In the final chapter of "How to Read the Bible", where James Kugel describes the way he reconciles the preponderance of evidence that suggests that the Torah was written by different groups of people at different times with his Orthodox Jewish beliefs, he states the following.
How can you distinguish the word of God from other, ordinary human words in Scripture? I do not know of any litmus test that can be used. I suppose I have my suspicions about this verse or that one, but I really do not believe it is my business to try to second-guess the text's divine inspiration.He is correct, but only in so much that he refuses to make a litmus test and then subject the Torah to it. He spends the next to paragraphs explaining why he doesn't feel inclined to do so.
The same sentiment appears at the end of Friedman's "Who wrote the Bible." He writes:
The question all along was not "Who inspired the Bible?" or "Who revealed the Bible?" The question was only which human beings actually composed it. Whether they did so at divine direction, dictation, or inspiration was always a matter of faith.After spending the entire book explaining how this section was written by this group of priests with their own propaganda motives, this section was written by another group, and this part added in by a redactor. He states that there's no way to determine if any or all of it is divinely inspired.
To me, both Kugel and Friedman are providing cop-out answers. If the Torah was divine, or divinely inspired, it would be of prime importance to determine that it was so, and if it was edited or corrupted, it is absolutely necessary to find out which parts were problematic. They both throw up their hands and say, "I can't do it" perhaps as a way to justify their own beliefs or mollify their statements to any believers who happen to read them.
Naturally, whether the Torah was divine or not was a question of great importance to me at one time in my past. I was already well on my way to a career in the sciences, and like other questions about the world, I approached this one in a scientifically sound manner. I will reproduce this exercise in this post. I will set out the various criteria I would expect a divinely authored text to fulfill, and then see if the Torah meets those criteria. I will create my own "litmus test" that Kugel says doesn't exist, and then subject the Torah to it. You may of course disagree with the specific criteria I have chosen, and that's fine. I would be interested in seeing your criteria. However, if you are unwilling to offer any criteria, like Kugel, I would find any claims that the Torah or any other text of your choice (Koran, Bhagavad Gita, Book of Mormon) is divine to be unworthy of consideration. The word has no meaning.
While it is impossible for me to recreate entirely my thought process from 15 years ago, I will try as best as I can to be true to my knowledge at that state. Therefore, in the following tests, very little of the information contained in this blog, namely results from biblical archaeology and textual criticism, will be discussed below.
A Divine Text is Self Evident
If given a purportedly divine text, a critical reader should be able to determine that it is divine based on examination of that text alone, provided of course, one understands the language it is written in. This is the first criterion, but it is more of a meta-criterion, since all the others depend on it. One could argue that a text meets all the other criteria that I will soon lay out, but it requires many commentaries and exegeses to bring out the divine nature. I reject that outright. The only way I would interpret exegeses would be if they were universally agreed upon. However, when you have numerous contradictory commentaries, then how are you to choose which one is correct? Furthermore, how can you be certain that it's not the exegesis that is divinely inspired instead of the text? A divine text would not admit this possibility, it would be obviously divine to a reader of the text itself.
One could add an additional criteria that the text would be understandable to any reader regardless of their language. It would be written in mathematical symbols that would be self-derivable. I do not impose this restriction.
The following criteria will all be presented under assumption that a divine text is self-evident. We will list the other criteria, subject the Torah to each one, and see if it passes the litmus test. Then, at the end we will discuss this meta-criteria.
The Criteria
In the following paragraphs I will outline the various criteria. Each one will look like, "A divine text may have X but certainly will not have Y." In these cases at least one of the Xs, for one of the criteria will need to be true, but not necessarily all. However, the existence of Ys will make any divine claim suspect. So here are the criteria
A divine text may reveal information not known at the time, but it certainly will not make factual errors with any revelatory information that come to light with further knowledge.
A divine text may describe universal morality, but it certainly will not include moral statements reflective of the society in which it was written that later are unanimously considered immoral.
A divine text may be pan-cultural, but it certainly will not be reflective of a single culture.
A divine text may be dense, but it certainly will not be repetitive.
To these I add one more Y.
A divine text will not contain contradictions.
We will now look at each of the criteria in turn. I'll note that my decision that the Torah was not divine hinged almost entirely on the first two criteria. The others were just icing on the cake, so to speak.
Is the Torah Revelatory, and if so, is it Correct?
The first question is whether the Torah contains revelatory information that could be used to determine whether it is the product of supernatural forces or not. This information could range from mathematical truths like Fermat's Last Theorem, something that was only proved over 300 years after it was first suggested. Or it could take the form of statements about the physical world, whether locally relevant to us, such as the existence of Uranus and Neptune, or to more general physical truths such as the existence of protons, electrons and the fundamental properties of elements. There is a near limitless amount of knowledge that we have gained about the world, and there's also knowledge that we don't yet know. Any of this could be known to a supernatural being and these statements, which could be easily verified given enough time, would lend credence to claims of divinity.
The Torah is indeed revelatory, containing information that could not be known to the ancient Israelites, or indeed any nation at that time. The information includes statements about the creation of the world, and the events in distant history. All of Genesis 1-10 fit in this category of revelatory information. Unfortunately, the claims of Genesis 1-10 are completely at odds with what we have learned about the world. It's revelatory, but the revelations are false. They include such incorrect statements as claiming that plants existed before the sun, and that angiosperms existed before the insects to pollinate them. It describes a global flood that kills all but a meager few animals, which is an easy statement to check in the geological and fossil record, and checking that record tells us that the biblical story is fictionarl. It describes the proliferation of languages, specifically claiming that there existed such a time when all nations spoke the same language. It's clear that the Egyptian and Sumerian nations, which were already leaving written records during this time period, were already speaking different languages.
Therefore it fails the second half, the Y, it contains false revelatory information. Not only that, it's hard pressed to come up with any true revelatory information that is objectively testable. In all honesty, the failure of this statement was enough to cause big questions about the Torah's divinity, or at least, I surmised that these sections could not be the product of a supernatural being. But, I will take a moment to examine the common objections offered by religious believers.
The first objection is that the science is wrong, and the Torah is correct. People will mention that science changes its results, so there's no good reason that it won't change its claims about the early history of the world to align with the Torah. This argument is appealing only to people who haven't spent the time learning enough to understand exactly why these claims about the early world is made, and what the supporting evidences for them are. To cast doubt on claims such as the fictionality of the flood is equivalent to casting doubt on all scientifically acquired knowledge in general. That solution was not appealing to me.
The more interesting objection is that the purpose of Genesis 1-10 is not to provide us with historical information or knowledge of the physical world at all, but rather to provide a moral or spiritual lesson. The stories are "allegorical" and only a simplistic reading would think they were literal. Therefore, the claim is that the Torah is actually not revelatory, at least in any objectively testable way. However, this is not a convincing argument. Surely, a divine being could create a story with the same moral and spiritual lessons but without the factual inaccuracies. Even moreso, if the moral and spiritual lessons are important, then why is it not obvious what those lessons are? There is no single explanation in the Talmud as to the moral/spiritual purposes of these chapters (nor, for that matter, any indication that they treated them as anything but descriptions of the physical world).
Is the Torah Moral or Immoral?
The second question deals with the morality of the Torah. The Torah certainly does make rulings that appear to deal with morality. For example, it includes its version of the golden rule, "love your neighbor as yourself." A fine moral lesson, provided you aren't a masochist. There are very few people who would disagree that the Torah makes moral rulings. However, to be considered divine, those statements must be universal both in space (i.e. obvious to many cultures) and time (i.e. just as valid then as today). They should represent the best morality available.
When applying this universal constraint on biblical morality we run into serious problems. Even in the time of the Gemara, various laws were viewed as problematic. The infamous lex talionis, "an eye for an eye," was considered barbaric by the Talmudic Rabbis, and they proposed that it should really be the price of an eye for an eye. Similarly, laws like the rebellious son 21:18-23 were thought by Chazal to have never been performed (Sanhedrin 71a).
When we read through the biblical laws, we are not presented with a description of an ideal society, but rather we are presented with laws you might very well expect from an iron age kingdom. Granted, there are good laws like leaving agricultural excess the poor, and concerns to look after widows and orphans. But the Torah also countenances slavery, including eternal slavery for non-Jews and the option to break up families by selling off children and wives. It condemns homosexuality in the strongest terms. It treats women as second class citizens or worse. And, finally, it commands the Jews to commit genocide on the Canaanite nations. Surely these commandments, could not be representative of a moral society. Or, in other words, if they did represent the divinely sanctioned ideal society, it is not one in which I would want any part in, and would actively oppose.
And if this isn't bad enough for claims of divinity, many of these commandments exist in near identical form in various other Ancient Near East law codes. The most famous of these is the Code of Hammurabi, which dates to the 18th century BCE, prior to the claimed revelation of Sinai by any reckoning. It should be noted, that this law code and others like it were claimed to be product of divine revelation as well. Why does the true divine law code bear such striking similarities to these other imposter law codes?
It is very hard to argue that the Torah is divine based on its moral message. There are fine moral messages in it, but there are also awful ones. It fails the Y, and does so spectacularly. It appears no different in this manner than any other Ancient Near East text, or indeed, any text from other cultures as well.
Is the Torah pan-cultural or representative of a single culture?
This one is tough to characterize. Indeed when one looks at the story of the Exodus from Egypt, one finds a narrative that has resonated with many different cultures throughout history. However, other stories fall flat when removed from the Ancient Near East culture that they first appeared in. Nevertheless, there are many examples of the Torah about cultural elements unique to the region of the Israelites, for example that of Levirate marriage, and there are no examples of cultural elements unique to say, the Chinese, or the Native Americans. It appears that the Torah is more a product of a single culture, that happened to hit on some universal themes (as other cultures did), rather than a representation of every culture.
Why is this important? Because, in my conception, a supernatural being would want every nation to be able to relate to the divine document. The Torah would be God's gift to humanity, not God's gift to the small desert wandering Israelites. This is not possible if it clearly meant to resonate with a single culture. Nevertheless, I expect many people to disagree with this criteria.
Is the Torah Dense or Unnecessarily Repetitive?
This criterion is probably the one which is most directly derived from my Jewish upbringing. Had I grown up in a different culture, I'm not sure I would have held much stock in it. Yet when one is presented with statements like the one where Rabbi Akiva derived laws from even the crowns on top of the letters (Menachot 29b) it's easy to come away with the idea that there's a level of complexity and density to the Torah. (As an aside, these explanations of the crowns were never recorded.)
Even without this cultural background it may be reasonable to assume that given a text of finite length a divine creature would want to make sure it contains as much detail as possible. That seems like a reasonable assumption. And indeed, if one looks at the numerous written works in the Talmud, and later commentaries, one is given the appearance of a significant amount of density.
And yet, the commentaries are not uniformly distributed. You will find that certain overly repetitive sections of the text are commentary-free. They repeat the same thing, in the exact same words, multiple times. Other stories appear to be repeated, like the stories of a patriarch going to a foreign land and having the foreign king abduct his wife. These kind of repetitive structures look a lot more like what you'd find in formulaic iron age writings and inscriptions than what would appear in a divine book.
Then you wonder if the Torah is actually dense or artificially dense? Can this even be objectively determined? If you compared the Torah to something like the US Constitution, would it be more or less dense? I don't have an answer to this specific question, mainly because it was pretty clear to me that the Y, failed here, so there wasn't much need to verify whether the X was satisfied.
Does the Torah Contain Contradictions?
This last criterion is probably where many people begin in criticizing the divinity of the Torah. But to me, it was far less important. The question is answered in an obvious yes, at least if you rephrase it to "does the Torah contain apparent contradictions." No one disputes that. The difference is that traditionally Judaism (and any other religion with a defining text) uses these internal contradictions as a means of achieving density. The contradictions require a clever explanation, and therefore deeper messages can be hidden in the text. After all, no author would be dumb enough to blatantly contradict themselves. (Aside: Interestingly, people that argue for single authorship in academic circles use the argument that Ancient Near East authors were tolerant of internal contradictions.)
When I was religious these ad-hoc exegetical explanations were satisfactory. As I became less convinced of the divinity of the Torah, I still found many of them reasonable. However, that was because I didn't have any better explanations myself. Now, with the knowledge I have gained from academic investigations, I have found much better explanations for various inconsistencies in the Torah.
How Can the Torah's Divinity be Believed in?
If you objectively look at the Torah, and subject it to reasonable criteria, whether they be those listed above or some other set of your choosing, the Torah fails the test of being self-evidently divine. The failure is obvious when noting that a wide swath of the population disagrees with the divinity of the book, whereas is the book was self-evidently divine, they would convert to the religion in droves. So, if the Torah itself can't be used as proof of its own divinity, is there any other reason to believe that it was given to humankind by God? Jews who believe in the divinity usually offer one of two explanations, and we'll look at them now.
The first explanation is less common. It would look something like, "I believe in Judaism because my parents believe in Judaism, and it was what I was brought up to believe." An individual who says this generally has a less fundamentalist relationship with the religion, and views Judaism more as a culture than a philosophy. To this individual, I have no real way to make a rational argument, because the defense is inherently irrational. The individual says essentially, "I believe because I believe." Such an individual isn't terribly interested in objective tests whether the religion is correct or not. They might even believe in some kind of religious plurality in which all religions, even contradictory ones, can be simultaneously correct.
It is the second common defense that is much more interesting. The individual believes in the divinity of the Torah, and Judaism itself, not because of the self-evidency of the text, but because, "Judaism maintains a long tradition (mesorah) of the divinity of the text." Often the believer will invoke arguments like the Modern Kuzari to defend their text. In other words, we believe the Torah is divine because we have a link to a direct witness of God giving the Torah to the Jews.
Without getting into the flaws of the specific modern Kuzari argument, of which there are many, it's possible to reject this line of thinking outright. If your belief in the divinely inspired nature of Judaism rests only on the claim of divine transmission, and if it can't be determined objectively by examination of its holy texts and ordinances, then we must conclude that the divine creature who gave it, is one who values obedience over reason. Humanity's greatest feat, our ability to think and reason, should be suspended. The quote from Galileo to the Grand Duchess Christina is appropriate here:
I do not feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.The god that wants us to ignore our own abilities to reason and instead rely solely on the claims of previous generations, is not a god worth worshiping.
There I must conclude where I started. If Judaism represents the divine will, and if the Torah represents a divinely inspired document, then it must be identifiable by design by inspection of the document itself. Since inspection of the Torah reveals that it has no clear indication of anything that sets it apart from any other text, and looks entirely to be a product of human invention in the Iron Age of the Near East, then there is no compelling reason to assume it is divinely inspired.
It's not just Kugel and Friedman, but almost every bible academic I've read stops short of saying "the torah is a man-made invention". I also thought at first that it was a way to garner acceptance from fundamental Christians and orthodox Jews. After recently completing Akenson's book, I realized that they are actually just sticking to their expertise. As scholars and scientists they can easily tell us the torah was written by multiple authors, they can also prove the dating is much later than the authors claim, but they have no way of deciding whether or not the authors were inspired by a higher being.
ReplyDeleteYou laid it out simply like a 'shulchan oreich' but like you said; if someone believes because they believe, all the proofs in the world won't change anything. Yasher koach Kefira!
@M Rose As scholars and scientists they surely CAN make a decision whether the Torah has any indication of being anything other than a human authored book about 3000 years ago by an ancient near east culture. Most choose not to in order to avoid funding cuts, public outrage, threats...
DeleteKocker, they DO conclude that it was written by humans sometime between 586 BCE and 70 CE. What they refuse to say is that those human authors weren't INSPIRED by God, angels, heavenly voices, or an oral tradition from some mountain in the desert. Obviously, all bible scholars agree that the genealogy of moshe - zekeinim - yehoshua - neviim etc (from Avos) is anachronistic and flawed.
Delete@M Rose As scholars and scientists they surely CAN make a decision whether the Torah has any indication of being anything other than a human INSPIRED book written about 3000 years ago by people inspired by ancient near east culture. Most choose not to in order to avoid funding cuts, public outrage, threats...
Delete@ Kefirah Another great post - for some of the 'litmus' tests that I had see my april 2014 post.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your sentences "If your belief in the divinely inspired nature of Judaism rests only on the claim of divine transmission, and if it can't be determined objectively by examination of its holy texts and ordinances, then we must conclude that the divine creature who gave it, is one who values obedience over reason."
Some Orthodox Rabbis may respond - lets assume the Kuzari argument is a valid argument and it's conclusion is valid. If so, this means a revelation happened at Sinai and something was given by G-d back then. So you see G-d does value reason. Once the Kuzari argument is accepted all other issues may be swept under the rug - G-d is a mystery - we cant understand why this or that, when the Moshiach comes all questions will be resolved, we need to find the true meaning of what the Torah posuk means etc: etc:
I will add - anybody proposing any text is divine has the obligation of providing very strong evidence the book could not have been written by humans. I have seen no evidence at all for any text having supernatural origins. My blog covers many of such kinds of Torah/Talmud proofs and I have found none of them at all convincing. Until such evidence is presented we should rationally accept the books all too human origins.
AKA: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Delete@zdub - agreed and I have said so myself. Not only is there no extraordinary evidence for the Torah being divine, there is not even ordinary evidence !
Delete"The first question is whether the Torah contains revelatory information that could be used to determine whether it is the product of supernatural forces or not. This information could range from mathematical truths like Fermat's Last Theorem, something that was only proved over 300 years after it was first suggested. Or it could take the form of statements about the physical world, whether locally relevant to us, such as the existence of Uranus and Neptune, or to more general physical truths such as the existence of protons, electrons and the fundamental properties of elements. There is a near limitless amount of knowledge that we have gained about the world, and there's also knowledge that we don't yet know. Any of this could be known to a supernatural being and these statements, which could be easily verified given enough time, would lend credence to claims of divinity."
ReplyDeleteYou are falsifying the assertion to show that the Torah COULDN'T HAVE been divine because it gets stuff wrong, but I find the assertion itself flawed. It really CAN'T prove or even "lend credence to claims of divinity". First, there would STILL be a more rational explanation. Clarke's 3rd law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Positing that the "revelatory information" was actually a product of ancient visitors from another planet is STILL a more rational explanation than a supernatural deity, is it not? (On the other side of the coin, one could always claim that if a God-given document were given to a people 3000 years ago it have to be in a form that they could understand, and that later generations would be wise enough to derive deeper, non-literal meanings from the content. Therefore it would make no sense to encode scientific information and any attempt to do so was simply misguided.)
So, really, WHAT would convince you that the Torah contained DRI - DIVINE Relevatory Information? If it had encoded the knowledge of Newtonian physics, would that be enough? Obviously, it would be evidence of a superior mind, but would you then believe it was DIVINE, or perhaps an unpublished closet Galileo scribe lost to the ages? The latter makes more sense, does it not? And if so, this argument extends infinitum to ANY level of scientific sophistication, since 500 years hence our modern day understand of physics the nature of the universe might seem like kindergarten stuff ("that silly scribe thought that the ultimate nature of the universe was based on one dimensional strings!")
@zbub - if there was advanced scientific knowledge in the Torah it would at least strongly suggest the Torah was not solely a product of an ancient near east culture. It opens the possibility for an advanced alien species or possibly something from the supernatural helping to write the Torah. But that is all moot because there is no such knowledge to be found in the Torah or Mesorah.
DeleteMy question stands: Is there ANYTHING that would CONVINCE you that the Torah contained Divine Revelatory Information?
Deletezdub - I don't agree with a couple things you said.
Delete"Positing that the "revelatory information" was actually a product of ancient visitors from another planet is STILL a more rational explanation than a supernatural deity, is it not?"
I disagree here. For the simple reason that the Torah also includes a description of how it was transmitted. Therefore, as soon as there is significant supporting evidence, then that descriptions jumps to the top of the most probable. You can argue that I'm putting far too much emphasis on this information. But I assure you if I found this stuff in the Torah 15 years ago, I would have remained religious. And if I find it now, I would definitely reevaluate my position. Whether it moves me towards full belief depends on how strong the evidence is.
"If it had encoded the knowledge of Newtonian physics, would that be enough?"
The examples I gave were specifically chosen. Regardless of the details of string theory, iron still has 26 protons. The reletavistic corrections to Mercury's orbit don't change the fact that Uranus and Neptune exist with roughly 14.5 and 17.1 times the earth's mass respectively. I would find this information very convincing. Mainly because they're the kind of stuff I thought of if I wanted to convince someone that I had privileged knowledge. You might think I put far too much weight on this kind of stuff, and that's a fair cop. But I am being honest here.
I meant to add, with regard to Newtonian physics:
DeleteI don't think I would find the encoding of Newtonian laws convincing. For one, I'm not sure what that means. The language didn't really exist to describe it. Newton actually had to invent calculus in order to rigorously describe what he's talking about.
The descriptions of his laws in words is also not too convincing because I could very well see someone from 2000 years before him producing those same statements. Newton's contribution was that he rigorously defined what was going on and provided significant experimental evidence. If someone did that 2000 years ago, I would just conclude that he was a visionary scientist, a genius the world had never seen since. The information I described is far more relevatory. They're the statemnts of facts.
"But I assure you if I found this stuff in the Torah 15 years ago, I would have remained religious. And if I find it now, I would definitely reevaluate my position. Whether it moves me towards full belief depends on how strong the evidence is."
DeleteIt would keep you religious, but, hopefully, nothing could not invalidate the academic-type insights.
@A Kefirah - But the G-d the Jews claim gave the 'secret' info could have been an alien. Such an alien would appear as a G-d to the ancient semites.
ReplyDeleteSure, but again, the purpose of this revelatory information is for me to trust the text. If it was really an alien who revealed this information, I would expect to discuss someone who was an alien. You would have verses that say "God came from the stars" and not "God came from Sinai"
DeleteOf course it's possible, but I think it's a less likely conclusion. Of course given the text we have, both these possibilities are beneath consideration.
It seems to me that this post does a reasonably good job of refuting a *very specific* version of a divine book. You start off by implying that your test is to see if “the Torah was divine, *or divinely inspired*”, but then all of your tests only really work against a narrow version of what a divine text is, and arguably not at all against a divinely inspired text.
ReplyDeleteTo be a little clearer, according to the view that Gd literally speaks to people (as in conveys specific words, or at the very least specific information – something like what fundamentalist Christians and right wing Orthodox Jews believe), then (at least some of) your tests are reasonable to check whether a specific text is the product of such communication. Even then, if the text was later heavily edited, it could fail your test(s) while still containing divine material.
It’s worth noting that under this hypothesis, as mentioned by M Rose: Kugel, Friedman et. al. have already refuted the assertion by showing late authorship etc. and therefore no further litmus test is required.
But I think that many people who think the Torah is divine (or divinely inspired) have a very different view on what that means. Their view (of course) stems from a very different conception of Gd. There are many versions of this, for example the more left wing of Orthodox Judaism (plus the more rationalist part of the centre to centre right) right through conservative Judaism and much of Christianity. Clearly this is not a homogeneous bunch, so there is no point in trying to generalise a conception of Gd or “divine texts” for them, but they would largely still claim the text to be divinely inspired while (in many cases) accepting late authorship, errors (factual and moral) etc.
Under this, more moderate claim, of divine inspiration it is quite possible that the text would contain a number of Y characteristics, and quite possibly no X’s (in fact most of the X’s would be very surprising).
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI would like anybody who claims the Torah divine or divine inspired to make a prediction on what the book shoul dlook like. Must it contain truth - some religious argue no. Must it appear different than other ANE texts ? They say no; etc: etc: In short, they make no predictions and moreover their claim can not be falsified. It is a worthless hypothesis. see https://altercockerjewishatheist.blogspot.com/2018/07/ancient-texts-and-gods.html
DeleteI feel like you are entirely missing the point. What does "divine" even mean? That depends on what you think "God" means. If you're stuck in the belief that the only meaningful use of the world is basically a character with human-like characteristics then you are correct, we can ask "if he has so much knowledge and wrote or inspired a book then we should be able to 'test' for that".
DeleteHowever if you have a much more subtle view on what God is then that may no longer hold. As an example, if you take Spinoza's view (just as an example), then what would it mean for a book to be "divinely inspired"? It surely doesn't mean that is has any supernatural element! So you might define it as so by virtue of it making a significant step in the "right" direction for society as a whole.
Under this view, the very idea of "divinely inspired" presumably could be in degrees. Anyone who writes something in consonance with "oneness" could be said to be writing under divine inspiration. So what is the test and what is the cutoff point?
The theoretical (but in practice impossible to carry out) test might be:
-Decompose the text to its constituent statements
-for each statement, grade it on a scale appropriate for its content (if it is an ethical statement, grade it as such, if scientific then obviously grade it as such etc.)
-for each set of statements (ethical, scientific etc), you then need a control set of statements from outside of the text (but in the same time-period and general culture) to compare it against: the same process needs to be followed with these statements.
-undertake some sort of normalisation process to allow the comparison.
Clearly I am not suggesting that this test could actually be carried out; I am merely trying to point out that a text can be full of errors, unethical statements etc. but still, on average, be far more ethical, true or whatever compared to the background situation to the degree that it could rightly be called "divinely inspired".
Another way of assessing it might be to look at what its product is. Objectively the Magna Carta is not that great a document, but in the context of its time, and importantly, given the trajectory that it was influential in starting out, it can rightly be thought of as an important foundational text in western morality - maybe even divinely inspired.
"What does 'divine' even mean? That depends on what you think 'God' means." Good. Let the religious tell me the answers for their particular religion. Then tell me what predictions can be made and how can their definitions be falsified. How their definitions correspond to the Torah and explain it's contents.
Delete"..you then need a control set of statements from outside of the text (but in the same time-period and general culture) to compare it against:" This is what I have been doing. Comparing the Torah and Tenach to other ANE cultures. rituals, laws, rituals, texts - and the Torah is not so special after all.
Delete"Another way of assessing it might be to look at what its product is. Objectively the Magna Carta is not that great a document, but in the context of its time, and importantly, given the trajectory that it was influential in starting out, it can rightly be thought of as an important foundational text in western morality - maybe even divinely inspired."
DeleteOr more likely human inspired by knowledge of other political systems, political motivations, enlightenment, evolution of Ideals and morality. Muslims tell me the Koran is so special that it is divinely inspired. The poetry, the amazing use of ancient Arabic language, the advocacy of great morality (especially for it's period)blah blah. I have seen nothing in it or the Torah that suggests anything other than human authorship.
"Clearly I am not suggesting that this test could actually be carried out; I am merely trying to point out that a text can be full of errors, unethical statements etc. but still, on average, be far more ethical, true or whatever compared to the background situation to the degree that it could rightly be called "divinely inspired". "
DeleteWhy can't a particular group, any group develop say an allegedly truer statement than it's surround ? For example - The ancient Greeks proposed versions of modern science. THis required divine inspiration ? They were using their intellect and speculating. You want to call it divine go ahead, I call it human thinking.
It is possible we may find an ancient book with contents that makes it appear to be extremely unlikely for it to have been written by people in ancient times. Implicit in such a notion is predictability, meaning if humans wrote it we can make certain predictions. Since those predictions failed, we may argue for aliens or supernatural involvement or some other alternate hypothesis. That is the sort of argument some Muslims use for Koran.
Delete@ACJA
DeleteIt seems like you are not directly adressing my statements for the main part.
With regards to your claim that "This is what I have been doing. Comparing the Torah and Tenach to other ANE...", that is not what you have been doing. Or at least you have not been doing it scientifically. By your method, one could equally pick the best outcomes from homeopathy and compare them favorably to the worst from a valid therapy.
To do it properly you need to do a rigorous and unbiased test. As I said, I don't really think it possible (or at least practical), but that would be the way to do it, not selectively.
If you do want to be selective, then you need to take the *best* of tenach and show that it is replicated in the background culture, not just in a random statement, but in canonised works. Let's start with Amos 5:21-24. Was it common (or even present) in other ANE cultures to so denigrate worship of gods through sacrifice, prayer and song? For a prophet to explicitly say that a god despises the peoples offerings to and worship of it due to their lack of compassion to their fellow man (or even fellow tribesman)? This is a serious question. I don't believe I have seen any cases of this ever shown.
I think I have addressed your statements. 1) Your approach is similar to what Muslims and or some Jews use to support their holy texts. Ours is so special that blah blah. 2) I do not think I have been selective at all. For example I touched on an Amos like example in this post http://altercockerjewishatheist.blogspot.com/2018/06/proof-of-god-from-prophecy-part-2_27.html when discussing a difference between Israelite and pagan prophets. 3) You do not need to show the 'best' of Tenach is replicated in the ANE. (How about showing that the best of North American Indian religion is not duplicated in Tenach ?.) There are enough similarities to demonstrate the Tenach is not really so special. THere are also limited amounts of surviving records from ANE. It is possible, the Tenach 'improves' upon general ANE laws and such, but no need to invoke supernatural for that.5)Amos 5:21-24. Was it common (or even present) in other ANE cultures to so denigrate worship of gods through sacrifice, prayer and song? I have no Idea if this was even common in Israel !!!! Off hand I do not know the answer to your question. But concern for down trodden is found in ANE. Often that is the context for Israel's prophets when they rail against ritual observance.
DeleteYou really have not.
DeleteI never claimed anything to be "supernatural" I don;t even know what that would mean in principle tbh, but certainly I didn't claim it.
I also never claimed tenach to be "more" special than any of the other specific texts or cultures you talk about.
I never used the word "holy" (again a word without a clear meaning so not particularly helpful).
I read the post you linked to, which is not particularly coherent, so very difficult to parse. I couldn't find anything there that was an "Amos-like" example.
More generally, as noted above if you are comparing two sets of data you need to compare their average and spread etc. not just two individual data points. That was the thrust of my post above, and you have not addressed it.
@YONI2 "...if you are comparing two sets of data you need to compare their average and spread etc. not just two individual data points." have compared many data points and the Tenach's rituals, myths, superstitions have numerous points of contact with ANE. Maybe read my post a few times and it will become more coherent. I also suggest this one http://altercockerjewishatheist.blogspot.com/2018/03/psalms-ancient-near-east-texts-prayer_21.html but others will do.
Delete@YONI@ "..if you are comparing two sets of data you need to compare their average and spread etc. not just two individual data points." BUT, if the average is about the same then even if the spread is not, you would still not reject the null hypothesis. Anyway, on both measures the Tenach would fail. On average is about the same as other ANE law etc: and the spread is also about the same, even if some Israel prophets rail against poor treatment of down trodden in the context of zealous ritual.
Delete@Yoni2 - On litmus tests. For the religious there is no possible litmus test - they can always claim you have no idea what a divine book or divine inspired book should look like. My attitude is very simple. You claim a book is divine or divine inspired - then provide good reasons why that book or parts of it could not be written by humans. We can stop right now. But it gets worse. Your book has the look and feel of other ANE texts and so the most likely explanation is your book is human authored and no need to invoke divine inspiration.
Delete@YONI2 "Clearly I am not suggesting that this test could actually be carried out; I am merely trying to point out that a text can be full of errors, unethical statements etc. but still, on average, be far more ethical, true or whatever compared to the background situation to the degree that it could rightly be called "divinely inspired"."
DeleteThere is nothing in the Tenach to suggest divine or divine inspired, even if allegedly is more ethical or truer than other ancient texts. I mentioned this before for greeks and the Magna.
@ACJA
DeleteIt finally looks like you have addressed my point. However you also still keep strawman-ing me, which is really frustrating.
-"not be written by humans" - I never made any arguments against human authorship.
-"most likely explanation is your book is human authored" - see above.
-"I mentioned this before for greeks and the Magna" - I explicitly referenced Magna in my point so as *not to* exclude it from the category of "divinely inspired".
Now as to the point where you actually adress my argument. You say:
"BUT, if the average is about the same then even if the spread is not, you would still not reject the null hypothesis. Anyway, on both measures the Tenach would fail. On average is about the same as other ANE law etc: and the spread is also about the same, even if some Israel prophets rail against poor treatment of down trodden in the context of zealous ritual."
That at least "gets" the point I was trying to make. I agree that if just the spread was off (but means were within statistical bounds of error) then there would not (necessarily) be a "rejection of the null hypothosis", although there would presumably still be something interesting to look at (assuming that the difference in spread was significant). So yes, this is the point I was making.
As to whether you have accurately determined the spread to be the same, I think that is doubtful. There are just to many factors to be controlled for to be able to objectivly make such a statement.
-How are you judging each statement's moral virtue? What grading system are you using, and by who's measure are you assessing each? Your own subjective measure? Surely that's hopelessly biased! (Note, I am not making the "religious" argument that "you can't possibly know what Gd considers moral"; I am making a far more (quasi) scientific point around measurements. You are trying to measure something, but have not come up with a robust method to measure things by. This is a very real problem in attempting to "grade" ethics.
-What process have you used to sample the data? Can we be sure it is random selection and unbiased?
-At what level have you chosen to interpret the data? In any rich text you will have layers of meaning, the factor you are looking for could be at any of these layers.
I really don;t think that the test can be done. But if you really wanted to make a case that you have done this, it would need to be far more methodical than what I can see from your blog posts. You would first need to come up with the measure, then ensure that the measure got wide buy-in. Then come up with the test methodology, and again make sure that got buy-in, then run the test. Likely you would need to do this under a range of measures and test methodologies before the study could be taken seriously.
As an analogy, consider the "bible-codes". The people that ran it claimed that their test showed highly significant results. On the surface their claim is far more credible than yours, as they have a clear measurement methodology, sampling method and test-statistic. Yet when you look a little deeper you see that the same group came up with all three, and then presented the results of the study based on that. The main weakness with their paper is that there was a potential for data-mining (even unintentional) through repeated sampling / testing etc. (on a side-note, it seems to me that there is a valid and pretty irrefutable [although maybe somewhat unethical] way to test their hypothesis. I am somewhat surprised that no-one has tried it - or maybe they have and simply didn't get the results they were looking for).
The point I am making is not that you have done exactly the same thing, but merely that claiming to have "done the test" without a robust, well ordered and repeated (and repeatable) approach is simply not a claim worth investigating.
Now, back to how this all got started. My initial post on this blog was not so much to make the claim that the bible *is* divinely inspired, but merely to point out that this particular blog post simply doesn't address that question. It addresses the question of whether the bible was written by a "superhuman" author with knowledge of the future, special knowledge of sciences etc. That is absolutely fine as a blog post, but I was pointing out that it *starts* with the claim that it is refuting the question for whether the text is divine *or* divinely inspired, and then goes on to refute only one of these (and even that under a specific definition of divine).
DeleteI'm not hugely interested in debating whether the text *is* divinely inspired or not. I don't particularly think it is a very good question (or know what the ramifications of either answer would be). I am merely pointing out that if someone *does* make such a claim (and many seem to do so), it is hard and maybe impossible to refute that as a specific point. The best I could do would be to say that if the bible is divinely inspired, then by that measure so is the Magna, the deceleration of independence etc.
Yoni2, I didn't follow the entire back and forth, but I really want to address your original statement.
DeleteYou say that what I'm rejecting here is a description of the text by right-wing orthodox and inerrant Christians, and not, for example, the large number of Conservative, Reform or Reconstructionist interpretations. To this, I say that you are absolutely correct. I am rejecting precisely this interpretation. However, this interpretation was the most important to me, because it was the one drilled into my head from many Rebbeim over the years. Once that cracked, it allowed me to question more and more.
In my own personal arc the story does not end here. For several years I maintained some sort of theism while not believing in Orthodox Judaism per se. I eventually came to the conclusion that I couldn't justify theistic belief, or at least, some sort of active God, but for a while still I maintained a deistic belief. Eventually that fell too, not because I could disprove deism, but rather because I didn't find that it affected anything. I had reduced God to the point that he was unimportant. But that's a separate line.
The second arc is when I started picking up the Tanach again and reading through it from cover to cover. I came across many episodes that looked very bizarre. Stuff like David getting introduced to Shaul three separate times, and each time Shaul not knowing who he is. The story was incoherent in parts, and looked to be stitched together somewhat haphazardly. This caused me to look into some of the academic work on the Bible. Only with that information could I describe a compositional framework that was more plausible than the one I grew up with.
So to recap, the story in this post ends with me rejecting the Orthodox interpretation that I grew up with. I cannot reject every possible explanation of "divinely inspired" in the same way that I cannot outright reject a deistic god. I'm just not sure what they add. I would argue that Beethoven's op 111 is more divinely inspired than the biblical text though under any possible interpretation I can come up with :)
Hi Kefira
DeleteThanks for responding.
Let me preface by saying I was not trying to pick holes in any of your specific arguments. I would add that having now read your entire boog over a protracted period of time, you are probably the human being that has had the single biggest effect on how I read tanach (and to a lesser degree Talmud). I can hardly read a portion of Torah now without noticing the repetition or inconsistencies in a way that I never would have 3 years ago (when I was already a certified skeptic of orthodox theology). I remember several years ago having a go at reading the Koran and finding it to be far less beautiful than the Torah as I new it (far more obscure, jumping from topic to topic with no apparent link etc.) I now see many of these features in the Torah too (although I would still say it is more literarily beautiful than the Koran to me by a long shot - maybe because I know it so much better.)
I also never intended my comment to lead to a discussion on the benefits or drawbacks of a Conservative etc. take on scripture / theology (although that is an interesting discussion, and I am undecided as to whether there is any value in that system of thinking.) I personally am sceptical of any god that transcends the laws of nature (although I am open to the personification of “goodness” “truth” etc. for practical purposes, and living an orthodox life I also still find much beauty and even meaning in it and generally try to avoid cognitive dissonance as much as possible [with limited success] but how I attempt that a far longer topic).
The purpose of my comment was to point out that your post is probably attacking a straw man with respect to Kugel and Friedman. I don’t know anything about their theology per say, but seeing as both have admitted to human authors over time, surely neither would expect the text to follow any of your tests. As such while your test may have some value, it is not in refuting either of them (which is the purpose for the test as you set out in your post).
@Yoni2 - "How are you judging each statement's moral virtue?" I AM NOT. Tenach has concern for downtrodden - so do other ANE cultures. About the same. But even if someone was to argue the Tenach has MORE, there is still no need to invoke divine or divine inspiration.
Delete"What process have you used to sample the data? Can we be sure it is random selection and unbiased?" I have not sampled. Just read the Tenach and then read other ANE myth, law, rituals to the extent we have them. I usually cite all sources etc: so check them out.
Delete@Yoni2 "The point I am making is not that you have done exactly the same thing, but merely that claiming to have "done the test" without a robust, well ordered and repeated (and repeatable) approach is simply not a claim worth investigating." AFAIK NOBODY has done what you request, and I am not sure it is possible with limited data we have and the numerous other problems. I do not think it is required to go thru your test to make a determination if the Tenach is divine or divinely inspired any more than for the greek science, Koran, Magna. It is sufficient to note the Tenach is all to human and to the extent there are 'improvements' there is no reason to suggest or require divine or divine inspired. The Tenach has the look and feel of a text authored by ancient ignorant people steeped in ANE culture.
Delete@Yoni2 "I remember several years ago having a go at reading the Koran and finding it to be far less beautiful than the Torah as I new it (far more obscure, jumping from topic to topic with no apparent link etc.) I now see many of these features in the Torah too (although I would still say it is more literarily beautiful than the Koran to me by a long shot - maybe because I know it so much better.)" SO SAY YOU. Muslim would probably argue that is because you have not studied the Koran in it's original Arabic, with all it's commentary upon commentary. All it's nuances, meshing with science blah blah blah. Spend 20 years studying the Koran, living with Muslims etc: and you will see the truth. This is why I mentioned Koran when discussing your litmus test. ThEy argue using your test, but not maybe not calibrated to your exacting standards.
Delete@Yino2 - YOU can not refute a religious person who claims his text is divine or divine inspired. Even if their text fails your litmus test they invent excuses. The religious are using very similar to your test I have mentioned this already. They argue their holy book needs divine intervention for it's creation because it is so different or because it has amazing science in it etc: I have provided many such arguments in my blog posts.
Delete@YONI2 Please read http://altercockerjewishatheist.blogspot.com/2018/03/psalms-ancient-near-east-texts-prayer_21.html IT was stuff like that that made me think the Tenach was not so special. That it's 'average' was close enough to other ANE peoples to not reject the null hypothesis. But even if the Tenach's average is much different than ANE, so what ? It's spread is not so different as to cause a rejection of the null hypothesis. But even if we could reject the null hypothesis, all you could conclude it's average was different, not that it was divine or divine inspired. But the bottom line the onus is on religious to all the work too 'prove' the Tenach requires divine intervention. So far I have seen nothing convincing.
Delete@Yoni2 I would also argue the most likely explanation for why the the Torah looks like a book written by ancient ignorant people steeped in ANE culture, is because that is what it is.
Delete@Yoni2
Delete"...whether the text *is* divinely inspired or not... I am merely pointing out that if someone *does* make such a claim (and many seem to do so), it is hard and maybe impossible to refute that as a specific point."" I only partially agree and have written such - please read https://altercockerjewishatheist.blogspot.com/2018/07/ancient-texts-and-gods.html This is one reason why I mentioned the importance of predictions and falsifiability.
@YONI2 I just providing my thoughts on the matter. Not asking you to debate or defend. But if you want clarifications for my POV or any of my alleged incoherent blog posts or comments - I will try to clarify. Shalom
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete