154 Aaron W. Hughes
Conclusions
Nahmanides’s conception of scripture is multifaceted. Drawing on the
work of previous scholars such as Maimonides, Rashi, and Ibn Ezra, Nah-
manides was nonetheless discontented with their readings of scripture. As
such, he sought to emend, correct, and transform previous understandings
of the Torah by employing a hermeneutic that sought, simultaneously, to
uncover the literal, rationalist, and mystical levels of the text. Nahmanides’s
commentary to the Torah, indicative of his approach to scripture more
generally, is predicated on a sustained and engaged conversation with ear-
lier generations of commentators, on his deep sense of traditional Jewish
reading, and on his innovative attempt to connect the truths of the kab-
balah with the traditional genre of biblical commentary. Th ese features
have all contributed to make Nahmanides one of the most dynamic and
infl uential readers of the Bible in Jewish history.
Notes- See Diamond’s chapter 8 on Maimonides in this volume.
- Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, ed. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, trans.
Allan Arkush (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 365 – 475. Other im-
portant studies on the infl uence of kabbalah on Nahmanides include Elliot R.
Wolfson, “ ‘By Way of Truth’: Aspects of Nahmanides’ Kabbalistic Hermeneutic,”
AJS Review 14 (1989): 103 – 78; idem, “Th e Secret Garment in Nahmanides,” Da‘at 24
(1990): xxv – xlix; Moshe Idel, “We Have No Kabbalistic Tradition on Th is,” in Rabbi
Moses Nahmanides (Ramban): Explorations in His Religious and Literary Virtuosity,
ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), 51 – 74. - Biographies of Nahmanides include Solomon Schechter, “Nahmanides,”
Jewish Quarterly Review 5 (1893): 78 – 121; Charles B. Chavel, Ramban: His Life and
Teachings (New York: Feldheim, 1960); Jacob Even-Hen, Ha-Ramban (Jerusalem:
Ganzach Rishon LeTziyon, 1976); Nina Caputo, Nahmanides in Medieval Catalo-
nia: History, Community, and Messianism (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Univer-
sity Press, 2007), 1 – 18. - For general background, see David Jeremy Silver, Maimonidean Criticism
and the Maimonidean Controversy, 1180 – 1240 (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1965);
and, more recently, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Vir-
tue, Knowledge, and Well-Being (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2003),
246 – 90. - Bernard Septimus, “ ‘Open Rebuke and Concealed Love’: Nahmanides and
the Andalusia Tradition,” in Twersky, Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban), 14.