You can’t go home again: the Bavli’s story of Honi’s big sleep as inversion of the Yerushalmi’s account
This article presents an original reading of the Bavli account of Honi’s 70-year sleep. It argues that printed editions present a corrupt reading of Honi’s initial statement, which originally read ‘Seventy years like a dream!’, expressing Honi’s existential dread of his own mortality. The story must...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2021
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| In: |
Journal of Jewish studies
Year: 2021, Volume: 72, Issue: 2, Pages: 257-282 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article presents an original reading of the Bavli account of Honi’s 70-year sleep. It argues that printed editions present a corrupt reading of Honi’s initial statement, which originally read ‘Seventy years like a dream!’, expressing Honi’s existential dread of his own mortality. The story must further be understood as a conscious inversion of the Yerushalmi’s version of the tale, rejecting the Yerushalmi’s optimistic vision of the role of individual holy men in Jewish history in favour of a tragic account of individual loneliness. |
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| ISSN: | 2056-6689 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of Jewish studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.18647/3503/jjs-2021 |
