"Without Torah and Scripture": Biblical Absence and the History of Revelation

Abstract:This article argues that narratives about the loss and (potential) recovery of biblical texts can reveal a previously neglected genre of "biblical theology" in premodern Jewish sources—a religious discourse about the sometimes unstable transmission of Scripture in history. This discourse is less concerned with the specific contents of biblical texts than it is with the concept or motif of Scripture as a player in its own narrative about revelation, loss, and renewal. We discuss medieval sources associated with the Khazars, which relate the discovery of forgotten texts in a cave and their legendary role in establishing a new Jewish kingdom; a related motif in early Jewish and rabbinic sources about the temporary concealment of sacred texts and objects to safeguard them from the Babylonian invasion; and other examples where a rupture in the transmission of Torah becomes an occasion for new revelatory moments and renewed communities. Attention to how Jewish sources speculate about the transmission, contingency, damage, loss, and salvage of biblical texts also help us reconsider any simplistic binary between modern, historical-critical scholarship about the history of the text and "traditional" religious approaches to Scripture. Premodern writers knew their texts were damaged by time and political upheaval, and that their divine origins did not always safeguard them from damage and loss. But tales of loss—particularly traditions that identified the Babylonian Exile as a period of rupture in the transmission of sacred texts—were reconfigured in ways that did not challenge, but instead revitalized biblical tradition and authority by making the revelation of the Torah an endlessly repeatable moment. Tales of rupture and concealment were not only sources of anxiety and doubt about the reliability of Scripture: they were themselves key episodes in expansive biblical interpretation and in reflection about continuing revelation and community renewal.