Scribalism and Ritual Innovation

Abstract

In Wellhausen’s judgement, it was with the prophet Ezekiel that “the sacred praxis […] became a matter of theory and writing,” rather than a matter of the correct performance of rituals that had been handed down through the generations. With the Jerusalem temple in ruins, the path of transmission came under threat. In the face of the potential loss of priestly lore, “it is easy to understand […] how an exiled priest should have begun to paint the picture of it as he carried it in his memory, and to publish it as a programme for the future restoration of the theocracy.” This pithy account of how ritual came to be first written down amongst the ancient Judahites glosses over a number of complexities. On most assessments, Ezekiel’s programme of the restored theocracy did not correspond to the cultic practice of pre-destruction Judah. Was this the result of Ezekiel’s faulty memory, the programmatic and prophetic nature of the envisaged future cult, the transformation of sacred praxis into theory, or a combination of all three?