpretation among their authorships (Neusner
viii)." The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan exemplifies a
third trend, the narrative task of midrash that extends and rewrites
the themes and stories of the canonical text.
The classic works of rabbinic midrash include the following. The Tannaitic Midrashim, those that cite the rabbis of the Mishnah, include Mekhilta Attributed to Rabbi Ishmael on Exodus 12:1-23:19, Sifra for Leviticus, Sifré to Numbers, Sifré to Deuteronomy. These are generally thought to have been completed by 400 C.E.. Mekhilta
has been described as a scriptural encyclopedia joining together
propositions engendered by the biblical text. By contrast, other early
Midrash-compilations have been found to set forth an agendum of
questions and proceed to answer them through its discourses.
Sifra
sets its distinctive approach by adhering to a three pronged polemical
inquiry. The compilers asserted that all taxonomy must derive from
Scriptural classifications. They presented these discussions in a
dialectical form of discourse. They also undertook to recast the
rabbinic oral Torah in the context of the original written Torah. For
this aim they utilized the citation-form of expression. They finally
sought to revise the Torah itself and did so through their use of
commentary-forms.
The earlier rabbah midrash compilations are thought to have been completed in the fourth and fifth centuries. Genesis Rabbah
makes a coherent claim that the origins of the world and of the tribes
of Israel reveal God's plan and portend for the future of Israel's
salvation. Neusner argues that this midrash-book was issued as a
response to historical trends, most likely to the conversion of
Constantine and the legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire.
Accordingly narratives like that of Jacob's struggle with Esau are
turned into accounts of the strife between Israel and Rome. Rabbinic
commentators in this work use verses from the Torah to write about the
history and destiny of Israel.
The later rabbah midrash compilations are said to derive from the sixth and seventh centuries. Ruth Rabbah
makes clear through its comments that opposite entities may be united
under God's will. The editors of this book dealt with the issues of
Gentiles becoming Jews and the distinction between men and women. The
proposition that from a Moabite woman comes the Israelite messiah is
repeatedly conveyed by means of a symbolic vocabulary of verbal images
embedded in the midrash-materials.
Song of Songs Rabbah
understands the biblical text as a metaphor for the love of God for
Israel. The compilation furnishes us with list-like comments that
systematically connect the poetry of the Song with the symbols of
rabbinism. Thus this work forms for us a discourse not of narrative or
of polemics or propositions, but rather of the symbolism that defines
the religion. These latter two compilations make crucial theological
claims in the distinct rhetoric of the rabbis.
Mishnah and Talmud
The supposition that methods of
midrash analysis are largely replicated in the Talmud of the Land of
Israel and in the Babylonian Talmud has largely been refined or
refuted. Neusner found that Mishnah rarely engages in scriptural
exegesis. The Talmud of the Land of Israel does engage in scriptural
investigation mainly assuming that Mishnah needs support for the
purposes of its authority and scriptural basis for its norms. Thus this
links oral and written Torah in accord with that the theological point
of reference of the editors of that latter corpus. In contrast,
extensive studies show that the Babylonian Talmud builds equally on the
texts of the oral Torah, the Mishnah, and on verses of the written
Torah, Scripture.
Medieval Bible Exegesis
Current scholarship argues that it is
not sufficient to describe the growth of Bible criticism in the middle
ages in terms of the clash between the literal and homiletical
interpretations of Scripture. Rather, as is the case for earlier
Midrash, it is more urgent to examine the materials in a broader
cultural context. Hence we now seek to determine how medieval rabbis
transformed and extended earlier rabbinic midrash into a commentary
form of exegesis, how they melded it together with newer mystical
speculations on the Torah, and how they integrated into their glosses
and expositions the fruits of linguistic explorations and discoveries.
The pradigmatic master of medieval rabbinic
commentary was Rashi (Rabbi Solomon b. Isaac, 1040-1105) a scholar from
the north of France. While he is often credited with the move to
"literal commentary" in medieval times, even a cursory study of his
commentaries reveals how indebted he was to the rabbinic exegesis of
the earlier classical compilations. With Rashi we witness the mature
development of a new paradigm of interpretation. He delicately balances
his interpretations between gloss and exposition. He picks at and edits
the earlier midrash materials and weaves together with them into his
commentary the results of new discoveries, such as philology and
grammar. His main proposition is hardly radical within rabbinism. He
accepts that there is one whole Torah of Moses consisting of the oral
and written traditions and texts. In his commentaries he accomplished
the nearly seamless integration of the basics of both bodies of
tradition.
During the middle ages, especially in the tenth
century, the new methods of the lower criticism of the Hebrew text make
their way into medieval interpretation. These derived mainly from the
authorities in Spain: Menahem b. Jacob ibn Saruq, Dunash b. Labrat,
Judah b. Hayyuj, Jonah ibn Janah. The eclectic commentaries of Abraham
Ibn Ezra (1090-1164) are sometimes depicted as indications of the
beginnings of more independent and radical critical examinations of the
canonical text. Ibn Ezra appears to move more freely away from the
standard theological postulates of rabbinic interpretation and treat
the text of the Torah as more of an independent entity. The so-called
"synthetic commentaries" of David Kimhi (1160-1235) and Nahmanides
(1195-1270) range farther from the received traditions of earlier
midrash compilations. Nahmanides wrote a more expositional commentary
and frequently interjected mystical references and allusions.
Alternatives in Jewish Bible interpretation
Some important Jewish interpretation
did not adhere to or derive from the paradigmatic styles or agenda of
midrash. The early Hellenistic allegory of Philo of Alexandria (born c.
10 B.C.E.), for instance, is seen by some as a precursor of rabbinic
midrash that represents a distinctive Hellenistic Jewish cultural
context dealing in its way with the same authoritative texts. Philo's
allegory exemplifies the application of Hellenistic techniques to the
Greek translation of the Torah. Another collection of exegetical texts,
the Dead Sea Pesharim from Qumran (first century B.C.E.), contains
examples of an apocalyptic Jewish group's interpretations of the
Prophets out of their view of messianic eschatology. These materials
are for the most part disjointed from prior and later Jewish bible
interpretation.
A less radical disjuncture can be identified in
medieval Jewish thought. Some leading medieval rationalists
de-emphasized the fruits of the midrash and aggadah and lauded at its
expense the processes of philosophical analysis. Maimonides'
(1135-1204) philosophical allegory in the Guide for the Perplexed
is seen by some critics as an illustration of the process of cloaking
semi-esoteric philosophical precepts in an interpretive garb to be
passed on to the newly initiated disciple. Some Maimonideans saw
philosophy as inimical to the process of midrash.
Bibliography
Daniel Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash, Bloomington, 1990
Roger Brooks, The Spirit of the Ten Commandments: shattering the myth of Rabbinic legalism, San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1990
Jose Faur, Golden Doves with Silver Dots: Semiotics and textuality in rabbinic tradition, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986
Michael Fishbane, Biblical interpretation in ancient Israel, Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Clarendon Press ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Moshe Greenberg, Parshanut ha-Mikra ha-yehudit : pirke mavo, Yerushalayim: Mosad Byalik, 1983
David Halivni, Peshat and Derash: Plain and applied meaning in Rabbinic exegesis, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991
B. Holtz (ed.), Back to the Sources: Reading Classical Jewish Texts, New York, 1984
James Kugel, In Potiphar's House: the interpretive life of biblical texts, San Francisco: Harper, 1990
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Jacob Neusner, The Midrash: An Introduction, Northvale: Aronson, 1990
Gary G. Porton, Understanding Rabbinic Midrash, New York, 1985
_____, "Midrash," Anchor Bible Dictionary, New York: Anchor Books, 1992, vol iv, pp. 818-822
David Stern, Parables in Midrash : narrative and exegesis in rabbinic literature, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991.
J. W. Rogerson and Werner G. Jeanrond, "Interpretation, history of," Anchor Bible Dictionary, New York: Anchor Books, 1992, vol. iii, pp. 424-443
M.H. Segal, Parsanut HaMiqra, Jerusalem, 1952
Burton L. Visotzky, "Hermeneutics, early rabbinic," Anchor Bible Dictionary, New York: Anchor Books, 1992, vol. ii, pp. 154-155
_____, Reading the Book : making the Bible a timeless text, New York: Anchor Books, 1991.
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