Scriptural Vitality: Rethinking Philology and Hermeneutics. By Hindy Najman

When I first read Hindy Najman’s Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2003), the published revision of her 1998 Harvard dissertation, I was immediately convinced of the importance of its insights, not only for the field of Second Temple Jewish Studies, but for several other areas of study too. It has proved to be a much-cited work of significant innovation. For different reasons, her new book, Scriptural Vitality: Rethinking Philology and Hermeneutics, should likewise feature in much of the conversation about Second Temple Jewish texts for the next generation. A brief look through the book’s index discloses two matters of note. On the one hand, this is a book which discusses in distinctive and fresh ways the philosophy of hermeneutics, thinking through not only how engagement with texts might best be practised, but also opening up the possibility that interpretation is fundamental in the very formation of texts. Amongst the authors most regularly mentioned are Walter Benjamin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Friedrich Schlegel, and Peter Szondi. On the other hand, the index highlights certain major themes of the book. Amongst other things, Scriptural Vitality is about composition, fragmentariness, hermeneutics, law and liturgy, perfection and performance, forward-moving philology, pluriformity, reading practices, and subjectivity.