Concepts of Scripture among the Jews of the Medieval Islamic World 95it to discourse analysis. Yefet developed the innovative Karaite approach
to the Bible by concentrating on the narrative and literary techniques em-
ployed by its supposed authors and editors. He widely introduced into his
commentaries a novel theoretical Arabic concept, that of the biblical mu-
dawwin (composer-compiler), which is also found in the works of other
Karaite exegetes of this period, though in a less developed form. His un-
shared vocation was to establish the canon of Karaite Bible translation and
exegesis. Between 960 and 1000, Yefet devoted himself exclusively to the
vast undertaking of producing a translation and commentary on all three
divisions of the Bible, beginning with the Pentateuch and then going on to
the Prophets and Writings. Yefet created a work of a summarizing nature,
a “summa” of Karaite Bible exegesis up to his time. His recourse to exegeti-
cal opinions other than his own was not only essential to his canonizing
task but also formed a live refl ection of the egalitarian ethos of early Kara-
ite biblical study, an ethos which is best captured in the dictum attributed
to ‘Anan ben David (reported by Yefet himself ), “Search diligently in the
Torah and do not rely on my opinion.” While the primary focus of Yefet’s
commentaries is linguistic-contextual, he added to this tradition a distinc-
tively literary layer of discussion, concerned with the discourse analysis of
the wider thematic unit in the text under discussion and with the forma-
tion of the biblical text. In this context, he identifi ed patterns of expression
typical of biblical literature, as well as wider structural characteristics of
certain biblical types and genres.
Th e exegetical concept of the mudawwin served Yefet as a composite
literary term blending several functions into one overall concept, which
signifi ed the entity or entities responsible for the form or texture of Hebrew
scripture. Th e theoretical nature of the term is further underlined by its
uniform application in Yefet’s discussion of various biblical genres (narra-
tive, historiography, prophecy, law, and poetry) and in all three divisions of
the Bible, wherein the mudawwin is mostly and deliberately left unidenti-
fi ed as a historical fi gure. Th e mudawwin’s predominant function is to con-
trol and carry out the narration process of the biblical text. At times, this
aspect converges with his secondary role as the redactor-editor of the bibli-
cal text, responsible for its stringing together into a cohesive whole.17
Yefet discusses certain formal techniques and structures of biblical nar-
rative (such as resumptive repetition, elision, dialogue ordering) which
have a particular eff ect in the buildup of narrative meaning. He identifi es
these techniques as issuing from the hand of the mudawwin. It appears,
therefore, that Yefet understood the work of the biblical mudawwin to