Thursday, August 1, 2013

Why Biblical Scholarship Is Irrelevant

There's been quite a bit of discussion of late (see e.g. here, here, and here - update: and now here) regarding Rabbi Zev Farber and the TABS project (Torah and Biblical Scholarship). The idea of TABS is to explore how we can make two seemingly irreconcilable worlds fit together: that of belief in Torah mi-Sinai, i.e. the Divine authorship of the Five Books of Moses, and that of academic scholarship and research into the origins of the Five Books.

Now, when I say Biblical scholarship is "irrelevant", let me immediately qualify that. I don't mean irrelevant in the sense that it has no merit, nothing truthful or insightful to say. That would be absurd - it certainly does. I mean irrelevant specifically with regard to the following:

1. Divinity of the Torah

Even if all academic research and theories such as the Documentary Hypothesis were to be conclusively refuted, and we had proof beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Torah was authored by one man, and that it was none other than Moshe Rabbeinu, this still says nothing about the Divinity of the text! In other words, the leap required to say that Moshe was the author of the entire Torah is infinitesimal compared to the leap you have to make to say that Moshe communicated with a Transcendent, All-Powerful Being and dictated the conversation word-for-word. The first is at least conceivable. The second however is a contention which requires a quantum leap into the realm of "other-worldliness".

To say that God authored the Torah rests on the assumption of supernatural existences of which we have zero evidence. It requires that we assume that the reason the Torah mentions miracles and encounters with God is not that it accords with beliefs which were common in the Ancient Near East, not that every people of course wove their gods into their narratives. Rather, we have to assume that there was something special about Bronze/Iron Age times and people which called for God to reveal Himself, and now - well, the show's over.

The reason God's miracles and open communication with humans are conspicuously and entirely absent today? We're less worthy, and so God has gone into hiding. And in fact God's hiddenness is a test for us, to see if we still believe it all happened. But really God's still here (in our hearts, if we call out to Him, look for Him, etc.) - just that our free will would be robbed of us if God were to show His face, and that would ruin the whole test. That's the reason we don't see God nowadays. The possibility that the God narratives themselves were simply a product of their time, and that is the real reason there's not a single shred of any God-appearances today - no mass revelations, no pillars of fire, no seas splitting (or even puddles), no sun standing still, etc.? Why that's heresy!

Suffice it to say, you don't need the Documentary Hypothesis or any Biblical scholarship to take the Divinity out of the Torah. All you need is a little common sense - call it the "Common Sense Hypothesis".

2. Observance of Mitzvot

Whether the Torah was written in bits and pieces over time and later woven together, or whether it emerged into the world as a single, holistic document, what does this have to do with the observance of mitzvot? To the traditional believer, certainly the Divine/not-Divine question should be more pressing. Meaning, if there was a Divine revelation at Sinai, what does it matter whether that revelation was recorded at different times by different people? The Torah is still "commanded" by God. And if there was no revelation, what does it matter if the Torah was written by the single author Moshe? There's still no "Divine command".

But from where I'm coming from, taking as an obvious given that the Torah is a purely human document, the question of Mosaic authorship vs. multiple authors or later authorship is totally irrelevant where it comes to Torah observance. There was no mega-supernatural-event which gave us the Torah. The commandments have no transcendent "Commander". Despite what the tradition would have us believe, the Torah has always been a covenant with ourselves. Which means we keep the Torah to the extent that we deem it as having inherent value, because we see it as being a net-positive for us, a good thing - personally, communally, and nationally. And that is a concept of Torah that no academic theory or scholarly hypothesis can touch.

So as much as I enjoy reading up on Biblical scholarship, as much as it interests me where the Torah "came from" - that's just an extracurricular curiosity. It has no nafka mina, no practical consequence for Torah and mitzvot. What interests me much, much more is the question of what the Torah is and what kind of impact its teachings and observances have on our lives. Is it making us better people? Wiser? Does it enhance our enjoyment of life? Is it helping us to survive as a people? Is it adding something positive to the world?

To me, questions like these are where the rubber really meets the road. All the back-and-forth about trying to "reconcile" Divine authorship and Biblical scholarship? Eh. To be honest, I get a bit impatient with it - both from the intellectual contortions people like R. Farber have to go through to try to make it work, and also from traditional believers who simply dismiss all Biblical scholarship out of hand due to their a priori conclusions of what the Truth has to be. I'm much happier being where I am - 100% open to and interested to hear whatever findings/theories the academic Biblical scholarship world wants to dish out, and choosing to engage in Torah and mitzvot regardless.

7 comments:

  1. I assume you've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You recall the part where God is proven to exist at which point He is snuffed out of existence because He exists through faith alone?
    That's ultimately what's at the base of this. Can the unity of the text be proven? Cassuto did it. Can the antiquity of the text be proven? Sarna did it. Can the momentous event of Matan Torah be proven? Nope. For over 3500 years we have taken it as a given entirely on faith. If you don't have faith, that's something you're missing perhaps without even realizing it but that's what it all boils down to.

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    1. “Faith” as virtuously believing in something without evidence because your religion tells you to is a relative latecomer to Judaism. “Emunah” translates better as “trust” than as “faith.”

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    2. I assume you've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

      The Hitchhiker's Guide is one of those books I've been meaning to read for years and somehow inexplicably haven't gotten around to yet. But I understand the point. What a great idea that God would cease to exist once proven - I love it! (Although I can barely think of something more antithetical to the Rambam's approach.)

      Obviously this isn't the Torah concept of God, but I think you're just emphasizing that there's no proving God's existence, and therefore we "access" God only via belief/faith.

      For over 3500 years we have taken it as a given entirely on faith.

      Well, not exactly, at least according to traditional notions. I'd say as long as there were open miracles taking place, it wouldn't be "entirely" on faith. There'd be an all-important supernatural precedent in people's experience. I'd be much more apt to accept Torah Min Hashamayim on faith if there were anything shown to exist that's even remotely in the supernatural ballpark.

      And that has a great deal to do with how I lost my faith. Over time it just dawned on me that the claims being made in the traditional-Torah-belief arena don't comport with any kind of real-world experience. And those today who claim to have witnessed "miracles"? Every case without exception turns out to be a bunch of hooey. There's always another reasonable explanation. Plus, since these kinds of claims are made across all cultures and religions (e.g. finding the unmistakable visage of Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich), that leaves Jewish "miracle stories" (present and past) equally suspect in my eyes. Do we really think we're the only ones with "real" miracles, and everyone else is self-deluded except us?

      Add to that what I said in the post - that Gods and miracles were commonly depicted in ancient Near Eastern texts... Add to that the fact that the laws set down in the Torah hardly seem "perfect" or "cosmic", but instead very specifically reflect the religious/societal norms of Bronze Age Levant and Mesopotamia... and I can't reasonably, in good conscience, justify faith in a supernatural Matan Torah.

      Is it a shortcoming on my part? Maybe. Or... Maybe it's a strength. Maybe in fact it's in the spirit of Torah to go after "emet" even when it leads you to uncomfortable, unpopular or downright counterintuitive places, and even if it means having to radically rethink certain areas of Torah itself. Maybe as strange as it sounds, that's what the Torah would call "kavod haTorah" - not just accepting things which have no reasonable basis and calling it "piety". That's what rings true to me.

      And yet I have this crazy love for Torah. I guess you might call that my "faith".

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  2. > Meaning, if there was a Divine revelation at Sinai, what does it matter whether that revelation was recorded at different times by different people?

    The funny thing is that it doesn’t matter at all for Nach, only for the chumash.

    > Despite what the tradition would have us believe, the Torah has always been a covenant with ourselves. Which means we keep the Torah to the extent that we deem it as having inherent value, because we see it as being a net-positive for us, a good thing - personally, communally, and nationally. And that is a concept of Torah that no academic theory or scholarly hypothesis can touch.

    Yes, but it is not at all the reason that Jews kept the mitzvos through the millennia, nor the reason most religious Jews keep them today. It was/is assumed to be good because it is God’s communication to us. If you read it as mythology, it has no more (or less) inherent value than any other set of myths.

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    1. Yes, but it is not at all the reason that Jews kept the mitzvos through the millennia, nor the reason most religious Jews keep them today.

      Agreed. When I began the paragraph with "But from where I'm coming from", I meant it to apply to the part you quoted as well. I'm suggesting the idea of keeping Torah for reasons which are entirely independent of supernatural existences or events.

      If you read it as mythology, it has no more (or less) inherent value than any other set of myths.

      A good point. First off, just to clarify (if not for you then for other readers), when we're talking about "myths" here, it's not simply in the sense of misconceptions about reality, as in something "MythBusters" would try to debunk. The myths under discussion here also carry teachings, impart a desired ethos within the culture. The Torah is the "Book of the Law". Law may be embedded within a myth, but it's not in and of itself a "myth". You can't "debunk" a law.

      Ok, so let's say for argument's sake that we have several different ancient texts sitting in front of us which combine myth and law. How does the Torah have any more inherent value than the others?

      I'm not arguing that it does. It may or it may not, and in any case that's a highly subjective determination.

      So why choose Torah and not something else? Because it happens to be my text, the tradition my people has poured thousands of years of investment into. It's in my kishkas. It speaks to me in a way that no other tradition does. Because for whatever crazy reason I care about unpacking the stories of Avraham in a way that I don't about the stories of Gilgamesh. Because the Torah discusses the holidays I observe. And whether it's historically accurate or not, it's about my people. Because with all its highs and lows, its more inspiring parts and the parts that drive me absolutely nuts - I'll keep coming back to it, because it's "home". Other texts and other traditions may be nice places to vacation, check out, learn from - but they're not home.

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  3. So why choose Torah and not something else?
    a less emotional reason that is more in line with your post about what we still have to offer the world is that the myths of the torah more so than any other value system similar to ours has been kept vibrant in sync with our various host cultures and gone through many reinterpretations in tandem with the continuing evolution of humanities collective conscious (prophets playing off pagans chazlal playing off roman rambam playing off Arabic philosophers r hirch playing off enlightenment ect...) there are layers of understanding (real or imagined) that can be read about to highlight just about any idea or value system ever embraced by men this makes the entire body of torah a very desirable mode of exploring these ideas and adding new layers of interpretation based on our own observations

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    1. Absolutely, and there are endless "ma'alos" I could mention about the beauty, sophistication and potential for personal/societal development that exists within the Torah system. But the question G*3 brought had to do with Torah having no more inherent value than anything else, and if I responded by bringing up all the special qualities of Torah, that would make it sound as if I was using that as a proof that Torah has greater value than other systems. And since I haven't investigated other systems, and I happen to live my life around Torah, I don't think that would be a particularly educated or objective assessment! So I essentially responded by saying "ein hachi nami" and gave the reasoning that I did.

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