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162 Asaph

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Asearelli

ASAPH (See

1.



A

son of Bereckiak or Berackiak.

Asaph ben Berechiah.)

The

2.

father of

Joah, chronicler at the court of Hezekiah (II Kings xviii. 18, 37; II Ckron. xxix. 13; Isa. xxxvi. 3, 22). 3. Tke keeper of the forests of Artaxerxes, probably in Palestine, in the time of Nehemiah (Neh. ii. 8). J.

JR.

G. A. B.

4. Epon3Tii of a musical gild. The name is prefixed as tke title of autkorskip to twelve psalms (1. lxxiii.-lxxxiii.) in tke second and third books of the Psalter. The name appears only in the later historical writings. In the original documents of Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra ii. 41 Neh. vii. 44 about 400 B.C.) the singers are all designated as "sons of Asaph," and are distinct from the Levites. In Neh. xi. 22, however, the overseer of the Levites at Jerusalem is described as "of the sons of Asaph, the singers." According to the chronicler (about 250 B.C.), tke sons of Asapk were Levites, and there were three bands or gilds of singers descended respectively from

—



Asaph Heman(Ps. Jeduthun

lxxxviii.)

and Ethan

(Ps. lxxxix.),

Ckron. xv. 17, xvi. 41, xxv. 1-6; II Chron. v. 12, xxxv. 15). The chronicler further represents Asaph as a contemporary of David, and as the founder of the gild of Asaphite singers (I Ckron. xvi. 4-7; Ezra iii. 10; Nek. xii. 46). See Ethan, Jedi'thcn, Psalms. or

(I

j. Jit.

P. P.

J.

ASAPH

'

(

'

Mar Rab ") To judge from the title

"Mar Rab," he was one



of the

Geonim

(see

Gaon).

and, presumably, lived about the middle of the ninth century. The name occurs in a Cairo Genizah fragment, wkose author was possibly Judah b. Barzilai This Asaph may be identical with of Barcelona. the Asaph who figures as one of the transmitters of the Massorah traditions (anonymous chronicle in Neubauer, "Medieval Jewish Chronicles," i. 174; here D3X is very likely a misprint for f)DN); but there are no grounds for connecting him with the physician Asaph.

Bibliography J.



Jewish Quarterly Review,

ix. 675-678.

sr.

L. G.

ASAPH BEN BERECHIAH



One

tive Levites carried off to Assyria (I

of the capChron. vi. 24

[A.V. 39]), and whom Arabic and later Jewish legend says was Vezir of Solomon (Al-Nadim, "Kitab-alFihrist," i. 19; Jellinek, "B. H." v. 23). To him is ascribed a very remarkable treatise on medicine, called " Sefer Asaf, " " Midrash Refu'ot," or "Sefer Refu'ot" probably the oldest treatise of its kind in Hebrew manuscripts of which exist in the libraries of Florence, Paris, Munich, Vienna (Pinskerl5, fragmentary), London (Almanzi collection; see Steinschneider, "Hebr. Bibl." v. 23), and Oxford. The contents of these manuscripts vaiy but, in general, they contain treatises on the Persian months, physiology, embryology, tke four periods of man's life, the four winds, diseases of various organs, hygiene, medicinal plants, medical calendar, tke practise of medicine, as well as an antidotarium, urinology, apkorisms, and tke Hippocratic oatk. The introduction is in the form of the later Midrash, and ascribes the origin of medicine to Shem, the son of Noah, who received it from the angels.

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162

The only authorities cited are " the books of the wise men of India," and a "book of the ancients," from which the present work was translated. Mar Mor. the Christian of Salerno; Mar Joseph, the physician; Bonfils,

the physician

Rudolf,



the

physician in

Worms; Samuel, the physician, etc., occur in adSteinditions made to the Oxford manuscript. schneider and LOw, however, have shown that the of medicinal plants goes back to Dioscorides: and the aphorisms can only be a working over of In other the well-known treatise of Hippocrates. list

places, Steinschneider has suspected the influence of

Galen.

There are very few indications affording any clue and place in wkick ke

to the author or to the time

Tke author's name varies: "Asapk kaYekudi " (Asaph tke Jew), "Asaph On the Katan" (Asaph the little), "Asaph haAuthor's Rofe " (Asaph the physician), "Asaph Name. he-Hakam" (Asaph the wise man). In the Bodleian manuscript this name is

wrote.

coupled with that of Johanan ha-Yarhoni, which

mean " of

In the Paris manreads "Asaph ben Berechiah ha-Yarhoni " (Asaph the astronomer). In one place in the Bodleian manuscript Judah haYarhoni is mentioned, and in a later part Samuel Yarhinai. Johanan ben Zabda is mentioned together with Asaph in connection with the HippoFiirst takes to

uscript (No.

1197,

7)

Jericho. "

the

name

A

cratic oath.

In the quasi-historical introduction, Asaph is placed between Hippocrates and Dioscorides. Rapoport saw in the name Asaph a corruption of either ^Esop or iEsculapius, and thought that the author might be identical either with Shabbethai Donnolo or Isaac Israeli. Neubauer (" Orient mid Occident," ii. 659, 767) held that Asaph was a Christian of the eleventh century, who wrote originally in Arabic,

and whose work was translated into Hebrew from the Latin. The more correct view seems to be tkat it was translated from some Syriac original, as Steinsckneider holds. Hebrew, Aramean, Persian, Greek, and Latin technical terms abound. This would place its composition somewhere in northern Syria or in Mesopotamia, rather than in Palestine, as Zunz thought.

In this connection

it is

interesting to note

Solomon ben Samuel of Urgendsh (Gurgany) makes free use of Asaph's list of plants in tke Persian-Hebrew lexicon which he composed in the fourteenth century (Bacher, "Ein Hebraisch-Persiscbes Worterbuch." p. 41). The date of composition can only be determined in a general way from the quotations of the work in Jewish literature. Donnolo (born 925 that

Date of Composition.

Kaufmann is right ("Die Sinne," p. 150), is the oldest known authority who quotes the work; and in Oria), if

till Gedaliah ibn Yahya (sixteenth century) there were about a dozen authorities, among them Hai Gaon and Rashi, who mention Asaph's book. The date of composition would thus be in the ninth or tenth century, about the time at which Dioscorides was translated into Syriac. There is a

legend that Socrates was a pupil of Asaph (Steinschneider, "Hebr. Uebers." p. 870). A Latin rendering of a portion of the work is to