Seder Olam Rabbah
It adds no stories beyond what is in the biblical text, and addresses such questions as the age of Isaac at his binding and the number of years that Joshua led the Israelites.
[2] In the Babylonian Talmud this chronicle is several times referred to simply as Seder Olam,[3] and it is quoted as such by the more ancient biblical commentators, including Rashi.
The work is a chronological record, extending from Adam to the revolt of Bar Kokba in the reign of Hadrian, the Persian period being compressed into 52 years.
The author probably designed the work for calendrical purposes, to determine the era of the creation; his system, adopted as early as the 3rd century CE, is still followed.
[17] After dealing in the first 10 chapters with the chronology of the period from the creation of the world to the death of Moses, the writer proceeds to determine the dates of the events which occurred after the Israelites, led by Joshua, entered the Holy Land.
The work places two events in the Book of Judges whose date is unclear (the making of the image for Micah[19] and Battle of Gibeah episode[20]) in the time of Othniel.
In chapter 20, which closes the second part ("Baba Meẓia"), the author deals with the forty-eight prophets that flourished in the land of Israel.
Beginning with Joshua, the author reviews the whole prophetic period which terminated with Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, elucidating as he proceeds many obscure points.
According to Seder Olam, the prophecy of Obadiah occurred in the time of Amaziah[27] and those of Joel, Nahum, and Habakkuk in the reign of Manasseh.
Several vital clues are provided by the 2nd-century authors of Seder Olam and the Tosefta, as to the placement of events in relation to the Jubilee and seven year cycle.
[28][29][30] Since, according to Jewish oral tradition, the destruction of the First Temple occurred in 422 BCE,[31][32] a year which also corresponded to the 1st-year of the seven-year cycle,[33][34] scholars have sought to plot all events described in the Hebrew Scriptures based on these reference points.
[94] Aside from the disparity between the traditional Jewish method of dating Nebuchadnezzar's year of ascension (put at 441 BCE) and the conventional method of dating for Nebuchadnezzar's first-year of reign (put at 605 BCE) – a disparity of 164 years, there are also historic discrepancies in the chronological list of successive Babylonian kings mentioned by Seder Olam.
[99] Moreover, the actual number of years given for the kings' individual reigns is not mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, and is only had either through the record of Berossus, as transmitted by Josephus, or else by those contradictory figures given in the Talmud.
In his Judeo-Arabic commentary on the Book of Daniel (9:2), he begins by explaining what is meant by accomplishing "seventy years in the desolation of Jerusalem," saying that this seventy-year period refers not to the destruction of Jerusalem, per se, but rather to the Kingdom of Babylon,[100] in accordance with the biblical verse: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will remember you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place" (Jeremiah 29:10).
The same event is explained in 2 Kings 25:27 as meaning that Jehoiachin was released "in the year that he (Evil-merodach) began to reign" (Hebrew: בשנת מלכו).
[95] Chroniclers have largely rejected Seder Olam's method of assigning regnal years for the Babylonian kings and have relied, instead, on Berossus and on other archaeological records.
According to one Jewish tradition, the seventy-year period of exile commences with the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, and concludes with the rise of Cyrus the Great who ordered the rebuilding of Jerusalem.
[113] Persia's hegemonic power over the nation of Israel, according to Seder Olam, is said to have extended until the rise of Alexander the Great.
[117] These three Persian kings, from the end of Israel's exile under the Babylonians until the foundation of the Temple was laid in 356 BCE, spanned a period of 19 years.
This time-frame, therefore, does not signify the end of the dynasties in Persia, but rather of their rule and hegemony over Israel before Alexander the Great rose to power.
The difficulty besetting this explanation, however, lies in the fact that from Darius I who laid the foundation of the Second Temple to Alexander the Great, who brought an end to Persian hegemony over Israel, there are collected no less than 190 years.
The beginning of this period is reckoned during Herod the Great's reign in 35 BC and ends in 68 CE with the destruction of the Second Temple (based on Jewish computations).
[5] Other scholars say that in Seder Olam Jose preserved the generally accepted opinions, even when they were contrary to his own, as indicated in Niddah 46b, and that, like all works of the ancient Talmudists, it underwent alternations in copying.
A careful examination shows that certain additions are later than the latest midrashim, and it may be that Abraham ibn Yarḥi,[169] Isaac Lattes,[170] and Menahem Meïri,[171] who seem to place the redaction of Seder Olam at the time when the Massektot (tractates) Derek Ereẓ Rabbah, the Derek Ereẓ Zuṭa, the Soferim, and other later treatises were composed, may have referred to the work in its present form.
A passage in Seder Olam (chapter 30) describing the 420 years of four hegemonic powers (Persian, Grecian, Hasmonean and Herodian) appears almost verbatim in the Babylonian Talmud.
