ABSTRACT
I t is an axiom among traditional scholars o f Talmudic literature that appearance o f a saying or story i n a late document, such as the Babylonian gemara or a medieval collection o f midrashim, does not mean the saying or story itself is late. The whole corpus o f rabbinic materials, i t is alleged, circulated orally before redaction. Hence, what appears i n a late document could have been handed on i n oral tradition f rom earliest time, therefore is just as reliable as what is redacted in the earliest compilations. I n other words, the theological principle that ה ר ו ת ב ר ח ו א מ ו ם ד ק ו מ ןיא applies as much to the oral as to the wr i t ten Torah. That axiom cannot be said to run counter to common sense, for the conditions for the transmission o f traditional materials are not incongruent to i t . I f pretty much everything was preserved by memory, then the occurrence i n a wr i t t en document is not consequential i n assessing the relative age o f materials.
