Eran Viezel

The medieval Jewish exegetes who engaged in "peshat" interpretation of the Hebrew Bible questioned the authorship and formation of biblical books. This article deals with the opinion of R. David Kimhi (Radak) on this issue. Radak has dozens of statements dedicated to the authors and authorship processes of the individual biblical books. A close reading of those statements and an analysis of the positions they express leads to the conclusion that Radak may be considered a conservative scholar. He generally bases his stances on the explicit statements of the sages (Ḥazal), especially on b. Bava Bathra 14b–15a. The sages do not have clear traditions about authorship and formation of the books of Psalms, Proverbs and Chronicles, however; thus, in the case of those books, Radak was forced to consider the opinions of his contemporaries of the peshat school.