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Here is some valuable background and historical information about Midrash or Biblical legend:1. What is Midrash or Biblical Legend?
Midrashim (the word “Midrashim” is the plural of Midrash) are stories and legends written about Bible passages. They appeal to the emotions and may in some cases make a moral point.
Barry Holtz, in his chapter, “Midrash” in Back to the Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Texts, Barry W. Holtz, ed., (New York: Summit Books, 1984), pp. 177-211, defines Midrash as a type of literature or a kind of process or activity. He explains that Midrash, from the Hebrew root meaning ‘to search out’ is a process of interpreting the Bible. Midrash is a tool to deal with cultural questions that arise over time and new pressures that need to be addressed in light of the Bible. It can be used to resolve crises and reaffirm continuity with the traditions of the past. Since the Bible has a laconic style, Midrash can help to ‘fill in the gaps’ by supplying thoughtful answers, motivations and explanations in interpreting the Biblical text. Holtz is careful to mention, however, that Midrash in not intended to be entirely new or disconnected from the Biblical text, but is thought to be a tool to bring forth interpretations implied in the text itself. Taking the view that God foresaw the need for new interpretations over time, Midrash is a method for searching out and finding the interpretations God has already placed in the text.
2. Who Wrote Midrash?
Holtz says simply that the writing of rabbinic Midrashim took place chiefly from about 400 C.E. to 1200 C.E. (Holtz, p.178.) A short history lesson, however, is also helpful in placing the writing of Midrashim in context in terms of other rabbinic literature.
The Destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.
Robert Goldenberg, in his chapter, “Talmud” (pp. 129-175 of the Holtz text cited above,) notes that for the ancient rabbis the Torah means not just the five written books of Moses, but also an “Oral Torah” that was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai along with the written Torah. (Goldenberg, p.129.) After the Temple in Jerusalem fell to the invading Romans in 70 C.E., the rabbis, who had written Bible scrolls, but who transmitted the literature about the Bible, or the “Oral Torah,” from teacher to pupil as an oral tradition, began to organize the “Oral Torah” for permanent transmission. (Goldenberg, p. 131)
The Mishnah
By the 3rd century C.E. the “Mishnah,” which Goldenberg calls the core document of the Talmudic tradition, was complete. Terse and arranged by topic, it looks something like a code of Jewish law, but it includes unresolved legal disputes and nonlegal materials such as stories and interpretations of Scripture. Arranged in six “Orders” and subdivided into sixty-three topical sections or “Tractates,” Goldenberg describes it as an early attempt to compile the “Oral Torah” into a teaching-text or curriculum with the bare minimum a disciple needed to learn in the rabbinic movement. (Goldenberg, p. 131.)
The Talmud
Goldenberg notes that as groups of rabbis and disciples, at first in homes and later in academies or yeshivot, studied the Mishnah, a tradition of commentary and explanation on the Mishnah gradually took shape. Over time, the commentary became an object of study itself. Books with the commentary and explanation are now known as the “Talmud.” There are two “Talmuds,” each with many volumes of commentary, one known as the Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmud, completed in the first half of the 5th century, and the other known as the Babylonian Talmud, completed a century or two later. Goldenberg notes that the Babylonian Talmud is more often studied today and it is generally considered to be more accessible and to have more elaborate and skillfully prepared text. (Goldenberg, p. 136)
Midrash or Biblical Legend
Another branch of Rabbinical literature is midrash or Biblical legend. Israel Abrahams, in Chapters on Jewish Literature, (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1899,) describes it, and its relationship to the Mishnah and the Talmud, as follows:
IN its earliest forms identical with the Halachah, [Jewish laws] or the practical and legal aspects of the Mishnah and the Talmud, the Midrash, in its fuller development, became an independent branch of Rabbinical literature. Like the Talmud, the Midrash is of a composite nature, and under the one name the accumulations of ages are included. Some of its contents are earlier than the completion of the Bible, others were collected and even created as recently as the tenth or the eleventh century of the current era. (Abrahams, 55).
Abrahams states that early Midrash originated in sermons of the “Tannaim” (the Tannaim were rabbis from about 70 C.E. to 200 C.E.) but that the writing and compiling of Midrash continued through the medieval period:
The oldest Midrash is the actual report of sermons and addresses of the Tannaite age; the latest is a medieval compilation from all extant sources. The works to which the name Midrash is applied are the Mechilta (to Exodus); the Sifra (to Leviticus); the Sifre (to Numbers and Deuteronomy); the Pesikta (to various Sections of the Bible, whence its name); the Tanchuma (to the Pentateuch); the Midrash Rabbah (the “Great Midrash,” to the Pentateuch and the Five Scrolls of Esther, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs); and the Midrash Haggadol (identical in name, and in contents similar to, but not identical with, the Midrash Rabbah); together with a large number of collected Midrashim, such as the Yalkut, and a host of smaller works, several of which are no longer extant. (Abrahams, 57-58).
Here is a quick, vastly oversimplified summary:
a. The Temple fell in 70 C.E.
b. The Bible was written on scrolls, and read from scrolls, but most rabbinic teaching and commentary about the Bible was oral and relied on the spoken word and memory, not writing.
c. The earliest core written compilation of the oral rabbinic teachings is the Mishnah and it completed by the 3rd century C.E..
d. The Talmud, which contains much Rabbinical commentary on the Mishnah, and was compiled by about the 5th century C.E. (respecting the Jerusalem Talmud or about a century or two later respecting the Babylonian Talmud.)
e. Writing and collection of Midrash, or stories and legends as exposition on Scripture, begins with reports from early sermons, from about 70 C.E. to 200 C.E., and continued as a branch of Rabbinical literature, with many different collections and writings of Midrashim, or legends and stories, being written and compiled through medieval times.
3. Are there different kinds of Midrashim?
Holtz divides Midrashim into two basic types, halakah, dealing with laws and codes of behavior, and aggadah, which is more imaginative, and includes narrative literature, parables, theological or ethical statements and homilies. (Holtz, p. 178.) Within those categories, Holtz differentiates between homiletical Midrash, which is lengthy and sermon-like, exegetical Midrash, which is short, pithy commentary on individual verses of the Bible, and narrative Midrash, which often consists of stories and legends about individual rabbis or biblical characters. Holtz also discusses two common techniques, ‘creative historiography’ or imaginative ways of ‘filling in gaps’ or matters left unsaid in the Bible, and ‘creative philology’ or puns and wordplays used as a way of unlocking holiness in the Bible. Both techniques use subtleties in the Bible as ‘jumping off points’ for delving more deeply into a Bible passage. (Holtz, pp. 186-189.) Another valuable resource for reading more about these types of Midrashim and the common techniques for writing Midrashim is H. L. Strack and Gunter Stemberger’s book, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, Markus Bockmuehl, ed. and trans., (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996).
4. A Note About Recent Developments in Women’s Contemporary Midrash.
Judith Plaskow, in her book, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective, (New York: Harper & Row, 1990) notes that women’s history and experiences have largely been shrouded in silence. (Plaskow, p.1) Over the past several decades, efforts to recover women’s missing voices and perspectives have included feminist historical writing, which seeks to fill in the gaps and silences about women’s activities in history and to gain recognition of women’s history in women’s terms, using new categories and constructs. (Plaskow, pp. 36-37). Writing Midrash has also become an important mode of expression, connecting women’s history to their present religious experience. Plaskow points out, for example, that Miriam, Eve and Sarah have been favorite topics for the new stories. (Plaskow, pp. 56-57).
Over the last forty years, many wonderful and expressive new works have been written in this area. One of the most famous, that brought the concept of Midrash to thousands of people, is Anita Diamant’s book, The Red Tent, (New York: Picador USA, 1997), based on the story of Dinah in Genesis. Many of the advisors to this site have also authored works in this genre such as Jill Hammer’s book, Sinai Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women, (Jewish Publication Society, 2001), Ellen Frankel’s work, Five Books of Miriam: A Woman's Commentary on the Torah, (HarperOne, 1998), Naomi Hyman’s book, Biblical Women in the Midrash: A Sourcebook, (Jason Aronson Publishers, 1997), and Naomi Graetz's book, S/He Created Them: Feminist Retellings of Biblical Stories, (Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2003, First Edition, 1993). Others works in this genre include Penina Adelman’s, Praise Her Works: Conversations With Biblical Women, (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2005), Athalya Brenner’s, I Am . . .: Biblical Women Tell Their Own Stories, (Augsburg Fortress Press, 2004) and Norma Rosen’s, Biblical Women Unbound: Counter-Tales, (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996).
In her essay, Popular Fiction and the Limits of Modern Midrash, in the vol. 54, No. 3, Spring 2002 issue of Conservative Judaism, pp. 95-105, Simone Lotven Sofian advocates reservation of the term ‘Midrash’ to Jewish texts that reflect an awareness of the sacredness of the original biblical text and the creation of Midrash. (Sofian, p. 97). Because this website includes some non-Jewish texts, and invites original submissions from visitors to the site who may be members of many different faith traditions, any original works, submitted by visitors to the site and later posted on the site, will be referred to as ‘stories’ or ‘legends’ rather than ‘Midrash.’ Also, the following is a listing of some recent books that include new stories based on women in the Gospels, and because these are not written in the Jewish tradition they are mentioned here as new and interesting stories, not new Midrash. These works include Kathy Coffey’s Hidden Women of the Gospels, (Orbis Books, 2003), Lesley Hazelton’s, Mary, A Flesh and Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother, (Bloomsbury, USA, 2005), Margaret George’s Mary Called Magdelene, (Penguin, 2003) and Katerina Katsarka Whitley’s, Seeing For Ourselves: Biblical Women Who Met Jesus, (Morehouse, 2002).
This site, in addition to posting original stories and legends submitted by visitors to the site, will, when permission from authors and publishers can be obtained, showcase some of the stories and legends written during the past several decades. Because permissions can often be difficult to obtain, the site will often instead quote Midrashim from the first two volumes of a collection and interpretation by Louis Ginzberg, 1873-1953, translated into English by Henrietta Szold, in a series entitled The Legends of the Jews. Volume one was published in America, in English, in 1909, and the second volume was published in America in 1910. Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol. 1, Bible Times and Characters From the Creation to Jacob, trans. Henrietta Szold, (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909,) and Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol. 2, From Joseph to the Exodus, trans. Henrietta Szold, (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1910.) © 2007 Lynn S. Clarke
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