Publisher's description:
The biblical hermeneutics of the illustrious philosopher-talmudist Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) has long been underappreciated, and viewed in isolation from the celebrated philological schools of “plain sense” (peshat) Jewish Bible exegesis. Aiming to redress this imbalance, this study identifies Maimonides’ substantial contributions to that interpretive movement, assessing its achievements in cultural context. Like others in the rationalist Geonic-Andalusian school, Maimonides’ understanding of Scripture was informed by Arabic learning. Drawing upon Greco-Arabic logic, poetics, politics, physics and metaphysics, as well as Muslim jurisprudence, he devised sophisticated new approaches to key issues that occupied other exegetes, including a variety of interpretive cruxes, the reconciliation of Scripture with reason, a legal hermeneutics for deriving halakhah (Jewish law) from Scripture, and the nature of interpretation itself.

Table of contents:
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: THE GEONIC-ANDALUSIAN HERITAGE
CHAPTER 2: ZĀHIR AL-NASS IN MAIMONIDES’ SYSTEM
CHAPTER 3. RATIONALE FOR THE COMMANDMENTS
CHAPTER 4: MASHAL AS HERMENEUTICAL MODEL
CHAPTER 5: HALAKHIC EXEGESIS AND MUSLIM JURISPRUDENCE
CHAPTER 6. MAIMONIDES’ RULE OF PESHAT PRIMACY
CHAPTER 7: TRANSFORMATION OF THE PESHAT PRINCIPLE
CHAPTER 8: INTEGRATING HALAKHAH AND PESHAT
CHAPTER 9: COORDINATING PESHAT AND ZĀHIR
CHAPTER 10: THE GATES OF TA’WĪL AND INTERPRETIVE CREATIVITY
CONCLUSION: MAIMONIDES IN THE EXEGETICAL CONSTELLATION
APPENDIX A: MEANING AND TRANSLATION OF THE PESHAT PRINCIPLE
APPENDIX B: THE TERM PESHAT IN MAIMONIDES’ OTHER WRITINGS
APPENDIX C: IBN EZRA’S LIST OF EXAMPLES IN YESOD MORA