Hebrew History: A List of Some Pre-Modern Jewish Chronicles

Sep 29, 2023

Continuation of my previous post, “Notes Regarding A Critical Lexicon of Names in the Talmud - Pt.2”, where I wrote: “There are conflicting order of generations [of Tanaim and Amoraim] between Iggeret Rav Sherira, Sefer Hakabbalah, and Meiri. I hope to explore this topic further, in a future post.” The following piece serves as a general broad overview of the relevant primary literature. Compare also my piece on Academia.edu (requires registration): “An Annotated Bibliography of Works Relating to Biographies of Talmudic Sages”.

In a future piece, I hope to discuss the following: “Some Major Medieval Sources on Amoraic Chronology: A critical comparison of the relevant passages in relevant works by: R’ Sherira Gaon; R’ Avraham b. Daud; Maimonides; and Meiri”

Definition of ‘Chronicle’

Chronicle - Wikipedia (I divided the passage into additional paragraphs. Bolding and italics are mine):

“A chronicle (Latin: chronica, from Greek χρονικά chroniká, from χρόνος, chrónos – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline [...]
This is in contrast to a narrative or history, in which an author chooses events to interpret and analyze and excludes those the author does not consider important or relevant.
The information sources for chronicles vary. Some are written from the chronicler's direct knowledge, others from witnesses or participants in events, still others are accounts passed down from generation to generation by oral tradition.
Some used written material, such as charters, letters, and earlier chronicles.
Still others are tales of unknown origin that have mythical status [...]
Determining the reliability of particular chronicles is important to historians [...]
Chronicles are the predecessors of modern "time lines" rather than analytical histories. They represent accounts, in prose or verse, of local or distant events over a considerable period of time, both the lifetime of the individual chronicler and often those of several subsequent continuators [...]
Unlike the modern historian, most chroniclers tended to take their information as they found it, and made little attempt to separate fact from legend.”

Adolf Neubauer, in his 1887 work Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles and Chronological Notes, discussed a number of pre-modern historical chronicles (in this context, by “pre-modern”, I’m referring to before the 19th century).

A short summary of Jewish historiography from the 19th century and, including the works of Jost, Graetz, Dubnow, Dinur, and Baron, can be found on the Wikipedia page for Jewish historiography.

For a more in-depth examination of pre-modern Jewish historiography, refer to Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi’s seminal work, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (1982).

Neubauer's discussions, presented in English transliteration alongside the original Hebrew linked to Hebrew Wikipedia, offer a chronological listing of the works.

Interestingly, a number of chronicles emerged from Provence in the 12th-13th centuries (all these are listed below as well): R' Menachem Meiri in his Introduction to his commentary to Tractate Avot, R' David ben Shmuel of Estella, R’ Yitzchak Lattes, and R' Menachem ben Zerach in his Introduction to Tzeidah LaDerech.

It should be pointed out that, Neubauer does not mention R’ Yehuda b. Kalonymus’s "יחוסי תנאים ואמוראים" (Genealogies of the Tannaim and Amoraim). Apparently he was not aware of it.

Re items in this list, compare the entries linked to in this Hebrew Wikipedia category:

קטגוריה:כרוניקות של תולדות עם ישראל

List

Works discussed by Neubauer, in order of discussion/chronological order. Preface p. 5-18 - Roman numerals (pp. 5ff in Academia.edu PDF). (From p. 18 and on, he discusses special treatises on persecutions, which I don’t list here.)

Neubauer is in English, I give the original Hebrew, hyperlinked to the relevant entries in Wikipedia (Hebrew and English.