Q&A: The Hebrew Bible and Intellectual Integrity
The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and Intellectual Integrity
Question
The Rabbi often cites Maimonides, who said that if something in the Torah does not fit with science, then the Torah should be interpreted in a way that does fit. I wondered: is that really intellectually honest? Imagine you are reading an article in philosophy and you dismiss it as complete nonsense. Then I come along and explain to you that when the author wrote 6 he meant 4, and when he wrote no he meant yes, and so on and so on, until you agree that the article is correct. Presumably in real life you would not accept my interpretation, because when you read it, it was clear to you what the author meant. Why is the story of Genesis any different? You read a description that contradicts what you know; the intellectually straightforward thing to do is simply to declare the description mistaken, not to try to reinterpret it. So why make the effort? What is the difference?
Answer
You are right in principle, but it is a matter of degree. If you saw Mother Teresa chasing an engaged young woman down the street with a drawn knife, I assume the explanation you would adopt is that she wants to return the knife the girl forgot at her place, not that she intends to stab her to death. Why? Because the simplistic explanation is not the reasonable one in that case. So too, if I have reached the conclusion that the Torah was given to us by the Holy One, blessed be He, then when I encounter something difficult I prefer a strained explanation. Clearly, if there is too high a number of difficulties, and the explanations are very, very strained, then there is room to give up the assumption that the Torah is from Heaven. So everything is a matter of degree.
It is worth looking at Rabbi Weitman’s article in HaMaayan, 5737, where he shows that the plain sense of a verse is not the same as its literal meaning. In many cases we attach our own assumptions to the literal meaning, and that is how the plain sense is formed. The same applies here: we attach our assumptions to the literal meaning of the verse, and that is how the plain sense is formed. For example, the anthropomorphisms used about the Holy One, blessed be He, in the Torah (the hand of God, His outstretched arm, and the like)—in my view, the straightforward plain sense is that these are anthropomorphisms, not descriptions that should be interpreted literally.
All this connects to the words of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) who explain the teaching in Avot, “Judge every person favorably.” See my article on this here: https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%93-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%AA%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%95-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A7%D7%94%D7%90%D7%9D/
Discussion on Answer
I would just add one point. From the outset, the Torah removes the Master of the Universe from the world, as Maimonides explains in the Guide for the Perplexed (by the way, there is a nice expression of this in the verbal structure of the Hebrew language, as the literary scholar Assaf Inbari shows). So the autonomy of science vis-à-vis the Torah, and likewise of the Torah vis-à-vis science, is guaranteed. The difficulties lie at the seam lines, where according to the Torah the Master of the Universe intervened in reality: in creation, in the Flood, and in the Exodus from Egypt. There are several answers to this on the site, some better and some less good. But the very principled separation that the Torah makes between nature and God guarantees that even if there are questions, the overall framework does not collapse.
I admit that the questions raised by science are not easy. On the other hand, if science did not draw for us such a complete picture of reality without God, how could the separation between God and reality have been preserved? (And this is also an answer to the question of why God left the earth.)
Besides, even if one gives up belief in the story of Genesis (for example), that does not necessarily entail distrust of the Torah scroll. It could be that this was a later addition inserted into the Torah scroll because they saw it as something more flexible than we see it. And even if the whole book is full of errors, that does not negate belief in the Torah and its commandments, but at most only belief in the Torah scroll.