Page 256 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

236 THE HISTORY OF THE QUR'ANIe TEXT

Another intriguing example stems from writings found in Ras Shamra,
in present-day Syria. Quoting the National Geographic Magazine:

Even Adam and Eve are mentioned in the Ras Shamra texts. They
lived in a magnificent garden in the East, a rather vague address,
which, however, corresponds to that given in the Bible... In the story
as written by the Ugarit author, Adam was the founder of a nation,
the Canaan Semites, probably one of the oldest sheiks or kings, and
therefore apparently a historic personality. 38

These slates, according to the author, date from the 14th or 15th century
B.C.E. and therefore predate Moses by at least one century.

3. History qf the Oral Law

Rabbinical teaching dictates that the Written Law (the Five Books of Moses)
and the Oral Law (delivered for centuries by word of mouth) both originated
at the time of Moses; the latter provided all the necessary explanations for
39
implementing the former. The Mishnah is a compilation of this Oral LaW.
The Mishnah's own account of the origin and history of the Oral Law
is given in the tractate Aboth, 1.At the same time that the Written Law
was given from Sinai, the Oral Law, too, was delivered to Moses, and
handed down (orally) in turn to the leaders of successive generations.t"

Below is the tractate Aboth, 1, containing the traditional history of the
Oral Law:

1. Moses received the Law from Sinai and committed it toJoshua, and
Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the Prophets; and the Prophets
committed it to the men of the Great Synagogue. They said three
things: Be deliberate in judgement, raise up many disciples, and make
a fence around the Law.
2. Simeon the jusr" was of the remnants of the Great Synagogue ...
3. Antigonus of Soko received [the Law] from Simeon theJust ...

38 C.F.A. Schaeffer, "Secrets from Syrian Hills", The National Geographic fvlagazine,
vol. lxiv, no. 1,July 1933, pp. 125-6.
39 Dictionary ofthe Bible, p. 954.
40 Herbert Danby(trans), TheMishnah; Introduction,Oxford Univ. Press, 1933,p. xvii.
41 Either Simeon son of Onias, High Priest c. 280 B.C., or Simeon II, High Priest
c. 200 B.C.