92 Meira Polliack
a self-referential text, Karaite exegetes disassociated their exegesis from
preexisting sanctifi ed midrashic, and especially homiletic, models, on the
one hand, and continued a form of discourse with the interpretive content-
matter of midrashic sources, on the other hand. Yet unlike their Rabban-
ite counterparts, they were free of the need to integrate classical rabbinic
midrash into their conception of Scripture or to fi nd a way of harmonizing
this conception with midrash. For them, classical rabbinic midrash rep-
resented just one more “opinion” on the Bible, sometimes relevant in its
linguistic and contextual reasoning, at other times irrelevant. Th e Karaite
exegetes did not refrain from using exegetical explanations found in clas-
sical rabbinic literature when they found them relevant in illuminating the
meaning of a verse or passage. Yefet ben ‘Eli and other Karaite exegetes
sometimes quote rabbinic works; more oft en, they present known talmudic
views anonymously.
In the Rabbanite sphere, however, reckoning with classical midrash was
an inevitable part of the new exegetical enterprise. Rabbanites could not
openly relegate midrashic tradition to the margins. Th ey could not accept
such a cultural or spiritual position toward the classical works of the Sages,
despite the new mentality which caused them to feel uneasy with it. Th eir
reservations as to the decontextualizing (and in their defi nition illogical)
tendencies of certain types of midrash had to be more subtly expressed,
especially in the early pioneering stages, when the polemic with Karaite
Judasim was at its highest intensity. In Rabbanite exegesis of this era, even
within a nonlegal context, a process of intricate harmonization with mid-
rashic sources is apparent, especially in Sa‘adiah’s works and those of his
pupils.14 In the 11th and 12th centuries, these tendencies somewhat slack-
ened in Rabbanite exegesis as well: Judaeo-Arabic Rabbanite commenta-
tors who lived in Muslim Spain and North Africa, such as Moses Ibn Ezra
and Tanh.um ha-Yerushalmi, became less engaged in harmonization with
midrashic homilies. In Christian Europe, however, commentators who had
cultural links with Judaeo-Arabic tradition (such as David Kimhi [1160 –
1235]) yet wrote in Hebrew made renewed eff orts to integrate midrashic
tradition into their exegetical scheme. As a cultural parallel, it is striking to
note the similarity between the enterprises of Sa‘adiah (882 – 942) and Rashi
(1040 – 1105), the fi rst in the Islamic sphere, the second in that of Chris-
tendom, in trying to integrate midrashic homilies into their quintessen-
tially medieval hermeneutic, in which language and context as well as logi-
cal thought represent a new paradigm for reading Scripture. Whereas in
Ashkenaz (Christian Europe) the approach that came to be known by the