[Avodah] Fables and Lies

[Arie Folger]

RAM wrote:
> The part that really bothers me is how the author portrays what happened
> BEFORE the murders: The ruler got the ten of them together, he made up the
> story about the shoes, the ten of them sent Rabi Yishmael on a mission to
> find out what's happening in Shamayim, and they agreed to docilely go to
> their deaths.

Not all sources agree on this. Only some of the midrashim mention that there 
were ten martyrs to atone for Ypssef's sale, and not all link those ten with 
any known list. In fact, many of the midrashim, as well as both talmudim, do 
not state that there were ten. The figure ten only appears in later sources, 
such as in the Igeret Rabbi Sherirya Gaon, who sets the entire story at the 
time shortly after the 'Hurban, and indeed lists Rabban Yo'hanan Ben Zakai 
instead of Rabbi Aqivah, IIRC.

The most prominent source linking the 10 martyrs to an atonement for Yossef's 
sale AND providing a listing of the martyrs, is Heikhalot Rabbati, a mystical 
text. The mere appearance of that interpretation in that work should suffice 
to make us guess that the composition wasn't necessarily meant to be taken as 
chronologically coherent, but rather unified on a mystical level.

KT,
-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com