Megillat Taanit

Megillat Taanit ( Hebrew : מגילת תענית ) is chronicle which enumerates 35 eventful days on which the Jewish nation either performed glorious deeds or witnessed joyful events. These days were celebrated as feast-days. Public mourning was forbidden on 14 of them, and public fasting on all. In most of the editions this chronicle consists of two parts, which are distinct in language and in form, namely: The text or Megillat Ta'anit proper, written in Aramaic and containing merely brief outlines in concise style. Scholia or commentaries on the text, written in Hebrew . The days are enumerated, not in the chronological order of the events they commemorate, but in the sequence of the calendar, Megillat Ta'anit being divided into twelve chapters, corresponding to the months of the year. Each chapter contains the memorial days of a single month, the first chapter dealing with those of the first month, Nisan , and so on to the 12th chapter, which treats of those of the 12th month, Adar .

Megillat Taanit ( Hebrew : מגילת תענית ), lit. "the Scroll of Fasting," is an ancient text, in the form of a chronicle , which enumerates 35 eventful days on which the Jewish nation either performed glorious deeds or witnessed joyful events. These days were celebrated as feast-days. Public mourning was forbidden on 14 of them, and public fasting on all.

"the Scroll of Fasting," is an ancient text, in the form of a chronicle , which enumerates 35 eventful days on which the Jewish nation either performed glorious deeds or witnessed joyful events. These days were celebrated as feast-days. Public mourning was forbidden on 14 of them, and public fasting on all.

Ancient Jewish Text Megillat Taanit ( Hebrew : מגילת תענית , romanized : məḡillaṯ taʿaniṯ ), lit. "the Scroll of Fasting," is an ancient text, in the form of a chronicle , which enumerates 35 eventful days on which Jews either performed glorious deeds or witnessed joyful events. Despite the scroll's name, these were celebrated as feast days. Public mourning was forbidden on fourteen of them and public fasting on all. The work was probably written late in the Second Temple period , perhaps from 40–70 CE in the 1st century. The last event dated without dispute is Emperor Caligula 's order to place a statue of himself in the Second Temple ( c. 39 CE ). A few scholars think it references events after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE . References to it in other literature suggest it certainly existed by the 2nd century . The author is unknown, although various rabbinic works speculate on how it was composed.