Anan ben David's rejection of rabbinic oral law, as later tradition tells it, seeds Karaism, the scripturalist movement that reads the Hebrew Bible without the Talmud's authority; Karaism becomes rabbinic Judaism's enduring internal alternative.
Tagged: Schism Conservative Judaism Jewish Orthodox Judaism Reconstructionist Judaism Reform Judaism Secular Judaism
The Event
- Date
- c. 760 (approximate)
- Era
- Rabbinic; Standard periodization of Jewish history
- Location
- Babylon; today Baghdad, Iraq
- Traditions
- Judaism
- Streams
- Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism, Secular Judaism
- Key figures
- Anan ben David
How the Tradition Tells It
Karaite Judaism, which traces its stance to Anan's generation, rejects the authority of the Oral Torah that the rabbinic streams all accept in some form; the Karaite community maintains its own calendar, law, and synagogues to this day.
Primary Sources
- Karaite writings
Secondary Sources
- Goodman, A History of Judaism (Princeton, 2018)
Provenance: HIST-0116; confidence 0.85; accessed 2026-10-27.
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