Biblical Poetry Through Medieval Jewish Eyes

by Adele Berlin, Herbert Marks (Editor), Robert Polzin (Editor)

This volume makes available in English for the first time an extremely important group of medieval and Renaissance texts on biblical poetry. The book contains excerpts from seventeen Judaeo—Arabic and Hebrew texts and includes the work of well—known figures such as Judah Halevi, Moshe ibn Ezra, Don lsaac Abravanel, and Azariah de' Rossi, as well as lesser-known works that reveal a rich but neglected tradition of critical debate on biblical poetics. The writings presented here date from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries and were produced in three of the main centers of Jewish Spain, Provence, and Italy. Some are excerpts from biblical commentaries, while others are found in historical, philosophical, grammatical, and literary treatises. The book is divided into two parts. Part I consists of an extended essay on medieval and Renaissance views of biblical poetry and rhetoric that highlights the main lines of historical development and suggests relevant connections with modern research on biblical poetry. Each of the translated excerpts in Part ll is preceded by a brief biographical note on the author, an outline of the work from which the excerpt is taken, and a summary of the excerpt. Bibliographical references are given for each text, and there is an extensive bibliography and a glossary of important terms and concepts. For literary scholars, this book provides a win- dow onto medieval and Renaissance Jewish literary theory, and for students of the Bible it presents an important chapter in the history of biblical interpretation. ADELE BERLlN is Professor of Hebrew in the Department of Hebrew and East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Maryland. Her previous books include Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative and The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism. Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature Herbert Marks and Robert Polzin, editors

228 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1991