Halakhah in the Making in Second Temple Sources

The project aims at the production of a text-critical multiple volumes corpus of comparative Halakhah based on all currently available Second Temple sources.

The purpose is to compile references in the sources on diverse halakhic issues and show both the concordance and discordance in the proposed observance of Halakhah and the discussions in process for Halakhah in Second Temple period sources. In other words, the purpose is to demonstrate the very concept of "Halakhah in the making". The use of the terms "Halakhah" and "halakhic" will be discussed in introduction of the corpus.

I am currently working on a sample of what I intend to compile for my project. My work in progress is entitled: "La Halakhah en devenir: le cas du Shabbat à Qumrân, chez Philon d’Alexandrie, Flavius Josèphe et le Nouveau Testament".

Rather than a vertical study like David Nakhman`s doctoral dissertation on Halakhah in Flavius Josephus, I am considering a horizontal one including all the sources. Indeed I shall consider a presentation by themes and sub-themes. I would take the "Shabbat", glean in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the works of Philo of Alexandria, the works of Flavius Josephus, and the New Testament, etc. all the mentions I could find, quote them, compare and comment.

For example: 1- Shabbat, then sub-themes like "carrying", "working", 2- Purity and Impurity with sub-themes like "Temple", "men and women fluids". Hence we could consider a first volume of the Corpus entitled : "Shabbat alternatives in Second Temple literature", then a second volume entitled : "Purity and Impurity alternatives in Second Temple literature".

We could also include a lexicon: for instance what term is used by Flavius Josephus as opposed to Philo and other sources for "carrying on Shabbat".