גלגולי מסורות וגרסאות בויקרא רבה כה, א-ב : לפני העריכה ולאחריה.

This article mainly focuses upon the transmission history of Vayyiqra Rabba and shows that all the complete manuscripts derive, at least in part, from a single manuscript whose scribe did not hesitate to change the original wording.‪ The article discusses five differences between the wording of the G6 Geniza fragment and the wording of (most of)‪ the complete manuscripts.‪ The conclusion at the end of all five analyses is that the G6 reading is closest to the original, and the reading of the complete manuscripts is secondary.‪ The implication of this conclusion is essentially that the text of Vayyiqra Rabba that we all use – and with regard to this detail it matters not whether we use the text of the vulgate printed editions or the text of the Margulies edition – is a very emended and altered text.‪ Another theme in the article is the nature of the formation process of early midrashic compositions, more specifically, how an homileticist (or an editor)‪ uses his sources when constructing his midrash.‪ Thus, in support of his homiletical-exegetical revision of an earlier tradition, he changes the dangers of ‘a dream which frightens’ into the dangers of ‘a heaven-sent death penalty’.‪ Another conclusion – more tentative – is that the editor of Bereshit Rabba used the composition Leviticus Rabba.‪ Also discussed is an instance where the reader must supply additional interpretive steps in order to understand the integration of the conclusion at the end of the petihta.‪ The changes made by the scribe of the archetype, from which all complete manuscripts derive, created an inferior text of Vayyiqra Rabba.‪ These changes, made several hundred years after the redactorial moment of the original text, can only be lamented upon.‪ However, they are not at all similar to the changes introduced at, or before, the redactorial moment by the homileticist or editor, which are part and parcel of the creative nature of the midrashic process and discourse.‪ In the final analysis, we should strive to reconstruct the text that the editor of the composition composed, to set aside the inferior secondary readings, and to be aware of the earlier traditions that served as the formative material for the editor of the composition.‪ And finally, we must always be aware that the inadequate scope and quality of the extant documents may not allow us to achieve our goals.‪ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]‪