SEDER OLAM: A RABBINIC CHRONOGRAPHY. (VOLUMES I AND II)

It has been over seventy years since the last (actually only) attempt at a critical edition of Seder Olam. That edition included only the first ten chapters, and, furthermore, is not adequate even for these chapters. This dissertation includes a critical edition of Seder Olam, based on the available manuscripts and editions, a translation into English, and an introduction.;In the introduction the mixture of midrashic and chronographic elements in this work are discussed and its salient features delineated. The question of its place in the rabbinic corpus is also raised.;In the Babylonian Talmud Seder Olam is ascribed to Rabbi Yose ben Halaphta (2nd century C.E.). After an analysis of internal and external evidence the historicity of this statement is accepted. Within the context of this analysis the relationship of Seder Olam to other rabbinic works is discussed. An attempt is made to discover what exactly was the role Rabbi Yose played in the formation of the work we know today as Seder Olam.;Much of the introduction is concerned with text-critical questions. All the manuscripts and editions of Seder Olam are described: bibliographic and paleographic details are discussed and also some idea of the worth of each witness is given.;Seder Olam is a rabbinic chronography which begins with the creation of Adam and continues until the Bar Kochba Rebellion in the second century C.E. Using the events of the Bible as its base it concerns itself with questions of dates and ages, e.g., how many years passed from the Flood until the Dispersion, how old Isaac was at the time of the Binding, on what day of the week Israel left Egypt, on what day of the month Jericho fell, how many years Rehoboam observed the Torah, in what year of Jehoiakim's reign Nebuchadnezzar began to reign, the synchronization of the kings of Judah and Israel, and the contradictions between the books of Kings and Chronicles.;The section on textual criticism and stemmatic analysis begins with a discussion of previous critical editions of rabbinic texts and surveys the different approaches to these questions. The stemmatic analysis of Seder Olam follows: using the genealogical method, the witnesses are grouped into families and sub-families. A stemma codicum is presented.;The last chapter of the introduction deals with the text presented--which manuscripts or editions were used and why--and the methodology of the apparatus and translation.;The introduction is followed by the Hebrew text of Seder Olam with critical apparatus, and this is followed by the English translation.