From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: more of ...can of worms....
Date: 27 Aug 92 15:47:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: mentor.BtnFuv.BzH
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department

In article <+1bns_+.strnlght@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:

>Herman Rubin has posted several "explanations" of the origins of the
>Torah in support of his position that recording errors could have been
>made in what it says God said, thus opening the Reform floodgates to
>their process of picking and choosing from among the Mitzvot.

>I'm curious (and not being argumentative here) as to whether these
>"explanations" are of non-Jewish, secular, or Reform origin, and thus
>might legitimately be viewed as more special pleading of no particular
>weight to other than Reform Jews, or whether they are from what might
>fairly be called "incontrovertible" sources.

>I'm also curious as to how many of his "explanations" are speculative
>in origin and how many are backed up with hard evidence. I'm not
>referring to the pre-Abrahamic material, but to the Mosaic period,
>with specific reference to the Mitzvot.

>I am trying to learn, here, not defend a particular position.

My position is not to be taken as even a semiofficial Reform position.
It was basically derived before I had ever attended a Reform service, or
even seen a Reform prayer book.  I would call it more a religious recon-
structionist position, in that I believe the religion is in complete
need of reconstruction, utilizing secular knowledge as well for this
reconstruction.  Even much of the legal code requires an understanding
of the customs of the local society; the bargaining for the Cave of
Machpelah is an example of this.  Another example is the behavior of
Lot in Sodom; when he offers his daughters to the mob to protect his
guests, he is acting strictly according to the ancient Semitic code,
which required him to do everything in his power to protect his guests.
The same reasoning applies to the behavior of Abraham's servant in his
quest for a bride for Isaac; by refusing to eat before stating his case,
he argues that it is too important for guest rights to intervene.

A good place to see this use of extenal knowledge by a late Orthodox
rabbi, and a true scholar, is in the Hertz _Chumash_.  I do not agree
with a fair amount of what he states, but I have no problem respecting
those of his arguments with which I disagree.

My position is largely that of someone who puts logical considerations
above any tradition.  This does not mean that the tradition should be 
automatically discarded; it does merit investigation as to whether there
is adequate reason behind it.  

But it also means reading even the Torah carefully.  If the Torah is 
the literal word of God, we have to accept numerous violations of the
laws of nature.  If we are to "have mastery over haaretz", then even
many of the Talmudic rabbis interpreted this to mean that God would
not just produce violations of the laws of nature, which are from God,
except under severe circumstances.  It is true that most of these
are from the pre-Abrahamic period, but not all.  And any attempt to
make the whole Torah the literal word of God must explain Eden and
the Flood as well, or at least make some sense out of it.

And there are problems with what may be called the basics of the
Orthodox position, namely, that the entire Torah is the literal
word of God, and the written Torah is from Sinai, while the Oral
Law was given to Moses, and faithfully transmitted over more than
a millenium before being written down.  I have just posted a reply
to two postings, in which I again argue from the precise words of
the written Torah that only the Decalogue was given at Sinai, and
that Moses received the rest of the Mitzvoth in the Torah separately.
There still is the question of who wrote what when, and what did 
God intend, and how did the writers receive the information.


-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!pop.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish