What Is Avot de-Rabbi Natan?

This Hebrew work, included among what are labeled the “minor tractates,” is structured as an elaboration of the mishnaic tractate Chapters of the Fathers (Pirke Avot). Most scholars consider this work to be post-talmudic, completed sometime before the eighth century. Many of its traditions—sometimes reworked forms of earlier stories—are ascribed to earlier figures such as the second-century sage R. Nathan. This text survives in two versions of different lengths with somewhat different contents, known as versions A and B. Both seem to be adaptations of an earlier, lost original. Manuscripts of version B date to the ninth century.