Rereading

A great deal of academic concentration has been directed toward the redaction and rewriting of ancient Jewish literature, specifically their implications for the textual and intellectual history of ancient Judaism. Little focus has been placed on the repercussions of redaction and rewriting on reading: the degree to which rewriting anticipates that readers will be re-readers. This essay opens by questioning the widespread assumption that first-time reding is a norm. It then explores evidence that rereading is a requirement of much of ancient Jewish literature, including Hebrew Bible. It addresses the implication of this expectation for the dynamics of reading and the construction of meaning. In particular, it calls for the amendment of exegetical method to account for the double-reading experience in biblical literature. Further, it exposes a fundamental flaw in synchronic reading as it is typically practiced in biblical studies and proposes a new model of synchronic reading that incorporates lessons learned from the study of the redaction and rewriting of ancient Jewish literature.