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Torah. Max Margolis
Читать онлайн.Название Torah
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isbn 4064066388713
Автор произведения Max Margolis
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
Penal Law.
Montefiore was correct when, in laying emphasis on the ethical aspect of the Biblical concept of God, he declared that even the law of the Bible was permeated with morality, propounding his view in the following words ("Hibbert Lectures," p. 64): "Most original and characteristic was the moral influence of Jahveh in the domain of law. Jahveh, to the Israelite, was emphatically the God of the right. . . . From the earliest times onward, Jahveh's sanctuary was the depository of law, and the priest was His spokesman." The most prominent characteristic of the Pentateuchal law, as compared with the laws of ancient peoples and of medieval Europe, is mildness, a feature which is still further developed in the Talmud. The Torah is justly regarded as the source of humane law. Although such phrases occur as "that soul shall be cut off from his people" or "so shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee," it would be incorrect to take them literally, or to deduce from them certain theories of penal law, as Förster has recently done. On the contrary, these expressions prove that the Mosaiclaw was not a legal code in the strict sense of the term, but an ethical work. Although the Talmudists made it a penal code, instinctively reading that character into it, the penal law of the Torah is something theoretical which was never put into practise. This view is supported by the fact that a commandment is stated sometimes without the threat of any penalty whatever for its violation, and sometimes with the assignment even of death as a punishment for its transgression. In like manner, tradition frequently substitutes such a phrase as "he forfeited his life" for "transgression worthy of death."
Civil Law.
On the other hand, the civil law of the Torah, which is more developed and bears a practical character, probably accords more closely with ancient Jewish legal procedure. It reflects the conditions of an agricultural state, since most of the laws relate to farming and cognate matters. There was no Hebrew word for "store," although "just measure" was mentioned. It must be borne in mind, however, that to satisfy the more advanced conditions of later times, the Talmudists both supplemented the Mosaic law and by means of analogy and similar expedients interpolated into the Torah much which it did not contain originally.
From the earliest times the Synagogue has proclaimed the divine origin of the Pentateuch, and has held that Moses wrote it down from dictation, while the religions based on Judaism have until very recently held the same view. Biblical criticism, however, denies the Mosaic authorship and ascribes only a portion of varying extent to so ancient an origin. A history of criticism in regard to this point is given by Winer ("B. R." ii. 419 et seq.) and by Driver (in Hastings, "Dict. Bible," iii. 66), while Montefiore expresses himself as follows (l.c.):
"The Torah—or teaching—of the priests, half judicial, half pædagogic, was a deep moral influence; and there was no element in the religion which was at once more genuinely Hebrew and more closely identified with the national God. There is good reason to believe that this priestly Torah is the one religious institution which can be correctly attributed to Moses. . . . Though Moses was not the author of the written law, he was unquestionably the founder of that oral teaching, or Torah, which preceded and became the basis of the codes of the Pentateuch."
The legal parts of the Torah are found in Ex. xx.-xxiii., xxv.-xxxi., xxxiv.-xxxv.; Lev. i.-viii., xi.-xxv., xxvii.; Num. v.-x., xviii., xix., xxvii.-xxx., these laws being repeated in Deut. iv. et seq.
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