Their teachers insisted that the commands of "the Law" (the Torah) were in their entirety the commands of God. "He who says that Moses wrote even one verse of his own knowledge is a denier and despiser of the Word of God." The whole Pentateuch thus came to be regarded as dictated by God. Even the last eight verses of Deuteronomy, in which the death of Moses is told, were asserted to have been written by means of a divine revelation. Some of the teachers even went further; they asserted that the complete book of the Law had been handed to Moses by God.[1]
As time went on, the other Books of the "Old Testament"—at first the writings of the older prophets and works on the pre-exilic period of Israel; then the body of the "prophets" and the other Old Testament writings, became also regarded as documents in which the will of God was revealed in a manner absolutely binding.
Round the Law (Torah) had gathered a vast number of explanatory directions, and a certain number of traditional additions known as "Haggadah." The first of these, the directions or explanations, were known by the term "Halachah."[2] It had become necessary, seeing that the Law of Moses was accepted as the divine code for the guidance of the Chosen People, to explain and enlarge it further, so as to apply its brief enactments to all the conditions of everyday life. Some few of these Halachah were traditionally derived from Moses himself. Others had probably been composed very early in the schools of the prophets; yet more were the work of the Scribes,[3] a numerous class of teachers which had arisen after the return from exile in the days of Ezra. These Halachah (we use the well-known expression in preference to the more accurate plural form Halachoth; the same course has been followed in that of
- ↑ These singular assertions will be found in the Mishnah, in the Talmudic treatises of the Sanhedrim and the Baba-Bathra.
- ↑ Halachah signifies literally custom, practice, rule. The term is further explained and illustrated in the following chapter on the "Contents of the Talmud." Haggadah, which generally signifies Tradition, is also explained and illustrated (see Appendix).
- ↑ These Scribes, their position and means of livelihood, are discussed more fully below on p. 350.
