that Eldad's book is like a historical novel in which truth is mixed with fiction. According to Epstein, the Halakhot and laws described by Eldad are genuine, and were in use among the countrymen of Eldad, either in a province of eastern Africa or in Yemen, where the Jews at that time knew Hebrew but not the Talmud. Eldad could not have been a native of Ethiopia, the country of the Beta Israel, since only Ge'ez is spoken there, and no trace of this language appears in Eldad's Hebrew. There are, however, some traces of Arabic, which Eldad must have known, although he asserted the contrary. Later authors have made the connection between the Jewish names Eldad mentioned in his travels to a codex published in the mid-twentieth century. Eldad's account includes very biblical names for the people of his tribe, such as Uzziel, Adiel, and Abdon, and even his own. These names do not seem to appear in post-biblical literature, supporting the claim that Eldad was, in fact, a charlatan. However, these names and their equivalents appear in the codex Chinese Jews by W. C. White, which connects the Jews in China to those from Persia. Relationship to "Prester John" letters The influence of Eldad's narrative extended beyond Jewish circles, and some sources link it to the Prester John letters. Perhaps intending to refute Eldad's assertion of the existence of independent Jewish states—an assertion contrary to the teaching of the Roman-Catholic Church—the presumably Christian writer claimed to be a priest (Prester John) who ruled over the great kingdom of Ethiopia. According to the letters, Prester John's subjects included some Jewish tribes, such as the Bnei Moshe who dwelt beyond the River Sambation. Editions Eldad's travels have been published from the various existing versions: Mantua (1480); Constantinople (1516, 1519); Venice (1544, 1605, 1648); Fürth, with a Yiddish translation by S. H. Weil (1769); Zolkiev (1772); Jessnitz (1772); Leghorn (1828); and Presburg (1891). Eldad's narrative was translated into Latin by Gilbert Génébrard (Paris, 1584), and also, anonymously, into Arabic (St. Petersburg MSS. nos. 674, 703) and into German (Dessau, 1700; Jessnitz, 1723). An English translation can be found in Elkan Adler's Jewish Travellers in the Middle Ages: 19 Firsthand Accounts (1930, repr. 1987). See also History of the Jews in Kairouan References External links Video lecture "Who Was Eldad Ha-Dani?" by Henry Abramson. 9th-century African people 9th-century Jews 9th-century merchants 9th-century