the Old Greek (Septuagint) translation of the Pentateuch (third century
b.c.e.) or various targums, translations of the Bible into Aramaic (proba-
bly originating in the first centuryc.e.or earlier, though later material was
often added in the process of transmission), also contain reflections of an-
cient biblical interpretation. Hellenistic Jewish writers such as Philo of Al-
exandria (ca. 20b.c.e.–ca. 50c.e.) and Josephus (ca. 37–100c.e.) also
present a great deal of biblical interpretation — part of it entirely of their
own fashioning, but much else gathered from or influenced by the work of
earlier interpreters. Christian writings of the first two centuriesc.e.,in-
cluding the New Testament and other early compositions, also contain a
good deal of biblical interpretation — much of it rooted in pre-Christian
exegesis. Finally, later Jewish writings such as the Mishnah (put in its final
form around 200c.e.), along with the Tosefta and the tannaitic midrashim
(both from roughly the same period), contain a great deal of exegetical
material, much of it continuing the line of earlier biblical interpretation.
Considered together, this is a vast body of writings, many times greater
than the Hebrew Bible itself. In studying it, scholars are able to piece to-
gether a developmental history of how the Bible was understood starting
early in the secondb.c.e.or so and continuing through the next three or
four hundred years—acrucial period in the Bible’s history.
A note about the form of biblical interpretation: relatively few of the
above-mentioned texts are written in the form of actualcommentaries,
that is, writings that cite a biblical verse and then explain what the inter-
preter thinks the verse means. Such commentaries did exist — they were
the preferred genre of Philo of Alexandria, and commentary-like texts
have been found as well among the Dead Sea Scrolls. But the favorite form
for transmitting biblical interpretation in writing wasretelling.Most writ-
ers simply assumed that their readers would be familiar with the biblical
text, indeed, familiar with the exegetical problems associated with this or
that verse. So he or she would retell the text with little interpretive inser-
tions: a word no longer understood would be glossed or replaced with a
word whose meaning everyone knew; an apparent contradiction would be
resolved through the insertion of an explicative detail; the retelling would
take the trouble to explainwhyA or B had done what they did, orhowthey
did it, thereby answering a question left open in the laconic biblical version
of the same story. Such retellings are a common phenomenon in ancient
interpretation: theBook of Jubilees,theGenesis Apocryphonfrom Qumran,
and Pseudo-Philo’sBook of Biblical Antiquitiesare good examples of com-
positions that are, from start to finish, interpretive retellings. So, in a sense,163Early Jewish Biblical InterpretationEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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