The Cluster of Henna: On Exegesis

These passages from The Cluster of Henna address the question of how, methodologically, Jews should interpret scripture. Exegetical principles can be found in rabbinic literature, but medieval Jewish scholars attempted to reflect systematically on scriptural hermeneutics, especially in the context of religious polemic. Scriptural interpretation became one of the touchstones of Rabbanite-Karaite debate. Karaites frequently incorporated at least some of the rabbinic methods found in midrash, to which they added other approaches they deemed reasonable, as Judah Hadassi does here, giving the fifteenth and thirtieth methods (out of eighty) of biblical interpretation. His application of logic to scriptural exegesis reflects developments of earlier generations of Jewish and non-Jewish thinking.