By
– January 11, 2012
These twelve learned essays are the result of the collaboration of scholars at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Advanced Judaic Studies seeking to understand the cultural exchanges that take place in the history of scriptural interpretation (exegesis). They trace ancient and medieval exegesis by comparing the contexts of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scriptural interpretations in order to understand the interpretations that develop in each of them. Each essay relates its subject to other contemporary traditions of interpretation within the larger cultural context. The interaction includes polemical developments, but also appropriation of the tools and methods of their rivals. Topics include late biblical and early postbiblical compositions, rabbinic legal and homiletical interpretations, Jerome and other early Christian exegetes, Islamic exegesis in both the Qur’an and early Muslim tradition, and biblical interpretation in early modern illustrations of biblical scenes. Indexes.
Mark D. Nanos, Ph.D., University of Kansas, is the author of Mysteryof Romans, winner of the 1996 National Jewish Book Award, Charles H. RevsonAward in Jewish-Christian Relations.