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The ‘Death Of Moses’ in the Literature of the Falashas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Edward Ullendorff
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For a long time now the Falashas have, with questionable justification, been dubbed the ‘Jews of Abyssinia’. A good deal of legendary information about the Falashas appears already in such medieval writings as Sefer Eldad and in an account given by Benjamin of Tudela who gathered some news on the Falashas while on his way from the Yemen to Egypt. The great seventeenth-century scholar Job Ludolf included some notes and questions in his monumental work on Ethiopian history—based, to a large extent, on information supplied by Abba Gregory who thought that the Falashas dialecto Talmudica corrupta inter se utuntur (no doubt a reference to their Agaw vernacular which Gregory did not understand). Thus misled, Ludolf is understandably curious to know quando vel qua occasione Judaei isti primum in Aethiopiam venerint? Karraeorumne vel aliorum Judaeorum sectae sint addicti? James Bruce of Kinnaird provides a fairly detailed, though not necessarily accurate, picture of Falasha life which became the stimulus of subsequent interest in this peculiar form of ‘Judaism’.

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Articles
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , October 1961 , pp. 419 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1961

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References

page 419 note 1 cf. Cerulli, E., Etiopi in Palestina, I, Roma, 1943, 234, 320Google Scholar; Ullendorff, E., BSOAS, XV, 1, 1953, 174CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 419 note 2 Historia Aethiopica, Frankfort, 1681, bk. I, eh. 14Google Scholar.

page 419 note 3 Travels to discover the source of the Nile, 3rd ed., n, 396 seqq.

page 419 note 4 ‘Most of the reports that have so far been made about the Falashas have been incomplete and characterized by a Christian or Jewish missionary tendency which appreciably diminishes their usefulness and objectivity’ (Leslau, , Falasha anthology, p. X)Google Scholar. See also Aešcoly's justified strictures on the subject of Falasha ‘research’ in Sefer Hafalashim, Jerusalem, 1943, 176 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 419 note 5 Wanderings among the Falashas in Abyssinia, London, 1862Google Scholar.

page 419 note 6 The Falashas of Abyssinia, London, 1869Google Scholar.

page 419 note 7 Leslau, W., Falasha anthology, New Haven, 1951Google Scholar; Aešcoly, A. Z., Recueil de textes falachas, Paris, 1951Google Scholar; Ullendorff, E., ‘Hebraic-Jewish elements in Abyssinian (monophysite) Christianity’, JSS, I, 3, 1956, 216–56Google Scholar; idem, The Ethiopians London, 1960.

page 420 note 1 This view has recently been resuscitated by so exalted an authority as the President of Israel (Mr. Y. Ben-Zvi) in an important article on the early settlement of Jewish tribes in Arabia (Erets Israel (Jerusalem), VI, 1960, 146Google Scholar) where this opinion is parenthetically expressed without any proof being adduced in its support—nor does Mr. Ben-Zvi appear to have seen the full documentation concerned with this question.

page 420 note 2 JSS, I, 3, 1956, 216–56Google Scholar.

page 421 note 1 type="italic"Musē, Mota, texte éthiopien, traduit en hébreu et en français et accompagne d'extraits arabes, Paris, 1906 (39 pp. of small octavo)Google Scholar.

page 421 note 2 ‘Der Tod Mose's in der athiopischen Ǖberlieferung‘, MGWJ, LI, 1907Google Scholar.

page 422 note 1 Leslau, (Falasha anthology, 106Google Scholar) had already made some use of this MS for his translation, though he stated that it was bound with ‘a Christian-Ethiopic religious manuscript’, whereas it is appended to an Octateuch The Zena Muse is a later insertion, on paper, at the end of the principal MS. It is written in an even hand of uncertain date (though probably late nineteenth century) and covers three pages (ff. 197 and 198a) of one folded sheet (2 folios), the fourth page (f. 198b) being blank. It is in a light greenish-blue ink with some lines in red. There are three columns to a page (acknowledgements to Mr. Stephen Wright).

page 437 note 1 Edited, translated, introduced, and annotated by R. H. Charles, London, 1897.

page 437 note 2 See Jellinek, A., Bath Hammidrash; Eisenstein, Ozar Midrashim, New York, 1915, 361–85Google Scholar; Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, passim (see index); Leslau, , op. cit., 180Google Scholar. See also Strack-Billerbeck, , Kommentar zum NT aus Talmud und Midrasch, I, 753–6Google Scholar.

page 438 note 1 In saying this I am not, of course, pronouncing on the dependence, or otherwise, of the rich Midrashic literature (concerned with Moses) on the ‘Assumption of Moses’. See Rosenfeld, M., Der Midrasch Deuteronomium rabba… verglichen mit der Assumptio Mosis, Berlin, 1899Google Scholar, and Fleischhacker, A., Der Tod Moses' nach der Sage, Halle, 1888Google Scholar.

page 438 note 2 In the Petirat Moshe the delay is also tied to a certain number of hours, including that of three which occurs in the Ethiopic version (cf. Ozar Midrashim, p. 379, col. 2).

page 438 note 3 See especially Sofa 13b and 14a; Targum to Song of Songs i, 7; Tanchuma Sifre Deut. 305; Midrash Deut. Rabba ix and xi.

page 438 note 4 Pesahim 54b:… .

page 439 note 1 See Shabbath, 30a and b; also Ginzberg, , Legends, IV, 113Google Scholar. Here—as indeed in the Ethiopic legend—God does not reveal the actual date but agrees to mention the day of the week, i.e. a Sabbath. As, incidentally, the Angel of Death has no power over man while engaged in the study of the Torah, he had to resort to a ruse in order to claim David's soul (ibīdem). There is a curious purely verbal resemblance between God's assurance (in the Mota Muse) that he will reveal to Moses what he has not revealed to anyone before him and the Hebrew wording: although the Hebrew version is connected not with Moses' death but with the advent of the Messianic era (Ozar Mīdrashim, 385; Ginzberg, , Legends, III, 447)Google Scholar.

page 439 note 2 Ginzberg, , Legends, III, 393, 436, 474Google Scholar.

page 439 note 3 Ozar Midrashim, 380 (bottom of 2nd col.). See alsoGinzberg, , op. cit., VI, n. 909Google Scholar.

page 439 note 4 Ginzberg, , Legends, II, 308. Also 'Abodah zara 20bGoogle Scholar.

page 439 note 5 See the article under that head in the Unīversal Jewish encyclopaedia.

page 439 note 6 See Ginzberg, , Legends, VIIGoogle Scholar (index); also Peṭīrat Moshe, passim.

page 439 note 7 cf. Polotsky, H. J. on ‘Suriel der Trompeter’, Le Muséon, XLIX, 1936Google Scholar.

page 439 note 8 cf. Weil, G., Biblical legends of the Musulmans, London, 1846, 143Google Scholar. See also the entry ‘Azra'il’ in Hughes, Dictionary of Islam.

page 439 note 9 1 Chron. iv, 18; cf. also Grunbaum, M., Neue Beiträge zur semitischen Sagenkunde, Leiden, 1893, 153 seqqGoogle Scholar.

page 440 note 1 Ozar Midrashīm, 382 (top of 1st col.); Ginzberg, , Legends, III, 467Google Scholar.

page 440 note 2 Ozar Mīdrashim, 362 (middle of 2nd col.); Ginzberg, , Legends, III, 424Google Scholar.

page 440 note 3 For a similar case see the present writer's contribution to the Tur-Sinaī Festschrift, 1960 (‘The OT sources of the Ethiopian national saga’ [in Hebrew]).

page 440 note 4 cf. Cerulli, E., Storia delta letteratura etiopica, Milano, 1956, 31–3Google Scholar; Ullendorff, E., The Ethiopians, London, 1960, 136–8Google Scholar.

page 440 note 5 Nos. 1363 (f. 205b) and 275 (f. 63a).

page 440 note 6 op. cit., 140–3; cf. also the Christian Ukrainian legend (published by Hins, Eugène in Revue des Traditions Populaires, II, 1887, 513 ff.)Google Scholar, about the death and burial of Solomon, which exhibits a fairly close resemblance to the concluding part of the Mota Muse.

page 441 note 1 I have found it convenient, for the sake of brevity, to refer to the Mota Muse as a ‘Falasha Midrash’. This description entails, however, a certain prejudgment of the issue, for there is no conclusive proof that would specifically assign this work to the Falashas (cf. Aešcoly, , Sefer Hafalashim, 113)Google Scholar, either in origin or in contemporary attachment (the existence of the Addis Ababa MS confirms these doubts, since its terminology is completely neutral).

page 442 note 1 op. cit., p. 711, n. 1.

page 442 note 2 op. cit., p. 371 (footnotes).

page 442 note 3 op. cit., p. 23, n. 2. For addītī information on the day of Moses' death see Ginzberg, , Legends, VI n. 966Google Scholar.

page 442 note 4 cf. Ginzberg, , Legends, VI, pp. 162–2Google Scholar.

page 442 note 5 Sanhedrin, 39a; see also Rashī to Deut. xxxiv, 6.

page 442 note 6 Rashi and Ezra to Deut. xxxiv, 6.