Asaph ("Mar Rab")

To judge from the title "Mar Rab," he was one of the Geonim (see Gaon). and, presumably, lived about the middle of the ninth century. The name occurs in a Cairo Genizah fragment, whose author was possibly Judah b. Barzilai of Barcelona. This Asaph may be identical with the Asaph who figures as one of the transmitters of the Massorah traditions (anonymous chronicle in Neubauer, "Medieval Jewish Chronicles," i. 174; here  is very likely a misprint for ); but there are no grounds for connecting him with the physician Asaph.

Bibliography:

  * Jewish Quarterly Review, ix. 675-678.



J. Sr. L. G.