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Two suggestions,

one that you place your post as a review for the book on amazon.com.

two, you read "The Bible Unauthorized" by H. Moose.
ish | 05.29.06 - 10:50 pm | #

Fascinating post. Thanks, R' Gil.
Steven | 05.29.06 - 11:11 pm | #

>Yes, there are many important textual incongruities raised by the DH.

Why don't parshanim raise them or acknowledge them? Or more precisely, why don't the more traditionalist parshanim of today raise these or acknowledge them?
Anonymous | 05.29.06 - 11:12 pm | #

It's totally dishonest of you to pick on claims peculiar to Prof. Friedman and claim victory over "the DH." Mushite priests are not a tenet of the DH.

There's a reason the entire non-fundamentalist world accepts multi-source authorship and "late" authorship dates, and it's not because they're too dumb to read one popular book and notice some weaknesses in it. If the DH was really so weak that one blog post on a few dozen pages of one popular work was enough to uproot it, it wouldn't still be the basis of all modern Bible study.

The only thing this post actually demonstrated to those in the know is that the DH is in fact strong, because you were forced to attack a straw man and not the fortress of the DH itself, which has stood for almost about 150 years against determined fundamentalists like you. Quite like evolution, actually. For your next post, pick some speculative theories of one evolutionary biologist, show that they're not well supported, and claim victory over evolution.
Anonymous | 05.29.06 - 11:14 pm | #

There's a reason the entire non-fundamentalist world accepts multi-source authorship and "late" authorship dates, and it's not because they're too dumb to read one popular book and notice some weaknesses in it.
Based on my experience in discussing these issues, it seems that the main reason that everyone accepts the multi-suthorship theory is because that is what is taught as fact in universities, and, once one assumes that this is the case, it becomes impossible to analyze the text as having single authorship, because all of the explanations sound like "special pleading."

It is very unusual to see a plausibility analysis on multi authorship theories done by a secular scholars. This is because they assume that multi authorship is correct, so there is no need to test it.
Michael | 05.29.06 - 11:27 pm | #

There is absolutly no comparison between empirical scientific data and studies that prove evolution conclusivly to whatever degree you choose and textual analysis of a text, usually conducted with a bias. There is no peer review, and little to no consideration of alternate view points.

Furthermore, many if not all of the questions have already been raised and dealt with by the Rishonim and Achronim.
Yo | 05.29.06 - 11:40 pm | #

The authors of the Torah also "dealt with" the evidence of nature around them in creating their two creation myths. But, like the answers proferred by the rishonim and acharonim, those answers are wrong. Just making an answer doesn't mean it's a good answer.
Anonymous | 05.29.06 - 11:45 pm | #

Kudos to Gil for raising this important issue and taking the time to investigate the claims of the DH.
However, your previous poster is correct. Who Wrote the Bible, is not simply a popular it work, it also contains many tendentious theories held only by friedman himself. THe book is indeed a straw man. While it is true that the DH is often held as an orthodoxy in the academic world that is not sufficiently criticized, It is important to note that there is a wide range of opinions on the DH in the acedemic world. The criticisms of Rav DZ Hoffman and Umberto Cassutto hve been taken very seriously by many leading scholars. However, for believing Jews the important thing is not the details of the DH, almost all of which have been challenged and debated academic scholars but the basic claim, that even if we cannot reconstruct and date the exact documents, given no preconceptions it is very unlikely that a person would conclude that the Torah was written written by a single hand some time in the late second millenium BCE.
We of course to have preconceptions, as such we come to different conclusions. However it is hubristic to beleive that we are unbiased inour reading of the Torah, when in fact we are not, while the entire academic world who devotes huge amounts of time energy and scholarship, far more that the Kiruv Klowns and even some of smartest blogers arround, are in fact totaly missing the point.

The bottom line is that Since Ru"M R. Mordechai Breuer did his gound breaking work in the 50's the has been very little serious confrontation with contemporary Bible scholarship in the Orthodox world. There are no easy answers to this one and we seriously undermine our cause by denying this challenge.

Moshe
moshe shoshan | 05.29.06 - 11:47 pm | #

also I just checked out "The Bible Unauthroized" it is totaly irrellevant to this conversation. Yet another well meaning misguided attempt to show that the Torah was written by a 20th C. physicist.

moshe
moshe shoshan | 05.29.06 - 11:56 pm | #

There's a reason the entire non-fundamentalist world accepts multi-source authorship and "late" authorship dates, and it's not because they're too dumb to read one popular book and notice some weaknesses in it.

Who said anything about "dumbness" ?

If the DH was really so weak that one blog post on a few dozen pages of one popular work was enough to uproot it, it wouldn't still be the basis of all modern Bible study.

As I understand it this “blogers” [Gil] post was meant more as a review of the above mentioned book than an attempt to "uproot" anything.

The only thing this post actually demonstrated to those in the know is that the DH is in fact strong, because you were forced to attack a straw man and not the fortress of the DH itself, which has stood for almost about 150 years against determined fundamentalists like you.

is everyone who believes a fundamentalist now? [and than someone will lecture you about the DH theory being "strong" and the need for straw men...]but putting anyone who believes in a single author in the category of a fundamentalist you are automatically disqualifying them something that even the author of this post had the decency not to do to you...so let us please not discuss "straw men" and let us stay on topic...

Quite like evolution, actually. For your next post, pick some speculative theories of one evolutionary biologist, show that they're not well supported, and claim victory over evolution.

have you read any of the post on evolution on this blog apparently not, just goes to show the open-mindedness of the non-fundamentalist.

Edited By Siteowner
proud fundamentalist | 05.30.06 - 12:01 am | #

Michael, you sound JUST like a creationist. "They learn evolution in colleges, but they don't really consider alternatives again." "They think all creationist explanations of evidence are special pleading." Etc., etc.
First of all, I am a creationist, I believe that the world was created by G-d.
Second, the multi-authorship theory only works by assuming multi-authorship.
There are certain places in Torah where the MA theory does a more elegant job explaining textual anamolies than do Single-author interpretations. But, there are also many cases where the proponents of MA are reduced to saying "Don't expect us to be able to solve every anamoly." And, since the only reason to consider a theory that overturns the commonly held belief of the Jewish community is that it does a better job of answering questions,a nd MA does not do that, if you take the entire Torah together, there is really no reason to consider it plausible.
The secular scholars a) put no stock in "the commonly held belief of the Jewish community" and b) uses evidence of Divinity as a proof of late authorship. For example, I was once talking to a professor of Biblical studies at the local university, and I asked him why, if the theory is so weak in places, is it assumed to be true, and he told me: We know that Leviticus was written after the Babylonian conquest, how else could it describe the Babylonian conquest so well.
Michael | 05.30.06 - 12:40 am | #

"However, your previous poster is correct. Who Wrote the Bible, is not simply a popular it work, it also contains many tendentious theories held only by friedman himself. THe book is indeed a straw man."'

Yet look how many in the blogosphere point to this book as solid refutation of torah min hashamayim.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 1:17 am | #

There is a reason that maaminim before R.I. Twersky ZT"L did not go for advanced degrees in Jewish studies,-note even he specialized in post-Biblical and post talmudic periods dissertation on the Ravad.
All secular historians do not believe anything close to what we believe to be true-at a minimum the vast majority of the Torah is from God eg with minor possible exceptions last 9 psukim , a possible parenthetic phrase etc some malei chaser issues, including some sort of Oral Law. The exact nature is a machlokes.
Absent emunah there is no reason to believe any texts are from God, in fact there are no logical proofs for God that have survuved scrutiny.
We believe on the basis of emunah and emunah in the mesorah.
Thus, I do not find Gil's erudite analysis one that is worth frum Jews entering into.
mycroft | 05.30.06 - 1:40 am | #

One DH book down. 9,999 to go.
Grey Area | 05.30.06 - 3:23 am | #

I would appreciate your comments on the following line of thought:

When we speak today of the sun setting, we know that there is a scientific explanation which greatly differs from our basic human experience - yet the two explanations of the same phenomenon do not cause us to lose any sleep.

Could not a similar argument be raised regarding the matter at hand?

in other words, is it not clear that religion and history deal with different appraisals and understandings of reality. (e.g. Was the Zionistic enterprise divinely assisted and guided, or was it the handi work of the devil? - could one suggest a scientific answer to such a question?)
My belief in the holiness of the bible, and my commitment to the jewish way of life are religious not scientific.
avi | 05.30.06 - 4:28 am | #

You wrote: "This is not to say that there are not other ways of resolving the supposed inconsistencies while still maintaining the single authorship of the Bible. All will agree that such paths exist."

And just what would those other paths of resolving the supposed inconsistencies while still maintaining the single authorship of the Torah be, exactly?
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 4:28 am | #

I have found only one datum in Sefer Bereishis that would be well explained by the DH and that is the two different lists of Esav's wives.

In all other cases that I've studied, the supposed repetitions, inconsistencies etc are well dealt with by Rashi and other meforshim, and the idea (which I've heard advanced by supposedly intelligent professors) that Jews 2000 years ago just never noticed the problems is absurd.

Gil did a masterful job in one of his previous Flood posts of showing how the DH actually complicates the Flood narrative without explaining anything. The way the DH "explains" the repetitions reminds me of the epicycles that people came up with to "explain" the movements of the planets before Copernicus.

One thing the DH does not seem to allow for is the possibility that a single author might choose to repeat information deliberately, with slight variations, for poetic, literary and other reasons. Many a modern day novel could be "proved" to be by multiple authors if redundancy, repetition, and stylistic variation were proof.
Toby Katz | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 7:28 am | #

I will not let this comment thread become a free-for-all skeptic party.

The reason that the DH, in one form or another, is regnant in academia is two-fold: 1) divine authorship is unacceptable, 2) it can answer every question raised by simply becoming more and more complex to address new issues.

My point in this post is two-fold: 1) Friedman's book proves nothing (I've seen and heard it recommended too many times), 2) the DH is a complex solution to textual problems, not a simple one.
Gil | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 7:39 am | #

The DH was the brainchild of German rationalists from the 19th century CE who were determined to prove that the Bible should be ignored and was of no greater value than any human authored production. And very often it begs the question.

Some years ago, I read a popular presentation of the DH mindset, applied to the Prophets. In Part One, he stated that the text of a certain prophet was produced in a certain time period because the social conditions referred to in that prophetic text were found in such and a such an era (sixth century BCE, I think). In Part Two, he described what he claimed was the cultural/social background, and in due course he came to the sixth century BCE, and described the social conditions of that era. His only evidence was the very prophet he had discussed earlier. Talk about circular reasoning.
jeffrey smith | 05.30.06 - 7:54 am | #

> 1) divine authorship is unacceptable

Gil - You are correct that contrary to the claims otherwise, Occam's Razor does not support the DH. However, I don't think you explained why those who deny the divinty of the Torah must posit several authors. Why can't it be one non-divine author? Can it be that the propenents of the DH use it as an attempt to rob the text of meaning and complexity by positing that it is merely a compliation of competing simple authors, rather than the work of one complex author who spoke on many different levels? I suspect that these is much more, so I'd like to hear your thoughts.
UnAnonymous | 05.30.06 - 8:14 am | #

Gil, just one point: You shouldn't dismiss claims of Kohen disputes so out of hand. I have no idea where Friedman got this "Mushite" idea, but there is some evidence in Tanach and classical Jewish sources, to wit:

1. The priests of the bamot and (l'havdil) avodah zara in the north seem to have been Leviim. Specifically, Moshe's grandson was a priest to pesel Michah, and it seems like Yeravam and his successors had Leviim (and maybe Kohanim) in the Northern Kingdom.

2. The Samaritans claim that the original split in the Bnei Yisrael was between those whose Kohanim were descendants of Itamar (in the North, the Samaritans) and Elazar (in the South, the Jews). This puts the split some generations before Yeravam (and, of course, many centuries before the arrival of the Kutim in rabbinic tradition).

3. Jewish tradition has quite a lot to say about the differences between the descendants of Elazar and Itamar. Eli is said to be of the latter, and one result of the issues with his sons was a curse that Elazar's family would be in the ascendant. This seems to have taken a while- the Kohanim of Nov, and thus Evyatar, seem to have been of an Itamar line. (I have no idea where he gets the idea that they were from Moshe.) The last straw for them seems to have been the issue of Adoniyahu, when Evyatar supported him and Tzadok supported Shlomo. After that, the priesthood remained with Tzadok (i.e., Elazar).

There are many signs of this: Yechezkel refers to "Hakohanim haleviim b'nei Tzadok" many times, and the Dead Sea Scrolls (and possibly the Tzedukim) also refer to Tzadok as somehow being the ideal. On the other hand, it seems that Yirmiyahu, while a Kohen, was from a "disfavored" family, and thus rarely if ever got to enter the Mikdash.

Anyway, while Friedman's ideas may not add up or have a solid basis, he's certainly working with something real.
Nachum Lamm | 05.30.06 - 9:06 am | #

liorah wrote: "And just what would those other paths of resolving the supposed inconsistencies while still maintaining the single authorship of the Torah be, exactly?"

I would resolve them by saying that God wrote the Torah, and if He chose to vary his style in a way that made it seem like different human authors wrote different sections of it, that's His prerogative.
Seth Gordon | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 9:39 am | #

"The reason that the DH, in one form or another, is regnant in academia is two-fold: 1) divine authorship is unacceptable, "

Gil, you are underemphasizing this point. This is perhaps the quintessential example of the "planted axiom" I have written about before. All of DH begins with the assumption that there is no such thing as Divine Authorship, and then proceeds to prove that there were multiple human authors. In the most fundamental sense, DH simply assumes what it purports to "prove." Surprise, surprise, the hidden assumption then is considered "proven."
Tal Benschar | 05.30.06 - 9:52 am | #

Where in the world did you get the idea of "divine authorship"? Except for the ten commandments, all of Jewish theology teaches that Moses wrote the entire Torah, not G-d. Judaism does not teach "divine authorship". If that is how sloppy your thinking is about what you purport to know a great deal, then how are we to take seriously your judgement about the academic study of the Pentateuch, about which you purport to know very little?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this post. A most elementary part of Orthodox Jewish theology is something an anonymous academic is abysmally ignorant of. This is why Orthodox Jews do not take "academic" criticism seriously.
Tal Benschar | 05.30.06 - 9:55 am | #

>"The reason that the DH, in one form or another, is regnant in academia is two-fold: 1) divine authorship is unacceptable, "

But isn't that fair? After all, no one is urging academia to approach Qur'an or New Testament as if they may be divine documents. And how could divine authorship be proved? It's basically a meaningless question outside of faith.

In fact, this is why R. Mordechai Breuer credits the dh--because literary scholars do not approach books as if they might be divine, and the result of literary analysis leads most scholars to sources rather than an original unified work, certainly not one from the period of Moshe.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 9:56 am | #

Seth: saying G-d wrote the Torah is heresy. We believe that Moses wrote the Torah - using prophecy.

We don't know how Moses wrote the Torah and the Talmud disputes his writing methods.

I repeat - claims of "divine authorship" are heretical - this idea reminds me of the Mormon claim about the gold plates that Joseph Smith, Jr. said he received from the angel Moroni.
anon academic | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 9:59 am | #

"But isn't that fair? After all, no one is urging academia to approach Qur'an or New Testament as if they may be divine documents. And how could divine authorship be proved? It's basically a meaningless question outside of faith."

Anon (maybe we should start assigning numbers to anonymous posters?):

But that is just the point. The "acadmic" approach starts by rejecting, a priori, the very assertion being made about the text. If you do that, then anything which proceeds therefrom "proves" nothing.

Look at it this way. DH purports to prove that the Torah* was not written by one man Moses. Well guess what, Orthodox Jews have agreed with that proposition for millenia. Indeed, our sages say that anyone who claims that Moses wrote even one verse himself is a heretic. So from our point of view, all DH is completely meaningless.

____________
*I am purposely putting to one side the issue of the other prophets, which is more complex both historically and theologically.
Tal Benschar | 05.30.06 - 10:04 am | #

please enlighten me - if "divine authorship" is a correct belief, what then is prophecy?

From Yigdal - based on Rambam:
There has not risen another in Israel like Moses. A prophet and one who tells clearly his visions.
A Torah of truth did the Almighty give to His nation. By the hand of His prophet [Moses], faithful to His house.
anon academic | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 10:06 am | #

anon academic -- I do not have my sefarim with me know, but probably the most concise exposition of the issue is the Rambam in Hil. Yesodei ha Torah. If someone here wants to give a more precise citation, I would appreciate it.

But basically there is a fundamental difference between Moshe's prophecy -- which was through what Chazal call "aspakleria ha meira" -- the clear vision and that of the other prophets. Moshe Rabbenu had a clear WORD FOR WORD (indeed letter for letter) perception of the Torah, which he transcribed into what we know today as the five books of the Torah. (In fact, there is a midrash that says that R. Akiva was able to derive laws even from the taggin -- those little fringes which stick out of the letters on a sefer Torah.)

That is what we mean by Divine Authorship -- every word and letter was arrange by the Almighty and then perceived by Moshe.
Tal Benschar | 05.30.06 - 10:16 am | #

"Indeed, our sages say that anyone who claims that Moses wrote even one verse himself is a heretic."

sorry - wrong - Moses wrote the entire Torah - where did you get the idea the he did not? - his prophetic greatness is removed if you make him a mere robot."

First, you are now setting yourself up against the view of Chazal, so you are outside Orthodox theology.

Second, Moshe's greatness is that he was so selfless -- the most humble man in history -- that he was able to have a clear vision of the Divine will. That academics dismiss this as being a mere robot speaks volumes. (Although to be fair no other prophet, incl. Moshe's own family, was able to achive this.)
Tal Benschar | 05.30.06 - 10:19 am | #

Tal: the fundamentalist view that you espouse preludes any intelligent discussion of the Torah shebeal peh which is part of the whole Torah that Moshe received on Sinai. furthermore, when the Torah says that G-d spoke to Moses, that's what it means? No?
anon academic | 05.30.06 - 10:26 am | #

Tal,

You are making Moses into a robot if you believe that all he did was transcribe letter for letter the dictation of G-d.

No credible Torah-true philosopher or theologian wants to make Moses into a robot, right? Certainly not the Rambam.
anon academic | 05.30.06 - 10:29 am | #

>No credible Torah-true philosopher or theologian wants to make Moses into a robot, right? Certainly not the Rambam.

Tzvee, have a look at Rashi on Numbers 17:13.

In addition, Meshech Hakhma famously said (on Parashat Nitzavim, I think) that Moshe's freewill became annulled.

All in all, however one understands this complicated theological topic, the way it understood by the Orthodox hamon am isn't "heresy," and has traditional support.
S. | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 10:39 am | #

anon academic, you are simply inserting your own prejudices into the discussion.

The "fundamentalist" view I have espoused (actually summarized, perhaps too tersely) is what Jews have believed for millenia, and is probably set forth most succinctly and clearly in the Rambam. The Rambam is acknowledged to be among the most "intelligent" philosophers of Judaism of all time.

If you don't like this view, it is a free country. Just don't complain when believing Jews don't take your work very seriously.
Tal Benschar | 05.30.06 - 10:42 am | #

"Moshe says nothing of his own volition, only from the mouth of the Almighty." That's one view in the midrash and it is a far far cry from saying he is a puppet with G-d pulling the strings.

I'm afraid you are confusing the hamon am with the am haaretz. According to Chazal, Moses was a great man - not a robot, not a puppet. He received inspiration directly from G-d of both the written and oral torahs. He wrote the one Torah and taught the other.

Your mormon-like fundamentalism is heretical - sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings -- that's just how it is.
anon academic | 05.30.06 - 10:47 am | #

On this thread only one person mentioned Moshe as robot/ puppet and it was you, in order to object to the idea. So to whom are you responding?
S. | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 10:51 am | #

I think the big difference between the Da Vinci Code and the Bible Code— whoops i mean "Who Wrote the BIble" is that WWtB is meant to be taken as fact, while the DVC is supposed to be a fictional novel.
Steg (dos iz nit der šteg) | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 10:51 am | #

To defend the erroneous belief in Divine Authorship - the idea of word for word dictation was brought forth and that is akin to believing in Moses was G-d's puppet/ robot. No credible Torah-true theologian believes in Divine Authorship or word for word dictation. That negates the nevuah of Moshe Rabbenu. And if hamon am does believe in these things, then they are mistaken. Why is it so hard to understand that you should be concerned about correcting wrong beliefs?
anon academic | 05.30.06 - 11:00 am | #

Friedman's doctorate in Bible is a doctorate in Theology from the Divinity School. Not very serious. One fact he omits from his bio is the years he spent in the rabbinical school at JTS. Not a serious scholar so not a serious book. Don't use it as a strawman for the DH since it is a very weak statement of it. Surprised Gil fell for his bio.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 11:00 am | #

According to the Rambam's 8th ikkar, Moshe was a scribe dictating God's words. This is basic stuff, despite Anon Academic's attempt to confuse the issue.
Gil | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 11:05 am | #

There's a reason the entire non-fundamentalist world accepts multi-source authorship and "late" authorship dates, and it's not because they're too dumb to read one popular book and notice some weaknesses in it.

That's true. And the reason is that any alternative might include the possibility that the Torah is really from God. That's a threatening thought to most people, as they view it as the keystone of all Western religions. And the history of the West is so full of oppression by clerics that a lot of people are simply unwilling to risk it.

Better to have a "solid" theory -- oh, sorry, now they're claiming that it's "established fact" that explains the Bible in a way that defangs it. It's safer for everyone.

At least that's the reasoning I suspect to be behind the widespread acceptance of the Documentary Hypothesis.

There's no conspiracy here. As Heinlein said, "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity." Or, I'd add, emotional aversion.
Lisa | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 11:05 am | #

"According to the Rambam's 8th ikkar, Moshe was a scribe dictating God's words. This is basic stuff, despite Anon Academic's attempt to confuse the issue.
Gil |"

Thanks Gil, for a minute there I thought I had warped into Bizarro land or something.
Tal Benschar | 05.30.06 - 11:08 am | #

liorah wrote:
And just what would those other paths of resolving the supposed inconsistencies while still maintaining the single authorship of the Torah be, exactly?

Liorah, the Torah, the rest of Tanach, all of rabbinic literature... we use words sparingly and carefully. Not in the common way in which they are used by most people, but with great care, so that stating something in a different way carries meaning.

In terms of information theory, this allows a huge amount of information to be packed into relatively few words.

See here, especially the example that's given a little more than half way through.

The Gemara is absolutely replete with examples of the Sages reading the Mishnah in that way. And they had not only a continuity of communication with the Sages who contributed to the Mishnah, but were extremely close to them, chronologically.

If the Sages of the Mishnah used language this way, why is it so hard for you to imagine that the authors of the prophetic books did the same? Or that Hashem Himself did the same? Where do you think we got the technique from in the first place?
Lisa | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 11:14 am | #

UnAnonymous wrote:
Gil - You are correct that contrary to the claims otherwise, Occam's Razor does not support the DH. However, I don't think you explained why those who deny the divinty of the Torah must posit several authors. Why can't it be one non-divine author? Can it be that the propenents of the DH use it as an attempt to rob the text of meaning and complexity by positing that it is merely a compliation of competing simple authors, rather than the work of one complex author who spoke on many different levels? I suspect that these is much more, so I'd like to hear your thoughts.

I know you didn't ask me, but I'd say you've hit it spot on. The whole idea was to diffuse the Bible. Western Civilization crawled out of a Dark Age that lasted for centuries, perpetuated by Christian clerics. To very many people, the idea of the Bible being what it purports to be is a doorway back to those Bad Old Days.

By whittling the Bible down, and basically painting anyone who takes it at face value as a fool or a child, or a primitive, an atmosphere of safety is created. Truth? Well, it's a small sacrifice for a greater good, I guess.
Lisa | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 11:21 am | #

Lisa, there is no similarity in style between the Mishna and anything in Tanakh. In fact, the Mishna is unique as the first Jewish religious writing which doesn't purport to be Scriptures by the way it is written.

You're only comparing the way the amoraim read the mishna with the way they and the tannaim read Tanakh. That tells us how they read authoritative texts, not what was intended by the authors of those texts. Did the authors of the non-canonical books written in the biblical style also write with such richness of intent?
S. | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 11:22 am | #

Very superficial reading of Rambam: "We believe that the entire Torah in our possession was given [to us] by the Almighty through Moshe Rabbeinu, by means of the medium we metaphorically call "speech." No one knows the real nature of this communication except Moshe, to whom it was transmitted. He was like a scribe receiving dictation."

Rambam clearly speaks of metaphoric speech and metaphoric dictation.

Basic stuff. Don't make the Rambam into lehavdil a mormon fundamentalist.

No one knows the real nature of this communication except Moshe --

He was not a robot/puppet - chas vesholom.
anon academic | 05.30.06 - 11:23 am | #

Gil,

How about writing your thoughts as a review of the book on Amazon.com?
Seems to me that the reviews there can use a bit of balance.
david | 05.30.06 - 11:27 am | #

Another example is the story of Korach's rebellion. According to Friedman (pp. 192-196), the Korach story is really two stories -- that of the rebellion of Dathan and Abiram against Moses and the rebellion of Korach against Aaron. Because the plot seems complicated, Friedman divides it into two separate passages that have been clumsily -- to the point of obscurity -- merged the two narratives together. This is based on two assumptions: that there were authors with different objectives, one against Moses and another against Aaron; and that a biblical plot must be simple, with clear good guys and bad guys. The latter assumption is quite presumptuous. In the real world, rebellions are based on complex considerations and the people involved usually have different motives.

This reminds me of the famous vort about the Mishna in Avos that an example of a machlokes le shem shomayim is Hillel and Shammai, while an example of a machlokes she lo sheim shomayim is korach Ve adaso.

I believe that as early as the Rishonim it was pointed out that "korach Va Adaso" is only one side of the machlokes! The answer is that whenever a dispute is she lo le sheim shomayim, even the one side cannot agree with each other -- Korach's group was simply a jumble of different interests who happened to want to rebel at the same time for different reasons and indeed had a machlokes with each other as much as with Moshe.

The same thing could well be hinted at from the pesukim in the Torah. Do some pesukim have Korach's POV while others have Dasan and Aviram's? In light of the above vort, it is quite plausible that the Torah is hinting that this rebellion was in reality a motley crew.
Tal Benschar | 05.30.06 - 11:29 am | #

Some Theological Points:

According to how I and many others understand the functioning of the created world, there is nothing in that world that we can perceive (or prove), using the tools of the natural world, to be somehow above that natural world. This includes the Torah. The Torah, whatever the mystery of its divine origins, which I do (axiomatically) believe in, has come into this world through a naturally mediated process, (which at the very least we can all agree involved an actual persona and actual physical writing). It is now a part of the natural world. If it reflects some infinte divine will or wisdom, this impacts how we interpret it and apply it to our lives. But it certainly could not contain that infinite will/wisdom in it's written, natural form. This is a very traditional view from Rambam to Zohar.

So we have a reflection of the divine will translated into this natural world through a naturally mediated process. Absent the axiomatic belief in its divine origins there is no reason to expect it to be perceived as divine using human, natural perception, but as a human work. Because the process of translation is by necessity a natural act, mediated by real people acting in natural history.

We should not think of academics who take an a priori naturalistic approach to the Bible as being any more tendentious than scientists who a priori look for naturalistic explanations of creation. We do not expect a scientist, absent a preexisting belief in God, to find God in nature, but we can appreciate that a scientist who is a believer will still see divine wisdom reflected in nature. We should similarly not expect a Bible scholar, absent a preexisting belief in God to find God in the Bible. And we should not have a knee-jerk reaction to them as being biased and out to prove that God does not exist.
or that the Bible is not Divine.

We would, however, expect a Bible scholar, who has every right to believe that the Bible is divinely inspired, to see the divine will and wisdom reflected in the text they study.

Still, just as we do not expect the believer scientist to use different methods from the nonbeliever, or to come to different conclusions, we should not expect anything different from the believer Bible Scholar. Using the tools of natural perception, they can make the same naturalistic observations about the Bible.

Just as I would hope that today we are sophisticated enough to not see a belief in scientific explanations of creation as some sort of heresy, but a reflection of the progress humanity has made in understand the natural world and no longer relying on beliefs in supernatural phenomena, we could similarly see acknowledgement of what we perceive as a human hand in the Bible as not a heresy, but as reflecting how human knowledge and understanding have progressed.

Does this make God or the Torah irrelevant? Only if we want to think so.

I believe I got sick last week as a result of submicroscopic vir
MJ | 05.30.06 - 11:32 am | #

How about writing your thoughts as a review of the book on Amazon.com?

I submitted it last night after someone made the suggestion.

This reminds me of the famous vort about the Mishna in Avos that an example of a machlokes le shem shomayim is Hillel and Shammai, while an example of a machlokes she lo sheim shomayim is korach Ve adaso.

I was thinking the same thing as I wrote the post!
Gil | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 11:35 am | #

Continued:

I believe I got sick last week as a result of submicroscopic viruses entering my body, and that I got better because my body's immune system was strong enough to muster a defense. Am I less of a believer than the man 200 years ago who only perceived it as the hand of God, the result of sin, or lack of piety? If you say yes, than you have to retreat back into that world that has vanished in the minds of the majority of informed, rational persons. But I cannot go back to that world. I can also not go back to the world where the Torah is seen as something that just dropped out of the sky intact from God. Anyone who has accepted anything along the spectrum from the idea that the Torah has had scribal changes to the notion that previously existing material was incorporated has already abandoned that view as well. The question is only one of degree. Does that make you less of a believer? Then close your mind and retreat 200+ years into the past.

But for those of us who cannot, I hope that a sophisticated view that confirms a belief that the Torah reflects a divine will is not automatically castigated as heretical. If science can progress, Jewish theology can as well. If you disagree and think it cannot, then I'm afraid we must part ways theologically.

But just remember, I'm still the guy sitting next to you in shul, I'm still the guy leining, and davening, and sending my kids to the same school as yours. And I just had you over for shabbos lunch last week. So think twice before you call me a heretic and think I have “left the fold.” The fold simply isn’t as narrow as it once was.
MJ | 05.30.06 - 11:41 am | #

Not many of us have had the opportunity to read through the Bible for the first time as intelligent adults. Most of us have instead been learning the Bible from the age of 3 years old (from which time we have also been endlessly reminded about its divine origins), and it becomes extremely difficult to look at this book with fresh eyes. But the challenge is to at least try. Pick it this book, just once, as though you were picking up any other piece of ancient literature. Read it. What are your impressions? Does it strike you that it was written by a supernatural incomprehensible Agent, or does it strike you that it was written by a human being? Does it strike you that it was written by a single human being (perhaps having some short-term memory loss) or by multiple humans with divergent interests? How does it strike you? I think if anyone does this seriously, they will at least be able to understand where the Biblical critics are coming from.
Some Guy | 05.30.06 - 12:08 pm | #

"and it seems like Yeravam and his successors had Leviim (and maybe Kohanim) in the Northern Kingdom."

it says the opposite in posuk: vayas kohanim m'ktzos ha'om asher lo hayu mibnei levi - melachim 1 12:31.

"2. The Samaritans claim that the original split in the Bnei Yisrael was between those whose Kohanim were descendants of Itamar (in the North, the Samaritans) and Elazar (in the South, the Jews). This puts the split some generations before Yeravam (and, of course, many centuries before the arrival of the Kutim in rabbinic tradition)."

that's not inconsistent with Jewish tradition, it's between bnei eyli/evyasar and bnei elazar/tzadok. It only pushes the split back, but shlomo is the one who instituted the split, so if it took decades to get their act together the split would show up in yeruvam's time.

"Anyway, while Friedman's ideas may not add up or have a solid basis, he's certainly working with something real."

none of this helps Friedman and others who base their analysis on a split between bnei moshe and bnei ahron.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 12:09 pm | #

S. wrote:
Lisa, there is no similarity in style between the Mishna and anything in Tanakh.

Actually, Fred, I'm claiming that there is. If you have a reason to disagree, I'm certainly open to hearing it. But just saying otherwise... well, it reminds me of the Argument Clinic sketch: "An argument is an intellectual process... contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says."

You're only comparing the way the amoraim read the mishna with the way they and the tannaim read Tanakh. That tells us how they read authoritative texts, not what was intended by the authors of those texts.

Think it through. The Tannaim read Tanakh this way. Where do you suppose they got the idea to do that?

The Amoraim read the Tannaim this way as well. And they knew the Tannaim. It's not as though the Tannaim lived a thousand years earlier.

What we see is a culture of knowledge that sees a particular methodology as natural. It's not all that different, really, from cultures which used riddles to teach. A riddle isn't a dumb "why did the monkey fall out of the tree" type joke. It's a tool that forces the solver to take their mind through a intellectual process.

I'll go back again to my original question, but with a slight difference. Since the Amoraim treated Tannaitic literature in this way, and since the Tannaim were familiar with the concept of reading the Tanakh in this way, it implies that the Tannaim wrote their literature -- intentionally -- to be read in this way. What reason is there to assume that this style originated with the Tannaim? Particularly when Tanakh contains a great deal of content which makes more sense when read this way than it does being read at simple face value?

Did the authors of the non-canonical books written in the biblical style also write with such richness of intent?

Good question. Maybe. Not that I'd lump all of those books into a single category. Did Jason of Cyrene learn in Yeshiva? And how many of these books do we have in the original? Certainly the Septuigint versions of Tanakh don't retain all of the information that exists in the originals. Who knows what the originals of Tobit, Judith, etc., were like.
Lisa | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 12:15 pm | #

> But just remember, I'm still the guy sitting next to you in shul, I'm still the guy leining, and davening, and sending my kids to the same school as yours...

We know. And we will set up commitees and Asifa's to root you guys out. We will find you and make sure you're out of the Shidduch pool and we will not attend the next time you sponsor a Kiddush in Shul. And for good measure, we will add yet another brochah to Shemona Esrai. - Vlamalshinim II. Now, you're really in trouble.
Baal Habos | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 12:18 pm | #

Some Guy:

It is important to distinguish between the "Bible" which includes the books of the prophets from Joshua through Ezra and Nehemia, plus various books which have other purposes than straight prophecy (Psalms, Proverbs)and the Torah, i.e the first five books. It is only the latter which Jewish belief posits had one Divine Author.
Tal Benschar | 05.30.06 - 12:19 pm | #

"Friedman's doctorate in Bible is a doctorate in Theology from the Divinity School. Not very serious. One fact he omits from his bio is the years he spent in the rabbinical school at JTS. Not a serious scholar so not a serious book. Don't use it as a strawman for the DH since it is a very weak statement of it. Surprised Gil fell for his bio"

skeptical bloggers/commenters in the Jblogosphere tout Friedman's book as the one work that will convince people/convinced them that DH is true - why shouldn't Gil review it. BTW what does it say about the field that FReidman is considered one of the most prominent biblical scholars in the field?
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 12:22 pm | #

>The Amoraim read the Tannaim this way as well. And they knew the Tannaim. It's not as though the Tannaim lived a thousand years earlier.

And people read Mishne Torah this way--or the sichos of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. This means that its a Jewish way of reading texts!

>I'll go back again to my original question, but with a slight difference. Since the Amoraim treated Tannaitic literature in this way, and since the Tannaim were familiar with the concept of reading the Tanakh in this way, it implies that the Tannaim wrote their literature -- intentionally -- to be read in this way.

It implies no such thing. It implies that the Amoraim either thought the Tannaim wrote their literature (sic) to be read that way or they thought it was appropriate to read their literature closely, whether they meant it to be written like that or not.

>Good question. Maybe. Not that I'd lump all of those books into a single category. Did Jason of Cyrene learn in Yeshiva? And how many of these books do we have in the original? Certainly the Septuigint versions of Tanakh don't retain all of the information that exists in the originals. Who knows what the originals of Tobit, Judith, etc., were like.

And what about John, Paul, Luke &c.? The fact that people read texts as if its every word or unusual form is a pearl tells us what the people reading those texts think of the text, not that the author meant it.

An apocryphal story, heard on one of R. Aharon Rakefett's lectures on yutorah.org:

R. Hayyim Brisker once said that the reason he focused on the Rambam so much is because the Rambam didn't give his sources, so its very difficult to prove his hiddushim on the Rambam wrong.
S. | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 12:23 pm | #

I think that anyone who really spends the time to read serious academic sources - and not Friedman - will have to concede that there are in fact multiple streams in Tanach that are sometimes hard to pick out but sometimes can be picked out with almost frightening ease by consistent usages of vocabulary and grammar that occur only in clusters. It's a valid criticism that any theory about the text of Tanach must commit the grave scientific taboo of fitting itself directly to all available data, since there is no "control" Tanach that we can test a theory on with no a priori knowledge of the text. This leads to a theory that is necessarily somewhat convoluted and weak in places; nevertheless, it's a limitation that can't be surpassed since we only have one Torah.

The DH can be divided, really, into two seperate ideas. The first is that we can (in general, with some acceptions) identify such streams inside Tanach. Those who argue against this point are invariably doing so from a dogmatic position and not from actual textual knowledge, because in this respect the DH is entirely right that we can find such significantly identifiable trends in the text. It's a simple fact that the Torah has such discernible streams (again, not every example is elegant, but there are plenty of elegant examples, and more good ones by far than weak ones).

The second idea of the DH is that these streams represent the work of different authors (as opposed to different styles from one author) and moreover that they can be dated and geographically located based on contextual clues and often simple speculation. It is here that the DH is rightfully objected to as largely speculation and certainly nothing at all scientific. We don't need to deal with these contentions - we can simply dismiss the bulk of them because they are almost invariably worthless. What people don't realize is that Friedman's book is a classic example of this second part of the DH - he spends no time at all on the textual issues and on how we can identify streams and just presents that work (correctly) as given and begins to speculate wildly.

What Rav Breuer did was to recognize and accept the first half - the scientific, textual, half - of the DH while rejecting the speculative conclusions and substituting his own speculation that fits better with our recieved mesorah (perfectly legitimate since this second part is much more of an art than a science). I don't particularly like his explanations, but I think he took precisely the right tack in what we must confront in the DH and what we can ignore. Halivni did this as well, with much more impressive results from a plausibility standpoint, but I can't see how his conclusions could be made compatible with traditional Orthodoxy, even though they are compatible with halachic observence. We need more scholarship here - not blindly denying the reality of seperable streams in the text, but offering new speculations that are no more and no less
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 12:25 pm | #

no more and no less wild than what's being offered by the outside.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 12:26 pm | #

Incidentally, Lisa, it's not clear at ALL that the Tannaim meant their words to be read so closely or that the Amoraim didn't know this. There's a school of thought in Talmudic scholarship (and one strongly pushed by a number of prominent frum scholars) that the Amoraim knew very well that they were twisting the words of the Tannaim beyond their original meaning but considered it "chutzpa" to say something that no Tanna could even be sort of seen as saying. (Rav Schachter has said something similar, although less revisionist, that Rav Tanna Hu Upalig merely means Rav was the only one who didn't have a heseg hadaas when he took on an argument with a Tanna - the other Amoraim were afraid to propose entirely new interpretations).
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 12:31 pm | #

Fred, you know the difference between a skeptic and a cynic, right?
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 12:32 pm | #

Pardon. I didn't mean that to be anonymous.

Fred, you know the difference between a skeptic and a cynic, right?
Lisa | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 12:33 pm | #

>Fred, you know the difference between a skeptic and a cynic, right?

No one ever calls themselves a cynic?
S. | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 12:35 pm | #

Lisa, the text of the Mishna and Gemara is radically different in style, language, structure, and intent from Tanach. The way we read it is simply the way religious people of all faiths read religious texts. There's no proof at all here for anything one way or the other.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 12:35 pm | #

No one ever calls themselves a cynic?

I do. It's on my resume.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 12:36 pm | #

Friedman's doctorate in Bible is a doctorate in Theology from the Divinity School. Not very serious.

REF is a repsected scholar all over the world. When you can show me your PhD from Harvard, I'd like you to tell me it wasn't all that hard.

Most if not all DH theorists do not believe in the DH that REF advocates; he is, however, very respected for his work.

One fact he omits from his bio is the years he spent in the rabbinical school at JTS.

So, wait, the guy takes his Judaism seriously wants to be a Rabbi, but one year in realizes that its not for him. So he drops out. And that's a problem?

Personally I think what Freedman did is a lot more laudable than guys who go into a Rabbinical School but have no intention of doing anything with their Smicha.
Natan | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 12:46 pm | #

lamedzayin wrote:
Lisa, the text of the Mishna and Gemara is radically different in style, language, structure, and intent from Tanach. The way we read it is simply the way religious people of all faiths read religious texts. There's no proof at all here for anything one way or the other.

LZ, if you think that other religions read their texts the way we do, you really need to get out more. It just isn't the case. It really is a very characteristically Jewish methodology.

Furthermore, the question isn't merely one of proof. When the DH folks come at the text in a hyper-simple way, it's absurd.

And explain, if you will, why it's so hard for you to conceive of someone deliberately creating complex text for the purpose of packing more information into it?
Lisa | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 1:03 pm | #

S. wrote:
>Fred, you know the difference between a skeptic and a cynic, right?

No one ever calls themselves a cynic?

A skeptic keeps an open mind. A cynic takes pleasure it tearing things down.
Lisa | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 1:05 pm | #

Lisa, could you please clarify what you mean when you say that Tannaim, Amoraim, etc., read texts "this way"?

All religions infuse their sacred scriptures with infinite importance. Everything can be "found" in them, nothing is accidental--they are omnisignificant. This is a universal phenomenon.
Grey Area | 05.30.06 - 1:14 pm | #

>A skeptic keeps an open mind. A cynic takes pleasure it tearing things down.

I feel like I've been rebuked, but I'm not sure why. Is it because I argue on your contention that the way texts are read implies our knowledge of how they are intended to be read?
S. | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 1:19 pm | #

Beyond, or alongside, the issues with Tanakh, we have to recognize that the great religigious traditions - Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc. - have large bodies of texts that don't always cohere in an obvious way. All the traditions developed over the centuries ways of reading and interpreting these complicated texts in ways that don't just solve the obvious problems but deepen and enrich the message. And in these traditions there are scholars who work with the perspectives of modern critical scholarship and try to use them to deepen the religious message
(See the works of Moshe Greenberg, Jon D. Levenson, Michael Fisbane, Yisrael Knohl, Benjamin Sommer, to name a few. On the theological side, Rav Kook, R' Heschel, Rav Breuer, as was mentioned, each dealt or deals with these challenges by the lights of his vision.)
Even if we were to "upshlug" every particular claim made by the DH we would still be left needing to claim that our texts are the only divine ones, despite all that they share with the textual heritages of other religions. As well as to claim that the overwhelming majority of the human race has no access to God.
Even if we were to accept every last bit of DH in all its forms, we would still need to find our way in the world, and doing so without Divrei Elokim Chaim is, to my mind at least, impossible.
What's a Jew to do?
Hashem's word is "ke-patish yefotzetz selah." Hazal tell me that this means He speaks in many ways. They also tell me that Torah has an infinity of meanings, and that in the end I need to be mefashpesh be-ma'asai.
Does this weaken my halakhic commitments? Not really, except that maybe I find it easier to believe that the few but terrible injustices which can result from the halakhic process, agunah being only the most obvious example, are not Ratzon Hashem.
Does that make me a kofer?
If so, this is one kofer who lives his life according to halakha, has made aliyah, did a daf yomi cycle, is currently working his way through Seder Taharos alongside other learning projects, has spent his entire professional life in non-profits and Jewish education and used to belong to a volunteer chevra kadishah, among other things. Three times a day in Shemoneh Esreh I ask Hashem to forgive my sins. Believe me they are many, but I don't think that accepting the likely truth of Biblical Criticism is one of them.
And with humility I accept that I may in fact be wrong, and hope others accept that about themselves too. Only Hashem has the monopoly on truth.
Shivisi | 05.30.06 - 1:25 pm | #

"REF is a repsected scholar all over the world. When you can show me your PhD from Harvard, I'd like you to tell me it wasn't all that hard.

Most if not all DH theorists do not believe in the DH that REF advocates; he is, however, very respected for his work."

some previous comments:

http://www.haloscan.com/comments...9103368/ #150614

http://www.haloscan.com/comments...9103368/ #151083
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 1:25 pm | #

Lisa, I'm going to bet that your comments about other religions are NOT based on extensive experience with such. To choose an obvious example, the Islamic relationship with their scriptures is HIGHLY parallel to ours, including a system of important commentators that more or less is their equivalent of the Rishonim. The early Christians too were much the same - the Church fathers read both Tanach and the New Testament in a strikingly similar manner (in methodology, not in content) to how our parshanim did, to the point that we have several documented stories of a good pshat from either camp being accepted by the other. Looking at largely secularized Christianity of USA today and making sweeping claims about how Jews read texts and others read texts is only going to impress those with even less knowledge of other religions.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 1:38 pm | #

>In the book, Friedman frames the authorship of the Pentateuch as a mystery which he unravels one layer at a time, until he is able to identify the various authors of the Bible to the point of even being able to name them.

Well, he draws from a famous model. That'a pretty much how Spinoza does it, in Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Peel away layer after layer of improbability to demonstrate that it couldn't be divine.
thanbo | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 1:45 pm | #

Although Lisa is more than capable of explaining what she meant, I'm going to guess that is referring to specific methods of derash, such as the י"ג מידת of רבי ישמעאל. Whether or not there were similarities in Greek interpretive methods, its fair to say that Christians don't duplicate the tannaitic methods in their own exegesis, and neither do Muslims.

However, both religions closely read their own scriptures in detail. Both have literally and figuratively combed over their own scriptured and then combed over them again and again and then again some more. Both are also interested in very close reading. Both also have interpretive traditions that sometimes directly contradict the plain sense of the text. Ask a Catholic (who is commited to Church dogma) if James was Jesus's physical brother, and Mary's physical son.
S. | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 1:47 pm | #

I really feel that it can't be stressed enough that we must seperate the scientific component of DH - which we absolutely must address - from the speculative component.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 1:52 pm | #

Lamed Zayin: I think that anyone who really spends the time to read serious academic sources - and not Friedman - will have to concede that there are in fact multiple streams in Tanach that are sometimes hard to pick out but sometimes can be picked out with almost frightening ease by consistent usages of vocabulary and grammar that occur only in clusters.

Actually, one of the strongest criticisms of RM Breuer from his fellow academics is that he uncritically accepts this as fact. In other words, there are those who read academic sources and are academics themselves, but deny that there are multiple streams.
Gil | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 2:03 pm | #

It's a critique more or less only from religious academics, and while I am not denying their scholarship, I find this point suspect. Furthermore, while not a Bible scholar in any way shape or form myself, I've read enough text-oriented material on my own to be convinced of this fact myself. Again, I don't say there are necessarily exactly 4 streams, or that they are always easily seperable, or that they represent 4 authors, but I do think it's undeniable that there is something real in the separability of segments of Tanach by vocabulary and grammar that isn't addressed by merely denying this can be done.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 2:07 pm | #

Anonymous, those were exactly my points.

A year or two back, someone wrote a piece on Korach in the Forward in which he compared it to Milton's poem "Absalom and Ahitophel." Basically, Milton points out that in any revolt, you're going to have dozens of factions, each with their own agenda, jumping on the bandwagon. The unity of the story, by the way, is nicely demonstrated in the way Moshe deals with the factions.

One thing that's long troubled me, if I may be so bold, about the typical skeptic-blogger is how little he or she often has read. It becomes painfully obvious from some blogs that the skeptic is usually someone who was raised with a fundamentalist education and never exposed to other ideas, has read Friedman (or one book on the Bible or DH), and bought every word, and now is as much of a fundamentalist as they were before, albeit for another cause. (This isn't only the case for the Bible, by the way. To take a fictional example, see how Potok's Danny Saunders leaves the charedi word and becomes an Orthodox Freudian.)

Am I suggesting that reading more will answer questions? Hardly- it will probably raise more. And I guess it's the nature of the beast that the blogosphere is full of self-appointed experts. (And no, I'm not holding myself out as an expert.) But it's troubling nonetheless.
Nachum | 05.30.06 - 2:10 pm | #

Gil, that's a bit disingenuous -- those criticisms are of his uncritically accepting davka Wellhausen's scheme, when Kaufmann, for example, has a different one, and other scholars dispute various nuances (and not-so-nuances).

But as Werblowsky wrote in his article on R. Breuer, R. Breuer chose Wellhausen to say, I EVEN agree with him, the antisemite, whose very name stands for BC, without beating around the bush. R. Breuer swipes at Kaufmann and the observant academics who follow him (or Cassuto, for that matter) because of his "positive" approach to Judaism. It's as if to say, it doesn't matter, even Wellhausen's conclusions can be accepted. R. Breuer's critics didn't grasp his intentions there.
Grey Area | 05.30.06 - 2:20 pm | #

"I do think it's undeniable that there is something real in the separability of segments of Tanach by vocabulary and grammar that isn't addressed by merely denying this can be done."

I'm waiting for the evidence.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 2:21 pm | #

The evidence is in literally thousands of scholarly books and articles on the subject which it seems no one here has any interest in reading. There is no way to prove the existence of streams in Tanach in a set of comments on a blog. If you are really waiting for the evidence I'll give you a reading list.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 2:23 pm | #

"The evidence is in literally thousands of scholarly books and articles on the subject which it seems no one here has any interest in reading. There is no way to prove the existence of streams in Tanach in a set of comments on a blog. If you are really waiting for the evidence I'll give you a reading list."

I've read a lot on the topic, thanks. What's your reading list?
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 2:25 pm | #

Anonymous,

[edited out. this isn't the place to give a reading list for literary criticism of the Bible.]

Edited By Siteowner
Grey Area | 05.30.06 - 2:26 pm | #

[edited out. this isn't the place to give a reading list for literary criticism of the Bible. although Tov isn't relevant anyway because that's lower criticism.]

Edited By Siteowner
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 2:36 pm | #

I think Tov is relevant. You need lower criticism to even have the tools for higher criticism. But that's fine, I don't care if you remove the list; anyone who's interested in the academics of this can probably find the reading list of a college course online and work from there.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 2:41 pm | #

And since when did the frum velt become ok with lower criticism on Chumash (not Nach) anyways?
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 2:43 pm | #

I guess some of us have to remind ourselves that this blog is not about an open exchange of ideas (and Gil never said it was). The hit-and-run attacks on DH are annoying, though. Cheap shots, a totally different tone than other posts.
Grey Area | 05.30.06 - 2:44 pm | #

You'd have to work quite hard to find better evidence that Orthodox Judaism does not have any answers to the DH than the deletion of booklists about it. What are you so afraid of? That they might read those books and realize Orthodox Jduaism is false? Pure intellectual cowardice. You know that the DH is a very compelling case and you're afraid others will too.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 2:47 pm | #

I don't think its unfair that Gil takes his shots, but I do think it's unproductive. It's the same old kiruv clown thing - assume your audience is only vaguely familiar with the problem and wow them with a solution before they bother to actually find out the details. It's what seperates excellent works like Rav Slifkin's from the sort of shoddy pseudoscience Aish likes to toss around, except this time applied to text instead of nature, and I think that it actually hurts those who do know more because they begin to suspect that these sort of answers are the best we can do.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 2:47 pm | #

And this is despite the fact that I think Gil's examples are all correct and well chosen - I loved the posts on Noach. But you can't get rid of a forest by chopping down a tree here and there.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 2:48 pm | #

A few points:

1) The Netziv, already, says, "It is the way of the gemara to twist the words of the Mishnah to make them accord with the normative law" ("Derekh ha-gemara le-akem divrei ha-Mishnah kedai le-ukma al hapesak.)

2)It was Dryden and not Milton who wrote "Absalom and Ahitophel."

3)Regarding the larger issue: I think that pretty much all modern bblical scholars at a minimum accept the existence of three separate and conflicting law codes in the Torah (Pentateuch): 1) the Covenant Code in Mishpatim; 2) the laws from the end of Shemot through Bamidbar; and 3) the Laws of Devarim. The issue is can one accept this as true and still maintain the unity of the Torah. Rav Breuer says yes. It should be noted that Rav Yoel Bin-Nun, the leading student of Rav Breuer, accepts Rav Breuer's method of Behinot, different aspects of the Torah, but, unlike him, does not follow so closely (so slavishly?)the critics in their exact division of the Torah into different documents.

4) In Israel there are a number of frum Jewsish scholars associated with the Orthodox community there who accept and in their writings espouse a critical reading of the Torah: e.g. Barukh J. Schwartz and Avigdor Shinan.
lawrence kaplan | 05.30.06 - 2:52 pm | #

And since when did the frum velt become ok with lower criticism on Chumash (not Nach) anyways?

Ein hakhi nami. But still not relevant to this discussion.

I guess some of us have to remind ourselves that this blog is not about an open exchange of ideas (and Gil never said it was). The hit-and-run attacks on DH are annoying, though.

Sorry but this topic is rife for all the bored GH commenters to come and take over, and I can't let that happen.

FWIW, you're right and I should have stuck to attacking Friedman and not the DH in general. That's really what I set out to do.
Gil | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 2:52 pm | #

In that I agree with you 100% - I said before that Friedman more or less bypasses the text and skips directly to the speculation.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 2:54 pm | #

What are you so afraid of?

If you think that proofs are what convince people, you are too naive. Big words convince people. New and thrilling ideas convince people. Impressive credentials convince people.
Gil | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 2:55 pm | #

> Sorry but this topic is rife for all the bored GH commenters to come and take over, and I can't let that happen.

Hey, cheap shot!
Godol Hador | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 2:56 pm | #

That's all true, but censorship convinces people too. What we need is something like YU's Intro to Bible course which takes the approach that students are more or less thrown headlong into lower criticism and the Orthodox responses. They are forced to read it and to evaluate it, and at the same time they are provided with Orthodox answers to their questions and serious responsive scholarship. Update that for higher criticism (not easy) and package it for mass distribution as a book or a lecture series and you're name will go down in history as the person who redeemed Orthodoxy from our embaressing refusal to even discuss DH.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 2:59 pm | #

Your mistake, lamedzayin, is that you think Orthodox Judaism can win in an open debate with the DH. It can't. It lost a long time ago, things haven't gotten any better for it since, and the "embarrassing refusal to even discuss it" is a reflection of that, not an anomaly.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 3:06 pm | #

Grey Area wrote:
Lisa, could you please clarify what you mean when you say that Tannaim, Amoraim, etc., read texts "this way"?

All religions infuse their sacred scriptures with infinite importance. Everything can be "found" in them, nothing is accidental--they are omnisignificant. This is a universal phenomenon.

Not in the same way. The way I'm talking about is attaching significance to omitted terms. To inconsistent terms. To anything that raises a flag and says: Darsheini!

Take Hevel, for instance. The Torah says (Breishit 4:2): Vatosef laledet et achiv, et Hevel. The average religious Christian or heterodox Jew (the only other religions that include Breishit in their holy scriptures) reads that very simply as, "And she continued to give birth to his brother, Abel." Without so much as a second thought. Why the double language? Granted, it doesn't show in English the way it does in Hebrew, but "et achiv, et Hevel" tells us that something is going on here.

Similarly with "ayin tachat ayin". The multiple repetition of "ayin tachat ayin, shen tachat shen, etc." tells us we're speaking about distinct and specific issues. To Christians and the heterodox, it's simply poetry.

The Torah says three times "al tevashel gedi b'chalev imo". To us, that three fold repetition means three different laws. To the Christians and the heterodox, it's once more a case of poetry. Or maybe emphasis. But that's all.

Does that explain it?
Lisa | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 3:07 pm | #

But the Christians do the same thing, except on different passages and phrases. They see significance in Yeshayahu that we don't, and often in Tehillim. They aren't interested in Halacha, but the Moslems are and do similar "drasha" on the Koran with a different set of rules
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 3:11 pm | #

I don't know or care if it can win. I suspect it can't because religion is by definition unprovable and requires the existence of mesorah and emunah to even suggest it as an option. But I think it can hold it's own and give plausible and reasonable answers that will be acceptable to rational believers aware of the evidence, even if it almost certainly won't convince an outsider.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 3:12 pm | #

Anon Academic wrote:

You are making Moses into a robot if you believe that all he did was transcribe letter for letter the dictation of G-d.

No credible Torah-true philosopher or theologian wants to make Moses into a robot, right? Certainly not the Rambam.
anon academic | 05.30.06 - 9:29 am | #

=============
In the Torah text which G-d dictated and Moshe transcribed, many deeds and many conversations are recorded which had already taken place between Moshe and Hashem or between Moshe and other people, before the story was written down.

It is from these conversations and deeds of Moshe's that we can see his greatness,his humility and his multifacted personality (eg, "Shim'u na hamorim" and "Mecheini na misifrecha asher kasavta").

A faithful scribe and student is hardly a robot just because he writes down the Master's notes accurately! Especially if the Master's notes incorporate the comments and contributions of the faithful student--Moshe.

It is from Moshe's own words and deeds faithfully recorded and dictated by Hashem in His Torah that we see how absolutely un-robotlike Moshe was.
Toby Katz | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 3:13 pm | #

BTW in saying "Mecheini na misifrecha ASHER KASAVTA" Moshe makes it clear that the Book -- the Torah -- was written by Hashem.
Toby Katz | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 3:15 pm | #

Come to think, R' Schachter gave a shiur at Kollel Yom Rishon where he basically said that the Torah is composed of multiple threads, but all coming from Moshe (at different periods). That would certainly explain most of the issues.
Nachum | 05.30.06 - 3:17 pm | #

I remember that shiur (didn't hear it live though), but while it's certainly exciting to hear Rav Schachter say that and it answers SOME questions, the fact remains that it doesn't explain a lot of the linguistic issues - we need a WHY Moshe would write in significantly different styles and with different working vocabularies. But it's certainly a great start to the discussion when we can agree to recognize threads and then discuss merely frum positions as to their source and meaning,
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 3:20 pm | #

BTW in saying "Mecheini na misifrecha ASHER KASAVTA" Moshe makes it clear that the Book -- the Torah -- was written by Hashem.
Toby Katz | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 2:15 pm | #

Sorry, but that's not peshat in the pasuq. Moshe is referring to the "sefer hahayyim". He is saying, kill me too, let me die (along with them).
Grey Area | 05.30.06 - 3:22 pm | #

Lisa, may I recommend The Bible As It Was by James Kugel? You will see that reading into these extra words, etc., was not exclusively a Jewish pursuit.
Grey Area | 05.30.06 - 3:24 pm | #

LZ - Do you think R. Schachter read Jean Astruc?
Grey Area | 05.30.06 - 3:25 pm | #

I don't know. He continually surprises me with what he's read - for example, he liked to quote Achad Haam in shiur.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 3:27 pm | #

>>> BTW in saying "Mecheini na misifrecha ASHER KASAVTA" Moshe makes it clear that the Book -- the Torah -- was written by Hashem.

How do you know the 'sefer' referred to is the Torah? According to some meforshim it is the sifrei chaim u'meisim of rosh hashana - it refers to a metaphorical book of good deeds. No conclusive proof.
chaim b. | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 3:28 pm | #

"I think it can hold its own and give plausible and reasonable answers that will be acceptable to rational believers aware of the evidence"

That's where you're wrong. Moreover, almost no one Orthodox agrees with you, which is why the stony silence on the DH.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 3:44 pm | #

The problem is that very few in the Orthodox community are willing to approach the issues. Generally speaking, the only responses are coming out of Machon Herzog.

It doesn't mean that the O community has no answers, it means that it recognizes further research to apply themselves to the issues of today rather than those of 80 years ago.
Gil | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 3:50 pm | #

Forget offering "plausible and reasonable answers" that rational believers can take as an alternative, Gil won't even allow people to read lits of books about the evidence. Speaks volumes about just how possible your proposal really is. Fact is, Orthodox Judaism is not reliably believable by the knowledge so ignorance is the only effective tactic.

No. I object to people learning calculus before learning multiplication. Most people in the O community are woefully ignorant of Tanakh and will be overwhelmed by any presentation, regardless of its merits. Consider the big hoopla among the Orthoskeptics about Friedman's book.
Gil | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 3:51 pm | #

That is very true. How many frum people can't even name all the sifrei Nach, let alone ever read them?
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 4:07 pm | #

"Orthoskeptics"

That's priceless.
Tal Benschar | 05.30.06 - 4:08 pm | #

Why priceless? Because you can join for free?
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 4:15 pm | #

Since you are obviously and clearly mis-nagid, why do you post under anonymous here and under that name everywhere else?
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 4:17 pm | #

"I think Tov is relevant. You need lower criticism to even have the tools for higher criticism. But that's fine, I don't care if you remove the list; anyone who's interested in the academics of this can probably find the reading list of a college course online and work from there."

I also think that it's silly for Gil to open the discussion and then delete the reading list, but the reading list is not that relevant to my comments, because I have done a reasonable amount of reading on this topic. I was responding to this:

"The evidence is in literally thousands of scholarly books and articles on the subject which it seems no one here has any interest in reading. There is no way to prove the existence of streams in Tanach in a set of comments on a blog. If you are really waiting for the evidence I'll give you a reading list."

Aren't you being a tad obnoxious. Anyone who disagrees with you is unfamiliar with the literature?

In discussions online, proponents of DH most commonly argue that "most scholars agree," an argument from authority. A more sophisticated version of this argument is to say that the blogosphere is unsuited for such lengthy and technical discussions, and there's "lots" of evidence in these hundreds or thousands of books and articles available offline. That's not an argument - it's an assertion. Unless this reduces to a completely trivial observation (eg names of god, or language in the shiras, etc) where's the evidence? One would think that if the evidence were so compelling, it would be an easy matter to come up with a few specific examples of cases where "scientific" evidence for DH exists.
Friedman in a recent work claims to summarize all the available evidence for DH, including literary evidence, and makes sweeping claims for such - yet when it comes to it, there is no "there" there - he has very little "scientific" literary evidence and what he has is weak. I think that's the dirty secret of DH - that there is little resembling scientific evidence backing it up.

And of course, if the "Scientific evidence" is really scattered in hundreds of isolated cases that can't be neatly summarized for discussion, and there are no outstanding examples to butt about in debate, the response that critics of DH only have isolated, case-by-case responses to this parsimonious theory loses its force.

"All the scholars" and "thousands of articles" is an argument that tends to appeal to people whose background is in the physical sciences. It's not very compelling in the social sciences and the arts.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 4:21 pm | #

It wasn't an appeal to authority; it was an observation that many people with strong positions against DH haven't read up on it at all. I don't say it's proven beyond a doubt - I find the textual evidence convincing and problematic, but I accept that others will read it and disagree - but that MANY but not ALL of the people loudly denouncing it as silly have no idea what they are talking about. I know a couple frum academics who know far more than me and remain unconvinced of the DH, and when they speak about it I listen to their arguments. But the general frum level of discourse about DH is appalingly low, and to be honest it's the same sorry state for the proponents, many of whom as Gil rightly points out have never gone beyond Friedman if that.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 4:28 pm | #

"No. I object to people learning calculus before learning multiplication. Most people in the O community are woefully ignorant of Tanakh and will be overwhelmed by any presentation, regardless of its merits. Consider the big hoopla among the Orthoskeptics about Friedman's book."

A book that Mis-nagid, commenting here anonymously, often touts. He asserts that many OJews who read this book realize that OJudaism is false, and recommends the book for that reason. What is he doing but trading on their ignorance of nach (or confirming his own, your choice).
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 4:33 pm | #

Not only is this argument pointless, it is even more confusing now that the key debaters from both sides are using the moniker 'Anonymous'. Is this a deliberate attempt to get people to hone their critical reading skills? Sneaky.
Godol Hador | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 4:35 pm | #

"It wasn't an appeal to authority; it was an observation that many people with strong positions against DH haven't read up on it at all. I don't say it's proven beyond a doubt - I find the textual evidence convincing and problematic, but I accept that others will read it and disagree - but that MANY but not ALL of the people loudly denouncing it as silly have no idea what they are talking about. I know a couple frum academics who know far more than me and remain unconvinced of the DH, and when they speak about it I listen to their arguments. But the general frum level of discourse about DH is appalingly low, and to be honest it's the same sorry state for the proponents, many of whom as Gil rightly points out have never gone beyond Friedman if that."

That's all well and good (and I agree), but if the "scientific" evidence is what you say it is, you should be able to summarize some key points for debate and not just point to articles.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 4:38 pm | #

> He asserts that many OJews who read this book realize that OJudaism is false, and recommends the book for that reason.

WWTB 'works' to create skeptics only because of shock effect. If people realized that the amount of emunah required to believe in TMS without DH is not that much less than the amount of emunah required to believe in TMS with DH then the book wouldn't have much of an effect.
Godol Hador | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 4:44 pm | #

"Why priceless? Because you can join for free?
Anonymous |"

Wiseacre to Young Boy.

W: Are you good?

YB: Sure, I am good!

W: Do you charge anything for being good?

YB: Of course not! I am good for its own sake,

W: So you are good for nothing, is that right?
Tal Benschar | 05.30.06 - 4:46 pm | #

Very well. One key word that struck out at me was the arguments about the rules for the use of the word Anochi vs. Ani. I don't have the books at work, but I'll attempt to get the pesukim involved. Another point that struck home was an analysis of the sale of Yosef which resolved neatly several issues in the text by positing two stories, one where is thrown into the pit to die and one where he is sold directly, that got conflated into a single account. I was able to read it with the meforshim as a single coherent text with the issues addressed, but the DH reading was simply more compelling to me. The central points that I found convincing were the clusters of words that are almost always found together with certain grammatical forms; I'm less convinced by stylistic splitting (the Yosef split is driven by vocabulary and solves the continuity problems sort of incidentally).
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 4:50 pm | #

Noe, I realize these are isolated examples, and we can answer them. And if we could answer ALL of them then I wouldn't be bothered. But has anyone tried? This leaves off the somewhat significant point that 1000 answers to 1000 questions is not nearly as convincing as 1 answer to 1000 questions, or to be more realistic about Biblical criticism, 100 or so answers to 1000 questions.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 4:52 pm | #

> This leaves off the somewhat significant point that 1000 answers to 1000 questions is not nearly as convincing as 1 answer to 1000 questions, or to be more realistic about Biblical criticism, 100 or so answers to 1000 questions.

Unless you say that Hashem davkah wanted there to be 1,000 questions with 1,000 answers (i.e. TSBP). 'Convincing' is not relevant when it comes to faith, only when it comes to reason. And if we are talking reason, what reason do ytou have to be convinced that this God-book is real and all the others are fake? Pointless discussion ultimately. Are we discussing faith or reason?
Godol Hador | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 4:58 pm | #

Anon Academic writes
>I repeat - claims of "divine authorship" are heretical

Please provide some background on this. You say this again and again without backing it up. Post some sources, and not semantic arguements about robot vs. faithful dictation.

And what was that shot a TSBP? Something that was written down word for word is certainly more likely to be transmitted word for word than a tradition handed down orally for 1.5 millenia.

And since when is being a robot a lower level when it comes to transmitting the word of GOD. In a religion that relies on mesorah (and all religions do, to an extent) the most accurate repetition of the word of God is the best. In a court of law, a recording is always more convicing than witness testimony. How can being the MOST ACCURATE lower Moshe's greatness?

Moshe, as the greatest prophet, was able to heard God's word clearly, and precisely. That is a higher level of prophecy than getting a general message, and putting it down in your own words (which is what seperated Moshe from the other prophets.)
Vayedaber hashem el moshe laymor.
What does that mean?

And were the words Vayedaber and Laymor written by different authors?
Again and again and again?
The superfluous laymor must be a later addition by a second author, no?

Sure that doesn't really confront any of the DH arguments, but no real arguements for DH have been made on this blog, only references to academic acceptance, "scholarly works," and the wierd concept from anon academic that Torah misinai is heretical.

Claims of fear of DH by Orthodoxy don't do anything to substantiate DH. It is a simple fact that most Othrhodox Jews are ignorant that DH even exists, and that is why it is not really addressed.
JP | 05.30.06 - 5:02 pm | #

lamedzayin wrote:
"I was able to read it with the meforshim as a single coherent text with the issues addressed, but the DH reading was simply more compelling to me."

JP wrote:
"It is a simple fact that most Othrhodox Jews are ignorant that DH even exists, and that is why it is not really addressed."

lamedzayin's comment is the real reason the DH is not addressed: the DH is a very compelling argument. JP *almost* got right, in that Orthodox Jews are in fact ignorant of the DH, but the lack of addressing it is motivated not by lack of popular interest but by interest in maintaining that ignorance. They don't address it because they know that their counterarguments and traditional explanations are not as compelling when the two sides go head to head. Therefore, the safest route is to make sure they never hear about it. When the facts are against you, ignorance is the only successful tactic.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 5:13 pm | #

The most compelling arguement (in my faith based intellectually dishonest mind) against DH in general is--

If the bible (spec. the first 5 books) was cobbled together by multiple sources, WHY WOULDN'T THE COMPILER(S) REMOVE APPARENT CONTRADICTIONS? Did they not see them? Were they too dumb?

If you are trying to scam someone into beliving that a book is really by one person and over a thousand years old, wouldn't you at least dress it up and edit it so that your readers would believe your clever forgery? From what little I know about DH, (and I admit, almost all of it is from discussions slightly more point specific than this one on various newsgroups) the guys who put this scam together were the very same ones who claim that the torah was divine. If you were going to forge a document and make outlandish claims based on it, wouldn't you try to make it the best forgery possible?

While our modern academics may have some analytical techniches at their disposal that the cobblers didn't have, aren't their too many obvious inconsistencies that they would have removed?
JP | 05.30.06 - 5:18 pm | #

Anon 4:13 Said
They don't address it because they know that their counterarguments and traditional explanations are not as compelling when the two sides go head to head.
-------------------------------------
And that is a completely baseless and speculative arguement. About as substantive as nah nah nah nah nah.
JP | 05.30.06 - 5:21 pm | #

"Very well. One key word that struck out at me was the arguments about the rules for the use of the word Anochi vs. Ani."

anochi is used in nach rarely, the frequency of useage changed over time. No reason to posit that ani didn't exist earlier. this was discussed on GH's blog relatively recently.

"This leaves off the somewhat significant point that 1000 answers to 1000 questions is not nearly as convincing as 1 answer to 1000 questions, or to be more realistic about Biblical criticism, 100 or so answers to 1000 questions."

if the argument is that it summarized in thousands of articles, because any given piece is not that compelling and relatively easily answered, that loses a lot of force

"Noe, I realize these are isolated examples, and we can answer them. And if we could answer ALL of them then I wouldn't be bothered. But has anyone tried?"

they have but the theory mutates to accomodate objections. At this point the only thing that can be done, given that the theory is immunized from falsification, is to show that the theory doesn't account for larger patterns in the text. That is the implicit objection to DH anyway, and works with regularity, but DH proponents can always treat that as "just another explanation" and claim the advantage of this elusive parsimony.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 5:25 pm | #

JP
"If you are trying to scam someone into beliving that a book is really by one person and over a thousand years old, wouldn't you at least dress it up and edit it so that your readers would believe your clever forgery?"

Why do you think the basis of DH has to do with evil intentions of the author(s)?
Maybe they thought they were reconciling very ancient scrolls to the best of their ability.

Didnt R' Gil mention a Torah Shleimah that the avos scrolls may have been written before Moshe compiled the rest (based on a medrash or gemera to that effect)?

Or did I totally mangle his post?
Happywithhislot | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 5:25 pm | #

Um...JP, readers DID believe the "clever forgery" for about 2400 years...I'd say the editor did a bang-up job!
Grey Area | 05.30.06 - 5:28 pm | #

>If the bible (spec. the first 5 books) was cobbled together by multiple sources, WHY WOULDN'T THE COMPILER(S) REMOVE APPARENT CONTRADICTIONS? Did they not see them? Were they too dumb?

That's just a variation on the "the disunity proves the unity" argument.

You could ask the same question about the canon of the New Testament which is rife with contradictions.

The fact that contradictions didn't and don't bother people shows that contradictions in holy texts didn't and don't bother people!
S. | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 5:28 pm | #

What I mean by above is that by the time of Ezra, alot was forgotten including, maybe, what represented the complete torah. Isnt there some references in navi to found torahs with mentions of things the nation had forgotten about?

Isnt one theory that Ezra (whom the gemera says could of written the torah if moshe hadnt) put together the best version available based on traditions from those still living in EY and those exiled abroad?
Happywithhislot | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 5:28 pm | #

DH is coming from the position that the Torah has to have been written by someone other than God, and later rather than earlier because of the prescient (and presciently correct) content.

OJews are coming from the position that the Torah was written by God and therefore there is no problem with its prescience (and its accurate prescience is proof).

DH sees textual anomalies as proof of a flawed human editor and author(s).

OJews see textual anomalies as indications of additional concealed information embedded in the text that can be extracted either through predefined rules or orally transmitted explanations.

DH proponents cannot accept divine authorship under any circumstances.

OJews cannot accept multiple human authors under any circumstances.

…and never the twain shall meet – so who really cares what the other side has to say.
Yet Another Anonymous | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 5:32 pm | #

(Or not so anonymous, but doesn't want to be dragged into the discussion)
Yet Another Anonymous | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 5:34 pm | #

Rabbi Gottlieb of Ohr Somayach has an excellent (short) piece on biblical criticism on his site.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 5:38 pm | #

If every source they used was considered holy, it can make sense that they didn't want to get rid of anything. So they tried to reconcile- perhaps even without claiming that the work was a unified whole. Interestingly, it is now those who claim that *is* a unified whole who also have to attempt to reconcile.
Nachum | 05.30.06 - 5:44 pm | #

Happy, you're thinking of the fact that Sefer Melachim tells us that people forgot all about the Torah by the time of Yoshiyahu, and the Talmudic account of Ezra editing the Torah based on multiple scrolls he found in Jerusalem.
Nachum | 05.30.06 - 5:46 pm | #

what's the qualititive difference between saying that an u'kimta is a literary device, and saying that "moshe rabbeinu wrote the whole Torah" - is a religious/authoritative not historical claim
avi | 05.30.06 - 5:52 pm | #

"…and never the twain shall meet – so who really cares what the other side has to say."

DH vs TMS is a false choice. It's DH vs undefined human authorship. Proponents of DH like to say TMS is the alternative because that way they can argue "sure, you see this as all from God."

anachronisms would lead an unbeliever to late authorship. The rest has to be argued on the merits.

That's why the scholars who don't accept DH are routinely ignored in these discussions, or dismissed as irrelevant, when they are anything but irrelevant. It's all part of an attempt to marginalize religious people as dismissing a "Scientific" theory that "all scholars" believe. When it comes to it, those who have other theories of authorship are not resting their dating on that much more evidence than DH proponents are either - and their dating is also driven by their conclusions. Anachronisms are one thing. Let the rest stand or fall on the merits please. I know people who don't believe in God let alone TMS who think DH is speculative nonsense akin to Freudianism - tell them why they shouldn't, don't pull the TMS card.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 5:55 pm | #

>I know people who don't believe in God let alone TMS who think DH is speculative nonsense akin to Freudianism - tell them why they shouldn't, don't pull the TMS card.

But do you know any who believe its 1300 years old and written in the midbar?

While its true that 'Orthoskeptics' put too much stock in popular treatments of the dh, who besides traditionally religious people accept the antiquity and historical setting which tradition ascribes to the formation of the Torah?

Surely you will agree that the age and setting of the Torah is a traditional belief, rather than one which other readings will confirm. If you believe that no analysis can tell us anything about the Torah other than that it is ancient and Near Eastern, why not say so?
S. | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 6:01 pm | #

I just can't keep up with all the comments.

Happy: What I mean by above is that by the time of Ezra, alot was forgotten including, maybe, what represented the complete torah. Isnt there some references in navi to found torahs with mentions of things the nation had forgotten about?

That's a huge leap from the story actually told.

Rabbi Gottlieb of Ohr Somayach has an excellent (short) piece on biblical criticism on his site.

I'm sure he has a short piece.

Nachum: If every source they used was considered holy, it can make sense that they didn't want to get rid of anything.

Except that DH studies are full of speculations of changes made by editors/redactors. I noticed that Friedman contradicted himself on this a few times. Is an editor/redactor willing to change the text or not? It depends on the specific argument Friedman was trying to make.
Gil | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 6:07 pm | #

>I'm sure he has a short piece.

Why do you need to be nasty?
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 6:09 pm | #

"But do you know any who believe its 1300 years old and written in the midbar?"

I assume you mean 2300 years old. This is a comment that doesn't respond to what I actually wrote. I specifically excluded anachronisms as the divider between believers and others, since the traditional interpretation rests on claims of prophecy.

"Surely you will agree that the age and setting of the Torah is a traditional belief, rather than one which other readings will confirm. If you believe that no analysis can tell us anything about the Torah other than that it is ancient and Near Eastern, why not say so?"

To the extent that later dating depends on postdating for anachronism, as I've written not just now, but multiple times already, always in response to this claim. This is exactly why the DH vs TMS is a nonissue; it's not a scientific or literary issue.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 6:12 pm | #

"If you believe that no analysis can tell us anything about the Torah other than that it is ancient and Near Eastern, why not say so?"

my claim is that the evidence doesn't have anything much but anachronism to back up the claims of late authorship - my claim IS that the literary/scientific evidence for postdating is specious and is driven by theorizing. Responding to this by saying "but no one other than believers buys the argument that it was all written by moshe" is a purposeful garbling of the issues and a standard technique to marginalize those who dismiss DH. "well, of course, you believe in prophecy, so whatever." I'm saying just assess the evidence apart from anachronisms, and what do you come up with that ought to trouble a believer? And nearly every time this argument is made, someone says "But no scholars believe in TMS" as though that were relevant. It's a debating tactic, not an argument.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 6:19 pm | #

This is so mind-numbingly repetative.

Even if you could prove single authorship it would not point to divine authorship. Even if you could prove multiple authorship it would not discount divine inspiration, or by some accounts even divine dictation.

Why do people keep insisting that this a question of textual analysis when it is really a theological question?

(though tangentially, the story of Joseph, esp. Reuben's confusion at Joseph's disapearnace, makes very good sense if you read the narrative unified).

So back to theology:

A) I believe that God created the world.
B) I believe that nothing in that created world will prove A.
C) I believe that the Torah reflects divine inspiration.
D) I believe that the Torah we have is necessarily part of the created world.
-------
E) I believe that nothing in the Torah will prove C (or A).

The point of this is to hone in on the crux of the issue, and it has nothing to do with the DH. It does have to do with how comfortable you are as seeing the Torah as the one thing, in the entire created world as it exists today, that is above creation. I am not comfortable with this idea, and it has nothing to do with the DH. It has everything to do with a fundamental shift in the way rational informed people see the world, as governed by and explainable by natural causes that make no appeal to anything outside of nature itself. If the Torah is now part of our world, it has to play by the same rules.
MJ | 05.30.06 - 6:21 pm | #

"I specifically excluded anachronisms as the divider between believers and others, since the traditional interpretation rests on claims of prophecy. "

Anonymous (whatever number you are!) I don't think "anachronsim" is precisely the term you mean (I think.) If I understand you correctly, a statement which is future looking is, acc. to the traditional belief, based on prophecy, whereas if one rejects prophecy then one must assume that it was written after the fact. This is another example of a planted axiom, BTW. A better term is a "prediction."

Or correct me if I have misunderstood what you are saying.
Tal Benschar | 05.30.06 - 6:21 pm | #

>I assume you mean 2300 years old.

Obviously.

>This is a comment that doesn't respond to what I actually wrote. I specifically excluded anachronisms as the divider between believers and others, since the traditional interpretation rests on claims of prophecy.

The traditional interpretation gives no systematic explanation as to why these anachronisms were revealed prophetically. Take one of the most famous ones, the list of Edomite kings who ruled before a king ruled Israel: it is one thing to say this was anticipated prophetically, it is another to explain why when so much is not written in an anticipatory fashion. What is the signifigance here? What sets these particular anachronisms apart that required predicting the future in the text of the Torah?

>To the extent that later dating depends on postdating for anachronism, as I've written not just now, but multiple times already, always in response to this claim. This is exactly why the DH vs TMS is a nonissue; it's not a scientific or literary issue.

I'm afraid I didn't understand these sentences.

Are you saying that literary analysis can't tell us anything about the Torah apart from the most rudimentary and obvious things, which didn't require analysis, or not?
S. | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 6:23 pm | #

Take Hevel, for instance. The Torah says (Breishit 4:2): Vatosef laledet et achiv, et Hevel. The average religious Christian or heterodox Jew (the only other religions that include Breishit in their holy scriptures) reads that very simply as, "And she continued to give birth to his brother, Abel." Without so much as a second thought. Why the double language? Granted, it doesn't show in English the way it does in Hebrew, but "et achiv, et Hevel" tells us that something is going on here.

I've heard of Christians arguing this about the statement that Rebecca was a virgin and no man had known her -- asserting that because it's stated twice, the two halves must mean different things, and "betulah" must be something other than the definitive word for "virgin". The counterassertion to this was that saying something twice in slightly different ways turns up all over ANE literature as a stylistic device with no deeper meaning, so there's no reason to assume that the text was anything other than straightforward here, either.
& | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 6:24 pm | #

"The traditional interpretation gives no systematic explanation as to why these anachronisms were revealed prophetically. "

DH offers no systematic explanation of these either.

"Are you saying that literary analysis can't tell us anything about the Torah apart from the most rudimentary and obvious things, which didn't require analysis, or not?"

I'm saying that when you examine the various theories of dating/authorship, the literary evidence is not driving the theorizing, the conclusions are. Literary evidence can tell you lots of things (literary evidence is the main evidence in all parshanut) but it doesn't tell you much about dating, apart from anachronisms.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 6:37 pm | #

mj wrote: It has everything to do with a fundamental shift in the way rational informed people see the world, as governed by and explainable by natural causes that make no appeal to anything outside of nature itself. If the Torah is now part of our world, it has to play by the same rules.

What about G-d - how does he fit in to your conception?
avi | 05.30.06 - 6:39 pm | #

"Anonymous (whatever number you are!) I don't think "anachronsim" is precisely the term you mean (I think.) If I understand you correctly, a statement which is future looking is, acc. to the traditional belief, based on prophecy, whereas if one rejects prophecy then one must assume that it was written after the fact. This is another example of a planted axiom, BTW. A better term is a "prediction.""

There are some things that aren't specifically forward looking, like places named al shem ha'asid, but it's fine to call them predictions - I'm using the term anachronism because it's what's commonly used
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 6:43 pm | #

>DH offers no systematic explanation of these either.

Of course it does: they were written later.

>I'm saying that when you examine the various theories of dating/authorship, the literary evidence is not driving the theorizing, the conclusions are. Literary evidence can tell you lots of things (literary evidence is the main evidence in all parshanut) but it doesn't tell you much about dating, apart from anachronisms

I guess that's an answer. Do you maintain that literary analysis is generally unsuccessful in telling us things like when something was written?
S. | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 6:45 pm | #

"Of course it does: they were written later."

That's no more systematic than saying htey were written prophetically. This is what you wrote:

"Take one of the most famous ones, the list of Edomite kings who ruled before a king ruled Israel: it is one thing to say this was anticipated prophetically, it is another to explain why when so much is not written in an anticipatory fashion. What is the signifigance here? What sets these particular anachronisms apart that required predicting the future in the text of the Torah?"

and why do the later authors only put in these pieces of information and not others? No systematic answer from DH.

"I guess that's an answer. Do you maintain that literary analysis is generally unsuccessful in telling us things like when something was written?"

that's too vague to be a useful question. It depends on knowledge of the base language and existence of external texts.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 6:51 pm | #

>and why do the later authors only put in these pieces of information and not others? No systematic answer from DH.

The DH doesn't claim that the text purports to be written earlier, so there simply isn't any issue. Why shouldn't Devarim refer to kings of Israel? Devarim never says it was written before there were kings in Israel.

>that's too vague to be a useful question. It depends on knowledge of the base language and existence of external texts.

Why do you assume that knowledge of Biblical Hebrew isn't adequate to the task? And there are other texts. Precisely how many do you require before its enough?
S. | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 6:58 pm | #

"The DH doesn't claim that the text purports to be written earlier, so there simply isn't any issue. Why shouldn't Devarim refer to kings of Israel? Devarim never says it was written before there were kings in Israel."

The posuk is in bereishis.

"Why do you assume that knowledge of Biblical Hebrew isn't adequate to the task? And there are other texts. Precisely how many do you require before its enough?"

Because knowledge of biblical hebrew isn't enough. Something between the minimal amount they have now and knowledge of Elizabethean English would do it. You want some artificial number? For ex, when they say "ani" is nonexistent in early periods, they have nothing approaching enough evidence on which to base this.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 7:07 pm | #

(The following is a not particularly relevant and quite incomplete statement of personal belief provided as an answer to a question about my personal beliefs. Please ignore if you are not interested.)

Avi, I'm not sure exactly what your question is. I view God as creator who imbues creation with meaning and purpose. I see God as transmitter of wisdom. I see God as giving man the power to progress in knowledge of the world and self.

I also see God, akin to the kabbalistic concept of tzimtzum, as withdrawing from the world to leave man the space to freely progress in knowledge of the world and self. I see this withdrawal as not inexorably leading to a Nietzschean declaration "god is dead" and its attendant nihilism, but to a reinvigorated and refined search for God, and more importantly, search for what it means to be godly and follow his ways.

And for these reasons I think it less important to ask where the Torah came from and exactly how it was transmitted, but how and if our knowledge of and adherence to it is leading us to be better, people. But that's a whole other ball of twine.
MJ | 05.30.06 - 7:09 pm | #

Happywithhislot's mention of the idea that Ezra reconstructed the text from various sources was referring to the opinion of Halivni which I obliquely referenced earlier. As I said then, it has the advantage of preserving divine authorship and halachic observance (the details are intricate, but he pulls it off) but I can't see in any way how it could be acceptable according to the tenets of Orthodoxy (it certainly violates the Rambam's ikkarim). I've heard some suggested modifications that bring it slightly closer to a solution compatible with Orthodoxy, but it's not there yet.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 7:21 pm | #

Honest people aren't looking for a "solution compatible with Orthodoxy," but the best solution.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 7:32 pm | #

"Talmudic account of Ezra editing the Torah based on multiple scrolls he found in Jerusalem."

LZ if nachum is right and its takkeh a talmudic account, then that would fit with the Halivni hyposthesis.

And wouldnt it be the gemera saying that a sort of DH is true? Again, i mention R' Gil mention of Torah Shleimah view about the avos scrolls.

Whats the point of arguing wether moshe wrote the torah, the real issue is what happened next? After a thousand years of copying and galus and destruction, did the text need to be redited? And is that what Ezra did?
happywithhislot | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 7:36 pm | #

"Because knowledge of biblical hebrew isn't enough."

that is, we have very good knowledge of late biblical vs early biblical hebrew, but it's a shell game - that knowledge tells us little about the ostensible four sources.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 7:37 pm | #

That's Halivni's claim, and he marshals all sorts of Gemaras and pesukim in Nach to back it up. It's a nice package, but it's not Orthodox.

Anonymisnagid, I've already said that I have no trouble accepting multiple streams and view the identification of these streams as more an art than a science and often pure speculation, in which case I'm perfectly free to select the equally speculative solution that matches what I've been taught.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 7:37 pm | #

I have read some of Umberto Cassuto's attempt to describe the Bible as a unified text. I then compared his approach to Friedman.

See the march 5, 2006 post entiltled To DH or Not to DH at - http://shmuzings.blogspot.com/ 20...gs_archive.html
smoo | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 7:42 pm | #

lz
how could that be halivni claim if the gemera says Ezra edited the scrolls.

Maybe im missing something. Does it say anywhere in gemera that from the time of moshe to ezra, every single copy of torah was PERFECT?
happywithhislot | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 7:49 pm | #

prof kaplan- I don't suppose it matters much, but how is a layman like me supposed to know if a scholar is frum or not? Maybe it should be posted on their institution's website along with their other info.
andy | 05.30.06 - 7:53 pm | #

Gemara doesn't say that he edited them - it talks about minor differences that he standardized, which is not the same thing. It also talks about at least some kri and ksiv being places Ezra wasn't sure of the standard reading. However, Halivni ties in these and similar Gemaras as well as accounts in Nach of losing the text of the Torah to create a new speculative answer. It's no less and no more speculative than the DH authorship hypotheses.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 8:01 pm | #

ok, so nachum got it wrong.
can anyone point me to the daf?

It sounds the gemera understood that there were some differences, albeit minor. doesnt that provide the basis that we dont have the same exact torah that moshe wrote? Especially if every letter you can learn halacha from?
happywithhislot | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 8:05 pm | #

lamedzayin wrote:
I really feel that it can't be stressed enough that we must seperate the scientific component of DH - which we absolutely must address - from the speculative component.

...and...
The evidence is in literally thousands of scholarly books and articles on the subject which it seems no one here has any interest in reading.

...and, apparently not realizing the irony in his own words...
religion is by definition unprovable and requires the existence of mesorah and emunah to even suggest it as an option.

The documentary hypothesis is a complete non-starter unless you proceed from the initial premise that Tanakh isn't what it purports to be. As Lamed Zayin so aptly put it, it requires the existence of mesorah and emunah (at this point) to even suggest it as an option.

A nonsense theory based on hypothetical texts that no one has ever even claimed to see.

It's much like determining that germs don't exist, and then coming up with a wacked out theory to explain disease that doesn't include germs. And insisting that it's okay to start with a premise that germs don't exist.

The documentary hypothesis is a major embarrassment to its advocates.
Lisa | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 8:07 pm | #

stop rubashkins!

visit stoprubashkins.blogspot.com and support the cause!
STOP RUBASHKINS | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 8:08 pm | #

Nachum wrote:
Happy, you're thinking of the fact that Sefer Melachim tells us that people forgot all about the Torah by the time of Yoshiyahu, and the Talmudic account of Ezra editing the Torah based on multiple scrolls he found in Jerusalem.

Nachum, whatever it is you're smoking, would you mind sharing? It's obviously mind-blowing.
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 8:10 pm | #

Out of curiosity I checked up amazon.com for your review and I did not see it there, does anyone know how long it should take for it to appear?
/ | 05.30.06 - 8:19 pm | #

Lisa, that's out of context. I said we need to take the textual analysis very seriously, but that we only need to provide answers that are reasonable for ourselves since we have no need, nor is it likely possible, to convince everyone. I stand by what I said in both cases - you are creating a false contradiction by selective quoting.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 8:28 pm | #

Gil, your allusion to the Da Vinci Code reminded of something that might be (tangentially) pertinent to this discussion.

In the UK there was recently a court case between the publisher of the Da Vinci Code and a prior "historical" novel for copyright infringement.

The judge, Mr Justice Peter Smith, wrote a 71 page opinion denying the claim. He also decided to embed his own "code" in the text of the legal opinion, and it is now an open issue what the encoded message is. See this link for more details: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/enter...ent/ 4949488.stm

If one compared this opinion with prior opinions of the same judge, I would not be surprised if there were significant differences caused by the fact that he was embedding a coded message into that text.
Tal Benschar | 05.30.06 - 8:29 pm | #

Seth wrote: “I would resolve them by saying that God wrote the Torah, and if He chose to vary his style in a way that made it seem like different human authors wrote different sections of it, that's His prerogative.”

I wouldn’t call that resolution, I would call that avoiding critical contemplation of the issue.

Anon academic wrote: “Seth: saying G-d wrote the Torah is heresy. We believe that Moses wrote the Torah - using prophecy.”

And Tal Benschar wrote: “Indeed, our sages say that anyone who claims that Moses wrote even one verse himself is a heretic.”

And I would resolve the issue between these two apparently diametrically opposed suppositions by claiming that the prophecy of Moshe was the result of the mind of Moshe being merged so completely with the Mind of the Divine that they were indeed, inseparable from one another. More importantly, there were of One Mind. Consequently, the question of who wrote the Torah – G-d or Moshe – is a question that lacks understanding of the true nature of Moshe’s nevuah.

Moreover and in contradistinction, the support given by Tal Benschar from Chazal to support Divine authorship and more or less negating Moshe’s authorship actually supports the idea of One Mind. The “nature” of the authorship of the Torah is a paradox, IMO and not an either/or situation (either G-d or Moshe, but rather G-d and Moshe in perfect single-minded unity).
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 8:30 pm | #

Further on the Da Vinci Code Opinion see this link:

http://www.hmcourts- service.gov...._v_rhg_0406.pdf

which brings down the actual opinion of Mr. Justice Smith. Note how, beginnning on page 5, he uses different typefaces in certain letters to clue you in that something is odd here. Reminds me of, lehavdil elef alfei havdalos, the big and small letters in the Torah.
Tal Benschar | 05.30.06 - 8:33 pm | #

Gil, Why would speak about R'Gottlieb like that? Maybe you should take down the "Jewish Bloggers for Responsible Speech" sign. I don't think the Chafetz Chaim would approve.
dave | 05.30.06 - 8:35 pm | #

> The documentary hypothesis is a major embarrassment to its advocates.

Lisa, are you arguing that from a purely objective, rational viewpoint, a single Divine author is a more plausible hypothesis than multiple Human authors?!
Godol Hador | 05.30.06 - 8:37 pm | #

Lisa wrote: “Liorah, the Torah, the rest of Tanach, all of rabbinic literature... we use words sparingly and carefully. Not in the common way in which they are used by most people, but with great care, so that stating something in a different way carries meaning.

In terms of information theory, this allows a huge amount of information to be packed into relatively few words.”

I don’t disagree with this idea. In fact, I am in full agreement and also subscribe to this belief. Consequently, I am bit perplexed as to how you arrived to the concluding questions “If the Sages of the Mishnah used language this way, why is it so hard for you to imagine that the authors of the prophetic books did the same? Or that Hashem Himself did the same? Where do you think we got the technique from in the first place?”

It isn’t hard for me to imagine at all. My point is that those who propose novel ways to explain the mysteries are engaging in critical analysis of the text. Consequently, it is insufficient for opponents of DH to merely de-legitimize it but rather should offer an equally analytic discussion of the nature of nevuah – in terms rational minds can understand.
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 8:48 pm | #

Liorah, that's an interesting theory of prophesy. However, many, inclusing Rambam, would consider it heresy. Perhaps he envisions conjunction with the active intelect, but not all-encompasing unification.

Proposing a kabbalistic/neoplatonic solution is not likely to satisfy many in this discussion, especially when the Biblical and Talmudic sources under consideration have no trace of the concept of unio mystica.
MJ | 05.30.06 - 8:55 pm | #

Lamedzayin wrote: "We need more scholarship here - not blindly denying the reality of seperable streams in the text, but offering new speculations that are no more and no less."

Amen.
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 9:00 pm | #

MJ wrote: "Liorah, that's an interesting theory of prophesy. However, many, inclusing Rambam, would consider it heresy. Perhaps he envisions conjunction with the active intelect, but not all-encompasing unification.

Proposing a kabbalistic/neoplatonic solution is not likely to satisfy many in this discussion, especially when the Biblical and Talmudic sources under consideration have no trace of the concept of unio mystica."

I have no idea what you mean by unio mystico. I am talking about perfect and complete devekut.

Don't even go there, please, with "dissing" kabbalistic interpretations. Remember, it is the sod of Torah. Dissing Kabbalah is dissing the Torah. It amazes me that teachers seem to have lost their voice regarding pointing this out.
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 9:11 pm | #

y compare it to davinci code? christians point out book is ridiculous and imply christianity must really b true when really it's even more ridiculous than davinci code. so u prove nothing.
Anonymous | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 9:12 pm | #

Also, MJ, I have Rambam's Guide, so I am well aware of what Rambam has to say on the matter of nevuah.
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 9:13 pm | #

Natan wrote: "Personally I think what Freedman did is a lot more laudable than guys who go into a Rabbinical School but have no intention of doing anything with their Smicha."

oooo, low blow
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 9:23 pm | #

For what only feels like the billionth time: the account of the 3 scrolls with minor discrepancies found in the Temple Court (Soferim 6:4) has NOTHING, repeat NOTHING, to do with Ezra (and would seem to have occurred about 500 years later).
Grey Area | 05.30.06 - 9:28 pm | #

Lisa wrote to lamedzayin: "And explain, if you will, why it's so hard for you to conceive of someone deliberately creating complex text for the purpose of packing more information into it?"

I have to ditto Lisa's question here. The only thing I may differ about is regarding the idea of "deliberate" creation of complex text. Part of being a "vessel" for Divine Communication is that at some level, none of it is really deliberate. The content and form just "naturally" flow down into a prepared vessel. Intellectual comprehension comes later - by analyzing what one has "created".
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 9:30 pm | #

I don't have a problem with that. I'm an observant Jew and I don't eat milk and meat, and it doesn't bother me that that's a drasha. And if someone would explain why there are apparently different streams in the Torah and learn something out of it, (as Rav Breuer attempts to do) I'd be quite happy, but as it happens I haven't seen a convincing example yet.
lamedzayin | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 9:34 pm | #

Lamedzayin wrote:"That's all true, but censorship convinces people too."

... it convinces some to actually buy the book you mean
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 9:37 pm | #

>The documentary hypothesis is a complete non-starter unless you proceed from the initial premise that Tanakh isn't what it purports to be.

What does Tanakh purport to be? It doesn't even purport to be Tanakh!
... | 05.30.06 - 9:40 pm | #

Lamedzayin wrote: "That is very true. How many frum people can't even name all the sifrei Nach, let alone ever read them?"

You're kidding, right?
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 9:46 pm | #

Liorah, I am not trying to 'dis' kabbalah. If I thought kabbalah was ripe for 'dissing' I wouldn't have spent years studying it. I am, however, trying to remind you, and others who are misguided about it, that it is but one stream of interpretation. It does not reflect the beliefs found in classical rabbinic literature, or in this case, even medieval mysticism. I'm sorry to confuse you. What you call complete devekut, is known to scholars of mysticism as unio mystica. There is a great deal of debate regarding this concept, but most would agree that the idea of complete unification with the divine, which is what you seem to be describing, is found in some, but certainly not all, streams of kabbalistic thought. Perhaps you are reading Abulafia, perhaps you are reading Hassidut; no matter, if you take Jewish intellectual history seriously you cannot just retrospectively impose one view of prophesy back into the past and expect others to take it as authoritative because "it is the sod of Torah." 'It' is not all of one cloth, 'it' is not the last word in Jewish thought, and 'it' is not the first or last word in interpreting the Torah. (for gosh sakes, if I disagree with Ibn Ezra I guess I'm "dissing the Peshat" too?)

You say you want an "equally analytic discussion of the nature of nevuah – in terms rational minds can understand." Good, so start with Classical sources and read some Hekhalot as well. Next move to Saadia, HaLevi, Rambam, then you can move on to Gikitlla Isaac the Blind, Cordovero, Ari, Hassidut, GrA, Nefesh HaHayim, and to end you might want to read some Buber and Walter Benjamin. Then we can start talking. Otherwise you are simply speaking with the authority of ignorance.
MJ | 05.30.06 - 9:50 pm | #

Lamedzayin wrote: "The central points that I found convincing were the clusters of words that are almost always found together with certain grammatical forms;"
This is indeed an interesting observation.
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 9:53 pm | #

MJ wrote: "Otherwise you are simply speaking with the authority of ignorance."

You wish. On the contrary, I am speaking from an experience of "unio mystico" (as you term it), whether you choose to believe it or not. You read about an experience of the Divine. I had one. Ignorance is not my authority. Experience is my authority. Like it or not.
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 9:58 pm | #

I must seriously frighten you MJ, if you have already resorted to calling me ignorant in an attempt to shut me up.
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 9:59 pm | #

More importantly, MJ, it is not I who am confused.
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 10:03 pm | #

> You read about an experience of the Divine. I had one. Ignorance is not my authority. Experience is my authority. Like it or not.

Err okay then. Time for the next post Gil!
Godol Hador | 05.30.06 - 10:14 pm | #

Oh, you achieved complete unity with the Divine? Well, in that case I take it all back.

Or perhaps I should point out that as Karo wrote, most people who think they have had such an experience after using certain techniques, and not having already achieved the requisite level of knowlege of both the Guf and Neshama of Torah are actually in the thrall of the sitra achra.

Or should I mention having met Sufis who have claimed that they have achieved unio mystica or a very friendly Carmelite nun who said the same (I think she used a combination of fasting and continually meditating on the face of Jesus) or that you can induce a similar phenomenon by taking certain psychotropic drugs or putting yourself in a centrifuge?

Ain Mashgichin l’bat kol. How much more so that we do not listen to those who have claimed to have heard one, and how much more so to random people on a blog comment thread who have claimed to have achieved complete unity with God. And for good reason.
MJ | 05.30.06 - 10:21 pm | #

Godol Hador wrote:
> The documentary hypothesis is a major embarrassment to its advocates.

Lisa, are you arguing that from a purely objective, rational viewpoint, a single Divine author is a more plausible hypothesis than multiple Human authors?!

Of course I am. We have a tradition that says so. Now, you can dispute the tradition, but there's no actual reason to doubt it.

That's not proof. It's circumstantial at best. I get that.

But what do you have for the multiple human authors theory? Nada. Zilch. Bald assertions without a single thing backing them up. It has the same credibility as the average conspiracy theory.

Now, of course, you can define "rational" in such a way as to exclude Divine authorship of the Torah. It's been done before, and it's easy. Set rational equal to scientific, point out that the scientific method requires falsifiability, and note that Divine authorship is not falsifiable. And hell, not replicable, either.

But that's just game-playing. I think you know better than to try that.
Lisa | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 10:28 pm | #

Actually MH, I was 6 years old in 1967 when it happened to me just sitting, hiding in my closet. But, if it pleases you to smear me, go right ahead. I have the true pleasure in knowing Hashem CHOSE ME.
Anonymous | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 10:33 pm | #

liorah wrote:
Lisa wrote to lamedzayin: "And explain, if you will, why it's so hard for you to conceive of someone deliberately creating complex text for the purpose of packing more information into it?"

I have to ditto Lisa's question here. The only thing I may differ about is regarding the idea of "deliberate" creation of complex text. Part of being a "vessel" for Divine Communication is that at some level, none of it is really deliberate. The content and form just "naturally" flow down into a prepared vessel. Intellectual comprehension comes later - by analyzing what one has "created".

With all due respect, Liorah, I think you're mistaken. You're mixing up levels of Divine communication. No one claims that Hashem dictated the text of the books of Nevi'im. The level of Torah is different from the level of Nevua, just as Nevua differs from Ruach HaKodesh.

The way a Navi expresses his or her Nevua is absolutely deliberate.

Furthermore, even if it were not, Hashem is clearly capable of giving multilayered text, and it's clear from Chumash that He does just that.
Lisa | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 10:33 pm | #

MJ, not MH, I will not let my anger rise up in response to MJ's arrogance and intellectual conceit. Let it go, liorah ...
Anonymous | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 10:35 pm | #

There really is no common ground for argument here. DH folks start with the assumption that the Torah is man-made and find evidence to prove their point. Orthodoxy assumes that it is God-given and relies on two millenia of meforshim to deal with "problems" raised by DH.

I personally find most DH assertions to be rather shvach as they essentially say "if I wrote this book, I'd do it differently. I wouldn't repeat myself; I'd be consistent in my use of synonyms (e.g., names of God); I'd be internally and chronologically consistent." To an Orthodox Jew such arguments entirely miss the point of Torah as an instruction guide for life whereby countless lessons are derived from repetitions and seeming inconsistencies. Of course, the skeptic will just reply that these are merely read into the text out of necessity. And round and round we go.

The real challenge for modern wo/man, IMO, derives not from textual analysis, but from science which has basically proven (except for the most fideistic of believers) that - for example - the mabul did not happen as written. The stock reply "it was a nes" only goes so far.

BTW, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Judah Eisenstein's Commentary on the Torah which is almost entirely devoted to addressing issues raised by Bible critics (IMO he does an wonderful job. BTW, Gil, maybe this is a republishing opportunity??)
Manny | 05.30.06 - 10:41 pm | #

Lisa wrote: "The way a Navi expresses his or her Nevua is absolutely deliberate."

With all due respect Lisa, you are mistaken. True prophecy is not at all deliberate. Deliberate "mystical experiences" are of a much inferior madrega and may even hinder the arrival of true nevuah.

Also, tradition teaches that only mashiach's nevuah will be greater than Moshe's nevuah. So, how you can posit that Moshe's nevuah had nothing to do with giving/receiving the Torah is clearly not supported by anything I understand and know about tradition.
Anonymous | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 10:43 pm | #

> Lisa, are you arguing that from a purely objective, rational viewpoint, a single Divine author is a more plausible hypothesis than multiple Human authors?!

> Of course I am. We have a tradition that says so. Now, you can dispute the tradition, but there's no actual reason to doubt it.

Your answer contained multiple contradictions. A purely rational objective viewpoint would no more take account of our tradition than it would Mormonism or Islam. Or are you claiming that from a purely , objective rational viewpoint our tradition is the most plausible of all traditions, and also more plausible than agnosticism, deism, weak atheism and every other worldview?
Godol Hador | 05.30.06 - 10:45 pm | #

liorah wrote:
Actually MH, I was 6 years old in 1967 when it happened to me just sitting, hiding in my closet. But, if it pleases you to smear me, go right ahead. I have the true pleasure in knowing Hashem CHOSE ME.

Uh. Um... okay.

Liorah, for what it's worth, I've experienced things that I know were real and that were clearly b'geder what would be considered supernatural. But it most certainly was not from Hashem. You might want to be really careful with whatever you're poking around in.
Lisa | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 10:46 pm | #

Godol wrote: "Err okay then. Time for the next post Gil!"

Don't you mean that it is time to remind commentors that personal attacks against other commentors are not supposed to be part of the discourse among those striving to learn Torah?
Anonymous | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 10:46 pm | #

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHAHAHAHAHA!!
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 10:47 pm | #

> Actually MH, I was 6 years old in 1967 when it happened to me just sitting, hiding in my closet. But, if it pleases you to smear me, go right ahead. I have the true pleasure in knowing Hashem CHOSE ME.

What exactly happened?
Godol Hador | 05.30.06 - 10:47 pm | #

> Don't you mean that it is time to remind commentors that personal attacks against other commentors are not supposed to be part of the discourse among those striving to learn Torah?

Sorry, you are correct. Nobody should be surprised at your Divine revelation. Afer all, if Moshe and the Ari had one, why not you? Is there any rule that a Divine experience can only happen in the past?
Godol Hador | 05.30.06 - 10:49 pm | #

That last anonymous comment to godol was from me, I forgot to type my name. Sorry.

Lisa wrote: "Liorah, for what it's worth, I've experienced things that I know were real and that were clearly b'geder what would be considered supernatural. But it most certainly was not from Hashem. You might want to be really careful with whatever you're poking around in.

Lisa,

Please don't presume to judge my experience according to yours. To do so will lead you into error. Mine most certainly was from Hashem. You might want to be really careful about slandering it.

I don't engage in kabbalah ma'asit. Don't presume to think you know. Please.
Anonymous | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 10:51 pm | #

AAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 10:52 pm | #

oh gawd, technology, the last comment to Lisa was from me too, again, sorry
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 10:53 pm | #

Godol wrote: "Sorry, you are correct. Nobody should be surprised at your Divine revelation. Afer all, if Moshe and the Ari had one, why not you? Is there any rule that a Divine experience can only happen in the past?"

Thank you. Exactly. Last I heard, Hashem chooses those who walk humbly before G-d, do good and love justice. The is what Hashem requires of us, first and foremost. I wouldn't call what I had a Divine revelation. It was an epiphany.

Those who strive to have "mystical experiences" ... well, of course, they probably ought to know what they're doing.
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 11:02 pm | #

And I'm through talking about my experience here when I was 6 years old. It is closed to further discussion.
liorah | Homepage | 05.30.06 - 11:04 pm | #

GH - As far as plausibility is concerned (and to be IH we need to accept the most plausible explanation right?)...

(please excuse any appearance of Kiruv Klowniness)

Since you accept the existence of God, (right?) and the possibility that some of the Torah was divinely inspired (or am I wrong about that?)which makes more sense...

1)God transmitted his word to Moshe who wrote it down. (we have a mesorah that claims that, oops hearsay sorry about that)

2)a)God inspired (or didn't) several ancient authors who we know nothing about other than to guess when and where they lived.

b)The unknown authors wrote separate works that were seen as holy by the Jewish nation, and preserved and handed down as such (although at times people forgot about them, then (re?)discovered them and adhered to them and revered them.)

c)Sometime during the 2nd temple era, some guys (the cobblers) got the various works of the unknown MAs together, edited them to make them seem as one book, but not too well, because they don't really seem to have one author.

d)Not long after that, Rabbis started running around claiming that the 5 books really had only one author, Moses, who received it from God, and despite never hearing THAT one before, the people bought it hook, line and sinker, because they were dumb and forgot what they always knew (that the books had ancient unknown multiple authors)

e) The rabbis who originated the idea of ONE author, being completely ignorant of the Hebrew language, didn’t realize that the book had discrepancies that would indicate MA.
(or they figured that WE would never figure it out, so they plagiarized the paper and handed it in early)

f) We never get to see the separate books because they were all destroyed to hide the evidence.

Now if you think that possibility 2 is more plausible, good for you.

Would you like to buy a bridge?
JP | 05.30.06 - 11:21 pm | #

" ok, so nachum got it wrong.
can anyone point me to the daf?

It sounds the gemera understood that there were some differences, albeit minor. doesnt that provide the basis that we dont have the same exact torah that moshe wrote? Especially if every letter you can learn halacha from?"

afaik it's a midrash/avos d'rav nosson 34 about nekudos.

I don't know what gemara people are referring to. If it's this (same thread as linked to above), I think it's a mistake:

http://www.haloscan.com/comments...9103368/ #151088
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 11:26 pm | #

"Also, tradition teaches that only mashiach's nevuah will be greater than Moshe's nevuah. "

the rambam says the opposite, that it will be lower.

I believe lisa meant the choice of words to relay the nevua is deliberate (for neviim other than moshe)
Anonymous | 05.30.06 - 11:44 pm | #

And I'm through talking about my experience here when I was 6 years old. It is closed to further discussion.

Yes I think you've said quite enough.

BT, BB, 12b:
מיום שחרב בית המקדש, ניטלה נבואה מן הנביאים וניתנה לשוטים ולתינוקות
MJ | 05.31.06 - 12:12 am | #

> GH - As far as plausibility is concerned (and to be IH we need to accept the most plausible explanation right?)...

Not exactly. To be IH (Intellectually Honest) you just need to admit that you you are accepting the least plausible explanation due to faith.

> Now if you think that possibility 2 is more plausible, good for you.

Your dichotomy is false. Divine Inspiration is completely separate from the question of multiple vs. single authors. It could be single and not Divine, or multiple and Divine. Its a strange book whichever way you look at it, and the faith required to believe its Divine is not that different whether you think the SH is plausible or not. I don't have particularly strong views on the plausibility of the DH, as I have posted many times. I was intersted to know if Lisa was arguing from a purely rational objective standpoint that multiple authors is not plausible nothing to do with Divine vs Not Divine). I'm still not sure, since she left a confusing answer.

In fact my question applies to all the anti-DH'ers here. If you could set aside the ikkarim for a second, would you still argue that from a purely rational and objective viewpoint multiple authorship is less plausible than single authorship? Try and be honest if at all possible.
Godol Hador | 05.31.06 - 12:15 am | #

>>>If you could set aside the ikkarim for a second, would you still argue that from a purely rational and objective viewpoint multiple authorship is less plausible than single authorship? Try and be honest if at all possible.

Well put, Godol, but after witnessing the erasing of the book lists I think you can give up on any hope of objectivity. Religions first job is always protection of the core beliefs...whatever the cost in IH.

What I found interesting about the myriad of comments here, is the two members who claimed personal experiences of the supertantural. That's fascinating! I would never deny what they experienced, I beleive they are telling the truth without exageration. I just would supply several different reasons these events could have occured.

You know, people always acuse the skeptic of having base and taudry motivations for his/her viewpoint. But, conversly, I don't recall ever seeing the skeptic stating, "you only believe that because of your demented personal revelation."

I wonder how many believers feel they have had a personal supernatural experience that only a personaly involved Diety can explain ??

I know I did...
benavuyah | Homepage | 05.31.06 - 2:00 am | #

>>Friedman's broad claims are a clear example of over-reaching and demonstrates that the DH is a complex and highly speculative explanation of a text that can be explained in other ways.

I agree with some of your critique of WWTB, I was actually mystified by the aranoid and mushite priests, and felt very bitter about the fact that there were no citations for this in the book. probably because he had little supporting evidence. Another question that you could have asked on the book, is that Freidman concludes that a sheloite levi was the dueteronamist. However devarim favors centration of sacrifice (anti bamah) but favors it in jerusalem, not shiloh. I was going to write a letter to him about that but never got around to it.

I think he does make a better case for the sympathies of of J and E to south and north, respectivly, with multiple examples of language and story changes but it is certainly not ironclad.

Also, I think your last sentence should read, "the DH is a complex and highly speculative explanation of a text that can be explained in other ways, that are even more wildly speculative and complex." To be fair, rabinic judaism, had you not been raised with it, would seem this way to you, as well.

But if the reason you picked on this book is because so many people (including myself) recall their skepticism beging with it's reading, and feel you can address this by "upshluging" the book, then I think you may be missing out on the central tennents of what makes people skeptical about orthodoxy.
benavuyah | Homepage | 05.31.06 - 2:28 am | #

MJ wrote: "Yes I think you've said quite enough."

Your arrogance is not impressive. More importantly, your lack of understanding is even less impressive.
liorah | Homepage | 05.31.06 - 2:53 am | #

liorah wrote:
Please don't presume to judge my experience according to yours. To do so will lead you into error. Mine most certainly was from Hashem. You might want to be really careful about slandering it.

I don't engage in kabbalah ma'asit. Don't presume to think you know. Please.

You're jumping to conclusions, liorah. I never said anything about kabbalah maasit. Not at the age of 6. I'm saying that you are not an authority on whether what you experienced came from Hashem or elsewhere. Certainly not at the age of 6. I get that you believe it, but that only speaks to your believe about the experience. Not the experience itself.

and benavuyah wrote:
I wonder how many believers feel they have had a personal supernatural experience that only a personaly involved Diety can explain ??

What I experienced happened during a year that I was off the derekh entirely. I was living with a woman in California, and she was heavily into Wicca. And what I experienced, I experienced as a bystander. She didn't even know she was doing it.

Up until that point, I was of the firm belief that all "magick" was pure hokum and self-deception. Since that time, I believe that 99% of it is still pure hokum and self-deception. But now I get that such things are possible, and I understand why they're assur.

Had I experienced the same thing in a frum context, or at a time in my life when I was actually trying to get closer to Hashem, I'm quite sure that I would have seen the experience as being mystical in a Divine sort of way. It certainly had some of the hallmarks.

That's why I'm skeptical about liorah's experience. It's not that I reject the possibility that she had a real experience. I'm not convinced she did, but I'm willing to accept it, since she claims it to be the case. What I don't accept is that someone without sufficient training and knowledge could be in a position to accurately identify the source of the experience.

I don't know how old benavuyah was when he had whatever his experience was, but I assume that he had more solid grounding at the time he experienced it than any 6 year old child could have. I was 33, and I'll be quite happy if I never have that kind of experience again.
Lisa | Homepage | 05.31.06 - 8:57 am | #

benavuyah wrote:
Also, I think your last sentence should read, "the DH is a complex and highly speculative explanation of a text that can be explained in other ways, that are even more wildly speculative and complex." To be fair, rabinic judaism, had you not been raised with it, would seem this way to you, as well.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've seen on your blog, you were FFB. And I was not. So while you're theorizing as to how rabbinic Judaism might seem to someone not raised in it, I actually know how it would seem to someone not raised in it.

I was raised in a lukewarm Conservative household where we never even heard of such things as taharat hamishpacha or Shavuot. I was raised on a diet of hard science fiction and "You can do anything, so long as you don't hurt anyone in the process."

I was raised to ask questions and not accept answers that weren't intellectually satisfying. And I did not become frum because "Oh, wow...! Shabbos is so beautiful!"

Rabbinic Judaism is a system that makes sense. It is internally consistent. It has rules, and it works within those rules. And how it views the Torah is far simpler than the documentary hypothesis, which goes beyond merely "multiplying hypotheses", and grows them geometrically.

I first encountered the documentary hypothesis shortly before I started becoming frum. In fact, it had a lot to do with it. It is such a patently ridiculous and emotion-based theory that it forced me to look closer at what its adherents were so afraid of.

I've read your blog, benavuyah, and I'm extremely happy that I never had to go through the experiences you did. But I draw a distinction between Judaism and its practitioners. The latter are often flawed. I just can't help but suspect that your rejection of Rabbinic Judaism stems from your bad experiences with the community you were stuck in.
Lisa | Homepage | 05.31.06 - 9:09 am | #

This comment thread is being shut down. Any further comments will be deleted.

[Reason: I can't keep up with the comments and I'm concerned that it is becoming a skeptic hangout.]
Gil | Homepage | 05.31.06 - 9:11 am | #

I couldn't face reading through all 233 comments here, just now, so please hand me my head if you think I deserve it.... BUT...

What intrigued me more about the Da Vinci Code was the male/female issue. He suggests that Constantine et al tried to hide the female element and get rid of the idea of joint leadership of the early church, leaving only the male.

Isn't it possible that this did happen to Judaism? Didn't the god El have his consort Ashera? What happene to her? She became the symbol of idol-worship in the Ashera Tree (tree = symbol of fertility, life).

So, what happened to the female in Judaism? Who changed Ashera from being G-d's wife into bein G-d's enemy?
Anonymous | 06.04.06 - 5:38 pm | #

Literary criticism is premised on the principle of analyzing human writings.The moment you subject the Torah to literary criticism you have already taken the position that the Torah is no different than any other book. In other words, your conclusion precedes your examination - which you then try to use to prove your conclusion. In plain English: you are guilty of begging the question (petitio principii).
Spinoza accused Rambam of taking for granted the Divinity of the Torah and proceeding from there (petitio principii). Once you do that, then of course there are no problems (but only questions which you seek to resolve). He failed, though, to realize that he (and all those engaging in DH) is no less guilty in taking the opposite view.
Thus ultimately, each side is indeed starting from a given. If choosing between an unbroke historical tradition of Torah miSinai (Kuzary, Rambam etc.), and an a priori rejection thereof, i.e., starting off with analyzing the Torah like any other text, traditional Judaism is on much more solid grounds, and the rest is just mental acrobatics.
Joseph Bloch | 06.07.06 - 1:18 pm | #

i don't want to seem like a flip jerk, but i don't really quite understand how you are criticizing source criticism (only a part of which is the "DH") when you are failing to address the main point of this type of scholarship: the language of the text. yes friedman brings in examples of how keywords appear in only certain sections designated as "sources," but a main methodology in this form of scholarship is analysis of the development of the hebrew language in the text of the bible.
please read the real stuff, ie not friedman, if you are to attempt this. it just gives a bad name to these sorts of dialogues and to what you consider "criticism."
~invisible
ps: there are other types of modern and postmodern biblical scholarship besides source criticism you know.
invisible_hand | Homepage | 06.07.06 - 6:25 pm | #

GREAT PIECE ON BIBLE CRITICISM from that book, "One People, Two Worlds" (the back/forward email convo between the reform and orthodox rabbi)

http://www.simpletoremember.com/ ...e_criticism.htm
JewSpeak | Homepage | 06.15.06 - 10:05 pm | #

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