An introduction

Roughly twelve years ago, in what now seems like an alternate life, I used to be a proud Orthodox Jew.  However, shortly after that, when I was in my early twenties, I started getting more and more disaffected with the religion and religious practices.  The more I delved into the Torah, it became more and more obvious that it was a product of human hands.  The more I read Gemara and later commentaries of the Rishonim, the more obvious it was that these leaders were just normal people, with no special knowledge or insight, just their own interpretations.  In many cases, they seemed as far removed from the culture that produced the Torah as we are from them!  The more I contemplated the morality of the Torah and contemporary Jewish culture, the more I was unable to accept that these rulings could be the product of a divine being.  And finally, the more I became immersed with scientific thinking and methodology, and the more I applied it to religious claims and theories, the less stable the entire religion became.  After several years of difficult introspection, I concluded that I could no longer follow a religion I did not believe in, and I left.  For many years I let my considerable knowledge of Judaism rust.

However, sometime about 3-4 years ago, I decided on somewhat of a whim that I would reread the Tanach.  Partly because I felt like I was forgetting my biblical Hebrew, and partly because I knew that I had a shaky knowledge of certain books that were never much discussed in shuls and yeshivot.  In the process, a lot of the old questions that I had came to me again.  The odd word here, the repeated episode there, the blatant contradiction with Rabbinical explanations that were hardly convincing.  I wondered if there were better answers.  When I last contemplated these questions, the internet was in it's childhood, Google and Wikipedia were beginning to ramp up their production.  In other words, finding answers wasn't so easy.  However, nowadays, it's easy to find a ton of answers, and to my surprise, a lot of the answers from secular academic sources were far more convincing than the traditional ones I had come up with.  I discovered an entirely new world of information and interpretation.  One that meshed far better with the scientific thinking which was now ingrained in my thought process.

I had never thought to really pursue the findings of modern academia.  This was because, like many Orthodox Jews, I was told that modern academists had a poor understanding of the texts, they didn't understand Hebrew, they were anti-Semitic, the theories had all been disproved.  I'm not sure why I never really questioned this, even after leaving the religion, perhaps it was because I never really thought about it that much.  But I didn't question it.  However, after delving into some of these answers, I learned that like so many other things, the Rabbis of my youth were incorrect in this matter as well.

They claimed that they had a poor understanding of the texts, but what they had was the understanding that these texts likely had a very different purpose than the one that was ascribed to them by the Geonim.  They claimed that academicians didn't understand Hebrew, but modern academia has far better tools to understand biblical Hebrew than traditional Judaism does.  Specifically, they have written language results from contemporary cultures, such as Sumeria, Akkadia, and Egyptian, which can greatly assist at determining meanings of cognate words.  I found the academic explanations to be rooted in archaeology and linguistics, whereas the Rabbinical ones seemed like guesswork, or were driven by theology.   They said the proponents of various biblical theories were anti-Semitic, and indeed some earlier theorists like Wellhausen were.  But it'd be impossible to make that claim today with a straight face, since many of the people involved in the field are Jewish themselves.  Finally, they said, it had all been disproved.  This is easily refuted.  Disproved hypotheses do not get taught at every university with a secular bible course.  Incorrect theories, perhaps.  But not disproved ones.  Once they're found to be wanting, they are discarded, except perhaps in courses on history.

This blog will represent many of the interesting things I've found.  I call it kefirah which means blasphemy, because many of the things I will discuss have unfortunate ramifications for traditional Jewish theological thinking.  Not every denomination of Judaism will have problems with this, but the Orthodoxy I grew up with does.  Unlike the people at thetorah.com, I have no desire to try and mesh modern academia into a version of Judaism, and I don't plan to try.

I will post once a week, on Wednesdays (except on holiday weeks, the first post will be on Monday, Sept 22).  I will attempt to focus on the parsha of the week, but sometimes, I will address more general topics. Most of the posts will provide support for one of the following claims:

1. The Torah was written by different groups of humans at different times, and shows a development of theology
2. The Judaism we know today was strongly influenced by surrounding cultures, ranging from ancient Canaanite to Roman.
3. The historicity of Tanach is highly questionable based on findings of archaeology.  In turn, these archaeological results can help determine the date of composition.

None of these will be proven in a single post, and due to the nature of providing information relevant to the parsha, at some points, I will assume one of the conclusions to make a different point, and come back to the supporting evidence some weeks later.  However, provided I make it through the year, all three of these points will wind up being well supported and well sourced.  Some topics I will not really discuss.  These include arguments for theism and atheism in general.  I will also not argue for basic scientific theories like evolution and radioactive dating.  The brand of Judaism I grew up with accepted these theories anyway. 

So, what made me decide to create this blog?  The main reason was to motivate me to look critically as a lot of different topics in the field, and learn about them in depth.  The best way for me to do that is to write about them.  Then, I will force myself to research topics, take proper notes, and strengthen my own knowledge. Another reason is that this area is a pleasant diversion from my professional work (physics).  It's a nice hobby, albeit quite a bizarre one.  And finally, it's a way to talk to "myself" from 12 years ago.  If I could point my former self towards this blog, it would probably eliminate several wasted years of rationalization, and chasing dead ends.  Perhaps someone out there today is in the shoes I once was in, if so maybe this will help.  If not, that's fine two, the first two reasons are more than enough to carry me through for a year.