Sacred poetry, eternal felicity, and the redemption of Israel: Obadiah Sforno's commentary on psalms in the Berlin haskalah

The article explores the philosophical exegesis in Obadiah Sforno’s sixteenth-century Psalms commentary and its reception in Berlin of the late eighteenth century, where it was reprinted in the Haskalah’s biggest bestseller—an edition of Moses Mendelssohn’s Psalms translation with Hebrew commentary....

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Sela, Yael (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2022
In: European journal of jewish studies
Year: 2022, Volume: 16, Issue: 2, Pages: 261-280
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Sefer Zemirot Yisra'el, Sefer Zemirot Yiśraʾel / Psalms / Sforno, ʿOvadyah ben Yaʿaḳov 1470-1550 / Mendelssohn, Moses 1729-1786 / Löwe, Joel 1760-1802 / Salvation / Jews / Poetry
IxTheo Classification:AG Religious life; material religion
BH Judaism
HB Old Testament
NBK Soteriology
TJ Modern history
Further subjects:B Psalms
B Redemption
B Moses Mendelssohn
B Haskalah
B reception history of Bible exegesis and philosophy
B salvation of the soul
B Joel Bril (Löwe)
B Obadiah Sforno
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Summary:The article explores the philosophical exegesis in Obadiah Sforno’s sixteenth-century Psalms commentary and its reception in Berlin of the late eighteenth century, where it was reprinted in the Haskalah’s biggest bestseller—an edition of Moses Mendelssohn’s Psalms translation with Hebrew commentary. While the inclusion of entire commentaries by earlier exegetes was unique among all Haskalah Bible editions, I argue that the choice to include Sforno’s commentary alongside Mendelssohn’s translation of Psalms, itself an expression of Mendelssohn’s political-theological defense of Judaism, was intended to buttress shared philosophical doctrines and concepts located by the two scholars in Psalms, notwithstanding temporal and cultural divergences: imitatio Dei, the salvation of the individual soul, and Israel’s eternity.
ISSN:1872-471X
Contains:Enthalten in: European journal of jewish studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/1872471X-bja10044