5 May 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

Using Algorithms, Researchers Reassemble Jewish Text Lost Centuries Ago

Using new technology, researchers were able to comb a 19th-century text for the original study of a Bible interpretation attributed to disciples of Rabbi Yishmael, which is thought to have been lost.

For centuries, a fundamental text of Jewish culture was thought to be lost forever. Quotes from it have appeared throughout the years, but they have been intermingled with subsequent passages, making it hard to tell which pieces are the original.

The work in question is Mekhilta le-Sefer Devarim, a midrash on the Book of Deuteronomy that serves as interpretation and commentary. It is attributed to a group of scholars who formed around Rabbi Yishmael, one of the most prominent of the Tannaim rabbis, in the first and second centuries C.E. in the land of Israel, a period when Jewish culture and the legacy of the Jewish sages crystallized.

With the help of advanced technology, researchers have managed to once again track down the text.

A fragment from Rabbi David Adani of Yemen's Midrash HaGadol. Credit: Israel's National Library
A fragment from Rabbi David Adani of Yemen’s Midrash HaGadol. Photo: Israel’s National Library

The midrash was edited in the third century B.C.E. and was lost for generations. In the 19th century, though, a researcher found that a sage by the name of Rabbi David Adani, who lived in Yemen in the 13th century, was familiar with the lost text and had quoted extensively from it in the Midrash HaGadol. Adani, however, combined parts of the original midrash with quotes from other books, changing it to the point where it was impossible to identify the source.

A previous attempt to reconstruct the midrash using conventional tools was only partially successful. Now, Bar-Asher Siegal and Dr. Avi Shmidman of the Hebrew Literature Department at Bar Ilan University have distilled the original midrash from the later version. To do so, they used textual analysis algorithms developed by Shmidman together with the DICTA center.

“This is a Jewish cultural heritage asset that was simply lost, disappeared,” says Prof. Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, a scholar of rabbinic Judaism at Ben Gurion University. “Now we have brought it back to life.” The midrash will be presented to the public for the first time in January, at a conference to be held at Bar Ilan University.

A Talmud researcher from Yale, Prof. Christine Hayes, confirmed that the text originated in the third century. She said that it also contained earlier sources. Hayes tells Haaretz that this inter-disciplinary collaboration “ fills a significant gap in our knowledge, bringing us one step closer to a fuller understanding of the foundational texts of the tradition and the evolution of rabbinic Judaism.”

Cover Photo: The midrash will be presented to the public for the first time in January, at a conference to be held at Bar Ilan University. Photo: Israel’s National Library

Related Articles

A gilded silver Anglo-Saxon object “made by someone with a real eye for loveliness” has the experts baffled

2 January 2024

2 January 2024

An enigmatic Anglo-Saxon object has been unearthed in a captivating discovery near Langham, Norfolk, East of England. This gilded silver...

Inscription dedicated to Roman Emperor Hadrian found in ancient city of Blaundus

26 November 2024

26 November 2024

An inscription dedicated to the Roman Emperor Hadrian was discovered during the ongoing excavations at the ancient city of Blaundus...

Ancient coins surface with Lake Iznik’s withdrawal in Türkiye

2 May 2023

2 May 2023

With the withdrawal of Lake Iznik in the northwest of Türkiye, the ancient coins found at the bottom of the...

2,800-Year-Old ‘Pharmaceutical production area’ discovered in ancient Thracian City

19 January 2024

19 January 2024

Archaeologists have unearthed a “pharmaceutical production area” supported by a water source during ongoing excavations in the Thracian Ancient City...

16 New Ancient Rock Art Sites Discovered In Jalapão, Brazil

13 March 2024

13 March 2024

Archaeologists at Brazil’s National Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage (Iphan) discovered 16 new archaeological sites while surveying a large...

A 2,000-year-old monumental Roman villa Found Under a Seaside May Be Pliny the Elder’s house

23 January 2024

23 January 2024

Researchers have discovered the remnants of a massive Roman villa thought to have ties to Pliny the Elder while working...

Roman era total of 46 early settler burials discovered in Germany

17 September 2023

17 September 2023

Students from Goethe University Frankfurt, in collaboration with the Hesse archeology department at the Darmstadt branch of the State Monument...

Staging of religion on rock paintings that are thousands of years old in southern Egypt desert

10 May 2023

10 May 2023

Egyptologists at the University of Bonn and the University of Aswan want to systematically record hundreds of petroglyphs and inscriptions...

A rare Saint George seal was found during excavations near Suzdal

27 June 2023

27 June 2023

The archaeological survey of the Suzdal Opole, initiated by the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences more...

Mystery of the 1,700-year-old Mosaic Solved: The Medallion in the Mosaic uncovered to be the Symbol of a Roman Military Unit

10 August 2024

10 August 2024

The mystery of the 1,700-year-old mosaic, which was found during excavations in Amasya province in northern Turkey 11 years ago...

Hidden 13th-century carving of ‘face of Christ’ discovered in Ballymore, Ireland

12 May 2022

12 May 2022

At Ballymore, in the county of Westmeath, Ireland, sunlight led to an interesting and special discovery. The sunlight revealed that...

One of the Oldest Tin-Bronze Knife in the Eurasian Steppe Discovered in a Unique Bronze Age Cemetery in Uygur ­Autonomous Region

29 January 2025

29 January 2025

Chinese archaeologists have recently uncovered a large and uniquely structured cemetery dating back to 2800-2600 BC, located about two kilometers...

8,000-year-old Cave paintings found in Türkiye’s İnkaya Cave depict life and death

10 September 2023

10 September 2023

A number of cave paintings dating back some 8,000 years have been found in İnkaya cave in the Marmara province...

The sword, thought to be a replica, turned out to be an authentic 3000-year-old Bronze Age sword

22 January 2023

22 January 2023

A sword in Chicago’s Field Museum that was previously thought to be a replica has been revealed to be an...