Language:
English
Year of publication:
2020
Titel der Quelle:
Oqimta; Studies in Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature
Angaben zur Quelle:
6 (2020) 28-39
Keywords:
Mishnah. Criticism, interpretation, etc.
;
Tevat Marqa
;
Judaism Relations
;
Christianity
;
Fire Religious aspects
;
Christian literature, Early Syriac authors
;
History and criticism
;
Samaritan literature History and criticism
Abstract:
The paper develops two comparative analyses introduced in my book, Midrash and Piyyut, both concerned with the conversation between Jewish sources and Christian literature in Syriac. The first part concerns Mishnah Ta‘anit 2:4. I argue that the liturgy recorded in this pericope implicitly reflects a sustained interest in the descent of the divine fire, which can be productively compared to Christian liturgical sources in Syriac that reflect the same interest. The second part concerns a homiletical-poetic form: the repetition of a verse with variation. This form occurs sporadically and in a conditioned way in midrash, but more regularly in some piyyuṭim, and, as I note in my book, in the Samaritan work Tibat Marqe. Here I identify verse repetition in another source, especially proximate to Tibat Marqe, a composition in Syriac from the fourth or fifth century, the “memra on the signs Moses performed in Egypt.” Comparison with such sources from outside rabbinic literature exposes homiletical practices within rabbinic circles that are otherwise obscured by the work of the editors of the homiletical compilations.
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