שלושה סיפורי מלכים: עצמאותן של מסורות סיפוריות ב'ספר מעשיות'

The article studies the building blocks and editorial strategies of selected stories from the anthology that has not yet received the attention it deserves from scholars of Jewish studies,“Exempla of the Rabbis” (Sefer Maasiot), published by Moses Gaster. It is a medieval compilation, of an eastern provenance, probably Persia, which includes about three hundred exemplary stories of the genre maasei hakhamim. Most of the sources of the compilation are found in Rabbinic Literature, but it also contains Medieval narrative traditions, and among these, there are some that have not been preserved in the other sources. This article presents the reader with a perusal of three unique narrative traditions. An analysis of these traditions serves as a window to both the sources available to the editor of the anthology, and to the literature available in Medieval Persia.The first story deals with King Hadrian and his desire to become a god. It details how and why this desire did not materialize. The second story deals with Alexander the Great’s journey to the heights of heaven on a throne carried by birds of prey and to the depths of these a in a glass vessel. The third story tells of Rabbi Akiva’s victory over the Roman emperor in a debate about the verse “He gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to them that know to understand” (Daniel 2:21). The story in the Sefer Maasiot is different from what we found in Rabbinic literature on this verse, and it features some irregular linguistic elements.