Textual Variants and Textual Criticism in the Works of Rabbenu Tam: Between Theory and Practice

I have called this book Sefer ha-yashar [lit., The book of the straight] because I have made all of the precepts straight therein—the original teachings and versions of books, as they were.¹

With these words, Rabbenu Tam² begins his introduction to Sefer ha-yashar, declaring that his work will be devoted to “straightening out” the teachings and text of the Talmud. However, the book accomplishes much more than the goals set in this declaration. While it contains numerous treatments of the correct text of talmudic passages, it also incorporates fragments of commentary, halakhic monographs, and numerous responsa. Its attention to textual matters is thus a very small portion of the book as a whole.

In contrast, the introduction to the work can stand alone as a wide-ranging manifesto in which the author discusses the proper methods and the exigencies of how to treat the text of the Talmud, in an era when the dissemination of a work was dependent on manuscripts, the habits of copyists, and the conduct of its readers. In this article, I will focus on just one element of the vast wealth of material that awaits those who study this introduction, namely, Rabbenu Tam's criticism of those who emend the text of the Talmud itself: “It is not enough that [those who emend the text] corrupt texts that seem to be glosses, but they even [corrupt] the words of the Amoraim and Tannaim themselves; this is inconceivable for anyone who fears God.”³

For the purposes of this article, the most important aspect of this passage is R. Tam's distinction, articulated as an offhand philological remark, between “texts that seem to be glosses” (ha-nir'in perush) and “the words of the Amoraim and Tannaim themselves.”  The conscious differentiation between the dicta of talmudic sages and “glosses”—interpolations that explain, translate, or interpret a word or phrase—did not originate in R. Tam's academy; his grandfather, Rashi, preceded him in this regard.⁴ Nor did it end with him; in the hands of the later Tosafists, this technique developed into a method that reached its fullest expression in the academy of Naḥmanides.⁵ However, whereas R. Tam's predecessors maintained that after identifying a gloss as a late addition it should be...