This book is a new Edition, amended and expanded, of the essay JEWS AND CHRISTIANS INTERPRET THE BIBLE originally published in 1992. The book is a collection of articles dealing with biblical commentary through the ages which centers mainly on the reciprocal relationship between the Jewish and Christian biblical commentary. These relationships are exposed as a rich and complex system of influence and controversy, which is manifested both explicitly and implicitly. The essays of the Jewish commentators, including Rashi, Rashbam, and R. Yosef Bechor Shor, are studied in light of the cultural world and reality of life at their time and as a response to that era, and the Christian commentary is examined through its complex and multi faceted relationship with the Jewish tradition and the Jewish Biblical Commentary.
A first edition of this book was published in some haste soon after the author’s premature death in 1989. Now Prof. Sarah Yafet (as it appears) and other friends of Sarah Kamin have collaborated in collecting all her articles and book reviews in a new and much better edition. This is an act of piety for which they are to be warmly commended.
The book contains eight articles in Hebrew and three in English, plus three book reviews. Kamin’s main concern was, as the title indicates, the interactions between medieval Jews and Christians as reflected in Bible exegesis. Kamin devoted most of her attention to Rashi, but also studied other Ashkenazi authors such as Joseph Bekhor Shor and Rashbam.
Aleph. Historical Studies in Science & Judaism, VOLUME 10, ISSUE 1 (October 2010)