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The Church Fathers · c. 3rd century
The Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael
The school of Rabbi Ishmael
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What it is
A running halakhic and narrative commentary on Exodus from the plagues to the covenant, arguing every law out of the wording and telling the crossing of the sea as a debate among the tribes over who would enter the water first.
Why it lasted
The earliest sustained rabbinic commentary on a biblical book, and the closest available control on how Jews were reading Exodus at the moment Origen was allegorising it a few hundred miles away.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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