[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: orion List Moderator
I agree completely with what Marty Jaffee wrote about the history of Oral
Torah and the way the term should be used. I write to make a
terminological proposal for the Second Temple period, when we do risk
muddying the waters unnecessarily by dragging in a Rabbinic term.
Perhaps we should say that all Second Temple groups had supplements. This
is entirely neutral, identifying with the terminology of no particular
group. Each supplement had its own content, as each had its own way of
connecting itself to the written Torah, the common source of authority.
Some would have appealed to a new revelation as their supplement, others
to what we might call a pseudepigraphic work, while a third group would
have been loyal to their own traditions, handed down among them for
generations.
By adopting the terminology I propose I think we can be clearer, and also
compare groups more effectively, as we can then see the different ways in
which each was trying to solve the same question.
Al Baumgarten