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Abstract:

This essay explores the convergence of new emphases on the literal-historical sense in biblical exegesis, the burgeoning of interreligious polemic, and aspects of the commonality of Jewish and Christian cultural experiences early in the 12^th century. It probes instructive similarity and difference in the Song of Songs commentaries of Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac of Troyes, 1040–1105) and Honorius Augustodunensis (d. after 1140), particularly in the Song’s praise of the Shulamite in 6:10–7:11. Their commentaries signal the importance of contemporary interreligious debate, of Christian hopes to convert the Jews, and of expectations for the ultimate salvation of exiled Israel at the end time. Most impressively, they reflect a shared landscape characterized by growing awareness of the other and the need to situate the other on one’s own map of the world.

January 2024: Jeremy Cohen is professor emeritus in the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University, where he held the Spiegel Family Foundation Chair for European Jewish History. He has authored seven books, edited or co-edited another eight, and published some fifty articles – on the multifaceted interactions of Jews and Christians from antiquity until early modern times: interreligious polemics, biblical exegesis, historiography, martyrology, and more. These works include The Friars and the Jews (1982), Essential Papers on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict (1991), From Witness to Witchcraft (1996), Living Letters of the Law (1999), Sanctifying the Name of God (2004), Christ Killers (2007), and The Salvation of Israel (2022)

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