Q&A: Addition to Scripture
Addition to Scripture
Question
Hello and blessings,
If we accept the assumption that part of the Torah was added at a later stage than the giving at Sinai (the period of the kings, for example), what prevents us from not believing that the entire book goes back to the event at Mount Sinai?
That is, if the Jewish people were willing to accept various later additions without certainty that they were from God, it could be that they also accepted the entire Torah without proof that it was from God.
Answer
There is no principled obstacle, but it is not likely. There are a few words here and there that were probably added later, but from that to the claim that everything is late is a very great distance. Incidentally, the Jewish people did not accept those additions as additions. They could be corruptions that became current, or editorial notes (like “to this very day” and the like) that entered the text and at some stage were absorbed into it and became part of it.
Incidentally, even someone who does not accept the possibility of later additions has to answer how he knows that, and even how he knows that not everything is late. Simply declaring something does not solve any problem or difficulty. Therefore the question as you presented it, as though it depends on one’s position, is incorrect. The only question is whether there actually are later additions, and whether everything is late or not. The question, “if we think X, what prevents us from thinking Y,” is pointless.
Discussion on Answer
How does this fit with “everything in our possession was given to our teacher Moses, peace be upon him”? Not including stylistic corrections…?
Avinoam, no. In my view it is very reasonable that there was such an event. See the fifth notebook (or the fifth conversation in the first book of my trilogy).
13 Principles, perhaps. But beyond that, it is definitely reasonable that this statement is normative and not historical. That is how one ought to relate to everything, not that this is how it actually was. Like “everything that an experienced student is destined to innovate was shown by the Holy One, blessed be He, to Moses at Sinai.” It is clear to me that this is not literally true, but only that this is how one ought to relate to it—as if everything was said to Moses at Sinai. Jewish laws that were developed over the generations are binding just like the laws that were given there.
Thank you very much,
Is the “trilogy” basically an expansion of the notebooks?
The first book in the trilogy is an updated version of the notebooks.
Thank you,
If it were somehow proven with certainty that large parts of the Torah were added at a later stage, in your opinion would it make more sense to assume that none of it was given at Mount Sinai?