Torah in the Mouth: Oral Tradition and Religious Transformation in Classical Rabbinic Culture

Martin Jaffee has been a professor of Comparative Religion and Jewish Studies at UW since 1987, teaching courses that are pillars of the program: the history of Judaism, Jewish cultural history, Rabbinic literature and thought, modern Jewish thought, and Jewish mysticism. He is the decorated author of several notable books, articles, and critical studies of rabbinic texts which have contributed immeasurably to our understanding of early Judaism and oral culture.

In this lecture, Jaffee offers a new perspective on the social, cultural, and historical contexts that shaped the belief in the revelation of rabbinic culture to Moses at Sinai. He draws on advancements in scholarship regarding oral traditional societies, the role of writing in manuscript cultures, and the intricate relationship between orally transmitted and written texts to explore the influence of written materials and the act of writing itself on the formation of rabbinic oral tradition. By building upon the growing body of research on Judaism during the Second Temple period and the significance of scribal culture within it, he investigates the extent to which Jewish communities of that time, including the Pharisees, may have emphasized the preservation of exclusively oral teachings rather than relying on written documents.