Inner-Midrashic Introductions And Their Influence On Introductions To Medieval Rabbinic Bible Commentaries

ISBN: 9783110213683 出版年：2009 页码：243 Distefano, Michel G De Gruyter

The opening sections of some exegetical Midrashim deal with the same type of material that is found in introductions to medieval rabbinic Bible commentaries. The application of Goldberg′s form analysis to these sections reveals the new form "Inner-Midrashic Introduction" (IMI) as a thematic discourse on introductory issues to biblical books. By its very nature the IMI is embedded within the comments on the first biblical verse (1:1). Further analysis of medieval rabbinic Bible commentary introductions in terms of their formal, thematic, and material characteristics, reveals that a high degree of continuity exists between them and the IMIs, including another newly discovered form, the "Inner-Commentary Introduction." These new discoveries challenge the current view that traces the origin of Bible introduction in Judaism exclusively to non-Jewish models.