Midrash and Legend

the long version

"This study collects every example of a historical anecdote in the tannaitic midrashim - any passage which relates any incident purported to have occurred from the close of biblical times up to the composition of the midrash collection being studied. These stories are of particular interest from an inter-religious and comparative literary point of view, because New Testament studies have often referred to certain narratives in the gospels as "midrashic." There are indeed some dynamics shared in common between the two genres of gospel narrative and rabbinic anecdote. Both are didactic accounts. Both represent transmitted material shaped to function in specific contexts. But the fundamental matrices governing each genre are strikingly different."--BOOK JACKET.