Q&A: On Studying the Hebrew Bible Objectively
On Studying the Hebrew Bible Objectively
Question
Good evening, Rabbi, may he live a good long life.
You often argue in your books and in many other places that there is no real benefit in studying the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), because anyone who studies it automatically imposes his prior assumptions on the text. (And in that respect it is like any literary or poetic text, etc.)
I have a few difficulties with this claim:
1. The author or authors of the Hebrew Bible thought that they were composing a text that was understandable, primarily to their own generation. (See, for example, Shadal’s introduction to his commentary on the Torah regarding the concept that “the Torah speaks in human language.”)
2. Spinoza held that the biblical text can be studied objectively, mainly by using scholarly tools such as studying the ancient languages— in his time he had Hebrew in mind, but today that includes all the ancient Semitic languages of the ancient Near East— the history of the formation of the text, and nowadays archaeology as well, etc.; more or less what Bible scholars do. For example, the verse “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” Many were perplexed about how to interpret this verse. There are commentators such as Rashi, based on the Sages, who say that it refers to monetary compensation (Bava Kamma 83b). On the other hand, there is Rashbam, who held that it is to be taken literally (like the Karaites), and Sforno, who held that the law really should have been according to the plain sense of the verse, but the tradition of the Sages determined otherwise—namely, monetary compensation. Yet from the study of ancient Near Eastern law codes (the Laws of Hammurabi, etc.) it emerges that the intention there is monetary compensation, not the removal of corresponding limbs. In other words, the Torah usually knows what it is talking about; that is, it is objectively understandable.
I would be glad to hear your thoughts on this issue.
Answer
I have nothing to add beyond what I already said. 1. That doesn’t help me. The fact that they thought so proves nothing. So they thought so. In practice, nobody learns anything from there.
2. He thought so, and he was mistaken. And in my opinion Bible scholars don’t really think so either, certainly not when it comes to values. I faithfully assure you that almost no Bible scholar, even a religious one, has changed nearly any value he believed in because of his study.
Discussion on Answer
I agree with you that we do indeed impose our views on texts of a kabbalistic, Hasidic, mystical, poetic, liturgical, and even many aggadic midrashic character, which are open to subjective interpretation. (In general, the purpose of aggadic midrashim is interpretive or conceptual.)
But in a straightforward reading of the Hebrew Bible, we understand what the author meant in most biblical literature—perhaps with the exception of Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Psalms.
If we use the Christian division (which also entered Judaism), biblical literature is divided into three sections:
Legal literature: the Five Books of the Torah.
Historical literature describing the history of the Jewish people until the destruction of the First Temple, and the rise of Ezra and Nehemiah: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, the Twelve Minor Prophets, Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, Chronicles.
“Wisdom literature”: Proverbs, Psalms, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Job—that is, parabolic or poetic literature, etc.
I don’t understand this discussion. I pointed to a fact and said that I see no point in quotations and declarations, and then you bring me more quotations and declarations?
The conclusions you brought here are not value-conclusions learned from the text. See what I wrote in columns 134–135 and in the talkbacks there.
But what you’re saying is relevant only to learning values from the Hebrew Bible. What about studying the Hebrew Bible itself—that is, trying to understand what exactly happened in the stories the Hebrew Bible tells, and how it happened? That is not essentially different from trying to understand the words of one of the Amoraim in the Talmudic text. (Maybe it is of a lower level of importance because it is not Jewish law, but it is still part of Torah study.)
For example, I remember an approach by Professor Yoel Elitzur explaining the course of the battle of Deborah and Barak using the verses in Judges, Psalms, archaeology, and the geography of the Land of Israel, along with some reasonable conjectures. There is no attempt here to derive values, only to understand what the Hebrew Bible is saying. Why is that less Torah study than explaining a line of Tosafot in Zevahim?
I wasn’t talking about that. I referred you to the relevant columns, and it’s worth looking there.
Forgive me, but in the end, a person who writes a literary or analytical book assumes that the knowledgeable audience understands him or at least his intention. This, for example, was Spinoza’s criticism of Maimonides and the other medieval Aristotelians: that the Hebrew Bible is understandable and does not contradict reason and logic, and is not supposedly meant only for philosophers. And this is also what Shadal thought: “The intelligent will understand that the purpose of the Torah is not to convey the natural sciences, and the Torah was given only to guide people in the path of righteousness and justice, and to establish in their hearts belief in divine unity and providence. For the Torah was not given to sages alone, but to the entire people. And just as the matter of providence and reward was not explained in the Torah in a philosophical way (nor was it fitting that it should be), but the Torah spoke of it in human language (‘And the Lord was angry with you,’ ‘And He was grieved in His heart,’ and many such expressions), so too the matter of creation is not recounted in the Torah in a philosophical way (nor would it have been fitting for it to be), as the Sages said: ‘To tell flesh and blood the full power of the act of creation is impossible.’ Therefore, it is not fitting for a Torah scholar to wrench the verses from their meaning in order to reconcile them with the natural sciences; nor is it fitting for a researcher to deny that the Torah is from Heaven if he finds in its narratives things that do not accord with natural inquiry” (Shadal’s introduction to his commentary on the Torah).
2. There are quite a few religious Bible scholars who understand that one needs to change one’s religious outlook בעקבות the conclusions of biblical scholarship. See, for example, Joshua Berman’s book I Believe: Biblical Criticism, Historical Truth, and the Thirteen Principles of Faith, which discusses the issue from his perspective as a Bible scholar.
For example, when a student (a militant atheist) asked him, “Who wrote the Torah?” he answered, “I don’t know.” Clearly he too understands that, at least literally, Moses did not compose the Torah.