Between Old and New in Yemenite Midrashic Literature

Abstract

The Midrashim mentioned and described briefly in this article—R. Avraham ben Shlomo’s commentary on the early and later prophets, the Midrash Shoʿel U-Meshiv, and the anonymous Midrash on the Torah written at the beginning of the sixteenth century—represent the transitional stage between the classic and the later Yemenite Midrash. The former are written in a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic, based on rabbinic writings and on the teachings of great medieval scholars such as R. Saadia Gaon and Maimonides, while the latter are written almost solely in Hebrew and based mainly on esoteric, symbolic, allegorical, and kabbalistic elements. Those written in the intermediate period between the old and the new combine all these characteristics.