Was Rashi a Blogger?

New book idea, "Rashi and Blogging" in the spirit of Jonathan Rosen's little book (2000), "The Talmud and the Internet."

If Rashi were alive today, we believe he would publish his commentary as a daily Torah commentary blog.

Smart people make a book relevant through literary translation via the available technology. The theory known as Midrash does that for the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible.

Here are some of our thoughts on "Biblical Criticism: Midrash and Medieval Commentary" that we composed for the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, recently reprinted.

The text of the Old Testament, known by the acronym Tanakh - i.e., Torah, Nevi`im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings) - for centuries has been subjected to critical scrutiny by Jewish scholars. Rabbinic authorities in late antiquity [called Tannaim and Amoraim] developed some of the best known and most influential forms of traditional interpretive theories of the text of the Bible. The contributions of these scholars has been preserved in numerous volumes of midrash compilations and in the Talmud (the definitive compilation of rabbinic laws, legends and interpretation from the first to sixth centuries).

During the middle ages Jewish scholars developed several types of biblical criticism. These derived from diverse sources: (1) the traditions of conventional rabbinic exegesis; (2) medieval mystical traditions within Judaism; (3) grammatical, syntactical and other critical advances of the middle ages. Many of the commentaries and expositions of that period are eclectic mixtures of these strands of interpretation.

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