Torah in the Mouth Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism 200 BCE-400 CE

by Jaffee, Martin S.

• ISBN13: 9780195140675
• ISBN10: 0195140672
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-04-19
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The classical Rabbinic tradition (legal, discursive, and exegetical) claims to be Oral Torah, transmitted by word of mouth in an unbroken chain deriving its authority ultimately from diving revelation to Moses at Sinai. Since the third century C.E., however, this tradition has been embodied inwritten texts. Through judicious deployment and analysis of the evidence, Martin Jaffee is able to show that the Rabbinic tradition, as we have it, developed through a mutual interpretation of oral and written modes.

Table of Contents

Introduction	3	(12)
PART I. ORAL TRADITION AND SECOND TEMPLE SCRIBALISM: THE SPOKEN WORD AND IDEOLOGIES OF THE BOOK
Social Settings of Literacy and Scribal Orality	15	(13)
Performative Reading and Text Interpretation at Qumran	28	(11)
The Media of Pharisaic Text-Interpretive Tradition	39	(26)
PART II: ORAL TRADITION AND EARLY RABBINISM: THE SPOKEN WORD IN AN IDEOLOGY OF TRADITION
Tannaitic Tradition as an Object of Rabbinic Reflection	65	(19)
The Ideological Construction of Torah in the Mouth	84	(16)
Composing the Tannaitic Oral-Literary Tradition	100	(26)
Torah in the Mouth in Galilean Discipleship Communities	126	(27)
Epilogue	153	(4)
Appendix	157	(4)
Notes	161	(50)
Bibliography	211	(18)
Index of Citations	229	(8)
General Index	237