Tales of the Sages in Late Midrash

Sivan Nir, Ph.D. (2019), Tel Aviv University, is a research fellow there and at Haifa. He has published on the medieval, Midrash, and interreligious receptions of biblical figures and literary concepts, including Characterization in Midrash and Medieval Jewish Bible Commentaries (SBL, 2024).

• ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1 Existing Scholarship on Late Tales and Its Deficiencies2 Method3 Overview4 The Choice of Title5 A Note about the TranslationsPart 1: Reaction Tales and Counter Narratives1 R. Zyinon and the Doctor (Devarim Rabbah [Lieberman] Eikev)1 Conclusions: Devarim Rabbah as a New Narrative Rather Than a Version2 The Chassid and the Spirit (Bereshit Rabbati Wayesalach, pp. 145–146)1 Conclusions: Bereshit Rabbati’s Job Parody vs the Bavli’s3 The Disguised Wife (BemR 9:3)1 Conclusions: Bemidbar Rabbah as an Opposed Digest of the Bavli4 Anti-Dama Ben Netinah (Pesiqta Rabbati 14)1 Conclusions: Anti-Dama vs Polemical Dama Recensions5 The Disciple and the Prostitute (Pseudo-Eliyahu Zuta 4)1 Conclusions: Opposed Prostitutes, Cooperating Classes6 The Seven Good Years (Ruth Zuta 4:11)1 Charity and Failed Messiahs2 Conclusions: the Voice of the Poor in Ruth ZutaPart 2: Temporal Continuations7 Rashbi on the Ship on Route to Caesar (Ekhah Zuti 43)1 Conclusions: Ekhah Zuti and ‘The Prayer of Rabbi Shimʾon bar Yochai’8 Another Episode on the Ship on Route to Caesar (Bereshit Rabbati Wayegash)1 Conclusion: between Bereshit Rabbati Rashbi and R. Shfatiah9 Resh Laqish before He Met R. Yochanan (Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliʾezer 43)1 Conclusions: the Unchallenged Benefit of the Torah to the Individual10 R. Meir Redeems Acher (Midrash Mishle 6:22–29)1 Conclusions: Disciples Are Better Than Sons11 R. Akiva’s Illuminating Daughter-in-Law (Midrash Tehillim 59:3)1 Conclusions: between Two Wives, between Bavli and Midrash Tehillim12 R. Akiva’s Burial (Midrash Mishle 9 and Yalqut 944)1 Akiva’s Burial Answering Bavli Menachot 29b2 Conclusions: Adding Akiva’s Missing Reward to the BavliPart 3: Typical Imitations13 Abnimos and the Builder (Shemot Rabbah 13:1)1 Divine Censure2 Conclusions: Builder and God as Heroes14 Two Sages Lamenting at the Western Wall (Seder Eliyahu Rabbah 28:11)1 Shades of Akiva’s Fox in Seder Eliyahu2 The Two Late Imitations3 Conclusions: a Dispersion of Mystic Comfort15 What Acher Thought of R. Akiva’s Death (Pitron Torah, Wayiqra, p. 15)1 Conclusions: Elisha as the Intended Audience16 Akiva, Turnus Rufus, and the Father (Bereshit Rabbati Lech Lecha, pp. 72–73)1 Conclusions: Martyrdom for All Not Just for Akiva17 Antoninus and Rabbi’s Circumcision (Bereshit Rabbati Wayera, pp. 86–87)1 Antoninus and Not Rabbi Is the Second Moses2 Conclusions: a Missionary Fantasy That Denies the Rabbis Center Stage18 R. Joshua and Hadrian at the Carnival of Beasts (Esther Rabbah 10:11)1 Conclusions: Scribal Testimony of Esther Rabbah’s Animalistic Exile19 The Death of R. Meir’s Two Sons (Midrash Mishle 31:10)1 Conclusions: between a Legendary Happy Ending and a Rabbinic DiscussionConclusions1 Characters: Idolized Super Stars and the Marginal, the Female, and the Anonymous2 Themes of Theodicy, Charity, and Tempered Eschatology3 A Rhetoric of the Marvelous Rather Than Dialectics4 Authors of Late Tales Are Closer to Tosafists than to Copyists5 Closing WordsBibliography