…the discursiveness of the Bavli and Pahlavi legal literature can be related to their respective pedagogic environments. As we saw in Šāyest nē šāyest 1.3, the scholastic environment of the Sasanian commentators was one in which later authorities transmitted the teachings of previous generations via an act of speech. That is, Zoroastrian sages “spoke” (guft) the teachings of their master. In rabbinic literature, the naming of previous authorities can be linked to the processes of oral transmission. This aspect of rabbinic culture is ubiquitous and constitutes one of its central foundational myths.

Shai Secunda, “The Sasanian ‘<i>Stam</i>’: Orality and the Composition of Babylonian Rabbinic and Zoroastrian Legal Literature” in <i>The Talmud in Its Iranian Context</i>, eds. Carol Bakhos and M. Rahim Shayegan (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 159.

In the Bible, definite rewards and punishments from on high are only in a few instances brought into correlation with definite actions or classes of actions. By the Rabbis, this process was carried much further, and a number of precepts were assigned by them a specific value in the material or the spiritual field or both. Thus, they laid down that faith in God brings redemption, prophecy, and the inheritance of both worlds. The prayers of the priests, when accompanied by the observance of the people, are answered with the material gifts of health, wisdom, and a good reputation. Congregational worshippers are honoured with the Divine Presence; the individual who prays regularly is granted, among other material gifts, the blessings of children and good life. The study of the Law earns the assurance of the hereafter disinterested study brings also fame in this world and high honours in the hereafter. Sabbath observance, besides gaining the future world, qualifies one to celebrate the three pilgrim festivals also. The rewards for honouring and fearing parents are long life, the enjoyment of the Divine Presence, fame, and a prosperous land.
Similarly, with punishment: the judge who accepts bribes is punished with physical and mental blindness, and may also become poverty-stricken. Those guilty of slander and arrogance are reminded of the punishment of leprosy which according to the biblical account befell Miriam and Uzziah for these two sins. And the downfall of the Jewish State is attributed specifically to the three sins of bloodshed, over-bearing behaviour, and neglect of the study of the Law.

A. Melinek, “The Doctrine of Reward and Punishment in Biblical and Early Rabbinic Writings,” in Essays Presented to Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. H.J. Zimmels, J. Rabbinowitz, & I. Finestein (London: The Soncino Press Limited, 1967), 285-286.

If introductory formulas are not particular to a story but occur repeatedly, they are probably editorial. If their usage is limited to a particular sugya (logical unit of Talmud discussion) or tractate and they fit in with the general editorial strategies of a particular sugya or tractate, one may assume that the editors of that particular portion of text are responsible for their formulation. If such formulas appear in many different tractates or even different documents, it is likely that they were part of the tradition at a stage prior to its “final” redaction and inclusion into the present literary context.

Catherine Hezser, “Form-Criticism of Rabbinic Literature”, in The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature, eds. Reimund Bieringer, Florentino García Martinez, Dider Pollefeyt and Peter J. Tomson (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2010), 99.

If we look at Jewish literature as an object of edition, the situation is certainly not easier than in other branches, but rather exceedingly complicated. Looking first at literature by and ascribed to a single author, so-called authored literature, we have to face not only the question of different manuscripts and fragments, but also that of different text versions, perhaps consciously created by the author, or at least by scribes and schools on the basis of reasons difficult to reconstruct. Furthermore, centuries of Church censorship, of voluntary or forced expurgation of allegedly anti-Christian variant readings and texts, of public burning of manuscripts and prints of Talmud and Midrash as well as authored tractates, render modern edition-making no easier.

Giuseppe Veltri, “From The Best Text To The Pragmatic Edition: On Editing Rabbinic Texts”, in The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature, eds. Reimund Bieringer, Florentino García Martínez, Didier Pollefeyt, Peter Tomson (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2010), 66.

Most of the traditions which were eventually integrated into the Talmud and Midrash will have originally circulated orally, sometimes for hundreds of years. The long process of transmission makes it impossible to reconstruct “original” versions of traditions, if they ever existed. Stories about rabbis and teachings associated with them will have circulated in various different versions and were adapted to the contexts and purposes for which they were retold and rewritten. Therefore, even if one assumes that a certain text had a prehistory, one cannot trace that prehistory back to its origins or early stages.

Catherine Hezser, “Form-Criticism of Rabbinic Literature”, in The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature, eds. Reimund Bieringer, Florentino García Martinez, Dider Pollefeyt and Peter J. Tomson (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2010), 100.

The editing of rabbinic texts is much more complicated. The documents which have come down to us in the multifarious forms of mishnayot, midrashim, halakhot, aggadot, targums and talmuds cannot be considered to be authored literature. They are only kind of snapshots from a world of exegesis and school opinions. When recently reading the Mishnah tractate Sotah together with Midrash Sipre be-Midbar with my students, we had to answer the question of variant readings in parashat sotah with reference to the warning of witnesses in the case of adultery or suspicion of such. One student asked in some surprise: do the different manuscripts of one treatise also testify to different schools of opinion? Such, indeed, is the everyday experience we have in studying a rabbinic text using manuscripts and the subsequent tradition more or less based on manuscripts.

Giuseppe Veltri, “From The Best Text To The Pragmatic Edition: On Editing Rabbinic Texts”, in The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature, eds. Reimund Bieringer, Florentino García Martínez, Didier Pollefeyt, Peter Tomson (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2010), 67.

…modern redaction-criticism of Talmudic attributions relies on the notion that scholars can successfully localize earlier tannaitic and amoraic texts within a Talmudic passage, and that these sources, for the most part, retain their distinct identity. It is this ability that allows Talmudists to access not only amoraic culture, but also the world of the Stam.

Shai Secunda, “The Sasanian ‘<i>Stam</i>’: Orality and the Composition of Babylonian Rabbinic and Zoroastrian Legal Literature” in <i>The Talmud in Its Iranian Context</i>, eds. Carol Bakhos and M. Rahim Shayegan (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 141-142, n. 6.