Comments on: Rashi, a Missing Yud, and R. Moses Isserles

By: Joachim Martillo

Joachim Martillo — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:52:52 +0000

Actually, there were several Greek translations of the Hebrew bible, but I was not really looking to explain the exegesis via translation but through paretymology and perhaps paronomasia because in this way the recourse to a hypothetical scroll with defective spelling is not required.

I try to explain in my blog entry at: http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2009/07/modern-jews-misinterpreting-jewish.html .

Pagan Greeks of the Greco-Roman period loved this sort of analysis, and we have every reason to believe that Greek-speaking Judeans did as well.

By: Michael Satlow

Michael Satlow — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:27:21 +0000

Mr. Martillo’s suggestion is intriguing, but probably doesn’t work in this case. The Septuagint (which you expect the Greek-speaking Jews to use) offers a straightforward translation of the word into Greek: katasteso.

By: Menachem Mendel

Menachem Mendel — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:38:03 +0000

The Greek aspect sounds very interesting and I wonder if Saul Lieberman in his Greek in Jewish Palestine or a similar work discusses this question.

By: Joachim Martillo

Joachim Martillo — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:28:50 +0000

Oops wrong URL: http://openlibrary.org/b/OL2289405M/Rashi%2C-interpreter-of-the-biblical-letter

By: Joachim Martillo

Joachim Martillo — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:25:56 +0000

I elaborated my comment on my blog in http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2009/07/modern-jews-misinterpreting-jewish.html .

BTW, I am not the only person that looks at RASHI in this way. See http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2009/07/modern-jews-misinterpreting-jewish.html .

I believe Banitt and I came to similar conclusions around 1973-4. I was searching for a link between Greek-speaking and Aramaic-speaking Judaism while Banitt was looking at RASHI carefully within the Old French context.

By: Joachim Martillo

Joachim Martillo — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:11:45 +0000

Doesn’t it almost seem that there was an existing interpretation of the verse, but the commentators did not understand the original logic behind it? As a consequence, they resorted to developing a somewhat questionable justification for the interpretation.

If one knows koine Greek, one hears asimam as a sound anagram of miasma to wit taint of guilt.

We may here have an example of a homiletic interpretation that passed from Greek-speaking Hellenistic Jewish traditions of Biblical hermeneutics to Aramaic-speaking Jewish interpretative traditions while the underlying logic was lost.

Examples are actually fairly common, but today’s Jews not familiar with koine or Hellenistic thinking often miss key aspects of texts or concepts dating to the Greco-Roman period.

By: Menachem Mendel

Menachem Mendel — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:09:36 +0000

I don’t think so. They have just started republishing it with volume 20.

By: lion of zion

lion of zion — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:49:15 +0000

i have the earlier volumes of alei sefer. are the later ones online anywhere?