Early Judaism and Rabbinic Judaism
Lawrence H. Schiffman
One of the central issues of the history of Judaism is the periodization of
its early history. Behind this issue lurks a much more central question: To
what extent may we trace continuity between the various bodies of Jewish
literature and the religious ideas that they embody? When we study the de-
velopment of Judaism from the late books of the Hebrew Bible, through
the texts of the Second Temple period, into rabbinic literature, to what ex-
tent do we observe continuity and to what extent do we see change? This
question is made more complex by the variegated nature of Second Tem-
ple Judaism, to the extent that some would prefer to use the designation
“Judaisms.” At issue, then, is not only the fact of historical change but also
competing forms of Judaism at various times—aphenomenonbestdoc-
umented and understood for the Hasmonean period but no doubt also
present at other times. Within this complex framework, one may ask how
Judaism in the Second Temple period as represented in the Apocrypha,
Pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, and Dead Sea Scrolls relates to the Juda-
ism of the Mishnah, Talmud, and Midrash, that is, to the rabbinic or tal-
mudic tradition. What has been continued, and what has been changed;
what is old and what is new?
To a great extent this question is complicated by a related issue. In the
transition from the period of the Hebrew Scriptures to Second Temple
times, the earlier period bequeathed a massive literary legacy to the subse-
quent history of Judaism: the Hebrew Bible. This religious, literary, and
historical legacy remains a permanent, indeed formative, ingredient in all
subsequent Jewish development. Yet although Second Temple Judaism
passed the Bible on to rabbinic Judaism, it did not pass on its own literary
productions. There is only one text from the Second Temple period that420EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:04:19 PM