The Textual Transmission of the Genizah Fragments of the Sheiltot of Rav Ahai

The textual transmission of the Sheʾiltot of Rav Aḥa of Shabḥa shows that this literature was open to alterations for a long time. The Sheʾiltot were by their very nature prone to the assimilation of additional halakhic material of a similar kind and to an ongoing process of editing.

The more than hundred fragment containing Sheʾiltot texts from the Cairo Genizah show an early stage of the textual transmission of these texts. Comparing them to the medieval manuscripts of the Sheʾiltot reveals that the editiors of both the Sheʾiltot texts from the Cairo Genizah and the medieval manuscripts were mainly interested in certain parts of the text and completely ignored other parts. An analysis of their choices may help to understand how the Sheʾiltot were read and received during the Middle Ages.

In my presentation I wish to present an example of a she’ilta which was transmitted in the Cairo Genizah and in the medieval manuscripts. The comparison of the both texts will demonstrate how the text of the medieval manuscripts was supplied by more textual material, how the functions of the structural parts of the she’ilta were changed by the editors and which material was added to the text.

The presentation is based on one of the main chapters of my doctoral thesis which contains editions and analyses of the Genizah fragments of the Sheʾiltot, presented at the Goethe-University, Frankfurt/Main, in 2016.