Abstract
This article examines a dramatic story describing a conflict between King Yannai and Shimon ben Shetah involving Nazarites, wealth and wisdom. The most original version of the story in rabbinic literature is preserved in Genesis Rabbah parashah 91. Previously, scholars argued for connections between this narrative and Second Temple realia. However, careful philological examination of all the parallel sources of the narrative yields no such connection. My analysis repudiates one of the major conclusions of scholarship on the story: the consensus that the earliest version of the story records a meeting between King Yannai and a Persian delegation. By revealing the original meaning of a hapax legomenon in the text of Genesis Rabbah (Greek Passage), which I argue is derived from the Greek, I establish there was no mention of Persians in the original tradition.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 220-246 |
| Number of pages | 27 |
| Journal | Journal for the Study of Judaism |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© Aaron Amit, 2022.
Funding
We acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61071040 ), Leading Academic Discipline Project of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (No. J50102 ) and Innovative Foundation of Shanghai University . We thank Instrumental Analysis and Research Center of Shanghai University. Thank Yamei Zhu (College of Foreign Language, Changchun Institute of Technology, Changchun, China) to polish the language.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Innovative Foundation of Shanghai University | |
| National Natural Science Foundation of China | 61071040 |
| Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline Project | J50102 |
Keywords
- Genesis Rabbah
- Talmud Bavli
- Talmud Yerushalmi
- rabbinic literature