שתי גרסאות ה'זוהר' לאגדת 'התנא והמת'

The Tanna and the Deadman is a renowned Jewish legend of which we have many renderings, in the Midrashic literature as well as in later sources. The present article focuses on the analysis of two versions of this legend which appear in the Zohar and which were not adequately dealt with in the past, and attempts to characterize them from conceptual, cultural, and textual perspectives. The first aim of the present article is to carefully examine the two Zoharic versions and show that they differ significantly from one another in three aspects. First, each of the versions stems from a different world of rituals and beliefs. Second, each of these Zoharic versions shows independent textual affinities to non-Zoharic versions, a fact which can in turn be used as a source for characterizing their unique cultural backgrounds. Third, each Zoharic version has a distinct and individual textual history, which I demonstrate here through the close scrutiny of dozens of early manuscripts and first printed editions. In light of these findings I also offer a conjecture regarding the textual relations between the two Zoharic versions. The second aim of the article is to show that in contrast to what has been suggested in past studies, these Zoharic versions do not differ from the non-Zoharic versions of the legend in having more 'kabbalistic', 'mystical', or 'apocalyptic' features; in fact, some of the above characteristics are even mitigated in the Zoharic renditions. The article re-emphasizes the potential usefulness of literary and folklore-research tools for the study of the Zohar, on the condition that such study be rooted in a sound understanding of the complexity of the kabbalistic elements and of the literary, mythic, and exegetical layers of the Zoharic corpus. The article includes a critical edition of the two Zoharic versions, based on early manuscripts and print editions.