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
envision Illusions [mhtlwt]!” The conjunction of lqwt and mhtlwt, Smooth Things and Illusions, stands directly behind CD 1:18's
complaint regarding some of Israel's seduction by the Man of Lies (see above), and serves as the intertextual reference point for CD's use
of the term “expounding Smooth Things.” We learn that Pharisaic teachings are equated with self-serving lies and illusory principles—but
know nothing about the nature of their derivation or authority.
A second example of how the scriptural text informs the Qumranian terminology comes from the fragmentary pesher to the book of Isaiah
itself. The pesharist's comment on Is. 30:10 has unfortunately been lost, but the following point appears in conjunction with a contiguous
verse that promises “swift shall your pursuers be” (Is. 30:16): “Its explanation concerns the End of Days with regard to the Ex[pounders] of
Smooth Things/ who are in Jerusalem . . . ” (4QpIsa c , fr. 23, 2:10–11). While the larger point has been lost in the damaged text, it seems
clear that the proximity of Is. 30:10's “speak to us Smooth Things” finds its intertextual echo in the passage before us. 16
In both of these cases, the argument can be made that the Qumranian reference to Expounders of Smooth Things exemplifies the larger
tendency of the pesher genre to read the Yahad's historical experience against the background of scriptural images. 17 But it is doubtful
that we can press the term too far for clues as to the nature of Pharisaic oral-interpretive tradition. Indeed, the intertextual context of Is.
30:10 suggests, rather, that the pesharist viewed Pharisaic legal tradition not as false exegesis, but as false prophecy . It is a tantalizing
coincidence that lqwt blends euphoneously with a term first attested in the rabbinic literature of the third century CE. But we should
hesitate in concluding that we have found the earliest evidence of a Pharisaic ideological commitment to orally transmitted legal-
interpretive tradition.
Our survey thus far has come up with relatively slim results. It is likely that the phrase “Expounders of Smooth Things” is indeed a
reference to the Pharisaic group that came into conflict with the Yahad over political affairs during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus. It also
seems clear that, from the Yahad's point of view, Pharisaic faults included not only political treason, but a more fundamental rejection of
the legal prescriptions revealed to Israel in the study vigils at Qumran. Pharisaic life—as the Yahad perceived it, at least—was, by
contrast, governed by reference to “easy expositions” of the Torah and a penchant for finding “loopholes.” But if we appreciate the shaky
grounds for accepting the facile equation of lqwt and hlkwt, the crucial question of how the Pharisees understood the origin and authority
of their text-interpretive tradition remains unanswered in the Qumran sources.
Early Christian Literature
In contrast to the allusive and vague references to the Pharisees in the literature of the Yahad, the Pharisees of the earliest Christian
writings are drawn in clear, bold strokes. Along with Sadducees and scribes, the Pharisees appear in each of the canonical Gospels (and
in Acts) as leading figures in the Galilean and Jerusalemite communities in which Jesus of Nazareth and his earliest followers found their
audiences. There is no opportunity here to mount a comprehensive survey of the diverse
end p.44
pictures of Pharisaism found in early Christian writings. Nor can we go into detail on the question of how specific portrayals of the
Pharisees in relation to Jesus might be shaped by a growing recognition among the increasingly Gentile churches of the latter part of the
first century that commitment to the messiahship of Jesus entailed estrangement from the communities of ethnic Judaism. Rather, we will
move briefly through the various chronological strata of the early Christian literature and focus on specific textual moments that promise
some insight into the nature of first-century Pharisaic interpretive tradition, at least as it appeared to those for whom all Judaic tradition
had come to its culmination in the career and teaching of Jesus.
The earliest Christian sources in which Pharisees play a role are frustratingly silent about the question of Pharisaic tradition. The apostle
Paul's letter to the Philippian church, written during the middle 50s, is the earliest text written by a believer in Jesus' messianic identity to
mention Pharisees. Here, in portraying his own bona fides as a genuine Jew who has reason for confidence in his relationship with the
God of Israel, Paul portrays himself in the famous formulation: “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of
Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law a Pharisee [kata nomon pharisaios], as to zeal a persecutor of the church, as to
righteousness under the law blameless” (Phil. 3:5–7). 18
The doctrinal content of Paul's self-identification as a Pharisee was amplified in Christian tradition to include beliefs regarding the
resurrection of the dead (e.g., Acts 23:6–10) that are obliquely confirmed in Josephan portrayals of the group (e.g., War 2:163, Antiquities
18:14). But here in Paul's own words the significance appears narrower. Paul simply points out that his pursuit of covenantal piety
conforms to legal norms espoused by the Pharisees. He offers nothing, however, by way of an explanation of the specific content of those
norms, their authority, or their relation to the revealed prescriptions of Scripture. 19
There is one other Pauline passage that might illumine Paul's situation to a degree. In his letter to a community in Galatia, also datable to
the mid-50s, Paul has another occasion to remind his readers of his knowledge of Judaism. The passage is of great interest, for it uses
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