1. Concept and development in the Middle Ages
The autonym of the splinter group known as the “Karaim,” which began to develop from Babylonian-Persian Judaism early in the 8th century, indicates considerable departures from the mother religion: the Ba'ale ha-Mikra (“People of the Scriptures”) accepted only the Hebrew Bible as the written Torah, therefore rejecting the oral Torah (Halakhah, Judaic law) of rabbinical Judaism, although they used its hermeneut…