Torah in the Mouth.pdf

Torah in the Mouth, Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism, 200 BCE - 400 CE
Jaffee, Martin S., Samuel and Althea Stroum Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Washington
Print publication date: 2001, Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-514067-5, doi:10.1093/0195140672.001.0001
abbreviation CD, while citations from Qumranic parallels are indicated by cave location and fragment number (e.g., 4Q267). All translations
are my own, rendered in consultation with full range of available English translations. The translations are based upon the Hebrew edition
of J. Baumgarten and D. Schwartz, “The Damascus Dcoument.”
9. This text was among the original compositions discovered in Cave 1. Its opening line refers to a spr srk hy d that underlies the early
—inexact—scholarly designation as “Manual of Discipline.” Contemporary scholarship more commonly refers to the text as the Rule of the
Community or the Communal Rule. There are at least ten partial copies of this text, most of them found in Cave 4 (4Q255–264). A full
study of all these copies is now available in S. Metso, The Textual Development of the Qumran Community Rule . My translations, made
in consultation with many others, are based upon the Hebrew text edited by J. Charlesworth, “The Rule of the Community.”
10. The so-called pesher commentaries decode specific passages from some prophetic books (including Psalms) in reference to events in
the historical memory of the community.
end p.172
Of particular importance in identifying the pesher commentaries with the Tzadokites are the pesharim to the books of Habakkuk
(1QpHab), Nahum (4QpNah [4Q169]), and Psalms (1QpPs [1Q16], 4QpPs b [4Q173, fr. 5]). I have used the Hebrew edition, with English
translations and extensive commentaries, of M. Horgan, Pesharim.
11. In light of the omission of references to the bny dwq in some recently published fragments of 1QS from Cave 4, A. Baumgarten
(“The Zadokite Priests at Qumran,” pp. 137–156) has argued persuasively that the claim of Tzadokite origins emerged sometime after the
origins of the group in an attempt to limit charismatic authority. The issue remains up for debate, and its resolution needn't affect the
results of the present study.
12. J. Baumgarten, “The Unwritten Law in the Pre-Rabbinic Period,” pp. 7–29.
13. S. Fraade, “Interpretive Authority in the Studying Community at Qumran,” pp. 46–69, and idem, “Looking for Legal Midrash at Qumran,”
pp. 59–79.
14. L. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran, pp. 22–76, and idem, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls , pp. 1–21.
15. S. Talmon, “Oral Tradition and Written Transmission,” pp. 121–158.
16. Indeed, M. Heer, “Continuity of Tradition in the Transmission of the Torah,” pp. 52–55, makes the important point that the Yahad's
historical memory, which posited a centuries-long ceasura in the transmission of Torah until the rise of the Righteous Teacher, legitimates
the group's claim that its own teachings constitute a renewal of revelation.
17. “The ten” is apparently a reference to the ten members of the Community Council mentioned in 1QS 6:3–4. See below. The parallel at
4Q263 breaks off precisely at this point and does permit clarification of the reference. The close parallel at CD 13:2 has: “and in a place of
ten” (wbmqwm ‘ rh).
18. J. Charlesworth, “The Rule of the Community,” p. 27, proposes emending the text as follows: ‘l lypwt ’yš lr‘hw : “each man relieving
another,” i.e., in a study rotation. The precise rendering does not materially affect the present discussion.
19. The parallel at 4Q267 resumes at just this point and thus offers no comparative testimony to the wording of the medieval text.
20. This interpretation is followed in the translations of G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English , p. 77; F. Martinez, The Dead Sea
Scrolls Translated , p. 9; and M. Wise et al., The Dead Sea Scrolls , p. 134. P. Wernberg-Møller, The Manual of Discipline , p. 30, and J.
Charlesworth, “The Rule of the Community,” p. 27, ignore the problem by failing to represent the vav in translation.
21. This path is followed by A. Leaney, The Rule of Qumran and Its Meaning , p. 185.
22. The evidence from the scribe's own practice in copying out the present text is inconclusive. He has introduced no vacat into his text to
indicate a separation of the two rulings. But this is not uncommon in 1QS in general, where gaps of a few letters normally separate literary
units of several sentences only. The lack of a gap between two topically related rulings here, therefore, offers us no real indication how the
scribe viewed their relationship.
23. There is a vacat of two or three letters at this point. Since this is the copy of a medieval scribe, I am hesitant to view it as a clue to
the understanding of the relationship between the two rulings at Qumran.
24. G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English , p. 111, and J. Baumgarten and D. Schwartz, “The Damascus Document,” p. 53, render
“but.” F. Martinez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated , p. 43, renders “and,” while M. Wise et al., The Dead Sea Scrolls , p. 70, fails to
render the vav.
25. For a concise discussion of the options in identifying this work, see S. Fraade, “The Book of Hagu,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea
Scrolls (2000). I thank Professor Fraade for sharing a prepublication typescript with me.
end p.173
Most scholars have derived hgy/w from the root hgh, “to meditate or reflect.” Thus the term would have as its canonical intertexts such
passages as Josh. 1:8 and Ps. 1:2, in which the Torah is an object of meditation “day and night.” As for the identity of the book, at least
two possibilities stand before us. One frequent suggestion is that the term spr hgy —the “book of meditation”—is an honorific term for the
Torah. In this case, our passage describes a straightforward study of the Torah's content (e.g., L. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea
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