Bernhofer, Jasper

I am a PhD candidate in Judaic Studies at Martin-Luther-Universität, Halle-Wittenberg, having obtained an MA in Semitic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin, with studies abroad at INALCO in Paris and at Tel Aviv University. My research interests include the development of Arabic, and biblical exegesis and philosophy in the Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic traditions in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, as well as the codicology of the respective manuscript cultures. I am especially interested in processes of intercultural transfer of knowledge and ideas between different communities and the resulting development of shared and distinct communal identities. In the field of digital humanities, I have worked on digital editions, making use of encoding according to the TEI guidelines and I am also interested in the development of HTR for Semitic languages.

Throughout my studies, I have focused on the edition and translation of manuscripts pertaining to the corpus of Samaritan Arabic biblical exegesis. My master’s thesis included the critical edition, translation, and introduction of the hitherto unedited “treatise on Bileam” (maqālat Balʿam), a commentary on Numbers 22–24 by the Samaritan Ġazāl ad-Duwayk, who was probably active in the 13th century.

For my doctoral thesis, I am examining medieval commentaries on Genesis 49 (the blessing of Jacob), and analysing how this text served as a reference point for the constitution of religious identity and interreligious polemics in the medieval Islamicate world. The first part of the thesis includes a critical edition of “the explanation of the two blessings” (šarḥ al-barakatayn), which comprises a combined commentary on Genesis 49 and Deuteronomy 33 by the Samaritan polymath Ṣadaqa bin Munaǧǧa, who was active in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. The second part of my thesis places the Samaritan commentary in its literary context, comparing it with Jewish, Christian, and Islamic sources. The comparative approach seeks to trace the development of exegetical motives among the different communities and to define the limits of scholarly discourse on Genesis 49, which is not only characterised by polemic stances, but also by cross-communal adaptations and scholarly interactions, especially against the background of the development of Arabic as a shared language of discourse in the medieval Islamicate realm.

I am an external collaborator in the project “MAJLIS: The Transformation of Jewish Literature in Arabic in the Islamicate World” at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU), Munich.

Areas of Interest

biblical exegesis, codicology, critical editions, digital humanities, Islamicate world, Late Antiquity, manuscript cultures, Middle Ages, Middle Arabic, philosophy

Historical Periods of Interest

Late Antiquity and Middle Ages

Positions

Education

Awards and distinctions