{"id":70609,"date":"2020-02-23T17:44:14","date_gmt":"2020-02-23T15:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=70609"},"modified":"2023-10-16T16:48:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-16T13:48:24","slug":"textual-polyphony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/textual-polyphony\/","title":{"rendered":"Textual Polyphony"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[366,363],"acf":{"old_id":"70609","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"423","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Literally! (Or not\u2026)\r\n","content":"

\u201cBehold, My word is like fire\u2014declares the LORD\u2014and like a hammer that shatters rock!\u201d (29)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

In our introduction to Shadal at the beginning of the Book of Jeremiah,* we cited a brief excerpt from the introduction to his commentary emphasizing the importance of grammar and philology. In the continuation of that passage, he added:<\/span><\/p>\n

It occurs frequently in every book\u2014and Scripture in particular\u2014that the apparent meaning of [individual] words is not the meaning of the entire sentence\u2026 Whoever thinks that to understand Scripture correctly requires only the understanding of the definition of each individual word commits a great travesty towards Scripture\u2026 On the contrary, the literal sense is often misleading and inaccurate\u2026 In such a case, and in many others that resemble it, it appears that there is a double meaning: The literal one, which is truly superficial and contrived, and the substantial and authentic one. It is clear, however, that these are not two different meanings but one and the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this regard, Shadal was following the lead of the Talmud, which had put forth that very proposition based on its interpretation of the verse cited above.<\/span><\/p>\n

The school of R. Yishmael taught: \u201cAs a hammer shatters a rock.\u201d Just as a hammer shatters a rock into several pieces, so is every divine utterance divisible into seventy languages (Shabbat 88b, following Rashi\u2019s reading of the text).<\/span><\/p>\n

This principle, called variously \u201cpolyphony\u201d (many sounds) or \u201cmultivalence\u201d (many values), dictates that the exegete consider that while the \u201cdefault\u201d position of biblical exegesis is that \u201cno verse may be purged of its literal sense\u201d (<\/span>ein mikra yotzei miyedei peshuto<\/span><\/em>), neither is the literal sense to be taken as its only legitimate meaning. Indeed, Sa\u2019adyah Gaon (Baghdad; 882-942), the earliest rabbinic Bible commentator, defined exegesis as knowing when the literal sense can be sustained and when it needed to be replaced by something figurative, metaphorical, or allegorical.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*For an explanation of our objectives in studying Shadal\u2019s commentary, <\/span>see our introduction<\/span><\/a> in Jeremiah chapter 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

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