chapter 4 Medieval Jewish Biblical Exegesis Robert A. Harris This chapter surveys important trends and personalities in the history of me- dieval Jewish biblical exegesis. It begins with an examination of the advances in Hebrew linguistics, lexicography, and philology achieved by Jewish schol- ars working in the Islamic world in the ninth to eleventh centuries. It was these achievements that to a great extent determined the subsequent course of Jewish biblical interpretation. The chapter then moves to the exegesis of Rashi and the northern French “school” he essentially founded in the elev- enth and twelfth centuries. Next to be considered is the twelfth-century poly- math Abraham ibn Ezra, who assimilated the Judeo-Arabic scholarship of the great Hebrew grammarians while in his native Spain and then disseminated this scholarship during his later peregrinations throughout Christian Europe. These twin pillars of Jewish exegesis, the European and Islamic worlds, were synthesized in different ways by each of the remaining scholars treated here, David Kimhi, Nahmanides, Gersonides, and Abarbanel, from the twelfth through fifteenth centuries. JEWISH EXEGESIS IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD Babylonia It may be said that medieval Jewish biblical exegesis begins with the Gaonic academies of Babylonia in the early Islamic age. While this chapter will not focus in detail on the accomplishments of scholars associated with those 141 153 EERDMANS -- A History of Biblical Interpretation vol 2 (Hauser & Watson) final text Friday, October 02, 2009 5:35:01 PM Color profile: Disabled Composite 140 lpi at 45 degrees