FROM ORAL DISCOURSE TO WRITTEN DOCUMENTS

Whereas rabbis generally insisted on the importance of oral study and coined the term Oral Torah for their literary traditions, eventually, they seemed to have preferred the written transmission of their knowledge. Otherwise, we would not have had at our disposal the various collections of rabbinic literature. The very habit of calling a collection of written texts “an oral teaching” can be interpreted as the reflection of a diachronic process: oral traditions were transmitted but somewhere along the way they were fixed in writing. Little is known about the nature of this process. This paper surveys of state of art in this area and aims to contribute to the discourse by adding some new theories and insights.