[Avodah] history

[Michael Makovi]

> > This whole attitude is so a-historical as to be disturbing
>
>  And Tosfos about Pinchas, Eliyahu, and Beis Hakvaros?
>
>  We have discussed before that chazal have a tendency to identify
>  together people who seem to have nothing in common. In many cases it
>  makes people hundreds of years old or on the contrary had children
>  very early when there is no reason in pshat for this. In fact by
>  Eliyahu and many other such cases there are other sources that dispute
>  these connects. Hence, some explain that these people had
>  characteristics in common or were a gilgul of one another etc.
>
>  As MYG points out one difficulty is when the gemara or rishonim try
>  and learn halachot from these identifications.
>
>  --
>  Eli Turkel

I recall R' Chayot's Students' Guide to the Talmud (insert
advertisement for R' Gil) making the case that Chazal did this as a
homiletic device to link similar characters across history, or for
making obscure characters (i.e. "Why did the Tanach bother telling us
his name?") into meaningful ones by linking them together. He makes
his case by citing a Gemara (I forget where) where the question is
asked, after such a link having been made, "What does this do for us?
What do we learn by linking these two characters?" So apparently, it
wasn't a mere mechanistic/literal linking of those who were (thought
to be) the same (500 year old) person or a gilgul, etc.; it was for
homiletic purposes only, he says.

Mikha'el Makovi