sources hebraiques medievales Vol. II. Les commentaires exegetiques.

Hardcover. 68 p., 160 x 240 mm, Languages: French, Fine copy. Including an index. ISBN 9782503360669. The medieval Hebrew exegesis in its entirety is indisputably a major achievement in the work of the Jewish sages. The exegesis, designed firstly to elucidate the meaning of biblical terms, whose language was not always understood by members of the Jewish communities scattered throughout the Christian and Muslim world, and then to annotate them for academic and practical purposes, played an important role in enhancing understanding of the sacred texts and adapting them to the needs of schools and communities. The author defines the genre of the exegetic commentary and characterises the methods employed: he traces the stages of its development across the different socio-cultural backgrounds of medieval Judaism; he draws up specific critical criteria; he follows the spread of the genre in time and space, weighs up modern editions and shows us the contribution these commentaries make to the history of the Middle Ages. At the end of the book is a bibliography detailing the principal commentaries and tables showing how the genre is chronologically, geographically and thematically divided. The book provides a critical introduction to a category of sources which has been too long neglected by historians.<br>Dans son ensemble, l'exegese hebraique medievale est sans doute une realisation majeure de l'oeuvre des sages juifs. Destinee a elucider le sens des termes bibliques, dont la langue n'etait plus toujours comprise par les membres des communautes dispersees dans les mondes chretien et musulman, et a les commenter a des fins academiques et pratiques, l'exegese joua un role important dans l'intelligence des textes sacres et leur adaptation aux besoins des ecoles et des communautes. L'auteur definit le genre du commentaire exegetique et caracterise les methodes que celui-ci met en oeuvre; il retrace les etapes de son evolution dans les differentes aires socio-culturelles du judaisme medieval; il formule des regles de critique specifiques; il suit la diffusion du genre dans l'espace et dans le temps, apprecie les editions modernes et met en lumiere l'apport de ces commentaires a l'histoire du moyen age. Une bibliographie des principaux commentaires et des tables visualisant la repartition chronologique, geographique et thematique du genre completent cet ouvrage qui introduit critiquement a une categorie de sources trop negligee par les historiens.