The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

256 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
Philo knows the existence of unwritten laws besides the Mosaic law.
He emphasizes the significance of these unwritten rules which pursue
the same aim as the written law, that is, to make people 'acknowledge
the one God, Father and Maker of the world' (Leg. Gai. 115). Philo
claims that the scripture itself teaches the honouring of the unwritten
laws, and he praises those who obey them. However, unwritten laws
remain clearly distinct from the written law. First, the source of their
authority is neither scripture nor Moses; they are 'customs, decisions
approved by men of old'. Second, they are handed down, not written;
'not inscribed on monuments nor on leaves of paper... but on souls of
those who are partners in the same citizenship'. Third, they are
authoritative but not compulsory; people obey them 'not under the
admonition of restraint and the fear of punishment...but according to
their free will' (Spec. Leg. 4.149-50; cf. Apologia 7.6; Leg. Gai. 115-
18).
Flavius Josephus makes the Pharisees responsible for having 'passed
on the people certain rules handed down by former generations and
not recorded in the Laws of Moses'. The desire to make compulsory
some unwritten laws differentiates the Pharisees from 'the Sadducees
who hold that only those rules should be considered valid which were
written down' (Ant. 13.297).
It is no surprise that early Christians charge Pharisees and later
rabbis not only with misinterpreting the written law, but with promoting
their own tradition against scripture (Mk 7.1-13; Mt. 15.1-7;
Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 48.2).
The founding document of rabbinic Judaism, the Mishnah, turns the
voluntary laws of Jewish tradition and the unwritten laws of the
Pharisees into a consistent body of written and compulsory laws, but
does not make any effort to relate them to scripture. Honestly, the
Mishnah admits that some rules 'have nothing to support them...some
are as mountains hanging by a hair, for Scripture is scanty and the
rules many...some have that which supports them' (m. Hag. 1.8). The
mishnaic system of laws acknowledges—besides the written law—
many different and independent sources: the Halakah, the words of
scribes and prophets, the decisions of lay or priest courts, even local
customs (m. 'Or. 3.9; m. Par. 11.5-6; m. Yad. 4.3-4, passim). In the
Literature of the Sages [Assen and Philadelphia, 1987], pp. 35-119) shares the
traditional rabbinic viewpoint.