OTOH, there was this accumulation of Talmud, with later commentaries continuing to be added,
Mishnah, and on and on. So, one can argue that there was this degradation function as one
moves further away from the original source, but this is presumably at least partly offset by
the accumulation of the commentaries themselves. Do they accumulate more rapidly than the
degradation occurs?
BTW, there is something similar in the debates over the various Islamic law codes, the various
Shari’as. An issue is which of the reputed sayings of the Prophet Muhammed, collectively known
as the Hadith, are to be accepted as genuine and therefore to serve as part of the foundation of
a proper Shari’s (along with the Qur’an and some other things). The validity of a given saying
was based on a chain of witnesses: Abdul heard it from Abdullah who heard it from Abu-Bakr who
heard the Prophet, and so forth. Part of the argument is that the longer this chain of reputed
witnesses is, the less reliably a part of the Hadith the supposed saying is, and indeed, some
sayings are accepted in some Shari’as, while the stricter ones rule them out for having overly
long chains of witnesses. The strictest of the Sunni Shari’as is the one accepted in Saudi Arabia,
the Hanbali, which accepts only the Qur’an and a very small Hadith as bases for the law.
OTOH, there was this accumulation of Talmud, with later commentaries continuing to be added, Mishnah, and on and on. So, one can argue that there was this degradation function as one moves further away from the original source, but this is presumably at least partly offset by the accumulation of the commentaries themselves. Do they accumulate more rapidly than the degradation occurs?
BTW, there is something similar in the debates over the various Islamic law codes, the various Shari’as. An issue is which of the reputed sayings of the Prophet Muhammed, collectively known as the Hadith, are to be accepted as genuine and therefore to serve as part of the foundation of a proper Shari’s (along with the Qur’an and some other things). The validity of a given saying was based on a chain of witnesses: Abdul heard it from Abdullah who heard it from Abu-Bakr who heard the Prophet, and so forth. Part of the argument is that the longer this chain of reputed witnesses is, the less reliably a part of the Hadith the supposed saying is, and indeed, some sayings are accepted in some Shari’as, while the stricter ones rule them out for having overly long chains of witnesses. The strictest of the Sunni Shari’as is the one accepted in Saudi Arabia, the Hanbali, which accepts only the Qur’an and a very small Hadith as bases for the law.