The Centre for Jewish Studies
University of Manchester
Extra-Mural Lectures January-March 2000
Roger Tomes
DIVIDED BY A COMMON SCRIPTURE:
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN APPROACHES TO THE BIBLE
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II
After the breach between church and synagogue Jewish and Christian reading
of the scriptures went their separate ways. In Judaism halakhic concerns
predominate. The early Tannaitic midrashim are running commentaries on the
Pentateuch, from Exodus 12 to the end of Deuteronomy, with a view to justifying
from scripture the interpretations of the commandments codified in the Mishnah.
This sometimes meant setting aside the literal meaning to make the text
conform with contemporary opinion. Thus in Ex 21:6, where the slave is to
serve his master 'for ever', this is taken to mean 'until the jubilee year'
(Mek. Nez.2.83ff.). And in Ex 21:24 'an eye for an eye' is taken
to mean monetary compensation (Mek. Nez.8.60-75; Sifrei Deut.190).
The later midrashim, on the books of the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the
Megillot and the Haftorah readings, are in the nature of homilies, containing
aggadic material, elaborations of the biblical narratives, as well as halakhic
material. Much of the material is also to be found in the tractates of the
Talmud. For example, discussions of the theological implications of the
Flood story in very similar terms are found in both Genesis Rabba and the
tractate Sanhedrin.
The Targums testify to a rather different way of reading. Being paraphrases
they have to offer continuous interpretation of the text, but without the
appeal to rabbinic authority which pervades Midrash and Talmud. Targum Onkelos
on the Pentateuch draws out the halakhic implications of the text. It paraphrases
Ex 23:19, 'You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk,' simply as 'You
shall not eat meat with milk.' Targum Jonathan on the other hand is more
concerned with aggadic elaboration. There are of course Targums to the Prophets
and the Writings as well as to the Pentateuch.
Then in the mediaeval period we have the great commentators, whose chief
interest is in the peshat, the literal meaning of the text. Part
of the concern of Rashi was to refute christological exegesis, and for that
he had to show that the text taken literally would not bear the construction
Christians put upon it (Herman Hailperin, Rashi and the Christian Scholars
(University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963), pp.178, 318 n.312). This required
scrupulous attention to grammar and lexicography. Most Christians nowadays
would concede that he had the better of the argument. But this did not mean
that the Jewish commentators felt restricted to a historical interpretation.
David Kimhi gave a mystical reading of the first chapter of Ezekiel and
the Song of Songs. And Isaac Abravanel made a most moving application of
Isaiah 53 to the sufferings of Jews at the hands of Christians in the Middle
Ages.
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The Centre for Jewish Studies
The Department of Religions and Theology
University of Manchester
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