The author or
redactor of the Mekhilta cannot be definitely ascertained.
Nissim ben Jacob and
Samuel ibn Naghrillah refer to it as the
Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, thus ascribing the authorship to Ishmael.
Maimonides likewise says: "R. Ishmael interpreted from 've'eleh shemot' to the end of the Torah, and this explanation is called 'Mekhilta.' R. Akiva also wrote a Mekhilta." This Ishmael, however, is neither an
amora by the name of Ishmael as
Zecharias Frankel assumed, nor
Judah ha-Nasi's contemporary,
Ishmael ben Jose, as
Gedaliah ibn Yahya ben Joseph thought. He is, on the contrary,
Ishmael ben Elisha,
Rabbi Akiva's contemporary, as is shown by the passage of Maimonides quoted above. The present Mekhilta cannot, however, be the one composed by Ishmael, as is proved by the references in it to Ishmael's pupils and to other later
tannaim. Both Maimonides and the author of the
Halakhot Gedolot, moreover, refer, evidently based on a tradition, to a much larger mekhilta extending from
Exodus 1 to the end of the
Torah, while the midrash here considered discusses only certain passages of Exodus. It must be assumed, therefore, that Ishmael composed an explanatory midrash to the last four books of the Torah, and that his pupils amplified it. A later editor, intending to compile a
halakhic midrash to Exodus, took Ishmael's work on the book, beginning with ch. 12, since the first eleven chapters contained no references to the
halakha. He even omitted passages from the portion which he took, but (by way of compensation) incorporated much material from the other halakhic midrashim,
Sifra, the
Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, and the
Sifre to the
Book of Deuteronomy. Since the last two works were from a different source, he generally designated them by the introductory phrase, "davar aḥer" = "another explanation," placing them after the sections taken from Ishmael's midrash. But the redactor based his work on the midrash of Ishmael's school, and the sentences of Ishmael and his pupils constitute the larger part of his Mekhilta. Similarly, most of the anonymous maxims in the work were derived from the same source, so that it also was known as the "Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael." The redactor must have been a pupil of Judah ha-Nasi, since the latter is frequently mentioned. He cannot, however, have been
Hoshaiah Rabbah, as
Abraham Epstein assumes, as might be inferred from
Abraham ibn Daud's reference, for Hoshaiah is mentioned in the Mekhilta. Abba Arikha therefore probably redacted the work, as
Menahem ibn Zerah says. Abba Arikha however, did not do this in the
talmudic academies in Babylonia (
Lower Mesopotamia), as
Isaac Hirsch Weiss assumes, but in
Palestine, taking it after its compilation to Mesopotamia, so that it was called the
Mekhilta of Palestine. == Date ==