In response to the second objection raised above, it can be suggested from the evidence
presented here that ritual texts, and to some extent also law texts, were likely to have
been relatively fixed in terms of content and form independent of the textual ritualisation
process. The causality dilemma of ritual status or exact form can be averted on the
grounds that particular texts may have tended towards fixed states, only later becoming
objects of ritual veneration due to their relatively precise forms. While it is important to
note that a great deal of additional research needs to be done to confirm or deny this posi-
tion, the cuneiform evidence presented above does indicate that this area of investigation
is worth pursuing.
During the last centuries of the Second Temple period the various recensional streams
through which the text of the Torah was transmitted had become largely solidified. “For
the bulk of Judaism, it appears that the highly complex process of formation of the Torah
had come to an end. This relatively fixed Mosaic Torah instruction now stands at the cen-
ter of a temple-centered community headed by priests.”^1346 In response to the cultural
dominance of Hellenism, which threatened to eclipse much of Egyptian and Palestinian
Jewish cultural identity, the focus in Jewish education-enculturation under the Has-
monean leadership hardened around the authority of the priests and the absolute primacy
of the Torah.
(^1346) D.M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart (^) , 172.