Absence of Evidence

Parshat Vayechi

I left this week blank for a while, not because there are a lack of topics, but rather because there were so many different choices that I wasn't sure what I wanted to talk about.  In the end, I decided on a discussion of a particular argument you see thrown around a lot among the Modern Orthodox, sometimes where it is applicable, but often where it isn't.  The argument is often stated as "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," and when misapplied yields to something akin to scientific nihilism.  I will demonstrate this with two contrived examples, and then follow it up with a discussion of a topic relevant to Torah historicity.

Before I begin, I will make a caveat.  This post assumes a general acceptance of scientific principles.  There can certainly be discussion on this matter, but I am far from an expert in philosophy of science or on the finer points of epistemology.  So, out of necessity, I'm going to take the accuracy of scientific methodology as an assumption.  This isn't too bad for this topic, since in general, the people who misuse "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" aren't rejecting the value of the scientific method intentionally. They're attempting to use scientific principles in a way that supports an improbable event.

President Wilbur Thwilmond

Imagine a situation where you are in conversation with me, and I state that there was once a US president by the name of Wilbur Thwilmond. You might reply that there was no such president by that name.  I will ask how you know that.  You might pull up a list of presidents, perhaps on Wikipedia, or maybe from the government website, and you'll note that the name Wilbur Thwilmond does not appear on that list.  "Ah," I'll reply, "but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  Just because the name does not appear on the list is not sufficient to prove that there was no such president."

Depending on how ornery I wish to be, the discussion can then devolve down a line familiar to anyone who ever discussed something with a conspiracy theorist.  I could bring up many possible scenarios that could have vaulted this individual to the highest office, along with lots of reasons as to why the person's name was suppressed in all historical records. I could even bring up alternate sources from other people (or myself under pseudonyms) sympathetic to the "Thwilmond Hypothesis" to bolster my claim.  Another thing I could do is "move the goalposts."  I could admit that there was no President of the United States named Wilbur Thwilmond, but there was a President of some other office.  I would redefine my original statement and claim that the essence of what I was saying as still correct.

The truth is, it is impossible to prove with full certitude that there was no president named Wilbur Thwilmond.  In fact, it's impossible to completely disprove any invention I could bring up.  Nevertheless, you'd be wise to reject my claims, and in fact, scientifically, you absolutely should reject my claims.  This is because scientific thinking never cares about one hundred percent certainty.  The next example will make this clear.

A Bag of Balls

Here's the second thought experiment.  Let's say I hand you a bag with ten balls in it.  You can feel from the outside that there are clearly ten balls.  You are allowed to take a ball from the bag, examine it, and then return it to the bag.  After which you may take another ball out.  You may never take more than one ball out of the bag, and each time you remove a ball, it must be randomly selected from all ten balls.  Let's say the first ball you take out is green.  So is the second.  And the third.  How many more consecutive green balls must you take out of the back before you can safely claim that there are only ten green balls in the bag?  Does the answer change if I tell you at the beginning that there are 9 green balls and 1 red ball in the bag?  What about, if I claim there were 9 red balls and 1 green ball?

The mathematical answer to both questions is "an infinite number of balls."  Mathematics deals in absolutes.  And no matter how low the probability goes, it never reaches zero.  That is not the scientific answer though.  Science deals in probability.  For this example, it's actually pretty easy to calculate the probability of taking N consecutive green balls out of a bag filled with 9 green balls and 1 red ball.  For example, there's a ~35% chance that the first 10 balls you take out of a 9-green, 1-red bag  are all green.  This amount falls off pretty quickly.  There's only a 1/200 chance that the first 50 balls are green.  There's less than a 1/37000 chance that the first 100 balls are green.  And if you sit through and pick 1000 balls out of the bag, there's only a 1/5 billion billion billion billion billion billion chance (6 billions = 9 millions = 1 quattuordecillion).

After 10 balls if you were to claim, "hey there's no non-green balls in here." I might reply "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."  And I'd be using it correctly!  35% chance is certainly reasonable.  You have not picked enough balls to comfortably reject the red ball hypothesis.  Even at 50 balls, I might be able to get away with it, that's an unlikely occurrence for sure, but 1/200 is not outside the realm of possibility.  At 100, the phrase is misapplied, and it certainly is at 10000.  At what point have you gathered enough evidence to conclude the absence of non-green balls?

The answer is somewhat subjective.  In the scientific world everything is given with confidence intervals, or margins of error.  Often a result is stated with a 95% probability that the value is between two bounds.  In this case, it would take 28 balls to be 95% confident that there were only green balls in the bag.  Is this good enough?  It might be if you had no prior expectation of what colors of balls were in the bag.  This is where the second part of the question comes in.  If I told you there was one red ball in the bag, you might not be so confident in 95%.  You might require 99.5% (50 balls) or more.  Well, that's if you thought I was trustworthy.  If you thought I was infallible and would never lie, then you might never be satisfied, even at 1000 balls. Everytime another green ball gets pulled out of the bag, you might claim "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."  But now, you have abandoned scientific principles.

Going back to the first example.  Can we say for sure that there was no President Wilbur?  No.  Can we state with a high degree of confidence that there was no President Wilbur?  Yes. Prior information, such as me saying that there is a President Wilbur, or that there is a red ball in the bag should only change the degree of confidence you need to reject the hypothesis.  If you set that degree of confidence at 100%, then you've put yourself in a situation where the scientific methodology will never produce an answer.  That's why I said above that using "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" in situations like these is akin to scientific nihilism.

Finally, the Kefirah

So now let's turn to an example of relevance.  There are no dearth of biblical claims that can be analyzed using scientific analysis, but in order to preview some topics we will discuss in future weeks, let's look at the Exodus story, one that begins at the end of Bereishit (Genesis) and culminates all the way in Yehoshua (Joshua) with the conquest of Eretz Yisrael (Israel).  The story makes several claims that appear to be testable.

The story claims a very large group of people leaving Egypt.  The number is given as 600,000 males between 20 and 60 along with women and children, giving a total number of roughly 1.5 million.  It claims a complete destruction of the Egyptian army at the time of departure.  It claims that the entire nation lived in various locations in the Sinai desert for 40 years, 38 of which were spent at one location, Kadesh Barnea.  It mentions other nations around at the time, kingdoms in Arad and Heshbon.  It mentions states of Ammon, Moab and Edom.  In the conquest, it claims that the Israelites captures many cities in a quick campaign, displacing the inhabitants.  It mentions destructions of the cities at Jericho and Ai, as well as other locations.  In a nutshell, this is the biblical claim.

We can pretend the ground is a giant bag, now with an infinite number of balls. Each ball that we pull out that supports the hypothesis can be a red ball, each one we pull out that does not support it, can be a green one.  Note, that it's not important here that the green balls contradict the hypothesis, just that they do not support it.  This analogy isn't perfect, no analogies are. In truth things aren't as binary as green and red.  But for this thought experiment, let's assume they can be.

We can temper our expectations based on location.  If we're excavating at Kadesh Barnea, and we're pretty sure we know where it is, we might have good expectations to get a red ball.  Similarly, if we're digging up Jericho.  If we're excavating in Syria, we might not expect to see much.  The type of evidence matters.  If we're trying to see the 70 individuals who went down to Egypt with Yaakov (Jacob) we might not be surprised if nothing turns up.  It's more likely than not that 70 people would get lost in the 2-5 million in the Egyptian empire.  However, with the 1.5 million that left, we would expect to see some trace.  Also, the time period matters.  Let's say we're looking for references to some of the other nation states, Ammon, Edom and Moab.  If we're looking in a period with a lot of recovered correspondence between states in the region, discussing treaties and trade details, then we might expect to see references to these nations if they existed at the time.  If we're looking in "dark age" regions with a very limited amount of correspondence, then it wouldn't be surprising to see nothing.

Just focusing on one event, the encampment at Kadesh Barnea.  The Torah claims that approximately 1 million people encamped there for 38 years.  There are two census counts in the Torah that claim this number, as well as the 600,000 count upon leaving Egypt.  An encampment of 1 million people would make this one of, if not, the largest city in the world.  We can also set bounds on the time period, loose ones for now [1].  It must occur in the middle to late bronze age, between about 1600 BCE and 1000 BCE.  Do we know where Kadesh Barnea is?  We think we do.  It is well known in later times as a trade route city between Arabia and Egypt.  It is located near an oasis, and while we could be wrong about the exact location of this settlement, cities of 1 million people are phenomenally large.  We dig in the region and what to we come up with?  Absolutely nothing.  Their are remains there from small outpost settlements much earlier, and much later, but nothing in the time frame in which the Israelites are supposedly there.  No pottery shards, no animal bones from the numerous sacrifices, no human remains from the entire generation that supposedly died there, no tombs or graves, no written records.  Every historian who looks at the archaeological result comes to the conclusion that if this account is referring to a real event, the numbers are horribly inflated. If there were indeed 1 million people here, we would not be only digging up green balls.   We would have hit at least one red ball.  We have not, despite an incredibly large number of motivated expeditions in the area, most of them by religious groups wishing to verify the biblical account and coming up empty-handed [2].

So the question I leave with, and one I won't answer here, is "How many consecutive 'green balls' would you need to pull out of the ground before you convinced yourself that there were no red balls in there.  This is something to keep in mind in future weeks, and if you do any of your own reading on the subject.  I will discuss the Exodus story in detail 3 weeks from now, and at some unspecified later point I will deal with the conquest of Israel. 

---

1. We'll look at the dates of the Exodus in 3 weeks (parshat Bo) and determine that it fits in no time period at all.^

2. Finkelstein and Silberman discuss the difficulty of Kadesh Barnea in "The Bible Unearthed."^

Why do we Light Hannukah Candles?

 Parshat Miketz (Hannukah)

As popular culture's favorite Jewish holiday approaches, it's a good idea to ask the question of why we light Hannukah candles. Ask any Jew today, and a good many non-Jews, and you'll get an answer which is something like, "a flask of oil was found with only one days worth of oil and it lasted for eight days, long enough for new oil to be made." But, if you asked a Jew shortly after the victory over Antiochus, would they give the same answer? What about one several hundred years later, in the first century CE? What about the rabbis of the Talmud? This is the topic of this week's post.

Hannukah in the Book of the Maccabees

The best source we have about the events concerning Hannukah are in the book of the Maccabees. There are several versions online. Here's one in English. The English is just as good as Hebrew here, since the original Hebrew is lost, and both would be translated from the surviving versions in Greek. There are several books of the Maccabees, but the first one is the important one. Let's see what it says about the rededication of the temple, the original Hannukah.

The rededication is described in 1 Mac. 4:36-61 and is too long to quote here in full, but feel free to read it in the link above. The menorah is mentioned exactly once in the rededication in verses 49 and 50. (It's also mentioned earlier when it gets carted out along with everything else by Antiochus.)  The two key verses are:

49 And they made new holy vessels, and brought in the candlestick (menorah), and the altar of incense, and the table into the temple. 50 And they put incense upon the altar, and lighted up the lamps that were upon the candlestick (menorah), and they gave light in the temple.

As is obvious upon first reading, there is no mention about difficulties regarding lighting the Menorah.  No talk about kosher oil, and miraculous long burning oil.  They recaptured the menorah, brought it into the temple, and lit it.  C'est fini.

In addition to 1 Maccabees, there is also the book of 2 Maccabees, which describes the creation of the holiday. A version of the text in English can be found here. The orginal was written in Greek, probably in Alexandria, and like most of the works of the Egyptian Jews, it is not held in high regard by Jews today. Nevertheless, it also describes the events of Hannukah, and is one of our early sources for the observance of the holiday in the years immediately after the event. The purification is in chapter 10 and is similar to what is in 1 Maccabees. Some excerpts are given here.

3 They purified the sanctuary, and made another altar of sacrifice; then, striking fire out of flint, they offered sacrifices, after a lapse of two years, and they burned incense and lighted lamps and set out the bread of the Presence... 5 It happened that on the same day on which the sanctuary had been profaned by the foreigners, the purification of the sanctuary took place, that is, on the twenty-fifth day of the same month, which was Kislev. 6 And they celebrated it for eight days with rejoicing, in the manner of the feast of booths, remembering how not long before, during the feast of booths, they had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals. 7 Therefore bearing ivy-wreathed wands and beautiful branches and also fronds of palm, they offered hymns of thanksgiving to him who had given success to the purifying of his own holy place. 8 They decreed by public ordinance and vote that the whole nation of the Jews should observe these days every year.

As you can see, there is no mention about the miracle of the oil in this one either. In both places the holiday seems to resemble Sukkot both in length and in practice.  As far as these books are concerned, the eight day length is chosen to mimic that holiday. If the writers of the books of Maccabees knew about this miracle, they declined to mention it at all. It's not clear when exactly the book of Maccabees was written, but it's certainly the earliest references we have to Hannukah.

Hannukah in the First Century CE

At this time, the holiday had already been established. We know this because of the writings of Josephus who testifies to the practice. He writes about it in Antiquities 12.7.6-7. Again some excerpts.

"So he chose some of his soldiers and gave them an order to fight the men that guarded the upper city until he has purified the Temple. When therefore he he had carefully purged it he brought in new vessels -- the menorah, the table and the incense altar, which were made of gold, and hung up the veils at the doors and restored the doors themselves. He also took down the altar and built a new one of stones that he gathered together, and such as had not been hewn with iron tools. And on the twenty-fifth day of the month Kislev, which the Macedonians call Apellaios, they lighted the lights that were on the menorah, and offered incense upon the altar, and laid the loaves upon the table, and offered whole burnt offerings upon the new altar...Indeed, they were so very glad at the revival of their customs and, after so long a time, having unexpectedly regained their right to worship, that they made it a law for their posterity that they should keep a festival celebrating the restoration of their Temple worship for eight days. And from that time to this we celebrate this, which we call the Festival of Lights, because, I imagine, beyond our hopes this right was brought to light, and so this name was placed on the festival. (my emphasis)

Josephus mentions that it was called the festival of lights, but makes no mention about the lighting of candles for the holidays, or indeed the miracle of the oil.  He even makes a guess as to why it's called the festival of lights, and the guess has nothing to do with the menorah that he mentions earlier!  Furthermore, Josephus was a sympathizer and supporter of Judaism.  If Josephus wanted to de-emphasize the insurrectionist nature of the holiday, which would prevent the Roman from cracking down on it, basing the holiday on a miraculous reestablishment of candle lighting seems like it could provide an innocuous reason for celebration.  It seems clear to me, Josephus did not know the story about the magical oil, or if he did, he didn't think much of it.

Hannukah in Talmudic Times and Later

The first reference we have to the miracle we all know about comes all the way in the 5th century CE. It is from the Hebrew commentary to Megillat Ta'anit, which can be read here.  There are a couple reasons mentioned for the Hannukah observance.  My translation from the Hebrew commentary is as follows:

"When the Greeks entered the temple, all the oil had been made impure, and when the Hasmoneans overcame them, and drove them out, they checked and did not find but one jar of oil that had the seal of the kohen gadol (high priest) that was not made impure and not used. It had but one day, but a miracle occurred and it lasted for eight."

So there we are, the origin of the stories. The same story appears, essentially verbatim in the Talmud (Shabbat 21b)  But there's more in the text of Megillat Ta'anit. It also asks again why eight days, and it gives a different answer. The answer (again, my translation):

"In the days of the Greek kings, the Hasmoneans entered the temple, and built he altar, and cleaned it, and built tools, and it took them eight days. And how did they light the candles? In the days of the Greek kings, the Hasmoneans entered the temple, with seven spears of iron in their hands and they grabbed wood with them and lit with them the Menorah."

Later on, in the 9th century CE, the Pesikta Rabbati (ch 2) asks the same question. My translation is as follows:

"And why do we light candles on Hannukah? In the time when the children of the Hasmonean high priest defeated the Greek kings, as it is written, "I will stir your sons, Israel against your sons, Greece (Zech 9:13). they entered the temple, and found eight iron spears and they fixed them and lit in them."

So it seems that even relatively late, at the end of the 1st millennium CE, it was unclear to people what was the correct reason for lighting candles!  The Pesikta Rabbati thinks that it should be eight days because they used eight iron spears as a makeshift menorah.

Where did the Practice of Lighting Candles Actually Come From?

Based on the above sources, it seems very unlikely that there was a tradition of lighting candles on the holiday immediately after the event.  It seems from the sources above, that the tradition of lighting candles came first, even though it's not explicitly mentioned in Josephus. The explanations of the practice in light of Hannukah miracles came later. But where could the practice come from? For this we turn back to the Gemara.

The section in masechet Shabbat mentioned above is the only section in the Talmud which clearly references Hannukah, but there's a passage in masechet Avodah Zarah that should catch your attention. Page 8a (my translation):

"Rav Hanan bar Raba said, Kalends is 8 days after the turning (solstice), Saturnalia is 8 days before, this is symbolized by, 'from the back and from the front you have afflicted me (Psa. 139:5).' Our Rabbis taught, when Adam saw that the days were getting shorter he said, "Oy vey, maybe because I messed up, the world is getting dark, and it will return to chaos, and this is the death, decided for me from heaven." He then made an 8 day fast, when he saw the turning of Tevet, and saw a day that was longer, he said, 'It's the way of the world', and he made an 8 day holiday. In the following years he made each of them festivals. He did it for God, but they (Romans) do it for idolatry."

This idea of a festival to mark the time when the days start getting longer is common. Many cultures have solstice festivals around the new year, and Romans were no exception. The Talmud's Rabbis were not quite accurate with their understanding of Roman culture. The Kalends were the first day of the new month, and there was one for every month. They were not an eight day holiday. Similarly, Saturnalia varied in length from three to seven days, but never eight. What was eight days long and at this time of year?  As we've seen earlier, the original Hannukah celebration was eight days. Why would the Rabbis make such an obvious connection between Saturnalia and Hannukah?

Perhaps we can glean some more info if we look at the Roman festival of Saturnalia itself. Fowler in his book "Roman Festivals" (p 272) describes the giving of gifts on the Saturnalia holiday. He says:

"...among [the gifts] the wax candles (cerei) deseve notice; as they are thought to have some reference to the returning power of the sun's light after the solstice."

So the Romans had a holiday, around the solstice, in which special candles played an important role. He also describes the holiday as incredibly popular quoting Seneca (p. 270) as saying, "All Rome would go mad on this holiday."

Now we can try to piece together the origin of the Hannukah candle-lighting custom, putting all the evidence together with a bit of reasonable speculation. Just like during the actual time of Hannukah under the Greeks, some Jews probably adopted some popular Roman cultural elements (we saw this earlier with the attempt to make fake foreskins).  It seems reasonable to assume that many Jews participate in the most popular holiday, Saturnalia. It's also possible that the Saturnalia celebration rivaled the normal Hannukah celebration, already established around this time. This, did not sit well with the Rabbis, as you might imagine. But, it would be difficult to abolish such a popular Saturnalia celebration by fiat. So instead, they merged it with Hannukah. Alternatively, it's possible that popular culture did the merging and the Rabbis just had to provide an explanation of why Jews are now lighting candles.

Nevertheless, having a holiday that originated among the pagan Romans was anathema to the Rabbis, so they produced their own stories about why candles are lit. This explains why the stories about finding a magical jar of oil or lighting eight spears are so much later than the rest of the Hannukah story. The Rabbis even went a step further, taking the Jewish version of Saturnalia and projecting it back to Adam, thereby justifying the observance of even that.  Also note that this reason for an eight day holiday has nothing to do with insurrection against a ruling power.  Something the Rabbis sitting under the thumb of Rome were definitely cognizant about.

Judaism has a long history of adapting stuff from the cultures around it. It was really only after the Talmud was written that things started being set. Even then there were changes, but they were lesser in magnitude. This adaption and merging, or to use the academic word, syncretization, of other cultures is one of the themes I've been attempting to bring out in this blog. And we'll see even more examples in the future, I'm sure.

Edit 10/23/18: A previous version incorrectly stated that Josephus mentioned the practice of lighting candles.

Propaganda

Parsha Vayishlach

I imagine that some people will be turned off at the title of this week's post. After all, it's no secret that Jews have been victims of some of the most vicious propaganda in the last 2000 years.  Jews have been accused of being murderers of Christian children, shadowy riggers of world markets, and polluters of wholesome societies. However, propaganda is very old and very effective, and there are lots of stories in the Torah that really seem like propaganda.  We'll look at few of the ones that occur in Bereishit (Genesis) this week.

Rival nations

The nations of Yehuda (Judah) and Yisrael (Israel) were surrounded by other nations, sometimes hostile, sometimes friendly. In each case the Torah gives a description of the origin, sometimes positive, sometimes cautious, and sometimes negative. Always though, the other nations are inferior in some way to the two Jewish nations. 

Esav (Esau) who is the progenitor of the kingdom of Edom, is treated cautiously. Similarly, Lavan (Laban) who is a stand-in for the northern neighbor Aram. The etiological tales about them make Esav come off as a bit dim-witted, and Lavan as conniving, but both are treated with grudging respect.  Not so the two nations between them, Ammon and Moab. The stories about their origins is dripping with contempt. Bereishit (Genesis) 19:31-37 recounts the story. 

31 And the first-born said unto the younger: 'Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth. 32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.' 33 And they made their father drink wine that night. And the first-born went in, and lay with her father; and he knew not when she lay down, nor when she arose. 34 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the first-born said unto the younger: 'Behold, I lay yesternight with my father. Let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.' 35 And they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose, and lay with him; and he knew not when she lay down, nor when she arose. 36 Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. 37 And the first-born bore a son, and called his name Moab--the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day. 38 And the younger, she also bore a son, and called his name Ben-ammi--the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.

Both nations were bastards born out of incestuous unions, things that would put you on the bottom of society in the Iron Age Ancient Near East. Indeed Devarim (Deuteronomy) 23:4 makes it clear that the Ammonites and Moabites are not welcome as converts.

It is also known, both from the Tanach and through the Mesha Stele that Moab was a vassal to the kingdom of Israel for some period of time. The Mesha Stele describes how the Moab kingdom broke free from their vassalage to the kingdom of Israel. It is easy to imagine how stories about these kingdoms, claiming that they are a bunch of half-breeds could lead to justifying political and military conquest and subjugation.

By far though, the tribe with the biggest propagandistic hit attack is the Amalekites. Here, the Torah commands nothing short of genocide of everyone.  Deut. 29:19:

Therefore it shall be, when the LORD thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget. 

And lest you think that this doesn't mean the actual wholesale slaughter of the Amalekites, as is popular in modern commentaries who wish to distance Judaism from genocidal commandments, 1 Sam. 15:1-3 can put that idea to rest.

1 And Samuel said unto Saul: 'The LORD sent me to anoint thee to be king over His people, over Israel; now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the LORD. {S} 2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts: I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he set himself against him in the way, when he came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.'

Why this hatred? The story is that the Amalekites attacked the Jewish people as they were fleeing Egypt. Did this actually happen, or is this used as a justification for killing all of them and taking their land?  Also, remember, that by the time Shaul (Saul) and Shmuel (Samuel) get around to slaughtering the Amalekites, something like 300 years have passed since the supposed actions of their forebears. Even if the story wasn't invented, should the people dwelling there now be judged for the actions of their ancestors? As members of a people that have been the victims of propaganda induced genocide, stuff like this should elicit concern.  It is easy to notice propaganda when you are the one being targeted. It is much more difficult to recognize it when someone else is the victim. 

Propaganda is powerful, and it can be used to justify all sorts of heinous acts. Propaganda is often necessary to rally citizens to go to war with other people that they might otherwise not want to fight. It deepens divisions between peoples and nations. It's something we should all be vigilant for. How sure are you that the Torah is the inspired word of God commanding genocide, and not the desire of a very human king to destroy a rival kingdom?  Would a divine author even use such tactics?

Propaganda for Land Claims

There are a slew of examples in Bereishit of propaganda providing land claims.  The land given to Avraham by God, going from the Nile to the Euphrates (Gen 15:18) was far larger than any Jewish nation every actually possessed, and could give justification for any Israelite aggression against a nearby nation.  There's the famous story of Avraham buying the cave of Machpelah in a way that makes it clear that this land is property of the Jews (Gen 23:1-18).  The monument that Yaakov set up with Lavan that we looked at last week, is a way for the Israelites to mark off territory (Gen 31:44-54).  There are many more examples.

Propaganda to Elevate

Propaganda also can be used to elevate one group or individual.  The stories of David, for example, are filled with propaganda, or at least stuff that really really seems like propaganda.  For example, there are several stories that make it clear that David absolutely did not kill Shaul.  He could have but didn't (1 Sam 24:1-7, 26:1-14),  and Saul definitely was killed another way, he killed himself (1 Sam 31:4) or was killed by an Amalekite (2 Sam 1:10).  Why so many stories of this sort?  Could it be the transfer of power was messy and David was implicated in a coup?  Who knows.  These stories seem to be designed to clear his name and head off any suggestions of dirty business.  The propaganda worked, David is seen as the head of the Judean dynasty to this day, and is beloved by Jews everywhere.

We also see propaganda with respect to Jews themselves.  Jews are "a kingdom of priests, a holy nation (Exod. 19:6)"  Jews are a holy people chosen by God as his treasure (Deut. 7:6).  I certainly remember being taught in Yeshiva, that we Jews were better than everyone else, simply because we were Jews, and the Torah tells us that we're better.  These things aren't said in polite conversation, but this idea of superiority is another form that propaganda takes.

There are many instances of propaganda, or things that really look like propaganda in the Torah and Tanach.  It's definitely something one should keep in mind whenever a story speaks negatively about another individual or nation.

The Patriarchs in the Nevi'im

Parshat Toldot

One of the main differences between how I studied the Torah as a religious Jew and how I approached it as an atheist is the relative weight given to the prophetic writings versus the Torah. In the religious world, the Torah is paramount, and the rest of the Tanach is of far less importance. The Torah came first, was written directly by God, and the rest was written later, and was more subject to human error. However, these assumptions are not clear from the biblical text itself, and indeed, modern academics argue that many of the prophetic writings predate the Torah and represent an earlier view on these topics. If you remove the assumption that the Torah is earlier, it may be possible to recreate how various stories developed by looking at how the prophets viewed them, and only afterward, do you decide which timeframe best fits the composition of the Torah itself.

This week we'll look at the prophets for clues on how they related to the early patriarchs.  We'll note, that as we discovered last week, Yaakov (Jacob) is associated with locations in the northern kingdom, while Avraham and Yitzchak (Isaac) are associated with locations the southern kingdom.  We also noted that the stories with Yitzchak were much fewer than with Avraham and Yaakov. We come in with the expectation that the northern kingdom prophets will focus more on Yaakov while the southern prophets will focus more on Avraham. 

The early prophets

There are four prophets that self-proclaim the dates of their composition to be in the late 8th century BCE, making them the earliest of the prophets which left writing.    The four prophets are Hoshea (Hosea), Amos, Michah (Micah), and Yishayahu (Isaiah). Yishayahu is a bit of a problem, since modern academia is pretty confident that everything from at least chapter 40 onwards was written by later authors and appended to the text, and therefore falls under the term "pseudopigraphia". We won't discuss the reasons for that this week, but we'll only consider chapters 1-39 as the relevant chapters of Isaiah for this exercise.  We'll look at these prophets in turn.

Hoshea, was a northern prophet, who focuses mainly on the north. He prefers the term Ephraim for the northern kingdom, but also uses Yaakov (Jacob) as a synonym for Yisrael (Israel). Hoshea seems familiar with the basic outline of the story of Yaakov. He writes (Hos. 12:3-5):

3 The LORD hath also a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways, according to his doings will He recompense him. 4 In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and by his strength he strove with a godlike being; 5 So he strove with an angel, and prevailed; he wept, and made supplication unto him; at Beth-el he would find him, and there he would speak with us;

12:13 also mentions Yaakov fleeing to Aram. Hoshea does not mention Avraham or Yitzchak at all.  He is either unaware of them, or does not think they are relevant.  Out of all the prophets Hoshea is actually the only one with what looks like clear references to biblical stories, the event at his birth, the wrestling with an angel, and the sojourn in Aram.

The next prophet to look at is Amos. He is a bit of an oddity in that he was born in the southern kingdom but appears to have spent most of his time in the northern kingdom. Amos is the only prophet to mention Yitzchak, however he spells the name differently with a sin instead of a tzadi. To Amos, Yitzchak is a synonym for the kingdom of Judah (Amos 7:9, 7:16). Like Hoshea, and indeed nearly every other prophet, Yaakov is used a synonym for the northern kingdom (Amos 3:13). Amos makes no mention of Avraham, although he does mention Yosef (Joseph), and associates him with Bethel (Amos 5:6).

Michah is the third prophet. He was a southern prophet and spoke in the south. The very last sentence, 7:20, is the only mention of Avraham. Yitzchak is not mentioned at all, and Yaakov is associated with the north (1:5) specifically Samaria.  Incidentally, Michah also is the only prophet in this set to mention Moshe (Moses), Aharon (Aaron), and Miriam (Mic. 6:4).

Yishayahu is by far the most prolific author in this group.  He is a southern one prophesying in Judah. Although in all 39 chapters that are clearly attributable to him, Avraham is only mentioned once (29:22) and Yitzchak not at all. Like the others Yaakov is a synonym for the north.

Looking at these four as a group, we see that only the purely northern Hoshea makes no mention of Avraham. Only Amos, a southern transplant to the north, knows about Yitzchak. Everyone seems to know about Yaakov, but mostly this is a name for the north, synonymous with the kingdom of Israel (not necessarily the person.)  Only Hoshea, a northern prophet, mentions things that reference the Patriarchal stories that we are familiar with in Bereishit (Genesis).  

This fits very well with the conclusions from last week based on the locations where each patriarch was most associated with. Avraham and Yitzchak were associated with southern locations, with Avraham having a much more extensive story. Yaakov is associated with the north, and indeed in nearly all the prophetic texts it is synonymous with the northern kingdom, often to the exclusion of the southern kingdom, which is usually Yehudah (Judah).

Prophets after the Destruction of the Northern Kingdom

In the period after the destruction of the northern kingdom, but before the southern kingdom (722 BCE - 586 BCE), there were several prophets.  The most prolific was Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah), but also we have Zephaniah, who unfortunately mentions none of the Patriarchs in his short work.

Yirmiyahu mentions Avraham and Yitzchak exactly once, and this mention is in a string that includes all three Patriarchs in the correct order.  He is the first prophet to mention all three.  Verses (Jer.) 33:25-26 read:

"25 Thus saith the LORD: If My covenant be not with day and night, if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; 26 then will I also cast away the seed of Jacob, and of David My servant, so that I will not take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; for I will cause their captivity to return, and will have compassion on them."

This is the earliest we can claim for certain that all three Patriarchs were known and ordered together.  Although even in these verses, Yaakov is also mentioned as a synonym of the north, here contrasted with David, who represents the south.

Patriarchs in Exilic and Post-Exilic Prophets

The towering figure in this era is Yehezkel (Ezekiel), who wrote in the time of the Exile.  He makes no mention of Yitzchak, and only mentions Avraham once, but in the role of a Patriarch (Ezek. 32:34).

 Son of man, they that inhabit those waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying: Abraham was one, and he inherited the land; but we are many; the land is given us for inheritance.

Even in the relatively late date of Yehezkel, Yaakov is associated with the north specifically, usually in exclusion of the south.  For example, 39:25

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Now will I bring back the captivity of Jacob, and have compassion upon the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name.

and 20:5

and say unto them: Thus saith the Lord GOD: In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up My hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob, and made Myself known unto them in the land of Egypt, when I lifted up My hand unto them, saying: I am the LORD your God;"

For other post-exilic prophets, the only one worth mention is Malachi who mentions that Yaakov and Esav (Esau) are brothers in his opening sentence.

There are further mentions in the books from Yehushua (Joshua) to the end of Melachim Beth (2 Kings), however the dates of composition of these works are by no means certain.  Unlike the prophets, the author is not identified.  There are also a few mentions in the remaining prophets that do not give a time stamp, but most of these works are short, and the absence of a Patriarch has minor meaning.

What Does it all Mean?

If all you knew about the Patriarchs came from Nevi'im (excluding Yehushua - Melachim which are traditionally grouped in Nevi'im, but are clearly different styles of work), you would produce a picture that placed Yaakov as the name of the northern kingdom, along with Yisrael, and sometimes Ephraim.  You might conclude, at least from Hoshea, that there was a actual person by this name, but this wouldn't be too surprising considering that most Israelite works assume that nations are named after human founders (a poor assumption in reality.)

You would then probably relate Avraham to the southern kingdom, and conclude that Yitzchak was a minor character, only playing a significant role in one of the prophets (Amos).  This is exactly the same as the hypothesis we had last week from looking at the Torah alone.

You'd also then be hard-pressed to come up with a time period when Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov were considered the Patriarchs of both the southern and northern kingdoms.  While, you might get as much from Yirmiyahu, the later Yehezkel, clearly associates Yaakov only with the north.

For these reasons, and for the reasons we discussed last week, many academic scholars see the final codification of these stories, the ones that appear in the Torah, to post-date the Exile.  The actual time period varies greatly depending on scholar from around the Exile to all the way into the Hellenistic period.  It's possible that individual narratives existed much earlier, at least we can glean as much from the stories of Hoshea which seem to be aware of some of the stories in Bereishit.  But none of the other stories, especially the ones of Avraham seem to be known, or at least were not important, to the prophets.

As a final note, there's an important point in that last sentence.  Assuming the prophets were writing for an audience, and were prophesying to the people of their time, then one might expect them to reference popular stories from the Torah.  The Rabbis in our shuls certainly do this in their weekly sermons.  This is especially poignant in that these references are powerful.  God promises things to Avraham and Yitzchak in various visions.  If these stories were known, one might expect prophets to refer to them when trying to convince the Israelites to keep up their end of the bargain.  But they don't.  They are not found at all, except for some brief mention in Hoshea.  This is very peculiar, and it seems to indicate that the stories of the patriarchs, one that are known to almost all Jewish and Christian children, were not well known at all when the kingdom of Israel and Judah stood.  The fact that the prophets do not refer to the Patriarchal stories, makes the traditional timeline extremely unlikely.

A Brief History of Ancient Circumcision

Parshat Vayera

This weeks parsha begins with Avraham sitting in front of his tent after he recovers from his circumcision, mentioned at the end of last weeks parsha. It also presents the first mention of ritual circumcision on an 8 day old infant, with the circumcision of Yitzchak (Isaac). Therefore, we will spend this weeks post discussing circumcision.

This post will talk about the ancient origins of the practice. While I definitely have opinions on the moral aspects of circumcision, I will refrain from discussing them here. This post will produce a lot of speculation on the evolution of the procedure, which is hard to avoid, since there's so little information, biblical or otherwise to go on.  But I will present everything I've dug up.

Circumcision in Ancient Egypt
 
A common argument for Judaism is that the religion has so many bizarre and burdensome commandments, that it would be hard to convince people to uphold them if there wasn't a really good reason, such as a divine revelation of said commandments. However, this argument tends to fall apart for most of the commandments that it's used for, mainly because there's evidence of origins for the practice that began in other cultures in earlier times.  So at the very least, it doesn't take a divine commandment to get people to do it.  Presumably the other cultures who performed the same bizarre rituals didn't also receive a Torah from God outlining the practices. Circumcision is one of those commandments.  It's often upheld as a practice that would be impossible for a religious charlatan to convince a population to do.  Therefore, the argument goes, it could not have been invented by man, and must be divine.  However, as we'll see in a moment, circumcision existed in a nearby culture to the Israelites, much earlier than any date offered for Avraham in Egypt.

David Gollaher gives a rundown of what we know about the Egyptian practice in his book "Circumcision - A History of the World's Most Controversial Surgery."  Most of the book deals with modern practice, which is of less interest to us this week.  But the beginning of the first chapter discusses some of the ancient history.  Gollaher says that the earliest reference to circumcision comes from a relief in the necropolis at Saqqara and dates to 2400 BC. An image of the relief is reproduced below.

 Relief of necropolis at Saqqara [1].

Among the text is written in hieroglyphics: "Hold him and do not allow him to faint (left image)". and, (circumcisee to circumciser) "thoroughly rub off what is there" [2]

Later textual descriptions of circumcision in the 23rd century BCE has an Egyptian describe himself being circumcised along with 120 other people. Furthermore, X-ray scans of mummies indicate that circumcision dates back all the way to the 4th millenium BCE.  The purpose of Egyptian circumcision is unclear. It is possible that it was restricted only to the elites. Gollaher conjectures that a likely purpose of circumcision is to eliminate the production of smegma, and restore a natural orderly flow to the body's fluids, an obsession of ancient Egypt religious ideas [3].

It is important not to read too much into an Egyptian/Israelite connection of the ritual.  For one the length of time between our Egyptian sources and the Israelite ones is very long.  Redford, an expert on Egyptology and it's relationship with Canaanite culture, does not include circumcision in the list of Israelite practices that were derived from Egypt [4].  Rather the point is merely that there were people who practice circumcision with presumably no prompting from God.  This allows for a precedent where the Israelites could also have done the same.  Whether it originated in Egypt, Israel, or native is superfluous to the main point.

Circumcision in the Torah
 
Unraveling the history of circumcision in the Torah is fraught with difficulties. It is a very bizarre commandment, in that it is only mentioned as a positive commandment in Genesis, and the other mentions of it are in either metaphorical terms, such as circumcising one's heart (Deut 10:16, 30:6) or in agricultural terms (Lev. 19:23-25). Additionally, while not mentioning the words for circumcision itself, the Torah marks that uncircumcised people cannot partake in the Pesach (Passover) offering (Ex. 12-48).  Lastly, there's the account of the sons of Yaakov (Jacob) convincing the population of Shechem to circumcise themselves so that the heir to the throne can marry their sister, and then summarily slaughtering them all (Gen 34).

The passage in Genesis (17:14) in last week's parsha states: 

"And the uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken My covenant.

The phrase "cut off from his people" is a commonly occurring phrase in the laws of Leviticus and Numbers, but is entirely absent from Deuteronomy. This leads scholars to associate this passage with the authors of most of Leviticus and Numbers, all of which were relatively late in the standard chronology

In addition to the above references, there is one very confusing passage about circumcision in Exodus 4:24-26 that deserves special mention.

24 And it came to pass on the way at the lodging-place, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him. 25 Then Zipporah took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his (whose?) feet; and she said: 'Surely a bridegroom of blood art thou to me.' 26 So He let him alone. Then she said: 'A bridegroom of blood in regard of the circumcision.'

This passage has led to many explanations both from Rabbis and academic scholars. The academic position is that this represents a very early account of circumcision in Israel. The idea being that circumcision is thought to have some salutary properties.  It is a way to ward off death or disease. In this way, we can posit a possible connection to the Egyptian ideas behind the practice.

The "bridegroom of blood" is very strange, as it's unclear when in the history of Israel circumcision was actually called this.  One suggestion is that the early Israelite culture performed circumcision as a prenuptial rite (in most cultures it's an adult thing, not a child thing), and that is the real origin of the phrase.  However, at this point, infant circumcision is already the norm, so the author needs another explanation for this phrase [5].
 
Another passage mentioning circumcision that could be argued to be early is from the book of Joshua.

2 At that time the LORD said unto Joshua: 'Make thee knives of flint, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time.' 3 And Joshua made him knives of flint, and circumcised the children of Israel at Gibeath-ha-araloth. 4 And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise: all the people that came forth out of Egypt, that were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness by the way, after they came forth out of Egypt. 5 For all the people that came out were circumcised; but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, had not been circumcised.

Here we have a circumcision procedure done not to infants, but to adult men. Furthermore, there is the claim that circumcision was not practiced at all in the wandering of the desert.  Something very strange given the commandment that no one who is uncircumcised can partake in the Pesach offering, which certainly occurred in the desert (Numbers 9:6-8 for example). Later in the biblical chronology we see that circumcision is used as a distinction between Israel and other nations, most notably the Philistines. 

Circumcision as a Cultural Marker

The practice continued in the same way in Israel until it became a clear cultural divide between them and various neighbors. Such divides are very useful for ethnic continuity, and as such, the procedure became central to the identity as Jews.  It's not clear when it started being performed on infants, but I would guess that it was established by the time of the exile, if not earlier. One of the important issues for the Babylonian exiles, and indeed Jews in the later Persian and Hellenistic periods, was the establishment of Jewish identity. In fact, circumcision gets the most attention during the Hellenistic period when it was considered a mark of shame for many Jews, so much so that they made themselves fake foreskins!  The book of  1 Maccabees (1:15-16) relates:

15 And they built a place of exercise in Jerusalem, according to the laws of the nations: 16 And they made themselves prepuces, and departed from the holy covenant, and joined themselves to the heathens, and were sold to do evil." 

Here we see the power of something like circumcision as a cultural factor.  It's an inescapable mark on your body that automatically assigns you to a specific group, despite whether you want to be associated or not.  It's no surprise that all the branches of Judaism that have survived until this point consider this commandment to be extremely important.

In Summary

Circumcision predated the biblical commandment by over 1000 years, and perhaps up to 3000.  It is a very old practice, and one with origins that are shrouded in mystery.  However, it is certainly not a divine commandment given only to the descendents of Abraham, as the Torah claims.  It is found to be practiced in earlier times by cultures not derived from him.

Early references to the practice in the Tanach like the story with the circumcision of Gershom, the son of Moshe and Tzipporah, and later with Yehoshua, indicate a practice that was important, but not as a cultural marker.  If you want to claim that the origins were for some health benefits, as is popular in some circles today, the story of Gershom's circumcision lend some support.  The circumcision of Gershom prevented someone's death.

Later though, in Babylon, and under Persian and Greek control, circumcision was a key cultural marker.  It forced Jews to identify as Jews, unless you were able to craft a fake foreskin in order to properly assimilate.  It is still just as important today.

While I will eschew mentioning my own position of the morality of the practice, I will note that if the public view changes so that infant circumcision is considered highly immoral, Judaism will have a very difficult choice to make.  It seems inconceivable, to me at least, for Judaism to let go of this central practice.  But if the alternative is societal isolation?  It's hard to say.    

---

1. Image source ^

2. Gollaher, "Circumcision: A History of the World's Most Controversial Surgery" Basic Books, 2000, p. 2 ^

3. Ibid pp. 3-6 ^

4. Redford, "Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times" Princeton Univ. Press, 1992, p. 383.^

5. Kugel, "How to Read the Bible" Free Press, 2006, p. 220, and sources therein.^

The History of Sukkot

Sukkot

This week we will talk about one of the biggest holidays to biblical authors. Only Pesach (Passover) gets more attention than Sukkot in the Tanach. Unlike Pesach where the origins of the practices are detailed explicitly, the origin for the practices of Sukkot, as we'll see, are more mysterious.

Sukkot in the Torah

In the Torah, Sukkot is discussed in all the same places that we talked about a couple weeks ago when we discussed RoshHashannah. Using the same tentative chronological ordering that we introduced then, we start with the earliest mention, which is a very brief mention in Exod. 34:22

 "and the feast of ingathering at the turn of the year."

A similarly brief mention occurs in Exod. 23:16

"and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labours out of the field."

In these two places, the holiday is called Hag Ha-asif, and is identified, along with Pesach, called, Hag Hamatzot, and Shavuot (Hag Ha-Katzir in Exod. 23). The other times Sukkot is mentioned are much more extensive. Starting in Devarim (Deuteronomy) we have 16:13-16

"13 Thou shalt keep the feast of tabernacles (Sukkot) seven days, after that thou hast gathered (Aspechah) in from thy threshing-floor and from thy winepress. 14 And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates. 15 Seven days shalt thou keep a feast unto the LORD thy God in the place which the LORD shall choose; because the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the work of thy hands, and thou shalt be altogether joyful. 16 Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which He shall choose; on the feast of unleavened bread, and on the feast of weeks, and on the feast of tabernacles; and they shall not appear before the LORD empty "

Here the holiday is given with its modern name as Hag Ha-sukkot. The holiday is also described in agricultural terms, but also includes the idea of a pilgrimage. However, there is no mention of the eighth day (Shmini Azeret) being a holiday. Nor is there any mention of the concept of dwelling in Sukkot, or any of the concepts of Lulav and Esrog, the two defining features of the holiday today. Also, there is no explicit date given for the observance, besides the loose agricultural time.

There are two other places where the holidays are discussed. Once in Vayikra (Leviticus) and once in Bamidbar (Numbers).  The one in Bamidbar comes in a description of all the sacrifices that exist, both daily and on holidays. It comprises all of chapters 28 and 29, with Sukkot starting on 29:12. The only things we'll note here is that the date is explicit, Sukkot (not named explicitly, but referred to as a Hag) starts on the 15th day of the 7th month. Here we also see the 8th day being referred to as an Atzeret.

The mention in Vayikra is more interesting. Chapter 23 says:

"33 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: 34 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD. 35 On the first day shall be a holy convocation; ye shall do no manner of servile work. 36 Seven days ye shall bring an offering made by fire unto the LORD; on the eighth day shall be a holy convocation unto you; and ye shall bring an offering made by fire unto the LORD; it is a day of solemn assembly (Atzeret); ye shall do no manner of servile work. 37 These are the appointed seasons of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to bring an offering made by fire unto the LORD, a burnt-offering, and a meal-offering, a sacrifice, and drink-offerings, each on its own day; 38 beside the sabbaths of the LORD, and beside your gifts, and beside all your vows, and beside all your freewill-offerings, which ye give unto the LORD."

This comes at the end of a list of all the holidays (like in Devarim and Bamidbar) and concludes with the standard way the Torah uses to indicate that a section is complete. Verse 37 starts with the word Eileh, which always is used as marker that a section is beginning or ending. However, right afterwards, the Torah pulls a "but wait there's more" moment. The next few verses read.

"39 Howbeit[1] on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruits of the land, ye shall keep the feast of the LORD seven days; on the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest. 40 And ye shall take you on the first day the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm-trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook, and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days. 41 And ye shall keep it a feast unto the LORD seven days in the year; it is a statute for ever in your generations; ye shall keep it in the seventh month. 42 Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are home-born in Israel shall dwell in booths; 43 that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. 44 And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the appointed seasons of the LORD."

This is the only mention in the Torah of the commandments to sit in booths and to gather the lulav and esrog. Indeed it is the only reference in all of Tanach about these commandments, and it appears as a sort of addendum to a holiday list.

The explanation for why you sit in booths is also troubling. It says that God made the Israelites dwell in booths when they left Egypt, but nowhere in the narrative regarding the Exodus from Egypt is this discussed. Rabbis have had to invoke various midrashic interpretations in order to explain this, for example, the reference is to the ananei hakavod, the clouds of glory, vaguely hinted at in the text.

The only other mention of Sukkot in the Torah is a short appearance in Deut. 21:10-11 where there is a commandment for the king to read the Torah on that day.

Sukkot elsewhere in Tanach

There are other mentions of the holidays of the seventh month, not necessarily as Sukkot. 1 Kings 8 describes the dedication of the temple. Verse 2 reads:

"And all the men of Israel assembled themselves unto king Solomon at the feast, in the month (yerach) Ethanim, which is the seventh month (hodesh)."

The rest of the chapter goes on to describe the dedication procedures. The length of the holiday is described in verse 65:

So Solomon held the feast at that time, and all Israel with him, a great congregation, from the entrance Hamath unto the Brook of Egypt, before the LORD our God, seven days and seven days, even fourteen days."

The same topic is covered in 2 Chronicles, chapters 5-7. However, the length of the holiday is described differently, to make it clear that the holiday is actually only seven days.  It also mentions the Atzeret [2].

"8 So Solomon held the feast at that time seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great congregation, from the entrance of Hamath unto the Brook of Egypt. 9 And on the eighth day they held a solemn assembly (Atzeret); for they kept the dedication of the altar seven days, and the feast seven days."

Yehezkel (Ezekiel) 45 gives a rundown of the holidays, and verse 25 reads

"In the seventh month, in the fifteenth day of the month, in the feast, shall he do the like the seven days; to the sin-offering as well as the burnt-offering, and the meal-offering as well as the oil."

It should be noted that these sacrifices are very different than the ones in Bamidbar [3].Also the holiday is only referred to as a Hag.  There is one more place where the holiday is prominently featured, and that deserves its own section.

The Sukkot of Ezra

The Sukkot that was celebrated during the time of Ezra is described in both Ezra and Nehemiah. Ezra 3:1-7 relates.

1 And when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. 2 Then stood up Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt-offerings thereon, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God. 3 And they set the altar upon its bases; for fear was upon them because of the people of the countries, and they offered burnt-offerings thereon unto the LORD, even burnt-offerings morning and evening. 4 And they kept the feast of tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt-offerings by number, according to the ordinance, as the duty of every day required; 5 and afterward the continual burnt-offering, and the offerings of the new moons, and of all the appointed seasons of the LORD that were hallowed, and of every one that willingly offered a freewill-offering unto the LORD. 6 From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt-offerings unto the LORD; but the foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid. 7 They gave money also unto the hewers, and to the carpenters; and food, and drink, and oil, unto them of Zidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar-trees from Lebanon to the sea, unto Joppa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus king of Persia.

Again no mention is made here of any activities beyond sacrificial services. However, Nehemiah 8 describes things in more detail. Nehemiah 8:1-3 says

1 all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the broad place that was before the water gate; and they spoke unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the Law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded to Israel. 2 And Ezra the priest brought the Law before the congregation, both men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month. 3 And he read therein before the broad place that was before the water gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women, and of those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the Law.

Now, this occurs on the first day of the Seventh month, Yom Teruah, or as it's known today, Rosh Hashannah.  He does not read it on Sukkot as is commanded of the king in Devarim. Later, a more striking statement is made about Sukkot itself.

13 And on the second day were gathered together the heads of fathers' houses of all the people, the priests, and the Levites, unto Ezra the scribe, even to give attention to the words of the Law. 14 And they found written in the Law, how that the LORD had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month; 15 and that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying: 'Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches, and branches of wild olive, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths, as it is written.' 16 So the people went forth, and brought them, and made themselves booths, every one upon the roof of his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the broad place of the water gate, and in the broad place of the gate of Ephraim. 17 And all the congregation of them that were come back out of the captivity made booths, and dwelt in the booths; for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so. And there was very great gladness. 18 Also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the Law of God. And they kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly (Atzeret), according unto the ordinance.

So, the people of Israel, for the first time in over 1000 years, people actually dwell in Sukkot on the holiday of Sukkot. No wonder, there is no reference to this aspect of the holiday elsewhere in Nevi'im and Ketuvim. No one knew about this commandment during those times!

It's important to note the main issues that Ezra was attempting to resolve. Ezra returned with people from the Babylonian Exile to Israel. There he encountered several people who had remained in the land. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah recount the friction between the two groups. It is possible that there was also religious friction between various activities, and Ezra attempted to smooth this over by syncretizing two religious outlooks.

Putting it all together

Now we can attempt to assemble the development of this holiday. And while certain aspects are unknown, we can attempt to fill in the gaps with reasonable speculations. The early holidays, as recounted in Shmot were purely agricultural. They were local holidays to celebrate the harvests and make offerings to the gods to gain their favor in assisting in future harvests. It makes sense that his would be the sort of holiday that exists in a decentralized state.  Later in Devarim, the holiday gained a pilgrimage aspect, in which the centrality of Jerusalem was established, something that makes no sense without a capital city with a central temple. At this time, the holiday was referred to as Sukkot, and it's possible that the ritual dwelling in sukkot occurred at this time, although, this was not canonized by the author of Devarim. It's not clear at all where this practice first occurred, but we can hypothesize that the activity of dwelling in booths arose from local Canaanite/Israelite customs.

Later still, possibly during the exile, the sections in Vayikra and Bamidbar were written. There, the actual length of the holiday, seven days plus an eighth day, Atzeret, was firmly established. Also, the description of the sacrifices were expanded, over what was recorded in Yehezkel, possibly meaning to rival in magnitude some of the sacrificial services performed in Babylonian festivals that Israelite would have experienced. 

Finally, when Ezra returned with the Babylonian captives, he encountered people who participated in the old Israelite ritual activity of dwelling in booths, something that may not have been done in Babylon. In order to reconcile these local practices with what was written about the holiday in Babylon (the Vaykira and Bamidbar passages), Ezra or someone else of that era, added onto the Vayikra section the commandments about dwelling in sukkot, as well as the commandments of lulav and etrog. Indeed, Richard Friedman assigns these verses to the time of Ezra based on the statements in Ezra and Nehemiah indicated some new form of worship, and the bizarre language indicating that makes these commandments appear as an addendum [4]. To the Babylonian exiles, these practices may have looked like avodah zarah (idol worship), and might even have had their roots in cultic practices.  In order to justify the practices, the author of these verses describing dwelling in sukkot rewrites the original purpose behind these practices as relating to the Exodus itself, despite their being no surviving traditions of this.  

This is actually a standard practice in Judaism.  Take a foreign tradition that is being practiced by Jews, and justify it by relating it to a previous mythical era.  In several hundred years, people will have completely forgotten the original origins of the practice, and will only know the sanitized version.  In a couple months, we'll see this same procedure occur, albeit it with a more obvious paper trail, with relation to Hannukah candles.

The biggest question is when and where did the idea of dwelling in sukkot develop. And furthermore, does the dwelling of sukkot give the holiday its name, in which case it dates prior to the writing of Devarim, or, does the name come first, possibly deriving from one of the places named Sukkot. The only thing we can say with some certitude, is that the practice of dwelling in sukkot during the holiday either didn't occur or, more likely, was not officially sanctioned during the monarchial period.  If it was observed, the absence of the description of this aspect of the holiday during the various times it is mentioned in these periods, and the statement in Ezra/Nehemiah that the holiday was observed now in a way unlike any during the monarchial period, require some serious explanation.

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1. The Hebrew word here translated as "Howbeit" is ach, and is very tricky to translate. Usually something like, but or only. It's tempting to read this as an indication of an addendum, but it is used a couple verses earlier to describe Yom Kippur ↩

2. In general Chronicles and Kings are very similar. However, there are several cases where they differ substantively, like this case where one has an Atzeret and one does not. When these differences are also things discussed in the Torah, the Kings version always agrees with Deuteronomy, and the Chronicles version agrees with elsewhere in the Torah. This is not a coincidence, and may be the subject of a future post.↩

3. You really want to know the differences, huh? Yehezkel in my interpretation has the same sacrifices as the holiday preceeding, Pesach, which has all of those sacrifices. We have a chata'at offering of one cow on the first day and a chata'at of a goat on all seven days. The olah offerings are seven cows and seven rams for each day. The meal and oil offerings are one ephah and one hin respectively. Bamidbar also has a goat for a chata'at offering on all days, but that's the only similarity. There are two rams and fourteen lambs on each day as an isheh (which I think is the same as olah but don't quote me. There are also cows, which decrease from thirteen on the first day to seven on the seventh day. The quantities for the meal and oil are also given in terms of isronot and I'm honestly not going to bother trying to figure out the conversion.↩

4. See R.E. Friedman, "Who Wrote the Bible" Summit 1987 pp 222-223, or the footnote to the appropriate verses in Friedman's "The Bible with Sources Revealed".↩