What did the Rabbis know about grammar? Exegesis and grammatical gender in late antiquity

Journal article

The first systematic analyses of Hebrew grammar were composed by Rabbanite and Karaite scholars of the tenth and eleventh centuries, partly by drawing on the conventions of Arabic linguistics. However, certain technical grammatical terms, including the expressions leshon zakhar (‘masculine’) and leshon neqevah (‘feminine’), can be found in Midrashic and Talmudic texts. This article considers the grammatical knowledge underlying the rabbinic expositions. Points of comparison are sought in late-antique grammatical treatises and non-rabbinic interpretive works, including Philo’s commentaries and scholia on the Iliad and Aeneid, with particular attention to perceived relationships between grammatical gender and cultural gender norms. By differentiating this understanding of linguistic gender from those articulated in the commentaries and grammars of medieval Jewish scholars of the Muslim world, the article argues that the rabbinic expositions were shaped by grammatical concepts that are well attested in late-ancient Graeco-Roman textual scholarship.

Authors: Williams, BJ

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies
• Journal: Journal of Jewish Studies
• Volume: 73
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 1–23
• Publication date: 2022-04-01
• Acceptance date: 2021-03-02
• DOI: 10.18647/3520/jjs-2022
• EISSN: 0022-2097
• Language: English
• Keywords: FFR