The Chronicles of Jerahmeel: Or, the Hebrew Bible Historiale. Being a Collection of Apocryphal and Pseudo-Epigraphical Books Dealing With the History of the World from the

423 Pages·1971·1.33 MB·English

by  Eleazar Ben Asher Ha-Levi

THE CHRONICLES OF
JERAHMEEL
OR
THE HEBREW BIBLE HISTORIALE
BY
M. GASTER
1899
Chronicles of Jerahmeel by Moses Gaster.
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Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Compiler's Preface
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX. The Formation Of The Child
X
XI
XII
XIII. The Beating Of The Grave
XIV. This Is The Description Of Gehinnom (Hell)
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII. Paradise
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV. The Midrash Of Shemhazai And ‘Azael
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
XXXV
XXXVI
XXXVII
XXXVIII
XXXIX
XL
XLI
XLII
XLIII. The Chronicles Of Moses
XLIV
XLV
XLVI
XLVII
XLVIII
XLIX
L
LI
LII
LIII
LIV
LV
LVI
LVII
LVIII
LIX
LX
LXI. The Children Of Moses
LXII. The Ten Banishments Of The Sanhedrim
LXIII. Elchanan The Merchant
LXIV. The Midrash Of Aḥab Ben Qolaya And Zedekiah Ben Ma‘Aseyah
LXV. The History Of Susanna
LXVI
LXVII
LXVIII
LXIX
LXX
LXXI
LXXII
LXXIII
LXXIV
LXXV
LXXVI
LXXVII
LXXVIII
LXXIX
LXXX. The Beating Of The Grave
LXXXI
LXXXII
LXXXIII
LXXXIV. The Throne Of Solomon, King Of Israel
LXXXV. The Book Of The Maccabee
LXXXVI
LXXXVII
LXXXVIII
LXXXIX
XC
XCI
XCII
XCIII
XCIV
XCV
XCVI
XCVII
XCVIII
PREFACE

The present volume contains a collection of old-world legends and tales. The
heroes are mostly biblical personages; hence the name given to it by me, 'Bible
Historiale.' It resembles in tendency and spirit these mediæval compilations, and
is their oldest representative. The Hebrew text exists only in one single
manuscript. My translation is as faithful and literal a rendering as such a subject
requires. Unlike others, I have followed the older example and have added a full
index. It is a complete digest of the whole matter contained in the book. No
incident of any importance has wilfully been omitted. For the purpose of
preparing it and of facilitating critical and bibliographical investigations, I have
divided the text into chapters and paragraphs. Indications in the manuscript
guided me.

In a long introduction I have investigated firstly the question as to the date and
authorship of the chronicle as a whole; then discussed the place of its
composition; the relation in which the chronicle of Jeraḥmeel stands to the Book
of Yashar and to Yosippon. I have laid bare the connection with the 'Genesis
Rabba Major' of Moses ha Darshan; and drawn attention to the parallelism
between this chronicle, the 'Historia Scholastica'
of Comestor, and other similar Christian compilations.

In a second part of the introduction I have studied each chapter and each text
separately, and I have minutely investigated each paragraph and smaller
incident. Parallels have been adduced by me not only from the Hebrew but also
from non-Hebrew literatures. An attempt has been made to ascertain the
probable age of each of these legends, to show the historical background of
some, and the value for textual criticism of the other texts contained in this
chronicle.
Five pages of the Hebrew manuscript of decisive importance for the date and for
the original character of this compilation have been added. In short, no pains
have been spared to make this book a worthy contribution to the study of
Biblical Apocrypha, and to place in the hand of the student the means of testing
the truth and cogency of the conclusions to which I have arrived.

It remains now for me to fulfil a pleasant duty in thanking my friends Dr. W. H.
Greenburg and Dr. H. Barnstein for the assistance they have rendered me, and
above all Mr. F. F. Arbuthnot, to whose generosity the book owes its
appearance.

M. GASTER.
London, June 16, 1899.
Tammuz 8, 5659.
INTRODUCTION

The chronicle which I publish here for the first time is not a chronicle in the
strict sense of the word. It does not relate true events which have happened in the
history of mankind, but it belongs more to that class of legendary history which
was so much in vogue in the Middle Ages, and which owes its original
conception to the attempt, from very ancient times, to embellish the biblical
narrative. The history of the world began with the narrative of the Bible—first
for the Jews, and then for all the nations who have derived their knowledge and
their faith from the same source. The careful reader of the Bible must have been
struck with what appeared to him to be incoherence of narrative, want of details,
and at times great lacunæ. Hence the desire for filling them up.

An old problem has also been to establish a fixed chronology upon the basis of
the biblical narrative. This last was, in fact, the oldest attempt to construct exact
history out of the Bible. The computation of the era of the world, and the desire
for fixing the age of every person mentioned in the Bible, and of every event
contained therein, was imposed upon Jews almost as soon as they came in
contact with the highly fantastical chronologies of Manetho and Berossus, who
gave to the world and to the reigning dynasties of Egypt and Assyria millions of
years. The Jews, especially those who lived in Alexandria, the ancient focus of
civilization, where all the currents of thought, myth and learning combined, felt
the necessity of comparing these fabulous histories with the true history of the
world as contained in the Bible. We therefore find among the oldest Alexandrian
writers like Demetrios and others the very first rudiments of biblical chronology.
Egypt was also the land where myths and legends flourished in abundance, and
no wonder that the lives of Biblical personages connected especially with Egypt
and Egyptian history, like Joseph, Moses, Solomon and others, should have been
embellished with legendary and poetic details drawn from sources hitherto not
yet accounted for.
Biblical legends occur, therefore, very frequently in the works of the
Alexandrian writers referred to, especially in Artapanos and Philo, and, derived
from such sources, also in Josephus. This activity was, however, not limited to
Egypt. The desire for rounding off the biblical narrative, for filling up the
lacunæ, for answering all the questions of the enquiring mind of the ancient
reader, was also carried on in Palestine and probably so in Babylon. Hence a
new literature grew out of the Bible, and clustered round the Bible, which goes
under the name of the Apocrypha, or pseudo-epigraphical literature.

Some of these writings are written with a special purpose, either to inculcate
certain doctrines, or to show the antiquity of certain precepts in order to justify
some religious ceremony. Some assume the form of historical narratives of
events that happened to the Patriarchs, others appear in the form of ancient
revelations also ascribed to biblical personages, and either try to lift the veil of
the future or to encourage the people in time of trial and trouble. This literature
has had a chequered career; very little has come down to us in its primitive form,
and in the Hebrew language. Even those that were written in Greek, and have
been translated from that language, had to undergo considerable changes at the
hands of those who afterwards utilized the ancient records for the purpose of
spreading their own religious views. Books that went under the names of
Patriarchs claimed a great respect and veneration. And, therefore, if they
contained announcements as to events that were to happen, Christian writers and
then heads of sects would not fail to interpret or to interpolate sentences or
passages by which Christian or specific doctrines would appear to have been
foretold from ancient times. Such interpolations and the use made of the books
sufficed to condemn them in the eyes of the Jews, and even in the eyes of the
ruling Church, and to cause their disappearance at a very early period. Others
that were written in Hebrew and claimed to be a kind of prophecy, having been
belied by the non-fulfilment of those prophecies, fell into contempt, were
disregarded, and therefore partly lost; the purely historical and legendary
portions, however, seem to have fared somewhat better. They lived on because
age did not affect them, and people at all times were inclined to bestow
benevolent attention upon poetical descriptions or pseudo-historical narratives.

The critical spirit belongs to modern times. The discrimination between true and