The History of the Bible - Section IV

1.      Rabbinic Judaism

Rabbinic Judaism is the religion practiced by Jews living today.  This includes the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform branches of Judaism most popularly practiced in the United States, as well as Hasidic and other branches around the world.  However, this religion is quite distinct from the religion practiced before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, which has been referred to here as Judahism.  That religion has ceased to exist.

The Judaism we know today is a younger religion than Christianity.

This comes as a shock to many people, as it goes against the grain of conventional wisdom.  Most Jews believe their religion predates Christianity by at least a thousand years.  And most Christians believe Jews persecuted Jesus, therefore Judaism must have already existed when Jesus lived. 

However, both of these views miss essential elements.  Jesus was himself a devout, practicing Jew, and the Christian Bible consequently includes the Old Testament.  So Christianity’s roots are as old as the Old Testament itself.  According to doctrine, anyone who lived before Jesus and who followed the Torah faithfully was good in the eyes of the Christian god (who is also called Yahweh).  The New Testament essentially consisted of major amendments to the Old Testament. 

So what should be made of the Talmuds, which were also substantial amendments – or at least extensions – to the Old Testament as well?  The Talmuds are part of the canon of Judaism, yet they were written entirely after the New Testament of the Christian Bible.  The Talmuds were written from 200 CE to 600 CE, and are a lesser known part of Jewish canon.  Talmud is a Hebrew word meaning “commentary” (??). 

Most Jews are taught the Torah, but not much of the Talmud.  In fact, I would guess that relatively few practicing Jews today could even name the major Talmudic works.  There is a good reason for this: the Talmudic writings (collectively referred to here as the Talmud) are of a length and complexity that is mind-boggling!  The Talmud consists of millions of words, many thousands of pages; it is encyclopedic in scope.  The Talmud is written in Hebrew.

Most of the writing is highly legalistic, consisting of thousands of situations and related analysis.  This is called halachic writing.  Relatively little is historical in the same sense as the Old Testament writings.  Accordingly, its use and application relate to only those special situations it covers.  These are handled by consulting a Rabbi, a Jewish religious scholar whose role replaced that of the Levite priests of the Temple period.

            There are a couple of reasons why most Jews believe their religion is older than Christianity.  First, the evolution of Judaism from its predecessor occurred relatively slowly, over a period of nearly five hundred years.  There was thus never a point at which a single dividing line can be drawn between the old and the new. The change in the religion appears only when seen across a large span of time.  Second, there is no single divine individual who defines the amended version of the religion, serving the same purpose as Jesus does to Christianity.  So the descendents of the Judahists never saw a need to define themselves as “changed” or otherwise as operating under a new banner.  The Christians flaunted their religious revolution; the Jews remained bound in their traditions, even as the traditions themselves inevitably changed over time.   

Development of Judaism from the Ashes of Judahism

After the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, the Judahists were once again faced with the necessity of continuing a temple-based religion without having a temple.  In the Roman-Jewish wars of 66-73 CE, the temple had been completely destroyed, and the Jews were again scattered.  This was much the same situation as had occurred when the First Temple had been destroyed in 587 BCE (discussed above).

But this time there was a big difference.  The remaining Jews had the Tanakh to work from.  One of the sects which was popular at the time – the Pharisees – would use the opportunity given by the destruction of the established priests (mostly Sadducees) to expand and extend their ideas.

While the Christians were experiencing persecution at the hands of the Romans, the Jews were experiencing all-out war.  The Jews had attempted revolution against the emperor, and the revolt had failed.  The Romans handily defeated the Jews, and subsequent attempts to revolt (for example, in 133 CE) similarly failed.  The ultimate problem was that the Roman emperor was essentially regarded as a deity, and the Jews – following ideas preached by Jesus and others – could no longer go along with the Romans on this. 

Over the next four hundred years or so, there began a series of writings that altered the face of the practice of the Judahist religion.  Many of the central tenets of the religion stayed.  But the religion was no longer the official or central religion of any area in the world.  And so it evolved once again.

Why do we care about this?  Once again, we see the connection between human events, the people who observed them, and the authors of important religious works.  This is a continuation of a pattern which had occurred since the beginning of the Bible.

Figure 13.1: Calendar of dates:

Mishnah

The Mishnah is a long document written about 200 CE.  It consists of about 1000 pages of text, divided into 63 tractates (books or chapters).  This is the first document comprising the modern Jewish religion, over and above the Jewish Old Testament (Tanakh).  It is anonymous; in fact, there is really no indication at all of its origin.  Was it originally passed down orally?  Was it always in its present form?  Amazingly, the oldest copy of the Mishnah dates to about 1350 CE, well over 1000 years after being written.

The Mishnah, like the other Talmudic works, was written in Hebrew.  There are indications that early versions were passed down orally.  This is suggested by a variety of elements possessed in the original Hebrew, such as mnemonic patterns and repeated structures.  This made it easier to be memorized.  Obviously, this was an important criterion for a work that existed only in oral form for the first hundred or so years of its existence. 

Unlike most other Biblical works, the Mishnah has very little to say or imply about its own creation.  Scholarly analysis has yielded little about its creation.  As a result, there are substantial questions about its true dating.  While a date of 200 CE is given here, the oral form could have originated closer to 100 CE (as an early date) and its written form nearer 300 CE (as a late date).  It is possible that written forms existed at the same time as it also existed in oral form.  Tradition has it that the first written form was created by a person called Judah the Patriarch around 200 CE. 

It can be seen that there is a gap of about 350 years between the writing of the last book of the Old Testament and the writing of the Mishnah.  This would be from the book of Daniel, written 150 BCE and becoming the last book of the Old Testament, to 200 CE when the Mishnah came into being.  During this time, the Old Testament canon had been finalized.  This gap represents a large period of time, the longest since the beginning of the Old Testament (Tanakh) as of that time.  This in turn spawned additional writings over the next few hundred years, as we shall see.

The style of the Mishnah is complex, vexing and challenging all at once.  Much of the text has multiple meanings.  It lacks a narrative; i.e. there is no real story being presented.  The text contains thousands of legal arguments, yet contains only a few dozen references to any portion of the Tanakh.

Excerpt from the Mishnah, Yebamoth 14:4, Neusner edition, per Donald Harman Akenson⁶:

The above is an example of the writing of the Mishnah.  Admittedly, not the easiest to understand (assuming there is something to understand, given the puzzling nature of the excerpt). 

Broadly, the material covered by the Mishnah includes sections covering: agriculture; cleanliness; family intimacy; civil order; religious calendar; and Temple rules.  It is clearly based on the Torah, the laws of Moses.  It adds little in the way of actual religious thought; the focus is on the proper actions of people.  If one acts in accordance with the beliefs handed down in the Mishnah, then one will have the proper relationship to God.  It is not important to understand God’s purpose; it is important to follow the letter of the laws handed down.  

After the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, members of various Judahist groups gathered at the city of Yavneh (in ??).  There, under the leadership of Yohanan ben Zakkai, the cult of the Pharisees was synthesized into the Rabbinic style.  Over the next few generations, thought continued to evolve even as things grew bleaker for practitioners of the religion.  There was no longer a central temple, and relations with the Roman empire moved from bad to worse.  There was plenty of religious repression as well, enough for both Christians and Jews to feel the heat.

Note: one of the tractates of the Mishnah is called the Aboth (Hebrew for “the fathers”).  This document was written well after the rest of the Mishnah, perhaps 3 generations later.  This is deduced from the fact that it mentions individuals who lived after the Mishnah was written.  It is one of the better known portions of the Mishnah, despite its different heritage: its style is quite different than the rest of the tractates.  The Aboth is almost entire “aggadah”, which means narrative.  This was almost entirely lacking in the Mishnah.  The Aboth serves to establish the legitimacy of the Mishnah by stating its lineage.  In this regard, it traces back the “author/editor” of the Mishnah all the way back to the time of Moses.

Tosefta

            The Tosefta was written about a hundred years after the Mishnah, circa 300 CE.  It clearly refers to the Mishnah, and indeed is primarily a commentary on it.  In fact, “talmud” is the Hebrew work for commentary. 

Few of the passages of the Tosefta make sense except when read in conjunction with a specific portion of the Mishnah.  Like the Mishnah, the Tosefta is written in Hebrew; unlike the Mishnah, the Tosefta apparently had no oral tradition (it was saved first in written form).

Sifra

            The Sifra was written at about the same time as the Tosefta, although slightly after since it refers to the Tosefta.  Like Tosefta, the Sifra is a commentary; it is a commentary on the book of Leviticus.  Thus it re-invents a portion of the Torah and introduces new ideas; all in the spirit of scriptural invention.  Interestingly, the Sifra is substantially longer than its spiritual parent is.  Leviticus is only 40 pages in length; the Sifra is over 1000 pages.  Quite a commentary, by any standard!

            As before, the Sifra is written in Hebrew and began life in written form.  We know little about its author(s) or otherwise how it came into being.  We do know it was written near the land of Israel.

            The Sifra works differently than its predecessors (Mishnah and Tosefta) in several respects.  It clearly places the Torah (written law) over the Mishnah (which could be called oral law).  It includes numerous references to the laws handed down by Yahweh to Moses at Sinai.  These make clear that the authors of the Sifra believed that new laws – which presumably trace their heritage back to antiquity, but were passed down orally and had never been included in the Torah – were suspect.  Naturally, it would be possible to have new laws show up at any time and any place claiming to have been given to Moses at Sinai, yet never having been heard of previously.  And indeed, this was what the Mishnah was. 

Jerusalem Talmud (Yerushalmi)

            Here we have another commentary on the Mishnah, which deviates from the Tosefta and the Sifra as to its style.  It is also written in Hebrew, as the other Talmuds, and it dates to 400 CE.  As with the others, there is little to indicate its authors or raison d’être.  The English translation runs to 34 volumes, many thousands of pages.

            Yerushalmi comes to us in a problematic form.  It includes commentary on about two-thirds of the tractates of the Mishnah.  Further, the extent (?) manuscript record contains numerous inconsistencies.  It is unpolished, as if it were not complete.  It does not make reference to the Sifra, although this was surely known to the authors of Yerushalmi.

            Yerushalmi was written during yet another time of upheaval.  In the fourth century CE, Christianity had moved from being a repressed religion to become the state religion of the Roman Empire.  This was no particular benefit for the Jewish faith.

Babylonian Talmud (Bavli)

            Finally, we arrive at the Bavli.  The Bavli is also known as the Babylonian Talmud, or sometimes just the Talmud.  Written in Hebrew, it is slightly bigger than Yerushalmi and written about 200 years later.  The Bavli was the last of the Talmuds.  It appears to have no oral tradition, having originally been placed into written form.

            The Bavli contains several thousand legal arguments.  It does also contain a substantial amount of narrative (“aggadah”), more than the other Talmuds.

Religious Ideas Introduced Around This Time Period

2.      And in the End...

As can be seen, the evolution of the Bible was essentially complete by about 600 CE.  Since then, the Judeo-Christian religious world was affected most by two events: the completion of the Qur’an in 622, and the Protestant movement of Martin Luther in 1521 (??).  Unlike previous Biblical evolution, which built upon the Bible by adding to it or modifying it, these two events broke the mold.

Figure 14.1: Calendar of dates:

The Qur’an

The Qur’an differs from the Bible in several ways.  It is written in Arabic, a language which is still widely written and spoken today.  The Qur’an has remained largely intact in the years subsequent to its writing.  The author of the Qur’an is known: Mohammed (??-632 CE).

Islam accepts the stories of the Bible as referring to its God.  But it treats the Qur’an as its sole scripture.  God’s name is Allah instead of Yahweh (although Jews who speak Arabic also pray to Allah, as this is the Arabic word for God).  Mankind is descended from Abraham, the same person as in the Torah.  As in the Torah, there are 10 commandments, although they are quite different.

Interestingly, the Islamic religion split into two main factions within a very short time after it appeared: the Sunni and the Shi’ite factions.  There are currently several other sects as well.

Masoretic Text

Sometime around 600 CE or later, Jewish scholars prepared a revised version of the Tanakh (the Jewish Old Testament).  This was done in Hebrew to preserve the original Hebrew, but with a twist: the vowel markings were added back.

The oldest extent copy of the Tanakh is a copy of the Masoretic text dated to approximately 950 CE.  This text is located in Israel.

Protestant Movement

The Protestant movement is interesting in that religious practice evolved without the evolution of additional scripture.  The Protestant Bible is different that the Catholic Bible, but the differences are minor.  We would have expected the writings of Martin Luther to become canon if past patterns were followed.  This didn’t happen.

Tyndale’s Bible

-Tyndale’s translation of ecclesia as congregation instead of church.

King James Version

The creation of the KJV (see Oxford KJV)

Mormon Church

Dead Sea Scrolls

The Bible Today

How many people follow the various Bibles based on the worship of Yahweh?

Jews:              ??       

Catholics:            ??

Protestants:            ??

Muslims:            ??

Mormons:            ??

It is tempting to ask: what was he thinking?  When the author of the Torah was making his creation, did he have any idea of the effect his works would ultimately have on the world at large?  Did the authors of the Gospels understand that one day, their work would move from clandestine reading to the prominence of a sacred scripture?  Did they ever suspect the ultimate nature of their contributions?  Of course, we will never really know what was running through the mind of the authors, those many years ago.

While the Bible appears static (i.e. unchanging) from the viewpoint of a single instant in time, it is clear that religious canon can never be considered fully closed.  Even a lifetime would be too short to sense the evolution of the meaning of this powerful collection of works.  There have been so many changes throughout the years.   This article is a testimony to an ever-evolving document, one that changes slowly over some periods, and rapidly during others (especially during times of dramatic change).

Can the Bible exist independently of man?  It is clear that men have shaped the Bible since its earliest days.  Through the writing of its stories and lessons, its translation and copying, and even the “spin” given the written words by denominational religious interpretation, the Bible is a product of man.

In the end, each person must draw his or her own conclusions regarding the Bible.  I hope this article has helped in your understanding of how the Bible came into existence.

References:

1.      The Bible, Authorized King James Version, 1611, Oxford Edition, 1997 (Protestant).  Translation into Middle English from Latin (Vulgate).

2.      The Bible, New American Version, 1962 (Catholic).  Translation into English from Hebrew and Greek.

3.      Tanakh, New Translation, Jewish Publication Society, 1985 (Jewish).  Translation into English from traditional Hebrew (Masoretic text).

4.      Who Wrote the Bible, Richard Elliott Friedman, 1988.  Detail history and explanation of the Documentary Hypothesis of the origin of the first books of the Bible.

5.      How the Bible Came to Be, James Barton, 1997.  A concise overview of the history of the Bible.

6.      Surpassing Wonder, Donald Harman Akenson, 1998.  Detail discussion of the invention of the Bible, with additional focus on the development of Rabbinic Judaism.

7.      Don’t Know Much About the Bible, Kenneth C. Davis, 1998.  All-around coverage of the Bible, including its development and analysis of content problems

8.      Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, Isaac Asimov, 1981.  Discussion of the historical content of the Bible.