LAUSR

“iconic” value even if ancient Jewish writers failed to relate to it directly as a textual authority. I believe that this is a significant point that should be developed further. To restate the case, readers of the Bible rarely engaged the text as it is or, more specifically, as it is to us. The existence, distribution, and even knowledge of a text does not determine the nature of its use. The same text whose laws could be seen as representing specific instances of general ethical principles could be seen as a detailed resource for halakhic argumentation. What is needed is a theory of textuality that allows us to recognize a maximal range of possibilities for the ongoing construction of what the Torah is as an object, while acknowledging the continuity of its presence as a text in the world of ancient Judaism.