History of Biblical Interpretation.

• Author: Seters, John Van
• Position: History of Biblical Interpretation, vol. 2: Front Late Antiquity to the End of the Middle Ages - Book review

History of Biblical Interpretation. vol. 1: From the Old Testament to Origen. By HENNING GRAF REVENTLOW, tr. LEO G. PURDUE. Resources for Biblical Study. vol. 50. Atlanta: SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. 2009. Pp. ix + 243. $29.95 (paper).

History of Biblical Interpretation, vol. 2: Front Late Antiquity to the End of the Middle Ages. By HENNING GRAF REVENTLOW, tr. JAMES 0. DUKE. Resources for Biblical Study, vol. 61. Atlanta: SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. 2009. Pp. x + 313. $36.95 (paper).

These two volumes were translated from Gentian editions that appeared in 1990 and 1994. respectively. The hind two volumes. bringing (he history up to the present. were published in 2010. In the above volumes the author undertakes a study of the history of biblical interpretation based on an understanding of the Bible as a sacred text from the very earliest formation of its individual parts. so that all expansion by "redaction" and all intertextual references, allusions, and imitations are construed as interpretation of that text. The translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek in the Septuagint is also treated as an interpretation. Reventlow then reviews the various styles of early Jewish interpretation in the Qumran scrolls, both in the commentary "pesher" form and in the expanded paraphrase of the Genesis Apocryphton, as well as the allegorical mode of interpretation of the 'thrall in Philo. in imitation of Hellenistic styles of philosophical interpretation of Homer. In the third chapter Reventlow takes up the varied use of the Old Testament in the New' Testament, especially understanding the coming of Jesus as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. The last chapter deals with the role of the Old Testament in the early Church Fathers against the background of disputes with rabbinic Judaism about the true text and its meaning.

The second volume is taken up with the Christian interpretation of both Old and New Testaments, with the constant contrast drawn between literal/historical interpretation and the allegorical/philosophical mode. Champions of the literal sense in late antiquity were Theodore of Mopsuestia and Jerome with his translation from the hebraica veritax, but from Augustine onward the allegorical/philosophical method gained complete domination to the end of the Middle Ages. An exception to the allegorical approach was the strong influence of the Arabic grammarians and philologists upon Jewish scholars, such as Rashi and ibn Ezra, who revived...