Through the Eyes of the Tolkovaya Paleya

A Paleya is a type of historical and exegetical writing compiled by Byzantine and Orthodox Slavic authors, and in some redactions taking on a strong anti-Judaic polemic character. This research deals with the Paleya in general, and with the Hilandar manuscript of the Tolkovaya Paleya of 1633 in particular, which so far has been completely neglected. The author presents all types of the Paleya, and offers an overview of the scholarly research to date with some critical remarks. He demonstrates how the Paleya served as the substitute for the Old Testament and was helpful in the liturgical field. It was an encyclopaedic companion that offered a comprehensive worldview and guidelines for further reflection, rather than a handbook for the fight against the Jews and Judaism. The second chapter is the edited Slavonic text of the story of original sin with a parallel English translation, while the third chapter is a commentary on it, exploring its relation to the Bible, genre aspects in the text, and its sources, including the apocrypha and the patristic tradition. Researchers of Old Slavonic literature and medieval anti-Semitism, as well as Biblicists will find the book truly absorbing.