Is Scripture the Origin of the Halakhah?

Download or read book Is Scripture the Origin of the Halakhah? written by Jacob Neusner and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 2005 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Halakhah constitutes a coherent construction comprised by category-formations defined by topics purposively amplified. These category-formations everywhere pursue a cogent analytical program, addressing diverse subjects, treated systematically, a single set of questions of definition and analysis. Is Scripture the origin of the Halakhic system, which defines the norms of Judaism? At stake is not the starting point of discrete bits of legal data. At issue is the origin of the comprehensive structure comprised by the Halakhic category-formations, by these topics and no others. Scripture forms the natural starting point for any inquiry into the origins of Judaism. So it is quite natural to treat Scripture as the base-line and the Halakhic category-formations as the variable when seeking the origin of the system. But what happens when, as in this project, we treat the system as the base-line and Scripture as the variable? Then we see that the Halakhic system viewed as a coherent statement does not originate in Scripture. Important parts of that statement do, important parts do not. But the system viewed whole does not.