ABSTRACT
Tanak, today commonly called the “Hebrew Bible,” is the foundation of Jewish personal and communal life and of the entire Jewish culture. During the Hellenistic period, very few Jews could understand even the Torah, which is in relatively simple Hebrew, that it was read in Greek translation in the synagogues in the Land of Israel and in many places in the Diaspora. The Aramaic translation was substituted for the Greek translation in the Roman period, although in some synagogues the use of Greek continued. In contrast to the earlier period, it appears that the Torah was read in Hebrew, along with the Aramaic translation. Biblical commentary in Muslim Spain began simultaneously with the development of Hebrew grammar, which set it apart from the previous exegesis of the geoniym and early medieval midrashiym. Menahem Ibn Saruq, the first grammarian in al-Andalus, in his dictionary explained his understanding of the meaning of many difficult words in the Bible.
