His research explores the interaction of intellectual and imaginative changes from antiquity to the modern period. He is the author of Allegory: The Dynamics of an Ancient and Medieval Technique (co-published by Oxford University Press and Harvard University Press in 1987) and the editor of two collective studies: Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity to the Modern Period (published by Brill in 2000) and Romance and History: Imagining Time from the Medieval to the Early Modern Period (published by Cambridge University Press in 2015). With the support of a grant from the Israel Science Foundation he is currently conducting a multiyear research project entitled “The Literal Sense: Scriptural Interpretation, Poetics, and Historical Change.”