Megillat Taanit
Enlarge text Shrink textMegillat 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.
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