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With Reverence for the Word
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With Reverence for the Word

Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Barry D. Walfish, and Joseph W. Goering

Abstract

This book explores medieval scriptural interpretation. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are often characterized as religio-cultural siblings, traditions whose origins can be traced to the same geographical region and whose systems of belief and institutional structures share much in common. A particularly important point of commonality is the emphasis that each of these traditions places upon the notion of divine revelation, especially as codified in the text. During the medieval period, the three exegetical traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam produced a vast literature, one of grea ... More

Keywords: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, medieval scriptural interpretation, divine revelation

Bibliographic Information

Print publication date: 2003 Print ISBN-13: 9780195137279
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011 DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195137279.001.0001

Authors

Affiliations are at time of print publication.

Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Editor
Georgetown University

Barry D. Walfish, Editor

Joseph W. Goering, Editor
both at the University of Toronto

Reviews

Contents

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Front Matter

Title Pages

Preface

List of Contributors

Abbreviations

Part I Medieval Jewish Exegesis of The Bible

1 An Introduction to Medieval Jewish Biblical Interpretation

2 The Search for Truth in Sacred Scripture: Jews, Christians, and the Authority to Interpret

3 The Tension between Literal Interpretation and Exegetical Freedom: Comparative Observations on Saadia's Method

4 Karaite Commentaries on the Song of Songs from Tenth-Century Jerusalem

5 Restoring the Narrative: Jewish and Christian Exegesis in the Twelfth Century

6 Rashbam as a “Literary” Exegete

7 Asceticism and Eroticism in Medieval Jewish Philosophical and Mystical Exegesis of the Song of Songs

8 Typology, Narrative, and History: Isaac ben Joseph ha-Kohen on the Book of Ruth

9 The Method of Doubts: Problematizing the Bible in Late Medieval Jewish Exegesis

10 Introducing Scripture: The Accessus ad auctores in Hebrew Exegetical Literature from the Thirteenth through the Fifteenth Centuries

Notes

11 On the Social Role of Biblical Interpretation: The Case of Proverbs 22:6

Part II Medieval Christian Exegesis of the Bible

12 An Introduction to Medieval Christian Biblical Interpretation

13 The Letter of the Law: Carolingian Exegetes and the Old Testament

14 The Four “Senses” and Four Exegetes

15 Laudat sensum et significationem: Robert Grosseteste on the Four Senses of Scripture

16 Beryl Smalley, Thomas of Cantimpré, and the Performative Reading of Scripture: A Study in Two Exempla

17 The Theological Character of the Scholastic “Division of the Text” with Particular Reference to the Commentaries of Saint Thomas Aquinas

18 Thomas of Ireland and his De tribus sensibus sacrae scripturae

19 Material Swords and Literal Lights: The Status of Allegory in William of Ockham's Breviloquium on Papal Power

Part III Medieval Exegesis of the Qurʼān

20 An Introduction to Medieval Interpretation of the Qurʼān

21 Discussion and Debate in Early Commentaries of the Qurʼān

22 Weaknesses in the Arguments for the Early Dating of Qurʼānic Commentary

23 The Scriptural “Senses” in Medieval Ṣūfī Qurʼān Exegesis

24 Are There Allegories in Ṣūfī Qurʼān Interpretation?

25 From the Sacred Mosque to the Remote Temple: Sūrat al-Isrāʼ between Text and Commentary

26 Qurʼānic Exegesis and History

27 The Self-Referentiality of the Qurʼān: Sura 3:7 as an Exegetical Challenge

28 The Designation of “Foreign” Languages in the Exegesis of the Qurʼān

29 The Genre Boundaries of Qurʼānic Commentary

End Matter

Subject Index

Index to Citations from the Bible, Rabbinic Literature, and the Qurʼān