Rabbi Jehiel Heilprin רבי יחיאל הלפרין
rabbi of Minsk; he compiled Seder HaDorot—the reckoning of years from Creation to his own day
A Lithuanian rabbi, he served in Minsk.
Seder HaDorot. A work in three parts:
· Yemot Olam—a chronicle from Creation to his own time; the years of the figures of Scripture he derives by reckoning, resting on earlier Hebrew chronological works; · Seder Tannaim veAmoraim—a list of the Tannaim and Amoraim in alphabetical order, with their dates; · the third part—a catalogue of authors and their books in alphabetical order, with notes on the Talmud.
It was first printed after his death, by his grandson Judah Löb Heilprin, at Karlsruhe in 5529.
Why it is still cited. For the second part: when one needs to know in which generation a sage named in the Talmud lived, that is where one looks first. It is a case of a reference work outliving its time not by brilliance but by completeness.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Seder HaDorot, Karlsruhe 5529 — the three parts of the work and the year of first printing
Scholarship
- Encyclopaedia Judaica, “Heilprin, Jehiel ben Solomon” — the years, the Minsk rabbinate, the printing by his grandson
Basis: documents and evidence.