text · B0041
Pesikta Rabbati פסיקתא רבתי
The younger Pesikta — festival sermons in the Tanchuma manner poured into the old calendar frame. It is one of the few classical midrashim that names its own moment: a homily counts the years since the churban, and the count lands in the geonic era.
I. Who
- Hebrew
- פסיקתא רבתי
- Era
- geonim
II. When
- Traditional
- homilies for the festivals and special Shabbatot; states of itself a date 777 years after the churban
- Civil (computed)
- 4360–4610 AM · 600–850 CE
- Academic
- c. 6th–9th c. CE, Eretz Yisrael; the internal date (≈845 CE) and its originality are debated
- Duration
- ≈250 years
- Precision
- disputed
IV. What
- Language
- Hebrew and Galilean Aramaic
- Redaction
- Anonymous, in Eretz Yisrael. Called "Rabbati" (the greater) to distinguish it from the older Pesikta (Pesikta DeRav Kahana), whose calendar framework it inherits while filling it with later, Tanchuma-Yelamdenu-type material.
- Structure
- Homilies for festivals and special Shabbatot on the Pesikta's calendar plan — including a famous cycle on the consolation haftarot — many opening with the "Yelamdenu Rabbenu" halakhic formula.
V. How do we know
| Claim | Evidence | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| The first homily dates itself: "seven hundred and seventy-seven years since the Temple was destroyed" — c. 845 CE on the standard reckoning — though scholars debate whether the number is original to the work or a copyist's update within an older composition. | reconstruction | ★★★☆☆ |
|
| The work shares its calendar architecture with Pesikta DeRav Kahana and several of its piskot outright, while most of its material is of the later Tanchuma-Yelamdenu type — the composite that leads scholarship to a redaction window from the 6th to the 9th century in Eretz Yisrael. | reconstruction | ★★★☆☆ |