i just reread and i find it surprising that you didn't mention that reb saadiah gaon (emunos v'deos middle of part 8 the part about mashiahch) and the baal hamaor (beginning of RH) already dealt with the second argument. you should add that so people don't get the wrong impression that this is a modern question and that big people thought about it...
I didn't really present arguments on the topic, because I'm just using the conclusion for a seperate argument (although i did provide a link to mitchell furst's work). But just to address it, the argument that the christians falsified the history to link the prophecy in daniel to jesus may have worked then when the only source he had is what historians in his day were saying. However, I doubt he would've said so if he knew the greek sources (unless he thought they were forgeries by christians) and today we have many other lines of evidence from archeology, astronomical dating, and access to reports from many other regions.
The first argument, though it is the first time I've heard such a case presented, seems (to me) quite speculative. I don't mind it being included in the list because even a weaker argument has its place when exploring as topic, although I would've put it much later - but you didn't which makes it sound like you are taken by it much more than I am.
But the second argument always fascinated me, and like you, I have yet to hear a good explanation...
You're presentation, writing and articulation are a pleasure!!
I actually felt a bit silly about the post because when I was preparing I imagined a strong case arguing from seven different angles... but by the time I finished writing the second it was my longest post so far, and I'm not sure how long I can hold readers interest....
But just to address your point, allow me to articulate two individual points. 1. It's one out of many, so who says? This is preemptively addressing the believer trust because tradition or whatnot and it's trying to demonstrate the relativism of this particular claim. 2. Which is a positive attack- the historical context when taken holistically strongly points to a protracted process of development. It's hard to demonstrate a holistic argument, because it's based on a larger picture which is made up of a million pieces. For example, one of the arguments I haven't yet included in that we can map a progression in the development of the concept, which shows it was an emerging theology, not a factual historical truth. How do we demonstrate that? By giving say 5 pieces of data which follow chronologically and logically (in an actual paper 5 would usually still be considered speculation, and more would be needed to establish the theory, but when trying to explain it someone and have 'get' the vibe, a couple can do.)
Our argument is a macro form of that one. It's not tracking a progression of a particular doctrine, rather it tracking the progression of the entire religous system. If I told you that since the war the way halacha happens in a practical sense is different, you would probably get me. How many examples do I have to give to someone who doesn't know anything about halacha until he gets it? 20? 100? I think the answer is no number is enough, until he thinks for himself of experiences for himself to establish the pardigm of the whole system. Open a book on second temple history! It's an almost universal agreement that belief in the afterlife began in the late hellenic era which gave rose to the whole idea of apocylyptic theologies, but how can you show that? Maybe it only referenced later and it still existed just wasn't discussed? You totta read the room, buddy. It's a holisitic method of analysis, which you get from exposing yourself to that era itself as far as we have access to it. It will never come across strong in a blog post. Maybe if i wrote 20 pages full of quotes and examples it would help. So I picked what I thought are the most direct points and tried arguing from it. Does it come across strong? No. But is it a weak argument? I think no.
i guess we'll see how you go about this moving forward but yes, this would be a weak argument, mostly because our mesorah is at least as strong as that. obviously you're far more taken by these arguments that i would deem very conjecture-ish, like thinking that the afterlife is a hellenistic invention. again, we'll see how you progress moving forward but i imagine your conjectures won't hold up to the necessary strength to dismantle our mesorah. all you're doing is finding the weaknesses and focusing on them, something every skeptic does in his area of concern. some tug at the morals, some at the biblical criticism, some from archaeology, some at the questions from science and you, now, at the history. most compile all of these into one big ball of the transparent verdict that it is far more parsimonious to assume the rabbis just got it wrong. i don't find this wholly unreasonable except it usually leaves out the entire area of "deeper judaism". we'll hafta continue this discussion (hopefully) after i hear more tho...
I've spent a significant amount of time studying the topic and I personally find it convincing, although you are fully entitled to disagree.
Regarding afterlife in prehellenic times, I should not have spoken so quickly. I was thinking about the rise apocalyptic theology, and I mistakenly included the afterlife in that. Indeed, it's not simple at all, there are good arguments on both sides. So I retract that example.
Interesting post. Thanks for laying it all out there in an articulate way on this platform. Now for my response.
“Given the historical context, what basis do we have to establish that the Pharisaic tradition were older than the other sects?”
We know that the Tannaim and Amoriam had a mesorah from their rebbeim. This is clear from the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Talmud. You can question how old that mesorah was, a century, a few centuries, or back to Moshe. But there is definitely a mesorah there, and the Mishnah and Talmud are built on it. This is not the case for Dead Sea Scroll sects. We see no indication of a mesorah, but religious texts full of rules and theology. It would be like if our entire Mishnah was written in the style of איזהו מקומן.
“This observation would seem to suggest that the name Sadducess is referring to the priestly family of Zadok, which was the prominent priestly family going back to the time of Ezra. If this is true, it would suggest that the Sadducees represent a tradition going far earlier than any of the other sects”
I don’t understand your reasoning at all. Because they named themselves after Tzadok, they must have an earlier tradition? We already know the Saducees are Cohanim, so all you have done with this is make them a finer pedigree of Cohanim. Let’s say you are right, their name stems from Tzadok, and they really do descend from Tzadok, and are the most מיוחס Kohanim in the world. What does that have to do with them having a more correct tradition? This is besides for the fact that the Saducees don’t even claim to have their own independent tradition from the Rabbis, but are just anti the tradition of the Rabbis.
“Therefore, the transmission process only holds water if we assume the SO chronology, which places only 40 years between the rebuilding of the Temple and Alexander’s conquest…How can we hypothesize that Chazal had a reliable oral tradition going back to the first temple era, when they were completely unaware of the history of the transmission itself?”
Not at all. The transmission process doesn’t depend on us knowing every detail of history. When the Mishnah says the ויהושע לזקנים וזקנים לנביאים, we don’t know the exact זקנים Yehoshua transmitted it to, and we don’t know all the Neviim, or who transmitted it to who. All we have is the speculative reconstruction of the Rambam. The Seder Olam is likewise transparently a reconstruction of history, based mostly on pesukim and drashos. Our Mesorah does not depend upon these reconstructions being totally correct, because the Mesorah is almost completely about halachos, not history.
"We know that the Tannaim and Amoriam had a mesorah from their rebbeim. This is clear from the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Talmud... This is not the case for Dead Sea Scroll sects." This is actually to be expected under my model, as the dead sea scrolls date to the sectarian era itself when these traditions were forming, while rabbinic texts were composed in the post-sectarian era after the churban and were largely rooted in traditions going back two centuries. Anyways, most of the mesorah we find explicitly only dates back until the generation of rabbi yochanan ben zakai, and even more prominently from the generation of rabbi yehoshua, r eliezer, and rabbi akiva (about half a century later). We find a couple traditions gooing back until hillel or shimon ben shetach (which is the pharasaic era), but that's really very little.
Either way, the main point of the argument isnt just from the lack of mesora, rather it's from the likelihood that pharasaic judaism was connected to the emergence of sectarianism, which makes the default assumption that it did not predate it. All we know of before this time are the biblical aspects of judaism, and it's only in this period of time that we see new things developing specifically in the style of pharasaic traditions and rabbinic law. Isn't it far more plausible to place the oral law within the context of that era and not a different origin source which happened well before?
Re: your point about the sadducees, I was simply attempting to cement this paradigm that the sadducees were presectarian traditionalists, through pointing out that they were likely the establishment which predated sectarianism (not just cuz they have chal yichus, but because they are the religious establishment, while the groups of pharisees and others are unattested to before this time, suggesting they might be the new kid on the block while the sadducees were always around).
"The transmission process doesn’t depend on us knowing every detail of history", I agree that it doesn't depend on knowing every detail, but a blatant ignorance of the entire period should be more troubling. When you have a strong comprehensive mesorah you tend to remember the major names, schools of thought, and events, at least for several hundred years (think how much you know about the tekufah of the rishonim or acharonim just from learning shas uposkim, i'm not saying it's 100% the same, but to some degree it should be this way).
Furthermore, it's a lot worse than not knowing the tradition during the first temple. Firstly because it was more recent, but more importantly because they were well aware of the general history of the first temple era, but the period of the early second temple really represents a blind spot in the whole national awareness. This is the period in time which is crucial to connect the early history from tanakh until the later history they represented, and any chain of transmission would filter through that period. The fact they it was completely forgotten shows a break in the entire transmission of the whole nation and torah, likely caused by the turbulent events of the persian and hellenic empires which reshaped jewish identity.
My argument is that we know that the Torah shebaal Peh that we have is built on mesorah, so it is already fundamentally different from the Dead Sea Scrolls which doesn’t even claim to have a mesorah. You can argue that the mesorah stops at 100BC or 200BC, but I see no reason to believe that the mesorah didn’t continue earlier. In fact, according to your theory, there should have been a Rabbinic figure/body analogous to the Dead Sea Scroll Teacher of Righteousness, who invented the entire Oral law, from Brachos to Uktzin, around 150BC, and yet none of the Tannaim know about him. I also don’t understand your “sectarianism” theory in the first place. “Sectarianism” is a description of the state of circumstances of having different sects. It is not an explanation for any of those sects, be they Rabbinic Judaism, Sadducism, Essenism, or Christianity.
“I agree that it doesn't depend on knowing every detail, but a blatant ignorance of the entire period should be more troubling. When you have a strong comprehensive mesorah you tend to remember the major names, schools of thought, and events, at least for several hundred years (think how much you know about the tekufah of the rishonim or acharonim just from learning shas uposkim, i'm not saying it's 100% the same, but to some degree it should be this way)…Furthermore, it's a lot worse than not knowing the tradition during the first temple. Firstly because it was more recent, but more importantly because they were well aware of the general history of the first temple era, but the period of the early second temple really represents a blind spot in the whole national awareness.”
The traditional reason given for why there are no named halachos/schools of thought before Hillel is because there was no (or very little) machlokes due to the Sanhedrin. This has nothing to do with the missing years, there is a general lack of names from Ezra to Hillel, with the exception of the Chashmonaim period for obvious reasons. They were aware of the history of the First Temple because it was written down, as opposed to the Second Temple. According to your argument, they couldn’t have had a written tradition either, because there was a huge break in the written tradition, and therefore all the books of the Bible must come from the Greek era. I know there are people who actually believe this, but this lack of history doesn’t have anything to do with the Oral Law specifically.
“The fact they it was completely forgotten shows a break in the entire transmission of the whole nation and torah, likely caused by the turbulent events of the persian and hellenic empires which reshaped jewish identity.”
I don’t think this theory makes any sense at all. The opposite would be expected, the most turbulent events generate the most memorable history. The destruction of the First, Second Temple, the destruction of Beitar, all of these generated extensive historical narratives. Rather, I would expect that the Persian Period after the construction of the Second Temple was unusually peaceful.
If you study anything about the sectarian era, you'll notice that it wasn't simply about having lots of sects, rather it was developing traditions and interpretations which were specifically molded to different groups. In this sense the sadducees didn't participate that much in this.
To illustrate, a more contemporary example of this would be jewish theology in the 19th and 20th centuries. Reform, conservative, reconstructionist, mizrachi, and liberal orthodox groups were busy with theology, however for the most part traditionalists weren't busy with theology at all, as they simply retained the fairly simple literal beliefs of earlier generations (obviously they can hqve depth, but that's not the kind of theology i'm referring to). WHy not? Because the theology was being used to chart new paths in judaism, while the groups that were staying mostly the same needed it less. This is similar to the sectarian practices and interpretations. Traditions were a function of having communities or leaders in a way which didn't exist before. Being that the pharisees were part of this movement of sectarianism, it seems far more parsimonious to assume they were a product of it as well.
Regarding the missing years, I know oral torah is not about history, but it's plays a fundemental role in its transmission. Look at any civilization that retains practices or traditions from earlier generations, it invariably comes along with at least the basic ideas of the world before them. Ignorance of it shows a shift in collective consciousness that they moved on from earlier traditions and therefore it isn't as important to retain that era in the collective memory of the nation.
I wasn't clear when used the term turbulent. I didn't mean politically turbulent like the examples you gave, I meant culturally turbulent as they underwent a transformation through those eras, and this would explain the lack of awareness of those periods, because it was no longer integral to their current jewish identity.
I don't see how you know that Pharisees were "part of the movement of sectarianism" any more than the traditionalists were in your example of the traditionalists, Reform, and conservative. Seemingly, to say "they were part of sectarianism" the way you are using it is synonymous with saying they are a product of it, which just begs the question. Do you mean by "part of the movement" that they related to and responded to the other movements? Why would that show they are a new invented movement? I think the most parsimonious explanation is that Rabbis were the original sect with a mesorah, just like they retained a mesorah in the time of the Tannaim and Amoraim, and the Essenes broke off from them. And the fact that the Essene Dead Sea Scrolls bears so much similarity to halacha would support this.
As for the missing years, I still don't follow your argument of what this has to do with the Oral Law any more than written history. Let's say there was a shift in consciousness (and I'm sure there was, just like there is every 50 years or so). It clearly didn't cause them to forget everything. They retained the Sefer Torah, the Neviim and Kesubim. Why would it cause them to forget all the Oral Laws from the time of the Torah and Neviim? At best, your argument would be that the missing years period was a time of very little development of the Oral Law/history (just as it was with written history).
Your a priori assumption of mesorah due to seeing the mesorah in chazal is beyond bizzare. It is to be expected even assuming it was a new movement, and in fact all the conditions were in place to allow for the development of these new traditions during the earlier period, and we have no observations of any mesorah predating the pharasaic period. It's like saying that the US government has a constitution which it retained for over two centuries, so it probably came from even earlier. Or the romans preserved the books of homer as a mesorah for hundreds of years, so they probably came from thousands of years before. The way it works is when it arrives on the historical scene is the default assumption of its origin.
Now, once this is out of the way, we can try to see if something changed fundementally with sectarianism. The answer is yes in terms of what we observe, and this development contains sufficient explanatory power to account for the origin of the pharasaic tradition, therefore we are justified in viewing the pharisees as 'part of the movement of sectarianism'. And the fact that the essence scrolls have similirities should be used to show the exact opposite, that 1. the were certain feature that were common in that era which influenced all groups, and 2. rabbinic judaism is not primarily pharasaic judaism, they actually incorporated large amounts of essene tradition.
The sefarim that were retained during the missing years is obviously due to textual transmission, which has far more survival ability than oral traditions, (and BTW we have no idea if there were many texts forgotten as well, which likely did occur, especially if you consider the hellenic era to be the era of canonization). However, the cultural identity seemingly didn't survive in its original form, and aside from invariably influencing oral traditions through this process, it also strains credulity to believe that a large oral tradition was faithfully transmitted during this era. But either way, the main point is that a nation with a strong oral tradition necessarily has strong ties to earlier steps in that transmission, and the glaring lack of such ties suggest that the tradition does not extend that far back.
It’s not bizarre in the slightest. The fact that the entire Mishnah and Talmud is built on mesorah suggests that this was their ideology and culture, and this is the context with which we should evaluate their possible origins. It would be strange if within this context, their actual genesis was one of inventing thousands halachos out of whole cloth, similar to what the “Teacher of Righteousness” supposedly did (but even he didn’t do that, as I will discuss shortly). This is especially the case since they knew to distinguish between halachos that are דאורייתא, which mean they come from Moshe, and דרבנן, which means they are later enactments. And especially since they didn't know of any analogous Teacher of Righteousness or Constitution besides the Chumash itself.
But here’s the thing, I don’t think you even totally disagree with me. You say “And the fact that the essence scrolls have similirities should be used to show the exact opposite, that 1. the were certain feature that were common in that era which influenced all groups…” Okay…so there was a pre-existing tradition that influenced all groups, which went in different directions with it. The question is, how old is that “proto-tradition”? You seem to be claiming that it only dates back to the sectarianism, but that wouldn’t make any sense. It has to be older, and then the different sects went their own way with it.
Some more points-you say “The answer is yes in terms of what we observe, and this development contains sufficient explanatory power to account for the origin of the pharasaic tradition.”
It doesn’t have explanatory power for anything. It doesn’t explain Essenes, it doesn’t explain Rabbinites, it doesn’t explain Saduccees, it doesn’t explain Christians. All you have said is that there was a context of sectarianism, but you haven’t explained (yet) what made each sect follow its particular path.
“The sefarim that were retained during the missing years is obviously due to textual transmission, which has far more survival ability than oral traditions”
But not if the people had a huge change of ideology and abandoned their past, which seems to be your position and explanation of the missing history. If people are not constantly copying and using sefarim, they won’t just magically stay around for 150 years. The fact that they did so suggests that they definitely retained other elements of their pre-existing culture, and there is no reason to believe that halachos wouldn't have been part of that.
“But either way, the main point is that a nation with a strong oral tradition necessarily has strong ties to earlier steps in that transmission, and the glaring lack of such ties suggest that the tradition does not extend that far back.”
But if that was true, then the corollary would be that a nation that has a strong *written* tradition also has strong ties to earlier steps it’s transmission, so why don’t we have any books from the missing years? And so your question, which is a good question, has nothing to do with oral transmission in particular, except for handwaving that oral transmission is weak in the first place. It is a question on any gap in recorded history, written or oral. Clearly it is possible to have a large gap in the *recorded history* of the transmission, while still transmitting content from the earlier era.
There are many Orthodox theologies that have no real problem with the concept of an evolving TSBP. Enjoying the series, will save my thoughts for them part 2 drops.
Yeah personally I wish I cared more about this part and respect those like you who research and analyze this part, but I care less because I don’t think it matters much. I like how you divided it!
i just reread and i find it surprising that you didn't mention that reb saadiah gaon (emunos v'deos middle of part 8 the part about mashiahch) and the baal hamaor (beginning of RH) already dealt with the second argument. you should add that so people don't get the wrong impression that this is a modern question and that big people thought about it...
I didn't really present arguments on the topic, because I'm just using the conclusion for a seperate argument (although i did provide a link to mitchell furst's work). But just to address it, the argument that the christians falsified the history to link the prophecy in daniel to jesus may have worked then when the only source he had is what historians in his day were saying. However, I doubt he would've said so if he knew the greek sources (unless he thought they were forgeries by christians) and today we have many other lines of evidence from archeology, astronomical dating, and access to reports from many other regions.
true, and you have the baal hameor to back the other side up. anyways, you're the author not me;)
The first argument, though it is the first time I've heard such a case presented, seems (to me) quite speculative. I don't mind it being included in the list because even a weaker argument has its place when exploring as topic, although I would've put it much later - but you didn't which makes it sound like you are taken by it much more than I am.
But the second argument always fascinated me, and like you, I have yet to hear a good explanation...
You're presentation, writing and articulation are a pleasure!!
I updated the post a bit to try to clarify
Thank you!
I actually felt a bit silly about the post because when I was preparing I imagined a strong case arguing from seven different angles... but by the time I finished writing the second it was my longest post so far, and I'm not sure how long I can hold readers interest....
But just to address your point, allow me to articulate two individual points. 1. It's one out of many, so who says? This is preemptively addressing the believer trust because tradition or whatnot and it's trying to demonstrate the relativism of this particular claim. 2. Which is a positive attack- the historical context when taken holistically strongly points to a protracted process of development. It's hard to demonstrate a holistic argument, because it's based on a larger picture which is made up of a million pieces. For example, one of the arguments I haven't yet included in that we can map a progression in the development of the concept, which shows it was an emerging theology, not a factual historical truth. How do we demonstrate that? By giving say 5 pieces of data which follow chronologically and logically (in an actual paper 5 would usually still be considered speculation, and more would be needed to establish the theory, but when trying to explain it someone and have 'get' the vibe, a couple can do.)
Our argument is a macro form of that one. It's not tracking a progression of a particular doctrine, rather it tracking the progression of the entire religous system. If I told you that since the war the way halacha happens in a practical sense is different, you would probably get me. How many examples do I have to give to someone who doesn't know anything about halacha until he gets it? 20? 100? I think the answer is no number is enough, until he thinks for himself of experiences for himself to establish the pardigm of the whole system. Open a book on second temple history! It's an almost universal agreement that belief in the afterlife began in the late hellenic era which gave rose to the whole idea of apocylyptic theologies, but how can you show that? Maybe it only referenced later and it still existed just wasn't discussed? You totta read the room, buddy. It's a holisitic method of analysis, which you get from exposing yourself to that era itself as far as we have access to it. It will never come across strong in a blog post. Maybe if i wrote 20 pages full of quotes and examples it would help. So I picked what I thought are the most direct points and tried arguing from it. Does it come across strong? No. But is it a weak argument? I think no.
i guess we'll see how you go about this moving forward but yes, this would be a weak argument, mostly because our mesorah is at least as strong as that. obviously you're far more taken by these arguments that i would deem very conjecture-ish, like thinking that the afterlife is a hellenistic invention. again, we'll see how you progress moving forward but i imagine your conjectures won't hold up to the necessary strength to dismantle our mesorah. all you're doing is finding the weaknesses and focusing on them, something every skeptic does in his area of concern. some tug at the morals, some at the biblical criticism, some from archaeology, some at the questions from science and you, now, at the history. most compile all of these into one big ball of the transparent verdict that it is far more parsimonious to assume the rabbis just got it wrong. i don't find this wholly unreasonable except it usually leaves out the entire area of "deeper judaism". we'll hafta continue this discussion (hopefully) after i hear more tho...
I've spent a significant amount of time studying the topic and I personally find it convincing, although you are fully entitled to disagree.
Regarding afterlife in prehellenic times, I should not have spoken so quickly. I was thinking about the rise apocalyptic theology, and I mistakenly included the afterlife in that. Indeed, it's not simple at all, there are good arguments on both sides. So I retract that example.
Interesting post. Thanks for laying it all out there in an articulate way on this platform. Now for my response.
“Given the historical context, what basis do we have to establish that the Pharisaic tradition were older than the other sects?”
We know that the Tannaim and Amoriam had a mesorah from their rebbeim. This is clear from the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Talmud. You can question how old that mesorah was, a century, a few centuries, or back to Moshe. But there is definitely a mesorah there, and the Mishnah and Talmud are built on it. This is not the case for Dead Sea Scroll sects. We see no indication of a mesorah, but religious texts full of rules and theology. It would be like if our entire Mishnah was written in the style of איזהו מקומן.
“This observation would seem to suggest that the name Sadducess is referring to the priestly family of Zadok, which was the prominent priestly family going back to the time of Ezra. If this is true, it would suggest that the Sadducees represent a tradition going far earlier than any of the other sects”
I don’t understand your reasoning at all. Because they named themselves after Tzadok, they must have an earlier tradition? We already know the Saducees are Cohanim, so all you have done with this is make them a finer pedigree of Cohanim. Let’s say you are right, their name stems from Tzadok, and they really do descend from Tzadok, and are the most מיוחס Kohanim in the world. What does that have to do with them having a more correct tradition? This is besides for the fact that the Saducees don’t even claim to have their own independent tradition from the Rabbis, but are just anti the tradition of the Rabbis.
“Therefore, the transmission process only holds water if we assume the SO chronology, which places only 40 years between the rebuilding of the Temple and Alexander’s conquest…How can we hypothesize that Chazal had a reliable oral tradition going back to the first temple era, when they were completely unaware of the history of the transmission itself?”
Not at all. The transmission process doesn’t depend on us knowing every detail of history. When the Mishnah says the ויהושע לזקנים וזקנים לנביאים, we don’t know the exact זקנים Yehoshua transmitted it to, and we don’t know all the Neviim, or who transmitted it to who. All we have is the speculative reconstruction of the Rambam. The Seder Olam is likewise transparently a reconstruction of history, based mostly on pesukim and drashos. Our Mesorah does not depend upon these reconstructions being totally correct, because the Mesorah is almost completely about halachos, not history.
Thank you.
"We know that the Tannaim and Amoriam had a mesorah from their rebbeim. This is clear from the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Talmud... This is not the case for Dead Sea Scroll sects." This is actually to be expected under my model, as the dead sea scrolls date to the sectarian era itself when these traditions were forming, while rabbinic texts were composed in the post-sectarian era after the churban and were largely rooted in traditions going back two centuries. Anyways, most of the mesorah we find explicitly only dates back until the generation of rabbi yochanan ben zakai, and even more prominently from the generation of rabbi yehoshua, r eliezer, and rabbi akiva (about half a century later). We find a couple traditions gooing back until hillel or shimon ben shetach (which is the pharasaic era), but that's really very little.
Either way, the main point of the argument isnt just from the lack of mesora, rather it's from the likelihood that pharasaic judaism was connected to the emergence of sectarianism, which makes the default assumption that it did not predate it. All we know of before this time are the biblical aspects of judaism, and it's only in this period of time that we see new things developing specifically in the style of pharasaic traditions and rabbinic law. Isn't it far more plausible to place the oral law within the context of that era and not a different origin source which happened well before?
Re: your point about the sadducees, I was simply attempting to cement this paradigm that the sadducees were presectarian traditionalists, through pointing out that they were likely the establishment which predated sectarianism (not just cuz they have chal yichus, but because they are the religious establishment, while the groups of pharisees and others are unattested to before this time, suggesting they might be the new kid on the block while the sadducees were always around).
"The transmission process doesn’t depend on us knowing every detail of history", I agree that it doesn't depend on knowing every detail, but a blatant ignorance of the entire period should be more troubling. When you have a strong comprehensive mesorah you tend to remember the major names, schools of thought, and events, at least for several hundred years (think how much you know about the tekufah of the rishonim or acharonim just from learning shas uposkim, i'm not saying it's 100% the same, but to some degree it should be this way).
Furthermore, it's a lot worse than not knowing the tradition during the first temple. Firstly because it was more recent, but more importantly because they were well aware of the general history of the first temple era, but the period of the early second temple really represents a blind spot in the whole national awareness. This is the period in time which is crucial to connect the early history from tanakh until the later history they represented, and any chain of transmission would filter through that period. The fact they it was completely forgotten shows a break in the entire transmission of the whole nation and torah, likely caused by the turbulent events of the persian and hellenic empires which reshaped jewish identity.
My argument is that we know that the Torah shebaal Peh that we have is built on mesorah, so it is already fundamentally different from the Dead Sea Scrolls which doesn’t even claim to have a mesorah. You can argue that the mesorah stops at 100BC or 200BC, but I see no reason to believe that the mesorah didn’t continue earlier. In fact, according to your theory, there should have been a Rabbinic figure/body analogous to the Dead Sea Scroll Teacher of Righteousness, who invented the entire Oral law, from Brachos to Uktzin, around 150BC, and yet none of the Tannaim know about him. I also don’t understand your “sectarianism” theory in the first place. “Sectarianism” is a description of the state of circumstances of having different sects. It is not an explanation for any of those sects, be they Rabbinic Judaism, Sadducism, Essenism, or Christianity.
“I agree that it doesn't depend on knowing every detail, but a blatant ignorance of the entire period should be more troubling. When you have a strong comprehensive mesorah you tend to remember the major names, schools of thought, and events, at least for several hundred years (think how much you know about the tekufah of the rishonim or acharonim just from learning shas uposkim, i'm not saying it's 100% the same, but to some degree it should be this way)…Furthermore, it's a lot worse than not knowing the tradition during the first temple. Firstly because it was more recent, but more importantly because they were well aware of the general history of the first temple era, but the period of the early second temple really represents a blind spot in the whole national awareness.”
The traditional reason given for why there are no named halachos/schools of thought before Hillel is because there was no (or very little) machlokes due to the Sanhedrin. This has nothing to do with the missing years, there is a general lack of names from Ezra to Hillel, with the exception of the Chashmonaim period for obvious reasons. They were aware of the history of the First Temple because it was written down, as opposed to the Second Temple. According to your argument, they couldn’t have had a written tradition either, because there was a huge break in the written tradition, and therefore all the books of the Bible must come from the Greek era. I know there are people who actually believe this, but this lack of history doesn’t have anything to do with the Oral Law specifically.
“The fact they it was completely forgotten shows a break in the entire transmission of the whole nation and torah, likely caused by the turbulent events of the persian and hellenic empires which reshaped jewish identity.”
I don’t think this theory makes any sense at all. The opposite would be expected, the most turbulent events generate the most memorable history. The destruction of the First, Second Temple, the destruction of Beitar, all of these generated extensive historical narratives. Rather, I would expect that the Persian Period after the construction of the Second Temple was unusually peaceful.
If you study anything about the sectarian era, you'll notice that it wasn't simply about having lots of sects, rather it was developing traditions and interpretations which were specifically molded to different groups. In this sense the sadducees didn't participate that much in this.
To illustrate, a more contemporary example of this would be jewish theology in the 19th and 20th centuries. Reform, conservative, reconstructionist, mizrachi, and liberal orthodox groups were busy with theology, however for the most part traditionalists weren't busy with theology at all, as they simply retained the fairly simple literal beliefs of earlier generations (obviously they can hqve depth, but that's not the kind of theology i'm referring to). WHy not? Because the theology was being used to chart new paths in judaism, while the groups that were staying mostly the same needed it less. This is similar to the sectarian practices and interpretations. Traditions were a function of having communities or leaders in a way which didn't exist before. Being that the pharisees were part of this movement of sectarianism, it seems far more parsimonious to assume they were a product of it as well.
Regarding the missing years, I know oral torah is not about history, but it's plays a fundemental role in its transmission. Look at any civilization that retains practices or traditions from earlier generations, it invariably comes along with at least the basic ideas of the world before them. Ignorance of it shows a shift in collective consciousness that they moved on from earlier traditions and therefore it isn't as important to retain that era in the collective memory of the nation.
I wasn't clear when used the term turbulent. I didn't mean politically turbulent like the examples you gave, I meant culturally turbulent as they underwent a transformation through those eras, and this would explain the lack of awareness of those periods, because it was no longer integral to their current jewish identity.
I don't see how you know that Pharisees were "part of the movement of sectarianism" any more than the traditionalists were in your example of the traditionalists, Reform, and conservative. Seemingly, to say "they were part of sectarianism" the way you are using it is synonymous with saying they are a product of it, which just begs the question. Do you mean by "part of the movement" that they related to and responded to the other movements? Why would that show they are a new invented movement? I think the most parsimonious explanation is that Rabbis were the original sect with a mesorah, just like they retained a mesorah in the time of the Tannaim and Amoraim, and the Essenes broke off from them. And the fact that the Essene Dead Sea Scrolls bears so much similarity to halacha would support this.
As for the missing years, I still don't follow your argument of what this has to do with the Oral Law any more than written history. Let's say there was a shift in consciousness (and I'm sure there was, just like there is every 50 years or so). It clearly didn't cause them to forget everything. They retained the Sefer Torah, the Neviim and Kesubim. Why would it cause them to forget all the Oral Laws from the time of the Torah and Neviim? At best, your argument would be that the missing years period was a time of very little development of the Oral Law/history (just as it was with written history).
Your a priori assumption of mesorah due to seeing the mesorah in chazal is beyond bizzare. It is to be expected even assuming it was a new movement, and in fact all the conditions were in place to allow for the development of these new traditions during the earlier period, and we have no observations of any mesorah predating the pharasaic period. It's like saying that the US government has a constitution which it retained for over two centuries, so it probably came from even earlier. Or the romans preserved the books of homer as a mesorah for hundreds of years, so they probably came from thousands of years before. The way it works is when it arrives on the historical scene is the default assumption of its origin.
Now, once this is out of the way, we can try to see if something changed fundementally with sectarianism. The answer is yes in terms of what we observe, and this development contains sufficient explanatory power to account for the origin of the pharasaic tradition, therefore we are justified in viewing the pharisees as 'part of the movement of sectarianism'. And the fact that the essence scrolls have similirities should be used to show the exact opposite, that 1. the were certain feature that were common in that era which influenced all groups, and 2. rabbinic judaism is not primarily pharasaic judaism, they actually incorporated large amounts of essene tradition.
The sefarim that were retained during the missing years is obviously due to textual transmission, which has far more survival ability than oral traditions, (and BTW we have no idea if there were many texts forgotten as well, which likely did occur, especially if you consider the hellenic era to be the era of canonization). However, the cultural identity seemingly didn't survive in its original form, and aside from invariably influencing oral traditions through this process, it also strains credulity to believe that a large oral tradition was faithfully transmitted during this era. But either way, the main point is that a nation with a strong oral tradition necessarily has strong ties to earlier steps in that transmission, and the glaring lack of such ties suggest that the tradition does not extend that far back.
It’s not bizarre in the slightest. The fact that the entire Mishnah and Talmud is built on mesorah suggests that this was their ideology and culture, and this is the context with which we should evaluate their possible origins. It would be strange if within this context, their actual genesis was one of inventing thousands halachos out of whole cloth, similar to what the “Teacher of Righteousness” supposedly did (but even he didn’t do that, as I will discuss shortly). This is especially the case since they knew to distinguish between halachos that are דאורייתא, which mean they come from Moshe, and דרבנן, which means they are later enactments. And especially since they didn't know of any analogous Teacher of Righteousness or Constitution besides the Chumash itself.
But here’s the thing, I don’t think you even totally disagree with me. You say “And the fact that the essence scrolls have similirities should be used to show the exact opposite, that 1. the were certain feature that were common in that era which influenced all groups…” Okay…so there was a pre-existing tradition that influenced all groups, which went in different directions with it. The question is, how old is that “proto-tradition”? You seem to be claiming that it only dates back to the sectarianism, but that wouldn’t make any sense. It has to be older, and then the different sects went their own way with it.
Some more points-you say “The answer is yes in terms of what we observe, and this development contains sufficient explanatory power to account for the origin of the pharasaic tradition.”
It doesn’t have explanatory power for anything. It doesn’t explain Essenes, it doesn’t explain Rabbinites, it doesn’t explain Saduccees, it doesn’t explain Christians. All you have said is that there was a context of sectarianism, but you haven’t explained (yet) what made each sect follow its particular path.
“The sefarim that were retained during the missing years is obviously due to textual transmission, which has far more survival ability than oral traditions”
But not if the people had a huge change of ideology and abandoned their past, which seems to be your position and explanation of the missing history. If people are not constantly copying and using sefarim, they won’t just magically stay around for 150 years. The fact that they did so suggests that they definitely retained other elements of their pre-existing culture, and there is no reason to believe that halachos wouldn't have been part of that.
“But either way, the main point is that a nation with a strong oral tradition necessarily has strong ties to earlier steps in that transmission, and the glaring lack of such ties suggest that the tradition does not extend that far back.”
But if that was true, then the corollary would be that a nation that has a strong *written* tradition also has strong ties to earlier steps it’s transmission, so why don’t we have any books from the missing years? And so your question, which is a good question, has nothing to do with oral transmission in particular, except for handwaving that oral transmission is weak in the first place. It is a question on any gap in recorded history, written or oral. Clearly it is possible to have a large gap in the *recorded history* of the transmission, while still transmitting content from the earlier era.
There are many Orthodox theologies that have no real problem with the concept of an evolving TSBP. Enjoying the series, will save my thoughts for them part 2 drops.
Yup. That's the second half of the title, does it matter
Yeah personally I wish I cared more about this part and respect those like you who research and analyze this part, but I care less because I don’t think it matters much. I like how you divided it!