Table of Contents

Note on Transliteration

Introduction - Michael Fishbane and Joanna Weinberg

Part I Origins and Subsurface Traditions
1 Midrash and the Meaning of Scripture - Michael Fishbane
2 The Hand upon the Lord’s Throne: Targumic and Midrashic Perceptions of Exodus 17: 14--16 - Robert Hayward
3 Unwashed Hands: A Midrashic Controversy in the Gospel of Matthew - Piet van Boxel
4 ‘Tradunt Hebraei . . .’ The Problem of the Function and Reception of Jewish Midrash in Jerome - Alison Salvesen
5 Midrash in Syriac - Sebastian Brock

Part II Later Midrashic Forms
6 Piyut and Midrash: Between Poetic Invention and Rabbinic Convention - Michael Fishbane
7 The Mourners of Zion and the Suffering Messiah: Pesikta rabati 34---Structure, Theology, and Content - Philip Alexander
8 The Toledot jeshu as Midrash  - William Horbury
9 Storytelling as Midrashic Discourse in the Middle Ages - Eli Yassif
10 Performative Midrash in the Memory of Ashkenazi Martyrs - Ivan G. Marcus

Part III Medieval Transformations
11 Midrash in a Leixical Key: The Arukh of Nathan ben Yehiel - Joanna Weinberg
12 Rashi’s Choice: The {H.}umash Commentary as Rewritten Midrash - Ivan G. Marcus
13 The Pendulum of Exegetical Methodology: From the Peshat to the Derash and Back - Sara Japhet
14 Midrashic Texts and Methods in Tosafist Torah Commentaries - Ephraim Kanarfogel
15 Zoharic Literature and Midrashic Temporality - Elliot Wolfson

Part IV Early Modern and Modern Traditions
16 The Ingathering of Midrash Rabbah - Benjamin Williams
17 Midrash in Medieval and Early Modern Sermons - Marc Saperstein
18 Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague and his Attitude to the Aggadah - Jacob Elbaum
19 The Destruction of the Temple: A Yiddish Booklet for the Ninth of Av - Jacob Elbaum and Chava Turniansky
20 Midrash in Habad Hasidism - Naftali Loewenthal

Notes on Contributors
Index

About the Author

Michael Fishbane is Professor of Jewish Studies in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, an elected fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research and holder of a Lifetime Award for Textual Studies from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture in America. Joanna Weinberg is Professor of Early Modern Jewish History and Rabbinics at the University of Oxford.

Reviews

'[Midrash Unbound] is, both in the field of Judaism but also in the various historical disciplines of religious studies and theology, indispensable.'
Görge K. Hasselhoff, Brill Review 

'Midrash Unbound is a significant and substantial contribution to the study of midrashic literature, method and process as manifested in diverse Jewish sources and select non-Jewish writings, from Late Antiquity to the Modern age. Fishbane and Weinberg have brought together an impressive array of scholars to explore the nature of Midrash in varied historical and geographical contexts, pointing out, as the aptly chosen title suggests, transformations and innovations in the development of the genre. [...] It is a volume that enriches and meaningfully extends discussion on how we can understand Midrash and its development in diverse literary forms and historical contexts.' Dr Helen Spurling, BAJS Review