אמנוס או אמנה: צמיחתה של מסורת פרשנית והגההת הרמב"ם בנוסח המשנה

This paper traces the references to and interpretations of Amana/Amanam, a site on thenorthern border of the Land of Israel, from the early Palestinian traditions of the Mishnahthrough its printed editions, with a special emphasis on Maimonides’ commentary on theMishnah. I show that אמנה ,the dominant spelling in Mishnah editions and in scholarship tothis very day, is actually secondary. Earlier versions of the Mishnah have other spellings –such as Amanam, Amanos or Hamanos – which probably refer to the Amanus mountainrange in Southern Turkey, a well-known border point in antiquity, as some scholars havecorrectly suggested.However, over time, as the geographic location lost its significance, the site has beenidentified with the biblical location of הָנָ מֲא ,one of the anti-Lebanon mountains, apparentlydue to a misinterpretation of an amoraic homily. This ultimately led to the change in spellingin the later versions of the Mishnah, which can be traced unequivocally to the versionemployed by Maimonides himself in his commentary of the Mishnah. Through a closereading of Maimonides’ writings, I uncover a deliberate and surprisingly uncharacteristicemendation to the text of the Mishnah on the part of Maimonides, offering a rare glimpseinto his methodology and his approach to the intensive work of interpreting the Mishnah