Mari Anatoli (fl. 1300) composed one of the first works of Jewish sermonic literature,
Malmad Ha Talmidim (“Goad for Students”). Arranged according to the weekly
Pentateuch reading, Anatoli provided moral lessons in the form of model sermons for
preaching. This work, although not formally biblical exegesis, would have great influence
on the development of sermonic literature and biblical exegesis in the centuries to follow.
Michael A.Signer
[See also: BIBLE, CHRISTIAN INTERPRETATION OF; JEWS; MAIMONIDES,
INFLUENCE OF]
Angus, A.I. “Rashi and His School.” In World History of the Jewish People, ed. Cecil Roth. New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1966, Vol. 2: The Dark Ages: Jews in Christian Europe,
711–1096, pp. 210–48.
Grabois, Aryeh. “The Hebraica Veritas and Jewish-Christian Relations in the 12th Century.”
Speculum 50(1975):613–34.
Hailperin, Herman. Rashi and the Christian Scholars. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
1963.
Rosenthal, Erwin I.J. “The Study of the Bible in Medieval Judaism.” In The Cambridge History of
the Bible. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969, Vol. 2: The West from the Fathers to
the Reformation, ed. G.W.H.Lampe, pp. 252–79.
Shereshevsky, Esra. Rashi: The Man and His World. New York: Sepher-Herman, 1982.
Signer, Michael A. “Peshat, Sensus Litteralis and Sequential Narrative: Jewish Exegesis and the
School of St. Victor in the 12th Century.” In The Frank Talmage Memorial Volume, ed.
B.Walfish. 2 vols. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1992–93, Vol. 1, pp. 203–16.
Talmage, Frank E. David Kimhi: The Man and the Commentaries. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1975.
Twersky, Isidore. “Aspects of the Social and Cultural History of Provençal Jewry.” In Jewish
Society Through the Ages, ed. Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson and Samuel Ettinger. New York:
Schocken, 1971, pp. 185–207.
Zinn, Grover A. “History and Interpretation: ‘Hebrew Truth,’ Judaism, and the Victorine
Tradition.” In Jews and Christians: Exploring the Past, Present and Future, ed. James
Charlesworth. New York: Crossroad, 1990.
BIBLE, LATIN VERSION OF
. Although the Bible was written mostly in Hebrew and Greek, the world of early
Christianity was chiefly one of Roman imperialism, so a Latin translation was imperative.
Until the translation made by Jerome (ca. 342–420), referred to as the Vulgate, a number
of other Latin versions were in circulation in the early church. Generally referred to as the
Old Latin (Vetus Latina) versions, their translations of the books of the Old Testament
were made from the Greek translation known as the Septuagint rather than from the
original Hebrew. The Old Latin Bible was thus the work of many hands and a number of
revisions over the course of the 2nd century A.D.; hence, different traditions of the text
existed, particularly in North Africa and Italy. The language of the Old Latin versions is
somewhat odd, reflecting the Greek original, which it sometimes merely transliterates
rather than translates, and its popular audience, rather than the Latin style of the cultured
elite. No complete manuscript of the Old Latin Bible has survived; the Bible (the word is
The Encyclopedia 239