Date Published:

Abstract:

The reputation of Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089 or 1092/93–1164 or 1167) as a key proponent of the peshat (“plain sense”) of Scripture has been questioned due to his tendency (1) to adjust his exegesis to conform with rabbinic halakhic (religious-legal) traditions and (2) his philosophical readings, especially in the Psalms. Drawing upon evidence from his own Sefardic intellectual heritage and by analogy with the complexities of the Christian conception of the “literal sensew” brought to light in recent scholarship, this study aims to clarify the broader definition of peshat conceived by Ibn Ezra that incorporated interpretive considerations beyond the simplest philological construal of the biblical text.

January 2024: Mordechai Z. Cohen is Professor of Bible and Associate Dean at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies and Director of the Chinese-Jewish Conversation at Yeshiva University in New York. His research focuses on Jewish Bible interpretation in its Muslim and Christian cultural contexts, as well as a comparison with traditional interpretation of Chinese classical texts. Among his publications are Three Approaches to Biblical Metaphor (Brill Academic Publishers 2003; 2nd edition 2008), Opening the Gates of Interpretation (Brill Academic Publishers 2011), The Rule of Peshat (University of Pennsylvania Press 2020), and Rashi, Biblical Interpretation, and Latin Learning (Cambridge University Press 2021).

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