Page "Achai Gaon" Paragraph 8

This view best explains the word " derashah " ( lecture ), which occurs about thirty times in the Sheiltot, in connection with the citation of passages from the Talmud.

If the supposition be true that the Sheiltot were derived from sermons, they may properly be considered, in the form in which they appear, as extracts or abstracts of such sermons, giving the introduction and the conclusion of the original derashah ; while of the derashah proper — which no doubt consisted of haggadic and halakic quotations from Talmud and Midrash — only the heading is mentioned.

Considering them as portions of sermons, the frequent repetitions that occur in the Sheiltot are not strange, as this would happen to the best of preachers ; while it would be difficult to explain them if they were found in the strictly literary productions of one man.

Of course, there can be no certain conclusions concerning the composition of the " Sheiltot " until the manuscript has been examined.

The printed text, while it contains much matter of later date, lacks much that, according to older authorities, was formerly included.

An accurate edition of the Sheiltot would be very valuable for textual criticism of the Babylonian Talmud, as indeed for Aramaic philology in general, since Aḥa wrote in the Aramaic vernacular.