Saadiah Gaon

For over 150 years, scholars have debated a fascinating question: To what extent did the Geonim—the heads of the great academies of Sura and Pumbedita—engage with the Jerusalem Talmud? The Geonim saw themselves as the guardians and transmitters of the Babylonian Talmud, which became the dominant text of Jewish law. But was the Yerushalmi, composed in the Land of Israel, also part of their intellectual world?

Most Genizah fragments are damaged – “torn”, “stained”, “rubbed”, “faded” occur frequently in Genizah catalogues – but some fragments are more damaged than others. Ink corrosion can destroy a text almost completely. A page torn vertically is harder to make sense of than one torn horizontally. It is especially frustrating but also tantalising when writing is preserved but earlier conservation work has, through error or a misunderstanding, obscured it.

Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 55 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in April 2008, by Stefan C. Reif, Emeritus Professor of Medieval Hebrew at the University of Cambridge, and founder of the Genizah Research Unit:

Nadia, you’re starting a new project today. Can you tell us about it?

This new project, entitled “Saadya Gaon’s works on the Jewish calendar: Near Eastern sources and transmission to the West”, is a collaboration between UCL, London and LMU, Munich, and is funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. The project is led by Professors Sacha Stern and Ronny Vollandt, with me as the research associate.

So, Ben what are you working on today?

Hi Zvi, which manuscript are you working on today?

I’m looking at a couple of Genizah manuscripts. In general, I’m now dealing with witches.

Are these magical texts or responsa about witches?

They’re theological texts, on the relations between witches and theologians – not personal relations but of an academic nature. Witchcraft and witches were challenging topics for Jewish rational theologians and they addressed it in their writings. The most challenging case was the biblical story of the Witch of Endor and King Saul.