Temple Dedication Assessment: Redaction and Transmission; Toward the Resolution of an Enigmatic Talmud Yerushalmi Sugya

Abstract

Scholars have devoted relatively little attention to the development and redaction of the Talmud Yerushalmi. This is understandable, as scholars are generally more concerned with solving the Yerushalmi’s severe textual and exegetical problems than with questions of redaction. Moreover, almost everything we know about the Yerushalmi’s development and redaction is based on literary analysis of its sugyot. Thus questions of redaction are aggravated by exegetical difficulties and vice versa. Here I propose a solution to two problematic parallel pericopae. This solution may also afford us a rare glimpse into the activity of the redactor, in his attempt to merge two conflicting sugyot revolving about the same subject matter.