Chronicles of Jerahmeel
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The Chronicles of Jerahmeel is a Hebrew collection of Jewish history texts covering a period of time between the creation of the earth and the death of Judas Maccabeus in 160 BCE.{{Cite book |last=Asher (ha-Leṿi) |first=Elʻazar ben |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=swIXAAAAIAAJ |title=The Chronicles of Jeraḥmeel: Or, The Hebrew Bible Historiale : Being a Collection of Apocryphal and Pseudo-epigraphical Books Dealing with the History of the World from the Creation to the Death of Judas Maccabeus |date=1899 |publisher=Royal Asiatic Society |editor-last=Gaster |editor-first=Moses |language=en}} The primary author Jerahmeel or Yeraḥme’el ben Solomon is believed to have lived in 12th century in Southern Italy.{{Citation |last=Dönitz |first=Saskia |title=The Hebrew Manuscripts of Sefer Yosippon |date=2024-05-31 |work=From Josephus to Yosippon and Beyond |pages=169–210 |url=https://brill.com/display/book/9789004693296/BP000017.xml |access-date=2025-06-04 |publisher=Brill |language=en |isbn=978-90-04-69329-6}} It is a composite text or an anthology that contains in part the historiographical Yosippon. A later compiler Eleazar ben Asher ha-Levi assembled it around 1325.{{Cite journal |last=Reiner |first=Jacob |date=1969 |title=The Original Hebrew Yosippon in the Chronicle of Jerahmeel |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1453665 |journal=The Jewish Quarterly Review |volume=60 |issue=2 |pages=128–146 |doi=10.2307/1453665 |jstor=1453665 |issn=0021-6682|url-access=subscription }}
Description
This voluminous work draws largely on Pseudo-Philo's earlier history of Biblical events and is of special interest because it includes Hebrew and Aramaic versions of certain deuterocanonical books in the Septuagint.
The book was compiled in Germany in the 1300s.{{Cite web |title=Chronicles of Jerahmeel |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chronicles-of-Jerahmeel |access-date=2025-06-04 |website=Britannica |language=en}} The Chronicles were published in English as [https://books.google.com/books?id=GwPVMv0NxMQC&q=%22Chronicles+of+Jerahmeel%22 The Chronicles of Jerahmeel Or, the Hebrew Bible Historiale] by the Royal Asiatic Society, translated by Moses Gaster, 1899. Gaster stated in his extensive preface his view (p. xx) that the Chronicles were compiled from several Hebrew sources, some quite ancient and others more recent.
The actual compiler of the chronicles identifies himself as "Eleasar ben Asher the Levite" who, according to Gaster, lived in the Rhineland in the 14th century. The most recent events depicted in the Chronicles refer to the time of the Crusades, but the entire rest of it pertains to the period before 70 CE.{{Cite web |title=Chronicles of Jerahmeel : The Hebrew Bible Historiale by Gaster, M. |url=https://www.abebooks.com/9781463652739/Chronicles-Jerahmeel-Hebrew-Bible-Historiale-1463652739/plp |access-date=2025-06-04 |website=ABE Books |language=en}} Among the early sources quoted in the work is the 1st century Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus.
Gaster explained that he chose to title it "Chronicles of Jerahmeel" instead of "Chronicles of Eleasar" because of his analysis that Eleasar was merely a compiler, while Jeraḥmeel is the source most extensively reproduced, following the Yosippon which is otherwise extant. {{Cite web |title=Jerahmeel ben Solomon |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/jerahmeel-ben-solomon |access-date=2025-06-04 |website=Encyclopedia.com}}
References
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External links
- [http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/coj/index.htm The Chronicles of Jerahmeel at sacred-texts]
- [https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofjera00eleaiala The Chronicles of Jerahmeel at archive.org]
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Category:Hebrew-language chronicles
Category:Old Testament pseudepigrapha
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