The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

BOCCACCINI Targum Neofiti as a Proto-Rabbinic Document 257
Mishnah we find the tendency to relate some unwritten laws to Moses
himself (m. Pe'ah 2.6; m. 'Ed. 8.7; m. Yad. 4.3), to create an uninterrupted
chain of transmission starting from Moses (m. Pe'ah 2.6),
and to found on Moses the legitimacy of later authorities (m. Ros
Has 2.9), but no consistent bond between tradition and Scripture is
established, yet.
An inner principle of authority of unwritten laws does not exist.
Previous rules—such as those in the so-called First Mishnah (m. Ket.
5.3; m. Naz. 6.1)—may be changed, yet some are declared unchangeable
(m. Yeb. 8.3; m. Ker. 3.9). M. 'Ed. 3.9 states that 'the Halakah
may be only according to the opinion of the majority', but elsewhere
it is claimed that nobody, not even the majority can oppose a Halakah
(m. Pe'ah 4.1-2).
In the Mishnah the legitimacy and consistency of unwritten laws
relies only on the unifying authority of the sages. They are acknowledged
as the living trustees of Israelite religion. Nobody but themselves
may question their decisions; in halakhic discussions they
always have the last word. Their self-sufficient authority affects
scripture, too. The sages lay down the rules of how to read, interpret,
and translate the scripture. If they cannot change a written law, they
have the power to suspend its effects (m. Hor. 1.3). 'Greater stringency
applies to the (observance of) the words of the Scribes, than to
(the observance of) the words of the (written) law' (m. Sank. 11.3).
People were to obey the sages even if the decisions of the sages were
against scripture; people would not be guilty for that (m. Hor. 1.1).
Although the authority of the sages covers both the unwritten and
the written laws, tradition and scripture remain totally independent
and autonomous: 'You may infer nothing about the words of the Law
from the words of the Scribes and nothing about the words of the
Scribes from the words of the Law' (m. Yad. 3.2). In Mishnah the
sages have won their battle for leadership but their tradition has not
yet become the oral law.
The first evidence of the concept of oral law is in the treatise Abot
which was later added to the Mishnah. 5 This concept is the core, the
generative idea of the treatise and inspires and shapes even its literary
structure. What in Mishnah was stated only about some unwritten law,
5. See R.T. Herford, Pirke Aboth (New York, repr., 1962 [1925]); and
J. Neusner, Torahfrom Our Sages: Pirke Aboth (Chappaqua, 1983).