76 Benjamin D. Sommer
should be read as one would read any literary texts, while some accept this
notion but minimize it or attend to other aspects of the nature of bibli-
cal language.22 Modern Jewish thinkers and interpreters variously reject it,
look back toward it wistfully, or attempt in one way or another to retrieve
it.23 But at no point does any Jewish thinker escape the midrashic concep-
tion of scriptural language.
Notes- For information on the system of biblical passages chanted in regular syna-
gogue worship, see chapter 2 by Elsie Stern in this volume. - I keep notes to an absolute minimum in what follows. Many introductions
to midrashic reading and midrashic literature exist. Particularly useful brief intro-
ductions include Barry Holtz, “Midrash,” in Back to the Sources: Reading the Classic
Jewish Texts, ed. Barry Holtz (New York: Summit, 1984), 177 – 211; Burt Visotzky,
“Midrash” and “Rabbinic Interpretation,” in Th e New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the
Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 2006 – 2009), 4:81 – 84, 718 – 720; and, at greater length,
Hananel Mack, Th e Aggadic Midrashic Literature (Tel Aviv: MOD Books, 1989). On
a more technical level, see Shmuel Safrai et al., eds., Th e Literature of the Sages,
Second Part: Midrash and Targum . . . (Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 2006),
especially the articles by Menahem Kahana and Marc Hirshman, 3 – 132; and Rimon
Kasher, “Th e Interpretation of Scripture in Rabbinic Literature,” in Mikra: Text,
Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism
and Early Christianity, ed. M. J. Mulder (Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1988),
547 – 94. For useful introductions to specifi c midrashic works and the secondary
literature on them, see G. Stemberger and H. L. Strack, Introduction to the Talmud
and Midrash, trans. M. Bockmuehl (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 254 – 393; the es-
says by Kahane and Myron Lerner in Safrai, Literature of the Sages, Second Part,
68 – 104, 133 – 229; and the articles on these individual collections in Encyclopaedia
Judaica, ed. Cecil Roth et al. (Jerusalem: Keter, 1971; 2d ed., Detroit: Macmillan
Reference, 2007). - I use the term classical rabbinic to refer to the culture of the rabbis of the
Talmudic era and the centuries immediately following, as opposed to referring to
people with the title rabbi in the Middle Ages or modern era. - Th e tannaitic anthologies include works such as the Mekhilta, the Sifra, and
the Sifre. - Th ese post-tannaitic anthologies include several with the title Rabbah cover-
ing the Five Books of Moses (Genesis Rabbah, Exodus Rabbah, etc.) and the Five
Scrolls (Ruth Rabbah, etc.), several with the title Pesiqta, the various Ta n h.uma
midrashim on the Pentateuch, to name only a few.