Classical Judaism, in a process that began before and continued beyond the Greco-Roman period, came to possess not one but several sets of authoritative writings. The Tanakh, a heterogeneous corpus of narrative, law, prophecy, hymnody, lament, wisdom, love lyrics, and comedy, often referred to today as the Hebrew Bible, is the primal Jewish canon. The textualization of components of its components dates in large part to the 8th-6th cent. BCE, at which time prior text constituted legal, narrative, parenetic, didactic, and liturgical precedent to be reframed and recast and subverted by subsequent textual contributions to a series of heterogeneous rolling corpora. In the early period, the existence of authoritative text set in motion an open process. As Bernard Levinson has remarked, if the text as canon is understood in light of its inner compositional dynamic, “[i]t invites innovation, it challenges piety, it questions priority, it sanctifies subversion, it warrants difference, and it embeds critique” (“The Canon as Sponsor of Innovation,” in Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008] 89-94; 94). To be sure, one might equally remark that it invites preservation, it promotes piety, it revitalizes precedent, it sanctifies "inveramento" or radicalization, it warrants systemization, it embeds coherence. The inner dynamic of the history of composition of biblical literature is omnidirectional.
The Hebrew Bible in the developed sense of a corpus that served at one and the same time as a compendium of authoritative law in need of interpretation; an anthology of divine promises and sanctions under whose shadow Israel, the polity of reference the anthology calls into existence, was to forever live; a storyline in which Israel has pride of place; and a collection of songs, laments, and prayers of permanent value, dates to the late Persian or early Hellenistic period, with additions and revisions not always agreed on by all made through 100 ce and beyond.
Next to attain canonical status was the Mishnah (c. 200 ce), a collection of tractates meant to preserve tradition and aid in the regulation of Jewish life. Supplementation and commentary thereto collected in the Talmudim (Talmud Yerushalmi [c. 400 ce]; Talmud Bavli [c. 500 ce]) also became canonical. In a looser sense, the same applies to commentary on the Tanakh collected in the various Midrashim (redacted collections from c. 200 – 800 ce).
Another strand of tradition is called piyyut, a genre of liturgical poetry which originated in 5th cent. Palestine. Piyyutim inserted into statutory prayer (the Amidah) were composed for every Sabbath, and served to link the Amidah to specific Torah and festival readings by means of allusions large and small. Included to varying degrees in transmitted liturgical corpora, they engendered a corpus of exegesis in Ashkenazi Judaism.
Rival chains of tradition developed. Karaite Judaism (c. 850 - the present) came to possess a body of halacha distinct from that contained in the Talmuds. In its floruit, Karaism transmitted stimuli to Rabbanite Judaism, which nonetheless saw it as a threat. The achievement of Aharon ben Asher (fl. first half of 10th cent.), the Karaite behind the production of model codices of the Hebrew Bible, and of Yefet_ben_Ali (fl. second half of 10th cent.), whose exegetical writings are cited by Avraham ibn Ezra (1089-1164), exemplify the legacy of Karaism. Saadiah Gaon (882-942), who inveighed against Karaism, left an immense legacy of his own. His translation of the Torah and other biblical books into Arabic, his biblical commentaries, and his Articles of Faith and Dogma (Emunot veDeot in translation), the first Jewish philosophical classic since Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 bce – 50 ce), wrote works like On the Eternity of the World and On Providence; all had a lasting impact on subsequent tradition.
In line with sporadic earlier custom, rabbinic authorities wrote binding responsa (teshuvot) to questions (she’elot) of observance from the 6th cent. forward. A famous answer is that of Amram bar Sheshna (9th cent.), head of the Babylonian academy of Sura, to a query about correct liturgy from a scholar in Barcelona. The answer contained a complete prayerbook replete with liturgical texts and halachic instruction. Repeatedly revised, it became known as the Seder Rav Amram, and was used across medieval Europe.
The work of biblical exegetes like Rashi (R. Shelomo Izhaqi, 1045-1105) and Avraham ibn Ezra (1089-1164) came to be regarded as authoritative. Rashi is also the talmudic exegete par excellence. Commentaries on their commentaries are numerous. Additional bodies of thought and tradition, sometimes after heated controversy, came to rule life and practice, and were commented upon profusely. Examples include Maimonides’ (1135-1204) Mishneh Torah, his Arabic Guide for the Perplexed (Moreh Nevukhim in translation) and Yosef Karo’s (1488-1575) Shulchan Arukh. Another stream of tradition, the Kabbalah, reached canonical expression in the Zohar of Moses de Leon (c. 1240-1305). All of these traditions contribute to what Judaism is today.
Historically speaking, Judaism is a canon-making machine. Time and again, disparate texts were strung together, loosely integrated, or juxtaposed to form corpora worthy of study, transmission, and comment. Time and again, one canon-in-formation imposed order, opened up, and relativized canons already in existence in a never-ending stream of interpretation.
Stack all of that together, and exactly how many times over is it the size of a KJV with apocrypha?
Posted by: Gary Simmons | January 31, 2011 at 09:32 PM
Miqraot Gedolot, Talmud Bavli and Yerushalmi, and the various Midrashim fill a bookcase from floor to ceiling.
Posted by: JohnFH | January 31, 2011 at 10:09 PM