Joshua and Judges in Yiddish Verse: Four Early Modern Epics. An Annotated Edition

This book offers annotated editions of four distinct sixteenth-century Yiddish epic poems, all preserved in single copies. Two of them retell the narrative found in the book of Joshua, and two relate the events described in the book of Judges. As typical specimens of the once popular literary genre, the Old Yiddish biblical epic, the content of the works is based on Jewish sources, while their style and form were influenced by German epic and chivalric literature. The epics often elaborate on the biblical narrative, with rich passages that echo the cultural setting in which they were composed, presumably German and Italian lands. The four epics are presented here for the first time in modern academic editions. They are studied and compared with one another, and footnotes provide information concerning the sources of additions and changes, translation methods, historical details, obscure words and idiomatic expressions, and more. As these epics represent some of the earliest examples of biblical epics in Yiddish, the discussion also touches upon the origins of the genre, tracing its path from orality to written text. The annotated edition presents the original Old Yiddish texts together with an English introduction.