A Handbook of Biblical Reception in Jewish, European Christian, and Islamic Folklores

Eric Ziolkowski

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9783110388688
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

This first volume of a two-volume Handbook treats a challenging, largely neglected subject at the crossroads of several academic fields: biblical studies, reception history of the Bible, and folklore studies or folkloristics. The Handbook examines the reception of the Bible in verbal folklores of different cultures around the globe. This first volume, complete with a general Introduction, focuses on biblically-derived characters, tales, motifs, and other elements in Jewish (Mizrahi, Sephardi, Ashkenazi), Romance (French, Romanian), German, Nordic/Scandinavian, British, Irish, Slavic (East, West, South), and Islamic folkloric traditions. The volume contributes to the understanding of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the New Testament, and various pseudepigraphic and apocryphal scriptures, and to their interpretation and elaboration by folk commentators of different faiths. The book also illuminates the development, artistry, and "migration" of folktales; opens new areas for investigation in the reception history of the Bible; and offers insights into the popular dimensions of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities around the globe, especially regarding how the holy scriptures have informed those communities' popular imaginations.

Yosef Tobi54

1.Jewish (Mizrahi)

King Solomon, the Um ‘Amar Bird and the Hoopoe

King Solomon’s favorite wife asked her husband to build her a castle from the beaks of birds, a very expensive material by any estimation. King Solomon, infatuated with his wife, invited all the birds of the world to ask them for their beaks. They came en masse, flock after flock, wave after wave, swarms of them. Among the first to arrive was the Um ‘Amar bird. She begged the king leave to be freed on the morrow for good, for she was in a hurry to return to her chicks. “My tender chicks were left without supervision, with no one guarding them,” she said. The king acceded to her request, cut off her beak, and sent her away.

The rest of the birds did not seek to be next in line. They sat and waited. They were waiting for the Hoopoe. The Hoopoe was the last bird to arrive at the meeting.

“Why are you so late, and causing so much delay?” King Solomon asked the Hoopoe.

The Hoopoe answered: “I was busy measuring dust and rocks, days and nights, men and the women.”

The King asked: “What is there more of in the world, dust or rocks?”

“There is more dust than rocks,” she replied.

“Why?”

“The rocks as they disintegrate become dust, and thus the amount of dust in the world is always growing, while the number of rocks diminishes.”

“And what is longer, the day or the night?”

“The day.”

“Why?”

“Parties in the evenings are an extension of the day and rising early causes the day to begin earlier. Only time when one is not conscious and one is not active should be considered night. “

”And who are greater, women or men?”

“Women.”

“Why?”

“Let us assume that initially an equal number of them were created, but men follow the counsel of women and thus are considered women, as the adage says: ‘Whoever follows the advice of women is considered one of them, and increases their number.’”

The Hoopoe’s words were an indirect rebuke against King Solomon, who had followed his wife’s counsel and blithely ordered that the beaks of every bird in the world be cut. King Solomon retained his manhood. The Hoopoe, in her wisdom, successfully overturned the decree against all the birds, and managed to save their beaks. Only Um ‘Amar lost her beak in her haste. If she had only waited like the rest of the birds, and not jumped to the head of the line and offered her beak, she would have remained whole. To this very day Um ‘Amar remains beakless, her face, flat and ugly. This is what every simpleton who jumps to the head of the line can expect, for “haste is from the devil, and patience is the key to salvation.” And why is she called Um ‘Amar? Because of the sounds she makes. And this is what she mumbles: “Old man, your clothes have fallen; old woman, come and pick them up.” (Gamli’eli 1978, 46–47)

As in all Jewish communities of the Diaspora, the folklore of the communities in the East was expressed in the local vernacular rather than in Hebrew. There were three main languages that the Jews spoke in these lands. The Jews spoke in their own dialects of these languages, which were distinct from the non-Jewish dialects. The three languages of folkloric composition were Arabic, Persian, and Aramaic. In all three of these languages and their numerous dialects, a rich and variegated Hebrew component was especially prominent in the oral language, not only that spoken by scholars but also that spoken by simple folk and women with limited exposure to literary works in Hebrew. This Hebrew component included characteristic biblical expressions which were so wondrously woven into the spoken language that the speakers themselves hardly recognized their biblical origins.55

The three aforementioned languages each had distinct dialects, distinguished not only by country, but also by regions within the countries. One must emphasize that the differences between the spoken dialects were greater than the differences between the dialects of oral composition, and this is even truer of written folklore. Judeo-Arabic with its dialects was the language of speech and folklore in Egypt, Syria (and Lebanon), Iraq, and Yemen; Judeo-Persian with its own dialects was the language of speech and folklore in Persia, Afghanistan, and the countries of Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Turkestan, and Turkmenistan); while Judeo-Aramaic was the language of speech and folklore in Kurdistan, which from a geopolitical perspective is divided between Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. The folk literature in Judeo-Arabic is richer and more diverse than that written in the Judeo-Persian or Judeo-Aramaic dialects, for the simple reason that it was used in larger and more central communities as early as the Middle Ages. The latter statement is not necessarily true, however, with regard to folklore on biblical subjects.

The Bible—especially the five books of Moses—was the core of the curriculum in Jewish schools beginning in the 1st century CE when these schools were first established. Although the Bible was studied in its original Hebrew in the Jewish communities of the Diaspora, eventually it was also taught in the schools of these communities in the local vernacular. It is known that the Aramaic translations of the Bible, such as those attributed to Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uzziel, were composed in the Land of Israel already during the rabbinic period (2nd century CE), and certainly in the Jewish communities in Babylon, since at that time the spoken language of the Jews living in the East was Aramaic. These translations were not only used in schools for scholastic purposes, but were also read in synagogues in tandem with the weekly readings from the Pentateuch and the Prophets, to facilitate the congregants’ understanding of the publicly read texts. The Aramaic translations—and especially the translation attributed to Onkelos—were usually literal, but in Pseudo-Jonathan, there are occasional additions, including independent, freewheeling midrashic expansions, of a somewhat folkloric nature (see Kasher 1996). It is apparent that these expansions are the foundation of biblical compositions in Jewish dialects (see below). In Hellenistic communities, such as that of Alexandria in Egypt, the Greek translation of the Bible (the Septuagint or LXX) was used.

A few hundred years later, but still before the emergence of Islam at the end of the first quarter of the 7th century CE, Judeo-Arabic translations of the Bible were composed in the northeast of the Arabian Peninsula for use in Jewish schools. Two genres are used in these translations: sharḥ or tafsīr, a full literal translation following the order of verses of the biblical text (see Tobi 2006; 2012); and sharḥ al-fāẓ (= explanations of words), which in effect was a dictionary, where only a selection of difficult Hebrew words from one biblical book or a number of biblical books was translated, in the order of their appearance in the text (see Eldar 2001). Moreover, under the influence of the Jewish communities of the pre-Islamic Arabian Peninsula, non-Jews were also familiar with the Bible, as is apparent in the oeuvres of several early Arab poets, such as Imrūʼ al-Qays (first half of the 6th century) and Umayyah Ibn Abī al-Ṣalt (2nd half of the 6th century).56 Familiarity with the Bible is also apparent in the Qur’ān and in the work of several Jewish sages who converted to Islam in its early years, such as Ka‘b al-Aḥbār (d. ca. 654), or who had Jewish ancestry, such as Wahb ibn Munabbih (d. ca. 728). The myriad of early Jewish traditions preserved in the aforementioned sources were known as Isrā’īliyyāt (see Hirschberg: 203–241; Newby: 49‒77).

At the end of the 10th century, some 250 years after the lands of the East were conquered by Arab Muslims (in the 630s), a Jewish-Arabic literature began to develop in these countries which from a linguistic perspective was based on Classical Arabic and included higher literary genres such as philosophy and science. This trend did not push folklore aside or hide it, including folklore connected to the Bible. Evidence of this is found in documents from the “Late Genizah” of Cairo, in other words, from the 13th century onwards. In any case, beginning in the 16th century, one finds biblical translations in the dialects spoken by the masses, as well as other texts in these dialects focusing on biblical characters or events, transmitted orally or in writing. These texts were, in effect, the most vital literary treasure for broad segments of the Jewish communities in the East, who did not know Hebrew, and especially for women, who were illiterate. One should note that the less Hebrew the men or women of a community knew, the greater was the number of such biblical compositions in the spoken dialect. Thus, for example, in the communities of Persia and Kurdistan, in which Hebrew was relatively unknown, there were many such compositions, whereas in the communities of Yemen, where Hebrew was better known, at least among the men, there is an almost total lack of such compositions. This is in complete accord with the fact that the Jews of Yemen continued to read Medieval Judeo-Arabic literature of all genres in the original, and did not resort to the Hebrew translations, or the translations into the spoken dialects (see Blau 1984).

Before discussing the biblically related folklore in these three languages, one should note that up to the middle of the 19th century it was preserved either orally or in manuscripts. Only in the mid‒19th century, when a number of Hebrew presses were established in Baghdad, Aleppo, Jerusalem, Cairo, Aden, and a few Indian cities, was this literature published at all, mainly in the Judeo-Arabic of the Jews of Iraq, Syria, and Egypt. In contrast, Persian and Bukharian Jews only began to publish their literature in Judeo-Persian after they immigrated to Palestine beginning in the 1880s, and the Judeo-Aramaic literature of Kurdistan only began to be published by Israeli scholars in the middle of the 20th century, after the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.

Translations of the Bible Prevalent Among Eastern Jews

The first compositions commonly seen as indicative of the switch from Classical Judeo-Arabic to vernacular Arabic are the sermons on the Pentateuch and prophetical readings delivered by Rabbi David ha-Naggid (= the president), who was the grandson of Maimonides, and lived and worked in Cairo (1222‒1300; see Almagor 1995). These ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Style and Transliteration
• Map
• Illustrations
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. Jewish (Mizrahi)
• 2. Jewish (Sephardi)
• 3. Jewish (Ashkenazi Influences)
• 4. Romance (French and Romanian)
• 5. German
• 6. Nordic/Scandinavian
• 7. British and Irish
• 8. East Slavic
• 9. West Slavic
• 10. South Slavic
• 11. Islamic
• Contributors
• Scriptural Index
• Folkloric Index
• General Index