The function of this part of our discussion of the liturgical traditions of Judaism is to explain how a formal, authoritative liturgy committed to writing emerged in the history of rabbinic Judaism; when and where this process took place; and what the factors were that dictated the adoption of such an office among the religious commitments of the Jewish community at large. In order to achieve an adequate explanation of such developments it will obviously be necessary to take as our starting-point that period of Jewish religious history at which a recognisable form of rabbinic liturgy may be identified and up to which the story has already been told, and to describe in general terms the various characteristics of that form as contemporary research has identified them. A leap of some centuries will then be made to bring us to a situation when a Jewish liturgical codex was given a position of some respect among the literary sources of the religious tradition and therefore to a time at which it may no longer be doubted that there existed a written guide for regular communal worship sanctioned by a leading figure, or a number of such guides emanating from various such authorities.

A comparison, or rather a contrast, will then be drawn between the primitive form and the subtle shape that it later acquired and it will be possible to pinpoint the differences that had emerged in the intervening centuries.