The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

164 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
in Zech. 13.2-6 documents the end of this institution.
The final fixing of the prophetic corpus at the beginning of the third
century took away the raison d'etre from the institution of prophecy
and, as with the Torah, it presupposed an act of approval by the cult
community. Thus the high period of 'scripture production through
exegesis' comes to an end.
4. Ben Sira as Scribe
The first scribal personality we meet is Ben Sira once Ezra had
receded into the shadows. The fact that his collection of wisdom
poetry went under his name is a sign of the new epoch, although
unfortunately it prevented this same collection from being accepted
into the Hebrew canon. He appears as author of wisdom sayings in the
sense of traditional experienced-wisdom, but he is more, namely a
'scribe', that is exegete of the holy scriptures.
Just as hakham and sofer are merged in his person, we meet for the
first time in his work with a revolutionary identification: true universal
wisdom which comes from God and permeates creation is
identical with the law given to Israel alone. The 'Creator of the universe'
himself has allocated wisdom to Zion as its dwelling place so
that it will bear fruit in his people (Sir. 24.1-12). But this is not all;
wisdom is put on a level with the deed of covenant which was handed
to Moses as holy scripture:
All this is the book of covenant, of the Most High God, the law which
Moses commanded us (24.23ff).
This means that the five books of Moses truly 'embody' the unfathomable
wisdom of God. The task of Torah exegesis must therefore
become an unending and always new exercise. Through interpretation
the exegete participates in God's universal wisdom.
This thought proved to be very fruitful in that it not only became
the root of the rabbinic idea that the Torah is the 'instrument through
which God created the world', 5 but also that in the Torah, all divine
secrets have been revealed. Consequently the rank of scribe was
exalted to a metaphysical level.
Because wisdom in the Torah of Moses inspires the true scribe, in a
way similar to the spirit of God, so the interpreter of the Torah, that
5. Ab. 3.14R. Aqiba.