This book is an introduction to the medieval rabbinic exegete of the Bible, Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency, a student of Rashi's Grandson, Rashbam (12th Century, northern France). This book may be ordered through the Medieval Institute at... more
This book is an introduction to the medieval rabbinic exegete of the Bible, Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency, a student of Rashi's Grandson, Rashbam (12th Century, northern France). This book may be ordered through the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo (see link, below).
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Parallelism is generally considered the “marker” dividing prose and poetry in ancient Semitic literature, including the Bible. Through their exposure to Judeo-Islamic scholarship certain Sephardic medieval thinkers came to understand this... more
Parallelism is generally considered the “marker” dividing prose and poetry in ancient Semitic literature, including the Bible. Through their exposure to Judeo-Islamic scholarship certain Sephardic medieval thinkers came to understand this principle. Harris counters the general assumption that the northern French commentators (the so-called “School of Rashi”) didn’t understand parallelism in biblical composition. The assumption is based on the French commentators’ immersion in the midrashic literature of rabbinic Judaism, which did not recognize parallelism, instead understanding each and every word of the Hebrew Bible as containing an aspect of the divine message in its own right. Moreover, unlike the exegetes and grammarians of the Judeo-Islamic world, the northern French scholars did not compose treatises on poetics. The book closely examines the extant biblical commentaries of the northern French exegetes. All citations of rabbinic literature are presented both in the original Hebrew and the author’s English translations. The book is addressed not only to those scholars interested in the history of biblical interpretation, but with its close literary readings of biblical and rabbinic texts also appeals to those interested in synchronic understanding of the Bible.
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This is an article I wrote about the experience I had in Rome about the interfaith program called "Scriptural Reasoning." Here is the citation: Robert A. Harris, “Improving the Quality of Our Disagreements: The Potential of ‘Scriptural... more
This is an article I wrote about the experience I had in Rome about the interfaith program called "Scriptural Reasoning." Here is the citation: Robert A. Harris, “Improving the Quality of Our Disagreements: The Potential of ‘Scriptural Reasoning’ for Helping to Repair the World,” Journal of Scriptural Reasoning 15:2 (November 2016): Special Issue on Interreligious Reading after Vatican II. http://jsr.shanti.virginia.edu/back-issues/volume-15-number-2-november-2016/
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Harris, Robert A. “What’s in a Blessing? Rashi and the Priestly Benediction of Numbers 6:22–27,” In Birkat Kohanim: The Priestly Benediction in Jewish Tradition, edited by Martin Cohen and David Birnbaum, 231–58. New York: New Paradigm... more
Harris, Robert A. “What’s in a Blessing? Rashi and the Priestly Benediction of Numbers 6:22–27,” In Birkat Kohanim: The Priestly Benediction in Jewish Tradition, edited by Martin Cohen and David Birnbaum, 231–58. New York: New Paradigm Matrix, 2016.
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This article assays the major Jewish interpretive voices in medieval Jewish biblical exegesis, including such figures as Rashi, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra and others.