The Mishnah

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the Mishnah, a written translation of the oral law of the Old Testament and of the political and civil laws of the Jews. It looks at how, by 200 A.D., much of the oral law was edited together into the Mishnah and how, over the next four centuries, this material underwent analysis and debate in the world's major Jewish communities. It also discusses how the Mishnah is a common source outside of the Bible for the biblical history surrounding the life of the New Testament church.

From the Paper:

"Rabbinical Judaism believes that the Five Books of Moses called the Torah have always been transmitted in parallel with an oral tradition. Two guides to laws were given to Moses at Mount Sinai. The first is composed of the Five Books of Moses; Genesis through Deuteronomy. These five books make up the Hebrew Bible. When the writings of the Prophets are added to the Torah, the expanded volume is called the Tanakh. The Tanakh is the complete version of Hebrew Literature that Christianity knows as The Old Testament. The second law given to Moses at Sinai is the description of the Written Law as relayed by the scholarly and other religious leaders of each generation. This Oral Law is considered the more authoritative of the two. The traditions of the Oral Law are considered as the basis for the interpretation, and often for the reading, of the Written Law (Fraade, 1990)."

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