documents—Mishnah, Talmud, and Midrash—composed in the land of Israel and
Babylonia between the 3rd and 6th centuries. The task of the medieval rabbi was to
harmonize the interpretations of the “Written” and “Oral” Torahs with the praxis of
Jewish life.
Jews in medieval France studied Scripture in their academies and also heard Scripture
read and expounded during their daily and Sabbath liturgy. Scriptural study thus inspired
various genres of rabbinic literature: the biblical commentary, the homily, responsa (legal
decisions by rabbis), and the liturgical poem. Biblical commentary was never fully
separated from other branches of Jewish learning.
In northern France (Champagne, Île-de-France, Lorraine), Jewish learning emerged
during the 10th and 11th centuries and was shaped largely by the texts and traditions
transmitted by the more ancient Jewish communities in the Rhineland cities of Speyer,
Worms, and Mainz. Drawing upon the writings of Jews in Italy and the Byzantine
empire, these communities focused their efforts almost entirely on the classical canon of
rabbinic literature and developed the Midrash, or homiletic exposition of the Bible and
liturgical poetry.
By contrast, the communities in southern France (Provence, Languedoc) had
experienced Jewish settlement since late antiquity. Mediterranean commerce and
exposure to the Islamic empire opened these communities to a broader sphere of
influences from outside the rabbinic canon. The flowering of biblical scholarly activity in
south-ern France began in the mid-12th-century migration of significant scholarly
families from Spain in the aftermath of the Almohade invasions. These scholars brought
the Spanish tradition of Jewish biblical exegesis with its highly developed use of the
linguistic sciences of lexicography and grammar. In addition, the philosophical and
poetic traditions of the Judeo-Islamic world had a significant impact on these French
communities. It was in Narbonne that most of the Jewish philosophical works written in
Arabic, such as Maimonides’s Guide to the Perplexed, were translated into Hebrew.
Southern France thus became a center for the integration of philosophical topics into
biblical exegesis. Also by the mid-12th century, the first groups of scholars engaging in
mystical interpretation of Scripture began to flourish in Provence.
Both northern and southern French centers of Jewish exegesis were profoundly
affected by contacts with the surrounding Christian culture. On occasion, Christian
scholars actively solicited Jewish insight for their own exegesis. Examples of these
exchanges are Abbot Stephen Harding of Cîteaux’s invitation to Jews for discussions or
Andrew of Saint-Victor’s incorporation of “Traditions of the Jews” into his biblical
commentaries. Christian evangelization often called upon Jews to defend their
interpretations of Scripture. These challenges led to the composition by Jews of
polemical treatises that refuted christological explications of the Hebrew Bible. Many
scholars also argue that the contact with Christianity, particularly in northern France, was
one of the primary motivations for the development of peshat (“plain” or “contextual
meaning”) exegesis.
The development of biblical exegesis in northern France may be divided into three
periods: the 11th century, characterized by the compilation of Old French glosses on
Hebrew Scripture and the exegesis of Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac of Troyes (Rashi; 1040–
1105); 1100–75, marked by the development of an exegesis of the Hebrew Bible
independent of rabbinic allegorization; and 1175–1300, showing the evolution of a
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