Jewish Historical Writing and Its Critics

The historical Jewish texts of the post-biblical period differ greatly from classical Greek treatises (such as those of Herodotus or Thucydides), as well as from the modern concept of historiography. These Jewish texts contain numerous historical events, narratives and tales, both real and imagined. They mostly have a fragmentary character, simply intended to illustrate certain legal or ethical issues. Simultaneously, Jewish historical writing exhibits a level of awareness concerning the meaning of history. This writing can be described as the history of theophany—of the relations between the people of Israel and their deity, and of the interactions of Israel with other peoples. The early medieval rabbinic literature also contains a historical genre called the “chain of tradition”—the transmission of the unbroken chain of religious heritage from one generation to the next.Footnote ⁵

The Modern period—when a significant number of chronicles were composed—brought with it historiographical and historiosophical innovations in Jewish historical consciousness and its documentation. Several of these new treatises appeared as reflections on the expulsions of Jews from Spain (1492) and the destruction of Spanish-Portuguese Jewry, with attempts to understand the theological meaning of the large-scale crises of the age by addressing the theological purpose of history and the place of the Jews within it.Footnote ⁶ They attach great importance to the events of later Jewish history, shifting from the prior emphasis on scriptural times and on the Second Temple period (which were presented by previous authors as the Jewish Golden Age). They also manifest an interest in the history of other peoples as part of efforts to fit the Jewish narrative into the framework of world history.Footnote ⁷ These writings provide a nascent critical historiographical and scientific perspective and include the first autobiographies—a genre most uncommon in previous Jewish literature.Footnote ⁸ These important developments, however, do not displace (at least up to the period of the Enlightenment)Footnote ⁹ the basic established theological approach, which exhibits a Judeo-centric view of history.

The advent of the late-twentieth century led to numerous studies on Jewish historical writing and memory,Footnote ¹⁰ as well as fierce debates on the extent to which Jewish historiography was truly historical. Y. H. Yerushalmi, in his classic work, Zakhor, claims that generally, Jews displayed no particular preoccupation with history, as expressed by various rabbinic commentaries and legal rulings circumscribing the reading of historical literature, either Jewish or general. According to Yerushalmi, even if some biblical books are relatively historical enough to serve modern scholars, this is not the case for rabbinic sources, which are abundant in anachronismsFootnote ¹¹ and indifferent to the details of historical events.Footnote ¹² In his eyes, the historical literature that emerged in the sixteenth century, despite all of its above mentioned novelties, “never reached the level of critical insight to be found in the best of general historical scholarship contemporary with it.”Footnote ¹³

Jacob Neusner expresses an even more critical position toward Jewish historical writing than Yerushalmi, especially regarding rabbinic literature as a manifestation of the “paradigmatic mode of thinking,” which in his view does not conform with historical thought:

Neusner views this “paradigmatic way of thinking” as a mechanical substitution of certain biblical patterns for particular events and occurrences, as expressed through biblical quotations. He further identifies this phenomenon as the underlying reason for the lack of historical thought among traditional Jewish scholars.Footnote ¹⁵

Despite the emergence of numerous studies on Jewish historiography, the phenomenon of biblical citations, as well as the related use of metaphorical and allegorical tropes (with the exception of Yerushalmi’s and Neusner’s critique as evidence of a lack of historical thought) has not been the object of scholarly analyses. There is an interesting insight by Meira Polliack on the historicization of the words of biblical prophets by the tenth-century Jewish-Karaite exegete Yefet ben Eli, who strengthens his polemical arguments by associating these words with actual events.Footnote ¹⁶ However, the phenomenon and the methods of the “biblicization” of actual historical events and figures in Jewish historical writings has rarely won scholarly attention.

Amos Funkenstein references the phenomenon of historicization in traditional Jewish texts of various genres. According to him, the Bible, as well as the later Jewish literature—the Talmud, Midrash, and medieval exegesis—expresses a historical consciousness rooted in the foundation of Judaism.Footnote ¹⁷ He claims that the Jewish historicist approach developed during the ancient period as a result of the Jewish need to interpret various theological aspects of their existence (such as fulfilling the commandments, exiles, or persecutions) by formulating historical arguments about such matters, as well as about their difference from non-Jews. This process intensified during the Middle Ages, to a large extent in the course of religious polemics (especially against Christianity).Footnote ¹⁸ Funkenstein demonstrates the manifestation of historical conciseness in the theological, legal and social realms (including exegesis, kabbalistic commentaries, messianic conceptions, and legal issues), as well as the close link between historicism and theology, thereby providing a foundational basis for research and understanding of the role of biblical metatext in Jewish historical writing. However, he does not aim at analyzing the specific textual structure of incorporating within Jewish historical texts a biblical metatext and associated devices at the morphological and semantical level.

Genre Characteristics of Chronographical Texts

The chronographical genre, as less anchored in Jewish tradition and thus unfettered by a pre-existing canon, is not governed by strict models and rules of writing, such as those that typically bound court chroniclers in the Christian or Muslim world. This does not mean that no Jewish chronicler used available texts of this genre as a model; simply that this genre permitted the author greater freedom of expression than traditional, more fully formed genres, such as exegesis or legal works. At the same time, various rabbinic comments and rulings cautioned against the writing of, and sometimes the reading of historical texts, even defining it as bitul Torah (wasting time intended for the learning of Torah).Footnote ¹⁹ Therefore, authors of any new works had to justify their products, typically claiming that they, being “a worm, not a man” did not seek to say anything novel or previously unheard that might contradict their predecessors.Footnote ²⁰ The authors would summarize previous works, frequently reiterating them in terms of form, content, and often even conceptually. Their writing novelties were not regarded as prima facie of value, but instead would be defended by the authors.

Сhronographical writings contain a great range of subjects, including natural disasters, wars, and other upheavals, occurring in both the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds: ethnic conflicts, taxation, prices, details on governmental policy, eyewitness testimonies of various events, and miracle stories. The topics were selected by each of the authors as they saw fit, with personal motivations stemming from intellectual curiosity and the latent desire to express their individuality.

These writings were not addressed to a specific target audience. Readers with a sufficient command of Hebrew enjoyed reading such texts on daily life and broader world events, and these writings apparently served in a similar capacity as both fiction and newspapers (although often providing only very late coverage of events). Many of these texts, especially fragmentary ones, are preserved today only in manuscripts and frequently have no title, introduction or conclusion. These fragmentary records do not necessarily display a coherent and explicit theological tendency; however, in many cases, the biblical metatext can help to identify the theological and historiosophical perspectives of their authors.

Examining chronographical texts enables us to reveal, beyond just the use of this biblical metatext, the influence of biblical quotations on the text’s structure and the deeper meaning impressed by authors, as well as their theological views and those concerning the nature and purpose of history.

The practice of freely interposing biblical quotations, which intensified in the early Middle Ages, can still be seen today among religious Jewish authors from all currents of Judaism. This continuing phenomenon reflects the sustainability of specific theological patterns, rather than their belonging to a particular historical period. We chose, as examples, Jewish chronicles and historical accounts from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries—the chronographical genre,Footnote ²¹ which intends to record historical events as separate texts and not as illustrations of a wider legal or ethical discussion.

Structure of the Biblical Metatext in Historical Writings

Within the genres of fictional literature, journalistic pieces and research articles, a metatext may take numerous forms, including notes, explicit authorial references, letters, or direct references to additional texts. However, in Jewish historical writing, the majority of metatext consists of biblical (sometimes Talmudic) quotations. The widespread usage of these quotations and the methods of their incorporation into such chronicles frequently results in issues regarding literal comprehension of the main text (pretext)—a complication that is not present to the same extent in other genres of Jewish literature (such as exegesis, legal discussions or liturgical poetry). Unlike other genres, where in most cases there is no difficulty in discerning between the main narrative of events and the metatext, biblical quotations in Jewish chronicles tend to be semantically and even syntactically intermingled in a sentence, mostly without direct reference to the biblical text. Such a structure can be seen, for instance, in the account of an eighteenth century Jewish-Karaite writing on events of the Russian conquest of the Crimean peninsula, when it describes the condition of war victims of the author’s community as follows:

This example demonstrates the full syntactic incorporation of a biblical metatext in the structure of the pretext. As a result, this metatext indirectly references the main historical narrative about the war without contradicting its central plot, thereby imparting a certain theological gravitas to the described events. The author thus replaces the detailed contemporary events with a biblical metatext. The quotations, taken mostly from the books of prophets, place the contemporary tragic occurrences experienced by the Jewish community within a similar biblical paradigm of divine punishment and foretold persecution of the people of Israel, as described in those books.

The question that arises in case of the allosemic appropriation in historical writings is whether these scenes are instances of figurative imagery, or rather, reflective of actual occurrences of assault, robbery and massacre that occurred in the author’s days. Instead of providing a detailed description of the wartime events, the author employs biblically-sourced literary devices to strengthen the reader’s conceptualization of the disaster. From this fragment, as well as from numerous other similar texts, we can conclude that among traditional Jewish authors, the precise transmission of the details of an event was frequently a secondary concern to its congruence with a chosen biblical narrative.

It is important to emphasize that identifying this structurally autonomous metatext requires from the reader—beyond a mastery of the Hebrew language—a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures, including the initial context of the biblical quotations used. In addition, accurate analysis of the tropes used (allegories and metaphors of the biblical metatext) necessitates strong abstract thinking skills, the ability to compare contemporary events with biblical patterns and images in order to identify conceptual analogies and other common features shared between them.

The reason behind the common substitution of biblical quotations for detailed description of historical developments may also lie to some extent in the particular cultural-linguistic environment of these authors. Writing such texts in Hebrew, as opposed to their vernacular, may have forced these authors to insert appropriate templates from Scripture, thereby affecting the structure of the text, its content, and its meaning. However, this factor by itself does not explain the obviously theologically-driven aspects of this complex phenomenon, nor the authorial insistence on writing these chronicles in Hebrew instead of their vernacular.

Narrative displacement of factual events by Bible verses, as practiced by chroniclers, creates significant difficulty in comprehending historical texts. Solomon ibn VergaFootnote ²³ in his chronicle, The Scepter of Judah (Shevet Yehudah, ca. 1520), depicts the figure of a notable Jewish courtier, Joseph ben Efraim Benvenisti, at the court of King Alfonso: “Joseph had servants, the sons of ministers, who eat from his table, and ‘After this it happened that Absalom provided himself with chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him.’ [2 Sam 15:1].”Footnote ²⁴ Here we find Verga replacing concrete details such as Benvenisti’s status, material condition, and even his own name with the incorporation of a passage from 2 Samuel—without appropriating it to the main text.

In the above examples, the authors do not try to demarcate between the picture presented by the prophets in ancient Israel and the details of contemporary events, their minutiae being unimportant for the chroniclers, as if they have already been described in the Scriptures. Instead, the authors wholly replace detailed depictions and interpretations of historical events with established theological paradigms and plotlines, consequently adapting reality to these paradigms as much as possible yet without clearly defining the extent of such and their limits in doing so.

Another factor complicating the comprehension of historical texts is the transfer of features of biblical heroes or situations to real historical events by way of biblical allegories. This can be found, for instance, in the chronicle, The Vale of Tears (ʿEmeq ha-Bakhaʾ) by Joseph ben Joshua of Avignon (1496–1578), a history of the Jewish people from the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE) to the author’s time. The author herein presents the case of the Jewish messianic figure, Solomon Molkho, a Portuguese converso who returned to Judaism and was regarded in numerous Jewish communities as a prophetic and even messianic figure.Footnote ²⁵ Molkho was arrested on his way to Regensburg, where he intended to speak with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (possibly about Molkho’s messianic mission), and was thrown into jail (“a pit”) by imperial order. He was then sentenced to be burned in Rome, but was given a chance to save his life by returning to Christianity. The author, Joseph ben Joshua, depicts the last scene of Molkho’s life and his accompanying words through numerous Biblical quotations:

The author’s quotations from the Book of Esther endow Molkho with the features of a biblical hero through a transformation typical of this book’s plot, wherein “Haman the evil one” and “Mordechai the righteous” exchange societal positions and status with one another. In identifying Molkho’s fate with the one designated for Haman, the author then introduces a reversal of sorts: the minister, who suggested his conversion, warns Molkho, in case of refusal, about “a terrible fate” awaiting him, similar to Haman’s (Esth 7:7). However, the next Bible verse quoted by the author, concerning Molkho’s reaction—“he did not rise or tremble” (Esth 5:5)—makes a parallel between Molkho’s features and those of Mordechai’s exemplary image.

Further quotations from Ruth and Proverbs reinforce allegories found appropriate for this event (which occurred in a large city and in the presence of numerous people), including details and concepts appearing in these biblical books. The words based on Ruth 1:19, “all the city was excited,” here replace a detailed depiction of the occurrences in Rome surrounding this tragic event, the reactions of Jews and Christians to Molkho’s death sentence, and further details of his execution. The witnesses of his reported resurrection are also not specified by the author, who instead uses an impersonal expression from Prov 5:14: “[people] in the midst of the assembly and congregation,” that is, “publicly” in a biblical context.

The biblical metatext here closely mirrors the pattern found in many other chronicles, usually presented through literary devices—mostly allegories, but also through metaphors and allusions. As we can see in this passage, the verse from Lev 22:13 serves as an allegory, with the return to God of Molkho’s soul being likened to a priest’s (cohen) daughter, who returns to her father’s home to enjoy the eating of sacrifices (as she did before her married status). The citation from Hosea adds another allegory expressing the same recurring theme of returning to God, which frequently appears in the prophetic books. Here, the image used is an adulterous woman (a classic allegory for the people of Israel) who returns to her husband (God). This image is transposed onto Molkho’s soul, which returns to God through death, thus atoning for his sin of previously being a Christian. At the same time, the burning of Molkho serves as a metaphor for a sacrifice offered to God, with the words from Gen 8:21 confirming God’s acceptance of it. Although Joseph ben Joshua does not express this explicitly in his book, the story of Molkho’s sacrifice offers the reader a wide range of interpretations through the discovery of numerous allusions in the text. Thus, the case of Molkho’s sacrifice may be taken as an allusion^{Footnote 33} to the paradigmatic miraculous deliverance of righteous biblical figures, such as the binding of Isaac and the salvation of Daniel from the lions’ den (Dan 1:3). In addition, Molkho’s mysterious “appearance” following his death—a typical fictional conceit of holy men surviving the destruction of their physical bodies—can also be interpreted as an allusion to the story of Isaac’s resurrection after his death (when Abraham’s knife touched his neck), despite the contextual differences in these stories.Footnote ³⁴ The narrative of being burnt alive, found in this passage, may also be viewed as an allusion to the story of Ḥananiyah, Mishaʾel and ̒Azaryah, who were thrown by King Nebuchadnezzar II into a fiery furnace for devotion to their faith, but who ultimately survived (Dan 3; b. PesaḤ. 118:1).

The above-mentioned episode about Molkho from The Vale of Tears is a striking example of an extended metatext, which omits important historical details that are instead replaced by obscuring biblical allegories, metaphors and allusions. On the other hand, this elevates Molkho’s main story arc into a multi-dimensional and polysemic text, leaving room both for author and reader to attribute to it numerous additional theological meanings, values and interpretations.

A Model of the Biblical Metatext Phenomenon

The phenomenon of metatext, its functions, and its relations with the pretext have been explored in numerous works since the late 1950s, especially those based on fiction and on scientific literary and journalistic articles.Footnote ³⁵ The interest in this phenomenon stems, to a large extent, from the broad shifting of research focus from main textual narratives or their artistic features to the creative process itself. Focused analysis, therefore, of the allosemic features of biblical metatexts within historical texts offers a unique window into the theological foundations of such works, the presumed functions of author and readers, and the overall creative process. Following our previous analysis of biblical quotations in chronicles, we can tentatively outline a model of the functioning of the larger phenomenon of biblical metatext in Jewish historical writings by examining their cultural and social functions in traditional Jewish society. This model is as follows.

First, quotations of the biblical metatext function as an instrument for expressing the author’s own individual creativity. Examples of this vary from new interpretations of original allegories (or other exhibited tropes) to the application of stereotypical thought patterns (often borrowed from or mirroring those of the author’s predecessors).

Second, the number of biblical quotations is meant to reflect the author’s level of knowledge and attest to the credibility of the author’s words—the higher, the better.

Third, the very presence of a biblical metatext in the chronicles and the methods of its incorporation in the pretext structure inherently reflect an aesthetic function. To avoid anachronism, it should be prefaced that the concept of aesthetics did not exist in Jewish traditional consciousness in the same manner as in Greek or European thought, which includes a physical dimension.Footnote ³⁶ The aesthetic aspect rather reflects an approach which serves as an unconscious reflection of a broader cultural view that any Jewish text is impossible to construct without using biblical locutions. This further cements the trend of adhering to certain standards of textual arrangement, which includes its ornamentation by numerous quotations (a feature typical of liturgical Hebrew poetry),Footnote ³⁷ their creative use, and the endowment of a wide polysemy of meanings to the pretext.Footnote ³⁸

Fourth, one can also identify a paradoxically destructive byproduct of this allegorical metatext in historical writing. The authorial practice of arranging the pretext in accordance with a biblical plot through the interposition of biblical allegories inevitably results in the breakdown of its chronological linearity. Here, we deal with the phenomenon of detemporalization: the dissociation of the reader from the temporal sequence of events, in this case through authorial insertion of biblical episodes among the present-time occurrences or even their complete replacement. One demonstration of this transference of ancient occurrences to contemporary times is seen, for instance, in the earlier textual fragment covering the Crimean invasion, which draws a link between biblical times, depicted by prophets (or taking place in the period covered by 1 and 2 Kings), and the reality witnessed by the author. Detemporalization within the structured narrative is detrimental to historical writing, as this genre is usually committed to a strict chronological frame in its differentiation of epochs, whose keeping is essential for the reconstruction and presentation of historical events and their causative relationship.

Deep exploration of this point necessitates the review of quite a different perspective, expressed by Joseph A. Mazzeo. In his discussion of the construction and functioning of allegories in ancient Greek and medieval European literature, Mazzeo claims that allegory, as a method of interpretation, makes events intelligible and acceptable for readers by turning, in fact, an ahistorical event into a historical one:

Mazzeo further implies that the historicity of biblical allegories, as adopted into European literary tradition, serves to detemporalize the reader’s perception of time through metaphor, allusion and personification, thereby establishing a basis for comprehension by linking “then” and “now”:

Mazzeo’s claim reveals the difference between fictional events in belles-lettres or poetry “which demand to be understood as allegories rather than simply allowing allegorical interpretation,” and historical writing, which only uses allegorical interpretation primarily for conveying a certain theological message. As was previously noted, a detemporalization of actual events to a large extent turns a historical text into an ahistorical one.

Fifth, the biblical metatext also fulfills a didactic function by demonstrating the workings of divine law in human history and in everyday life, thus evidencing through the use of quotations the greatness of God. The didactic purpose of quoted biblical verses can be gleaned through various contexts of theological, ethical, or historiosophic character, wherein an author voices an appeal either directly or indirectly, for a certain type of behavior.

For instance, the chronicler, mathematician and astronomer David Ganz of Prague (1541–1613),Footnote ⁴¹ in his chronicle of Jewish and world history from ancient times to the author’s days, David’s Offspring (ṢemaḤ David), wrote the following passage pertaining to the year 1402, which serves to illustrate exemplary behavior: “The Emperor VridrichFootnote ⁴² [sic!] was wise, modest and God-fearing person, and he ruled his kingdom longer than previous kings, embodying the words ‘The fear of the Lord prolongs days’ [Prov 10:27].”Footnote ⁴³

Karaite-Jewish chronicler ʿAzariah ben Eliya, who depicts political events, including the Russian annexation of the Crimea, directly calls on his readers, in a form of moral imperative, to abstain from passing judgments on those events:

In addition, ʿAzariah conveys the concept of the limitations in human comprehension of divine plans and intentions, calling his readers to abstain from value judgments concerning historical figures or processes. He puts his imperative in the context of the idea of divine providence (hashgaḤah) in history—as the fate of nations is in the hands of God, human judgments are inadequate, because they are unable to understand the full depth of the divine plan.

Another author from the same region, Rabbi David ben ̒Eliezer Lekhno (d. 1735)—a scholar and leader of the Jewish community of Karasubazar—expresses in his extended historical chronicle support for a similar approach concerning the idea of limitations of human understanding.Footnote ⁴⁵ He explores this idea through the means of a biblical metatext. In his introduction, Lekhno begins with quotations from the Book of Job: “ ‘My tongue has spoken in my mouth’ [based on Job 33:2], ‘I shall show my opinion’ [Job 32:6]. . . ‘in a moment shall they die and pass away’Footnote ⁴⁶ [based on Job 34:20].” These are the words of the prophet-figure Elihu, whose rhetoric is “that God is greater than man,” and “we know him not.” Elihu reproaches Job, blaming him for “striving against Him,” and emphasizing the existence of a divine justice, unfathomable to humankind though it may be. Lekhno continues:

At first glance, these quotations from Job are seemingly irrelevant to Lekhno’s goal of writing a detailed history. However, this rather short and ostensibly out of place passage provides an important metatext, which elaborates on the theme of human limitations in comprehending and judging the historical process against the backdrop of God’s divine plan (as expressed in the general context of Elihu’s words, addressed to Job).Footnote ⁴⁸

Concerning the structure of the text, it is worth noting that in this example, and in many other cases, we deal with fragmentary quotations removed from their initial context and without references to the original biblical material. However, Lekhno, along with other Jewish authors, believed that readers who had a good command of Scripture would understand the implicated message through their preexisting knowledge of the entire biblical text and context.

The previously mentioned Jewish theological tradition—of stressing human limitations in understanding the divine plan of history—could in theory prevent the authorial drive to comprehend the social and political factors of historical processes. In practice, however, especially in large chronicles, these and other authors reveal no lack of initiative and inquisitiveness in analyzing these factors, frequently providing their own evaluations of political situations, powers, or standpoints held within larger conflicts.^{Footnote 49} This naturally raises the question of the extent to which these authors followed their own appeals to abstain from judgments, and whether calling on the readers to do so in their writings was only a matter of convention.

Within Lekhno’s above-mentioned text, we encounter a traditional concept quoted here from the b. Yebam. 63:1: “Only on Israel’s account does punishment come into the world.” This passage expresses the centrality of the Jewish mission in the world through the fulfillment of the divine commandments. According to this conception, the people of Israel are at the center of human history, with the fate of nations dependent on their treatment of the Jews. This idea, appears in numerous Jewish writings, serving as a basis for individual interpretations of historical processeses. As in Lekhno’s texts, it usually appears in the context of divine justice, including divine revenge.Footnote ⁵⁰

An explicit example of this viewpoint can be found in a polemical anti-Christian book—including numerous fragments dealing with Jewish and Christian history—entitled Ḥizzuq ʾEmunah (The Strengthening Faith). Its author is Isaac ben Abraham (1533–1594) from Troki (of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), who lived during the period of the Polish Reformation. He expresses this idea in the following passage:

Isaac ben Abraham emphasizes the striking difference between European countries that suffered from large-scale religious warfare and Poland, which, according to him, enjoyed “peace and serenity.” According to the author, this state of affairs reflects the punishment accurately meted out to Western European countries for persecuting and converting the Jews, as compared to the reward of Poland for its tolerant policy toward them. The didactic aspect in this case of the centrality of Jewish people appears to work parallel to the similarly didactic goal of demonstrating the nature of divine justice and law within history.

Sixth, the biblical metatext also serves the author’s intermediate role as both an interpreter of the laws of the universe and the purveyor of their functions and workings within everyday reality. This undertaking is strictly associated with the aforementioned didactic function (see point five above), as well as a communicative function conveyed through the author’s interaction with readers. This exchange can take the shape of a dialogue with readers in a direct form—by calling them to a certain behavior in accordance with the divine laws and then strengthening this claim’s validity through the use of quotations, such as ʿAzariah’s imperative. This interaction can also be expressed indirectly—by providing biblical examples of “correct” behavior, such as in the case of David Ganz, or as Lekhno did through the inclusion of biblical metatext from the Book of Job.

Seventh, the author’s interpretative and intermediate role within the intra-reader dialogue is intended to specifically dissect “a real hidden meaning” contained within historical events—yet another functional aspect deeply built upon the interpretive function of biblical metatext. R. Moshe ben Nahman from Girona (aka Nachmanides, or Ramban, 1194–1270) expresses the notion of “hidden meaning” within the Torah in the following way: “And know that in the truest sense Scripture speaks of lower matters and alludes to higher matters.”Footnote ⁵³ In our case, the chronicles allude to “higher matters” while speaking of mundane events. Depicting historical events, the authors render their meaning intelligible to the reader by deciphering the “hidden aspects” of their historical narratives through biblical metatext, which serves as a device for the interpretation of the pretext—the actual accounting of historical events. Thus, the biblical metatext conveys the concept that aspects of the “visible world” are in fact referents, or representations of the “invisible” one. In this way, the author’s interpretation of the “visible” events functions as a bridge between the reader and reality (both “higher” and “lower”), thus fulfilling an important social role in traditional Jewish society. For instance, the above-quoted words from The Strengthening Faith by Isaac ben Abraham, who compares political conditions in Europe (large-scale religious warfare) and Poland (overall peacefulness), implies that, beyond the material surface-level political events, there are hidden laws pertaining to divine justice and the centrality of the Jewish people in history.

Building upon the previous functional aspects of the metatext, the incorporation of biblical quotations in the pretext may be viewed in the context of didactically adding depth to descriptions of historical events, thereby transforming the merely profane deeds, acts, or occurrences into those expressing certain theological notions. This depth derives from the conception that every episode or process has within it a hidden meaning centered in divine wisdom. This meaning finds its expression in the consistent patterns and divine laws that are revealed through the relations of the people of Israel with the creator, the attitudes of the nations toward Israel, and the historical consequences of all these accumulated dynamics.

The concept of divine wisdom being sourced through these consistent patterns and laws also stems from the traditional Jewish belief that there is no deed or occurrence in the world that lacks a corresponding scriptural analogue. This view is most strikingly exhibited in the Midr. Rab. on Gen. (3:5; 64:8) and in the Book of Zohar on Gen. (20:5): “When God created the world, He looked at the Torah and created the world. And the world was created by the Torah.” That is, in the Torah, one can find an infinite store of things that happened and will happen over the course of reality. This view, relayed in historical texts through the relevant biblical metatext, can justify the act of writing texts on such “mundane” matters as historical events and even depicting occurrences from everyday life.

The “Open Work” of Umberto Eco and Jewish Chronicles

Retracing the structure of the author’s dialogue with a reader is essential for understanding the social role an author inhabits through this mode of communication. The model of such communication as suggested by Umberto Eco—“open work”Footnote ⁵⁴ —highlights the components and effects of this interaction. Eco presents his concept of “open work” as a text that implies multiplicity, plurality, and polysemy of its meanings. This “openness” allows for a wide range of potential text interpretation on several different levels, both for an author and for a reader, with an emphasis on the active role of the latter. The reader is involved in what is an interactive process with the text, forming from it a unique literary interpretation influenced by various elements of his or her individual perspective. Eco claims that “the work is ‘open’ in the same sense that a debate is ‘open.’ A solution [for an ambiguity in the text] is seen as desirable and is actually anticipated, but it must come from the collective enterprise of the audience. In this case the ‘openness’ is converted into an instrument of revolutionary pedagogics.”Footnote ⁵⁵

The very concept of the “open work” implies the existence of a wide field for interpretation, while a “closed work” implies a single or limited number of meanings that are strictly defined and prescribed by a canon of previous tradition, thus restricting the interpretative opportunities. In this respect, any text can be an “open” or “closed” work to varying degrees. As previously shown, the genre of Jewish historical writing enables an author a greater creative freedom than traditional, more fully formed genres, such as exegesis or legal works, not to mention Mishnaic, Talmudic and the Midrashic literature. Each of these latter genres has been a fruit of the endeavors of numerous authors across hundreds of years, all of whom often have different notions and expectations from their readers. Additionally, Mishna and Talmud specifically aim to address certain behaviors or prescriptions, and all of these genres (including Midrashic literature) constitute collections of various texts rather than a single coherent work which can be addressed “openly” to a reader. That is not to say that these genres are completely “closed” and lacking in any characteristic of the “open work” (as, according to Eco, any text has these characteristics); however, their analyses from this point require another methodology which is beyond the scope of the present piece. Historical writing, by contrast, is a more self-contained and coherent genre, usually written by one author in covering a concrete epoch. Such works, as we have explored, use a biblical metatextuality-rooted reader dialogue to mainly focus on the meanings of historical and everyday events on various levels—thereby leaving room for varying multi-layered interpretations.

Eco emphasizes that medieval European literature is characterized by the use of metaphorical language, and that the allegory invoked can serve as a guiding key for comprehension of the text, not only on its literal level, but also in order to unveil its potential spiritual, moral, and mystical messages. His model echoes similar characteristics in Jewish traditional historical writing, whose biblical metatext turns it into a de facto “open work”.

The use of these literary devices for conveying certain messages is evident from the above-quoted fragment on Solomon Molkho, which demonstrates their function. As was shown in the earlier discussion of this fragment, a particular item, image, or situation is illuminated by the author through allusions and multiple metaphorical and allegorical vehicles connected to a biblically-derived metatext. These devices allow for a deeper interpretative dialogue between the author and readers wherein the author leaves the text as an “open system” with its polysemous meanings, rather than advancing a single authoritatively fixed position. This polysemy, generated by means of the author’s biblical metatext and its devices, provides the reader with an opening for involvement in the interactive process, in which the reader generates additional textual analysis through the endowment of additional meanings.

Eco himself affirms the possibility of reading the Scriptures and other literature in a moral, allegorical, and anagogical sense, in addition to their literal sense. In his words:

Along with some structural similarities shared by the European texts mentioned by Eco and Jewish historical writings, we can distinguish a significant difference between Christian and Jewish medieval approaches to allegorism in scriptural exegesis. Unlike the Christian practice, Jewish exegetes expressed ambiguous attitudes toward the allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures. Therefore, it was not the major tool of such interpretation used by Jewish scholars, unlike other methods, especially that of peshat (usually defined as dealing with literal meaning and considering grammatical, syntactic, morphological and semantic characteristics of the text).Footnote ⁵⁷

Conversely, in the medieval Christian world, allegorical commentaries on the Scriptures were quite common as a spiritual kind of interpretation, while Jewish peshat was frequently perceived as evidence of a materialistic worldview (referred to as corporaliter).Footnote ⁵⁸ Jewish scholars, in turn, expressed opinions about the arbitrariness of Christological interpretation of Scriptures (and later also of the Talmud and kabbalistic literature) in using prefigurations.^{Footnote 59} Paradoxically, despite some Jewish reservations and discussions about the use of allegorism in exegesis, in practice, it appears to be a commonly-found biblical interpretative approach in the derash method,Footnote ⁶⁰ in employing philosophical and mystical allegories,Footnote ⁶¹ and in certain cases even in using prefigurations.Footnote ⁶²

It has been established that, in the case of historical writing, events were interpreted primarily through biblical allegories. However, despite the textual polysemy leaving such narratives open to multiple interpretations, this flexibility has its limits—such analysis is confined by the biblical paradigm, as established by the author. Eco points out this same aspect in the context of the “open work”:

At the same time, despite the existence of certain theological and exegetical boundaries, the use of biblical metatext in Jewish historical texts enables a reader, as well as an author, to create free associations between biblical verses and extra-textual reality—historical events, everyday occurrences, and one’s own life experience. This association has the potential to generate the perception of the biblical text as a means of guidance in everyday Jewish life, as constituting a “textual community,” whose values, lifestyle, behavior, and relationship with the external world are determined to a large extent by biblical text.Footnote ⁶⁴ However, this topic is outside the scope of the present article.