Statement

By the time the Babylonian Talmud was composed, the sages held that revelation to Moses had come in two forms: the Written Torah, that is, the Bible, and the Oral Torah, kept by the sages. The latter was put in writing only late, in the Mishnah and the Talmudic commentary; before that it passed from master to disciple through direct teaching. It may grow out of the unwritten tradition the Pharisees revered, but for the rabbis it was not merely ancestral heritage: it was the Torah itself, handed down at Sinai, as a midrash on Exodus 24:12 teaches (Berakhot 5a).

References

1. p. 149

   supports · main text · ch. 5

   Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman. The Jews: A History. 3rd edition. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.

   Section: The Impact of the Rabbis on Jewish Culture

   Verification anchor recorded · checked against the page text

2. p. 149

   reports the tradition · main text · ch. 5

   Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman. The Jews: A History. 3rd edition. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.

   Section: The Impact of the Rabbis on Jewish Culture

   Verification anchor recorded · checked against the page text