The Scribes - Jewish Leaders in the New Testament

Halachah and Haggadah

Rabbinical Customs and Commentary

In the developing and establishment of the law there evolved a law of custom, besides the written Torah (law), called the Halachah (Heb. halaka, "that which is current and customary").

The treatment of the historical and didactic portions of the Holy Scriptures produced an abundant variety of historical and instructive commentary, usually comprised under the name of the Haggadah (Heb. haggada, "narrative, legend").

The Halachah.

The Halachah contained "either simply the laws laid down in Scripture, or else derived from or traced to it by some ingenious and artificial method of exegesis; or added to it, by way of amplification and for safety's sake; or, finally, legalized customs. They provided for every possible and impossible case, entered into every detail of private, family, and public life; and with iron logic, unbending rigor, and most minute analysis pursued and dominated man, turn whither he might, laying on him a yoke which was truly unbearable. The return which it offered was the pleasure and distinction of knowledge, the acquisition of righteousness and the final attainment of rewards" (Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus, 1:98).

The Haggadah.

The Haggadah was "an amplification and remodeling of what was originally given, according to the views and necessities of later times. It is true that here also the given text forms the point of departure, and that a similar treatment to that employed in passages from the law takes place in the first instance. The history is worked up by combining the different statements in the text with each other, completing one by another, settling the chronology, etc. Or the religious and ethical parts are manipulated by formulating dogmatic propositions from isolated prophetic utterances, by bringing these into relation to each other, and thus obtaining a kind of dogmatic system. A canonical book of the Old Testament (Book of Chronicles) furnishes a very instructive example of the historical Midrash (i.e., exposition, exegesis). A comparison of its narrative with the parallel portions of the older historical books (Kings and Samuel) will strike even the cursory observer with the fact that the chronicler has enlarged the history of the Jewish kings by a whole class of narratives, of which the older documents have as good as nothing" (Schurer, History of the Jewish People, div. 2, 1:339 ff.).