Titus, Nebuchadnezzar, and Nimrod in the Ḥadīth and Midrash Aggadah

NARRATIVES OF VILLAINY: TITUS, NEBUCHADNEZZAR, AND NIMROD IN THE ḥadĪth AND MIDRASH AGGADAH Shari L. Lowin Much has been written on the similarities between the narratives of the shared founding fathers of Judaism and Islam. After all, these founding fathers—Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael, King David and others—serve as the paradigms upon which adherents of both traditions model themselves, their religious philosophy, and ultimately their relationships to one another and to God. Importantly, the ḥadīth and midrash aggadah, the repositories of these narratives, share information not only on the heroes who serve as models for proper imitative behavior, but also on the evil villains who are excoriated. Thus adherents learn not only what behavior to imitate and value but also from which practices, attitudes, and conduct one should distance oneself and condemn. Fascinatingly, despite their desire to identify themselves as separate religious traditions and value systems, Judaism and Islam tell many of the same stories about the same ancestors and their shared villainous foils. Perhaps because of these largely unavoidable similarities, in studies on these Islamic and Jewish extra-Scriptural narrative expansions1—ḥadīth and midrash aggadah—early scholars often all too quickly jumped to conclusions. When Jewish and Muslim narratives relate similar stories about their shared forefathers, we find scholars frequently asserting that the younger tradition, Islam, has lifted the narrative from the elder, Juda- ism. Differences between the two versions are often attributed to Muslim mistakes, confusion, or flights of Arab fancy. Such a practice constitutes an injustice to the inherent creativity of the Muslim tradition, as well as to the complex, often symbiotic, relationship between the narrative traditions of Islam and Judaism. The current study presents a comparative examination of one partic- ularly intriguing motif appearing in both the Jewish and Islamic extra- Scriptural corpora: the attempt by a pagan king to kill God and the 1 For more on this term, see James L. Kugel, In Potiphar’s House: The Interpretive Life of Biblical Texts (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 3–6. 262 shari l. lowin subsequent punishment the villain endures. In examining this “narrative of villainy,” this paper will challenge earlier scholarly tendencies in two ways. First, analysis of these Jewish and Muslim accounts reveals that the Islamic texts adopted and adapted the narratives of the earlier midrashic tradition (on Titus, Roman destroyer of Jerusalem in 70 CE), not out of confusion as David Sidersky has written.2 Rather, the Islamic authors pur- posely modified particular midrashic materials in order to teach believers a lesson about a shared villain of greater significance to the Islamic tradition (i.e. Nimrod, the enemy and pursuer of the shared forefather of the Muslims and Jews, Abraham). Equally interestingly, we will see that in so doing the Muslim texts preserved what appears to be a now-lost early rab- binic midrash on yet another shared villain (Nebuchadnezzar, Babylonian destroyer of Jerusalem in 586 BCE). Nimrod, the Flying Box, the Attack on God, and Death by Gnat Our point of departure begins with the chronologically earliest of our villains, Nimrod/Namrūd, who appears in both the Islamic and Jewish exeget- ical corpus as the idolatrous king who argues with the forefather Abraham over theological issues. These polemical encounters, in which Nimrod/ Namrūd, fails to convince Abraham/Ibrāhīm to worship other than the one God, eventually lead Nimrod/Namrūd to throw the religious rebel in a fiery furnace, ur kasdim, the Ur of the Chaldees. In both the Arabic and Hebrew texts, God prevents the fire from harming His loyal servant and Abraham/Ibrāhīm emerges from the flames completely unscathed.3 2 “Les Arabes ayant entendu relate cette histoire dans le milieux juifs ont fait confusion entre le prince romain du premier siècle aprés J.-C. et le fameux Nemrod, personnage de la haute antiquité, contemporain et adversaire du patriarche Abraham.” See David Sidersky, Les Origines des légendes Musulmanes dans le Coran et dans les Vies des Prophètes (Paris: Libraire Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1933), 42. 3 Among the pre-Islamic midrashic accounts, see the 6th century CE Babylonian Talmud [BT] (Vilna: Ram Publishers, 1927), Pesaḥim 118a; BT Eruvin 53a; Genesis Rabbah (5th cent. CE), ed. J. Theodor and Ch. Albeck (Berlin, 1903–1936; reprint, Jerusalem: Wahr- mann, 1965), 44:13; Song of Songs Rabbah (500–640 CE), 1:12, in Midrash Rabbah ha-Mevoʿar ( Jerusalem: Mekhon ha-Midrash ha-Mevoʿar, 5744– [1983–]), Shir ha-Shirim; and, Midrash Tanḥuma (5th cent. CE), ed. Shelomo Buber (New York: Hotsa’at Sefer, 1946), Lekh Lekha 2. Among the Islamic sources, both Shīʿī and Sunnī, see Q 21:51–71; Muqātil ibn Sulaymān (713–83 CE), Tafsīr Muqātil, ed. ʿAbd Allāh Maḥmūd Shiḥāta (Cairo: al-Ḥayʾa al-Miṣriyya al-ʿāmma li-al-kitāb, 1979–89) 3:613; ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī (c. 795–844 CE), Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓim, ed. Muṣṭafā Muslim Muḥammad (Riyad: Maktabat al-Rushd, 1989), 2:24–25; Isḥaq ibn Bishr (d. 821 CE), Mubtada ʾ al-dunyā wa-qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, MS Huntington 388 (Bodleian Library, Oxford University, Oxford), 168a–b; Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī .

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