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<strong>Torah</strong> <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Mouth</strong>, Writ<strong>in</strong>g and Oral Tradition <strong>in</strong> Palest<strong>in</strong>ian Judaism, 200 BCE - 400 CE<br />

Jaffee, Mart<strong>in</strong> S., Samuel and Al<strong>the</strong>a Stroum Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Wash<strong>in</strong>gton<br />

Pr<strong>in</strong>t publication date: 2001, Published to Oxford Scholarship Onl<strong>in</strong>e: November 2003<br />

Pr<strong>in</strong>t ISBN-13: 978-0-19-514067-5, doi:10.1093/0195140672.001.0001<br />

6 Compos<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> Tannaitic Oral-Literary Tradition<br />

Mart<strong>in</strong> S. Jaffee<br />

The Interpenetration of Oral and Written Composition<br />

The third- and fourth-century editors of <strong>the</strong> Tannaitic compilations, we have seen, took for granted that <strong>the</strong> traditions <strong>the</strong>y shaped <strong>in</strong>to<br />

larger compositions had reached <strong>the</strong>ir circles by word of mouth. We noticed as well an emergent, but hardly universal, tendency to expla<strong>in</strong><br />

this perceived fact of life—<strong>the</strong> orally transmitted character of rabb<strong>in</strong>ic teach<strong>in</strong>g—<strong>in</strong> terms of a nascent <strong>the</strong>ory of a primordial twofold<br />

revelation of torah. The written Scriptures, <strong>in</strong> this view, co-orig<strong>in</strong>ated with an orally delivered body of exegesis and norms transmitted from<br />

S<strong>in</strong>ai <strong>in</strong> a cha<strong>in</strong> of tradition culm<strong>in</strong>at<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> Sages.<br />

It is important to realize, however, that with<strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> Tannaitic corpus itself <strong>the</strong>se claims about <strong>the</strong> oral orig<strong>in</strong>s and primordial transmission of<br />

<strong>the</strong> tradition refer only to discrete halakhic teach<strong>in</strong>gs (e.g., halakhot stemm<strong>in</strong>g from Moses on S<strong>in</strong>ai, as <strong>in</strong> M. Peah 2:6) or to isolated<br />

halakhic <strong>the</strong>mes (e.g., halakhot of cleanness and uncleanness, as <strong>in</strong> M. Hagigah 1:8). We f<strong>in</strong>d no assertion, for example, that various<br />

compilations of Tannaitic teach<strong>in</strong>gs—such as <strong>the</strong> Mishnah—were <strong>the</strong>mselves unwritten 1 or constituted some part of <strong>the</strong> primordial oral<br />

revelation. 2<br />

We are under no compulsion, <strong>the</strong>refore, from ei<strong>the</strong>r logic or <strong>the</strong> testimony of <strong>the</strong> sources, to imag<strong>in</strong>e that compilations such as <strong>the</strong><br />

Mishnah were composed and edited solely through <strong>the</strong> mnemonically managed organization and manipulation of unwritten materials.<br />

Modern historians of <strong>the</strong> rabb<strong>in</strong>ic literature, follow<strong>in</strong>g precedents set by medieval scholars, have taken a number of positions on this<br />

question. 3 Some modern scholars argue for an entirely oral transmission of rabb<strong>in</strong>ic literary tradition. On this view, rabb<strong>in</strong>ic compilations<br />

such as <strong>the</strong> Mishnah were composed as oral performative literature and rema<strong>in</strong>ed so until various constra<strong>in</strong>ts compelled rabb<strong>in</strong>ic<br />

authorities to produce written transcriptions, more or less identical to <strong>the</strong> received medieval manuscripts. 4 O<strong>the</strong>rs hold that rabb<strong>in</strong>ic<br />

compilations were, from <strong>the</strong> outset, produced as written texts, <strong>the</strong> oral-compositional tradition hav<strong>in</strong>g effectively ended with <strong>the</strong> compilation<br />

of discrete traditions <strong>in</strong>to larger compilations. 5<br />

end p.100<br />

This chapter attempts to carve out an <strong>in</strong>termediate position on this question. 6 My position respects <strong>the</strong> evidence, seen <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> previous<br />

chapter, that rabb<strong>in</strong>ic tradents transmitted discrete traditions largely through orally managed discipl<strong>in</strong>es of memory. But it also presents<br />

grounds for suggest<strong>in</strong>g that <strong>the</strong> mnemonically sophisticated formulations <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> surviv<strong>in</strong>g rabb<strong>in</strong>ic compilations have passed through <strong>the</strong><br />

filter of scribal composition, particularly <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> transition to documentary compilation. Thus, <strong>in</strong>stead of <strong>in</strong>sist<strong>in</strong>g on <strong>the</strong> primacy of ei<strong>the</strong>r<br />

oral or written compositional methods <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> creation of rabb<strong>in</strong>ic literature, we shall explore <strong>the</strong> model of <strong>in</strong>terpenetration or<br />

<strong>in</strong>terdependence of oral and written textual formations. That is, we shall present evidence that <strong>the</strong> earliest composition of rabb<strong>in</strong>ic oral<br />

tradition, <strong>the</strong> Mishnah itself, reached its present form as its constituent traditions were shaped and revised <strong>in</strong> a cont<strong>in</strong>ous circuit of oral<br />

performance and written recension—a circuit impossible to break artificially <strong>in</strong>to an “oral substratum” and a “written recension” or vice<br />

versa. The goal of this chapter, <strong>the</strong>n, is to <strong>in</strong>crease appreciation of <strong>the</strong> peculiar ways <strong>in</strong> which <strong>the</strong> earliest surviv<strong>in</strong>g compilation of rabb<strong>in</strong>ic<br />

literary tradition consistently fed and was fed by a fertile rabb<strong>in</strong>ic oral-literary culture, even as <strong>the</strong> oral-performative character of <strong>the</strong><br />

Mishnaic text is shaped by conventions particular to <strong>the</strong> skills of <strong>the</strong> scribe.<br />

The notion of <strong>in</strong>terpenetration, <strong>in</strong> my view, is crucial for any reflection upon <strong>the</strong> relation of <strong>the</strong> rabb<strong>in</strong>ic writ<strong>in</strong>gs to <strong>the</strong> oral-performative<br />

literary culture presumed to lie beh<strong>in</strong>d <strong>the</strong>m. It is not helpful to conceive “orality” and “literacy” as mutually exclusive doma<strong>in</strong>s of rabb<strong>in</strong>ic<br />

cultural transmission, serv<strong>in</strong>g essentially <strong>in</strong>dependent functions <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> transmission of knowledge. 7 Indeed, <strong>the</strong> scriptural literacy of<br />

rabb<strong>in</strong>ic Sages, and <strong>the</strong> foundations of Second Temple scribalism upon which rabb<strong>in</strong>ic literary culture rout<strong>in</strong>ely drew, make it difficult to<br />

posit a rabb<strong>in</strong>ic tradition of “pure” orally transmitted discourse prior to <strong>the</strong> Mishnah, uncontam<strong>in</strong>ated by <strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>tervention of writ<strong>in</strong>g. I claim<br />

that writerly modes of formulat<strong>in</strong>g language for susta<strong>in</strong>ed rhetorical presentation have shaped even extemporaneous learned discourses,<br />

just as such discourses have been reshaped by <strong>the</strong> constra<strong>in</strong>ts of written notation wherever <strong>the</strong>y have been transcribed for fur<strong>the</strong>r<br />

transmission. “Oral traditions,” <strong>the</strong>refore, need not necessarily be ancient or <strong>in</strong>dependent of written transmission, nor need written material<br />

be recent or represent a “secondary” stage of a putatively primitive “oral” stage. 8<br />

The read<strong>in</strong>gs that follow treat <strong>the</strong> material <strong>in</strong>scribed <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> Mishnah as <strong>the</strong> foundation of a scripted performance analogous <strong>in</strong> some ways<br />

to a dramatic or musical presentation. 9 The script or score is produced with <strong>the</strong> assumption that its mean<strong>in</strong>gs will be activated primarily <strong>in</strong><br />

performance before an audience. Never<strong>the</strong>less, <strong>the</strong> performance is unalterably reflective of <strong>the</strong> prior labor of conception, compositional<br />

experimentation, and edit<strong>in</strong>g which produces a script or score. This labor, <strong>in</strong> my view, was to a significant degree scribal; that is, even to<br />

<strong>the</strong> degree that it rendered material memorized from oral-performative sett<strong>in</strong>gs, <strong>the</strong> literary compilation <strong>in</strong>volved tasks such as copy<strong>in</strong>g and<br />

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Subscriber: Columbia University; date: 20 September 2011

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