114 Robert A. Harris
[in the study hall]. He admitted to me that if he had the time, he would
have written new commentaries in accordance with the fresh interpreta-
tions of the contextual meaning [ peshatot] that are innovated day by day.Now, it is of course possible or even likely that when Rashbam employs
the plural term peshatot in this comment he is thinking of many contex-
tual interpretations, each on a diff erent verse, and in their totality, these
represent the “interpretations . . . that are innovated day by day.” At the
same time, one gets a sense of the type of study-hall discourse as described
by Rashbam here — with free-fl owing exchanges, heated rhetoric, chang-
ing opinions — and one cannot ignore the possibility that what he has in
mind is as much the many possible contextual interpretations of each verse
— analogous to the multilevel midrashic interpretations provided through
the ubiquitous midrashic convention davar aher . . . davar aher, “an ad-
ditional interpretation . . . an additional interpretation.” In that case, then,
the concentric circle of peshat further widens to include even the always
contemporary rhetorical debates as to what constitutes Torah and its now
even more fl uid interpretation (“the fresh interpretations of the contextual
meaning — peshatot — that are innovated day by day”).
Even the very authorship of Scripture comes under scrutiny in the pe-
shat school. Whereas the rabbis of classical antiquity had addressed the
subject of the authorship of the various biblical books and had decided on
the resolution of the question, the rabbinic exegetes of 12th-century north-
ern France felt no compunction about addressing the question anew — and
providing whatever answers they found to meet the evidence. First, let us
review the position of the Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 14b – 15a):
Who wrote them [i.e., the books of the Bible]? Moses wrote his book and
the portion of Balaam and Job; Joshua wrote his book and eight verses in
the Torah; Samuel wrote his book and Judges and Ruth; David wrote the
Book of Psalms through the agency of eighteen elders. . . . Jeremiah wrote
his book and the Book of Kings and Lamentations; [King] Hezekiah and
his council wrote Isaiah, Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Koheleth; the Men
of the Great Assembly 31 wrote Ezekiel and the Twelve [“Minor” Prophets],
Daniel and the Book of Esther; Ezra wrote his book and the genealogies in
Chronicles until his (own time).We will not analyze this statement to any degree other than to contrast
some of its conclusions with the contradictory commentary of several