Don't be fooled by the PhD - "Deuteronomic History fails"

 An apparent "PhD" in Bible from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr David Gulad-Glatt, has written a piece in  https://www.thetorah.com/article/deuteronomy-the-first-torah 

His aim is to demonstrate that the book of Devarim is what is known as the Torah in the later books of the Tanakh, namely in NaKh.  He makes the following statement, which I shall proceed to disprove.  

"Nowhere else in the Pentateuch outside of Deuteronomy does the term torah refer to an extended written legal document. This latter meaning seems to be unique to Deuteronomy itself.[4] Even as conservative a commentator as Malbim recognizes that the reference to “this torah” in Deut 1:5 is to the set of laws beginning in Deuteronomy chapter 12,[5] i.e. to the section of the book that modern scholars refer to as the Deuteronomic code, and not to the entire Torah, namely Genesis-Deuteronomy."

This is of course nothing new, it is part of the Higher Biblical Criticism.

However, his claim that  "Nowhere else in the Pentateuch outside of Deuteronomy does the term torah refer to an extended written legal document"  is false, and one only needs to look into the Pentateuch itself to demonstrate this.

In Exodus 24,   we see as follows:

12 And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Come up to Me into the mount and be there; and I will give thee the tables of stone, and the Torah and the commandment, which I have written, that thou mayest teach them.'

וְאֶתְּנָה לְךָ אֶת-לֻחֹת הָאֶבֶן, וְהַתּוֹרָה וְהַמִּצְוָה, אֲשֶׁר כָּתַבְתִּי, לְהוֹרֹתָם.

        

At very minimum, this is the Torah referring to an extended written legal document.

In all likelihood it is way beyond the 2 Tablets of Law, and may be the Torah up till this point, or the legal aspects of the Pentateuch which are completed upon Moshe's sad death. The Torah is a book of Law, from which Moses will teach Israel.   

As is clear in this verse and also previously in this chapter, everything is written, there is no oral section of the Torah or Mitzvah. Neither Orthodox rabbinic, nor Reform Bible criticism are truthful interpretations of the Torah.

The Yoke of Torah

 In Rabbinical "Judaism", they speak a lot about the Yoke of burden of Torah, which one must accept.

This includes thousands or more of rabbinical acts which are contrary to or unfounded in the Torah itself.

The Torah, however, has its own view, and this disagrees with the rabbanites.

Deut 30

10 if thou shalt hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the law; if thou turn unto the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul. {S}
11   For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not too hard for thee,   neither is it far off.

12 It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say: 'Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it

13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say: 'Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it?'

14 But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it. 

Firstly, it refers only to the laws Written in the Book of Torah - so the this is the totality of the so called "burden" of Torah - ie , no talmud, mishnah, midrash, shulchan aruch etc - which compounds the burden a thousand fold or more.

Next, the  Torah is not in heaven  or across the sea - it is not the burden that the rabbinic books and ordinances falsely impose upon their followers.

So the idea of religiosity that rabbinics hold is actually in itself a violation of the Torah.

The Talmud is the Oral Law's Greatest Disproof

Hosea 8:12 

(אכתוב) [אֶ֨כְתׇּב־]ל֔וֹ (רבו) [רֻבֵּ֖י] תּוֹרָתִ֑י כְּמוֹ־זָ֖ר נֶחְשָֽׁבוּ׃

The many teachings I wrote for him
Have been treated as something alien.

In ch 8, Hosea is castigating the Israelites in Samaria for going astray. The above verse states that many Torah laws were written for Ephraim to see, but they rejected it. 

The Talmud Yerushalmi - which is different from the standard Babylonian Talmud, (and generally more preferable) makes the following comment:

Jerusalem Talmud Peah 2:4:4

Rebbi Zeïra in the name of Rebbi Eleazar: (Hos. 8:12) “I wrote down for him most of My teaching.” But was most of the Torah written down? Rather, more things are derived from what is written than what is (only) oral tradition. Is that so? But so it is: Things derived from what is transmitted orally are preferred over those written.

They are distinguishing here between several  categories.

1) The Written Torah (and Neviim)

2) Laws "derived" rabbinically from the  Written Law

3)  Laws and teachings derived from orally transmitted material.

They go on to say that 3)  (purely oral law derivatives) are superior to Written (whether 1 or 2)

This approach and attitude of even the scholars of the Talmud Yerushalmi, which totally disregards what the Prophets say, and instead inserts its own invented category of "oral transmission" demonstrates the dishonesty and falsity of the entire rabbinic enterprise.

A critique of Bible Critics – A Deutronomic Deception

 

Dr. David Glatt-Gilad from the Department of Bible, Archaeology, and the Ancient Near East at Ben-Gurion University, writes on https://www.thetorah.com/article/deuteronomy-the-first-torah

 a claim based on the Deuteronomic theory of Bible criticism.  His claim, is a bit contorted, but he states that modern scholars believe that Deuteronomy is the actual “Torah”  mentioned in Scripture, as opposed to the first 4 books of the Pentateuch.

 

He claims, both in response to a theory of Rabbi Malbim, and as a general theory that:

 

“Malbim, like Ramban before him, insists that the laws in Deuteronomy were all made known by God to Moses at Sinai, but were only made public by Moses shortly before his death— in other words these laws were part of the larger Torah, even if the term torah in Deuteronomy refers only to a portion of the Torah. For modern critical scholars, this is an unacceptable proposition, amongst other reasons, since Deuteronomy diverges from laws found elsewhere in the Pentateuch. (Compare, for example, Deut 12:20–24 and Lev 17:1–4 on the permissibility of consuming meat outside of a sacrificial context.) It is untenable that the Deuteronomic laws were given in conjunction with the very laws that they contradict.”

 

 

 

He presents 2 sets of laws, and claims that the Laws in Deuteronomy contradict those in Leviticus.   Upon studying these two renditions of laws related to sacrifice and slaughter of animals, it becomes apparent that firstly,  Glatt-Gilad has misread or misunderstood the verses he quotes, and  secondly, that his limited citation of 4 verses in Lev and 4 in Deut do not give the whole picture of the Biblical legislation. Hence, the basis upon which he derives his conclusion is not sufficient to derive any conclusion.

 

If we look at what the texts actually say, and the expanded chapters,  they tell a different story, and do not present any contradiction whatsoever.

 

 

Lev 17:

 

3 What man soever there be of the house of Israel, that killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat, in the camp, or that killeth it without the camp,

 

4 and hath not brought it unto the door of the tent of meeting, to present it as an offering unto the LORD before the tabernacle of the LORD, blood shall be imputed unto that man; he hath shed blood; and that man shall be cut off from among his people.

 

5 To the end that the children of Israel may bring their sacrifices, which they sacrifice in the open field, even that they may bring them unto the LORD, unto the door of the tent of meeting, unto the priest, and sacrifice them for sacrifices of peace-offerings unto the LORD.

 

 

 

 

The above is in regards to sacrifices in the Camp in the Wilderness.   However, Glatt-Gilad is saying “Compare, for example, Deut 12:20–24 and Lev 17:1–4 on the permissibility of consuming meat outside of a sacrificial context”.  Suggesting that Lev 17 forbids all meat  outside of a sacrificial context.  But, look at  the following:

 

13 And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among them, that taketh in hunting any beast or fowl that may be eaten, he shall pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust.

 

There is already an explicit permission to hunt animals, whether beast or fowl,  given in Lev 17.

 

 

 

In Deut 12, we need to see the expanse of the chapter before drawing any conclusions about possible contradictions.

 

Whilst Glatt-Gilad  only picks four verses, he ignores the setting of the chapter itself, which makes the opening statement:

 

1 These are the statutes and the ordinances, which ye shall observe to do in the land which the LORD, the God of thy fathers, hath given thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth.

 

The laws are now pertaining to the Land of Israel, and no longer the desert encampment in the Wilderness of Sinai. This is explicitly stated, and differentiated in Deuteronomy – so there is no contradiction:

 

8 Ye shall not do after all that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes;

9 for ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which the LORD your God giveth thee.

10 But when ye go over the Jordan, and dwell in the land which the LORD your God causeth you to inherit, and He giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety;

 

 

15 Notwithstanding thou mayest kill and eat flesh within all thy gates, after all the desire of thy soul, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which He hath given thee; the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the gazelle, and as of the hart.

 

 

The verse he does refer to, again brings a new condition, and it is not contradicting Leviticus.

 

21 If the place which the LORD thy God shall choose to put His name there be too far from thee, then thou shalt kill of thy herd and of thy flock, which the LORD hath given thee, as I have commanded thee, and thou shalt eat within thy gates, after all the desire of thy soul.

 

 

In the desert camp,  the Altar and the Tent were accessible to all, because they were all in the camp together.   In the Land of Israel,  the tribes split up across the land, and hence may not all have easy access to the Altar.  Hence Devarim is speaking of a new situation in Israel. Hence there is no contradiction whatsoever.

 

It is possible that the Rabbinical interpretation may add some different distinctions, but that is not pertinent to my argument.

 

Glatt-Gilad, despite his suggestive name, has given a rather unkosher, and dishonest rendering of what is written in the Torah.

A critique of Bible Critics – Wellhausen

 

A critique of Bible Critics – Wellhausen

 

 

Prof. John Barton, writing on  https://www.thetorah.com/article/biblical-criticism-a-common-sense-approach-to-the-bible  

presents the claims of the German Bible critic Julius Wellhausen:

 

“But Wellhausen did a simple and obvious thing, which had enormous implications. He examined the historical books of the Bible, and the books of the pre-exilic prophets (Amos, Hosea, First Isaiah, and so on), for evidence that the priestly system was in force in the early days of Israel, and he found none. On the contrary, it is only in post-exilic texts (Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles, Daniel) that we find clear allusions to it.”

 

Wellhausen was trying to prove that there were sections of the Torah which were retroactively written in by Priests in the 2^nd Temple era. He arrives at this conclusion by having searched through the TNK,  as mentioned above by Barton.

 

However, a simple search of an early book, eg 1 Samuel  finds the existence of Kohanim:

 

לה  וַהֲקִימֹתִי לִי כֹּהֵן נֶאֱמָן, כַּאֲשֶׁר בִּלְבָבִי וּבְנַפְשִׁי יַעֲשֶׂה; וּבָנִיתִי לוֹ בַּיִת נֶאֱמָן, וְהִתְהַלֵּךְ לִפְנֵי-מְשִׁיחִי כָּל-הַיָּמִים.	35 And I will raise Me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in My heart and in My mind; and I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before Mine anointed for ever.
לו  וְהָיָה, כָּל-הַנּוֹתָר בְּבֵיתְךָ, יָבוֹא לְהִשְׁתַּחֲוֺת לוֹ, לַאֲגוֹרַת כֶּסֶף וְכִכַּר-לָחֶם; וְאָמַר, סְפָחֵנִי נָא אֶל-אַחַת הַכְּהֻנּוֹת--לֶאֱכֹל פַּת-לָחֶם.  {פ}	36 And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left in thy house shall come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread, and shall say: Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests' offices, that I may eat a morsel of bread.' {P}

 

 

This shatters the assumption, and hypothesis of Wellhausen, as he has neglected to carry out a careful survey of the TNK, contrary to his claims.

 

Barton, with great arrogance, continues to spout Wellhausen’s disproven claims:

 

 

 

 

“So Wellhausen found himself in agreement with Karl Heinrich Graf (1815–1869) that “the law was later than the prophets” (lex post prophetas). P was not the foundation document of ancient Israel, but of Judaism after the exile. Not only did it not go back to Moses, it did not go back much before Ezra: it was a work of the sixth or fifth century B.C.E. at the earliest.

Ancient Israel, characterized by the prophets, and the legalistic Priestly religion of the Second Temple period, were two distinct things, and Judaism, which developed from the latter, could not claim to have truly ancient roots. It had been invented, we might almost say, by postexilic thinkers.”

 

 

The alleged “invention”, in fact, is  Wellhausen’s theory, which is contradicted by his own methodology, if applied honestly to the texts he claims to have read.

Rabbi Saadia Gaon - Talmudic Rabbi or Islamic Heretic?

 Saadia Gaon has a number of different hats, and is seen in different ways across the Jewish world.

For Talmudic Rabbanites, and also Philosophical Orthodox, he is a giant figure, who was a sort of precursor to Maimonides.

To Karaites, of course he is a bitter enemy, who was the greatest opponent of Karaim. 

Indeed, he also had huge controversies with other Rabbanite leaders on all sorts of things.

However, his malfeasance and violation of the Torah has now been exposed, in that he presents the Islamic falsification of the Parah Adumah - Red Heifer -  in his own Arabic  "translation" [falsification] of the Torah.   This is because the Quran misinterprets the Torah, and instead  claims that the Heifer in question was not Red but yellow!  Saadia Al  Fayyumi  repeats this false interpretation of the Torah in his  tragic-comic Bible commentary:

see https://www.kotzkblog.com/2018/11/202-rav-saadia-gaon-and-his-road-to.html

In the Qur’an, a parallel to the ‘Red Heifer’ is described[19]: The Children of Israel ask Moses to clarify details of the cow to be sacrificed. Moses responds that it should be middle-aged, unblemished, never used for work and the pleasing colour of 'tsafra', yellow (not red).

Freidenreich writes:

“There is, however, one significant departure from the [Hebrew[20]] biblical text: according to every manuscript and edition of the Tafsir which I have been able to examine, the color of the cow is safra [yellow[21]], the qur’anic word used to describe the cow’s color. It appears that Saadiah considers the red heifer to be yellow.”

Bamidbar 19

Thus the great Rabbinic anti-Karaite figure is indeed not even an "Orthodox" Rabbi, but sadly an Islamised syncretic heretic.

Pirkei Avot, Psychology, and the Personal Boundaries of Giving

  

The Mishnah Avot  is also referred to as the Ethics of the Fathers, and  contains many ethical concepts, in some ways reminiscent of the Stoic philosophers.

 

One particular Mishnah  I learnt as a child made quite an impression, and it is valuable to review this in light of psychological concepts, to see how valid it is today.

 

 

Avot 5:10

 

There are four types of character in human beings:
a) One that says: “mine is mine, and yours is yours”: this is a commonplace type; and some say this is a sodom-type of character.
b) [One that says:] “mine is yours and yours is mine”: is an unlearned person ;
c) [One that says:] “mine is yours and yours is yours” is a pious person.
d) [One that says:] “mine is mine, and yours is mine” is a wicked person.

 

 

 

The four types are evaluated in moral terms, each different from the other.  They do certainly provide 4 types of personal boundaries in relation to others, and how the traits of giving and taking are distributed. For the sake of analysis, I have prefixed each type with a letter notation, from a –d.

 

 

a)      is a strict relationship with essentially closed boundaries between all parties.  It is neither exploitative, nor is it charitable. Interestingly, the rabbis alternate between calling it a normal type, verses a trait of “Sodom” i.e. wicked.  And if society had no charity or empathy at all,  that is what it would descend into.

 

b)      is total openness between both parties, and it is referred to as unlearned.  Interestingly, this can be looked at as co dependency, which is not a healthy psychological relationship.

 

c) and d)  are opposites,  where c is “pious” and d is wicked.   It seems that the only good feedback given is for type c,  but how does this play in real terms?

 

A “mine is yours and yours is yours” type can only interact with the opposite, the wicked or pathological narcissist who behaves in a  “mine is mine, and yours is mine” type.  So d) is feeding off the open, uncritical generosity of c.  c) , therefore, is enabling and perpetuating d) the wicked.   Which means that even the pious c) can be self destructive, and enabling of the wicked, which should not be the aim of the Mishnah.

 

What if 2 c)’s interact?  Does it become b (mine is yours and yours is mine)?  If both parties accept what the other gives, then they are no longer c.  If  they don’t accept what the other gives, then there can be no c.  So c can only work with its opposite, and this leads to enabling the narcissism.

 

The psychologist Dr Paul Dobransky has presented a typology of having strong boundaries, which are closed, and having doors to open to others at one’s own choice. Furthermore, instead of co-dependency, which coincides with the Mishnah’s b), he proposes inter-dependency, where a measure of closed boundaries, and then opening when  it  is beneficial to all.  This more mature and durable typology avoids the problems of narcissism, and co-dependency. he refers to it as inter-dependency, which is open but also allows closing boundaries for one’s own personal space.