The famous episode from the Alexander Romance concerning Alexander’s flight-apparatus (2.41 = Stoneman 1991: 123), and his realization that the world was in fact round, was used in the High-Middle-Age commentary Tosfot (on 41a) to demonstrate why a statue bearing a globe is not to be treated as mere decoration but rather to be shunned as an idol. The story of Alexander’s flight cited by the Tosfot appears in Talmud Yerushalmi ┽Avodah Zarah 3.1 (42.3). See further in Amitay (2010: 72-73, 191-192). The text given here appears in Bavli Tamid 31b-32b. Most of it is written in Aramaic. Some portions, are in Hebrew. Also paralleled in Ben-Zoma by Mishnah Avot 4.1.
The first concerns the nature of the twain works in question: the Talmud Bavli and the Alexander Romance. Despite the very obvious differences between these two literary phenomena – one is a universal, multicultural adventure story; the other a particularly Jewish compendium of lore, legend and law – they nevertheless share a deep-rooted literary common ground. To begin, both works are composed of independent units, which can be, and indeed are, read and studied for their own sake, not necessarily as part of the whole. In addition, both share to some degree a sense of timelessness, with many events taking place in Spatium Mythicum. In other words, the happenstance and action reported by either text do not necessarily appear in chronological order, nor do they seem to follow any organized temporal scheme. These two literary corpora are thus well-equipped to communicate and negotiate with one another. It would be stating the obvious to add that any such communication and borrowing from one work to the other is hardly accidental. On the contrary, we may expect it to be motivated by the interests and predilections of the various authors, compilers and recensors. The second observation regards the evolution of the Alexander story in tractate Tamid. Even a superficial reading of the text reveals its complex and layered composition, with multiplicity of language, speakers and sources of inspiration. Indeed, modern scholarship has tried to break the text down in the attempt to identify and date its various components (Lévi (1883: 78-84); Wallach (1941).
- The time of Bavli Tamid’s formation, in the 6th or 7th century CE, as a single coherent unit. Three surviving manuscripts of Bavli Tamid: Florence 7 (1177 CE); Oxford 370 (14th cent. Ashkenaz); Vatican 120 (14th cent. Ashkenaz).
- The first segment of the Alexander story in Bavli Tamid does not come from the Romance proper, but rather parallels the famous episode of Alexander’s conference with the Gymnosophists, which appears also in the historical tradition of Alexander, and survives in three main sources: Papyrus Berlin 13044 (2nd or 1st BC); Plutarch’s Life of Alexander 64 (c. 100 CE); and the Metz Epitome 78-84 (of uncertain date). A comparison of Bavli Tamid with the VV displays both close similarities and interesting differences. The obvious similarity is that the framework story is the same: Alexander confers with a group of ten sages who are somehow opposed to him, engaging them in a riddle contest. The sages manage to outsmart Alexander, who in turn respects their wisdom and cleverness, and makes his peace with them. The first and most obvious difference is the disengagement of the Tamid plot from its Indian context, and the replacement of the Gymnosophists with the Elders of the Negev. According to Plutarch and the Metz Epitome, the Indian Gymnosophists provided the ideological motivation for the policy of resistance practiced by the king of the Malloi – one of Alexander’s fiercest enemies in the Indus valley.
This armed conflict caused Alexander and his men grave difficulties and wasted innumerable lives, nearly costing Alexander his own. Since Tamid removes the Gymnosophists from the story, and does away with the Indian context altogether, the most pressing question becomes: Who are the Elders of the Negev? Provenance of text: The Hebrew word negev stands for a dry place. In relation to EretzIsraeli geography it refers to the desert at the southern end of the land, and hence is generally used as a synonym for “south”. Closer to the case at hand, in Daniel 11: 5-40 “Negev” stands for Ptolemaic Egypt. Given the fact that out story continues from the meeting with the Elders of the Negev to the land of Africa, Egypt seems a reasonable and likely identification. Alexander first reached the Indus river system, he thought that he had found the sources of the Nile (Nearchos in Strabo 15.1.25; Arrian 6.1.2-5). A second issue which comes to the fore is that of identity. Are the Elders of the Negev Jewish? Although the text never makes this explicit statement, it casually has the Elders respond to Alexander’s questions with verses from the Torah and wise dicta from the Mishnah. From the silence of the narrative voice on this score we may plausibly surmise that the author(s) thought the Jewishness of the Elders too obvious to require an explicit statement. Alexander’s line of argument in Tamid opens with three cosmological questions, which are quite different from his opening questions in the VV. In terms of its own frame of reference, the cosmological issues correspond to the general interest of tractate Tamid in similar questions, with special attention given to the practical consequences of the answers for the everyday operation of the Jerusalem Temple. It may possibly be the reason why this Alexander story was assigned particularly to this place in tractate (Tamid Steinsaltz (2007: ad loc.).
The third question is also the first which has a clear parallel in the VV. In Tamid Alexander asks whether light was created first, or darkness. In the VV a strongly reminiscent question – which came first, Night or Day? – appears in fifth place. This parallel gives us an interesting insight into the correspondence between the two traditions. To begin, the terminology of the Tamid version has been adapted to fit Genesis 1:2-3. This literary move is thus borrowed from the VV to Tamid but is used differently. And while we are left to guess at the intentions of the compiler of the original Jewish text, the secondary redactional layer, with which we are concerned here, gives a straight answer: the Elders of the Negev were afraid that if they continued to provide him with answers to his cosmological queries, Alexander would in turn continue to inquire about Creation and find out the secrets of Life, the Universe and Everything.
- Having tested the waters with cosmology, Alexander moves in the next two questions to human subjects.
- The last segment of the Tamid story brings Alexander to the spring of the water of life, and through it to the gates of Heaven. Frustratingly, this last episode, the dramatic climax of the Tamid Alexander story, is also the most truncated and elliptic of the entire narrative. Be that as it may, Tamid clearly follows the story of the Greek Romance (2.39-41) in its basic details: a salted fish is washed in a spring containing the water of life; Alexander ascends to Heaven; he is rebuked by a supernatural being and consequently returns to earth. The keys to understanding the Gate of Heaven episode lie in the differences between the Romance and Tamid and in the context of the biblical verse cited by the gatekeeper.
In both narratives, the miracle of the fish serves to inform Alexander about the special quality of the water of life. For the water of life in Islamic tradition and a possible answer as to why the fish is said to be “whitened” by the water, see Casari (2006: 227-228; 2011). More on the fish motif and its connection with the ascension to heaven in Abdullaeva (2009/10). However, in the Romance this information is discovered by Alexander’s cook, Andreas, and is kept a secret. Only later, when the spring had been left behind, does Andreas disclose his secret to Alexander, who is consumed by grief at the missed opportunity to gain immortality. In Tamid, on the other hand, it is Alexander who handles the fish and discovers the secret of the water of life. Unlike the Romance, where Alexander is failed by a henchman, in Tamid he is given a fair opportunity to vie for immortality. The outcome of the story would not be decided by others, but by Alexander himself! And while in the Romance Alexander decides on an ascension to Heaven without a direct causal relation to the fish episode, in Tamid the ascension is a direct result of the discovery of the water of life.
At the end of the day, Alexander, for all his good qualities, fails in the last test. Where humility means immortality, he cannot forego his natural Heroic hybris. The Tamid story, which begins as a semi-historical narrative and continues as a part of the Romance thus ends as a tragedy. This shift of genre, and the end it spells for Alexander, are rather surprising. Despite the antagonistic departure point of the plotline, Alexander appears for the most part as a positive figure.
Alexander spontaneously prostrates himself before the Jewish High-Priest, thus establishing proper deference to the God of Israel. This point is emphasized further in Josephus, Antiquities 11.333, where Alexander states openly that he bowed down not before the High-Priest but rather before the God he represented. Even more so in the Parma Ms of Megillat Ta┽anit on Kislev 21st (Noam 2003: 100-103, 262-265), where Alexander’s perplexed followers ask him: “To this man do you prostrate yourself? Why, he is nothing but a son of man!” This text of Megillat Ta┽anit – yet another product of Babylonian rabbinic Judaism – thus shares the basic assumption of the Greek and Latin authors: proskynesis is due only to the Divine.
Leave a Reply