Q&A: The Status of the Torah’s Narratives in the Period Before Its Revelation
The Status of the Torah’s Narratives in the Period Before Its Revelation
Question
Hi
Is there any voice in the Jewish tradition (whether one or many, dominant or not) that addresses the “Torah education” of the Jewish people before the revelation at Mount Sinai?
For example, let’s take a person who lived in the years before Sinai and then later merited to be present at the event and become acquainted with the Torah and its stories (unless, in your view, hundreds of years passed from the event until the stories took shape, in which case that person would obviously already have died).
Would that person, according to the tradition, have known the stories of the patriarchs before they “came to light” in the Five Books of Moses, or in parts of it? Because if so, then he would be receiving a document (the Torah) in which the story that had been passed down in the tradition about his forefathers (Abraham, etc.) appears, as it were, in a new edition, perhaps even with changes. From that it follows that he would be required to compare them.
In short: what does the tradition say about this, if it says anything?
Answer
There are midrashim of the Sages about a tradition that Joseph passed on to his brothers. Their assumption in several places is that Israel knew the patriarchs. But I do not know whether these midrashim of the Sages count as a tradition. It may be that this is a literary invention of the Sages, an educational myth.
Even if there is no tradition here, there is logic. The children of Israel were a distinct group even in Egypt, and it is very unlikely that such a distinct group, almost a nation, would forget the patriarchs who founded it. After all, Amram was Levi’s grandson; we are not talking about hundreds of years back.