Encountering Scripture In Overlapping Cultures: Early Jewish, Christian And Muslim Strategies Of Reading And Their Contemporary Implications

[RG #121] Encountering Scripture In Overlapping Cultures: Early Jewish, Christian And Muslim Strategies Of Reading And Their Contemporary Implications

September 1, 2010 - February 28, 2011

Organizers:

Meir Bar-Asher (The Hebrew University)
Mordechai Cohen (Yeshiva University)

Contemporary critical theory, which highlights the creative dimension of the reading process, is increasingly reorienting the study of the history of scriptural interpretation, situating it within the flux of literary and cultural movements at large. This international research group brings together scholars of Jewish, Christian and Muslim interpretation to conduct a close comparative analysis of shifting encounters with Scripture in three overlapping cultures. Drawing upon diverse yet complimentary perspectives, the participants in this group will investigate five fundamental subjects:

a. The critical role that interpretation played in the formation of Sacred Scripture;

b. Changing conceptions of the "plain sense" of Scripture;

c. The ways in which classical rhetoric and poetics informed scriptural interpretation;

d. Tensions created by the need to transplant Scripture into new linguistic media;

e. The ways in which the Bible has been reconfigured in literature, art and scholarship.

2010-2011 Research Groups 2010-2011 Humanities

Members

Meir Bar-Asher

FELLOW

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Meir is a professor in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interests are Qur'an and its exegesis; Shi'ism; Muslim sectarianism; and the interaction between Judaism and Islam.

Adele Berlin

FELLOW

University of Maryland

Adele is a professor in the Department of English and Jewish Studies at University of Maryland. Her research interests are biblical studies: literary approaches, intepretation theory and practice.

Mordechai Z. Cohen

FELLOW

Yeshiva University

Mordechai is a professor in the Bernard Revel Graduate School at Yeshiva University. His research interests are Jewish Bible intepretation in its Christian and Muslim cultural contexts, especially in its connections with Arabic poetics and Muslim jurisprudence.

Rita Copeland

FELLOW

University of Pennsylvania

Rita is a professor in the Departments of Classical Studies and English at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests are: medieval rhetoric and hermeneutics; medieval literary theory; medieval grammar; medieval literatures; history of literary theory; and history of rhetoric.

Sidney Griffith

FELLOW

The Catholic University of America

Sidney is a professor in the Department of Semitic Languages at the Institute of Christian Oriental Research, The Catholic University of America. His research interests are Arabic Christianity, Syriac monasticism, medieval Christian-Muslim encounters, and ecumenical and interfaith dialogue.

Yaakov Kaduri

FELLOW

Bar-Ilan University

Yaakov is a professor in the Bible Department at Bar-Ilan University. His research interests are Hebrew Bible, history of Bible exegesis, and Judaism.

Meira Polliack

FELLOW

Tel Aviv University

Meira is a professor in the Department of Hebrew Culture Studies at Tel Aviv University. Her research interests are: Judaeo-Arabic literature; Arabic sources in the Cairo Geniza; medieval Bible exegesis and translation; and Karaite Judaism.

Jon Whitman

FELLOW

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Jon is a professor in the Department of English at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interests are: history of allegory; relations between medieval literature and philosophy; medieval romance; and history of critical theory.