Q&A: Accepting Tradition in Light of Contradictions with Reality
Accepting Tradition in Light of Contradictions with Reality
Question
Hello Rabbi,
The Rabbi argues in the booklets that one can rely on tradition when the content being transmitted is reasonable and the witnesses are credible. Broadly speaking,
a straightforward logical argument.
But in Judaism, the transmitted tradition—even if we assume it is reasonable—does not match reality, and therefore it should be rejected.
For example, today we know that the world was created billions of years ago, and that man emerged through an evolutionary process, whereas the Torah says otherwise.
The Torah speaks, for instance, about the Flood, and today we know that this is not correct. There is no geological evidence for such an event.
In such cases and others like them, is the tradition really like a document that is internally forged? And are we supposed to reject it?
Isn't that so?
Answer
That is not what I argued. I argue that the tradition is plausible, and it joins with philosophical belief.
As for your questions: we count from the formation of man, and what was before that is unknown to me. Regarding the Flood as well, I have not examined the geology and I do not know what should have remained.
In any case, the Torah is not concerned with scientific and historical facts, and so I do not see these things as a very acute problem.
And even if there is a problem in these examples, that is not enough to turn the tradition into a document that is internally forged. At most, there are a few details in it that are not precise. That can happen in any tradition.
Discussion on Answer
Kobi,
It's amazing to see someone come to ask questions
and not bother to do a simple search on the site.
These topics have been discussed dozens of times.
A bit frustrating.
1. I don't know.
2. Indeed, these things have already been discussed here more than once. In general, there is a tradition of the Oral Torah. If you do not accept it—then no. That is your assumption, and of course the conclusion follows from it. That's all. Regarding "an eye for an eye," there is a verbal analogy, and it joins the plain meaning as an additional layer rather than replacing it. I have to say that I have already seen better objections.
This isn't the main issue, but it's worth knowing—there is also evidence for a local flood in the Mesopotamian region (7500 BCE). A book was published on this called "Noah's Flood" (by Am Oved publishing, I think) that discusses this thesis. The authors are all academics, and they show that in the past the Black Sea overflowed and flooded entire settlements. In the authors' view, the remnants of these settlements fled to Europe, Mesopotamia, and the rest of Asia, and from here also came the flood myth known throughout most of the world.
A few years after the book was published, in the framework of research conducted in the Black Sea, remains of settlements that had existed there before the flood were found in its center. As far as I know, their research is considered reliable (I am not familiar with significant critiques written against its basic thesis).
There are also midrashim in the Sages from which it explicitly emerges that the Flood was local.
Maimonides, in Guide for the Perplexed I, chapter 2, explains that to be human is to recognize intelligibles, in contrast to demons, like mafiosi and criminals, who do not live according to intelligibles but only like savages. According to this, the formation of man is not in the genetic sense of Homo sapiens, who is capable of speech and whose mating with apes does not produce viable offspring, but rather when one of those Homo sapiens wandering around received an intellect capable of contemplating intelligibles and establishing a moral law on their basis. It just so happened that his name was also Adam.
The Mishnah also speaks about the field-creatures as human beings who do not belong to settled society. There is also a description of them in Job. It seems that in their period there were still Homo sapiens wandering in the area with a hunter-gatherer culture who had not accepted the intelligibles of civilization and who in essence were not human.
Since the Torah is concerned with human beings who have been endowed with intelligibles, the Torah has no interest in those field-creatures or demons that filled the earth with the genetic makeup of Homo sapiens and the capacity for speech. The Torah is concerned with people who have the ability to contemplate intelligibles, and when the first Adam appeared 5,700 years ago, the Torah began. Until then, apes with a ge…
1. From when does the Rabbi count the formation of man—at what point in evolution?
2. This also happens in the Oral Torah.
In the Written Torah it says "an eye for an eye," and the Oral Torah transmits monetary compensation.
What does the Rabbi think about that tradition? Here surely the document is internally forged.