BIBLICAL CRITICISM 3 - Is triumphism justified?

BIBLICAL CRITICISM - Is Reinemann's Triumphal Response Justified?

In their book One People, Two Worlds, among all the differences between Reform and Orthodox Judaism, Biblical Criticism assumes a pivotal role, with Reform A. Hirsch declaring his fealty to the theory of Higher Criticism, and chareidi rabbi Y. Reinemann’s quick dismissmal. I've included Reinemann's words from the book (p. 183) as a prime illustration of the non-engagement approach most Orthodox use when dealing with Biblical Critics. I don’t agree with Reinemann on several issues – like the theory of evolution, it’s often easier to use the earlier version of the Higher Critical theory as a straw man for attacks, and ignore the fact that most well-meaning people still accept the fundamentals of the theory is true. However, while I believe that the traditional Jewish understanding of Biblical Criticism is more nuanced than R. Reinemann presents, he makes several points that bear repeating – including our new understanding of ancient Near Eastern literature that remove many of the questions of redundancy and repetitions that trouble the Critics, and the fundamental reliability of our tradition …

Dear Ammi,
It seems you feel compelled by "clear evidence and reason" to deny that Moses wrote the Torah at God's behest. You would rather espouse the theories of the Bible critics who see the Torah as an imperfectly edited composite of ancient and not so ancient records of Jewish mythology. You state again and again "volumes have been written ... let the readers review the evidence for themselves and decide."

…Don't invest so much faith in these Bible critics, Ammi. They aren't worthy of it. Professor Yechezkel Kaufman, a secular Bible critic, puts it very well in A History of the Jewish Faith (Hebrew): "Biblical criticism finds itself today in a unique situation. There is a dominant theory, yet no one knows why it dominates. In the history of ideas, theories or concepts based on certain accepted principles often enjoy a disembodied existence long after those principles have been discredited. This is exactly what happened to the scientific study of the Bible in our times ... [In the nineteenth century,] Wellhausen ... based his theories on an interlocking system of proofs that seemed to complement each other, forming layers of solid intellectual foundations upon which he erected the definitive edifice of his ideas. In the meantime, however, these foundations disintegrated one by one. These proofs were refuted outright or at least seriously questioned. The scholars of the Wellhausen school were forced to admit that most of the proofs do not hold up under scrutiny. Nonetheless, they did not abandon the conclusions."

Such is the nature of pseudo-science. Someone tossed out a bit of wild speculation, and by the time it goes around the block, it is an accepted fact; no one has the time or the inclination to check it out. I used to wonder at the accepted chronology of the Egyptian pharaohs; for instance, Thutmose I reigned from 1493 to 1481 B.C.E. I asked a friend, a history professor at a university in New York, how they pin down the dates with such amazing accuracy. He told me that some academic takes a guess, and by the time it gets into the secondary and tertiary sources, it's just a fact. Who's going to check it out? I'm sure you know that the original Native Americans migrated from Siberia to Alaska across a land bridge that existed where the Bering Strait is now. It is a well-know fact. I suggest you read Red Earth, White Lies, by Vine Deloria, Jr., the eminent Native American author, which just tears this idea to shreds, but you'll still find it in all the textbooks...

So let us deal with some of the issues you raised. You wrote in an earlier posting: "Why would God have dictated to Moses two creation stories - one where the world and beasts were created first and Man last, and another where Man is created first? Why one passage where Man and Woman are created together, as equals, and another where Man is created alone and first?" Let us check the classic sources. The Midrash, quoted by Rashi, explains that the first account is general, while the second zeroes in on the man in the Garden of Eden and mentions only details of creation relevant to the story. A very reasonable reading of the texts. Now, if the second story is a duplicate account, as you seem to believe, why is there no mention of the creation of the sun, moon, and stars? Why is there no mention of the creation of the fishes of the sea, only the animals and the birds? According to the Midrash, however, this is not really a creation story. Therefore, the animals and birds are mentioned in the context of Adam giving them names, but since Adam did not name the fishes, they are not mentioned. U.M.D. Cassuto, the prominent secular Bible scholar, also understands the "second creation account" in this way. "The subject of this chapter is the story of the Garden of Eden, and as a preface, Scripture repeats the creation story, focusing on the creation of man. The account differs from the first, but there are no contradictions, just additional details."

For some reason, however, you seem more comfortable subscribing to the view of the Bible critics that the Torah was assembled from assorted documents, and that a duplicate creation story somehow slipped through. Well, Ammi, do you think our ancestors, those brilliant primitives who produced the most powerful and magnificent piece of literature in history, ever heard of proofreading? If our hypothetical chief editor had just let his proofreaders take a look at it, they would have told him, "Sir! Big blooper right here in the first chapter. Send it back to the typesetter!"

One of the famous ideas of Julius Wellhausen and his German school of Bible criticism is the Documentary Hypothesis, the theory that the Torah is woven together from the J and E documents among others. These great minds noticed that the Bible sometimes refers to God by the J name and sometimes by the E name. They scratched their heads in bafflement. And then they had a flash of dazzling insight. There must have been different documents referring to different deities, and the hypothetical editors who blended them, in their usual sloppy style, failed to make them consistent. Check it out, Ammi. I am not kidding you. This sort of reasoning is at the foundation of Bible criticism. This is, of course, absurd. The Midrash (Mekhilta Beshalakh) explains that the J name is used when the attribute of mercy is active and the E name when the attribute of strict justice is active. Every eight-year-old child in Hebrew school has always known this basic principle. But what can you expect from German academics who didn't learn Hebrew until they were in college, had no access to the oral Torah, and never bothered to ask Jewish school teachers for the answer?

When I attended the International Book Fair in Moscow in 1987, a professor of English from the University of Tbilisi in Soviet Georgia struck up a conversation with me. He told me he had written a two-volume dictionary of American slang, and he wanted to check out a few things. "Can I ask you a question?" he asked. "Sure, go ahead." "Do you know what 'ticked off' means?" Of course I do, I said. "It means 'annoyed.' " He shook his head. "No. It means 'exhausted.' " It was my turn to shake my head. "It means 'annoyed.' " "I'm afraid you're wrong. I have made an extensive study of the expression, and all the evidence indicates that it means 'exhausted.' " "Tell me," I said, "have you ever been to the United States?" "No. But what difference does it make?" "All the difference," I said. Every street urchin in the United States knows more about American slang than this hapless fellow in his study in Tbilisi.

And every child in Hebrew school knows more about the Torah than these self-appointed Bible critics. You have to consider the Bible critics in their historical context. They had an agenda. In the nineteenth century, after the fall of Napoleon, German nationalism sough expression in its pagan Teutonic roots, and it struggled to break away from the albatross of Christianity. The political and cultural mission of Wellhausen and the other Bible critics was to discredit the Christian Bible and the foundation upon which it rests - the Jewish Bible. every time they found a redundancy, an anomaly, or any of the other plentiful signals that call out so eloquently to Talmudists, these critics immediately discerned imperfect editing, multiple authors, and all sorts of textual flaws. Of course, it never occurred to them that the shortcomings might be in their own understanding. In the end, their specious conclusions were accepted as scientific fact, and religion was undermined.

But what about you, Ammi? Why should you parrot the enemies of Judaism and the Jewish people? I am not concerned about the decline of Judeo-Christian values in Germany, but I am concerned about all the Jews who thought that being modern meant swallowing the bitter pill of German devaluation of the Jewish heritage. It doesn't matter that you couch your German-inspired reading of the Torah and Jewish history in pretty words and glib platitudes. The plain fact is that you and other Jews like you, who have been persuaded by the German Bible critics and their successors, exemplify a tragic defeat for our people.

Even among the Bible critics themselves, many thoughtful scholars are abandoning the Documentary Hypothesis. Listen to Cassuto on the subject: "Among the proofs that many scholars bring to support the hypothesis that the Torah is a composite drawn from multiple sources, it is worthwhile to pay special attention to the interchanging of divine names. ... Recent research has established that there is no basis for the hypothesis that [this] is an indication of multiple sources. ... All in all, these critical theories create more difficulties than they purport to solve."

Listen to Henri Blocher in Révélation des Origines: Le Début de la Genése (French). "The critics, when they judge the internal phenomena [of the Bible], project into it their customs as modern Western readers and neglect all we know today of the writing customs of Biblical times. The taste for repetition, the structure of a global statement, repeated with development, the replacement of a word by its synonyms, especially the change of a divine name in a text (i.e., the names of Osiris on the stele of Ikhernofret), are well attested characteristics of ancient Middle Eastern texts. ... The Biblical text, as it is, agrees with the literary canons of its time."

Listen to W. F. Albright in Archaeology and the Religion of Israel. "The Mosaic tradition is so consistent ... so congruent with our independent knowledge of the religious development of the Near east in the late second millennium B.C. that only hypercritical pseudo-rationalism can reject its essential historicity."

Listen to Dr. Yohanan Aharoni, in Canaanite Israel during the Period of Israeli Occupation. "Recent archaeological discoveries have decisively changed the entire approach of Bible critics. They now appreciate the Torah as a historical document of the highest caliber. ... No authors or editors could have put together or invented these stories hundreds of years after they happened."

Finally, a team of Israeli and German Bible critics (reported in the Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentaliche Wissenschaft) conducted a computer analysis of the style and language of the Bible. Although no author is rigidly consistent in the usage of word forms and stylistic expression, a reasonable percentage of similarly can be expected. For instance, the internal percentage of similarly of Kant's words is 22, and no one questions that the works were all produced by Kant. The internal percentage of similarity of Goethe's works is just 8, and still no one questions his authorship of all of them. The researchers discovered that the internal percentage of similarity between the J and E documents is 82! There is, therefore, no question that they are the product of one author.

So you see, Ammi, I've taken your advice and checked out some of those "volumes" of yours. I could bring you numerous additional sources if you wish, but I think this is enough. The preponderance of evidence supports the unity of the Torah's authorship, which places it way back in antiquity and actually proves its authenticity. How could such a fiction have been foisted on people who were practically contemporaries of the evens described? Could you pass off a bogus issues of Time magazine whose cover story reported that an atom bomb had leveled Washington during World War II and whose publisher's message reported that copes of that issue had been distributed hot off the presses to every household, school, and library in America?

The disdainful disregard of Jewish sources so prevalent in Bible criticism is also evident in secular interpretations of Jewish history. There is a fast day called Asarah b'Tevet, which memorializes the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem about two and a half millennia ago. I don't know if Reform still honors this memorial, but I am sure you have heard of it. In the special Selichot for the fast day, we recall another tragic event that took place a few centuries later on the eight of the month of Tevet. In about 250 B.C.E., King Ptolemy of Egypt summoned seventy Jewish elders to Alexandria and ordered them to translate the Torah into Greek for his library; the result, know as the Septuagint, was considered a national tragedy. This event is also recorded as an awful tragedy in Megillat Taanit, composed during Mishnaic times, not more than a century or two after the fact. Modern secular historians, however, maintain that mostly Greek-speaking Jewish people of Alexandria inspired the translation because they wanted to show their Greek neighbors that they also had a book of wisdom. This explanation, which completely ignores Jewish sources, can only be based on speculation, yet it has entered the history books as established fact. Why the Sages considered the Septuagint a national tragedy is a subject for a separate discussion. But I want to know which side you take on this question, Ammi. Do you walk in lockstep with the orthodox secular establishment, as do just about all the secular Jewish historians, or do you give credence to the explanation given by our ancestors when national memory of the event was still fresh? It does not surprise me that the secular Bible critics and historians have no regard for the Jewish national memory, but I am disappointed that you are not sensitive to it.

NOTES...The first reference to the Jews outside the Bible is from the Merneptah Stele of 1235 B.C.E. There, King Merneptah of Egypt boasted that "Israel is laid waste."... - pg. 148
We, the Jewish people, have always been very focused on genealogy. A large part of the Bible is devoted to names and relationships. Read the First Book of Chronicles! The Talmud (Baba Batra 91a) identifies Abraham's mother as Amathalia the daughter of Karnebo. There is no mention of this name in the Bible, and yet the Jewish transferal process preserved it orally for fifteen hundred years! Bible critics laughed this name off as pure invention, and they proved their case by the absence of a name such as Karnebo in any Babylonian records. Well, lo and behold, archaeologists have since discovered new Babylonian records in Ebla that mention the name Karnebo as a royal family name. You say you would be "fascinated by archaeological proof of Abraham's existence." How about archaeological support of Abraham's grandfather's existence?... - pg. 119

BIBLICAL CRITICISM 2 - An Introduction

BIBLICAL CRITICISM - AN INTRODUCTION

What is Biblical Criticism? One one foot, the theory that the five books of the Torah are a compilation of four documents – J, E, P, and D. The diverse documents can most easily be distinguished on the basis of the various Divine names found in Scripture; proponents of this approach attribute each different name to a different document. That G-d is described by different names is already noticed by the sages – who ascribe different properties to each names. As Umberto Cassuto pointed out in his work The Documentary Hypothesis, pp.57-58 (how cool a first name is that for a Bible commentator ;) )

Permit me to illustrate my argument with a story. Let us imagine that a certain author writes a biography of his father, who was a notable savant, an academician. We shall assume that in this book the writer gives us a multi-faceted picture of his father, describing his private life at home, his relations with his students at college and his scientific work…. Doubtless when the author proceeds to write his work, in the passages describing his father's life within the family circle, he refers to him as "Father"… In the sections that portray him in the circle of his students at the university, he uses the designation by which he was generally known in that circle, "the professor."… Let us now picture to ourselves that centuries or millennia later a scholar will declare: Since I observe that the hero of the work is called in some places "Father" and in others "the professor," it follows that we have here fragments culled from different writers, and the dissimilarity between the narrative and scientific sections corroborates this.

However, Biblical Criticism’s claims go far beyond the differing names of G-d. The also speak of repetitions and redundancies, stylistic changes, and contradictions between different sources. The classic example is the contradictions between Genesis 1 or 2 (when was man created, first or last; differing names of G-d; were man and woman created together or apart; etc.), but this is just the tip of an iceberg. In response, Biblical Criticism posits that these differences can be attributed to pre-existing original sources. Later, there was a process of editing and redaction that created the document in front of us.

This idea, that pre-existing texts were used for the creation of the Scripture, is forcefully attacked and rejected by those who point out that none of these documents have ever been found, and indeed, no early records allude to them. At http://www.hirhurim.blogspot.com/ - R. Student brings the following quote from Kenneth A. Kitchen’s On the Reliability of the Old Testament, p. 492-493:
With the evolutionary [of religion] ladder gone, what happens to the biblical literature? Where do J, E, D, P, now belong, if the old order is only a chimera? Or, in fact, do they belong at all?Here we will be concise, open, and fairly staccato. First, the basic fact is that there is no objective, independent evidence for any of these four compositions (or for any variant of them) anywhere outside the pages of our existing Hebrew Bible... They exist only in the minds of their modern creators... This very simple fact needs to be stressed. Our resourceful Biblicists are not sitting on some secret store of papyri or parchments that contain any such works. The Dead Sea Scrolls show no sign of them whatever... Modern guesswork, as we all know, is often extraordinarily and breathtakingly clever and ingenious - one can only reverently take one's hat off to it all, in respectful amazement, sometimes. But... it does not constitute fact, and cannot substitute for it... The standards of proof among biblical scholars fall massively and woefully short of the high standards that professional Orientalists and archaeologists are long accustomed to, and have a right to demand. Some manuscripts, please!...
Second, time and time again the modes of analysis (and their criteria, variant vocabulary, "styles," etc.) have been demonstrated to be defective. And not just by "conservatives" either. Suffice it to refer to the very careful and conscientious study by (e.g.) the late R. N. Whybray (no conservative), The Making of the Pentateuch. On the internal data, it is a damning indictment of these methods. He offers a largely unitary Pentateuch, but of a relatively late date...
Third, people sometimes talk glibly about the "literary strata" in the biblical writings, as if they were somewhat parallel to the strata in an archaeological mound. Yes, it sounds very appropriate, but which way do your strata run? In an archaeological site, the successive strata (by and large) lie in succession roughly horizontally, one above the other... But the "strata" supposed in J, E, D, or P, H are of an entirely different kind. Here, to distinguish passages of J, E, P (say) in Genesis, vertical cuts have been made, all the way through the book... No archaeologist worth his salt would dream of accepting as "strata" a set of vertical sections cut separately, over a mound.

Is this true? Kitchen’s point that no independent evidence of separate manuscripts exists, is fundamentally correct. However, as Jewish tradition acknowledges, and the archeological evidence shows, that a difference transmission process occurred. Also important, Kitchen still doesn’t answer the questions raised by the contradictions and difficulties that still exist in the texts. Examination of how Jewish tradition understood the process of text transmission and the meaning of those contradictions will (IY”H) be the subject of future blogs.

BIBLICAL CRITICISM 1 - Why discuss it at all?

Biblical Criticism - why?

Those two words, Biblical criticism, have become the “four-letter word” for Orthodox Jews who take their Bible studies seriously. Most assume that there is no room for dialogue with this critical-scientific approach to the study of the Bible. With its beginning in the nineteenth century by anti-Semitic German Protestant biblical scholars; the assumption that Scripture is not a Divinely revealed unity, but a patchwork documents compiled into a single book by a later editor; and its philosophical underpinnings that early Israel represented a primitive, illiterate society, whose religious thought would only fully evolve at the turn of the millennium with the appearance of J of Nazareth; the differences between the critical school and the believers seems unbridgeable, and no purpose could exist in attempting to find common ground. Especially today, when those who speak in the name of higher enlightenment and scholarship teach from the post-modern narrative that there are no truths, and all are myths and interpretation, its not surprising that ignoring the Bible critics seems to be the dominant mode of engagement among Orthodoxy, as Rav Tau (from the Merkav/Rav TY Kook circle of thought) suggests –

One who does not believe in the Divine origin and sublimity of the words, that they all flow from Divine truth that is infinite, absolute and eternal – one who lacks this faith will not understand the holy Scriptures whatsoever. All of his analyses, all of his investigations, all of his theories, and all of his "discoveries" fall into the category of nonsense…When all these ideas are missing, when humility and self-effacement are lacking, when these elements are absent, come the scholars – Jews or gentiles, it makes no difference - and search through the holy Scriptures. They raise objections, they erase, they distort, and they emend; they suggest theories, they demonstrate creativity, they present novel ideas – what is all this to us? How are we connected to them? We occupy ourselves in the truth of the Torah, we engage ourselves in the holiness of the Torah. One who lacks both the beginning and the end – there is no point in talking to him at all! (Rabbi Zvi Tau, Tzadik Be-emunato Yichye, pp. 10, 19)

Is this approach appropriate, however? How should a believing Jew react? Is turning our back the proper approach, or, like Rabbi Meir’s pomegranate parable re-Elisha ben Avuya of old, is there room to partake of Biblical-critical studies, eating the seeds and discarding the rind?

R. Chayim Navon brings several convincing reasons why Biblical criticism needs to be dealt with and addressed (see lecture #5 in R. Navon’s wonderful series on the Theological Issues of Sefer Breishit, found at the Har Etzion website www.vbm-torah.org). Quoting my friend R. Amnon Bazak from Yeshivat Har Etzion, he notes that the Torah itself states that "For this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, who shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nations is a wise and understanding people" (Devarim 4:6). Obviously, the Torah respects how the other nations view it, and their questions are not to be easily discarded.

From an educational viewpoint, some suggest that students be introduced to Biblical Criticism early, because it is still the majority viewpoint among those that study Bible, especially in universities. Otherwise, when the student does come across it, he/she will assume that the teacher was afraid to deal with it, and evaded it in class, because he/she did not have convincing answers, and reject everything the teacher said as a result.

Most importantly, Biblical Criticism needs to be taken seriously because despite the ideological chasm that separates us from them, the questions that they raise need to be addressed. Why did the Bible use differing styles, wordings, and indeed, contradiction, to convey its message? Most scholars today do not work (consciously, that is) from an attempt to discredit the text, but use serious and tested research in the study of language, literature, philology, etc. and raise questions. In addition, the Jewish tradition’s answer is much more nuanced and balanced that the absolutist position often presented. With these thoughts, I will be dealing with Biblical Criticism in this forum – pointing out the flaws and inconsistencies in the theory when appropriate (and there are many), but also delving into the traditional writings and to develop a modern, intellectually honest understanding of the issues raised, that maintains loyalty to the traditional narrative while including the latest in scholarly findings and answers.

GENESIS 35 - What did Reuven do?

What did Reuven do?

The Torah tells us (Gen. 35:22) that Reuven lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine. The Mishneh in Megilla 25a, states that this story, when it is to be read, is not to be translated to the public, in deference in Reuven. Rashi here explains (following R. Shmuel bar Nachmani TB Shabbat 55b) that Reuven didn’t actually sleep with her; he simply rearranged his father’s beds. With Rachel’s death, Reuven assumed that Jacob would spend time with Leah – when he didn’t, Reuven took it upon himself to avenge his mother’s honour.

Rashi’s reading, however, is not unanimously accepted. Radak and Rashbam both accept the literal reading as correct. Even in the Talmud, R. Shmuel bar Nachmani’s statement is immediately held to be an argument among the Tannaim, with R. Eliezer and R. Yehoshua holding that he sinned. Ibn Ezra’s ambiguous interpretation – “And well did our Rabbis interpret” quoting Proverbs 12 – “and covered the shame of his nakedness”, can be read both ways.

In halachic sources, we find the story as being understood literally, as the Rambam wrote (Laws of Sotah 3:2):
“They say to her (the woman under suspicion, in an attempt to get her to confess), ‘My daughter, many who preceded you, greater than you, have fallen prey to their desires – and they read the stories of Reuben, Yehudah, and Amnon before her.”

What I find fascinating and instructive about this issue is how we are able to openly confront the failings of our ancestors. To me, the willingness of the Torah to discuss our forefathers’ mistakes, and not to sweep them under the carpet, provides our tradition with additional credibility and trustworthiness. No other people dealt so candidly with their leaders. I was gratified to discover this written explicitly this weekend, in the Midrash Rabba (87:10):
A Roman matron challenged R. Yosi – is it feasible, is it possible that Joseph, a strapping young man of seventeen, hormones raging, would be able fend off the advances of Potiphar’s wife (even then, they knew the mindset of the average teenage male!!) R. Yosi responded by opening the book of Genesis in front of her and began to read the stories of Reuben, the stories of Yehudah and Tamar. If the Torah didn’t hide the misdeeds of the older brothers while in their father’s house, why would it hide the younger one now?