Avot De-Rabbi Natan: Synoptische Edition Beider Versionen (review)

Hebrew Studies 49 (2008) 363 Reviews AVOT DE-RABBI NATAN: SYNOPTISCHE EDITION BEIDER VERSIONEN. Edited by Hans-Jürgen Becker and Christoph Berner. Pp. xxvii + 409. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006. Cloth,
279. $361.00. A new scholarly edition of Avot de-Rabbi Nathan (Avot R. Nat.) marks a new chapter in the long publishing history of this rabbinic text. Avot R. Nat. was first printed in 1550, in Venice, as part of M. A. Justiniani’s Talmud Bavli. Justiniani placed it after Nezikin among other so-called “minor tractates .” The editors of the Vilna print of the Talmud Bavli at the Romm press (1880–1886) used the Venetian editio princeps of Avot R. Nat. and amended it according to the version of the Tummat Yesharim (Venice, 1622). Equally placed after Nezikin, the Vilna Avot R. Nat. became the textus receptus. In 1887, Solomon Schechter published a critical edition of Avot R. Nat. that stands as a landmark in the history of scholarship on this text, and of scholarship in general: as far as I know, it was the first truly critical edition of any rabbinic text (Aboth de Rabbi Nathan: hujus libri recensiones duas collatis variis apud bibliothecas et publicas et privatas codicibus edidit, prooemium notas appendices indicesque addidit Salomon Schechter, London, Vienna, and Frankfurt, 1887 [Hebrew]). Schechter identified two distinct versions of Avot R. Nat., dubbing them a ajswn and b (S. Schechter, Aboth de Rabbi Nathan, pp. xx–xxiv), henceforth commonly called ARN A and B. While Schechter used the textus receptus in the Vilna print of the Bavli as his basis for ARN A, he argued for ARN B to be a more original form of Avot R. Nat. (S. Schechter, Aboth de Rabbi Nathan)—an insight most emphatically endorsed by M. B. Lerner (in Sh. Safrai, ed., The Literature of the Sage, First Part: Oral Tora, Halakha, Mishna, Tosefta, Talmud, External Tractates [Maastricht and Philadelphia: Van Gorcum and Fortress Press, 1987], p. 376). In his edition, Schechter sought to present version A and B alongside each other, giving the false impression of a structural compatibility of the two. Schechter furthermore, following the trends of New Testament scholarship of his time, presented an eclectic text of each of the two versions without allowing the reader fully to reconstruct the respective manuscripts he used. Menahem Kister reprinted Schechter’s edition in 1997, along with useful additions and a detailed commentary on Schechter’s editing techniques (Avoth de-Rabbi Nathan, Solomon Schechter Edition with References to Parallels in the Two Versions and to the Addenda in the Schechter Edition, Prolegomenon by Menahem Kister [in Hebrew; New York and Jerusalem: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1997]). In 1998, Kister published a detailed study of the textual and reception histories of Avot R. Nat. (M. Kister, Studies in Avot de-Rabbi Nathan: Text, Redaction, and Interpretation [in Hebrew; Jerusalem: The Hebrew University and Yad Hebrew Studies 49 (2008) 364 Reviews Izhak ben-Zvi, 1998]). Kister included a description of the extant primary and secondary text witnesses, that is the manuscripts and editions of Avot R. Nat. proper, and the citations and parallels of the text in other medieval sources. Partially based on the secondary sources, Kister identified a more complex transmission history within ARN A. He emphasized the independent status of the work’s division and wording in Ms. New York (JTS) Rab. 25, as compared to Ms. Oxford (Bodleiana) Opp. 95 (Neubauer 408) and Ms. New York (JTS) 10484 (Epstein), which are closer to the textus receptus (M. Kister, Studies in Avot, pp. 23–80). Suggesting a new critical edition based on his insights, Kister expressed his concern that on the one hand, any conventional critical edition would cause “twasryg ypwlyj lC Kbs” (A thicket of parallel readings; M. Kister, Studies in Avot, p. 79) in the critical apparatus. On the other hand, however, his own unpublished creation of a full synopsis of Avot R. Nat., including all secondary witnesses (see M. Kister, Studies in Avot, p. 6), led him to believe that such a format would necessarily be “srk-bo” (corpulent; M. Kister, Studies in Avot, p. 79). Instead, Kister called for a separation of ARN A...