Dating the Talmud in Medieval Europe

The comparative analysis of variant readings in the manuscript tradition of the Wikkuaḥ Rabbenu Yeḥiel has yielded the result that it was not until the second half of the thirteenth century – in the aftermath of the Talmud trial and of the second disputation held in Paris in 1269 – that rabbinic Jews of Northern France adopted the dating of the Talmud to the age of Ravina and especially Rav Ashi (early fifth century), recounted by Nahmanides in Barcelona. This evolution in the dating of the Talmud around the Paris trial and the related textual tradition provides us with an unexpected insight into how the Jews of Northern France in the late Middle Ages, as well as Jewish scribes from other regions of Europe between the Middle Ages and the early modern period, remembered, reconstructed and narrated their past and the emergence of rabbinic tradition, starting from the time at which the textualization of the Talmud as the foundational source of rabbinic culture was reaching its completion in Northern France.