How to find 1st cent. Jewish commentary

How would I search for, or what resources do I need, to find Jewish thought on Scripture passages other than the actual law. For example suppose I wanted to know what the Jewish interpretation of Isaiah 14 was. Did they apply it symbolically to satan the way Christian commentators do? Any time period say from 500 B.C. to 200 A.D. (I have Platinum + Babylonian Talmud)

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Room4more

Possibly start with dictionaries and Encyclopedia’s [depending on your resources] to determine the relationship between Canaanite[pagan] mythology and the Scriptures. Prominently you should be able to find multiple referrals that ‘satan’ [adversary] and ‘lucifer’ [mythological child of two mythological gods] and many comments to that regards leading to the physical real 'King of Babylon'. I did a quick search and came up with 64 articles in 22 resources using just the word 'lucifer'.

Hope this helps to get you right direction.

Ben

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/359977#Comment_359977

You won't find much. Talmud is much later. Philo, Dead Sea Scrolls, etc. are roughly contemporary. Judaism wasn't a monolithic thing at the time, of course.

Check out James Kugel's scholarship.

Ben

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/360008#Comment_360008

You won't find much. Talmud is much later. Philo, Dead Sea Scrolls,
etc. are roughly contemporary. The targums and LXX are translations and
therefore interpretations, but you'll have to be careful. Judaism wasn't
a monolithic thing at the time, of course, and its' often hard to pin
down the time of a translation.

Check out James Kugel's scholarship.

Ben

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/360008#Comment_360008

The targums and LXX are translations and
therefore interpretations, but you'll have to be careful. Judaism wasn't
a monolithic thing at the time, of course, and it's often hard to pin
down the time of a translation and whether there was later Christian interpolation.

James W Bennett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/360011#Comment_360011

As Ben said, the Targums, Philo, and much of the Dead Sea Scrolls are about you're best choice. Also there are many pseudepigraphal works from that time period such as 1 Enoch and Jubilees.

The hardest part will be finding the works, some are in Logos, much is not. Some of the apocryphal and pseudepigraphal works are in Logos in the translation by Charles and by Charlesworth. The Charlesworth translation is better and the scholarship is newer. The introductions to each ancient text will help provide the context and the dating of the text.

Also, please take Ben's caution to heart. There is and never was one "Jewish" interpretation of scripture in that period. There were many competing interpretations by many Jewish sects. Even among the same sectarian group there would have been differing interpretations of some passages.

A VERY good introduction to this material would be the works of James Kugel. In particular "The Bible as it was" and "Traditions of the Bible." Unfortunately these are not available in Logos, although I hope that all of his works will someday be available in Logos. He is by far one of the most readable and serious academicians today. His work "Great Poems of the Bible" is wonderful.

Jerry M

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/360261#Comment_360261

Thanks for the replies and advice. I am hindered in this, because I have forgotten most of my Hebrew. Philo and others have been translated so that helps. Perhaps I can arrange a collection that I can search for Scripture citations from.