Soferim (Talmud) - Date of Composition

Date of Composition

The evidence of all these facts makes it very probable that this treatise was finally redacted about the middle of the 8th century, an assumption which is supported by the statement of R. Asher (c. 1300, in the Hilkot Sefer Torah) that Soferim was composed at a late date. At that period written prayer-books were doubtless in existence and were probably produced by the scribes, who combined the offices of communal ḥazzan and reader. It was but natural, therefore, that in treatises intended for the scribes all the regulations should be collected which concerned books, the Masorah, and the liturgy. It is practically certain that few copies of the Talmud were made at that time, and those without special rules; consequently no allusions to them are found in Soferim.

The fact that no sources are given for a number of the regulations in the first part points to an early date of composition (comp. i. 3, 13; ii. 4, 6, 8; iii. 4, 6-9a, 10-12a; iv. 4, 5, 8, 9; v. 1, 2; in i. 7, also, Müller cites no authority; comp., however, Shab. 115a and Meg. 18a, and see Blau, l.c. pp. 70 et seq.). Similarly, in the third part (x.-xxi.), which is later, no sources are assigned for a number of halakot (xv. 3 may, however, be based on Yer. Shab. 15c, 25); so that care must be taken not to assign the compilation of this longest portion to too recent a date. Both the form and the content of those passages in which authorities are not mentioned point to a Judean origin; they may have been derived from the lost portions of Yerushalmi and various midrashic works, which, indeed, they may be regarded as in part replacing. Only certain interpolations, as well as the haggadic passage at the end of the treatise (or, in several manuscripts, at its beginning), may have been added much later. The division of the last part into sections ("peraḳim") seems to have been intended to secure a uniform size for the several sections; for xvi. 1 belongs to the end of xv., and xix. 1 to the end of xviii., their separation being due to external reasons.