Jerome, Josephus and BERESHIT RABBA: Comparative Study in Service of Textual Criticism

• In Event: Rabbinic Texts in Comparative Cultural Perspective

Abstract

The comparison between late ancient Jewish and Christian sources is usually used to address questions regarding Jewish-Christian relations, the boundaries between these communities and the possible influences, polemics and changes these relations created. Nevertheless, a comparative study of Jewish and Christian literature may also be used to address problems in the reading of these texts and answer philological questions.
Late ancient Jewish and Christian sources differ in the process which led to their current form. While most Christian texts, especially texts of known authors, were put in writing close to the time of their composition and were transmitted through continuous copying, rabbinic sources were continuously edited in long oral and written processes, resulting with ambiguous and fragmentary texts. This difference is mostly significant in the case of genealogical parallels, i.e. similar texts appearing in Jewish and Christian sources that are a result of a transmission of a tradition from one community to another, or of a mutual original text, and not is the case of analogical parallels, i.e. independent, yet similar, developments in two different places. The comparison of genealogical parallels, found in rabbinic and early Christian writings, may contribute to textual and philological discussions and offer new answers to questions regarding the creation and evolvement of rabbinic literature.
A case study from BERESHIT RABBA illustrates the ways in which a comparative study of Jewish and Christian texts sheds light on the rabbinic text. The Midrash in BERESHIT RABBA has parallels in Josephus, Jerome and Ephrem, all addressing an exegetical problem regarding Lot’s family members. The midrash contains a suggested solution followed by a philological proof, but the proof does not support the exegetical claim. A comparison to the parallel midrash in Josephus and Jerome shows that the midrash from BERESHIT RABBA is, in fact, a fragmentary version of two different solutions to the same problem. Jerome’s full version of the Midrash, which BERESHIT RABBA has only fragments of, sheds, therefore, light on BERESHIT RABBA’s background, and the process which led to its current form.

author

• Yifat Chaya Monnickendam, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem