The Library
1780 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
301–400
2 works
c. 391–393
Latin
Quaestiones Hebraicae in Genesim
Jerome · c. 347 – 420
Not a commentary but a list of places where the Greek and Latin Bibles have gone wrong and the Hebrew says something else, with the rabbinic explanations Jerome had picked up from his Jewish teachers at Bethlehem — including that the ark's window was a precious stone, and what Adam's rib actually says.
382–405
Latin
Jerome · c. 347–420
A new Latin Bible made, against loud objection, from the Hebrew rather than the Greek Septuagint, with prefaces defending each decision.
401–500
1 work
c. 408–410
Latin
Jerome · c. 347 – 420
Eighteen books on Isaiah, the largest of Jerome's commentaries, giving the Hebrew and the Septuagint side by side wherever they differ and reporting the Jewish readings he had been taught before dismissing most of them.
501–600
1 work
c. 6th century
Hebrew
Piyyutim
Yannai
Hebrew poems for the sabbath service in Byzantine Palestine, built on the weekly Torah portion, rhymed and alphabetically acrostic, and signing the poet's name into the verse. Some are sharply hostile to Esau, meaning Rome, meaning the church.
901–1000
1 work
c. 930
Hebrew
Dikdukei ha-Te'amim
Aaron ben Moses ben Asher
The rules of the Tiberian system for pointing and accenting the Hebrew Bible, set out by the last and greatest of the family that developed it — vowels, cantillation marks, and the fine distinctions that fix how a verse is read aloud and therefore what it means.
1201–1300
1 work
1278
Latin
Pugio Fidei
Ramon Martí · c. 1220–c. 1285
A polemic against Judaism written by a friar who read Hebrew and Aramaic fluently, quoting the Talmud and Midrash at length to argue Christian claims from Jewish sources.
1301–1400
1 work
1322–1332
Latin
Postilla Litteralis
Nicholas of Lyra · c. 1270–1349
A commentary on the entire Bible insisting on the literal sense first, and drawing throughout on Rashi and other Jewish exegetes whose Hebrew he could read.
1401–1500
1 work
1494
Latin
De Verbo Mirifico
Johannes Reuchlin · 1455–1522
A dialogue among an Epicurean, a Jew, and a Christian on the power of the divine name, arguing that Hebrew holds a key Christians have neglected.
1501–1600
2 works
printed 1514–1517; issued 1520
Latin
Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros and his team · 1436–1517
The Bible in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin in parallel columns, with grammars and a Hebrew dictionary, produced at a Spanish university by Jewish converts and Greek scholars.
1583
Spanish
De los Nombres de Cristo
Luis de León · 1527–1591
Three friars by a river discuss the names scripture gives Christ — shepherd, mountain, father of the age to come — in prose of great deliberate beauty.
10 of 1780 works