Pesiqta Rabbati

Document Type

Article

Source Publication

Targums and Rabbinic Literature

Publication Date

2024

Editor

Bruce Chilton, Alan j. Avery-Peck

Publisher

Zondervan Academic

City

Grand Rapids

Series

Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies

ISBN

970310495734

First Page

349

Last Page

354

Department

Religious Studies

Description

Pesikta Rabbati is a midrashic work that contains homilies for special days of the liturgical year. The homilies are based on scriptural readings from the Torah or prophetic books. Homilies for festivals include: Hanukkah (chapters 2-9); Shavu’ot (Pentecost, Feast of Weeks; chapter 20); Rosh Ha-Shanah (Beginning of the Year; chapters 39-40); Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement; chapters 45, 47); Passover (chapters 48-49); Sukkot (Tabernacles; chapter 51); and Shemini Atseret (Eighth Day of Assembly; chapter 52). The work also includes homilies for four special Sabbaths: Shekalim (Shekels; chapter 10); Zakhor (Remembrance, before Purim; chapter 12); Parah (Red Heifer; chapter 14); Shabbat ha-Ḥodesh (Sabbath of the Month, before Passover; chapter 15). Homilies for other liturgical occasions also appear: Rosh Ḥodesh (New Month; chapter 1); and Ten Commandments (chapters 20-25). Homilies about Haftarah readings (prophetic lections) occur: homilies of rebuke (prior to Tisha b’Av; chapters 26-28); and “consolation” homilies (for the weeks following Tisha b’Av; chapters 29/30-37), which include messianic homilies (chapters 34-37); Teshuvah (Repentance) homilies (chapters 38-44, 46, 50); exile, Temple tax, and sacrifices (chapters 10-19). In respect to the dating of Pesikta Rabbati, four major cultural eras are evident in its textual development: pre-tannaitic and tannaitic sources from the 1 st and 3 rd century CE that were integrated into the homilies; 4 th century CE in the Land of Israel; 5 th /6 th century CE in Israel under the Byzantines, when the core of Pesikta Rabbati was composed; and possibly the 9 th century. Furthermore, early citations of Pesikta Rabbati occurred in the beginning of the 11 th century in France, after which the text congealed into a fixed form and grew by accretion. Some homilies

2 were added because of the liturgical celebration of more recent festivals (for example, Shemini Atseret, ca. 1000 C.E.). A few later homilies indicate profound theological considerations (for example, the Binding of Isaac and the ideas of testing the faithful, repentance and forgiveness). Pesikta Rabbati was structured into a cohesive text, and, in 1290, it surfaced as a complete work in the Rhineland (Parma manuscript No. 3122).

2. Summary of Content Pesikta Rabbati contains expressions of rabbinic thought often absent from other rabbinic texts from late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Of interest to students of the New Testament are passages referring to the Messiah, Binding of Isaac, and Apocalypse that are often intertextual or respond to Christian ideas. Interpretive issues arise from the difficulty or impossibility of establishing a definitive historical context in which the homilies were created. Unresolved primary textual questions concerning issues such as the correct text and the order of the homilies still persist. This makes it difficult to deal concretely with foundational issues such as the creation of the composition, its editing, and the sources of its homilies. The entire work could have been produced by one editor; on the other hand, the text is often viewed as an eclectic collection of homiletic material that accrued during a lengthy process.

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