Megillat Taanit (), lit. "the Scroll of Fasting," is an ancient text, in the form of a chronicle, which enumerates 35 eventful days on which Jews either performed glorious deeds or witnessed joyful events. Despite the scroll's name, these were celebrated as feast days. Public mourning was forbidden on fourteen of them and public fasting on all.
The work was probably written late in the Second Temple period, perhaps from 40–70 CE in the 1st century. The last event dated without dispute is Emperor Caligula's order to place a statue of himself in the Second Temple (). A few scholars think it references events after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. References to it in other literature suggest it certainly existed by the 2nd century. The author is unknown, although various rabbinic works speculate on how it was composed.
History of the feast days The events described therein date to several periods: the pre-Hasmonean period, the Hasmonean period, the early Roman period, and the period of the First Jewish–Roman War, with the majority of the entries relating to the Hasmonean period. Almost half of theses events cannot be conclusively identified. Nearly all commemorate victories in battle, especially those events centered around the Hasmonean period.
The days are enumerated, not in the chronological order of the events they commemorate, but in the sequence of the calendar. Megillat Taanit contains twelve chapters, each chapter contains the memorial days of a single month, beginning with Nisan (the first calendar month), and ending with Adar.Jewish Encyclopedia Article for Megillat Taanit, by Isidore Singer and Jacob Zallel Lauterbach.
While J. Schmilg argued that these memorial days become festivals by being incorporated and recorded in Megillat Taanit,Ueber die Entstehung und den Historischen Werth des Siegeskalenders Megillat Ta'anit, pp. 11–20 later scholarship has concluded that the days had been known and celebrated by the people long before that time (as Schmilg himself was forced to admit in the case of some of them). The celebration of these festivals or semi-festivals existed as early as the time of the Book of Judith. The compilers of Megillat Taanit merely listed the memorial days and, at the same time, determined that a mere suspension of fasting should celebrate the less important, while public mourning was to be forbidden on the more important ones.
Structure In most editions, Megillat Taanit consists of two parts, which are distinct in language and in form, namely: The text or Megillat Taanit proper, written in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and containing merely brief outlines in a concise style. It dates to the Tannaitic period. The scholium or commentary on the text, written in Hebrew. This was written much later - in the seventh century or later, as shown by its author having before him the text of both the Talmuds as well as that of Bereshit Rabbah.Compare Brann, l.c. pp. 410-418, 445-451
The many quotations from Megillat Taanit in the Talmud are all taken from the Aramaic text and are introduced by the word "ketib" = "it is written".As in Hullin 129b; Megillah 5b; Ta'anit 12a and 18b This text, which had been committed to writing and was generally known,Eruvin 62 was explained and interpreted in the same way as the Bible.Yerushalmi Ta'anit 2 66a The Talmud does not include a single quotation from the scholium.In Ta'anit 12a, the single passage, "bi-Megillat Ta'anit," from which Schmilg tries to prove that the Talmud quotes the scholium as well as Megillat, is a later addition (compare Brann, l.c. pp. 457 et seq.), and is not found in the Munich manuscript (compare Rabbinowitz, Ha-Meassef, iii. 63). Although the comments in the scholium are mentioned in the Talmud, they are not credited to Megillat Taanit. They are quoted as independent baraitot, so the scholium took them from the Talmud, not vice versa. Schmilg provides references intended to prove an earlier origin for the scholium;l.c. pp. 36–41 However, these sources merely prove that the scholiast intended to make his work pass for a product of the tannaitic period.
As the text and the scholium of Megillat Taanit are distinct in form and language, they also differ in historical accuracy. The text is an actual historical source whose statements may be regarded as authentic, while its dates are reliable if interpreted independently of the scholium. On the other hand, the scholium is of very doubtful historical value and must be used with extreme caution. Although it contains some reliable baraitot, the compiler has mixed them with other ahistorical accounts and legends so that even those data whose legendary character has not been proved can be credited only when confirmed by internal and external evidence.
In some editions, a third section appears: the "final discourse" (Hebrew ma'amar aharon), which lists days on which one should fast (in contrast to the rest of Megillat Taanit, which lists days on which fasting is forbidden). This section dates to the period of the Geonim.
Authorship of the Aramaic text
The Talmud and the scholium to Megillat Taanit itself provide slightly different accounts of the authorship of Megillat Taanit: According to a baraita in the Talmud, "Hananiah ben Hezekiah of the Garon family, together with a number of others who had assembled for a synod at his house, compiled Megillat Ta'anit."Shabbat 13b According to Halakhot Gedolot, "Hilkot Soferim", the members of this synod were elders of the Houses of Hillel and Shammai.ed. Vienna, p. 104; ed. Zolkiev, p. 82c Megillat Taanit must have been composed, therefore, about the year 7 CE, when Judea was made a Roman province, to the great indignation of the Jews.compare Schmilg, l.c. pp. 20–36 This calendar of victories was intended to fan the spark of liberty among the people and to fill them with confidence and courage by reminding them of the victories of the Maccabees and the divine aid granted to the Jewish nation against the heathen. The scholium to Megillat Taanit says: "Eleazar ben Hanania of the family of Garon together with his followers compiled Megillat Taanit."Megillat Ta'anit, 12, end, evidently quoting an old baraita This Eleazar took a noteworthy part in the beginning of the revolt against the Romans, vanquishing the garrison at Jerusalem, as well as Herod Agrippa II's troops, and Menahem's Sicarii. According to this account, therefore, Megillat Taanit was composed by the Zealots after the year 66 CE, during the revolution.H. Grätz, Gesch. iii., note 26; although it is not necessary to correct the Talmudic account to agree with the scholium, and to read, as does Grätz, in Shabbat 13b, "Eleazar b. Hananiah," instead of "Hananiah."
Modern scholarship rejects Schmilg's view that the scholium is incorrect since there is both internal and external evidence in favor of its authenticity.
The account in the Talmud and that in the scholium may both be accepted since not only Hananiah, the father but also Eleazar, the son, contributed to the compilation of the work. Eleazar, one of the central figures in the war against the Romans, endeavored to strengthen the national consciousness of his people by continuing his father's work and increased the number of memorial days in the collection to remind the people how God had always helped them and had given them the victory over external and internal enemies.
Interpolations Eleazar did not, however, complete the work. Several days were subsequently added to the list, which was definitively closed in Usha, as is proved by the fact that the 12th of Adar is designated as "Trajan's Day," and the 29th of that month as "the day on which the persecutions of Hadrian ceased".Compare Brann in Monatsschrift, 1876, p. 379 Furthermore, Simeon ben Gamaliel II, who was nasi at Usha, says that "If we should turn all the days on which we have been saved from some danger into holidays, and list them in Megillat Ta'anit, we could not satisfy ourselves; for we should be obliged to turn nearly every day into a festival."Shabbat 13b; compare Rashi ad loc. This indicates that the work was completed at Usha at the time of Simeon ben Gamaliel, so no further memorial days might be added.
The scholion The scholion is written in Mishnaic Hebrew combined with some more ancient terminology; there are also some influences from later Babylonian Aramaic. Some stories in the scholion are ancient and reliable, mentioning historical facts nowhere else in Tannaic literature, while others are midrashim taken from various sources.
Vered Noam has shown that the scholion currently printed is a medieval hybrid of two independently written commentaries, nicknamed "Scholion O" and "Scholion P", after the Oxford and Parma manuscripts in which they are found. Often these two commentaries contradict each other, offering entirely different stories for the origin of a holiday. In general, Scholion O has more overlap with Genesis Rabbah, the Talmud Yerushalmi, and other sources from Israel, while Scholion P is closer to Babylonian sources. The current Scholion, nicknamed the "Hybrid Version," was created in the 9th or 10th centuries by combining Scholia O and P.
Scholia O and P may be just two examples of a genre of commentaries on Megillat Taanit, with a partial scholion in the Babylonian Talmud being a third example, and the other examples not surviving.
Editions and commentaries Megillat Taanit is extant in many editions and has had numerous commentaries. The best edition of the Aramaic and Hebrew text is that of Vered Noam, which has supplanted A. Neubauer's as the authoritative work in the field. In addition to meticulous philological scholarship, Noam's edition includes rich annotation and a groundbreaking interpretation of stemmatic history.
Of commentaries the following may be mentioned: Abraham ben Joseph ha-Levi, double commentary (Amsterdam, 1656); Judah ben Menahem, double commentary (Dyhernfurth, 1810); Johann Meyer, Latin language translation published in his Tractatus de Temporibus, etc. (Amsterdam, 1724). Derenbourg and Schwab have made French versions of the Aramaic text.
Selected entries Among the dates penned in Megillat Taanit and which were all forbidden to fast thereon, and for others also forbidden to lament the dead thereon, are to be noted the following:
"And from the eighth day thereof (i.e. the lunar month of Nisan) until the end of the [last] festival day [of Passover], the Feast of Weeks (Shavu'ot) was restored, [being days on which] it is prohibited to mourn" [Original Aramaic: ] [Excursus: This episode has been explained by Rashi in Babylonian Talmud (Taanit 17b, s.v. ) to mean the vindication of the Pharisees over the Boethusians in the days of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, when the Boethusians held the errant view that the people of Israel are to only begin counting the seven weeks, or 49 days of the Counting of the Omer, after the first Sabbath that follows the first Festival Day of Passover, which method would invariably cause a delay in the counting, and push back further the Feast of Weeks (Shavu'ot) which falls on the 50th day. According to the Pharisees, on the other hand, whose opinion is Halacha, the Counting of the Omer begins immediately following the first Festival Day of Passover, which happens to be the Sabbath day of rest spoken of in , that is to say, Passover itself, and they begin the counting on the following day, on the 16th day of the lunar month Nisan, in which case the festival day known as the Feast of Weeks will always fall on the 6th day of the lunar month Sivan. When Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai prevailed over the Boethusians at this time, the days were commemorated as a semi-holiday; Shavu'ot being restored to its former time of observance.] "On the twenty-third day of the same (i.e. the lunar month of Iyar), the inhabitants of the Citadel (Acra) departed from Jerusalem" [Original Aramaic: ]