Concepts of Scripture among the Jews of the Medieval Islamic World 87discourse analysis.8 Th is led, in turn, to particular Karaite innovations in
the understanding of the Bible’s genres, style, and poetics.
Second, Judaeo-Arabic exegesis refl ects an appreciation of the Bible as
literature. Th e term “contextual exegesis” has sometimes been applied in
describing this approach, yet this term fails to distinguish it from mid-
rashic exegesis. Both midrashic and Judaeo-Arabic exegesis were interested
in context, but in very diff erent ways. Judaeo-Arabic exegetes turn the im-
mediate context of a particular verse (the verses that precede and follow it
within a passage) into the main focus of interpretation, conscious of the
double-binding relationship between the part and the whole. Midrashic
exegesis was more apt to draw on the extended context and so interpreted
a verse in light of a diff erent passage within the same narrative or, more of-
ten, in light of a completely diff erent narrative that contains an analogous
theme. Judaeo-Arabic exegesis is generally much stricter when drawing on
analogies within the wider context of a biblical passage. It mainly refers
to the same narrative or book or, less frequently, to other biblical books,
and even then the framework for comparison is restricted to the same
genre or historical period and is governed primarily by linguistic and tex-
tual (rather than thematic and associative) criteria. Hence the term literary
exegesis seems more suitable in characterizing the unprecedented under-
standing of the narrative, rhetoric, stylistic, and editorial devices of biblical
literature as explored by the Judaeo-Arabic exegetes. Th e Karaite exegetes,
in particular, believed these devices served the biblical composers (be they
the authors, the editors, or both) to create a cohesive literary composition.
Rabbanites in Muslim Spain (such as Moses ibn Gikatilla [fi rst half of the
11th century] and Moses ibn Ezra [1055 – 1138]) later developed this innova-
tive approach in new directions in their own Judaeo-Arabic exegetical and
poetic works.9
Th ird, a growing historical consciousness concerning the social and ma-
terial realities of biblical times and their diff erences from medieval times
enabled the Judaeo-Arabic exegetes to distance themselves from the bibli-
cal text (and era) and to consider critically the midrashic tendency to blur
the world of the exegete and the world of Scripture. Th is discomfort with
midrash, expressed subtly in Rabbanite sources and more bluntly in Kara-
ite ones, is another common feature of Judaeo-Arabic exegesis. Karaites
were more apt than the Rabbanites to employ lengthy historical reason-
ing in their works on the Bible. In the Rabbanite sphere, contemplating the
historical aspects of a biblical story or prophecy became a dominant mode
among the commentators of the 14th and 15th centuries, such as Profayt