Torah in the Mouth in Galilean Discipleship Communities

Abstract

Abstract Explores the connection between the presence of written versions of rabbinic tradition and the emergence among Galilean sages of the third century c.e. of an explicit ideological claim that the entire rabbinic tradition originated in Sinaitic revelation to Moses as unwritten Torah in the Mouth. Of great comparative interest is the Greco‐Roman tradition of rhetorical education, represented in the tradition of rhetorical textbooks (Progymnasmata), which prized memorization of written texts for exclusively oral performances that included rule‐governed transformations and revisions of texts in the performative setting. The chapter examines Amoraic traditions of Byzantine Galilee (the Palestinian Talmud, Midrash Tanhuma, Midrash Pesiqta Rabbati) for evidence that they were mastered from written versions and intentionally revised in performative settings. From this comparative perspective, the chapter concludes that the rabbinic conception of Torah in the Mouth is designed to legitimate the authority of the sage in the setting of discipleship training.