Abstract
This article proposes to rethink the genealogy and origin of the rabbinical terms Oral Torah and Written Torah. The terms appear for the first time in Tannaitic literature, yet scholars have attempted to ascribe to them an earlier date and to present them as a Second Temple, specifically Pharisaic, distinction. This article problematizes the existing genealogies and considers neglected evidence found in Paulâs Letter to the Romans that advances our understanding of the Oral Torah/Written Torah distinction in the first century CE. According to my rereading of Rom 10:5-13 and 3:19-31, Paul has a notion of double-nomos within scripture, and his twofold torah is presented as oral and written. Apart from rabbinic literature, it is only in Paul that we find the use of an Oral Torah/Written Torah distinction. This evidence affects both how the history of the rabbinic terms is understood and how Paul is configured in his Jewish matrix.
1 Introduction
The distinction between Written Torah (
This article argues that we must approach the history of Oral Torah/Written Torah in a new way that problematizes the question of origin. Torah2 is pluriform in antiquity, and this pluriformity also applies to the way the very category of torah is conceptualized in various frameworks: Jewish texts in antiquity debate what torah is and how it should be conceived. Within this debate we find textsâsuch as Jubilees, Philo, and 4 Ezraâthat introduce a variety of two-torot distinctions as a way of negotiating the continuing relevance of scripture to a contemporary context. The Tannaim also participate in the discourse of two-torot and propose several configurations of torah, one of them being the division between Written Torah and Oral Torah. I will argue that Paulâs letters also present a concept of twofold-torah that has been overlooked by scholars but should be considered within this wider Jewish discourse.
The new reading of Paul I introduce in this article contributes to our understanding of the history of Oral Torah/Written Torah in the following way: I argue that Paul conceives of torah as a double-torah, one oral and the other written. No other source prior to Tannaitic literature presents such a distinction. Nevertheless, since Paulâs configuration does not coincide with the Tannaitic conception of scripture, the Pauline evidence compels us to develop a non-linear history of the formation of the rabbinic distinction that is more nuanced than the histories proposed by scholars thus far.
2 Background
It is more methodologically and historically sound to move away from the question of the origins of Oral Torah/Written Torah, which implies a singular and traceable moment of birth from which Oral Torah/Written Torah linearly developed. There are two main reasons for this.
First, scholars rely on limited and disputable Second Temple evidence to ascribe an early date to the Oral Torah/Written Torah distinction, namely, Ant. 13.297. Josephus describes the Pharisees as having a paradosis apart from the Torah of Moses, a position that the Sadducees, who held to the authority of the Torah alone, rejected. Those who rely on Ant. 13.297 to establish an early date for the distinction,3 do so by triangulating Josephusâ description with some rabbinic sources that attribute the terms to Second Temple sages.4 But they mainly refer to the Scholion to Megillat TaÊ¿anit, which speaks of a disagreement between the sages and the Boethusians5 about the permissibility of writing halakhah in a book.6 This cluster of sources is then used to establish a genealogical link between the Pharisees and the Tannaim and to mark a continuity between the Josephan terminology and the Tannaitic terms.
Josephusâ account in Ant. 13.297 is the only Second Temple source used by these scholars to establish an early date for the Tannaitic Oral Torah/Written Torah. Yet, Josephusâ description can hardly be identified with or translated into the Tannaitic distinction. Indeed, Martin Goodman, Steve Mason, Martin Jaffee and Steven Fraade have separately rejected any such identification. Instead, these scholars attribute other meanings to the Pharisaic paradosis and ascribe a later dateâwithin Tannaitic cultureâto the Oral Torah/Written Torah distinction.7 Fraade has gone further and describes the Tannaitic Oral Torah/Written Torah distinction as a radical departure from Second Temple varieties of Judaism.8 Josephus in Ant. 13.297 speaks of âregulationsâ (nomima) that the Pharisees received as tradition from the fathers that were not written in the laws of Moses. Mason has shown that Josephus is not claiming that these observances were transmitted orally (only that they are not written in the laws of Moses).9 Furthermore, when Josephus speaks of Pharisaic nomima, he should not be understood as presenting them as another Torah of Sinaitic origins, but rather, as âobservancesâ or âregulations.â10 Only later sources, such as the Scholion of Megillat TaÊ¿anit, present the Second Temple sages as speaking of an âunwritten Torahâ alongside the Written Torah,11 but this formulation should not be retrojected onto the account in Antiquities.
Second, within rabbinic literature (both Tannaitic and Amoraic) Oral Torah/ Written Torah is only one configuration of torah among several others. The discourse of âoriginsâ in scholarship often assumes Oral Torah/Written Torah to be the solidified endpoint of an evolutionary process, and presents the distinction as rabbinic âdogma,â12 âdoctrine,â13 or âtheology.â14 These borrowed terms overshadow the fact that within rabbinic literature itself we find variegated, pluriform conceptions of torah. In a well-known source, the Tannaim explicitly debate whether there are two Torot, one Torah or indeed many:
âThese are the statutes (
××ק×× ) and ordinances (××שפ××× ) and laws (××ת×ר×ת )â (Lev 26:46): âstatutesâ these are the midrashim, âordinancesâ these are the deductions, âlawsââthis teaches us that two Torot were given to Israel, one in script and one in the mouth. Said Rabbi Akiva: were (only) two Torot given to Israel? Many torot were given to them! As it says: âThis is the ritual (literally: torah) of the burnt offeringâ (Lev 6:2); âThis is the ritual (literally: torah) of the sin offeringâ (Lev 6:14); âThis is the ritual (literally: torah) of the grain offering×´ (Lev 6:7); âThis is the ritual (literally: torah) of the sacrifice of the offering of well-beingâ (Lev 7:11); âThis is the law (literally: torah) when someone dies in a tentâ (Num 19:14); âThis is the torah that the Lord established between himself and the people of Israel on Mount Sinai through Mosesâ (fused verses from Deut 4:44 and Lev 26:46)âthis teaches you that the Torah, halakha, their details and interpretations were given through Moses in Sinai.15
The discussion in the Sifra shows that the distinction between the two Torot, Written and Oral, was disputed in the second century CE. According to the first, anonymous, opinion in the Sifra, written scripture is one Torah and oral another. Yet Rabbi Akiva uses the multiplicity of torot mentioned within scripture to promote the singularity of Torah and its interpretation. In other words, Rabbi Akiva argues against the dual-Torah terminology. Other Tannaitic sources share this view of a single Torah with Rabbi Akiva.16 The distinction between Oral Torah/Written Torah appears only once more in Tannaitic literature,17 and in the Mishnah it does not appear at all.18 Categories that are used more frequently in Tannaitic literature divide the realm of torah in other ways. The Tannaim most often use the terms mikra and mishnah. Terminology matters: the mikra/mishnah distinction does not present an understanding of two Torot of equal standingâmishnah is not presented as torah at all. Moreover, the terms cannot be straightforwardly mapped onto the polarity of Oral Torah/ Written Torah,19 since mikra and mishnah often appear not as a pair but rather as part of a list (such as: mikra, mishnah, halakhot and aggadot). Even when the terms Oral Torah/Written Torah eventually become more prominent (in Amoraic literature), the sages still repeatedly debate their borders, and some sages do not think that mishnah is torah in the same way that mikra is.20
The rabbinic concept of Oral Torah/Written Torah is part of a wider conversation about what torah is in antiquity, and we find several variations on a double-torah notion. Some of these speak of a double revelation of written scripture. According to Jubilees, Moses received two torot, one written by God on tablets (Jub. 1:1) and one written by Moses, dictated to him by an angel reading from heavenly tablets (Jub. 1:4-27). Cana Werman claims that Oral Torah/ Written Torah were Pharisaic concepts,21 and interprets Jubilees as adopting, reworking and countering a Pharisaic twofold-Torah solution that was already prevalent and popular.22 But as there is no evidence for Oral Torah/Written Torah before the Tannaim, we must understand Jubilees as preceding the Oral Torah/Written Torah distinction, not as responding to it.23 Philo also seems to hold a specific notion of double law. As Hindy Najman has shown,24 Philo speaks of two divinely legislated laws, the law of nature and law of Moses. Najman exposes a paradox inherent to Philoâs conception: The law of nature cannot be written and can only be embodied in the lives of sages, nevertheless the law of Moses is, according to Philo, a written copy of the law of nature. Najman solves this riddle by showing that Philo holds that the patriarchs and Moses were followers of the unwritten law before the law was put to writing, and that the laws of Moses are copies, âexpressions of the âactual words and deedsâ of sages.â25 Najman herself, and other scholars, have rightly claimed that Philoâs unwritten law of nature does not parallel the Tannaitic Oral Torah, and that they should be understood as conceptually independent.26 Fourth Ezra depicts Ezra as a new Moses, who receives a divine revelation of scripture resulting in the writing of ninety-four books, twenty-four of which were given and revealed to the public, and the remaining seventy of which were intended solely for the âwise among your people.â27 According to this narrative, the torah of Ezra is the product of a new instance of writing that replaces the Mosaic Torah. Fourth Ezra, like Jubilees, stresses the act of writing as crucial.28 For Philo, the law of nature is unwritten but paradoxically copied in the Mosaic Torah.
To this mix I wish to add Paul, who, I will argue, also voices a concept of a double-torah that has so far been overlooked. Israel Yuval has attempted to make a similar claim, but the textual path he takes is unconvincing.29 According to Yuval, Paul is âthe first one to speak in a clear manner of two divine laws: the Law of Moses (which he refers to by the word âLaw,â without modification), and the law of Christ.â30 Yuval understands Paul in 1 Cor 9:20-21 as abrogating the Law of Moses that is a text, and subjugating himself and others to the law of Christ, that is: ânot a text, but rather the living teaching which Paul disseminates to the Gentiles through his epistles and his sermonsâin other words, it is an oral teaching or Torah.â31 But there are several problems with this proposal. First, Paul cannot be understood as abrogating the Law and turning away from the Torah of Moses as a text, when only a few passages earlier he says about a citation from Deuteronomy: âdoes he not speak entirely for our sake? It was indeed written for our sake.â32 Viewing Paul as negating Torah renders his rhetoricâso deeply immersed in scripture in all of his lettersâ completely senseless: Paul speaks his gospel with and through verses from the Pentateuch, Prophets and Writings. Second, nowhere do we find the âlaw of Christâ presented as oral, or as anti-text.
But a double-nomos is found elsewhere in Paulâs writing. It has so far gone unnoticed, perhaps because of the persisting image of Paul as antinomian. Scholars, mainly of the New Perspective on Paul school, have repeatedly and justifiably criticized the representation of Paul as antinomian and as such, preaching a law-free or Torah-free gospel.33 Nevertheless, according to Paula Fredriksen: âThis Paulâanti-Jewish, antiritual, anti-Torahâcontinues to flourish in academic publications, not least of all because he is so usable theologically. Indeed, this theological usability (hardly an accident, given the intellectual and social genealogy of Western Christendom) is sometimes even held up as a criterion of successful historical reconstruction.â34 The prevalence of the anti-Torah Paul, generated misreadings that prevented scholars from comparing his nomos with other conceptualizations of torah in Jewish antiquity.35 As I will argue below, scholars who identify with the New Perspective on Paul school have also been unable to recognize the two nomoi in Paul because they have been committed to minimizing the difference between faith/works that is inextricably tied to Paulâs double-nomos. But when read more accurately, Paulâs concept of torah can help to establish an early date for the Oral Torah/ Written Torah distinction, as well as to present a new, albeit non-linear, genealogy of the terms.
3 Romans 3:19-31 and the Double-Nomos
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in Godâs sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin. 21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus, whom God put forward for himself as a hilastÄrion (lit. âconciliationâ), through faithfulness in his blood, in order to reveal his justice because of the passing over of errors already committed, in Godâs forbearance,36 26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have trust in Jesus. 27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law of works? No, because of the law of trust. 28 For we maintain that a person is righteous by trust apart from the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of gentiles too? Yes, of gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith? 31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.37
In Rom 3:19-31 Paul presents the concepts of righteousness by trust/deeds and lays out their relationship to the scriptures. Torah, as νÏÎ¼Î¿Ï Ïῶν á¼ÏγÏν (Rom 3:27), is portrayed as addressing only the Jews (vs. 19), and as such, presents an ineffective path of righteousness for gentiles.38 It is through a different nomos, the nomos of pistis that righteousness is available to them.
The meaning of these two instances of nomos has been a source of much writing and disagreement in scholarship. In supersessionist readings Paulâs gospel is âlaw-freeâ and accordingly law and Christ/gospel are antithetical.39 This framework generates serious problems in understanding Rom 3: when nomos and pistis are thought to be antithetical, then the term âlaw of faithâ is a true puzzle, often presented as a paradox. Scholars have produced in recent decades a variety of interpretations in order to solve the conundrum, explain the term and still keep nomos and pistis separate. Several scholars have opted to interpret the nomos in nomos pisteÅs as âprinciple.â According to Heikki Räisänen, the âlawâ in âlaw of faithâ is only used metaphorically or as word play, and is not a law at all, but an âorderâ or âprinciple.â40 This interpretation has been adopted by several prominent scholars.41 Other scholars understand nomos pisteÅs to denote the âLaw of Moses,â but are invested in the Law/ Christ antithesis and therefore claim that the âlaw of faithâ is the love command (Lev 19:18).42 Both of these explanations are far from satisfying, because they represent Paul as anti-Torah: Marking nomos pisteÅs as the opposite of the Torah or law of Moses (the result of interpreting nomos pisteÅs as âprinciple of faithâ) or as a single commandment within the laws of Moses does not fit with Paulâs expansive reliance on and use of scripture in Rom 3:19-31 itself, as elsewhere.
Interpreting nomos pisteÅs as the Torah of Moses should be preferred. Several scholars have taken this route,43 yet they either minimize the scope of this torah (as including merely the love command) or neglect to unfold the hermeneutical implications of equating nomos pisteÅs with torah, perhaps because of a theological focus.
Nomos is indeed best understood as âtorah,â and Rom 3 should be read not only as an argument against boasting, but as an argument against the claim that Paul is nullifying Torah (vs. 31). This formulation has vast hermeneutical implications. The terms âtorah of deedsâ and âtorah of trustâ should both be understood as referring to scripture, that is, to different facets of Torah itself. According to Rom 3, after the coming of Christ, scripture has two distinct voices: (1) the torah of works, prescribing ordinances to the Jews; (2) the torah of faith, speaking to âall.â As Rom 3:21 clearly states: âBut now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Torah and the Prophets testify,â both of these paths are within scripture.
This reading also explains how Paul âupholdsâ the Torah (Rom 3:31). Torah is upheld by making it meaningful to his gentile audience, a goal he achieves with the notion that scripture contains a double-nomos: the ânomos of worksâ which is for the Jews and ineffective or even futile for gentiles-in-Christ, according to Paul, and nomos pisteÅs which is the torah that speaks to and of gentile Christ followers. And so, after what seemed to be a blatant rejection of scripture in Rom 3:19-26, Paul follows with the very establishment of the authority of Torah in vs. 31 and then actively continues to ground ârighteousness by trustâ in scripture in the Abraham pericope in Rom 4.
Perhaps because Rom 4 presents a reading of an Abrahamic narrative, Richard B. Hays has claimed that in the scriptural manifesto of Rom 3 Paul rejects the law and embraces narrative in its place.44 Yet nowhere does Paul say that the âtorah of trustâ is generically different from the âtorah of works,â and this is also not his practice when he uses scripture to present his gospel to the gentiles. Paul uses scripture to teach his audience how to act and behave within the community,45 and so Rom 3 should rather be taken plainly: scripture holds, according to Paul, two nomoi, and it is through the torah of trust that he speaks to his community. It is the first step of Paulâs hermeneutics to extract, select and interpret the words which âspeakâ his gospel, the words that testify to the righteousness by trust.
4 The Hermeneutics of Paulâs Double-Nomos
Paulâs two nomoi function hermeneutically elsewhere in Romans. He writes in Rom 10:5-13:
5 Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that âThe person who does these things will live by themâ [Lev 18:5] 6 But the righteousness by trust46 says, âDo not say in your heart, [Deut 9:4] âWho will ascend into heaven?ââ that is, to bring Christ down 7 âor âWho will descend into the abyss?ââ that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. 8 But what does it say? âThe word is near you, in your mouth and in your heartâ [Deut 30:13-14] that is, the word of trust that we proclaim; 9 because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For one trusts with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. 11 The scripture says, âall who have trust in him will not be put to shameâ [Isa 28:16] 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. 13 For, âEveryone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be savedâ [Joel 2:32/3:5].
In Rom 10:5-13 Paul says that Moses wrote about the righteousness that is by the law the words from Lev 18:5. He then grants ârighteousness by trustâ a speaking voice using the classical trope of prosopopeia, speech in character.47 It is perhaps a âJudaizedâ version of this classical trope, as righteousness by trust speaks redacted and intertextualized scriptures, the fused words of Deut 9:4 and Deut 30:2, followed by redacted fragments from Deut 30:12-14.48 In the context of Rom 10 it is a feature unique to her speech, as in contrast, the scriptures cited in verses 6, 15 and 16 are straightforward quotations, only slightly amended. Romans 10:6-13 presents the scriptural speech of righteousness by trust, established by a plethora of rhetorical and exegetical operations: decontextualization, recontextualization, intertextualization, and reformulation of the language of scripture.49
The relationship between ârighteousness that is by the lawâ and ârighteousness that is by trustâ and their respective expressions in scripture in Rom 10:5-13 has been a source of both scholarly disagreement and puzzlement. The weighty exegetical questions surrounding Rom 10:4 and the meaning of Christ as the telos of the law have intensified the difficulty. In recent decades, pushing against a supersessionist reading of Rom 10:4 according to which Paul held to a Christ/Torah dichotomy, scholars have argued that Rom 10:5-13 should not be understood as contrasting the two types of righteousness.50 Besides formulating a broad theological critique of the Christ/Torah and works/faith dichotomies, these scholars have pointed out the absence of the μÎν-δΠstructure in Rom 10:5-13 and subsequently argued that the δΠof verse 10:6 is used by Paul in the accumulative sense.51 Many scholars have nevertheless argued strongly for the antithesis between erga (works) and pistis (trust) in Rom 10,52 mainly for (historically questionable) theological concerns, but most persuasively in light of Paulâs thorough reworking of Deut 30:12-14, understood to âdissociate the citation from the theme of law,â53 that can hardly be explained without the erga/pistis antithesis.
The question of how to read Rom 10:5-13 is often debated within the context of much broader theological concerns about Paul and the Torah, or faith and works. Hays contended that Rom 10:5 and 10:6 âmust not stand in antithesis to one another ⦠The efforts of some commentators to drive a wedge between these two texts as though they represented radically different conceptions of righteousness have wrought disastrous consequences for Christian theology.â54 In light of this overarching theological concern, he presents a reconstruction in which Rom 10:5 and 10:6 are not antithetical but âsynonymous.â Stanley Stowers in his rereading of Romans similarly understands vs. 5 and 6 as in continuity rather than in opposition, and argues against a supersessionist reading of these verses which contrasts doing and believing.55 Others have rejected such readings and prefer to read the δΠconnecting vs. 5 and 6 as adversative.56
In what follows I wish to suspend the question of Paul and the commandments and focus on the hermeneutical aspect instead. Those who played-down the antithesis between Rom 10:5 and 10:6 have often supported their reading by questioning the possibility that Paul would pit scripture against itself.57 While this question does not successfully support discounting the antithesis between the two types of righteousness in Rom 10, it is nonetheless a reasonable question from the perspective of the history of hermeneutics, and very much worthy of our consideration. If indeed Paul actively generates Deut 30:12-14 through the reformulation of its scriptural language as antithetical to Lev 18:5, then it is curiousâand in the wider context of scriptural exegesis of the first century, truly exceptionalâthat this antithesis is not presented as one that calls for resolution.58
In light of the Jewish hermeneutics of antiquity, it is outstanding that Paul would generate an antithesis within scripture and then leave it unresolved. For the Dead Sea Scrolls,59 Philo (and Alexandrian exegetes before him),60 and the Tannaim after them,61 scriptural incompatibilities are elementary exegetical incentives. We have countless instances in which these texts raise two conflicting verses in order to harmonize tensions and generate new scriptural meanings. Scripture, and specifically the Pentateuch, is filled with such incompatibilities and we find all genres of Jewish literature in antiquity repeatedly addressing them and smoothing them out. This has been understood to imply that all of these literatures share a common conception of scripture as unified and divine, and as such unequivocal and consistent. When scripture is equivocal and inconsistent these literatures are hermeneutically invested in generating consistency.62 Yet in Rom 10:5-13 it is a mere textual reality that two polarized types of righteousness both exist within scripture and that within the context of Paulâs gospel to the gentiles one is preferred to the other. Why does Paul not solve the tension between Lev 18:5 and the redacted passages from Deut 30? My reading of Rom 3 presents us with the possibility of answering this question.
The notion of the double-torah as unfolded in Rom 3 explains and legitimizes the pitting of scripture against scripture and the unresolved antithesis in Rom 10. A profound tension exists between the scriptural textuality of the righteousness by deeds and that of the righteousness by trust, and Paul is invested in extracting and interpreting the latter. Paul laboriously establishes the textuality of the righteousness by trust: it is produced by intertextualization, decontextualization and recontextualization. Paulâs dissociation of Deut 30 from the theme of the law is in fact a sophisticated textual maneuver: he extracts the âtorah of trustâ from within the âtorah of deeds.â In this case then, the very same text contains both nomoi, and Paul, as presenter of scripture to his gentile audience, draws out and amplifies the voice of the torah of trust from within it.63
5 The Twofold Torah, Oral and Written
If my reading of Rom 3 as establishing a twofold-torah within scripture is correct, then the distinction between the âtorah of trustâ and the âtorah of deedsâ is allied in Rom 10 with a distinction between the written and the oral. Moses writes about the righteousness by deeds, whereas the righteousness by trust speaks. Some scholars have trivialized the distinction, yet I side with those who have argued for its centrality.64 Paul in Rom 10 scripturalizes the righteousness by trust and he generates its textuality as speech. If the only difference was between the introductory formulae (graphei vs. legei), the distinction would have indeed been weak, for as we know graphei and legei are used in Paul (and in other ancient texts) more or less interchangeably. But in Rom 10 there is a connection between the introductory formula and what is included and omitted from Deut 30. The words of the righteousness by trust are about speech:
The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, âJesus is Lord,â and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your trust and are saved.
What is omitted from Deut 30 is not only the theme of law, as scholars have recognized, but also the oral nature of that law. Deuteronomy says about the commandment:
It is not in heaven, that you should say, Who shall go up for us to heaven to bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it? Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?
And so, when Paul extracts the textuality of the righteousness by faith, he leaves out any auditory or oral attribute of the law.65 Paul actively generates the scripture of righteousness by deeds as written, and the scripture of righteousness by trust as spoken. When Rom 3 and Rom 10 are read together: the torah of trust can be understood as an oral torah and the torah of deeds as written, and in the context of Paulâs gospel to the gentiles, one is preferred to other.
There are other manifestations of the preference for the spoken word to the written in Paulâs letters that support my reconstruction of Paulâs oral nomos. Judith Newman has persuasively pointed out Paulâs preference for living speech that she contextualizes in a general preference in Graeco-Roman antiquity for oral teaching.66 Paulâs gospel is an oral message to be proclaimed, and his letters should be generally be understood on a continuum with oral practices.67 The oral is preferred to the written also in the letter/spirit divide in 2 Cor 3:2-6:
You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts ⦠He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenantânot of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
The letter/spirit distinction in 2 Cor 3 has been largely over-played in scholarship and read as a testament to Paulâs rejection of Torah. But as has been already established, this claim is unfounded and cannot guide our reading.68 2 Corinthians 3 accords with Paulâs concept of torah in Rom 10 and Rom 3. In both Rom 10:5-13 and in 2 Cor 3 we find a devaluation of writing, the latter case more poignant. But the devaluation of writing is not a rejection of scripture in general: in Rom 10:6-13 the preference for the oral is creatively utilized in the manufacturing of a written (!) authoritative text. The âtheoreticalâ distinction between letter and spirit in 2 Cor 3 is in Rom 10 internal to scripture itself, not as a distinction between textual/non-textual but as a dual aspect of scripture.
Paulâs strategy in Rom 10 and 3, as I have reconstructed it here, is to make a division within scripture that allows him to marginalize many commandments with regards to the salvation of gentiles, while embracing and promoting other scriptures for them, re-presented as oral and living teaching.
6 Integration and Reassessment: Double-Torah in Jewish Antiquity
Could Paul be used to reconstruct a linear development of Oral Torah/Written Torah? Building on Paulâs Pharisaism (Phil 3:5-6),69 two such linear genealogies come to mind: (1) The (Tannaitic) Oral Torah/Written Torah terminology is indeed of Pharisaic origin, and Paul reworked it for his own needs. (2) That Paul conceived of the Oral Torah/Written Torah distinction as a way to produce a distinction within written scripture. The Tannaim adopted and reworked it in order to distinguish between their oral teachings and written scriptures and by and by mark both as Torah.
Yet, the current state of the historical evidence makes both of these narratives impossible to prove. After discounting Ant. 13.297 as attestation of a Pharisaic Oral Torah, there is no evidence that such a concept existed before Paul or the Tannaim. We cannot attribute Oral Torah/Written Torah to the Pharisees by reading it into Antiquities and then align Paul with these reconstructed Pharisees. The second possibility is equally difficult to support as we have no evidence for Paulâs letters circulating in Roman Palestine before 230 CE.70
The differences between the various terminologies should lead the way instead. There are no two torot (Pharisaic or other) in Josephus. Jubilees, Philo, and 4 Ezra all present variations on a double-torah in different ways, occupied primarily with the authority of the written text. Jubilees and 4 Ezra, as scholars have shown, clearly participate in a long tradition that values the written text qua written text.71 Philoâs distinction between the law of nature and the Law of Moses presents a different configuration of torah, intended to establish the consistency of the Law of Moses with the universal law of nature. Though Philoâs law of nature is an unwritten law, nowhere does he prefer the oral to the written.72 In contrast to these Second Temple models, Paulâs discourse is embedded in a preference of speech, and he conceives of scripture relevant to his gospel as speaking. I have argued that Rom 3 introduces a double-nomos, that in Rom 10 is implicitly attached to a discourse of orality. Paul, like some of the Tannaim, thinks of a double-torah, spoken and written. Though their concepts are different, Paul nevertheless provides us with a conceptual precedent for the Tannaitic configuration and allows us to date an Oral Torah/Written Torah distinction to the mid-first century CE. The Pauline evidence compels us to move away from historical reconstructions that present the appearance of the Tannaitic terms as radically departing from all previous concepts of torah/torot: âAlthough several antecedents to rabbinic Judaism express the idea of a two-fold revelation, not one differentiates between written and oral components.â73 Indeed, the Tannaim were not the first and only ones to conceptualize Torah as written and oral.
But the evidence from Paul also shows that the distinction between Oral Torah/Written Torah is a common name for different literary solutions that are meant to solve different cultural problems. For Paul, the distinction between the two nomoi is used to present (parts of) scripture as living teaching that speaks directly to his gentile audience and guides them. Yet, from a rabbinic perspective, both of Paulâs nomoi would fall under the category of written scriptures. For the Tannaim, the twofold Torah is used to claim Sinaitic authority for the living traditions of the beit midrash, thereby allowing Torah to be simultaneously ancient (from Sinai) and continuously growing, expanding and evolving. The division between two Torot, oral and written, is a single solution within a wider rabbinic discourse that promotes other, competing, literary divisions that map and define torah differently.
Bibiography
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My deepest gratitude goes to Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Paula Fredriksen and Hindy Najman for their reading and mentorship. I thank Assaf Tamari, Yakov Z. Mayer, Menachem Lorberbaum, Vered Noam, Yair Furstenberg, and Yonatan Turgeman for all our conversations on this piece.
Defining âTorahâ for the purposes of this article is a difficult task contingent upon the texts that are discussed. I use âtorahâ to speak of ancient Jewish texts (in whatever medium) that are understood or claim to be of divine origin. These texts might be presented as Sinaitic or Mosaic, or simply claim the name âtorahâ or an equivalent of it. In this article I capitalize âTorahâ only when it clearly denotes the Pentateuch. Similarly, I capitalize âOral Torahâ and âWritten Torahâ when I speak of the Tannaitic categories. Otherwise, I have attempted to minimize the use of capitalization. The distinction between torah/Torah applies only to English usage and in any case are not reflective of the ancient concepts in Hebrew or in Greek.
Baumgarten, âPharisaic Paradosisâ; Noam, Megillat TaÊ¿anit, 206-15; Werman, âOral Torahâ; Sussman, âOral Torahâ; Schäfer, âDogmaâ; Safrai, âOral Toraâ; Urbach, Sages, 254-78; Rosental, âOral Torahâ; Sagiv, Studies, 57.
In Tannaitic literature Sifre Deut §351 (ed. Finkelstein, 408).
On the identification of the Boethusians as Sadducees, see Regev, Sadducees, 32-58.
For a comprehensive assessment of scholarship and some of the misrepresentations of the Scholion to Megillat Taʿanit on 4th Tamuz, see Noam, Megillat Taʿanit, 206-15.
Goodman, Judaism, 118, explains the Pharisaic paradosis in Josephus as âtraditional behavior rather than traditional teachings.â Jaffeeâs in his study of âTorah in the mouthâ concludes that while many Jewsâthe Pharisees among themâtransmitted their ancient traditions orally in Second Temple Judaism there was not yet a concept of âTorah in the Mouth.â See Jaffee, Torah, 39-61. See also Fraade, Legal Fictions, 372-74; Mason, Pharisees.
Fraade, Legal Fictions, 372-74.
Mason, Pharisees, 243. See also Fraade, Legal Fictions, 373.
These are either legal traditions that are transmitted orally, as per Jaffee, Torah, 39-61, or are traditional behaviors (rather than teaching) as per Goodman, Judaism, 118; See also, Fraade, Legal Fictions, 373.
The sages present a derasha to the Boethusians: âit is said: âin accordance with these words (
Schäfer, âDogma.â
Fraade, âConcepts,â 35.
Jaffee, âHow Much,â 59.
Sifra Behuqotai 2, 7 (112, 3). In his discussion of this homily, Sagiv (Studies, 56-60) suggested that Rabbi Akivaâs opinion does not represent a view of multiple Torot, but his argument is not compelling.
âWhen the speech came out of Godâs mouth, Israel saw it and learned from it. And they knew how much midrash was in it, how much halakhah was in it, how many inferences a minore ad maius were in it and how many lexical analogies in itâ (Sifre Deut §313, ed. Finkelstein, 355).
âAnd Israel Thy law (
It seems that the chain of transmission in Mishnah Avot speaks not of the Torah given publicly at Sinai but rather of another Torah, passed from Moses to Joshua, i.e., the Torah that is passed by tradition. But there are no two Torot in this chain of transmission: the terminology is not used (this torah is not presented as âOral Torahâ) nor does the duo appear (Oral Torah/Written Torah).
Though scholars often tend to present these categories as equivalent. See, e.g., Rosental, âOral Torah,â 455-56.
Rosental has exemplified this point with regards to Talmudic usage of the terms, and the Amoraic debate regarding what is the âTorahâ in terms of the requirement of a benediction of the Torah (
Werman, âOral Torah,â 181.
According to Werman, 184, âThe claim to authority raised by Jubilees, that of a second written Torah given at Sinai, is comprehensible only in light of the opposing claim of an authoritative oral Torah, likewise given at the desert mount.â
Though Sussmann understands Oral Torah/Written Torah to be a Pharisaic concept, he understands the polemic to work in this direction. He explains the rise of the distinction between two Torot, Oral and Written as a response to other Jewish attempts to continue to write scriptural/prophetic works. The Written Torah is sealed, while the Oral Torah expands and evolves. I disagree with his early dating, but the logic of the polemic as Sussmann lays it out is correct: âThe creation of a closed framework of âholy scripturesâ and the abstinence from writing the Oral Torah are two sides of a single coinâthe complete canonization of the Written Torah and the abstinence from writing of the Oral Torah go hand in hand. The strict distinction between the holy scriptures and the words of scribes, between Mosesâs Torah (âhakatuvâ) and the Torah she-be-âal Peh (âhalakhahâ) is foundational to the rabbinic concept of two Torot.â Sussman, âOral Torah,â 372-73. Translation my own.
Najman, âWritten Copy.â
Najman, 61.
That Philoâs agraphos nomos does not present a parallel to the terms has been thoroughly argued. See Urbach, Sages, 291-92; Kister, âSome Aspects,â 575 n. 15; Najman, Seconding Sinai, 130-31; Fraade, Legal Fictions, 373.
Najman, Losing the Temple, 150-53.
On Jubilees in this regard see Najman, Seconding Sinai, 117-26. See especially her argument against F. GarcÃa MartÃnez who claimed for an analogy between the rabbinic notion of Oral Torah and Jubileesâ idea of heavenly tablets. See also Crawford, Rewriting Scripture, 80-82; Mroczek, Literary Imagination, 139-56; and the slightly overstated claim by Lambert, ââTorah of Moses.â
Yuval, âOrality.â
Yuval, 239. With reference to 1 Cor 9:21.
Yuval, 239.
1 Cor 9:9-10.
Gager, Origins, 197-247; Gaston, Paul, 76-79; Fredriksen, Paul, 110, 227 n. 29; Donaldson, Paul, 169-73.
Fredriksen, Paul, 109.
In this regard Yuvalâs article is the exception, presenting Paul as antinomian and at the same time as sharing a conception of Torah with Judaisms around him, particularly rabbinic culture.
Translation of this verse from Glaim, Reciprocity, 176.
Citations from Paul are based on NRSV, with occasional adjustments.
Rom 3:19-20.
See on this Fredriksen, Paul, 110, 227 n. 29.
Räisänen, âWord-Play.â See also Moo, Romans, 247-50.
Westerholm, Israelâs Law, 122-26; Donaldson, Paul, 335 n. 68; Kruse, Romans, 195-200.
Furnish, Love Command.
See, e.g., Friedrich, âGesetzâ; Dunn, Romans 1-8, 186-87; Cranfield, Romans, 218-20. For an overview and summary of this trend and its implications for other Pauline texts, see also Wilson, âLaw of Christ.â
Hays, Echoes, 156-58.
For example: Should they cover their head in the assembly? (1 Cor 11:7, cf. Gen 1:26-27; 1 Cor 11:8, cf. Gen 2:21-23); What can they eat? (1 Cor 10:25, cf. Ps 23:1); Why they must financially support his apostleship? (1 Cor 9:9, cf. Deut 25:4).
Pistis means âtrust,â âsteadfastness,â and/or âconfidenceâ and not âfaithâ or âbelief,â the more common modern (and protestanized) translations, and is so translated in this study. In order to avoid confusion, I often leave the word untranslated completely. See on this Fredriksen, Paul, 36; Morgan, Roman Faith, 2015. For a critique of Morganâs view and her rebuttal see a recent volume of New Testament Studies: Watson, âRoman Faithâ; Seifrid, âRoman Faithâ; Morgan, âRoman Faith.â
See Stowers, Rereading, 309; Jewett, Romans, 622.
How are the scriptures spoken by ârighteousness by trustâ manufactured? (1) By intertextual fusion and replacement: Paul fuses âdo not say in your heart,â taken from Deut 9 with verses from Deut 30. (Indeed, the âheartâ is of importance in Deut 30, and is especially relevant to Paulâs reading in Rom 10). We find another intertextual replacement in Paulâs use of Deut 30. In order to âfitâ the citation from Deuteronomy with his christological theme Paul replaces the Deuteronomy phrase âNor is it beyond the seaâ with a wording similar to that of Ps 106/7:26, and the sea is replaced by the abyss. (2) By omission: In Rom 10:5-13 Paul omits all references to the law and the commandments from Deut 30. The inserted words âdo not say in your heartâ replace the explicit subject-matter of Deut 30: the commandment (á¼Î½Ïολή). Not only does Paul drop the theme of the law from this citation, but also the auditory nature of the law. All these omissions serve Paulâs purposes and are clearly intended to bring Deut 30 closer to Paulâs notion of righteousness by trust.
Scholars have explained the differences between Paulâs language and the Septuagint in Rom 10:6-8 by arguing that Paul did not cite scripture at all, but was merely paraphrasing it, and placing it in the mouth of ârighteousness by trustâ see Sanday and Headlam, Romans, 287; Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis, 114; Ellis, Paulâs Use, 123. Yet the work of Stanley shows that in the case of Rom 10:6-8, Paul clearly reworks the language of scripture intentionally and that he should therefore be understood as citing manipulated scripture. See Stanley, Language of Scripture, 128-33.
Discussed in further detail below. See, e.g., Hays, Echoes, 76; Stowers, Rereading, 308-12.
See for example Badenasâ reading: âThe context does not compel us either to interpret these two quotations as antithetical, opposing Scripture against Scripture. By jeopardizing the unity of Scripture and by discarding a part of it as âwrongâ in its teachings, Paul not only would have been very unconvincing in his argument with the Jews and Jewish Christians to whom, at least indirectly, this passage was addressed (cf. 9.1-4 and 10:1), but he would have worked against his main argument.â Badenas, Christ, 123.
This is the common reading in scholarship predating the New Perspective on Paul school of thought, or in scholarship that does not identify with their readings. For some examples see, Watson, Paul, 32-42; Käsemann, Romans, 284-88; Dodd, Romans, 164-66; Koch, Schrift, 153-60; Belli, Argumentation, 239-48; Ito, âÎÎÎÎΣ.â
The words of Koch, Schrift, 131. But see also Käsemann, Romans, 284; Stanley, Language of Scripture, 130.
Hays, Echoes, 76.
See Stowers, Rereading, 308-12. For other interpretations of âdoingâ as âbelieving,â albeit with different results, see Bring, Christus, 54; Wagner, Heralds, 160; Heil, âChrist,â 488.
For some examples, see Schreiner, âPaulâs Viewâ; Moo, Romans, 645-50; Dewey, âRe-Hearing,â 116; Watson, Paul, 303-4, 324 n. 34.
See, e.g., Fuller, Gospel and Law, 67-69; Badenas, Christ, 123; Davies, Faith, 194; Campbell, âChrist,â 78; Cranfield, Romans, 2:521-22.
Compare Dunn, who says: âthe argument that Paul would not set scripture against scripture cannot stand. Rather we should say he follows good Jewish hermeneutical precedent in consulting different scriptures to see if he can resolve the difficulty he now perceives in the characteristic Jewish understanding of Lev 18:5.â Dunn, Romans 9-16, 602. Dunn then proceeds to explain how Paul solves the contradiction between the verses, in what seems to be a farfetched interpretation, see 613. I therefore follow Dunn in his first statement, but depart from the last. Paul does set scripture against scripture in Rom 10, but in this, rather than following good Jewish hermeneutical precedent, he differs from contemporary Jewish hermeneutics. Paul does not reinterpret Lev 18:5 so as to harmonize it with his rewritten Deut 30âas would be the common exegetical custom in Jewish texts from antiquityârather, the tension between the verses stands in Rom 10.
On scriptural harmonization in the Temple Scroll see Schiffman, âDeuteronomic Paraphraseâ; Weinfeld, âGod Versus Mosesâ; Knohl, âBible Reworked,â 157-58; Milgrom, âQumranâs Biblical Hermeneuticsâ; Werman and Shemesh, Revealing, 64-65. On harmonization in the Damascus Document and other Qumran works see Bernstein and Koyfman, âInterpretation,â 80-85.
Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis, 139-45; Calabi, Language, 102.
See for example, Kahana, âHalakhic Midrashim,â 8, 14 n. 55; Henshke, âStudiesâ; Henshke, âRabbisâ Approachâ; Yadin-Israel, âShnei Ketuvim.â
Kugel, Traditions, 15-19.
Watson has also pointed out that for Paul ârighteousness by faithâ and ârighteousness by worksâ both exist within Deut 30: âcontending with one another like Esau and Jacob in their motherâs womb.â Though he does not tie Rom 10 and 3 together as this study does, he does point out Paulâs hermeneutical work to generate the âStrange new voice that avails itself of the words of Deuteronomy.â See Watson, Paul, 314.
Kelber, Oral; Käsemann, Romans, 287. Though I disagree with other, Lutheran, aspects of their interpretations, they have rightly pointed to the theme of orality in Rom 10. See also Dewey, âRe-Hearing.â
This claim should also be considered broadly, against the backdrop of the rise of writing into prominence in ancient Israel, and the role the notion of writing played in the history of scriptural interpretation, specifically, in the book of Jubilees. On this see Najman, Past Renewals, 3-38.
Newman (âSpeech and Spiritâ) compares Paulâs preference for the oral to the figure of the maskil in the DSS, and points out the centrality of oral teaching in Ben Sira (Before the Bible, 44-45). In both of these cases she argues, following Loveday Alexander, that credible teaching was performed by a teacher in antiquity. In Graeco-Roman antiquity a living teacher was preferred to written texts. Ben Sira, the Hodayot and Paul participate in this practice, but none of these texts use oral teaching to supersede written texts.
See Becker, Letter Hermeneutics, 37-38.
See similarly, Newman, âSpeech and Spirit,â 260.
It is unclear how this Pharisaism of which Paul writes should be understood. Acts presents an extended account of his time in Judea, but it is an unreliable source for Paulâs biography (see Baur, Paulus; Knox, Chapters; Sanders, Paul, the Law; Lüdemann, Paul, 21-23; Jewett, Dating, 23; Dunn, Beginning, 500-501; Phillips, Paul, 67, 73; Gager, Origins; Fredriksen, Paul, 61-62; Barrett, âHistoricityâ; Marguerat, Paul), and from the chronology in Galatians it appears that he did not receive any serious education in Judea. See Knox, Chapters, 18, 22. See also Schnelle, Apostle Paul, 68-69. Sanders follows John Knox, concluding that âthe primary evidence is Paulâs letters. Acts should be disregarded if it is in conflict.â Sanders, Paul, the Law, 181. In Philippians, this Pharisaism refers to a specific orientation toward the law and its commandments, Perhaps implicitly tied in Galatians to a zealousness regarding ancestral traditions (Gal 1:14, without the explicit use of âPhariseeâ). These descriptions might coincide with Josephusâ description of the Pharisees as having a paradosis, Ant. 13.297-298.
See on this Rosen-Zvi, âPauline Traditions,â 175. Rosen-Zvi and Ophir dealt with a similar situation in their study of the goy: something of the uniquely Tannaitic goy is already found in Paul. See Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, Goy, 140-78. Perhaps as more such evidence accumulates, we will be able to draw stronger conclusions.
Najman writes: âLurking beneath every aspect of the book of Jubilees is its fascination with the importance and authorizing power of sacred writing.â Najman, Past Renewals, 41.
See Najman, Seconding Sinai, 132.
Fraade, Legal Fictions, 372.
