Reading Scripture With the Rabbis: The Five Books of Moses

This anthology illustrates how Judaism’s classical rabbis of the first seven centuries of the Common Era read the ancient Israelite scriptures. It presents, in particular, a selection of writings that show what happens to the five books of Moses at the hands of the Rabbinical sages of the formative age of Judaism. Each Midrash-compilation takes up a book of Scripture and systematically expounds the message that the Rabbis derive from that particular book. No statement by the rabbis of the meaning of a biblical book emerges as a mere paraphrase of the plain sense of Scripture itself. The compiler introduces the Rabbinic reading of the Five books of Moses, Genesis through Genesis Rabbah, Exodus through Mekhilta attributed to R. Ishmael, Leviticus through Leviticus Rabbah, Numbers through Sifré to Numbers, and Deuteronomy through Sifré to Deuteronomy.

Jacob Neusner is Distinguished Service Professor of History and Theology of Judaism and Senior Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.