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Maimonides' Attitude Toward Christian Biblical MAIMONIDES’ ATTITUDE TOWARD CHRISTIAN BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS IN LIGHT OF EARLIER JEWISH SOURCES Mordechai Z. Cohen* Medieval Jewish scholars in Christian lands often found it necessary to address challenges posed to their beliefs by the dominant faith cul- ture in their society. One manifestation of this tension was the genre of Jewish anti-Christian polemics that emerged in the thirteenth cen- tury, typified by the work known as Nizzahon Vetus.1 Apart from this dedicated literary genre, other forms of medieval Jewish writing reflect anti-Christian polemics. Given the centrality of Scripture in the Jew- ish-Christian debate, it is not surprising that this is particularly true of Jewish Bible commentary written in Christian lands. In this connec- tion, a striking reference in the commentary of Rashi (northern France, 1040–1105) on the Song of Songs comes to mind. Following the tradi- tional allegorical midrashic understanding of this biblical composition as a dialogue between God (“the lover”) and the people of Israel (“the beloved”), Rashi interprets one of the Song’s verses as a praise uttered by God to the Jewish people, followed by an exhortation: I am glorified by you . because you sanctify My name among the nations. And now [you must] confirm the truth of My words, so that you are not enticed to follow the nations, and the good and wise among you must stand firm in their faith to respond to those who entice you, in order that the uneducated [lit. “little ones”] should learn from them [i.e., from the good and wise among you].2 * This article was written while I was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, as a member (and director) of the international research group “Encoun- tering Scripture in Overlapping Cultures: Early Jewish, Christian and Muslim Strate- gies of Reading and Their Contemporary Implications.” I gratefully acknowledge the support and congenial atmosphere for research provided by the Institute. My sincere thanks to Prof. Sidney Griffith (a Fellow in the above-mentioned Jerusalem research group) for his insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 1 See David Berger, The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages: A Criti- cal Edition of the Nizzahon Vetus with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Philadelphia, 1979). 2 Rashi to Song of Songs 7:9, cited according to the text appearing in MS New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, Lutzki 778 (considered by scholars to be the most accurate 456 mordechai z. cohen This places responsibility upon the Jewish intellectual leadership to uphold the truth of Judaism in the face of “those who entice you,” i.e., the Christians who sought to convert Jews by persuasion and, at times, by force.3 Indeed, as Sarah Kamin has shown, Rashi’s entire Song of Songs commentary responds to the Christian claim that the miserable and seemingly endless exile of the Jews demonstrates that God has abandoned them in favor of the “new,” “true” Israel of the Christian church. Quite the contrary, Rashi argues, the Song of Songs was writ- ten by King Solomon with divine inspiration to depict the steadfast and everlasting love between God and Israel—even during her long exile.4 Eleazar Touitou and Avraham Grossman have demonstrated Rashi’s (often silent) polemic with Christianity in his other writings, and this tendency is found also in other northern French commenta- tors, such as Joseph Kara, Rashbam, and Joseph Bekhor Shor.5 Perhaps it is natural to focus on Jewish anti-Christian polemics in lands dominated by Christians, where the need to counter the threat mentioned by Rashi was especially acute, since the Christian mission to the Jews often had royal or papal support. But recent scholarship— including seminal studies by Daniel Lasker and Sarah Stroumsa—has focused attention on anti-Christian polemics written in Muslim lands.6 one available), published in Secundum Salomonem: A Thirteenth Century Latin Com- mentary on the Song of Solomon, ed. Sarah Kamin and Avrom Saltman (Ramat Gan, 1989), 96–97. Unless otherwise indicated, all English translations of medieval Hebrew and Arabic sources in this study are my own. 3 Other such references can be found elsewhere in Rashi’s commentaries; see Sarah Kamin, “Perush Rashi ‘al Shir ha-shirim ve-ha-vikkuah ha-Yehudi-Notzri,” in idem, Beyn Yehudim le-Notzrim be-parshanut ha-Mikra’ (Jerusalem, 2008), 22, n. 3. 4 Kamin, “Perush Rashi,” 22–57. It should be noted that Rashi’s polemic with Chris- tianity in this commentary is not explicit. In fact, while Kamin argues (successfully in my opinion) that polemical considerations motivated the more innovative aspects of his literary reading of the narrative structure of the Song of Songs, Baruch Alster has shown that Rashi’s reading can be justified on its literary merits alone. Evidence for this is the fact that even some subsequent Christian exegetes adopted it. See Baruch Alster, “ ’Ahavah ’enoshit ve-zikkatah le-’ahavah ruhanit ba-parshanut ha-Yehudit le- Shir ha-shirim” (Ph.D. diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2006), 63–69. 5 See Eleazar Touitou, “Rashi and His School: The Exegesis on the Halakhic Part of the Pentateuch in the Context of the Judeo-Christian Controversy,” Bar-Ilan Stud- ies in History 4 (1995): 231–251; idem, “Rashi’s Commentary on Genesis 1–6 in the Context of Judeo-Christian Controversy,” Hebrew Union College Annual 61 (1990): 159–183; Avraham Grossman, “Perush Rashi li-Tehillim ve-ha-pulmos ha-Yehudi-ha- Notzri,” in Mehkarim ba-Mikra’ u-be-hinnukh: Sefer yovel le-Moshe Ahrend, ed. Dov Rappel (Jerusalem, 1996), 59–74. 6 See, e.g., Daniel J. Lasker, Jewish Philosophical Polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 2007); Sarah Stroumsa, “Jewish Polemics Against Islam and .
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