Sanhedrin 042

1:
No, I have not made a mistake! We would not normally have reached the above mishnah – at our present rate of progress! – for many a long month, and one item in it is pivotal for our discussion on modern Biblical criticism; you will recall that this is an excursus that I have promised at the request of very many participants. We shall leave the detailed study of the above mishnah until we reach Chapter Ten, for the only item in it that concerns us at this juncture is the statement of Tanna Kamma: The following do not have a share in the World-to-come: one who says … that there is no Torah from Heaven…

2:
The Written Torah states that at Mount Sinai the prophet Moses delivered Torah to Israel. This is so basic that it does not even need a reference. For the people of Israel, the real importance of the event at Sinai was the utter conviction of the participants of the reality of God; and that conviction has been passed on throughout our generations. The awesomeness of the occasion was impressed upon the people by a violent electric storm. The tradition that there was a torrential downpour on the occasion of the Giving of the Torah is recurrent in our sources. Later Biblical books hint at it, especially in more poetic passages. For example we can quote the preamble to Deborah's Song [Judges 5:4] –

The idea is also to be found at the very end of the Torah itself:

The prophet Ĥavakuk also makes reference to this tradition:

Psalm 29 is a celebration of Mattan Torah [the Giving of the Torah]. It too is replete with references to God's booming voice resounding over the flooding waters. (It is because of the connection of this psalm to Mattan Torah that its recitation accompanies the conclusion of the Reading of the Torah every Shabbat.)

One of the clearest of references to this tradition is made by Rambam [Moses Maimonides, North Africa, 12th century CE] in what is surely still the greatest book of Jewish religious philosophy yet written. In the Guide for the Perplexed he writes:

and he then goes on to quote the passage from judges that we have already referenced above.

3:
Having thus established, I hope, that the Giving of the Torah was accompanied by a downpour of rain and a violent electrical storm I think that we can appreciate that the people were convinced that God spoke to them in the thunderclaps, and delivered through Moses what was required of the people: Moses would speak and God would match him with a thunderclap [Exodus 19:19]. (The Hebrew word "kol" can mean "voice", "sound", "rumour" or "thunderclap".) Inspired by the utter conviction of the reality of God, through the agency of Moses, the people apprehended what was mankind's noblest and most sublime aspiration yet. This was cherished and passed on from one generation to the next.

4:
It is beyond doubt that the text of the Torah would have the reader understand that the Torah, as a unitary and non-repeatable dispensation from God, was given to Israel through the agency of Moses – either in one fell swoop or in batches throughout the forty years of wandering in the Sinai desert. (In the Gemara [Gittin 60a] this is a matter of dispute between Rabbi Yoĥanan and Resh Lakish: the former holding that the Torah was given piecemeal [Megillah-Megillah] and the latter that the Torah was given in one fell swoop [Ĥatumah].)

5:
However, modern scholars perceive within the text of the Torah four separate recensions, each having a different origin and emphasis, but all representing Israel's understanding of God's demands of man. Even though there has been agreement on this point among academic scholars of the Bible for nearly two centuries now, there has not always been complete unanimity as regards the exact periods from which each of the strands hails. The present consensus is that the earliest recension of the Torah is an account of the story of Israel's pre-history, the patriarchal period, Israel in Egypt, the Exodus, and the wandering up to the death of Moses; and that this account was produced in the southern kingdom of Judah around the middle of the ninth century BCE. The next recension is very similar in outline to the first, but was produced (possibly at the shrine at Shilo) in the northern kingdom of Israel about a century after the Judean account was produced. These two recensions were amalgamated into one "consolidated" version sometime after the fall of Samaria in the year 722 BCE. The third recension is a version produced by the priests of Jerusalem during the early seventh century BCE. It covers the same history as the previous recensions, but has a particular interest in the sacrificial rite, sacerdotal duties and genealogical tables. (Other scholars – particularly the late Professor Yeĥezkel Kaufman – think that this recension dates from the period of the Judges, which would make it the earliest; others, now fewer and fewer, think that it dates from the period of the Second Commonwealth, which would make it the latest.) The fourth recension corresponds to the book of Deuteronomy, and was produced in late seventh century Jerusalem (possibly by the descendants of Levitical refugees from the defunct northern kingdom). All scholars are agreed that these recensions were welded together into the written Torah that we recognize today under the aegis of Ezra (and Nehemiah?) in the middle of the fifth century B.C.E. Indeed, it is all but certain that the ceremonies described in chapters 8-10 of the book of Nehemiah record the canonization of the Written Torah in Jerusalem in the year 444 B.C.E.

6:
Obviously such claims must be established with reasons and rationally acceptable proofs. Such an undertaking is way beyond the scope of this excursus – even though, in the next shiur, I shall try to give some indication of the phenomena that produced what is known as the "Documentary Hypothesis". Those who require a much more detailed exposition will find a fascinating account in the book Who wrote the Bible?, by Richard Elliott Friedman, Summit Books, New York, 1987.

To be continued.