Biblical
historians generally agree that biblical interpretation began when Israel
returned from the Babylonian exile under Ezra (Neh 8:1-8). It became necessary at that time because of the long period in
which the Mosaic law was not only neglected, but forgotten by the nation. When
Hilkiah discovered the forgotten "book of the law," it was given a
place of prominence for a brief time but was soon forgotten again. The
Jews had also replaced their native language with Aramaic while in exile, which
made the Scriptures unintelligible to them when they returned. So
Ezra had to explain the forgotten and unintelligible Scriptures to the people.
It goes without saying that Ezra's interpretation was a literal,
plain interpretation of what had been written.
Over time Rabbinism came to have a tremendous hold on the Jewish nation. Johann Jakob Herzog in A Religious encyclopaedia or dictionary of Biblical, historical, ... offers some interesting insight on how this came to be:
When the Jews returned from the Babylonian captivity, they felt that they were not a Mosaic people, but had, in order to become one, first, to learn what Mosaic law was, and, next, to re-organize their social, moral, and religious life in accordance with its prescripts. The problem thus set before them demanded a union between school and government, and that union forms the very characteristic of rabbinism. In the schools the Mosaic law was rendered into the popular Chaldaean tongue either by literal translation or by more copious paraphrasing, and to this rendering were added explanations, illustrations, admonitions, etc. But the transition from a purely theoretical teaching of the law to a practical application of it was, of course, easy to make; and soon the teachers formed, in Jerusalem and other great cities, courts, into which all cases of litigation were brought for adjudication. It is probably that at first the teachers were priests; but, as there was no necessity for combining those two functions, the teaching of the law, and its judicial application, gradually fell into the hands of the laity, and, as one of the principal duties of those teachers was to copy the sacred books, they received the name of Sopherim ("scribes").
In the time of Simeon the Just, who lived under Alexander the Great, or a little later, the institution attained it perfection and final establishment. With Simeon the Just, however, begins the second stage in the development of rabbinism. It was quite natural, that in the interpretation of the law, a tradition should be formed, comprising the opinions of the oldest and wisest interpreters, the Chachamim; and soon this tradition was dated back beyond the Babylonian captivity, even up to Moses. But where there is tradition, there will come schools. Antigonus, a pupil of Simeon the Just, formed the first school, and from that branched off afterwards the school of the Sadducees; for the Sadducees were a school before they became a sect. About the same time a circle of men gathered from among the mass of the people, and pledged themselves to the strictest observance, even the most minute prescripts of the law; and from this circle of men, the Chassidim, afterwards developed the sect of the Pharisees. Of still greater importance than the formation of schools was the transformation of the whole class of law-teachers into a corporation, which also took place in this period, owing to the introduction of the semichah, or ordination by the laying-on of hands. Though the semichah was not legally established until about eighty years before Christ, it, too, was dated back to Moses. Its final form it received from Hillel I.: it could be given only within the boundaries of Palestine, and only with the consent of the president of the sanhedrin, and any one who had received it was eligible to that assembly.
It is obvious that the scribes during this time used a literal method of interpretation; however, it was a literalness so sharp, it cut out the spiritual requirements of the law. Although they arrived at false conclusions, it wasn’t the fault of the literal method, but the misapplication of it. C.A. Briggs, after explaining the thirteen rules that guided Rabbinical interpretation, says this:
Some of the rules are excellent, and so far as the practical logic of the times went, cannot be disputed. The fault of Rabbinical exegesis was less in the rules than in their application, although latent fallacies are not difficult to discover in them, and they do not sufficiently guard against slips of argument.
So despite all the fallacies of Jewish Rabbinism, it must be concluded that they followed a literal, plain method of interpretation.
(to be continued)
Over time Rabbinism came to have a tremendous hold on the Jewish nation. Johann Jakob Herzog in A Religious encyclopaedia or dictionary of Biblical, historical, ... offers some interesting insight on how this came to be:
When the Jews returned from the Babylonian captivity, they felt that they were not a Mosaic people, but had, in order to become one, first, to learn what Mosaic law was, and, next, to re-organize their social, moral, and religious life in accordance with its prescripts. The problem thus set before them demanded a union between school and government, and that union forms the very characteristic of rabbinism. In the schools the Mosaic law was rendered into the popular Chaldaean tongue either by literal translation or by more copious paraphrasing, and to this rendering were added explanations, illustrations, admonitions, etc. But the transition from a purely theoretical teaching of the law to a practical application of it was, of course, easy to make; and soon the teachers formed, in Jerusalem and other great cities, courts, into which all cases of litigation were brought for adjudication. It is probably that at first the teachers were priests; but, as there was no necessity for combining those two functions, the teaching of the law, and its judicial application, gradually fell into the hands of the laity, and, as one of the principal duties of those teachers was to copy the sacred books, they received the name of Sopherim ("scribes").
In the time of Simeon the Just, who lived under Alexander the Great, or a little later, the institution attained it perfection and final establishment. With Simeon the Just, however, begins the second stage in the development of rabbinism. It was quite natural, that in the interpretation of the law, a tradition should be formed, comprising the opinions of the oldest and wisest interpreters, the Chachamim; and soon this tradition was dated back beyond the Babylonian captivity, even up to Moses. But where there is tradition, there will come schools. Antigonus, a pupil of Simeon the Just, formed the first school, and from that branched off afterwards the school of the Sadducees; for the Sadducees were a school before they became a sect. About the same time a circle of men gathered from among the mass of the people, and pledged themselves to the strictest observance, even the most minute prescripts of the law; and from this circle of men, the Chassidim, afterwards developed the sect of the Pharisees. Of still greater importance than the formation of schools was the transformation of the whole class of law-teachers into a corporation, which also took place in this period, owing to the introduction of the semichah, or ordination by the laying-on of hands. Though the semichah was not legally established until about eighty years before Christ, it, too, was dated back to Moses. Its final form it received from Hillel I.: it could be given only within the boundaries of Palestine, and only with the consent of the president of the sanhedrin, and any one who had received it was eligible to that assembly.
It is obvious that the scribes during this time used a literal method of interpretation; however, it was a literalness so sharp, it cut out the spiritual requirements of the law. Although they arrived at false conclusions, it wasn’t the fault of the literal method, but the misapplication of it. C.A. Briggs, after explaining the thirteen rules that guided Rabbinical interpretation, says this:
Some of the rules are excellent, and so far as the practical logic of the times went, cannot be disputed. The fault of Rabbinical exegesis was less in the rules than in their application, although latent fallacies are not difficult to discover in them, and they do not sufficiently guard against slips of argument.
So despite all the fallacies of Jewish Rabbinism, it must be concluded that they followed a literal, plain method of interpretation.
(to be continued)
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