The principle that Judaism demanded a life of studying the Torah and that the Torah must be applied to community life (J. Neusner) found concrete expression among professional scribes. Their prototype was Ezra (ca. 450 b.c.), who was “a scribe skilled in the law of Moses that the Lord the God of Israel had given” (Ezra 7:6). The scribes were expositors who made the directions of the Torah binding in various situations in daily life, teachers who passed on the contents and methods of their exposition to their students, and jurists who played a practical part in administering the law (Sir. 38:2…