Fighting over the Bible: Jewish Interpretation, Sectarianism and Polemic from Temple to Talmud and Beyond by Isaac Kalimi

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

Reviewed by: Fighting over the Bible: Jewish Interpretation, Sectarianism and Polemic from Temple to Talmud and Beyond by Isaac Kalimi Michael W. Duggan isaac kalimi, Fighting over the Bible: Jewish Interpretation, Sectarianism and Polemic from Temple to Talmud and Beyond (Brill Reference Library of Judaism 54; Leiden: Brill, 2017). Pp. xi + 342. $159. In this passionate account, Isaac Kalimi crystallizes a decade of personal research into the dynamics that shaped Jewish interpretation of the Tanak from the second century b.c.e. to the sixteenth century c.e. This is a startlingly honest book that profiles the Bible as a source of conflict rather than mutual understanding among the Abrahamic traditions. Nevertheless, the enmity that Jews experienced from Christians and Muslims—fueled as it was by rhetorical accusations over matters of exegesis and theology—compelled the rabbis to examine the Torah with relentless creativity. The struggle for the survival of Jewish communities forged the genius of rabbinic interpretation. [End Page 316] The book comprises two parts: the first part deals with Jewish hermeneutics as shaped both by rabbinic debates within the tradition and by polemics against Christian and Muslim revisionism in the world at large, while the second part presents specific illustrations of some interpretive discussions in Second Temple and rabbinic Judaism. Each part consists of five chapters of which the first three are somewhat distinct from the last two. The first part opens with three chapters that cast light on rabbinic exegesis: chap. 1, on the centrality of the Oral and Written Torah for appreciating the place of the Bible in Jewish culture; chap. 2, on the nature of rabbinic commentaries as they extend beyond the plain sense of biblical texts; and chap. 3, on the theological concerns of the rabbis embodied in the Midrash Psalms Shocher Tov ("Seeking God"). The subsequent two chapters describe tensions over interpretation within the Jewish community and the dissonance that Jews have experienced with Christians and Muslims over the Bible: chap. 4 describes how such antagonisms shaped Jewish medieval exegesis; and chap. 5 identifies the enduring hermeneutical challenges for interfaith dialogue that derive from the lack of congruity between the Jewish Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. The second part of the book opens with three chapters on the interpretation of specific biblical texts from various perspectives: chap. 6 on the binding of Isaac (Gen 22:1-19) from the standpoints of the rabbis and current biblical criticism; chap. 7 on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16) as viewed by the Sadducees, Pharisees, and the Qumran community; and chap. 8 on the hiding of vessels from the First Temple according to Jewish and Samaritan literature. The final two chapters identify tensions with Islam in Jewish writings of the early rabbinic and early medieval periods: chap. 9 describes the animosity between Jews and both Arabs and Syrians in the pre-Islamic era as reflected in rabbinic texts and Targum Jonathan; and chap. 10 is devoted to Saadia Gaon (882–942) and Abraham Ibn Ezra (1092–1167), the Sephardic rabbis who set a standard for biblical exegesis with allegiance to the Oral Torah and Written Torah, while living in the Islamic world. The first three chapters constitute a succinct introduction to rabbinic biblical exegesis and theology. The section begins with K.'s thought-provoking observation that, while the Hebrew Bible is the basis for Judaism and Christianity, nevertheless, with the destruction of the temple in 70 c.e., both traditions quickly moved away from this foundation, with the former turning to the Oral Torah and the latter to the NT. In view of the traditional assertion that God communicated both the Oral Torah and the Written Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai, the sacred texts of Judaism consist of Hebrew Scripture, the Mishnah, and the Talmud, with abiding attention to halakah and haggadah. K. asserts that, in principle, the rabbis insisted on the primacy of the plain sense of the biblical text, and he then goes on to provide a chapter full of examples in which the rabbis departed from and actually contradicted prescriptions in the Torah. They did so when formulating juridical decisions, halakic ordinances and moral principles for the unique circumstances of...