Though probably originally from South Arabia,[1] he professed to be a citizen of an "independent Jewish state" in East Africa, inhabited by people claiming descent from the lost Tribes of Dan, Asher, Gad, and Naphtali.
Eldad visited Babylonia, Kairouan, and Iberia, where he spread fanciful accounts of the Ten Lost Tribes and halakhot which he claimed he had brought from his native country.
A great storm wrecked the boat, but God prepared a box for him and his companion, on which they floated until thrown ashore among a cannibal Ethiopian tribe called Romrom.
[3]: 7–8 Now with the Tribe of Issachar, who "live in peace and comfort and there is no disturber and no evil chance" under the leadership of a prince called Naḥshon, Eldad dwelled among high mountains near Media and Persia.
[3]: 8–9 The tribe of Dan emigrated to the land of gold, Havilah (Kush), shortly after the separation of Judah and Israel.
[10] The gaon Ẓemaḥ ben Hayyim of Sura, whose opinion they had asked, soothed them by saying that there was nothing astonishing in the four tribes disagreeing with the Talmud on some halakic points.
[11] However, many writers of the Middle Ages expressed doubts as to the genuineness of Eldad's narrative and his halakhot, most explicitly Abraham ibn Ezra (Commentary to Exodus ii.
This opinion was refuted by Moses Schorr and Adolf Jellinek, who observed that Eldad's halakhot contain rules of shechita not accepted by the Karaites.
Jacob Reifmann denied outright the existence of Eldad,[citation needed] and considered the letters of the community of Kairwan and of Ẓemaḥ ben Ḥayyim of Sura to be forgeries.
[4] Abraham Epstein followed Metz's method, and came to the conclusion that Eldad's book is like a historical novel in which truth is mixed with fiction.
Later authors have made the connection between the Jewish names Eldad mentioned in his travels to a codex published in the mid-twentieth century.
[15] The influence of Eldad's narrative extended beyond Jewish circles, and some sources link it to the Prester John letters.
According to the letters, Prester John's subjects included some Jewish tribes, such as the Bnei Moshe who dwelt beyond the River Sambation.
[17] Eldad's travels have been published from the various existing versions: Mantua (1480); Constantinople (1516, 1519); Venice (1544, 1605, 1648); Fürth, with a Yiddish translation by S. H. Weil (1769); Zolkiev (1772); Jessnitz (1772); Leghorn (1828); and Presburg (1891).
[18] Eldad's narrative was translated into Latin by Gilbert Génébrard (Paris, 1584), and anonymously, into Arabic (St. Petersburg MSS.
An English translation can be found in Elkan Adler's Jewish Travellers in the Middle Ages: 19 Firsthand Accounts (1930, repr.