The Bible and Jews in Medieval Spain

Norman Roth

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000348156
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Bibles

The Bible and Jews in Medieval Spain examines the grammatical, exegetical, philosophical and mystical interpretations of the Bible that took place in Spain during the medieval period.

The Bible was the foundation of Jewish culture in medieval Spain. Following the scientific analysis of Hebrew grammar which emerged in al-Andalus in the ninth and tenth centuries, biblical exegesis broke free of homiletic interpretation and explored the text on grammatical and contextual terms. While some of the earliest commentary was in Arabic, scholars began using Hebrew more regularly during this period. The first complete biblical commentaries in Hebrew were written by Abraham Ibn 'Ezra, and this set the standard for the generations that followed.

This book analyses the approach and unique contributions of these commentaries, moving on to those of later Christian Spain, including the Qimhi family, Nahmanides and his followers and the esoteric-mystical tradition. Major topics in the commentaries are compared and contrasted. Thus, a unified picture of the whole fabric of Hebrew commentary in medieval Spain emerges. In addition, the book describes the many Spanish Jewish biblical manuscripts that have remained and details the history of printed editions and Spanish translations (for Jews and Christians) by medieval Spanish Jews.

This book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval Spain, as well as those interested in the history of religion and cultural history.

Chapter 1

The Bible and its interpretation

In Muslim Spain

Tanak[h] (acronym = Torah, Neviyiym [Prophets], Ketūviym [Writings]), today commonly called the “Hebrew Bible,” is the foundation of Jewish personal and communal life and of the entire Jewish culture.¹ Yet during much of history it has remained nearly a closed book which few could actually understand. This is due to the sometimes difficult Hebrew in which it is written, as well as to the obscure meaning of many parts of it. During the Hellenistic period, very few Jews could understand even the Torah, which is in relatively simple Hebrew, that it was read in Greek translation in the synagogues in the Land of Israel² and in many places in the Diaspora.³

The Aramaic translation was substituted for the Greek translation in the Roman period, although in some synagogues the use of Greek continued (in Byzantium and other Greek-speaking areas, also in the medieval period). In contrast to the earlier period, it appears that the Torah was read in Hebrew, along with the Aramaic translation. As for the rest of the books of the Bible, only selected portions from some of the Prophets were read as part of the Sabbath and holiday service, immediately following the reading from the Torah. The assumption was that these readings helped “elucidate” the Torah portion, but no further effort was made to investigate or comment upon the prophetic readings themselves.⁴

For the most part, the understanding of what the Bible means was left to the few and usually brief comments of the sages preserved in the Talmud⁵ supplemented by the more detailed midrashiym, which in fact were products of the medieval period.⁶ It should be noted that the Talmud was not “friendly” to parts of the Bible, with various sages wanting to condemn books such as Song of Songs, Qohelet (Ecclesiastes) and even Ezekiel because of perceived “heresies.”⁷ While there were contradictory views about Ben Sira, it is due to the same opinion of it that this was confined to the Apocrypha (and thus is rarely read today), although Hebrew versions of it were known and cited by medieval Spanish Jewish writers. The general Jewish attitude was that the purpose of knowing the Bible was to understand the commandments and laws, in fact limited to the Torah (with a few exceptions), for which the Talmud is the ultimate authority.

This position had its advocates even in Spain, such as Judah b. Barzilay (born ca. 1070) in Barcelona, an important scholar, who (echoing a talmudic saying) warned against those who study only the Bible but do not know the explanations of the commandments (found in the “oral Torah,” that is, the Talmud), “and especially many ba‘aley ha-miqra [literally ‘masters of the Bible,’ perhaps Qaraites] whom we see in this time, since they do not know the Talmud and the meaning of the commandments they are like heretics.”⁸

Joseph Ibn Susān (late fourteenth century, probably Toledo) relates that when he was in a certain place outside of the kingdom of Castile (probably Valencia, which he visited), one Friday afternoon two students came to see him and were amazed to find that a scholar such as he had been studying the weekly portion, as if to imply that this was a waste of time. Joseph reported them to their teacher and they were expelled from the yeshivah for their lack of respect for this obligation.⁹

Profiat Duran (Isaac b. Moses ha-Lēvy, late fourteenth to early fifteenth century) complained about the opposite extreme and decried even scholars and great sages who are satisfied with merely the required reading of the weekly Torah portion and translation,

and possibly if you would ask them where a particular verse is [in the Bible] they would not know, and they also consider someone a fool who wastes his time with the Bible, since the Talmud is the important thing.

This “sickness,” he says, is very strong in France and Germany at the present time and in previous generations; however, in the earlier generations it was not so.¹⁰ Even allowing for the typical exaggeration of such statements in medieval sources, there is much truth in this, although certainly not in Spain, at least prior to his generation. There, the study of the entire Bible became common practice among even the ordinary Jews (inventories of books owned by Spanish Jews reveal a number of separate codices of biblical books owned by Jews in various communities, and citations of even obscure biblical verses are common in private letters and other documents).

Aramaic and Arabic translations

According to the well-known adage “all translation is commentary,” indeed the early (Jewish) Greek translation (Septuagint) and later the Aramaic, Syriac and Arabic translations were to a greater or lesser degree commentaries.¹¹ Even stronger is the admonition in the Talmud: “Whoever translates a passage as it is [ke-ṣurato; literally] is a liar and who adds to it [elaborates on its meaning] insults and blasphemes” (Kiddushin 49a). Earlier, Rabbi Gamaliel had wanted to bury an Aramaic translation of Job under a pile of rocks to prevent it being read (Sanhedrin 116a). In spite of this, there is a rabbinical requirement for individuals to study every week the portion of the Torah, which is to be read in the synagogue, together with the Aramaic translation (called simply Targum, but specifically that attributed to Onkelos [not “Onqelos”; the name is Greek]), but increasingly in the medieval period fewer Jews understood the Aramaic translation.¹²

There is an important (anonymous) geonic responsum (Teshuōt ha-geōniym, 124–25) mentioning the Ereṣ Yisraēl or “Jerusalem” Targum: “We do not know who said [wrote] this nor do we even know [the text] itself, and we have not heard of it except a little.” This refers to the Targum Yerushalmiy I translation of the Pentateuch. It further says that translating into any language other than the Aramaic of the accepted Targum (Onkelos) is forbidden (for reading during services) because of the difficulty of translating correctly, but to interpret and preach in other languages is allowed. It also states that “our Targum” was transmitted from the prophets; cf. Megillah 3a, which attributes the translation of the Prophets to Jonathan b. Uziel “by the mouth of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.”

Naṭronai Gaōn (Sura, near Baghdad; years of his office, ca. 849–57) said that “those who do not translate [Aramaic] and say that we do not need the translation of the rabbis but rather in our own language [Arabic]” do not fulfill the obligation of reading the Torah with the translation. Furthermore, according to him this is a biblical commandment, and the translation must actually be read aloud in the synagogue with the reading of the Torah.¹³

When the commentary of Rashi (Solomon b. Isaac of Troyes, France, ca. 1040–1105) became known, it was often substituted for the study of the Targūm (and see n. 17), and prior to that some authorities in Muslim lands had allowed the substitution of Arabic translations. However, the more traditional-minded insisted on the continued reverence for the Aramaic translations. Judah b. Barzilay reports that Hai (or Hayyē) Gaōn (d. 1038) in “Babylonia” (as the Jews still called Iraq) was asked:

the people of Sefarad [Spain] were accustomed to neglect completely the [Aramaic] translation [in public reading of the Torah] and [yet] we find in several places in the Talmud that it is an obligation. And he replied: the thing is clear that not only in the Talmud do we find the obligation of this translation and its laws, but even in our Mishnah…[Megillah 4.4]… Further, there is an explanation of the things that are [to be] read and translated and of the things that are [to be] read and not translated,¹⁴ and also [rules concerning] a minor who reads the Torah and translates, and many things in our Mishnah which are explained in the Talmud. Are all these empty words? God forbid, since all the prophets decreed these [rules]. And we did not know until now that in [Spain] they neglected this translation. And the nagiyd [Samuel Ibn Naghrīllah] wrote:…there is [one of ] the rabbis who said, Far be it from the people of Spain that they should neglect the translation, as these questioners [of Hai] said; for Spain was a place of the propagation of the Torah from the earliest time,¹⁵ from the exile of Jerusalem until now, and the neglect of the translation is the manner of the heretics and there has never been found heresy among [the Jews of Spain] except in a few villages near the land of Edom [Christian Spain as opposed to al-Andalus] upon which it is proclaimed that they have heretical aspects in secret and they do not believe in [the translation]. And our predecessors flogged some of their men that were worthy of flogging and they died from the beating.¹⁶ How, indeed, could the translation be neglected at all when everyone completes [the weekly study] of the Torah portion in the congregation on every Sabbath ‘twice scripture and once the translation’ [Berakhot 8a], and never did they neglect the translation or a single thing of the rules of the Talmud…¹⁷ He continued to explain that the custom previously had been to spend the entire Sabbath day in the synagogue, strictly observing the rule of studying the Torah portion twice and the Aramaic translation once, and then followed the public reading from the Torah and translation of it, and so also the reading from the prophets, “and this thing was difficult for the people” (it took too much time) and the elders worried about quarrels because of it and so they decreed that they should complete their Sabbath morning talmudic study with the study of the Torah portion twice and the translation once, and did away with the reading of the translation when the Torah was read during the service.¹⁸

Earlier than this, Judah Ibn Quraysh (or, apparently, Qurēys) of Tāhart, at present Algeria (early tenth century), had written to the community of Fez complaining that he heard that they no longer read the “Syrian” (Aramaic) translation in the synagogues, and some had even said they had never read the translation of the Torah (Onkelos) or of the Prophets (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan). This, he said, was something which none of their forefathers had neglected in Iraq, Egypt, North Africa or Spain.¹⁹

Later in Christian Spain, the custom in some communities was to gather in front of the synagogue on the Sabbath before services began and complete the reading of the weekly portion twice and the Targūm Onkelos once; this would have been done by reading from the manuscript (codex) of the Pentateuch with the translation.²⁰

The Muslim conquest of the former Persian Empire (“Babylonia” to the Jews) and Syria (including the Land of Israel) in 635 C.E. resulted in Arabic becoming the standard spoken and written language also for the Jews (the largest Jewish population was in these lands). It soon became necessary to have Arabic translations of the Bible. Qaraite and Muslim sources refer to some, and there are also references in book lists from the Genizah. Several manuscripts of Arabic biblical translations by Qaraites are extant. There were also Arabic translations of at least the Pentateuch (perhaps the entire Bible) made by Muslims and by Christian “Arabs” (i.e., Christians living in Muslim lands).²¹ Fragments of some early (Jewish) Arabic and “Judeo-Arabic” (Arabic in Hebrew letters) translations have been discovered, dating at least to the eighth century. In Spain, Juan, archbishop of Seville in the early ninth ce...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Table
• Preface
• List of abbreviations
• 1 The Bible and its interpretation: in Muslim Spain
• 2 Abraham Ibn ‘Ezra
• 3 Ibn ‘Ezra, Part 2
• 4 Christian Spain, Part 1: Provence, Catalonia, Aragón (to fourteenth century)
• 5 Christian Spain, Part 2: Aragón-Catalonia fourteenth century
• 6 Bible texts in Spain: manuscripts, editions and translations
• Appendix 1: Sources and names cited by Ibn ‘Ezra, Qimḥi and Naḥmanides
• Appendix 2: Commentaries by name of book and of author
• Bibliography
• Index