A Great Voice That Did Not Cease: The Growth of the Rabbinic Canon and Its Interpretation

Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts. In this seminal study, Michael Chernick demonstrates how hermeneutical methods confronted the difficulties that arose for the rabbis when logical inconsistencies or examples of poor writing or speech appeared in scriptural texts and later in rabbinic texts they regarded as divine in origin. Given the rabbis' theological, literary, and rhetorical attitudes, these reading strategies were adopted to obviate the problems the texts presented. After all, the rabbis of different generations viewed these texts as revealed communications produced by a perfect author.

Chernick focuses on six midrashic hermeneutics: outright midrashic resolutions of contradictions in scripture; distinguishing between what constitutes true scriptural proof and what is merely a support text; a midrashic hermeneutic that transfers the rules of one rubric to another; two hermeneutics that limit interpretive extensions of halakhot; and the claim that two redundant pentateuchal rubrics are needed to ward off incorrect analogies. Chernick not only analyzes and illustrates these hermeneutical methods in great detail. He highlights the significant changes that occurred in rabbinic legal hermeneutics from the tannaitic through post-amoraic strata of rabbinic literature―some 500 years at least―as well as the persistence and continuity of rabbinic hermeneutical interests evidenced through such changes.

Michael L. Chernick is Deutsch Professor of Jewish Jurisprudence and Social Justice at Hebrew Union College, New York. He was educated at Yeshiva College and Bernard Revel Graduate School and was ordained at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. He specializes in Talmudic and halakhic literature.