Did Ezra Reconstruct the Torah or Just Change the Script?

Did Ezra Reconstruct the Torah or Just Change the Script?

In the second century C.E., 4 Ezra and Irenaeus tell a story of how the Torah was burned by Nebuchadnezzar and reconstructed by Ezra through divine inspiration. Rabbinic texts know of this tradition, but in their version, Ezra’s contribution is changing the Torah into Aramaic writing, or even Aramaic language.

Prof.

Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg

 

 

Porphyry: An Ancient Bible Critic

In the 3^rd century C.E., Porphyry of Tyre, a Greco-Roman philosopher, wrote a scathing critique of the Jewish biblical corpus in his (now lost) work Against the Christians. ^[1] He claimed that the Mosaic Pentateuch had been lost to the ravages of war when Nebuchadnezzar II razed Jerusalem (586 B.C.E.), and the loss had been covered up with a pseudepigraphic forgery:

Nothing Moses wrote has been preserved for all his writings are said to have been burnt with the temple. All those written under his name afterwards were composed anew one thousand one hundred and eighty years after Moses’ death by Ezra and his followers.^[2]

Porphyry accuses Ezra the Scribe and his followers among the Israelite elite of fabricating the Pentateuch now circulating in the name of Moses to cover up the irretrievable loss of the original Torah.

It would be easy to dismiss Porphyry’s claim as the invention of a well-known pagan polemicist, except that pious Jewish and Christian authorities of the period circulated a strikingly similar story about the Torah’s loss. But they believed that Ezra reconstructed the Torah faithfully through divine inspiration.

Ezra Dictates the Bible from Scratch: 4 Ezra

4 Ezra is an apocalyptic Jewish text dating to anywhere between the generation after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. to somewhere in the second century C.E.^[3] The text is believed to have been written in Hebrew—though we have no textual evidence of this—and then translated into Greek. The full text, however, survives only in Latin and Syriac translations.

The book is written as a first-person account of Ezra the Scribe, who receives several visions from God.^[4] It opens with Ezra lamenting the sad state of the Jews in the exilic period, including the loss of the written Torah. Ezra asks God:

^{4 Ezra 4:23} …why Israel has been given over to the Gentiles in disgrace; why the people whom you loved has been given over to godless tribes, and the law of our ancestors has been brought to destruction and the written covenants no longer exist.^[5]

This theme is continued in the seventh and final vision of the book, whose literary framing makes the parallel to Moses patently obvious:

^{4 Ezra 14:1} On the third day, while I was sitting under an oak, suddenly a voice came out of a bush opposite me and said, “Ezra, Ezra!” ^14:2 And I answered, “Here I am, LORD,” and I rose to my feet.

God tells Ezra that Moses received secret revelations at Mount Sinai, which Ezra will now receive as well, but with permission to make them public. Ezra agrees to communicate all this to the people, and to admonish them to keep God’s laws, but he notes the problem that they no longer have a written Torah, since all copies of it were destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar:

^{4 Ezra 4:19} …For the world lies in darkness, and its inhabitants are without light. ^4:21 For your law has been burned, and so no one knows the things which have been done or will be done by you.

^4:22 If then I have found favor with you, send the holy spirit into me, and I will write everything that has happened in the world from the beginning, the things that were written in your law, so that people may be able to find the path, and that those who want to live in the last days may do so.^[6]

God agrees to this proposal and tells Ezra to take a 40-day break from the people, the number of days Moses spends on Mount Sinai (Exod 24:18, 34:28).^[7] Ezra should also bring along five scribes who write quickly, plus many tablets, and Ezra does so. To be able to receive this revelation, Ezra must undergo a mystical/physical transformation, similar to what Ezekiel undergoes (Ezek 3:1–3), when he is told to eat a scroll:

^{4 Ezra 14:38} And on the next day a voice called me, saying, “Ezra, open your mouth and drink what I give you to drink.” ^14:39 So I opened my mouth, and a full cup was offered to me; it was full of something like water, but its color was like fire. ^14:40 I took it and drank; and when I had drunk it, my heart poured forth understanding, and wisdom increased in my breast, for my spirit retained its memory, ^14:41 and my mouth was opened and was no longer closed.

With this power, Ezra begins to recite the revelation and the men write it down:

^{4 Ezra 14:42} Moreover, the Most High gave understanding to the five men, and by turns they wrote what was dictated, using characters that they did not know. They sat forty days; they wrote during the daytime, and ate their bread at night. ^14:43 But as for me, I spoke in the daytime and was not silent at night. ^14:44 So during the forty days, ninety-four books were written.

The number 94 includes the 24 canonical books of the Bible plus 70—a symbolic number—secret books that Moses was apparently taught but never published.

^{4 Ezra 14:45} And when the forty days were ended, the Most High spoke to me, saying, “Make public the twenty-four books that you wrote first, and let the worthy and the unworthy read them; ^14:46 but keep the seventy that were written last, in order to give them to the wise among your people. ^14:47 For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the river of knowledge.” ^14:48 And I did so.

Not only was the Mosaic Pentateuch lost, but all twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible were lost as well,^[8] until they were recreated by a divinely inspired Ezra dictating to five scribes decades after the originals were destroyed. Thus, Porphyry did not invent the claim that the Bible was lost and only later reconstructed by Ezra. He inherited this idea from the Jews (and Christians), but instead of marveling at Ezra’s mystical prowess as they do, he used the story as an attack on the Bible’s validity, claiming that the Torah was a forgery and the original Mosaic revelation lost to history.

A Christian Version of the Ezra Story: Irenaeus

Christian authorities also had the tradition of Ezra recreating scripture through revelation.^[9] In the 2^nd century C.E., the bishop Irenaeus, in Against Heresies, discusses the debate amongst early Christian interpreters of Isaiah 7:14, which declares a sign for the birth of the promised redeemer: הִנֵּה הָעַלְמָה הָרָה וְיֹלֶדֶת בֵּן “behold the ʿalmah will become pregnant and give birth to a son.” Some interpreters in the 2^nd century C.E. understood the term ʿalmah as “young woman,” but the Greek LXX (Septuagint) translates it as parthenos (παρθένος) “virgin.”

Iraneaus claims that the LXX—an early Jewish translation into Greek—must be trusted because God performed a miracle during the translation process, and all seventy translators, working separately, came up with the same translation for all of scripture.^[10] If so, it is certain the LXX is correct, and those who revert to the Hebrew are just being polemical in denying that almah can mean virgin.

Irenaeus continues that it should not be surprising that God would miraculously ensure that all translations of the Bible come out the same, since God did an even greater miracle earlier in history: During the Babylonian exile, he writes, scripture had become totally corrupted, or “maculated” to use David Weiss Halivni’s preferred term, until Ezra, through a divine inspiration, restored the lost Mosaic Pentateuch:

^{Iraneaus, Against Heresies, 3.21.2} During the captivity of the people under Nebuchadnezzar the Scriptures had been destroyed by corruption… But when seventy years later^[11] the Jews had returned to their own land in the times of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra the priest of the tribe of Levi was inspired to order in his mind all the words of the former prophets and to reestablish the Mosaic legislation for the people.^[12]

While maculation of the text is a different claim than 4 Ezra’s physical destruction, both sources assume that the pristine Mosaic revelation was lost until Ezra the scribe.

Classical rabbinic sources also claim that Ezra the Scribe repaired, replaced, or changed the Pentateuch after the destruction of the First Temple. However, some rabbinic sources soften the story from recreating a whole lost or corrupted text to simply changing an existing text’s script or language.

Ezra Is Like Moses

Like 4 Ezra, the Tosefta has Rabbi Jose [ben Halafta] (2^nd cent. C.E.)^[13] describing Ezra as a second Moses:

^{תוספתא סנהדרין [וינה] ד:ה(*ז)} ר' יוסה אומ[ר]: "ראוי היה עזרא שתנתן תורה על ידו אילמלא קידמו משה...."^[14]

 

^{t. Sanhedrin 4:5(*7)} Rabbi Jose says: “Ezra was worthy that the Torah should have been given at his hand, if it hadn’t been that Moses preceded him…”^[15]

Taken on its own, Rabbi Jose could merely be communicating Ezra’s great piety, but the Tosefta continues by claiming that Ezra did, in fact, write the Torah, its script and even its language:

^{תוספתא סנהדרין [וינה] ד:ה(*ח)} ואף הוא ניתן על ידיו כתב ולשון.

 

^{t. Sanhedrin 4:5(*8)} Indeed the writing and language was given at [Ezra’s] hand.

The Talmud backs up this bold statement with glosses on three verses, all based on word play (the bolded words, translated in the English), with loose attention to the original context, but the effect is only clear when we look at all three together.^[16] The verses are translated according to the midrashic understanding, not according to the peshat/simple meaning in context):

שנאמר (עזרא ד:ז) "וּכְתָב הַנִּשְׁתְּוָן כָּתוּב אֲרָמִית וּמְתֻרְגָּם אֲרָמִית "—מה תרגומו ארמית אף כתבו ארמית.

 

As it is said (Ezra 4:7): “The writing changed (nishtavan) into Aramaic and translated into Aramaic.”^[17] Just as the translation (=language) was Aramaic, so too was the writing (=script) in Aramaic.

 

ואומ[ר]: (דניאל ד:ח) ולא כהלין כתבא למקרי^[18] וגו', מלמד שבאותו היום נוּתן.

 

And it says (Dan 5:8), “They could not [read] the writing of scripture (miqrei)”^[19]—which teaches that it (=the new version) was only given on that very day.

 

ואומ[ר]: (דברים יז:יג) "וכתב לו את משנה התורה הזאת," תורה^[20] העתידה לשתנות.

 

And it says (Deut 17:18): “He shall write for himself this changed form (mishneh) of the Torah”^[21]—a Torah that is destined to change (lishtanot).

Starting at the end and working backwards, we learn that the Torah was destined to be changed by translating mishneh “copy” as lishtanot “changing.” When this change happened is clarified in the middle verse, which describes how scripture (miqra)—originally a reference to reading (miqre) the writing on the wall in Daniel—was unreadable. From the first verse we learn why scripture suddenly became unreadable: because it changed nishtavan—playing off an obscure Persian loanword that means “decree” or “letter.” In short, the midrash claims that in the time of Ezra the Scribe, the Torah was suddenly written in Aramaic, language and script. This was a new development, and thus, Ezra did, in fact, write the Torah—or at least a Torah.

This means that Ezra’s Torah is not the same as the original Torah of Moses, which was written in Hebrew and in Paleo-Hebrew script^[22]—the Iron Age writing found on ancient ostraca and preserved in a derivative form by the Samaritans.^[23] But Ezra cannot be blamed for introducing changes into the text of the Torah, since the Torah itself already predicted it; Ezra simply fulfills Moses’ charge to change the form of the Torah.^[24] This version of the midrash does not explain how, if Ezra’s Torah is in Aramaic, rabbinic Jews use a Hebrew Torah, albeit in Aramaic script—a problem the Babylonian Talmud will take up.

Ezra Returns to Torah to the Original Aramaic Script

The Tosefta continues with a second version of the Ezra tradition, quoted in the name of R. Judah HaNasi, according to which the Torah we have today—written in Hebrew but in square Aramaic script—is the same as what was given to Moses on Sinai, and that it changed (somehow) into Paleo-Hebrew as a consequence of sin, but that eventually Ezra the scribe recreated the original:

^{תוספתא סנהדרין [וינה] ד:ה(*ח)} ר[בי] אומר: "בכתב אשורי נתנה תורה לישראל וכשחטאו נהפכה להן לדחץ^[25] וכשזכו בימי עזרא חזרה להן אשורית, שנ[אמר] (זכריה ט:יב) 'שׁוּבוּ לְבִצָּרוֹן [אֲסִירֵי הַתִּקְוָה גַּם הַיּוֹם מַגִּיד מִשְׁנֶה אָשִׁיב לָךְ].'"

 

^{t. Sanhedrin 4:5(*8)} Rabbi (Judah HaNasi) says: “The Torah was [originally] given to Israel in Assyrian (=Aramaic) script but when they sinned it changed for them into Paleo-Hebrew. Then when they merited it in the days of Ezra, it returned for them into Aramaic writing. As it is said (Zech 9:12): ‘Return to the stronghold, [prisoners of hope, lo today I tell you I will restore to you the [original] copy (mishneh)].’”

The rabbinic exposition is again on the word mishneh, which appears in both Deuteronomy and Zechariah. In this case, understanding Zechariah to say that when the Judeans return to their land, God will restore the original copy of Moses’ Torah, which is what Ezra does. This version is more conservative than the previous one, since it presents Ezra’s Torah as identical to that of Moses, and only discusses change in script as opposed to language. At the same time, the midrash grants Ezra powers akin to what we saw in 4 Ezra, since he is restoring a lost version.^[26]

Aramaic Writing Is Prettier: Jerusalem Talmud

Mishnah Megillah (1:8) states that while Torah scrolls can be written in any language, mezuzot and tefillin must be written only in Ashurit (Aramaic script). In its discussion of the Mishnah, the Jerusalem Talmud notes that Hebrew is beautiful to speak and Ashurit is an especially nice script, and follows this up with:

^{ירושלמי מגילה א:ט} אֲשׁוּרִי יֵשׁ לוֹ כְתָב וְאֵין לוֹ לָשׁוֹן. עִבְרִי יֵשׁ לוֹ לָשׁוֹן וְאֵין לוֹ כְתָב. בָּחֲרוּ לָהֶם כְּתָב אֲשׁוּרִי וְלָשׁוֹן עִבְרִי.

 

^{j. Megillah 1:9} Assyrian has a written script but does not have a spoken form (i.e., a single spoken form, since it is used for multiple languages).^[27] Hebrew has a spoken form (i.e., it was still spoken) but does not have a written script (anymore, since everyone wrote in Aramaic). [So] they (the Jews) chose [to render the Torah in] Assyrian writing (=Aramaic square script) but Hebrew language.^[28]

Here the hybrid nature of the Torah’s writing is dealt with in a prosaic manner, based on aesthetic and cultural concerns: Hebrew no longer has its own script, so the Jews chose to write in imperial Aramaic script, a professional scribal script that was pleasant to write, easy to transcribe, and attractive in its final form.

This explanation for why the Torah is written in Aramaic script does not even mention Ezra. No miraculous intervention or midrashic proof is necessary; Aramaic script is simply prettier. Only after this prosaic explanation does the Jerusalem Talmud quote a version of the same Ezra midrash found in the Tosefta,^[29] thus presenting his intervention as less significant, it is merely one possible way the Torah’s writing became what it did.

Ezra’s Torah Is Not Our Torah: Babylonian Talmud

A version of the Jerusalem Talmud’s “the people chose the language and script” explanation appears in the Babylonian Talmud, which presents the shift in how the Torah was written as having gone through three “historical” phases. In this version, Ezra’s Torah is actually written in the Aramaic language, like the first opinion in the Tosefta, but this is only the middle stage:

^{בבלי סנהדרין [קרלסרוהה רוכלין 2] כא:} אמ[ר] רב חסדא^[30] אמ[ר] מר עוקבא: "בתחילה ניתנה תורה לישר[אל] בכתב עבר[י] ולשון הקודש, חזרה ונתנה לה[ם] בימי עזרא בכתב אשורי ולשון ארמי, וביררו להן כתב אשורי ולשון הקוד[ש], והניחו להדיוטות כתב עברי ולשון ארמי."

 

^{b. Sanhedrin 21b} Rav Hisda said that Mar Ukva said: “Originally, the Torah was given to Israel in Hebrew writing and Hebrew language. Then it was given to them again in the days of Ezra in Assyrian script and Aramaic language. [In the end,] Israel chose for themselves the Aramaic script and Hebrew language, and they left the layfolks with Hebrew writing and Aramaic language.”

Mar Ukva claims that Ezra did produce a version of the Torah, but not the one we use. Eventually, the Jews—on their own—chose to keep Ezra’s preferred script but went back to the Hebrew language original, while the layfolks kept Ezra’s preferred language but the original Paleo-Hebrew script. The Talmud understands the term “layfolks” (hedyotot) as a reference to Samaritans:

^{בבלי סנהדרין [קרלסרוהה רוכלין 2] כא:} מאן הדיוטות? אמ[ר] רב חסדא: "כותאי." ומא[י] כתב עברי? אמ[ר] רב חסד[א]: "כתבה ליבונאה."

 

^{b. Sanhedrin 21b} Who are the layfolks [who kept the Hebrew script]? Rav Hisda said: they are the Samaritans. What is Hebrew script? Rav Hisda said it is brick writing [the writing of the ostraca].

Ancient Paleo-Hebrew was still visible throughout the land of Israel in the ostraca and other ancient archeological remains that survived into late antiquity, so the rabbis knew that the Samaritans didn’t just invent it and needed to account for how it was that they made use of the more ancient script.^[31]

In short, the Babylonian Talmud here repurposed the story of Ezra’s recreating the Torah as way of explaining why Jews and Samaritans have different Torah texts. In this version, Ezra represents a middle phase in the Torah’s transformation—an entirely Aramaic text lost to history!^[32]

The Disappearance of the Ezra Tradition

While Jewish and Christian religious authorities would never entirely cease to claim that human hands had influenced the final form of the Pentateuch,^[33] the story of an Ezran edition of the Pentateuch would not remain popular in Jewish or Christian circles beyond late antiquity. An important reason for this is the rise of Islam.

Islamic scholars brought with them the claim of tahrif (corruption or falsification), i.e., accusations that Jewish and Christian scriptures were falsified versions of an ancient pristine revelation that was finally fixed in the Quran. Many of these polemics mentioned stories about Ezra as proof for the corruption of the Hebrew Bible.^[34]

In such an environment, late antique tales of an Ezran edition of the Bible became an embarrassment that Jewish and Christian authors would rather deny,^[35] and the story largely disappeared from circulation.

View Footnotes

Published

February 2, 2024

|

Last Updated

July 11, 2026

1. This article presents sources previously treated in my articles “The Book that Changed: Tales of Ezran Authorship as a Form of Late Antique Biblical Criticism,” Journal of Biblical Literature 138.1 (2019): 143­–160 and “A King and a Scribe like Moses: The Reception of Deuteronomy 34:10 and a Rabbinic Theory of Collective Biblical Authorship,” Hebrew Union College Annual 90 (2020): 207–224, and in my book The Closed Book: How the Rabbis Taught the Jews (Not) the Read the Bible (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023), 26-58. These sources have been explored as historical evidence in David Weiss Halivni, Revelation Restored: Divine Writ and Critical Responses (New York: Avalon, 1998), 16ff, Shlomo Naeh, “על כתב התורה בדברי חז"ל (א): המסורת על החלפת הכתב בידי עזרא” [Script of the Torah in Rabbinic Thought (A): The Traditions concerning Ezra’s Changing of the Script], Leshonenu (2008): 125–143; Mark Leuchter, “The Aramaic Transition and the Redaction of the Pentateuch,” Journal of Biblical Literature 136.2 (2017): 249–268. The topic is also explored in Mira Balberg’s recent Fractured Tablets: Forgetfulness and Fallibility in Late Antique Rabbinic Cultures (Berkeley: University of California Press: 2023), 208–221.
2. Frag. 465e as reproduced in Marcarius Magnes, Apokritikos 3.3. Adapted here from the translation of Robert M. Berchman trans., Porphyry Against the Christians (Brill: 2005), 198. Greek interpolations are taken from Makarios Magnus, Apokritikos: Kritische Ausgabe mit deutscher Uebersetzung, edited by Ulrich Volp (De Gruyter: 2013), 108.
3. The earliest reference to 4 Ezra appears in Clement of Alexandria’s late 2^nd cent. C.E. Stromateis, who quotes from the Greek version of the text. For a basic introduction to 4 Ezra, and theories of when and why it was composed, see, Michael E. Stone, 4 Ezra: A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1990), 1–47; Karina Martin Hogan, “4 Ezra,” in Outside the Bible: Ancient Writings Related to Scripture, eds. Louis H. Feldman, James L. Kugel, and Lawrence H. Schiffman (Philadelphia, PA/Lincoln, NE: Jewish Publication Society/University of Nebraska], 2013), 2.1607–1668 [1607–1608]; Andy Wong, with Ken M. Penner and David M. Miller, eds., “4 Ezra: Introduction,” Edition 1.0 The Online Critical Pseudepigrapha, ed., Ken M. Penner and Ian W. Scott (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010). See also, Michael Stone and Matthias Henze, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch: Translations, Introductions, and Notes (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013).
4. Confusingly, the book starts in chapter 3, since it was preserved as part of what the Latin calls 2 Esdras, which is actually a combination of multiple works: chs. 1–2 (5 Ezra), chs. 3–14 (4 Ezra); chs. 15–16 (6 Ezra).
5. Translation follows NRSV as quoted (and modified) by Hogan in Outside the Bible.
6. A close reading of this text in relation to the idea of ongoing revelation is found in Eva Mroczek, Jewish Literary Imagination in Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 169-171. Hindy Najman points out that the textual cue for this narrative may be the scene in which Ezra and Nehemiah attribute laws that do not occur in the Pentateuch to Moses. See, Hindy Najman, Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 112.
7. For texts that make use of the forty-day period to describe an ideal time for fasting, see Herbert Basser, “Ascetic Fasting and the Dangers of Piety,” TheTorah (2023).
8. This is an especially interesting claim since one of the 24 books that Ezra recreates is the biblical book of Ezra-Nehemiah, which is largely about him. In any event, none of the books from the Persian period on—I refer here to traditional ascription, not to when they were actually composed—would have been burned by Nebuchadnezzar, since they weren’t yet written. This highlights how the numbers here are typological, and only loosely tied to the historical claim about loss due to destruction and exile.
9. See, for instance, Willian Adler, “The Jews as Falsifiers: Charges of Tendentious Emendation in Anti-Jewish Christian Polemic” in Translation of Scripture: Proceedings of a Conference at the Annenberg Research Institute (Jewish Quarterly Review Supplement: 1990), 1–27, Lisbeth S. Fried, Ezra and the Law in History and Tradition, Studies on Personalities of the Old Testament (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2014), 118–147, Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 50–74.
10. The story is told in detail in The Letter of Aristeas. See Benjamin G. Wright, III, The Letter of Aristeas: ‘Aristeas to Philocrates’ or ‘On the Translation of the Law of the Jews’, Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015); Francis Borchardt, “What Do You Do When a Text is Failing? The Letter of Aristeas and the Need for a New Pentateuch,” JSJ 48 (2017): 1–21.
11. Historically speaking, Artaxerxes was not king 70 years after the destruction, but, like the rabbis, early Christian authors were not always working with precise historical knowledge, but numbers derived from biblical texts.
12. Iraneaus, Against Heresies, 3.21.2, translation my own. Greek and Latin taken from William Wigan Harvey ed., Sancti Irenaei episcopi Lugdunensis Libros quinque adversus haereses (Typis Academicis:1857), 2.114.
13. As we do not know whether references to tradents (i.e., specific quoted rabbis) have a real historical connection to the person or are more of a literary feature of the text, I prefer to phrase things in this cautious manner.
14. The MS has not been published, but I follow here Naeh’s transcription (“Script of the Torah in Rabbinic Thought [A],” 130-131).
15. The text continues by offering a midrashic proof for this.
16. See Naeh “Script of the Torah in Rabbinic Thought [A],” 130-131, for a different understanding of what the Tosefta is claiming in this first derasha, which takes the original context of the verses as directly relevant to the word plays.
17. In context, the verse means “The decree was written in Aramaic script and Aramaic language”—a reference to the letter sent to king Artaxerxes about Jerusalem.
18. The Erfurt MS (the basis of the Zuckermandel edition) has an error here, reading: כתוב במקרא. The MT verse actually reads like neither of the MSS, למקרא.
19. In context, the verse means “they could not read the writing” a reference to the writing on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast in Daniel, which only Daniel could understand.
20. Erfurt [Zuckermandel] has כתב “writing.”
21. In context this means “he should write for himself a copy of the Torah,” referring to the future king who thus shows his loyalty to YHWH.
22. The Jerusalem Talmud (Megillah 1:9), in its rendition of this midrash, quotes Rabbi Nathan at this point who says this explicitly.
23. For an introduction to this ancient Western Semitic script, see Joseph Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet: An Introduction to West Semitic Epigraphy and Palaeography, 2^nd ed. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1997 [1^st ed., 1982])
24. The midrash ends by noting that this is why the Hebrew writing of the day is called Assyrian script:

^{תוספתא סנהדרין [וינה] ד:ה(*ח)} למה נקרא שמו אשורי? על שם שעלה עמהן מאשור.

 

^{t. Sanhedrin 4:5(*8)} Why is [square Hebrew script] it called “Assyrian” (i.e., Aramaic)? Because it came back with them from [the exile in] Assyria (i.e., Babylonia, where they write in this script).

25. Erfurt has רועץ and the Yerushalmi has רעץ and דעץ as alternatives. The etymology of this word is unclear though the referent is certainly Paleo-Hebrew or Samaritan script.
26. The third position in the text, that of Elazar HaModai, defends the idea that the Torah was given in Ashurit (Aramaic script), but says nothing at all about Ezra.
27. This is one reading of the text. Another possible reading is to connect this with the previous passage and explain that Aramaic has a beautiful written script but an unattractive sound, and that Hebrew has an attractive sound but an unattractive script, and the Jews chose the best of both worlds for the Torah, Hebrew language but Aramaic script.
28. Again, the same two possibilities for why it is called Assyrian script are mentioned—the first based on a word-play, the second based on history:

^{ירושלמי מגילה א:ט} וְלָמָּה נִקְרָא שְׁמוֹ אֲשׁוּרִי. שֶׁהוּא מְאוֹשָּׁר בְּכָתְבוֹ. אָמַר רִבִּי לֵוִי. עַל שֵׁם שֶׁעָלָה בְיָדָם מֵאַשּׁוּר.

 

^{j. Megillah 1:9} And why is it called Assyrian (Ashuri)? Because it is pleasant (meʾushar) in its writing. R. Levi said: “Because they brought it back from Assyria (=Babylon).”

29. The text reads:

^{ירושלמי מגילה א:ט} תַּנּי. רִבִּי יוֹסִי אוֹמֵר. רָאוּיּ הָיָה עֶזְרָה שֶׁתִּינָּתֵן תּוֹרָה עַל יָדוֹ אְלָּא שֶׁקְּדָמוֹ דוֹר מֹשֵׁה.

 

Rabbi Jose says: “Ezra was worthy that the Torah should have been given at his hand, if it hadn’t been that Moses preceded him.”

 

אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁלֹּא נִיתְנה הַתּוֹרָה עַל יָדָיו אַף הוּא נִיתַּן כְּתָב וְלָשׁוֹן עַל יָדוֹ. וּכְתָב הַנִּשְׁתְּווָן כָּתוּב אֲרָמִית וּמְתוֹרְגָּם אֲרָמִית. וְלָא כָהֲלִין כְּתָבָא לְמִיקְרֵי. מְלַמֵּד שֶׁבּוֹ בַיּוֹם נִיתַּן.

 

Even though the Torah was not given at his hands, the writing and language was given at [Ezra’s] hand. (Ezra 4:7): “The letter was written in Aramaic and translated in Aramaic.” (Dan 5:8), “They could not read the writing”—which teaches that [this new script] was only given on that very day.

 

רִבִּי נַתָן אוֹמֵר. בְּדַעַץ נִיתְנָה הַתּוֹרָה. וְאַתְייָא כְרִבִּי יוֹסֵה.

 

Rabbi Nathan says: “The Torah was given in Paleo-Hebrew”—this follows Rabbi Jose.

 

רִבִּי אוֹמֵר. אֲשׁוּרִית נִיתְנָה הַתּוֹרָה. וּכְשֶׁחָטְאוּ נֶהְפַּךְ לָהֶן לְרַעַץ. וּכְשֶׁזָּכוּ בִּימֵי עֶזְרַא נֶהְפַּךְ לָהֶן אֲשׁוּרִית. גַּם הַיּוֹם מַגִּיד מִשְׁנֶה אָשִׁיב לָךְ. וְכָתַב לוֹ אֶת מִשְׁנֵה הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת עַל סֵפֶר. כְּתָב שֶׁהוּא עָשׂוּי לְהִשְׁתַּנּוֹת.

 

Rabbi (=Judah HaNasi) says: “The Torah was [originally] given to Israel in Ashurit (Aramaic script) but when they sinned it changed for them into Paleo-Hebrew. Then when they merited it in the days of Ezra, it returned for them into Aramaic script. (Zech 9:12): ‘lo today I tell you I will restore to you double (mishneh)].’ (Deut 17:18): ‘He shall write for himself this copy (mishneh) of the Torah on a scroll’—a Torah that is destined to change [its form].”

Like the Tosefta, the text moves on here to the third position of R. Elazar HaModai.

30. All the MSS have Rav Hisda (Florence 8-9 has “Mar Hisda,” a strange hybrid). As Mar Ukva is a first generation amora and Rav Hisda a second/third, this makes sense (narratively or historically). The printed versions have the sixth generation Mar Zutra instead of Rav Hisda, which seems to be an error influenced by the name Mar Ukva.
31. Of course, the Samaritan Pentateuch differs from the Masoretic Torah in many more ways than just script, but the rabbis are either unaware of this or purposefully ignoring it here.
32. Like the Jerusalem Talmud, the Babylonian also proceeds to quote the same text as in the Tosefta, but again, Ezra’s position has been neutralized by the preamble. In this case, Rabbi Judah HaNasi’s position appears in the name of Rabbi Meir:

^{בבלי סנהדרין [קרלסרוהה רוכלין 2] כא:} תניא א'ר' יוסי ראוי היה עזרא ש[תינת]ן תורה לישר[אל] על ידו אילמלא קדמו משה...

 

^{b. Sanhedrin 21b} Rabbi Jose says: “Ezra was worthy that the Torah should have been given at his hand, if it hadn’t been that Moses preceded him.…”

 

וא'ע'פ'י' שלא ניתנה תורה על ידו נישתנה כתב על ידו שנ' ^[כב.] וכתב הנישתוון כתוב ארמית ומתורגם ארמית ואו' לא כ[הלי]ן [כתבא למקרי] ופ[שר]א להודעא למלכ' ואו' וכתב לו את משנה התורה הזאת על ספ[ר כתב] הראוי להישתנות

 

Even though the Torah was not given at his hands, the writing and language was given at [Ezra’s] hand. As it says (Ezra 4:7): ^[22a] “The letter was written in Aramaic and translated in Aramaic.” And it says (Dan 5:8): “They could not read the writing to inform the king.” And it says (Deut 17:18): ‘He shall write for himself this copy (mishneh) of the Torah on a scroll’—a Torah that is destined to change [its form].”

 

למה נקרא שמ[ו] אשורי? שעלה מן אשור עמהם.

 

And why is it called Assyrian (Ashuri)? Because it came up with them from Assyria (=Babylon).

 

תני ר' מאיר או[מר]: בתחילה בכתב זה ניתנה תורה לישר[אל] וכיון שחטאו נהפך להם לרועץ וכיון שחזרו בהן החזי[רו] להן שנ[אמר] שובו לביצרון אסירי הת[קוה] גם היום מגיד משנה אשיב לך

 

It was taught: Rabbi Meir says: “The Torah was originally given to Israel in this (Aramaic) script, but when they sinned it changed for them into Paleo-Hebrew. Then when they repented, it returned for them into Aramaic script. As it says: (Zech 9:12): ): ‘Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope, lo today I tell you I will restore to you double (mishneh).’”

 

למה נקרא שמו אשורי שמאושר בכתב(ו).

 

And why is it called Assyrian (Ashuri)? Because it is pleasant (meʾushar) in its writing.

33. Benjamin Sommer’s Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), for instance, correctly argues that not all premodern Jewish authorities opposed the notion that the biblical text had been formed in some measure by human hands. He proposed instead that some biblical authors and rabbinic authorities found theological grounds to embrace a “participatory theory of revelation” that acknowledged, and even celebrated, the role that human beings were understood to have played as agents in scriptural revelation.
34. As Hava Lazarus-Yafeh (Intertwined Worlds, 19–20) puts it, for instance, in a much-quoted passage: “[The accusation of textual corruption or falsification] was a widespread polemical motif in pre-Islamic times, often connected with the translations and quotations of scriptures, and used by sectarians and traditional authors, including Samaritans and Christians, to discredit various opponents and Scriptures.” For extensive discussions of early Muslim accusations of Ezran falsification see, for instance, Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: From Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm (Leiden: Brill, 1996); Willian Adler, “The Jews as Falsifiers: Charges of Tendentious Emendation in Anti-Jewish Christian Polemic” in Translation of Scripture: Proceedings of a Conference at the Anneberg Research Institute, Jewish Quarterly Review Supplement Series 1990, 1–27; Mark R. Cohen, Under Cross and Crescent: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 145-154; Gordon Nickel, Narratives of Tampering in the Earliest Commentaries on the Qur’an (Leiden: Brill, 2010); Norman Roth, “Forgery and Abrogation of the Torah: A Theme on Muslim and Christian Polemic in Spain,” in Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 54 (1987), 203–236; Gabriel Said Reynolds, “On the Qur’anic Accusation of Scriptural Falsification (tahrif) and Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic,” Journal of the American Society 130.2 (2010), 189­–202.
35. See, for instance, Eve Krakowski’s discussion of Al-Qirqisani’s treatment of this issue: “‘Many Days Without the God of Truth’: Loss and Recovery of Religious Knowledge in Early Karaite Thought” in Pesher Nahum: Texts and Studies in Jewish Literature from Antiquity through the Middle Ages Presented to Norman Golb, Joel Kraemer and Michael Wechsler, eds. (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago Press, 2011), 122.