My diss ertation constitutes an experiment in methodology for the literary analysis of entire Rabbinic compilations. I employ a method through which a literary analysis of individual units of a greater text enable us to explore the redactional problems of the text as a whole. The focus of my research is Avot de Rabbi Natan (ARN) , a Rabbinic commentary on the Mishnah Tractate Avot, "i11ich hi:',; berm pl'- e~;er-ved in t\fm elate(~t'~_el~sion s U:'lr~NA and AF\I\lE!). Pil. thout;)h the cm-e of Af:':N is Tarmaitic ~2(l(l-~) AD), both versions have undergone lengthy and separate transmission processes so that the texts in their present form cannot be considered so t~arl·l· My thesis research explores two different but related problems. The first problem directly concerns ARNA and AF\NB: the peculiar characteri s tics of each version that might shed light on their relationship and their different process of development. The second problem is much broader: the nature and development of Rabbinic literary style and narrative structure and technique. These two problems are explored through a detailed source ~ritical and literary analysis of narratives with parallels in the two ARN versions, specifically of three narrative : genres: story, composite story and expanded s tory. One exam~ie of another narrative genre, Scriptural story, is included,las a point of comparison. 1'1y methodology is synthetic, combirl,irlg the methods of source criticism and tradition histm-y \I·li t11 -ary cr it i c ism, spec i ·f i cal. 1 y structural ism. ~ain consistent stylistic and narrative phenomena pec L,\tj,"i:\t':' to each ARN versi on ar-e I~eveal ed by the cl ose 1 i teral"y an~lysi~ of individual stories. These appear on two textual lev i 1) withi~ the individual stories themselves; 2) as part 0+ the redact.ional framewod::. The former can be seen, in par-t, i:\S or-i(,;]ini:\t.ing at the stage of compositioll,!thL,\s might be 0"'''-'"''7/ attributed to the vagaries of oral transmission; however, the U( latter must be s een as a product of the written stage of transmission when the stories were redacted in their present textual context and transmitted as a written text. The con s istent stylistic and narrative phenomena exhibited in the two v~;?r icJn !5 pr-ovid(·;? ~:;ome novel insil;)hts into the char-acter and relative development of the two AF\N versions. Besides contributing to research on ARN pr-oper-, the thesis explores the development of Rabbinic narrative structur-e and stylistic5 as a whole. Consistently, mor-e developed parallel stor-ies exhibit different stylistic and narr-atological features than their undevel.oped twins. This shows that beyond a doubt, Rabbinic narrative under-went a transfor-ming development ~~ocess, just like the individual stories themselves and the texts in which they appear. With the study of a br-oader data base of Rabbinic stories, it should be possible to isolate specific nar-r-atological features to different relative stages of text0al development.