כי יפלא ממך דבר" (דברים יז 8-13): פירוש המקרא לפרשת בית הדין העליון - בין מגילת המקדש למדרש התנאים

The biblical pericope on the centralized high court of referral (Deut 17:8–13), commanded by Moses to be instituted by the Israelites upon entering into the land of Canaan, is remarkable for the relative autonomy of its judgments from prophetic means and authority, especially when compared to its wilderness antecedents. The present study compares two exegetical responses to this Deuteronomic legislation, that of the Temple Scroll (11Q19 56:1–11) and that of Sifre Deuteronomy 152–155. The former (or some antecedent) ‘rewrites’ the Deuteronomic text with seemingly subtle yet significant requirements that the court derive its rulings ‘from the book of the Torah,’ and that it transmit them ‘in truth.’ The latter exercises considerable exegetical license so as to give yet greater latitude to the court’s composition and location, and especially to its legislative authority, even if in contradiction to what would appear to be objective truth. Consideration is given to the views of previous scholars who claimed that these two approaches were in direct polemical response to one another (notwithstanding the considerable chronological gap between the extant texts in which they are manifested), especially with respect to the protorabbinic (or Pharisaic) claims for the authority of oral teaching. The author argues, rather, for an exegetically based source of difference which reflects the broader hermeneutical and rhetorical practices of the two texts and their interpretive and discursive communities.