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Document Details :

Title: The Arrangement of the Laws in Deuteronomy
Author(s): ROFE, A.
Journal: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses
Volume: 64    Issue: 4   Date: December 1988   
Pages: 265-287
DOI: 10.2143/ETL.64.4.556404

Abstract :
At the beginning of the academic year 1951/2, the year not granted to him to complete, as he was taken away from his chair after only five weeks, Professor Cassuto once again took up the teaching of the book of Numbers. He started with Num 13,1-16, dealing with the sending out of the scouts to the land of Canaan. Having read their names he posed the question of the order according to which the twelve names where mentioned. In his answer he broached the theory that, similarly to the Oral Law, the Torah was a written compilation of ancient traditions which had first circulated orally. In order to facilitate their task, the oral transmitters had organized their material according to mnemotechnical devices, primarily that of association - be it association of ideas or, and perhaps mainly, of words and sounds.

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