After the flood, God tells Noah that He set His bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of His covenant with humankind. But if the rainbow is a natural phenomenon, as Aristotle claimed, did it not exist before the flood? This scientific problem offers a window into how medieval commentators sought to reconcile the science of their time with the Bible.
Sons, and then daughters, brothers, and paternal uncles all inherit, but the Bible is silent about spouses. The Talmud, in a midrashic reading of the laws of inheritance (Numbers 27:8–11) that the sages themselves admit is not what the verses say, adds that husbands are first to inherit from wives, but wives do not inherit from their husbands. Rashi and Ibn Ezra differ on whether a biblical verse can support both midrashic and peshat interpretations.
Long before the discovery of Hammurabi’s laws—whose stated purpose is to protect the weak from abuses of power—Ibn Ezra intuited a similar principle underlying the Covenant Collection.
Do miracles enhance faith? Rashi and Maimonides’ diametrically opposed positions on this question lead them to very different explanations for Moses’ sin. In between them is Ibn Ezra, who has a secret as to how miracles work and why Moses failed to perform his correctly. Avvat Nephesh, in the 14th century, rejects his predecessors’ explanations, and instead critiques Moses and Aaron’s passivity and lack of leadership; they waited for God to provide answers instead of taking initiative.
On Yom Kippur, one goat is sacrificed to YHWH and another is sent to Azazel in the wilderness. Who is Azazel? The 12th-century commentator Abraham ibn Ezra hints that the answer lies in reaching 33.
Ibn Ezra gives a surprising non-explanation for why Deuteronomy’s version of the Decalogue differs from that of Exodus: Is it really such a problem if Moses changed the words a little as long as he got the point right?
If the biblical day began at nightfall, why does the Torah need to spell out that Yom Kippur lasts “from evening to evening” (Leviticus 23:32), and that matzah is eaten “from the evening of the fourteenth” (Exodus 12:18)? The simple reading of the Creation story (Genesis 1), with morning closing each day of creation, indicates that the biblical day originally began at dawn. The requirement to begin Yom Kippur and eat matzah at night reflects a reform to begin the day at dusk.
According to Deuteronomy, a false prophet who has no message from God, and advocates worshiping other gods, can still successfully perform miracles and predict the future.
Although incest taboos are found in the majority of cultures, medieval Jewish thinkers found this to be an insufficient explanation for the Torah’s prohibitions.
Situating Sommer’s theology of participatory revelation and halachic fluidity among other Jewish thinkers and writings: Heschel, Maharal, Rosenzweig, and the Zohar.
The term לשוח is a hapax legomenon, a term that appears only once in the Bible. What does it mean?
The nature of prophecy is perhaps one of the most overlooked questions, but it was critically important to the medieval Jewish philosophers Sa’adia Gaon, Judah Halevi, Ibn Ezra, and Maimonides.
Impurity is transferred through physical contact. Theologically speaking, could the same be true for holiness?
A Source Sheet listing R’ Avraham ibn Ezra’s Six Non-Mosaic Biblical Passages plus his One Counter-Example, with the Complete Text of ibn Ezra’s Comments and Bonfils’ Glosses on these comments in English and Hebrew
“And this is the Torah that Moses Placed Before the Children of Israel” —Numbers 9:23
At stake is Ibn Ezra’s curse: “May your tongue stick to your palate… may your arm dry up and your right eye go blind.”
A yeshiva student asks: Is it permissible to believe that parts of the Torah were written after the time of Moses?
