[4] There are many different recensions of Midrash Tanhuma, although the main ones are the standard printed edition, first published in Constantinople in 1520/1522 (and then again in Venice in 1545 and Mantua in 1563), and the Buber recension,[5] published by Salomon Buber in 1885 based on the manuscript MS Oxford Neubauer 154 for the base text as well as four other Oxford manuscripts.
[6] One study collects the following list of recensions:[7] Previously, it was thought that the Tanhuma may be as late as the High Middle Ages[8] and many favored a 10th-century date.
[10] On the other hand, Tzvi Meir Rabbinowitz has concluded that Yannai, who operated in Palestine prior to the Islamic conquests, made use of the two extant and one lost Tanhuma, and his findings suggest that a significant portion of the Tanhuma material can be dated as pre-Islamic.
[14] Tikkun-Sofrim, a system that integrates automatic handwritten text recognition with manual, crowdsourced error correction has been used to digitize several manuscripts of the Midrash Tanhuma.
Its homilies on Genesis are original, although they contain several revised passages from the standard version as well as from the Yelammedenu, the Babylonian Talmud being largely drawn upon for additional interpretations and expositions.
The part referring to Exodus is borrowed almost entirely from the Yelammedenu, with the exception of the Vayakhel and Pekudei sections, which contain homilies not embodied in the lost work.
For the portions to the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy the redactor of this midrash has made extensive use of the material that he found in the standard version, which he has revised and supplied with numerous additions.
This edition contains several additions, consisting of single sentences as well as of entire paragraphs, which Ezra ben Isaac selected from two of the original manuscripts and also from the Yalquṭ.
Buber claimed that this collection, consisting of homilies on and aggadic interpretations of the weekly sections of the Torah, was the oldest of the three, perhaps even the oldest compilation of its kind arranged as a running commentary on the Pentateuch, and he identified several passages which he saw as being quoted by Genesis Rabbah.
Buber cites a passage in the Babylonian Talmud that seems to indicate that the redactor of that work had referred to the Midrash Tanḥuma.
Townsend cites a section from Buber's recension which appears to be a quote from Ahai of Shabha's She'iltot (8th century).
Many of the homilies close with words of hope and encouragement regarding the future of the Jews; but several of them are abbreviated and not entirely completed, this curtailment being apologized for in the words "Much more might be said on this subject, but we shall not tire you",[23] or "This passage has been elucidated by several other interpretations and expositions, but in order not to tire you we quote only that which is necessary for today's theme".
[25] The aggadic contents of the midrash are also very extensive and varied; it contains, too, simple explanations of scriptural passages; several refutations of heretics; explanations of the differences between "ḳere" and "ketib" and between words written "plene" ("male") and defectively ("ḥaser"); interpretations according to noṭariḳon and gematria; several narratives and parables; and numerous aphorisms, moral sayings, and popular proverbs.