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The difficulty of distinguishing between allegory and fact in the Torah

שו"תThe difficulty of distinguishing between allegory and fact in the Torah
שאל לפני 9 חודשים

Hello Michael, from what I understand, you see no need to deal with contradictions between factual assertions in the Torah and the chronological-scientific knowledge we have. This is because the messages in the Torah are normative-educational and not scientific claims about the world.
And on the other hand, you don't get a complete emptying of the factual infrastructure, because that undermines the religious commitment.
For example, the story of the flood that destroyed most of humanity seemingly contradicts continuous cultural documentation found in various parts of the world during the period it is dated according to the Book of Noah, but in your opinion there is no difficulty in this because it is possible that it is a myth with an educational purpose. On the other hand, the status of Mount Sinai and the Exodus from Egypt must be treated as true in order to be obligated by the commandments that are based on these events.
The problem is that from reading the verses, it seems that apart from the creation of the world, which in my opinion can be interpreted allegorically, it is difficult to ignore the fact that the rest of the events in the Torah are claimed as factual-historical truth:
A. The Torah's Genesis section presents a continuous lineage of the history of the human race with a detailed list of names and precise ages from the first Adam to Moses. Why would the Torah bother to connect legendary myths with compelling historical claims?
on. From the way the events are presented, it is difficult to explain that this is an allegory. What "educational" value is there in lists of names and ages?
third. How can we divide and question the historical reliability of some events, if everything is presented as a unified chronological story? If, for example, the stories about Abraham our father did not really happen, why not say that the commandment to keep the Sabbath did not happen either?
The claim to allegory seems to try to evade certain problems, but
Just replacing them It is difficult to present the scriptures in this way, which does not solve the difficulty in the reliability of the Torah.


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מיכי צוות ענה לפני 9 חודשים
A list of names is indeed something that seems historical. But the events that happened to the bearers of those names are not necessarily. So Noah may have existed, but the flood he experienced could have been a local event or something else. Abraham our father existed, but that doesn't mean he was thrown into the fiery furnace by Nimrod (this is a legend, but the idea is still true). Obviously, allegorical interpretation is a last resort when there are difficulties. Just because something is allegorical doesn't mean it is, and certainly not when it seems historical-factual.

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