[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
orion Oral Torah etc.
A few days ago there was a discussion of Oral Torah. It seemed that the idea
of Oral Torah was quickly dismissed in favor of "unwritten interpretive
complement." I would appreciate some explaination of the difference(s), if
any. I would note that in Jacob Neusner's "The Mishnah, A New Translation"
(Yale Univ. Press 1988) he says that "the Mishnah constitutes torah. It too
is a statement of revelation . . .[b]ut this part of revelation has come down
in a form different from the well-known, written part, the Scripture. . . .
[F]or a long time it was handed down orally, not in writing, until given the
writen formulation now before us in the Mishnah. . . . [W]hat these people
say comes to them from Sinai through the process of qabbalah and massoret -
handing down, 'traditioning.'" If the Mishnah is torah, why isn't the
Mishnah in its prior oral form torah?
I ask this question because I wonder about using parts of the Mishnah to
reason backwards toward supporting a sectarian (as opposed to a villa)
occupation at Qumran. For example, from the Sixth Division: Purities: (a)
Parah 8:10 Water of the Jordon and water of the Yarmuk are unfit, because
they are mixed water. [A possible reason for not being located in a place
that used water from below the confluence of those two rivers.]; (b) 8:11 A
water channel that comes from a distance its water is fit, and on condition
that one guarded it so that no man interrupt its flow. [An "authorization"
for the water channels and an explaination for a tower to guard against
polution]; (c) Miqvaot: 1:4 All the same are . . . immerson pools which do
not contain forty seahs, during the rainy season, all are clean, [when] the
rain ends, those that are near the village and the road are unclean, and
those that are far are clean, . . . [A reason for having the ritual immerson
pools well away from other towns and the road; (d) 4:4 Drawn water and
rainwater which mingled in . . . or on the steps of a cave - if the greater
part is formed by fit water, it is fit . . . {When] . . . mingled together
before they reached the immersion pool. [A suggestion that water pools near
caves will be considered pure]; (e) 4:5 The trough which is hewn in the rock
- . . . it does not spoil the immersion pool. [Another circumstance favorable
to a sectarian identification of a Qumran immersion pool]; (f) 6:1 Any pool
of water which is mingled with water of the immersion pool is deemed to be as
valid as the immersion pool, [including] holes of the cave and clefts of the
cave - one dunks in them as they are; and, (g) 8:1 . . . R. Eleazar says,
"Those [immersion pools] which are near the town and the road are unclean . .
. and those which are distant are clean." These are a few "rules" - which
presumably existed as Oral Torah prior to 68/70/73 C.E. - which might explain
the Qumran situs.
I began think about this type of inverse reasoning because of the story about
a rule with respect to mildew. Sounds a lot like a Mishnah rule to me - in a
pre 70 C.E. stage? Any thoughts about this?
Mark Dunn
Dunnlaw@aol.com