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Volume 75 › Table of Contents › Article Abstract
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Two Early Witnesses to the Formation of the Miqra Bikurim
Midrash and Their Implications for the Evolution of the Haggadah Text
Jay Rovner, Jewish Theological Seminary of America |
The midrashic elaboration of the exodus narrative encapsulated in Deuteronomy
26:5-8 is basic to the Passover Haggadah liturgy. Because m.Pesa. 10:4 prescribes
the expounding of that passage (doresh me1arami oved 1avi), it is generally assumed
that the midrash found in standard, i.e., Babylonian, medieval European, and modern
Haggadahs dates in large part to the tannaitic period, even though the corresponding
Eretz-Israel version contains very little midrashic adornment. A manuscript fragment
from the Cairo Genizah reveals that the standard text began with precious
little midrashic text as well, and a second one provides an equally brief, but very
different, alternative showing a process of augmentation that, in combination with
the first version, would eventually lead to the fulsome standard midrash. The latter
did not really evolve until post-talmudic (geonic) times. The unique style of the full
midrashic composition will be examined to show that liturgical concerns, as well
as midrashic ones, combined to produce the standard midrash. Appendix A provides
a synoptic table of early Haggadah midrash-texts in comparison with the standard
one. Readings in the fragments indicative of an early stage in the development of
the Haggadah fragments treated herein are noted in Appendix B, where the texts are
transcribed in full. A claim for a possibly tannaitic Haggadah midrash is examined
in Appendix C.
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