But in the book of Genesis it does appear that He was revealed to the patriarchs by the name the Lord. That is the reason Rashi departs from the plain meaning and relates it to God’s attributes and not to the name by which He was revealed to the patriarchs.

Do you think the Torah really was edited at a later period by weaving earlier sources into one text?
And why do we need to resort to an editing of the Torah done with divine inspiration? And if it was not edited with divine inspiration, does that change anything?

I understand. You are proposing a solution to the contradiction between Va’era and the book of Genesis, where there is revelation through the name the Lord. I do not see a decisive advantage to the critical solution (the documents). Revelation through the name the Lord up to that point is indeed rare, and it is quite clear that this was not a fundamental acquaintance with the name the Lord.
But it is certainly possible that this was a later editing.
If the editing was not done with divine inspiration, it is hard to regard it as precise and binding.

(Also Ibn Ezra and Nachmanides worked on this question.)

Oren, don’t you think that if God says “and by My name the Lord I was not known to them,” that has a meaning a bit beyond the mere word He used? It seems pretty obvious to me that the word itself is not what matters, but rather the way God is revealed in the world.

To Yishai, it seems to me that the verse means specifically the name of revelation, not the manner of revelation of the Holy One, blessed be He.
To the Rabbi:
What is your view in general about the issue of editing? Which way do you lean more — that the Torah was edited, or not?

As for divine inspiration, you already said that authenticity is not a condition for binding force.

I assume it was edited, as I also wrote in the second book of the trilogy, but it is not clear to me to what extent.
As for authenticity, what I wrote referred to the Oral Torah, where there is interpretation of verses, and it is binding just like the verses themselves even if that was not what they originally meant. But such a claim can be made regarding laws, because one can speak of formal commitment to norms even if they are not correct (authentic). But here the question is about correctness, not validity. When you expound a verse written by an ordinary person, there is no logic in treating it as precise and inferring carefully from every letter in it.

With God’s help, 14 Nisan 5782

To Oren — hello,

‘Known,’ ‘I was known,’ and so on in the Bible mean ‘became public’ or ‘became famous.’ Thus, “her husband is known in the gates”; “their offspring shall be known among the nations”; “God is known in Judah, His name is great in Israel”; “and I shall be known before the eyes of many nations”; and so too in other sources — see a concordance.

God’s “seeing” is judgment, as in “I will go down now and see,” “for the Lord has seen my affliction,” “and that He saw their affliction,” and more. It seems to me that the name God Almighty expresses the recompense by which God rewards the good and worthy, and the reverse for those who are not. (This name appears often in Job, which deals with the question of recompense.) By virtue of their righteousness the patriarchs merited that, and in this attribute they were watched over by God, who helped them as individuals succeed in their deeds and be saved from their enemies.

But the name of the Lord as Creator of the world and its sole ruler had still not become public through the patriarchs. “I was not known to them” means “I did not become publicly known through them” — “to them” in the sense of “through them” or “for their sake.” Now the time had come for the name of the Lord to become known, to be publicized in His world, through the wondrous redemption of Israel, which publicized the name of the Lord in the world.

With blessings for a kosher and joyful Passover, Ami’oz Yaron Shenitzl”r

As for being precise about the verse, the editing hypothesis does not say that the verses were written by the editor, but that he wove earlier sources into one text (without changing the content). And beyond that, there is Rabbi Ishmael’s view that the Torah speaks in human language.

As for authenticity, you wrote that there is no logic in being precise with the verse. But even if they were precise with it, that still does not contradict being bound by that precision, right? In other words, how is this different from an ordinary mistaken interpretation of a verse?

Definitely. That is the difference between editing and writing. Though the boundary is not sharp. The editor can change words according to his understanding and add connecting words, omit sections or words, and so on. Precision in letters and in the proximity between verses or words definitely depends on the editing. The Talmud says that Esther was said with divine inspiration, and the practical implication brought there is that it may be expounded. Derashot assume that a given text was written with divine inspiration.

That is a good argument, but I am not sure it is correct. That precision is based on a mistaken assumption, and there is room to compare it to a law ruled on the basis of a mistaken factual assumption. Binding force regarding errors exists when the errors are errors in judgment (which seems wrong to me), but in demonstrable errors, even if they are not factual, there is no binding force even to rulings of the Sanhedrin. (See the beginning of Horayot: one who errs regarding the commandment to heed the words of the sages.)
By the way, in such a situation it is possible that I would be bound by the sages’ ruling, but I would not see it as Torah law, because the inference from the Torah is incorrect. Something like this is found in Korban Ha-Edah regarding a sin-offering whose owners died, which is one of the laws given to Moses at Sinai that was forgotten during the days of Moses’ mourning. He writes that because of this, although the law is correct, it is not Torah-level but rabbinic.
Still, in our case there is no necessity that any given verse is a later addition, and therefore we will always remain in doubt (except perhaps verses like “to this very day”).

I thought again about the issue of divine inspiration in editing, and I wanted to ask: how can we derive Torah-level laws from a source that is only at the level of divine inspiration? Seemingly those should be laws whose doubtful cases are treated leniently, like other laws learned from the Prophets and the Writings (according to at least some views).

The editing is the organization of the biblical text itself with divine inspiration, and therefore it has the same status as the biblical text itself. In particular, since we do not know what was added in the editing and what belongs to the source, the assumption is that all of it has the status of the biblical text itself.
If there were a law learned from a verse that you knew was added in the editing, there might perhaps be room to discuss it. And even there, it seems to me that it would still be Torah-level.

Why does it matter whether the editing conveys information to us by juxtaposing verses or by explicit writing? After all, if in the end it is information whose source is not directly from the Holy One, blessed be He, why should its status be identical to information that came directly from Him?

Even according to Maimonides’ view, who holds that laws that emerge from derashot are words of the sages, laws that arise from interpretation of the verses themselves are Torah-level. (I elaborated on this in my articles on the second root.) The editing is no different from that. It does not add elements drawn from the spirit of the verse; it makes claims about the content of the verse itself. It reveals to us what the verse contains. In that sense it is different from verses of the Prophets and Writings, which are an addition to the Five Books of the Torah and not an interpretation of them.

So if that is the case, why do we need to say that the editing was done with divine inspiration? After all, it is basically just interpretation of Torah verses. How is this different from any other interpretation, like the interpretation of the sages, which was not done with divine inspiration?

Besides, it seems that the editing actually adds commands and not only interprets what appears in the verses themselves. For example, in the Torah there is a threefold repetition of the prohibition against cooking meat in milk, from which the prohibition of eating is learned. It is possible that the editor wove together different sources in all of which that prohibition appears and did not bother to delete the repetitions. If we say that he deliberately edited the verses that way, with a vision born of divine inspiration, in order to convey to us extra information beyond what is written in the verse itself — namely, that not only cooking is forbidden but eating as well — then this really is a new command, like the command to read the Megillah. Why should we attribute to such a prohibition a status similar to that of the prohibition on cooking, which appears explicitly in the verses?

I already said this above. Because this is editing and not interpretation. What I wrote here is only an analogy between them. The editor arranged the verses or added a few words here and there, and that was added to the text itself. We expound redundancy by virtue of that editing, etc. There is no point in expounding words if they were not added with divine inspiration.
Now I am reminded of an example from my article on Mida Tova for the portion of Tetzaveh. I showed there that there is a difference between a derashah on a verse and a derashah on the product of a midrash (which we do not do). The difference is that the product of the midrash was not added to the wording of the verses, and therefore it is not something we expound. Just as we do not expound laws given to Moses at Sinai. Derashot are done on the biblical text. With Esther too it says that this teaches that it was given to be expounded, after they reached the conclusion that it was said with divine inspiration. (I think I mentioned this above.)

But you are trying to have it both ways. That is, whichever way you look at it: if the editing is not entirely like interpretation, but only similar to it, then the additions it adds and the information learned from those additions ought to have the status of the other sources said with divine inspiration — the Prophets and Writings. And if the similarity of editing to interpretation is so strong that even the additions of the editing count as interpretation, then there is no need for it to be with divine inspiration, because in the end it is just an interpretive note by the editor on the biblical text.

Correct. That is exactly my claim. The editing is an addition to the text itself, and in that sense it cannot be done by an ordinary interpreter. But once it has been done, it becomes part of the text that can be expounded. It is similar to a derash that exposes something in the text rather than expanding it, unlike ordinary derash. An ordinary interpreter can derive ideas from the text but cannot add to the text itself — where the addition itself is something that can then be expounded. For that you need divine inspiration.

I did not understand what you were referring to when you said that this is exactly your claim.

Beyond that, why, after the editing was done, does it become part of the text? After all, the editing is only at the level of divine inspiration, whereas the text itself is above that level.

My claim is that you have to dance at two weddings.
That is why I brought the example from the two types of derashot. There is a derashah that intervenes in the text — and that is Torah-level — and there is a derashah that expands it, and that is rabbinic according to Maimonides. As long as the editor does this to the divine text, then the additions in the editing are included within the text itself. It is not like writing a new text.

The Torah tells us that God was revealed to them. But they did not know that it was God.
For example, when Abraham speaks with God about Sodom and Gomorrah, he does not know that it is God.

Okay, so I understand that you are claiming there are two types of derashot, where the type that intervenes in the text is considered like the text itself, whereas the type that expands the text is not considered like the text itself. But why do you classify the editor’s additions specifically under the first type and not the second? (Or at least some this way and some that way.)

Because that is exactly what editing means. That is also why it has to be done with divine inspiration.

Regarding what you wrote above:
“Even according to Maimonides’ view, who holds that laws that emerge from derashot are words of the sages, laws that arise from interpretation of the verses themselves are Torah-level. (I elaborated on this in my articles on the second root).”

I looked at the article on the second root and saw that you wrote something else there:
“There are thousands of laws that arise from the various hermeneutic principles, and all of them except for a few (‘only three or four matters’) should, according to Maimonides, be classified as words of the sages.”

So what did you mean above when you said that laws that arise from interpretation of the verses themselves are Torah-level? Do you have an example of that?

First, I do not see why the number matters. As long as there are two such categories, I can make my claim. Second, if I wrote such a thing, I was mistaken. It is the opposite. Maimonides himself writes in a responsum that there are around three or four that are classified as Torah-level. The clearest example is betrothal by money: at the beginning of the laws of marriage Maimonides treats it as words of the sages, but in the next law he imposes the death penalty on one who has relations with her.

[Seemingly, the products of derashot do enter into further derashot, and objections are also made from them. “A matter learned can return and teach,” and they also make an objection, “What about a nazirite, who can obtain release from his vow,” even though release from vows is hanging by a hair. This was brought in the responsa “Be’ur Kal Va-Homer” around the Mida Tova article on the portion of Shemini where the two-slides model was presented.]

Only in the logical principles, not in the verbal ones. The products of derash do not become biblical text.

Does that fit what is written in the Talmudic Micropedia, entry “Gezerah Shavah”: “A matter learned by one of the principles through which the Torah is expounded can return and teach by gezerah shavah”?

Actually, regarding gezerah shavah they wrote that it is an exceptional principle, since it reveals something about the text itself. That is the reason a person may not derive a gezerah shavah on his own, because a person cannot add to the biblical text on his own. It may be that this was said only about certain gezerah shavahs, ones that are like revealing a fact — that is, whose result reflects the meaning of the text itself and does not add to it. According to this, a gezerah shavah like “to her–to her” for slave and woman, for example, probably would not return and teach. There it is not plausible to see the gezerah shavah as teaching something about the text itself. It is learning a law about a slave or a woman.

But what if the gezerah shavah is the second step after a textual principle — meaning, a matter learned, for example by juxtaposition, then returns and teaches through gezerah shavah. Doesn’t that mean that the product of the juxtaposition (which one may derive on one’s own?) enters as part of the text itself?

Sorry for the constant retreat, but juxtaposition is even more a revelation of what is in the text than gezerah shavah. After all, there the verse itself brought them close to one another. I meant principles like the various forms of general-and-particular. Maybe that is why juxtaposition does not appear in Rabbi Ishmael’s list. Rabbi Shimshon of Kinon wrote that one of the reasons the thirty-two principles do not appear in Rabbi Ishmael is that it is as though it were written explicitly. Therefore, just as there is no gezerah shavah by halves, there is also no juxtaposition by halves — because this is not a derashah but a disclosure of what is said in the text itself.

[Thanks. I’ll try to get more familiar with the area of “a matter learned from a matter learned.” In the Talmudic Micropedia entry on it there are lots of trees.]

From the standpoint of Occam’s razor, wouldn’t it be preferable to assume that the editing was not done with divine inspiration, following Rabbi Ishmael’s view that the Torah speaks in human language? That is, such an assumption posits fewer things, and it still fits one of the Talmudic approaches.

Rabbi Ishmael’s statement that the Torah speaks in human language was interpreted very expansively by the Shelah. Even Rabbi Ishmael’s school makes derashot that do not really fit ordinary human language.
But in principle, you are right. One can accept that the additions were not made with divine inspiration, and then not expound them — whether based on Rabbi Ishmael or not.

So theoretically, if in the future they were to find pre-biblical documents containing different parts of the Bible, and in each of them separately the prohibition of cooking a kid in its mother’s milk appears only once, and the editor wove all those documents into one text and that is how the prohibition came to appear three times — would it then be correct to say that the prohibition on eating meat and milk is fundamentally void, because the derashah was derived on the basis of a mistaken assumption?

No. Only if you show that the editor did not do this with divine inspiration.

But earlier you said that in principle I am right that one can accept that the additions were not made with divine inspiration (according to Occam’s razor).

One can, but then there is no justification for expounding it.

Yes, that is exactly what I am arguing: that the law forbidding eating meat and milk is void in such a case. The question is whether this is merely a possibility, or whether according to Occam’s razor it is the preferable possibility.

And indeed, as is well known, Ockham was not strict about the prohibition of meat and milk, for according to his razor there is no room for it. But for us, since we hold that it is forbidden to shave with a razor — then it is perfectly fine to forbid meat and milk, and enough said.

Except that one might argue that according to Occam’s razor one should minimize entities, and so it is preferable to assume that the Torah was composed by one entity 🙂

With the blessing, “And it shall be on that day that the Lord will shave with the hired razor… and you shall be gathered one by one,” Dr. Shatzius von Livinhausen

With God’s help, 10th day of the Omer, 5782

In any case, according to the plain meaning of Scripture, the threefold repetition of “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” is not superfluous. Rather, it reflects the two meanings of the prohibition.

In the portion of Mishpatim, the command “The first of the first-fruits of your land you shall bring to the House of the Lord your God; you shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” serves as the festive conclusion of the “Book of the Covenant” that God makes with His people following the revelation at Mount Sinai. It seems that this is guidance regarding the proper mode of worship, as opposed to an improper one. Bringing first-fruits to the House of the Lord — yes; cooking a kid in its mother’s milk — no. Giving the first-fruits to God in humility — yes; unrestrained indulgence as an expression of the farmer’s arrogance that “everything is mine,” both the kid and its mother together — no!

This verse — which praises bringing first-fruits and condemns cooking the kid in its mother’s milk — is also the conclusion of the “second Book of the Covenant” in the portion of Ki Tisa, where God and His people return and make a “renewed covenant” after the first covenant was broken by the sin of the calf. And there too, at the end, the proper way of serving God is emphasized — one involving humility and giving — as opposed to the improper mode of worship: eating the kid in its mother’s milk, whose whole essence is arrogance and indulgence.

By contrast, in the portion of Re’eh, the prohibition “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” does not appear among modes of worship, but in the context of dietary prohibitions. Alongside the prohibition on eating impure animals and carcasses, “for you are a holy people to the Lord your God,” the Torah commands one to sanctify oneself even “in what is permitted to you” in eating the meat of pure animals: not to eat it at the peak of pleasure by cooking it in its mother’s milk, but rather to practice the restraint fitting for “a holy people.”

The two faces of the prohibition “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” — improper worship and eating without restraint — invite the two faces of the prohibition. From the side of ravenous eating, it is enough to forbid eating meat and milk. But from the side of cooking in milk as a corrupt mode of worship, one must forbid the very act of cultic cooking, and even forbid deriving benefit from it, as one of the idolatrous modes of worship that the Torah abhors.

The sages’ derashah on the three occurrences, expanding the prohibition to cooking, benefit, and eating, is a deep understanding of the nature of the prohibition in its two contexts — prohibition of idolatrous worship in the book of Exodus, and sanctity of eating in the book of Deuteronomy.

With blessings, Yiftach Lahad Argamon-Bakshi

We have before us two possibilities:
1. The editing was done without divine inspiration. In that case, the repetitions are not to be expounded.
2. The editing was with divine inspiration, and then they can be expounded.
The sages and all our tradition expounded this and treated it as a unified text. Therefore they are in effect passing down to us that this was editing with divine inspiration. Occam’s razor chooses the simpler option between two equal possibilities. But here the traditional option is preferable, and one who seeks to depart from it bears the burden of proof.

The sages assumed that the entire Torah (except perhaps the last eight verses) was written by the Holy One, blessed be He. If you accept that the Torah was edited by human agents, that assumption collapses, and automatically every attitude that follows from that assumption is nullified.

First, it is not necessary that the sages thought that. When they say that everything is from Sinai, they mean that the text should be treated as if it is unified and from Sinai. The proof is that they say this also about the Oral Torah, and regarding that it is clear that they did not think so literally.
Second, if I reached the conclusion that there are human additions, then they are not to be expounded. What justification is there for expounding a human text? The assumption that expounding is justified only for a text written with divine inspiration does not derive from the factual assumption that the Torah was not edited by human beings. It is simple logic.

Forgive the second intrusion (and the last). Why not expound a human text? Formal authority — of the text, which would also operate with respect to derashot — or a hermeneutics of canonical texts. It sounds like you are saying that such an addition has authority, but not with respect to hermeneutic principles, only with respect to direct content (and interpretation). Why?

I did not fully understand the second part of what you said. I will try to sharpen my point again:

The sages were not exposed to modern methods of research on the biblical text, and on ancient texts in general. They probably simply assumed that the text was divine, and from that assumption began to expound the Torah. If the sages had known what we know nowadays — that the Torah was edited by human agents — they would not necessarily have expounded the Torah, or at least not in the same way they did. In many more cases they would have adopted Rabbi Ishmael’s approach that the Torah speaks in human language. In other words, if we could go back in time to the period of the sages and know that the Torah had been edited by human agents, we should already then have used Occam’s razor and refrained from assuming that the Torah was edited with divine inspiration, and therefore we would have refrained from expounding the Torah.

With God’s help, 25 Nisan 5782

To Oren — hello,

The sages were very familiar with philological research methods, and they used them in studying the Mishnah and the baraitot, where they sometimes said: “This is self-contradictory; the one who taught this did not teach that,” and were prepared to assume that the Tanna had combined two contradictory sources.

By contrast, in the sacred writings that represent the word of God, there cannot be contradictions. After all, both Moses our teacher and the other prophets represent the word of God, which is one and whose will is one. Therefore, although they were precise with every letter of Scripture and noted apparent contradictions between sources, it was clear to them that verses that “contradict one another” must have an explanation that brings them into harmony and clarifies that they are two complementary sides of a comprehensive truth.

Moreover: phenomena of “mixed sources” can exist in transmitted reports, where each transmitter brought material from different sources. Not in the text of Scripture, whose wording was guarded against change and addition. The biblical text was preserved in thousands of textual witnesses by the scribes, read and studied with exacting precision, and checked against precise books kept in the Temple. And the scribes throughout the diaspora came up for pilgrimage three times a year and could check every doubtful word and letter.

The text was secured also by the Masoretic notes, which were transmitted orally and clarified exactly how each word is written in the various places where it appears in Scripture. A text and tradition guarded meticulously by thousands of scribes in every corner of the world cannot be falsified or distorted. Therefore, any attempt to dismantle and reconstruct biblical texts is plainly implausible.

With blessings, Hillel Feiner-Gluskinos

Oren,
The authority of the Torah is from Sinai, and therefore whatever is included in the text may be expounded, even if it was added later by an editor who thought it important to include it. That editor surely understood that this was part of the revelation at Sinai that had not been sufficiently spelled out in the text given to Moses at Sinai. Just as authority was given to the sages to interpret the Torah, authority was apparently also given to edit it in limited ways through various editors. That authority probably ended with the age of prophecy.

Tirgitz,
This is not a question of authority. There is no point in expounding a text that was not written with divine inspiration. For example, to include something because of an extra letter, or to make a gezerah shavah between words in a text that was not meticulously composed, is foolish. This has nothing to do with questions of authority.

Oren,
The sages expounded the Torah because the Torah was given to be expounded. They did not decide this on their own. The hermeneutic principles are laws given to Moses at Sinai. In addition, I already wrote that the editing and additions appear, on their face, to be fairly minor, and therefore the assumption is that the text is to be expounded unless there is some place where the opposite is proven.
If there is some place where you have a clear indication that this is an editorial addition, and you also conclude that it was not done with divine inspiration (and Occam’s razor is not relevant here, as I explained above), then you could ignore that specific derashah of the sages. By the way, in a place where you yourself are skilled and expound the Torah differently, and it is clear to you that they erred, in principle you can expound differently from them regardless of all the arguments you raised here.

With God’s help, 26 Nisan 5782

One of the basic failures because of which the critics filled the Bible with “contradictions” is the inability to understand that the Bible presents a complex conception. The critic assumes that an ancient “primitive” writer cannot hold a complex view. One who uses the name the Lord cannot use the name God, and therefore there is no choice but to attribute each name to a different author. But what shall we do when Moses taught us that “the Lord our God, the Lord is one,” and Israel explicitly declared at Mount Carmel: “The Lord, He is God.”

All the messages of the Bible lead to complexity that balances opposites. God is jealous and avenging toward those who rebel against Him, yet “slow to anger and abundant in kindness” toward those who return to Him. The Torah teaches that “in every place where I cause My name to be mentioned I will come to you and bless you,” yet sacrificial worship must be designated for “the place that the Lord will choose.”

The tribe of kingship will belong to Judah, but the ways of holiness will be taught by Joseph. The Levites will not receive an inheritance in the land, but will be dedicated to God’s service and to teaching His Torah and laws to Israel. And so on: each tribe will be blessed with its own blessing and its unique contribution to the entire people.

On the one hand, Israel is commanded to work on the six weekdays, and on the other hand, Israel is commanded to sanctify Sabbaths and festivals for spiritual service. On the one hand, they must give the tithe to the Levites, the teachers of Torah; on the other hand, they must set aside an additional tithe that requires them to stay in Jerusalem for about a tenth of the year, so that the farmer and his household too can recharge their spiritual batteries in the holy place.

On the one hand, they are commanded to act with kindness and compassion toward the poor and weak; on the other hand, the judges are commanded, “You shall not show favor to a poor man in his dispute,” and justice may not be perverted in favor of the weak. On the one hand, the Torah imposes severe punishments for serious offenses; on the other hand, it requires stringent rules of evidence — two witnesses, examination and cross-examination — which in most cases prevent imposition of the maximum penalty.

In short:
The Torah is the “order of the world,” bringing balance into the world — balance between kindness and judgment, balance between trust and effort, balance between centralization and tribal rootedness, and balance between ordinary life and holy life. This balancing complexity is built into the Torah by virtue of its being the instruction of the one Creator of the world, who unites all opposites into harmonious wholeness.

With blessings, Yiftach Lahad Argamon-Bakshi

I checked again what you wrote in the second book about the Documentary Hypothesis, and there I saw that you wrote in a different spirit. There you wrote as follows:

“Let us now return to the dispute between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael that I mentioned earlier. Rabbi Ishmael really does reject Rabbi Akiva’s approach, and in his view there is no room for derashot based on fine inclusions from extra letters and words and ornamental crowns on letters. According to his view, ‘the Torah speaks in human language,’ meaning that one should treat this text as a human text presenting its content the way human beings speak. If so, the problem exists only according to Rabbi Akiva’s view, and there is no necessity to adopt דווקא his view. We can also say that following the findings of modern biblical scholarship we ought to adopt Rabbi Ishmael’s view. Even so, this is certainly not a theological ‘death blow.’ I would add that even if the Talmudic sages thought otherwise, there is here an assumption of theirs that the source of the whole text is divine, but it is quite possible that in light of the information we have today we will conclude that they were mistaken in this and will not accept their words on that point. I will mention here what we have already seen earlier, that one cannot accept a claim of authority regarding facts, unless those facts stem from a tradition from Sinai. Now we see that even a tradition from Sinai could have gone wrong along the way. If we want to establish the minimal theological framework, the picture described here would at most force us to give up derashot from letter crowns or from extra letters (and even that is not certain).”

Now if we return to the principle of Occam’s razor that I mentioned above, it seems that it can help us choose the more correct approach between that of Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael. Rabbi Ishmael’s approach requires fewer assumptions — that the Torah was edited with divine inspiration — and is therefore preferable. No?

I do not see there anything that differs from what I wrote here. My argument there is built in several layers. My claim in that passage is that even if we become convinced that there are later additions by an ordinary person (not with divine inspiration), this does not undermine the basic tradition. But as I wrote here, since we received a different tradition, the burden of proof is on the one who claims there are later additions not made with divine inspiration. Therefore Occam’s razor is not relevant here.

Why force explanations in order to reconcile Rabbi Michael Abraham’s words in his book with his words on his website? Isn’t it more plausible that we have here different transmissions and redactions of the author’s words? Is it for nothing that he sometimes signs “Michi,” sometimes “mikyab,” and sometimes “Michael Abraham”?

Even regarding the man’s location there are different versions. The northern tribes place him somewhere between Haifa and Pardes Hanna; the southern tribes locate him in Yeruham, while the Deuteronomists place him between Lod and Ramat Gan in the center of the country.

Even his pictures depict him at times as full-bodied and at times as a “sage who knows secrets,” and strangely enough, his theology too matches his appearance. When he was fat, his doctrine was fat; and when he was thin, he produced a “thin theology.”

It seems to me that the view that “Abraham was one” stems from a failure to internalize the methods of scientific-critical scholarship, which know how “to separate what is joined together” and break everything down into its components.

With analytic and electrolytic blessings,
Dr. Shatzius von Livinhausen, Institute for “Disassembly Shall Flourish”