Does Secular Knowledge Cause People To Lose Their Faith?

Well, the answer to that is, it depends.

There is a fascinating interview in the current issue of Biblical Archeology Review. Editor Herschel Shanks interviewed four people who have done extensive work in archeology and/or biblical scholarship:

• Bart Ehrman, a popular BAS lecturer who lost his faith
  
• James Strange, archaeologist and Baptist minister
• Lawrence Shiffman, Dead Sea Scroll scholar, Orthodox Jew
• William Dever, archaeologist, former evangelical preacher, lost his faith, became a Reform Jew and is now an athiest

In the course of the interview, it emerges that Ehrman and Dever had very strict, literal interpretations of the Bible. As Ehrman put it:

I have a fundamentalist background. I had a very high view of Scripture as the inerrant word of God, no mistakes of any kind—geographical or historical. No contradictions. Inviolate.

My scholarship early on as a graduate student showed me that in fact these views about the Bible were wrong. I started finding contradictions and finding other discrepancies and started finding problems with the Bible. What that ended up doing for me was showing me that the basis of my faith, which at that time was the Bible, was problematic. So I shifted from being an evangelical Christian to becoming a fairly mainline liberal Protestant Christian.

In the end, when he was confronted with questions of theodicy, he lost his faith entirely.

Dever had a similar literalist background. He states (bolding mine):

I was ordained a minister at 17, put myself through undergraduate school and on through divinity school, through Harvard, then a congregation. I have 13 years’ experience as a parish minister and two theological degrees. For me, it was this typical Protestant conundrum: It’s all true or none of it is true. My sainted mother once said to me, If I can’t believe that the whale swallowed Jonah, I can’t believe any of it.

After his graduation, he moved to Israel and worked there for many years. When confronted with contradictions and contrary evidence, his faith was destroyed.

On the other hand, Strange and Schiffman don't hold to literalist views. Schiffman goes on to state relate an even which underscores his non-literalism:

A guy came to interview me recently for some TV program about Adam and Eve. So I said that the story of Adam and Eve is like a microcosm of human relations between a man and a woman, about people and God, and about good and evil. After about five minutes, the guy turns off the recorder and says “I don’t understand. Everybody else I interviewed is talking about—Where is Eden? Was there really one human being in the beginning?” I said that is not what this is about. There are major challenges to the Bible if you take it literally, but that is not what matters. That isn’t what it means to be a believing Jew.

Strange, too, doesn't take everything the Bible says literally, and he, too, kept his faith while studying.

I find this quite interesting, especially when it is applied to the Orthodox Jewish community. To those who believe that lice don't come from eggs, or that the moon landings were faked or that the sun goes behind a barrier every night, they are going to face a rude awakening when they discover that things are not as they've been told. Having accepted the premise that everything that Chazal say is infallible, and that Chazal had perfect knowledge of science, they may not be able to accept the fact that they can be proven wrong. And even if they close their eyes and refuse to see the evidence, their children or their grandchildren will. On the other hand, by willing to be flexible in your interpretation of ancient texts*, one can easily accommodate new challanges, ideas and evidence that arise without having to suffer the major shock that can cause one to lose their faith, as happened to Dever and Ehrman.

It's the attitude that "it's all true or none of it is true," which is prevalent among many fundamentalist Orthodox Jews, that causes all the problems. In a discussion regarding the Rambam and science, it was put to me this way: "If the Rambam could be found to be in error regarding his astronomy, then who is to say that he is not in error everywhere else in the Mishneh Torah. How would we have any authoritative basis for halacha at all?"

Of course, this is all very specious. One does not have to take an "all-or-nothing" approach to any ancient text. Why should the fact that the Rambam is wrong about the diameter of the sun affect anything he says regarding Hilchos Yibum? Obviously, they shouldn't - one area is halacha and the other is science. Just as we don't expect our engineers to be legal experts, and yet we still rely on them to build safe bridges, so too we should not hold Chazal to perfect scientific knowledge in order to arrive at a valid halachic decision.

In the end, I found this interview quite enlightening and it reinforced my belief that literalism is, in the end, an obstacle to maintaining one's faith, not a safeguard to it.

The Wolf

PseudoSkepticism

Let me say this at the outset - I'm probably going to disappoint everyone with this post. Those on one side of the debate will think I've gone straight to outright kefirah, while those on the other side will say that I'm simply shutting off my brain. But, hey, it's my blog and a place for me to air my thoughts. So, let's begin.

Hi! My name is Wolf, and I'm a pseudoskeptic. ("Hi Wolf!")

I'd have to say that I've been a pseudoskeptic for about as long as I've been frum. Of course, the amount of it has wavered back and forth over the years - sometimes leaning more toward the "believer" side and sometimes more toward the "skeptic" side; but I've always been somewhere in the middle.

A true skeptic trusts nothing without facts - or at least a good preponderance of the evidence. A true skeptic would never take subjects such as the existence of a Divine Being, the creation of the world, Torah MiSinai or any of the myriad other things that many Orthodox Jews take for granted without some direct or indirect evidence to their factuality.

A true believer, on the other hand, has little use for proof. Who needs proof that the world was created by God? We have His word for it. Who needs proof that there is an unbroken mesorah from God, to Moshe at Sinai down to today? We simply know it's true.

Alas, I don't fall into either camp. There are certain things that I take on faith alone. I believe in the existence of God, despite a complete lack of evidence. I believe that Moshe received the Torah at Mount Sinai. I believe that He wants us to and commanded us to keep the mitzvos. And, yet, there are some things that I reject outright without some form of evidence to back it up. I reject the science of Chazal where it has been proven wrong. I reject many of the fantastic miracles and events described in some secondary Jewish texts when there is no evidence for them in the physical world or even in the primary Jewish texts. In many respects, I've become a miracle minimalist.

(Pause for some to yell "Kofer!" and for others to yell "Use your brain, you idiot!")

For example, take this week's Torah portion. It includes the last three of the Ten Plagues, the first Passover sacrifice, the Exodus and laws relating to various topics (Pidyon Haben, Tefillin, etc.) The second of the plagues mentioned in the parsha is that of darkness. The Torah very clearly states what happened - that for three days there was darkness and that the Egyptians were unable to move from their places. Fine and well.

Of course, we're all familiar with the famous Midrash that there were Jews that were deemed unworthy to leave Egypt and died during the plague of darkness so that the Egyptians could not see the Jews suffering. Still, fine and well by me. There's nothing in the above statement that sounds like it's outside the realm of possibility or reason. However, it's at this point where the Mechilta departs from anything resembling believability. The Mechilta goes on to state that only one in five Jews departed Egypt - the rest having been killed and buried during the plague. Assuming the Torah's count of 600,000 (excluding women and children) to be true, it follows that the Jews would have been required to bury at least 2.4 million bodies (and possibly a hundred times more if R. Nehorai's version is to be believed) within the span of a few days (and, of course, that the Egyptians wouldn't notice that the vast majority of the Jews suddenly disappeared during that time). It's difficult to believe that the Egyptians would not notice all those Jews disappearing or all the mass graves that suddenly appeared. And, if the more exaggerated versions of the Mechilta are to be believed, it's difficult to believe that the Jews could have disposed of all the bodies or that that many people even existed in Egypt in the first place.

There are plenty of other examples of this that abound. The height of Og is a prime example. Was he large? Certainly - the Torah explicitly states that he was quite large. Was he 30 amos at the ankle? Sorry, I can't swallow that one. Just too fantastic. The fact that there is absolutely no external source for such a creature (who would certainly have been a world-famous legend and would have made Bashan a superpower in the region) raises the red flags in my head. The fact that there are other Judaic sources which indicate that the whole thing is simply exaggerated or homelitical further strengthens my convictions that the "mile-high" Og is much more myth than fact.

So, where does this leave me? Where do I draw the line between something that I'm willing to take on belief alone and that which I will require some evidence for? Well, to be honest, I don't have any hard-and-fast rules; but I do have some guidelines.

The Source - what is the source of the miracle or other supernatural fact? Some sources are simply more credible than others. For example, I'll give a statement in the Gemara more weight than I will a Midrash. I'll give a statement in Shemos more weight than I'll give a Gemara. Not all sources in Torah SheB'Al Peh are equal -- and each should be judged accordingly. If you take the position that it's all MiSinai and equally valid, then you have a hopeless jumble of contradictory information. In addition, you have to take into account that there are sources that state that some things can be taken allegorically or reinterpreted as a homelitic lesson rather than taken literally as fact.

The MindBoggling Factor - Is it reasonable to assume that some Jews didn't merit redemption from Egypt? Certainly. Is it reasonable to assume that only 20% of them did? That strains the credulity of the story (especially when one considers that such "paragons" as Dathan, Aviram, Korach, etc. were among those who did merit redemption). Is it reasonable that 80% of the Jews suddenly "vanished" and that the Egyptians didn't notice (and, if you say they did, then that defeats the whole purpose of it happening during the plague of darkness)? What if you say that the surviving percentage wasn't 20%, but 2% (1 in 50)? It is reasonable that there were really *that* many Jews in Egypt at one time? It is reasonable that they were able to bury all those bodies in such a short span?

Another example of this is the combination of the Midrashim that the Pharaoh of Moshe's time was the same Pharaoh of Abraham's time; and that the Pharaoh of Moshe's time was the same person as the King of Nineveh in Yonah's time (during the time of the first Beis Hamikdash). Each Midrash alone is a stretch to believe (especially considering that not once, but *twice* the Chumash tells us that Pharoah died), but to put them together (as some do) and give him a lifespan of over a thousand years is just beyond the realm of believability -- especially in light of the other factors.

The "Necessary to the Story" Factor - Is the miracle necessary for the story to happen? Take the plague of frogs for example. We all know the famous Midrash based on the fact that the verse says "VaTa'al HaTzefardea" ("the frog rose up," in the singular) to indicate that a single frog rose up from the Nile and exploded into many frogs each time the Egyptians hit it. OK, it's a nice Midrash and certainly has value in teaching us life lessons. But does that mean it has to be believed as literal? Ask yourself this question: if the Midrash never existed and the plague proceeded as a simple reading of the verses would have you believe (that many frogs rose up from the river [the fact that the verse uses the singular is not necessarily an obstacle -- many times the Torah uses a singular term for plurals]) does the story make sense? Of course. On the other hand, if you remove the frogs altogether, then the story no longer makes sense. So, the more necessary the miracle is to the point that the Torah narrative is trying to make, the more credit I'm willing to give it. (This doesn't mean that I don't believe this particular Midrash was literal -- it's just an example of *one* of the factors that go into the decision).

The long-lived Pharaoh as King-of-Nineveh Midrash is another example that doesn't stand up well here. Does the story in Yonah sound perfectly logical even without the Midrash? Certainly - there's more than one example of non-Jews throughout history who recognized God as the Prime Mover throughout history and as a Being capable of destroying entire cities due to wickedness. The story makes just as much sense without the Midrash. Again, that alone doesn't mean that the Midrash is not literally true - but rather it is a factor to take into consideration.

The "Would Normal People Think Like This" Factor - The Rivka-as-toddler-bride story fails this test. Go back to the Chumash and read the story again - would a three year old (even one as undoubtedly advanced as Rivka) be capable of watering camels? Would she really be capable of consenting to a marriage? It is certainly true that there were child marriages at various times throughout history, even with children as young as three, but the other facts of the story, when read by someone who didn't have a preconceived notion of Rivka's age, would seem to be contrary to the Midrash. If someone were reading the Torah narrative without having heard of the three-year-old Rivka story even have the slightest inkling that she was three years old? No, because normal people don't think that a three year old would be capable of watering camels to satiety or be capable of deciding on her on whether or not she should marry a total stranger. And if you apply the very logical idea that Avraham was simply hearing of Rivka's existence for the first time after the Akeida (rather than positing that she was actually born then), then the need for the mental gymnastics involved with a toddler bride go away and a teenager or later bride becomes much more logical.

So, those are some of the factors that I take into account when evaluating a statement in a Midrash or a Ma'amar Chazal. And yes, there are certain things that I take simply as a given. As I stated above, God's existence is taken as a given. So, I'm not a full skeptic -- sorry to disappoint some of you out there. Yeah, I know it's probably not 100% intellectually honest, but that's the way it is. That's why I'm a pseudoskeptic.

The Wolf

Can You Possibly Get Stupider Than This??? (Rambam and Science)

I was over at ChabadTalk, that old bastion of geocentrism, among other things. While there, someone (not me) made the comment that the Rambam was mistaken about science. Another poster asked for some elaboration, which I provided:

The planets aren't attached to spheres, for starters. Even the most ardent geocentrist would have to admit that the Rambam was wrong on that.

In addition, even if you're a geocentrist, the orbits of the planets are ellipses, not spheres, as the Rambam describes.

The Rambam states that the Earth is 40 times larger than the moon - in reality, the Earth is eighty times as massive as the moon. He also states that the Sun is about 170 times the size of the Earth -- that, too, is wrong, by quite a margin -- the Sun is about 333,000 times more massive than the Earth.

The Rambam states that there are no stars larger than the Sun. That's true to the observable eye, but is clearly false -- there are many stars that are much larger than the Sun.

He also states that there is no "star" smaller than Mercury. Well, that's true on the face of it -- a body that small cannot start nuclear fission. However, if you're going to posit that the Rambam used the term "kochav" to mean any celestial body (as you would have to, unless you are positing that Mercury and the other planets are stars too), then that statement is false, as there are plenty of celestial bodies smaller than Mercury.

All these statements of the Rambam can be found in Hil. Yesodei HaTorah chap. 3.

One poster decided to answer my challenge regarding the weight of the moon with what has to be the single most mind-numbingly stupid thing that I've heard in all the science/Torah debates (bolding mine):

The moon isn't made of gas, as far as modern scientists know (the bunch of crackpots that they are).

Of course, we have to realize that 1) nature changes (so maybe in times of Rambam the moon was takeh made of gas), 2) modern science does not rely on certainties but only on probabilities, so it is only 99.999% probable that moon isn't made of gas; on the other hand, everything that Rambam wrote was guided by h"p, so he can't be wrong, even if he himself said (for kiruv purposes surely) that sages of Torah may be wrong in the matters of science. Which makes it 100% true that moon is made of gas.

The moon is made of gas?? Forget the fact that we've sent out probes to the moon. Forget the fact that twelve people have actually walked on the surface of the moon. Forget the fact that moon rocks have been bought back to earth. What the poster doesn't seem to realize is that you can simply go out at night and look at the darn thing in the sky and see that it's made of rock. Gas doesn't cause the craters that you can see on the moon on any clear night.

Lest you think that the stupidity ends there, I followed up by asking the following question:

So, how do you then explain away all the data indicating that the moon isn't made of gas???

The response I got from another poster (warning: brain-numbing response ahead!):

well, that's your problem. The Torah is absolute(ly) true.

I'm just completely flabbergasted. Seriously, what we need in our yeshivos is a good re-education as to what exactly is Torah and what is science and where the two intersect. The Rambam's statements regarding astronomy (despite the fact that he placed them in Hilchos Yisodei HaTorah) are not actually fundamentals of Torah. There is no Torah source before him that states these facts - they simply represent the science of the day as he knew it. It's not like he looked up in a Gemara where it says that there is no celestial body smaller than Mercury - it was something that he either observed on his own or learned from other astronomers. The simple facts that he presents can easily be disproved, and yet, people are so blinded by the mistaken notion that everything the Rambam ever put in writing is Torah (and therefore irrefutable - even by the evidence of our own eyes) that these people are forced to come to the mindboggiling conclusion that the moon is either (a) made of gas or (b) somehow changed from gas to rock sometime since the Rambam.

I'd say that the parents of these people should ask for their money back from the yeshivos they went to, but, sadly, they probably got exactly what they wanted.

The Wolf

Sinai -- What Happened?

Warning: As our good friend XGH might like to say: Possible kefirah alert!

This post originated from a thread on Hashkafah.com.

I'd like to make two things clear at the outset here. The first is that this post is based on the assumption that the general historicity of Yetzias Mitzrayim (the Exodus from Egypt) and Mattan Torah (the Revelation at Sinai). Please don't respond with "well the whole thing's a myth anyway..."

The second point that I'd like to make at the start is that I'm not hostile to any alternative answer. If you can convince me that I'm wrong, I'm always open to changing my mind on the matter. That being said, let's go.

The thread started with someone asking a very simple question:

I'm not well 'learned' in our religion, but I was thinking of this today, and perhaps someone can give me a simple explanation. The Talmud is a discorse of rabbanim of the time discussing and arguing issues pertaining to judaism. I think, that it is accepted that this was revealed at har sinai, but how is it so, if the rabbanim were clearly from a later time discussing matters pertaining to Jews of that time. So how was it revealed at har sinai?

I answered that, very simply, the Talmud as we know it today was not given at Mt. Sinai.

The answer I gave to the original questioner was this:

At Sinai, we received the written Torah (define it as you will). In addition, we also received an oral corpus of law, detailing the mitzvos contained in the written text.

Over the course of time, many of those details became lost and/or forgotten. Indeed, some of them became lost in the month following Moshe's death. As time progressed, the oral tradition came to include not only what remained of the original oral law, but applications of the law to new situations that didn't exist in Moshe's day, as well as homelitic teachings, common folklore and medicine, the science of the day and teachings about post-Mosaic biblical characters.

In time, all of these components of the oral tradition were eventually discussed in the Batei Midrash of Israel and Bavel and codified into the Talmud we have today.

The idea that the Talmud as we have it today was handed down to Moshe is laughable.

That sparked a discussion on the matter. In short, it should be fairly obvious that the Talmud as it is written today could not have been given on Mt. Sinai.* Heck, it should be fairly obvious that the Pentatuch as written today could not have been given on Mt. Sinai. Would Korach have rebelled if he knew his fate in advance? Would the spies have brought back evil reports about the Land of Israel if they knew in advance the terrible consequences it would bring? Would Moshe himself have hit the rock knowing in advance that it would cost him his chance of entering Eretz Yisroel?

You can't even say that Torah (as we have it today) was given up to the chapter of Mattan Torah. Imagine if the Genesis and Exodus (up to chapter 20) was given to the Jews at Sinai. The following conversation might have taken place:

Person: Um, Moshe, I've been looking at this book you brought down from the mountain.
Moshe: Yes, what about it?
Person: Well, I was hoping you could explain something to me. I was looking at this part toward the end, and I see it says that we ate the Manna for 40 years until we reached the Promised Land.
Moshe: Yes, so?
Person: Well, I thought we were going to be going into the land in a few days. What's this line about us being out here in the wilderness for forty years?
Moshe: Um... come back and ask me again after Tisha B'Av.

Another idea is that the mitzvos (commandments) were given at Sinai while the historical sections were written as they happened or in Arvos Moav at the end of the forty years. Yet, even that can't be said to be entirely true either; as there are at least three instances that I can think of off the top of my head where the law was either unknown at the time of Sinai or changed afterwards: the punishment for the Sabbath desecrator, Pesach Sheini and the law that allows daughters to inhereit in the absence of a son. Clearly the mitzvos themselves didn't acheive their "final forms" until shortly before Moshe's death.

If we can discount the fact that the Chumash itself, in it's present form was not given at Sinai, it's fairly easy to say that the Talmud in it's present form wasn't given at Sinai either. That's not to say that the teachings and lessons of the Talmud weren't at Sinai -- I believe that they were -- albeit in a very different form.

As many others have pointed out, the text of the Chumash leaves out many details of the mitzvos. This is often cited as one of the proofs for the existence of an oral tradition from Sinai. I'm willing to accept that at face value. If you are going to posit that the Torah is God-given, then it naturally follows that if God wants us to follow it that He would provide more details than were simply in the text. (As to why He didn't then just put the details in the Torah to begin with is a separate question.) But to suggest that the oral tradition given to Moshe (and please read my footnote below again) included all the aggadata (non-halachic) sections and that all of that was handed down word-for-word through the generations to the present day is simply ludicrous.

Again, you'd have the problem of foreknowledge. Would Saul have spared the Amalekite king if he had learned that it would one day cost him his kingship? Would he have gotten mad at his son for supporting David? Why? He already knew that his son would support David! This is just one example out of dozens that could be asked about.

You'd also have the problem of the people mentioned in the Talmud and the halachic positions they held. Can you imagine young Shammai learning in Beis Midrash that he's going to hold this-and-this opinion?

Lastly, you have the very nature of an oral transmission to deal with. Consider the following: The Chumash is a written text. If you ever have a question about the correct reading of a verse, you can always go back to an existing Torah and check it out. Despite that, over the course of the 3300 years since Sinai, there are several variant texts of the Torah out there today (although, granted, they are minor differences, they are, nonetheless, not exactly the same). It stands to reason that if the physical, written Torah, which exists outside of people's memories and can be referred to, and that can survive persecution attempts and long periods of neglect (i.e. you can not study the Torah for years and yet come back and pick it up and get an authentic reading of the text from it), then surely an oral tradition, which relies on faulty human memories and personal biases, which cannot survive periods of neglect (or else it starts to be forgotten) and which can vary from person to person (no two people tell the same story the same way), surely cannot be reliably transmitted word-for-word intact over a period of 2000 years.

Indeed, the Gemara itself tells us that it did not survive completely intact. In the month following Moshe's death, over 300 halachos were forgotten. True, they were restored using the rules laid down at Sinai for deriving new laws, but there is no real guarantee that the laws were identical to the ones that Moshe handed down. So, how can we follow such laws now? We simply have to say "lo bashamayim hi" (the Torah is no longer in heaven) and it is up to us to interpret how it is applied to new generations and new situations (again, utilizing the rules laid down).

Of course, it must be noted that the Gemara itself says in Berachos that it (along with the Navi, Midrash, Mishna, etc.) were revealed at Sinai. That being the case, how can I say that the Gemara wasn't given at Sinai? I'll answer that with the answer that my Rav game to me regarding another question that I had.

There is a tradition that the 92nd Psalm (Mizmor Shir L'Yom HaShabbos) was written by Adam on the first Shabbos after Creation. I asked my Rav how such a thing could be - after all it references concepts that could not possibly have existed at that time (musicians, which the Torah attests didn't come about until later; the concept of a foolish man - if the only people who ever existed were you and your wife, there would not be a concept of a "foolish man," etc.) . He answered me that Adam did not, in fact, compose the Psalm as we have it today - rather he expressed and originated certain ideas and themes that later became a part of the composed Psalm. I rather liked the answer since I had another example of "plagiarism" by Dovid that fit the same model (Dovid's composition of Psalm 113 was clearly influenced by Channah's prayer of a generation earlier at I Samuel 2 (especially verse 8, which Dovid nearly lifted word-for-word).

So, too, the same can apply with the Talmud. The halachos themselves, the details of the laws as given at Sinai were part of the original composition. In addition, it was understood that the means by which to apply the laws to situaitons which did not yet exist at the time of Mattan Torah were given as well. In addition certain concepts that were later contained in the Navi and later writing may well have been part of the original transmission, but left unformulated until the Navi put it into his own words. But that the book of Isaiah was handed word-for-word to Moshe (and then passed down - again - word-for-word until written down by Isaiah) is simply ridiculous.

And yet, I occasionally run across people who actually believe this - that the Talmud and other texts that we have were handed down word-for-word until they were written down. I just don't understand how anyone could actually believe that. If you have a convincing argument that it was, I'd love to hear it.

The Wolf

* By given on Mt. Sinai, I mean given and transmitted down the generations. It certainly could have been revealed to Moshe who kept it to himself - but then what's the point of saying it was revealed on Sinai. That's kind of like saying that God gave Moshe the plans for the telephone, but he didn't pass it down so Alexander Graham Bell didn't really invent it.