The Rule of Peshat

An exploration of the theoretical underpinnings of the philological method of Jewish Bible interpretation known as peshat Within the rich tradition of Jewish biblical interpretation, few concepts are as vital as peshat , often rendered as the "plain sense" of Scripture. Generally contrasted with midrash—the creative and at times fanciful mode of reading put forth by the rabbis of Late Antiquity— peshat came to connote the systematic, philological-contextual, and historically sensitive analysis o