Introduction: Material Evidence for Exegetical Practices and Intellectual Engagement with Texts

Abstract

Exegetical practices usually originate in learning contexts. Manuscripts containing annotations often represent an instantiation of an educational and/or scholarly engagement with a given text in a given time and place as well as through the centuries and in different places. So, such written artefacts may offer evidence for uncovering teaching and learning contexts as they were used to store knowledge and guide readers in approaching the commented text(s) they preserve. The educational and scholarly practice of explaining a text originates from various cultural needs by different users within or outside given institutions. The manuscriptological and textual study of such annotations is therefore telling for the material, cultural and social environments in which they were produced and used. In studying this, it is also important to distinguish between individual achievements and widely attested patterns within the transmitted exegeses. Hosting annotations of different kinds and for different purposes written by one or more scribes, manuscripts mediate between tradition and individuals. They may preserve traditional exegetic materials that have been modified and can also be further modified, updated, and adapted for the different needs of user(s) in different times and contexts. Orality should also be taken into account when dealing with exegetical practices, and manuscripts may also offer evidence for oral modes of teaching. In those cultures in which teaching and learning practices were performed