Between Paradoxography and Aretalogy: The Jewish Scroll of Fasts

Abstract

This article argues that the Jewish Scroll of Fasts (Megillat Taanit), an Aramaic calendar of 35 auspicious days or periods, is a paradoxographic composition. While its present form probably dates from the early Roman period, the text is likely the product of a long and complex redactional history. Since it is almost entirely devoid of narrative, outside Knowledge is required to understand that a miracle occurred on these days and under what circumstances. The origins of some of the commemorations can be found in earlier Jewish-Greek works that interpreted them as miracles resulting from divine intervention. While similar interpretations were widespread in the Greco-Roman world, the fact that the same potentially innocuous events
were regarded as miracles by several Jewish authors who did not rely on each other suggests the existence of other, now lost, Jewish miracle compilations. While the Scroll and its Sources are closely related to aretalogy, they show a strong political bias: the Scroll, or one of ist paradoxographic predecessors, was intended as Hasmonean propaganda. Consequently, the miracles that benefited the Jews of the Ptolemaic kingdom and were commemorated annually by them were excluded. The scroll may have been reused by the Herodian rulers. In late antiquity it was appropriated by the rabbis, who altered the etiology of some commemorations by providing them with narrative developments that did not necessarily involve a miracle. Paradoxography had become such a powerful tool that the reuse of the scroll's framework was considered sufficient to confer legitimacy on those claiming authority.