Showing posts with label torah proofs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label torah proofs. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
From The Mailbag: The Fins-and-Scales Proof
A reader named David sent me the following email:
Dear Wolf,
I wanted to sincerely tell you how much I appreciate your website, a good example of the way the Internet can be used for the good.
I also wanted to ask you about a particular point that you make in your "Torah proof" section.
I appreciate the work done, and I should say that I came to pretty much the same conclusions about those "proofs".
Except for the animal signs; you write that it doesn't stand as a valid proof of the veracity of the Torah, because Chazal could have guessed it right.
What you don't seem to see is that the argument is so strong because if their statements had been shown incorrect in the future, the entire credibility of Chazal – the belief in their inspired way of reading the Bible, and thus Judaism itself, would have crumbled.
Moreover, these assertions were unnecessary, they seem to have been made only to prove the validity of torah shebeal peh ; and, seriously, what were the chances that no one would ever find something in the water that has scales but doesn’t have fins ?
I may be wrong somewhere, but I don’t see it.
Kol Tuv,
David
David was following up on a post of mine regarding one of the proofs to the divinity of the Torah. The proof that David is referring to goes something like this:
The Torah mentions that in order for a fish to be kosher, it must have fins and scales. The Mishna in Niddah goes on to point out that all fish that have scales also have fins. The halachic inference from this is that if you find a fish that has scales but no fins, it is kosher, because all fish that have scales have fins. Thus, if you find a part of a fish with scales but no fins attached, you may eat it since it definitely had fins at some point (which may have been removed by a predator or some other agent).
The proof* then continues in a similar vein to the four-animals proof: How could Chazal have made such a statement? Were they ichthyologists who knew every species of fish on the planet? Since they made this statement, and it has proven to be true to this day**, surely the information must have come from a Divine source (from He who knows all the species of fish on the planet).
I addressed this proof by stating that making accurate statements are not proof of divinity. The Mishna's author could have simply extrapolated from the sample of fish species that they had at hand and created the general rule that all fish that have scales also have fins. Anyone can do this... including you and I.
For example, I'm going to state right now that all stars (except collapsed, dead stars) perform nuclear fusion at their cores. And now let's suppose that 10,000 years from now, someone digs this statement up and, lo and behold, the rule still holds true -- every star that was ever found was powered by nuclear fusion. Now, let me state up front that I am not an astronomer. There's no way I could have known that all the stars that are out there. Does the fact that I made such an accurate statement make me divine? Does it mean that my wonderfully accurate statement was of divine origin? The answer, obviously, is no. I simply extrapolated a general rule based on the sample of stars that we currently know about -- something that could have just as easily happened with regard to the Mishna in Niddah and fishes.
This brings us to the point of David's letter. He counters this by stating as follows:
What you don't seem to see is that the argument is so strong because if their statements had been shown incorrect in the future, the entire credibility of Chazal – the belief in their inspired way of reading the Bible, and thus Judaism itself, would have crumbled.
But here David is making assumptions that are not in evidence. He's assuming that the author of the Mishna was concerned that their statement might have been disproven in the future. However, there are several other possibilities. Perhaps the author of the Mishna simply thought they were right and that they didn't entertain the possibility that they were wrong (as I did in my statement about the stars)? Perhaps he never considered the possibility that, even if he was in error, that it would cause Judaism itself to crumble (I don't think it would, but that's another post for another time). Perhaps they were simply trying to offer advice to people regarding kosher fish and didn't give any thought whatsoever to the broader implications of such a statement. In short, David is begging-the-question. He's starting with the assumption that the statement is of Divine origin and that the author of the Mishna was, in fact, making a proof to the divinity of the Torah.
The Wolf
*Technically speaking, this proof cannot be used to prove the divinity of the Torah, but rather the divinity of this one particular statement of the Mishna. But let's leave that aside for now.
** Well, not really, but, for the sake of argument, let's say that it is 100% true today.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Is Our Torah The Exact Same As Moshe's?
In a comment on my previous post, Nate pointed to an article on Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb's website concerning the accuracy of our present-day Torahs. The article asserts that the Torah that we have today is letter-for-letter* the same as the Torah that God gave to Moshe on Mt. Sinai. Nate then followed the link with the words "UNDISPUTED AND 100% TRUTH." Sadly, the point is not undisputed nor is it 100% truth.
The article actually originated on Aish HaTorah's website and can be read here. The main points of the article are as follows:
Therefore, you can rely, with a high degree of confidence, that the Torah that we have today is *exactly* the same as the one that Moshe left for us at the end of his life.
The problem with all this is that most of those points are either exaggerations or just plain wrong. Let's go through these points and examine them.
I'm going to grant the author of the article the first two points as given. If we don't agree that Moshe wrote the Torah, then there is really no point in the rest of the article. I am also going to assume that he did, in fact, leave a Torah as a standard.
However, it becomes clear that, at some point, that standard became corrupted. For example, consider the event recounted in Meseches Sofrim. In it, Reish Lakish recounts that three Sifrei Torah were found in the Bais HaMikdash:
One book was called "The Ma'on Book." The reason it was so called was because Devraim 33:27 started out with the word "Ma'on." In the other two, it started out with the word "M'onah."
The second book was called "The Zatutei Book." It was so called because in it, the text of Sh'mos 24:5 says "And he sent to the 'Zatutei' (young men) of the Children of Israel..." In the other two books, the word "Na'arei" replaced "Zatutei."
The third book was called the "Hee Book." It was so called because it had one set of variant spellings of the word Hee in Hebrew, while the other two had a different set of spellings**.
In each case, in establishing the correct reading, the Sages followed the majority. They rejected the reading of "Ma'on" and instituted "M'onah." They rejected the reading of "Zatutei" and instituted "Na'arei." The rejected the spellings in the Hee Book and accepted the spellings in the other two books. Those readings became the standard and, indeed, are in our Sifrei Torah today.
There are several points that need to be made about this story.
You might think that this settled the matter and that, at least, from this point onward, we would have a unified standard text. Alas, such was not the case. There are several places in the Talmud where the Gemara quotes a different text than the one we have. One of the more famous examples is the Gemara in Sanhedrin where one of the three reading of the word "Totafos" has an extra vav -- and that extra vav is used to help determine that there are four compartments in the Tefillin Shel Rosh. However, in the end, even the Gemara attests to the fact that we don't necessarily have accurate spellings for all the words in the Torah. The Gemara states that we are not expert in chasser and malei (i.e. words that have "extra" letters to represent vowels).
The Rambam, in the 12th century, famously went to view the bible today knows as the Aleppo Codex (also known as the Kesser Aram Tzovah), to determine the standard text and spacings in the Torah scrolls. It should be noted that, obviously, the Rambam did not have a scroll at his disposal which he considered authoritative enough.
Likewise, the Rav Mair HeLeivi Abulafia (13th century) writes in the preface to his work Mesores Siyug L'Torah that in his day there were doubts as to the correct reading. He, like the Sages in the Temple, relied on a "majority rules" principle to establish the text which he published in his sefer. Likewise, Yaakov ben Chayim (early 16th century), who published the first edition of the Mikraos Gedolos, noted that there were variant readings in his day. Nonetheless, with the adoption of the Mikraos Gedolos and the invention of the printing press, a standard text was finally adopted.
But even that's not the end of the matter. As noted above, the Yemenites have a slightly different Torah than we do. Although the author claims that the differences are only spelling there is at least one case where the spelling does change the meaning of a word (from a singular to a plural). Furthermore, even setting aside the Yemenite Torahs, there is still at least one textual variant extant today -- the final letter of the word "Dakah" in Devarim 23:2 is spelled in some Sifrei Torah with an aleph and in others with a Heh. But aside from these few cases, the text that we (finally) have today has been standardized.
The article tries to make the case that we can authoritatively state that our Torahs are accurate (vis a vis the Torah gave to Moshe) because of the traditions of the scribes. For example, the article makes the point that there was a Torah in Jerusalem that was used as the model against which others were judged. We've already seen that the model wasn't always accurate either, but let's put that point aside for the moment and assume, for the sake of argument, that the model is 100% accurate. There are still several assumptions that are being made by the author of the article that are not, in fact, in evidence:
The first point to be made is that a model text is only good if it's actually used. There is no indication anywhere that in the centuries after Moshe that scribes and other people *routinely* brought their Torah scrolls to Jerusalem to check them against the model. It's not very difficult to see how an error can creep into a sefer and stay there. Likewise, it's not too difficult to see how an inaccurate version can be copied to other texts. In a place where there aren't very many Sifrei Torah circulating about (as you can imagine would be the situation in Israel between the time of Joshua and the Exile), it's very easy for an inaccurate text to be copied to another one.
Just consider the three variant scrolls that were eventually found in the Temple. Do you think that they were first scrolls to have those variations? Or is it more likely that they were copied from other variant scrolls? I would argue the latter -- especially if you're also going to posit that scribes were generally very careful with their work.
Another assumption that is being made by the author is that the laws regarding the writing of a Sefer Torah (i.e. pronouncing each word out loud before writing, not writing by heart, etc.) were always the same as they are today AND that those laws were universally observed. Neither of those (and certainly not in latter) can be said to be true 100% of the time. It's certainly not inconceivable that there might have been scribes who were less than scrupulous with their work and did, indeed, introduce errors into their work.
Lastly, the author tries to make the comparison between the accuracy of our Torahs and the Christian Bible. He states that there are only nine spelling variants extant today, while showing that there are thousands of variants of the Christian Bible.
I'm not an expert in the Christian Bible, so I can't speak to that point directly. But what I do know is that the author is making a false comparison. The author, in making his point, is outright dismissing any known variant text to our Bible (Yemenite Torahs excepted). He's conveniently forgetting that there are variations of our text that do exist -- and they're still around today. The Samaritan Bible, the Septiguant, the Dead Sea Scrolls, et al are all still extant and can be read to this very day. By forgetting them (or, more likely dismissing them), the author is engaging in a form of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. In short, he's claiming the to reject any variants he doesn't like as non-authoritative while, at the same time, holding Christians to task for all their variants.
Of course, Nate makes the very same error when he says "UNDISPUTED" regarding the article. What he means is "undisputed by anyone who agrees with it," which, again, is a form of the No True Scotsman fallacy. But it's pretty clear that it can, indeed be disputed whether or not the Torah text we have today is a letter-for-letter copy of Moshe's.
The Wolf
* The author of the article does acknowledge that the Yemenite Torahs are different than ours in nine places.
** In later writings, the word "Hee" is written Hey-Yud-Aleph. However, in the Torah, it is often spelled Hey-Vuv-Aleph, the same as the word "Hu." However, there are a number of places where the Torah uses the first spelling. The differences between the scrolls was in where the exceptional spelling was used.
The article actually originated on Aish HaTorah's website and can be read here. The main points of the article are as follows:
- Moshe wrote the Torah.
- This Torah (or, perhaps later on, others based on this Torah scroll) were kept in the Bais HaMikdash as a model and standard.
- New Torah scrolls that were written would be checked against this Torah.
- Sofrim (scribes) were very careful not to add/delete/change anything since any change makes a Sefer Torah invalid.
- The Torah has a built-in "security system" that prevents invalid Torahs from being used.
- The end result is that, as of today, the only variant that exists of the Torah is the Yemenite Torah, which has nine minor spelling variations from the "standard" version. These variations are all minor spelling differences (as British spelling differs from American spelling) and do not change the meanings of any words. Otherwise, every Torah we use today is the same letter-for-letter that God gave to Moshe.
- This is very impressive because, compared with the Christian Bible (what is commonly called "The New Testament") the Torah is remarkably stable. The Christian Bible has well over 200,000 variant letters. We have nine.
Therefore, you can rely, with a high degree of confidence, that the Torah that we have today is *exactly* the same as the one that Moshe left for us at the end of his life.
The problem with all this is that most of those points are either exaggerations or just plain wrong. Let's go through these points and examine them.
I'm going to grant the author of the article the first two points as given. If we don't agree that Moshe wrote the Torah, then there is really no point in the rest of the article. I am also going to assume that he did, in fact, leave a Torah as a standard.
However, it becomes clear that, at some point, that standard became corrupted. For example, consider the event recounted in Meseches Sofrim. In it, Reish Lakish recounts that three Sifrei Torah were found in the Bais HaMikdash:
One book was called "The Ma'on Book." The reason it was so called was because Devraim 33:27 started out with the word "Ma'on." In the other two, it started out with the word "M'onah."
The second book was called "The Zatutei Book." It was so called because in it, the text of Sh'mos 24:5 says "And he sent to the 'Zatutei' (young men) of the Children of Israel..." In the other two books, the word "Na'arei" replaced "Zatutei."
The third book was called the "Hee Book." It was so called because it had one set of variant spellings of the word Hee in Hebrew, while the other two had a different set of spellings**.
In each case, in establishing the correct reading, the Sages followed the majority. They rejected the reading of "Ma'on" and instituted "M'onah." They rejected the reading of "Zatutei" and instituted "Na'arei." The rejected the spellings in the Hee Book and accepted the spellings in the other two books. Those readings became the standard and, indeed, are in our Sifrei Torah today.
There are several points that need to be made about this story.
- The first point to be made is that there was no single model text that could be used to check against. Indeed, these three texts *were* the model texts that were used. These were the Sifrei Torah that were found in the Temple Courtyard. If there was an alternate authoritative text, the Sages could simply have consulted it to determine the correct text for each of the three cases. The sad fact, however, is that there was no single authoritative text to compare these to -- these *were* the authoritative texts -- and now they were at variance with one another. As a result, the Sages had to establish the correct text and, in each case, went with the majority.
- The second point to be made from this story is that the so-called "built-in security system" failed... and failed miserably. It's one thing if an error creeps into a text in a backwater shul somewhere where perhaps only a few people were even capable of reading the sefer and where, if an error is found in the book, it could be isolated. This, however, was an entirely different matter. Here, textual variants are showing up in the model texts themselves. And, I'd bet dollars to donuts, that these variants didn't just show up in only these three books. I highly doubt the Sages woke up one morning and decided to check the Temple scrolls against each other just for the heck of it. I'd be willing to bet that they were getting numerous reports of variant readings and needed to investigate. And, furthermore, I'd be willing to bet that after an informal survey of the scrolls in their own personal libraries and in the shuls and study halls in Jerusalem (which were probably used on a daily basis), they found variant readings too -- otherwise, why start comparing the Temple scrolls against each other? So, they went to the Temple to get the authoritative reading, and found that even there, there was no single text. Clearly, when the authoritative texts have variants, the "security system" has failed.
- The third, and perhaps most startling point to be made is this -- at the end of the story, we find that *none* of the three authoritative model texts was kosher! Every single one of them was invalid. One had a variant reading in Devarim, one had a variant in Sh'mos and one had variants in the spelling of Hu/Hee. But *none* of the three had the text that we have today! In other words, in the end, the standard text that we have today was based on a combination of these three texts.
You might think that this settled the matter and that, at least, from this point onward, we would have a unified standard text. Alas, such was not the case. There are several places in the Talmud where the Gemara quotes a different text than the one we have. One of the more famous examples is the Gemara in Sanhedrin where one of the three reading of the word "Totafos" has an extra vav -- and that extra vav is used to help determine that there are four compartments in the Tefillin Shel Rosh. However, in the end, even the Gemara attests to the fact that we don't necessarily have accurate spellings for all the words in the Torah. The Gemara states that we are not expert in chasser and malei (i.e. words that have "extra" letters to represent vowels).
The Rambam, in the 12th century, famously went to view the bible today knows as the Aleppo Codex (also known as the Kesser Aram Tzovah), to determine the standard text and spacings in the Torah scrolls. It should be noted that, obviously, the Rambam did not have a scroll at his disposal which he considered authoritative enough.
Likewise, the Rav Mair HeLeivi Abulafia (13th century) writes in the preface to his work Mesores Siyug L'Torah that in his day there were doubts as to the correct reading. He, like the Sages in the Temple, relied on a "majority rules" principle to establish the text which he published in his sefer. Likewise, Yaakov ben Chayim (early 16th century), who published the first edition of the Mikraos Gedolos, noted that there were variant readings in his day. Nonetheless, with the adoption of the Mikraos Gedolos and the invention of the printing press, a standard text was finally adopted.
But even that's not the end of the matter. As noted above, the Yemenites have a slightly different Torah than we do. Although the author claims that the differences are only spelling there is at least one case where the spelling does change the meaning of a word (from a singular to a plural). Furthermore, even setting aside the Yemenite Torahs, there is still at least one textual variant extant today -- the final letter of the word "Dakah" in Devarim 23:2 is spelled in some Sifrei Torah with an aleph and in others with a Heh. But aside from these few cases, the text that we (finally) have today has been standardized.
The article tries to make the case that we can authoritatively state that our Torahs are accurate (vis a vis the Torah gave to Moshe) because of the traditions of the scribes. For example, the article makes the point that there was a Torah in Jerusalem that was used as the model against which others were judged. We've already seen that the model wasn't always accurate either, but let's put that point aside for the moment and assume, for the sake of argument, that the model is 100% accurate. There are still several assumptions that are being made by the author of the article that are not, in fact, in evidence:
The first point to be made is that a model text is only good if it's actually used. There is no indication anywhere that in the centuries after Moshe that scribes and other people *routinely* brought their Torah scrolls to Jerusalem to check them against the model. It's not very difficult to see how an error can creep into a sefer and stay there. Likewise, it's not too difficult to see how an inaccurate version can be copied to other texts. In a place where there aren't very many Sifrei Torah circulating about (as you can imagine would be the situation in Israel between the time of Joshua and the Exile), it's very easy for an inaccurate text to be copied to another one.
Just consider the three variant scrolls that were eventually found in the Temple. Do you think that they were first scrolls to have those variations? Or is it more likely that they were copied from other variant scrolls? I would argue the latter -- especially if you're also going to posit that scribes were generally very careful with their work.
Another assumption that is being made by the author is that the laws regarding the writing of a Sefer Torah (i.e. pronouncing each word out loud before writing, not writing by heart, etc.) were always the same as they are today AND that those laws were universally observed. Neither of those (and certainly not in latter) can be said to be true 100% of the time. It's certainly not inconceivable that there might have been scribes who were less than scrupulous with their work and did, indeed, introduce errors into their work.
Lastly, the author tries to make the comparison between the accuracy of our Torahs and the Christian Bible. He states that there are only nine spelling variants extant today, while showing that there are thousands of variants of the Christian Bible.
I'm not an expert in the Christian Bible, so I can't speak to that point directly. But what I do know is that the author is making a false comparison. The author, in making his point, is outright dismissing any known variant text to our Bible (Yemenite Torahs excepted). He's conveniently forgetting that there are variations of our text that do exist -- and they're still around today. The Samaritan Bible, the Septiguant, the Dead Sea Scrolls, et al are all still extant and can be read to this very day. By forgetting them (or, more likely dismissing them), the author is engaging in a form of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. In short, he's claiming the to reject any variants he doesn't like as non-authoritative while, at the same time, holding Christians to task for all their variants.
Of course, Nate makes the very same error when he says "UNDISPUTED" regarding the article. What he means is "undisputed by anyone who agrees with it," which, again, is a form of the No True Scotsman fallacy. But it's pretty clear that it can, indeed be disputed whether or not the Torah text we have today is a letter-for-letter copy of Moshe's.
The Wolf
* The author of the article does acknowledge that the Yemenite Torahs are different than ours in nine places.
** In later writings, the word "Hee" is written Hey-Yud-Aleph. However, in the Torah, it is often spelled Hey-Vuv-Aleph, the same as the word "Hu." However, there are a number of places where the Torah uses the first spelling. The differences between the scrolls was in where the exceptional spelling was used.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Poor Arguments
Every now and again, you come across an argument put forth by someone and wonder how it is possible that they don't see the refutation to their very own argument. A good example of this was found on Rabbi Lazer Brody's website earlier this week. He writes:
The answer, of course, is very simple -- (1) Events that happened millions of years ago left behind physical evidence that can be examined today -- fossils, geological formations, layers in ice cores and the like. Mattan Torah, on the other hand, did not leave behind any physical evidence. That's not to say that it did not happen -- on the contrary, I believe that Mattan Torah occurred. But you cannot express dismay at the fact that scientists are willing to rely on physical evidence and not on historical retellings that have one root source.
Another factor to consider is that there is a qualitative difference between "hard" evidence (such as the physical evidnce I mentioned earlier) and "soft" evidence (traditional retelling of historical events). The latter type of evidence is far easier to manipulate than the former. Just to give an example, ask any two random people to tell you the story of Little Red Riding Hood without referring to a written text. In the vast majority of cases, the people telling the stories will not relate them exactly the same way. Some people may choose to play up or embellish one part of the story more than the other. Or put it this way -- did your father tell over the story of the Exodus by the seder EXACTLY the same way every year? Do you tell it over to your kids EXACTLY the same way?
Lastly, of course, there is an additional difference. Rabbi Brody may have this tradition passed down from father to son and from rebbe to talmid -- but the scientists don't. If Rabbi Brody is willing to accept this, then that's fine -- but he cannot insist on forcing those same views on others -- not unless he's willing to accept the ancient traditions passed down by other religions as well.
Rabbi Brody continues in his post:
I don't necessarily know that the scientists would agree that it's "utterly absurd" that the wool could have been pulled over the eyes of the tzadikkim he mentioned above -- but let's put that aside for the moment. The real problem with his argument here is that he's assuming something that's not in evidence -- that a deception is being perpetrated. His argument (as I understand it) is as follows: if Mattan Torah is false, then someone lied. If it's a lie, the above named people would never have fallen for it. Hence it can't be a lie.
However, Rabbi Brody is engaging in the fallacy of the excluded middle. There is another possibility -- that the people who transmitted the historicity of Mattan Torah to these tzadikkim actually believed in these events. As such, when (for example) the Chofetz Chaim first learned about Mattan Torah from his father, he has no reason to doubt his father's word, because his father believed in the historicity of Mattan Torah. There was no deception being perpetrated against the Chofetz Chaim because his father presented the facts as he believed them to be and as he received them from his father. I don't know anything about the Chofetz Chaim's father, but for the sake of argument, let's say that he, too, was an extraordinary man who would never knowingly accept or transmit false information. But could you say the same thing about his father? His grandfather? And every person in the chain back to whichever son of Aharon (if I recall correctly, the Chofetz Chaim was a Kohen) he is descended from? Is it not within the realm of possibility that *someone* in that chain was deceived, duped or even just came to believe information that was not historically accurate? If so, then no one is "pulling the wool" over these giants any more than Ptolmey "pulled the wool" over the people of his day with his geocentric model of the universe. There was no deception -- merely people working with the information that they had at the time. By framing it as a "deception," Rabbi Brody excludes the possibility that they could have simply believed in inaccurate information because that was the information/evidence that they had at the time.
I don't have any problems with Rabbi Brody's beliefs. As I mentioned above, I, too, believe in Mattan Torah. But I do have a problem with his arguments -- they are poorly thought out with easy refutations at hand -- refutations to which he has seemingly blinded himself.
The Wolf
My simple mind asks a question - How is it that the scientists purport to know what happened millions of years ago, yet deny the hard historical fact that 2 million men, women, and children saw the revelation of Hashem on Mount Sinai a mere 3323 years ago? This latter fact has been passed down from father to son and from rav to talmid (teacher to student), so that's why I go with the simple faith of our forefathers. Also, if it was good for the previous generations' spiritual giants, it's certainly good for me.
The answer, of course, is very simple -- (1) Events that happened millions of years ago left behind physical evidence that can be examined today -- fossils, geological formations, layers in ice cores and the like. Mattan Torah, on the other hand, did not leave behind any physical evidence. That's not to say that it did not happen -- on the contrary, I believe that Mattan Torah occurred. But you cannot express dismay at the fact that scientists are willing to rely on physical evidence and not on historical retellings that have one root source.
Another factor to consider is that there is a qualitative difference between "hard" evidence (such as the physical evidnce I mentioned earlier) and "soft" evidence (traditional retelling of historical events). The latter type of evidence is far easier to manipulate than the former. Just to give an example, ask any two random people to tell you the story of Little Red Riding Hood without referring to a written text. In the vast majority of cases, the people telling the stories will not relate them exactly the same way. Some people may choose to play up or embellish one part of the story more than the other. Or put it this way -- did your father tell over the story of the Exodus by the seder EXACTLY the same way every year? Do you tell it over to your kids EXACTLY the same way?
Lastly, of course, there is an additional difference. Rabbi Brody may have this tradition passed down from father to son and from rebbe to talmid -- but the scientists don't. If Rabbi Brody is willing to accept this, then that's fine -- but he cannot insist on forcing those same views on others -- not unless he's willing to accept the ancient traditions passed down by other religions as well.
Rabbi Brody continues in his post:
It's utterly absurd to think that anyone could have been capable of pulling the wool over the eyes of such intellectual and spiritual giants as the Ramcha"l, the Vilna Gaon, Rebbe Chaim Volozhiner, Rebbe Nachman of Breslev or the Chofetz Chaim. Stories do change and develop over time, no one can argue with that. But the holy Zohar warns that our Torah is not a mere collection of "stories", G-d forbid, but precision Divine wisdom. That's why our sages throughout the generations believed in every iota of Torah
I don't necessarily know that the scientists would agree that it's "utterly absurd" that the wool could have been pulled over the eyes of the tzadikkim he mentioned above -- but let's put that aside for the moment. The real problem with his argument here is that he's assuming something that's not in evidence -- that a deception is being perpetrated. His argument (as I understand it) is as follows: if Mattan Torah is false, then someone lied. If it's a lie, the above named people would never have fallen for it. Hence it can't be a lie.
However, Rabbi Brody is engaging in the fallacy of the excluded middle. There is another possibility -- that the people who transmitted the historicity of Mattan Torah to these tzadikkim actually believed in these events. As such, when (for example) the Chofetz Chaim first learned about Mattan Torah from his father, he has no reason to doubt his father's word, because his father believed in the historicity of Mattan Torah. There was no deception being perpetrated against the Chofetz Chaim because his father presented the facts as he believed them to be and as he received them from his father. I don't know anything about the Chofetz Chaim's father, but for the sake of argument, let's say that he, too, was an extraordinary man who would never knowingly accept or transmit false information. But could you say the same thing about his father? His grandfather? And every person in the chain back to whichever son of Aharon (if I recall correctly, the Chofetz Chaim was a Kohen) he is descended from? Is it not within the realm of possibility that *someone* in that chain was deceived, duped or even just came to believe information that was not historically accurate? If so, then no one is "pulling the wool" over these giants any more than Ptolmey "pulled the wool" over the people of his day with his geocentric model of the universe. There was no deception -- merely people working with the information that they had at the time. By framing it as a "deception," Rabbi Brody excludes the possibility that they could have simply believed in inaccurate information because that was the information/evidence that they had at the time.
I don't have any problems with Rabbi Brody's beliefs. As I mentioned above, I, too, believe in Mattan Torah. But I do have a problem with his arguments -- they are poorly thought out with easy refutations at hand -- refutations to which he has seemingly blinded himself.
The Wolf
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Don't Fall for Flawed Torah Proofs.
I recently came across a web site that claims to have proof that the Torah was given by God to the Jewish people. As regular readers of my blog know, I have come across sites like this one before and have yet to find *any* conclusive iron-clad proof from the text that the Torah was written by a Divine Being. Every proof that I've seen has some fatal flaw -- whether it be faulty reasoning, begging-the-question or just plain factual error. Sadly, this site's "proofs" suffer from the same fatal flaws. I'll be going through some of them in a minute. Before I do that, however, I want to point out several things:
1. Lack of evidence does not equal evidence of lack.
I'm sure that many of you have heard this before and it is100% valid. Just because I can't prove that the Inivisible Pink Unicorn does not exist does not mean that it does not exist. Of course, each individual has to weigh for themselves how strongly consider the lack of evidence when making a determination -- but it cannot be used as definitive proof that the object you are considering does not exist.
2. Demolishing a proof does not equal demolishing the underlying argument.
In each case, I will show how the proof being presented is flawed. I will not, however, be presenting any counter-arguments. I will make no statements of my own regarding the Divinity of the Torah (which, for the record, I do believe in), nor will I be making any arguments against it.
3. Don't ever let anyone "guilt" you into believing something.
The site that we're looking at has the following paragraph on it's home page:
Did you get that? If you don't believe his proofs, you're the equivalent of a Holocaust denier. All he's trying to do is to make you feel guilty for not believing in his proofs. If you aren't utterly persuaded by my evidence, he (in essence) says, it's not the evidence's fault but yours. Don't fall for that. By all means, if his evidence is conclusive, believe him -- but don't do it because he puts a guilt-trip on you.
That being said, let's get down to his "proofs."
His first proof is as follows:
Pretty cool, no? The ancients must have somehow known that the ear controls the balance of the human body and even encoded it in the Hebrew language by using a similar word for both "ear" and "balance."
This is a classic example of begging-the-question. Begging-the-question is a logical fallacy whereby you assume the point you're trying to prove. The whole proof rests on the fact that we assume that when the words "Ear" and "Balance" were created in the Hebrew Language, they were purposely given similar roots. However, if you consider that it might be a simple coincidence, then the whole proof falls apart.
"Ah," the true believer might counter, "how can you say it's a coincidence? What are the odds that two completely different words would be so similar?" Indeed, the author of the "proof" calls it a "linguistic miracle," implying that it's almost impossible that such a thing could happen naturally.
Alas, that simply isn't the case. To understand why, you might need a (very) brief primer in the Hebrew Language. Words (especially verbs) in Hebrew tend to have three-letter roots, which are then altered (usually with prefixes and suffixes) to denote subject and tense. The author's argument rests on the fact that the roots for ear and balance are the same or similar. The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 letters. So, the odds of any two three letter words being the same are 1 in 223, or 1 in 10,648. Unusual? Maybe. Miraculous? Hardly. Absolute proof that a Divine Being created the two words? No way. Absolute proof that God authored the Torah? Not even close. Note that the "proof" doesn't address the Divine authorship of the Torah at all. The absolute most it could prove is that those two words (and *prehaps* the Hebrew language) was composed by a Divine Being. But it doesn't even come anywhere close to that.
On to his second proof. This one involves the length of time it takes the moon to orbit the Earth. The Gemara states Rabban Gamliel had a tradition from his father's house that the period between two new moons is not less than 29.0359 days after the previous new moon. Since Rabban Gamliel did not have a telescope or an advanced timepiece, and since the statement is factually true (barring slight variations due to tides, etc.), the fact that he knew this must mean that the knowledge came from a Divine Source. Pretty cool, no?
Now, before I give you the answer to this one, I want you to consider one thing: Suppose the statement is true. Suppose God Himself appeared to Rabban Gamliel (or his ancestors) and said "The period between new moons is not less than..." Does that prove that God gave us the Torah? Does that somehow prove the existence of the Avos? Does that in any way cast evidence on the historicity of Mattan Torah or the Exodus? The answer, very simply, is no, it does not. It simply means that Rabban Gamliel had a tradition from God Himself on this one fact.
That being said, now let's look at the facts. I don't know that God Himself didn't, in fact, appear to Rabban Gamliel's ancestors and impart this fact. But we do know that the Babylonian astronomer Naburimani also calculated the synodic period of the moon (the fancy way of saying the time between one new moon and the next) several hundred years before Rabban Gamliel lived.
"Ah, " the true believer will say "perhaps the Babylonians got the figure from us. After all, how could the Babylonians (or anyone else from the ancient world) have figured it out to such precision?"
Before we answer the question, let's consider the fact that while it's possible that the Babylonians got the figure from us, there is no proof of it. It's at least just as likely that Rabban Gamliel's ancestors got the figure from the Babylonians. Nonetheless, there is a simple way to figure out the synodic period of the Moon. Since a solar eclipse can *only* occur at the time of conjunction between the sun and the moon, all you need to do is calculate the number of days between two solar eclipses and divide it between the number of lunar months between those two eclipses. Don't believe me? Go to this list of solar eclipses and calculate it for yourself. (Keep in mind, of course, that the number of lunar months is not the same as the number of solar months. There are 235 lunar months in 19 years, not 228). You too will be able to easily calculate the synodic period to a few decimal places. Since it is presumed that the ancients did know how to count days and months, it is hardly a Divine miracle that the ancients possessed this knowledge.*
On to the third proof. This time, the author brings a Gemara in Niddah which tells us that all fish that have scales also have fins. Only a Divine Being, the argument tells us, with knowledge of every fish species in the world could possibly have made such a statement. After all, the ancients certainly didn't know of every species of fish on their own. Heck, we're still discovering new species of fish today. Hence, such a definitive statement could only have come from an all-knowing God. No non-omniscient man could possibly have made such a statement.
To the best of my knowledge, the statement is correct. Although I am not a marine biologist, I am not aware of any species of fish that has a fin but no scales. Pretty convincing, no?
Again, however, the author is making the leap from asserting that if one statement of the Torah is true, it must all be true. There is simply no basis for such an assertion. As with the period of the moon, the *most* that it can prove is that God told the ancients secrets of marine biology that they could not have otherwise known.
But it doesn't even prove that. This is yet another case of begging-the-question and assuming that a Divine authorship before proving it. To illustrate, let me give you an example. I'm going to make a statement right now: Every star (barring collapsed, dead stars) conducts nuclear fusion in it's core. Now, fast forward 1000 years, a million years or even a billion years and suppose we find that, indeed, every star that they've ever found fuses atoms in its core. Does the fact that I made that successful prediction make me Divine? After all, I certainly didn't examine every star in the universe. How could I possibly know that there are no stars that don't fuse atoms?
The answer, of course, is that I simply extrapolated from what I do know and made a general rule. Since I know that every star we've found so far fuses atoms, it's not too hard to make a rule that all stars conduct nuclear fusion. Similarly, an ancient, examining the fish around him, could easily notice that every fish that has scales also has fins and make such a rule.
"Ah, " the true believer will counter, "but wouldn't he be afraid of being caught? Wouldn't he be afraid to make such a statement if there was even a possibility that someone in the future might disprove him? Surely someone making such a statement would have to be 100% sure, or else face the possibility of being disproven."
This, however, is another example of begging the question. The believer is assuming that the person making the statement would be afraid of "being caught." But is that the only possibility? Perhaps he wasn't concerned about being incorrect. Perhaps he simply thought he was correct just as I think I am about stars. Perhaps he was simply making a general rule without regard for exceptions. In short, you can't prove that this statement came from a Divine source and you certainly can't prove from this that the entire Torah is Divine in origin.
The author has quite a few more "proofs" at his site and I don't have time to go through them all. Perhaps I'll look at some of the others another time. But the important thing I want you to take away from the post is this -- just because someone says that something is a proof, that doesn't make it so. In order for it to truly be a proof, it has to stand up to tests against both logic and empirical fact. Sadly, none of the "proofs" that I posted about here do that.
The Wolf
* As an aside, if you want an interesting eye-opener into how much astronomy you could learn with only a stick, a rope and a stone, read chapter 5 of Neil DeGrasse Tyson's book Death by Black Hole.
1. Lack of evidence does not equal evidence of lack.
I'm sure that many of you have heard this before and it is100% valid. Just because I can't prove that the Inivisible Pink Unicorn does not exist does not mean that it does not exist. Of course, each individual has to weigh for themselves how strongly consider the lack of evidence when making a determination -- but it cannot be used as definitive proof that the object you are considering does not exist.
2. Demolishing a proof does not equal demolishing the underlying argument.
In each case, I will show how the proof being presented is flawed. I will not, however, be presenting any counter-arguments. I will make no statements of my own regarding the Divinity of the Torah (which, for the record, I do believe in), nor will I be making any arguments against it.
3. Don't ever let anyone "guilt" you into believing something.
The site that we're looking at has the following paragraph on it's home page:
The evidence brought down in this website should convince a reader that the Holy Torah was given to the Jewish people by G-d himself. If the evidence does not convince you or someone, that does not mean that the evidence is not strong, it just means that you do not want to be convinced. Just like there are holocaust deniers, even though there is prove, there are G-d deniers even though there is prove.
Did you get that? If you don't believe his proofs, you're the equivalent of a Holocaust denier. All he's trying to do is to make you feel guilty for not believing in his proofs. If you aren't utterly persuaded by my evidence, he (in essence) says, it's not the evidence's fault but yours. Don't fall for that. By all means, if his evidence is conclusive, believe him -- but don't do it because he puts a guilt-trip on you.
That being said, let's get down to his "proofs."
His first proof is as follows:
How does a person keep his/her balance?
Well, according modern science, the ear may hold the answer. "The inner ear includes both the organ of hearing (the cochlea) and a sense organ that is attuned to the effects of both gravity and motion (labyrinth or vestibular apparatus). The balance portion of the inner ear consists of three semi-circular canals and the vestibule." (Wikipedia, Ear)
Since Hebrew is a Holy Language, every word is self descriptive. The word "ear-אוזן" (Ozen) is of the same root as "balance-איזן" (Izun). The linguistic miracle of ancient Hebrew, proves its Divinity.
Pretty cool, no? The ancients must have somehow known that the ear controls the balance of the human body and even encoded it in the Hebrew language by using a similar word for both "ear" and "balance."
This is a classic example of begging-the-question. Begging-the-question is a logical fallacy whereby you assume the point you're trying to prove. The whole proof rests on the fact that we assume that when the words "Ear" and "Balance" were created in the Hebrew Language, they were purposely given similar roots. However, if you consider that it might be a simple coincidence, then the whole proof falls apart.
"Ah," the true believer might counter, "how can you say it's a coincidence? What are the odds that two completely different words would be so similar?" Indeed, the author of the "proof" calls it a "linguistic miracle," implying that it's almost impossible that such a thing could happen naturally.
Alas, that simply isn't the case. To understand why, you might need a (very) brief primer in the Hebrew Language. Words (especially verbs) in Hebrew tend to have three-letter roots, which are then altered (usually with prefixes and suffixes) to denote subject and tense. The author's argument rests on the fact that the roots for ear and balance are the same or similar. The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 letters. So, the odds of any two three letter words being the same are 1 in 223, or 1 in 10,648. Unusual? Maybe. Miraculous? Hardly. Absolute proof that a Divine Being created the two words? No way. Absolute proof that God authored the Torah? Not even close. Note that the "proof" doesn't address the Divine authorship of the Torah at all. The absolute most it could prove is that those two words (and *prehaps* the Hebrew language) was composed by a Divine Being. But it doesn't even come anywhere close to that.
On to his second proof. This one involves the length of time it takes the moon to orbit the Earth. The Gemara states Rabban Gamliel had a tradition from his father's house that the period between two new moons is not less than 29.0359 days after the previous new moon. Since Rabban Gamliel did not have a telescope or an advanced timepiece, and since the statement is factually true (barring slight variations due to tides, etc.), the fact that he knew this must mean that the knowledge came from a Divine Source. Pretty cool, no?
Now, before I give you the answer to this one, I want you to consider one thing: Suppose the statement is true. Suppose God Himself appeared to Rabban Gamliel (or his ancestors) and said "The period between new moons is not less than..." Does that prove that God gave us the Torah? Does that somehow prove the existence of the Avos? Does that in any way cast evidence on the historicity of Mattan Torah or the Exodus? The answer, very simply, is no, it does not. It simply means that Rabban Gamliel had a tradition from God Himself on this one fact.
That being said, now let's look at the facts. I don't know that God Himself didn't, in fact, appear to Rabban Gamliel's ancestors and impart this fact. But we do know that the Babylonian astronomer Naburimani also calculated the synodic period of the moon (the fancy way of saying the time between one new moon and the next) several hundred years before Rabban Gamliel lived.
"Ah, " the true believer will say "perhaps the Babylonians got the figure from us. After all, how could the Babylonians (or anyone else from the ancient world) have figured it out to such precision?"
Before we answer the question, let's consider the fact that while it's possible that the Babylonians got the figure from us, there is no proof of it. It's at least just as likely that Rabban Gamliel's ancestors got the figure from the Babylonians. Nonetheless, there is a simple way to figure out the synodic period of the Moon. Since a solar eclipse can *only* occur at the time of conjunction between the sun and the moon, all you need to do is calculate the number of days between two solar eclipses and divide it between the number of lunar months between those two eclipses. Don't believe me? Go to this list of solar eclipses and calculate it for yourself. (Keep in mind, of course, that the number of lunar months is not the same as the number of solar months. There are 235 lunar months in 19 years, not 228). You too will be able to easily calculate the synodic period to a few decimal places. Since it is presumed that the ancients did know how to count days and months, it is hardly a Divine miracle that the ancients possessed this knowledge.*
On to the third proof. This time, the author brings a Gemara in Niddah which tells us that all fish that have scales also have fins. Only a Divine Being, the argument tells us, with knowledge of every fish species in the world could possibly have made such a statement. After all, the ancients certainly didn't know of every species of fish on their own. Heck, we're still discovering new species of fish today. Hence, such a definitive statement could only have come from an all-knowing God. No non-omniscient man could possibly have made such a statement.
To the best of my knowledge, the statement is correct. Although I am not a marine biologist, I am not aware of any species of fish that has a fin but no scales. Pretty convincing, no?
Again, however, the author is making the leap from asserting that if one statement of the Torah is true, it must all be true. There is simply no basis for such an assertion. As with the period of the moon, the *most* that it can prove is that God told the ancients secrets of marine biology that they could not have otherwise known.
But it doesn't even prove that. This is yet another case of begging-the-question and assuming that a Divine authorship before proving it. To illustrate, let me give you an example. I'm going to make a statement right now: Every star (barring collapsed, dead stars) conducts nuclear fusion in it's core. Now, fast forward 1000 years, a million years or even a billion years and suppose we find that, indeed, every star that they've ever found fuses atoms in its core. Does the fact that I made that successful prediction make me Divine? After all, I certainly didn't examine every star in the universe. How could I possibly know that there are no stars that don't fuse atoms?
The answer, of course, is that I simply extrapolated from what I do know and made a general rule. Since I know that every star we've found so far fuses atoms, it's not too hard to make a rule that all stars conduct nuclear fusion. Similarly, an ancient, examining the fish around him, could easily notice that every fish that has scales also has fins and make such a rule.
"Ah, " the true believer will counter, "but wouldn't he be afraid of being caught? Wouldn't he be afraid to make such a statement if there was even a possibility that someone in the future might disprove him? Surely someone making such a statement would have to be 100% sure, or else face the possibility of being disproven."
This, however, is another example of begging the question. The believer is assuming that the person making the statement would be afraid of "being caught." But is that the only possibility? Perhaps he wasn't concerned about being incorrect. Perhaps he simply thought he was correct just as I think I am about stars. Perhaps he was simply making a general rule without regard for exceptions. In short, you can't prove that this statement came from a Divine source and you certainly can't prove from this that the entire Torah is Divine in origin.
The author has quite a few more "proofs" at his site and I don't have time to go through them all. Perhaps I'll look at some of the others another time. But the important thing I want you to take away from the post is this -- just because someone says that something is a proof, that doesn't make it so. In order for it to truly be a proof, it has to stand up to tests against both logic and empirical fact. Sadly, none of the "proofs" that I posted about here do that.
The Wolf
* As an aside, if you want an interesting eye-opener into how much astronomy you could learn with only a stick, a rope and a stone, read chapter 5 of Neil DeGrasse Tyson's book Death by Black Hole.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Are You Even Allowed To Question?
Back in my post where I severely disagreed with Rabbi Mizrachi's "proofs," an anonymous* commentator made the following comment:
Wolf,
I've been reading your post and gave it quite a bit of thought. My conclusion is that your arguments don't truly hold up and that challenging such a torah scholar (who has done an immense amount of good) is actually a chillul hashem (given that non-jews read your blog). A chillul hashem is actually the worst thing that a jew can do but i'm sure you knew that..
The commentator makes two statements here about me:
1. My arguments against Rabbi Mizrachi's "proofs" don't hold water.
2. My challenging his "proofs" is a Chillul Hashem, since non-Jews read my blog.
Implicit in his second statement is that one is not even allowed to question the "proofs" Rabbi Mizrachi (or anyone else, I guess) presents. After all, we all know that it is forbidden to make a Chillul HaShem** -- indeed, my anonymous commentator points out (correctly) that making a Chillul HaShem is one of the worst things*** a Jew can do. If pointing out flaws in the proofs is a Chillul HaShem, then it should be fairly simple to logically conclude that one is not allowed to question Rabbi Mizrachi's "proofs."
Of course, as I'm sure you've guessed, I don't agree with that position. I do not think that pointing out bad logic and flawed science is a Chillul HaShem. If someone were to say that Judaism is the "one true religion" because 2+2=5, then how is it a Chillul HaShem to point out that 2 plus 2 does not, in fact, equal five? Likewise, if someone tries to show that the Zohar is divine based on "scientific information" contained therein and the information is, in fact wrong****, then how is it a Chillul HaShem to point it out? On the contrary, I think that it's far closer to a Chillul HaShem to assert that Judaism is true because 2+2=5 when it is clearly demonstrable that it is not so.
We are described in Parshas V'EsChannan as an Am Chacham V'Navon... a wise and knowlegable nation. It makes us look extremely foolish to bring a proof that our religion is divine based on facts that any high-school student knows are false. On that basis, I feel that not only is one allowed to question a bad "proof," but one is *required* to point out its flaws.
The Wolf
* The commentator may or may not be "Champ."
** I'll ignore the fact that the commentator is wrong about the nature of Chillul HaShem in that it primarily applies to a desecration of God's name that is made in the eyes of other Jews, and only secondarily (if at all) in the eyes of non-Jews.
*** I don't know if it is the "worst" thing, but that's another argument for another day.
**** Such as Rabbi Mizrachi's claim that the Zohar states that the North Pole is always bathed in sunlight except for one hour in the day.
Wolf,
I've been reading your post and gave it quite a bit of thought. My conclusion is that your arguments don't truly hold up and that challenging such a torah scholar (who has done an immense amount of good) is actually a chillul hashem (given that non-jews read your blog). A chillul hashem is actually the worst thing that a jew can do but i'm sure you knew that..
The commentator makes two statements here about me:
1. My arguments against Rabbi Mizrachi's "proofs" don't hold water.
2. My challenging his "proofs" is a Chillul Hashem, since non-Jews read my blog.
Implicit in his second statement is that one is not even allowed to question the "proofs" Rabbi Mizrachi (or anyone else, I guess) presents. After all, we all know that it is forbidden to make a Chillul HaShem** -- indeed, my anonymous commentator points out (correctly) that making a Chillul HaShem is one of the worst things*** a Jew can do. If pointing out flaws in the proofs is a Chillul HaShem, then it should be fairly simple to logically conclude that one is not allowed to question Rabbi Mizrachi's "proofs."
Of course, as I'm sure you've guessed, I don't agree with that position. I do not think that pointing out bad logic and flawed science is a Chillul HaShem. If someone were to say that Judaism is the "one true religion" because 2+2=5, then how is it a Chillul HaShem to point out that 2 plus 2 does not, in fact, equal five? Likewise, if someone tries to show that the Zohar is divine based on "scientific information" contained therein and the information is, in fact wrong****, then how is it a Chillul HaShem to point it out? On the contrary, I think that it's far closer to a Chillul HaShem to assert that Judaism is true because 2+2=5 when it is clearly demonstrable that it is not so.
We are described in Parshas V'EsChannan as an Am Chacham V'Navon... a wise and knowlegable nation. It makes us look extremely foolish to bring a proof that our religion is divine based on facts that any high-school student knows are false. On that basis, I feel that not only is one allowed to question a bad "proof," but one is *required* to point out its flaws.
The Wolf
* The commentator may or may not be "Champ."
** I'll ignore the fact that the commentator is wrong about the nature of Chillul HaShem in that it primarily applies to a desecration of God's name that is made in the eyes of other Jews, and only secondarily (if at all) in the eyes of non-Jews.
*** I don't know if it is the "worst" thing, but that's another argument for another day.
**** Such as Rabbi Mizrachi's claim that the Zohar states that the North Pole is always bathed in sunlight except for one hour in the day.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Do You Really Require Proof?
Back in November, I posted about some Torah proofs that were in a lecture given by Rabbi Yossi Mizrachi. In my post, I presented the "proofs" offered by Rabbi Mizrachi and why I felt the "proofs" were flawed.
A commentator on the post, going by the moniker "Champ" posted some interesting questions and comments on my original post. I'm going to address one of his questions here, and then probably follow up with some of his other questions/comments later this week.
One of the questions that Champ asked of me is as follows:
Wolf,
I'd like to know why you "believe" in Judaism and not some other religion? Also, what proofs do you go by that convince you that the torah is divine? ...or do you just believe it is???
When it comes to religion and living a religious lifestyle for a purpose - believing is just not good enough...and for me, i need to KNOW...not just believe....
regards,
Champ
Later on, Champ follows up with another similar statement:
if i didn't get solid proof that Judiasm was true, i'd have an incredibly hard time living such a restrictive lifestyle - i can't live on what ppl think, theories, and maybes... i need solid proof.....you?
So, Champ, here's my response to you:
On the surface, Champ, I suppose it's a good question. Why do I believe? What proofs do I have that Judaism is the "one true religion?" How do I know that the Torah is divine?
As I've stated on this blog often enough, I have no proof -- or, at least nothing that I would consider an iron-clad proof. Heck, I don't even think that the existence of God Himself is scientifically or logically provable*. If it were provable, I don't think you'd have so many atheists today. If there were logical proof that Judaism is the "one true religion," I don't think that over 75% of the world would be Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. I certainly could be wrong -- maybe there is a proof out there that God exists and that Judaism is the one true religion -- but so far I've been able to poke a hole in every argument I've heard.
In addition, Champ, I think you're being somewhat naive about the need for absolute proof. After all, what proof do you have that you're not going to get hit by a car the next time you cross the street (God forbid)? None. And yet, I'll venture that you're going to do so at some point in the near future. You'll probably sit under a tree someday even though it might get struck by lightning or fall over and you'll probably swim at some point in your life even though there is a risk of drowning. You're going to get into a car even though thousands of people die every year in car crashes in the United States. If you're a woman, you'll probably give birth someday, an activity which carries a risk of death even today (although thankfully at a much lower rate than in years past). You have no proof that any of these activities are safe and yet you engage in some (and possibly all) of them on a regular basis.
The answer is that, whether or you admit to it or not, you (and I) live life playing the odds. You know that 99.999999% of street crossings end with no one being hurt, so you figure it's safe. You know that the vast majority of swimmers leave the water in safety, so you jump in the pool without a second thought. If you truly lived your life by an "absolute proof" standard, Champ, you'd never get anything done. You'd sit in your house, paralyzed by fear, refusing to go anywhere or do anything.
The answer, Champ, in every activity you perform, whether you realize it or not, you assess the chances of success and then make a decision based on those chances. Can I cross the street even though there is a car coming two blocks away? You quickly make a reckoning and then go or don't go. Are the rapids too strong to swim in? Again, you make a quick "back of the envelope" calculation in your brain (should it be called a "back of the medula" calculation?) and then decide whether or not to go.
In other words, you don't really live your life on an absolute proof basis. Virtually no one outside of a sanitarium does.
The same applies to my belief in Judaism and God. I don't have any absolute proof, and, truth be told, I don't need any. Just by looking at the wonderfulness of nature, from the macroscopic to the microscopic, I am convinced that God exists. When I look at the universe and consider the possibilities that it either sprung into existence by itself or had help, I take "had help." Yes, it's only a gut feeling and yes, it falls far short of proof, but that's all I need to live my life. But I'm also honest about it. I know that it's not proof, and I state the same up front to anyone who asks. I don't require "solid proof" for my beliefs -- and, if you seriously consider what I said, neither do you.
The Wolf
A commentator on the post, going by the moniker "Champ" posted some interesting questions and comments on my original post. I'm going to address one of his questions here, and then probably follow up with some of his other questions/comments later this week.
One of the questions that Champ asked of me is as follows:
Wolf,
I'd like to know why you "believe" in Judaism and not some other religion? Also, what proofs do you go by that convince you that the torah is divine? ...or do you just believe it is???
When it comes to religion and living a religious lifestyle for a purpose - believing is just not good enough...and for me, i need to KNOW...not just believe....
regards,
Champ
Later on, Champ follows up with another similar statement:
if i didn't get solid proof that Judiasm was true, i'd have an incredibly hard time living such a restrictive lifestyle - i can't live on what ppl think, theories, and maybes... i need solid proof.....you?
So, Champ, here's my response to you:
On the surface, Champ, I suppose it's a good question. Why do I believe? What proofs do I have that Judaism is the "one true religion?" How do I know that the Torah is divine?
As I've stated on this blog often enough, I have no proof -- or, at least nothing that I would consider an iron-clad proof. Heck, I don't even think that the existence of God Himself is scientifically or logically provable*. If it were provable, I don't think you'd have so many atheists today. If there were logical proof that Judaism is the "one true religion," I don't think that over 75% of the world would be Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. I certainly could be wrong -- maybe there is a proof out there that God exists and that Judaism is the one true religion -- but so far I've been able to poke a hole in every argument I've heard.
In addition, Champ, I think you're being somewhat naive about the need for absolute proof. After all, what proof do you have that you're not going to get hit by a car the next time you cross the street (God forbid)? None. And yet, I'll venture that you're going to do so at some point in the near future. You'll probably sit under a tree someday even though it might get struck by lightning or fall over and you'll probably swim at some point in your life even though there is a risk of drowning. You're going to get into a car even though thousands of people die every year in car crashes in the United States. If you're a woman, you'll probably give birth someday, an activity which carries a risk of death even today (although thankfully at a much lower rate than in years past). You have no proof that any of these activities are safe and yet you engage in some (and possibly all) of them on a regular basis.
The answer is that, whether or you admit to it or not, you (and I) live life playing the odds. You know that 99.999999% of street crossings end with no one being hurt, so you figure it's safe. You know that the vast majority of swimmers leave the water in safety, so you jump in the pool without a second thought. If you truly lived your life by an "absolute proof" standard, Champ, you'd never get anything done. You'd sit in your house, paralyzed by fear, refusing to go anywhere or do anything.
The answer, Champ, in every activity you perform, whether you realize it or not, you assess the chances of success and then make a decision based on those chances. Can I cross the street even though there is a car coming two blocks away? You quickly make a reckoning and then go or don't go. Are the rapids too strong to swim in? Again, you make a quick "back of the envelope" calculation in your brain (should it be called a "back of the medula" calculation?) and then decide whether or not to go.
In other words, you don't really live your life on an absolute proof basis. Virtually no one outside of a sanitarium does.
The same applies to my belief in Judaism and God. I don't have any absolute proof, and, truth be told, I don't need any. Just by looking at the wonderfulness of nature, from the macroscopic to the microscopic, I am convinced that God exists. When I look at the universe and consider the possibilities that it either sprung into existence by itself or had help, I take "had help." Yes, it's only a gut feeling and yes, it falls far short of proof, but that's all I need to live my life. But I'm also honest about it. I know that it's not proof, and I state the same up front to anyone who asks. I don't require "solid proof" for my beliefs -- and, if you seriously consider what I said, neither do you.
The Wolf
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
I'm Convinced 'Torah Proofs' Cause More Harm Than Good
Sometimes I have to wonder if people who peddle "Torah proofs" aren't, in fact, doing more damage than good. They proclaim that they have "scientific proof" that the Torah is divine and then follow it up with arguments that could be called faulty at best and downright loony at worst. Personally, I feel that no proof is better than a bad proof. If I tell you that I believe that God exists and that the Torah is divine, it's not subject to refutation. True, a belief on my part is not as strong as a "proof," but unlike a bad "proof," it won't leave someone feeling "lied to" when they discover the truth of the argument.
I just listened to one such lecture given (downloadable here) by Rabbi Yossi Mizrachi. The title of the lecture is Proof That Torah is Divine Part I. In his lecture, he claims to bring "scientific proofs" that the Torah is of Divine origin. Sad to say, very few of his "proofs" stand up to serious scrutiny. He goes through a lot of material in his presentation, and for me to debunk everything he says would simply take too much time. However, I don't actually have to debunk everything he says. Right at the beginning of the lecture, he presents his cardinal rule for debunking religions -- if a mistake can be found in the "holy book" of a religion, then it is a proof that the book is not Divine and the religion that it supports is bunk. So, the net result is that, according to him, if I can show that any one of his premises regarding the Torah is false, and that the Torah has a flaw, then Judaism itself is bunk. That's a rather high bar to set and, if I apply to Judaism the same conditions that he applies to other religions, then it's easy to show that Judaism is false.
Before I go any further, I want to make one thing very clear: I *do* believe in Judaism. Just because a person shows that a "proof" to Judaism is flawed and invalid doesn't make the religion itself flawed and invalid. I *do* believe that the Torah is of Divine origin and if a real proof to it is discovered one day, I will wholeheartedly embrace it. But I will not embrace flawed proofs, shoddy logic or emotional claptrap.
Biblical Errors And Consistent Standards
As I mentioned earlier, Rabbi Mizrachi begins with his cardinal rule; that if an error can be found in a "Divine book," then that error serves proof that the book is, in fact, not Divine, and that the religion that it supports is false. As an example, he brings up the verse in Acts 7:14 which states that Jacob went down to Egypt with 75 people. Of course, we know from Beraishis (46:27) and Shemos (1:5) that the number of people that went down to Egypt was only seventy. Did God forget how many people went down? Of course not, hence, it is argued that Acts (and, by extension, the rest of the Christian Bible) is a flawed document and not Divine.
On the surface, it's a sound argument. However, one has to wonder if Rabbi Mizrachi actually gave the Christians and honest and sincere hearing on the matter. Assuming that most of the Christian clergy are not total idiots, I'm fairly certain that some of them must have noticed this contradiction. Has he asked any of them for an explanation? Somehow, I doubt it. A simple Google serach turned up two possible answers that Christians can use to reconcile the 70/75 count; and, truth to tell, those answers are entirely plausible -- or at least certainly as plausible as the answer given to explain why the total given in Beraishis 46 is 70 while only 69 names are mentioned.
In other words, I can support the basic premise that Rabbi Mizrachi puts forward -- i.e. that if you find a flaw in a book claiming to be Divine then the book is not Divine. What I do object to, however, is the fallacy of holding Christians accountable for contradictions in the text itself, without giving them a chance to reconcile the contradictions, while allowing Chazal, the Rishonim and Achronim to engage in explanations that, to an outsider, would sound far-fetched and forced. In other words, if you're going to call out Christian books because they contradict themselves (or other established sources), then you have to allow the adherents to explain the contradictions; much as you wold allow yourself to explain the apparent contradictions in Tanach. I'm not saying, of course, that you have to accept the explanations offered, but, in the name of honesty, you have to give them the chance and to accept the possibility of an explainable if it sounds plausible. Somehow, my gut tells me that Rabbi Mizrachi would not accept *any* explanation from a Christian of the 70/75 discrepancy, but would entertain almost any effort to explain an apparent error in the Torah.
Mass Revelation
Rabbi Mizrachi also brings up the argument of mass revelation. In short, the argument is that Judaism is unique because it has, at its origin, a mass revelation. Millions of people (he says between six and fifteen million, but that's quite a stretch, even accepting the 600,000 number as literally true) stood at Mt. Sinai and literally heard God speak. Putting aside, for a moment, the fact that the only proof that this happened is because it says it in the very book you're trying to prove, it's a fair argument. Most religions, begin with a single individual who makes an unverifiable claim (Mohammed receiving the Koran from the angel Gabriel, Joseph Smith receiving the Golden Plates from the angel Moroni, etc.). The fact that Judaism makes a claim of mass revelation is a striking point in its favor. However, Rabbi Mizrachi is not content with that. He says that if *any* religion can claim that they had an origin even involving one other eyewitness, then that proves the Torah is false, since (and I don't know his source for this) he says that Torah says that no other religion will be able to make the claim of a plural origin.
Sadly, his claims do not stand up to scrutiny. The Aztecs, for example, had a mass revelation story. They believed that their god, Huitzilopochtli, led them (in person) to the site of present-day Mexico City. Based on Rabbi Mizrachi's assertion, the very fact that another group even claims a mass revelation shows that the Torah is not true. I suppose it's a good thing that I don't agree with Rabbi Mizrachi's underlying assertion. :)
Textual Variations and Consistent Standards
The next claim he makes is that if a "holy book" has multiple versions, then it cannot be divine. After all, how would you know which version is the correct one? He makes the point that there are over 150,000 textual variations of the New Testament (I don't know if this is correct or not... it's really beside the point) and therefore, it's impossible to determine which is the "correct" version that would have been Divinely given. R. Mizrachi makes the point that no matter where you go in the world, the Torah is the same. Since it's the same everywhere in the world, it must be divine. Well, I don't know if Rabbi Mizrachi has ever been to Yemen, but there are Jews there that have a different Torah than ours. In fact, there are nine differences. But even if we dismiss the Yemenite Torahs, we even have differences here in the United States. There are two different versions of the word "daka" in Devarim 23:2; some Torahs have an aleph as the last letter while some have a heh. So, which Torah is the correct one? The Yemenite? The daka-aleph? The daka-heh? Does this mean that the Torah is not divine? If Rabbi Mizrachi were to apply the same standard that he does to the Christians to the Torah, he'd have to say no, but I don't think he's going to do that.
Faulty "Scientific" Proofs And Dubious Claims
In his lecture, Rabbi Mizrachi attempts to give "scientific proof" to the divinity of the Torah, but all that happens is that he comes off sounding incredibly uneducated about science. He trots out various "proofs," however, very often the underlying assumption of the proof is simply wrong.
For example, he tries to prove that the Jews knew, through the Torah (specifically, a verse in Isaiah), that the world was round before anyone else. He mentions that before Columbus, no one knew that the world was round. The spherical nature of the earth was discovered when Columbus sailed off to the west and returned from the east. Of course, that's not true. In order to do that, you have to go around the world, something that Columbus never did. It was not until Magellan's voyage, in 1521, that anyone actually went around the world. However, even that's not important, because people *did* know that the world is round many years before Columbus. The ancient Greeks knew the world was round because they observed that the earth casts a circular shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse.
He also tries to show that the Zohar, written in the days of the Tanaim (itself a very dubious claim) revealed many secrets of the world, that could not have been known before the advent of modern science. However, for two of the proofs that he brings, it's very clear that the Zohar was *not* written by a Divine Being. A Divine Being would not have peddled such incorrect information.
One proof from the Zohar that he mentions is a passage that descibes that there is one place in the world where it is always light and only dark for one hour a day -- the North Pole. However, that statement is simply not true. The North Pole is not always bathed in light except for one hour. The fact is that the sun is above the horizon at the North Pole for six months in the summer and below the horizon for six months in the winter. In other words, it is daytime for six months straight and night (to various degrees) for six months. In other words, the Zohar is completely wrong in the way it describes the North Pole.
Another "proof" from the Zohar is the fact that different people in the world look differently. According to the Zohar (at least according to Rabbi Mizrachi -- I haven't actually checked the source material), the climate affects the appearance of people. Or, to put it in Rabbi Mizrachi's words: "In Africa, everyone is black, almost the same face. Same hair, same face, same shape in the face. You go to China -- copy machine. Two billion copies." Rabbi Mizrachi clearly doesn't know what he's talking about here -- Africa is the most genetically diverse place on Earth. To say that everyone in Africa has the "same hair, same face, same shape in the face," simply shows that Rabbi Mizrachi hasn't done a great deal of reading about genetics or geography. In any event, to get to the point, the fact that different people in different regions look different is hardly a surprising discovery, even in the days when the Zohar is said to have been written. Anyone who had traveled would have known that.
As another proof to the idea that only God could have written the Torah, he mentions the Gemara in Megillah which purports to give the exact number of stars. Rabbi Mizrachi states that the number given is 1019 , although the true number mentioned in the Gemara is approximately 1018. However, we can forgive him the math error. What's harder to overlook is the simple logical mistake of using the Gemara's figure to prove the actual number of stars. In other words, the Gemara gives a really number, so it *must* be right. The fact is that the only way to prove that it's right is to compare it to another counting. The current estimate to the number of stars is actually 7x1022.
There are other "proofs" that he brings in his speech, which are equally easy to discredit (the four animals proof, the fins/scales proof and the calendar proof stand out most prominently), but this post has already gone on for quite a while.
There is, however, a deeper, more fundamental problem with Rabbi Mizrachi's argument. He attempts to prove that the Torah (and by extension, the Oral Torah) is Divine because it's an error-free document and contains information that only a Divine Being could have possessed. However, by allowing supporting proof from the Gemara and the Zohar, he also leaves them open to refutation. In other words, if you're going to claim that the Pentateuch is divine, then you can only find fault with items in the Pentateuch. But by stating that the Gemara and Zohar are also divine, Rabbi Mizrachi is asserting that they, too, are error-proof. He's also asserting that they, too, must be free of textual variations (since a divine document must have only one version). The fact of the matter is that there is no one today who will say that the Gemara doesn't have textual variations. So, according to Rabbi Mizrachi's definition, the Gemara is not Divine; and if the Gemara is not divine, then the religion it supports, Judaism, must be false.
Far More Harm Than Help
At the beginning of his speech, Rabbi Mizrachi states that over 100,000 people are religious today because of this lecture (whether delivered by him or someone else). All I can say is that I find that *extremely* hard to believe. I'm not the smartest guy in the world, and yet, I was able to pick apart most of his arguments pretty easily. If this is the "proof" of Judaism, I'm left to wonder if his lectures don't do far more harm to the kiruv movement than help.
The Wolf
I just listened to one such lecture given (downloadable here) by Rabbi Yossi Mizrachi. The title of the lecture is Proof That Torah is Divine Part I. In his lecture, he claims to bring "scientific proofs" that the Torah is of Divine origin. Sad to say, very few of his "proofs" stand up to serious scrutiny. He goes through a lot of material in his presentation, and for me to debunk everything he says would simply take too much time. However, I don't actually have to debunk everything he says. Right at the beginning of the lecture, he presents his cardinal rule for debunking religions -- if a mistake can be found in the "holy book" of a religion, then it is a proof that the book is not Divine and the religion that it supports is bunk. So, the net result is that, according to him, if I can show that any one of his premises regarding the Torah is false, and that the Torah has a flaw, then Judaism itself is bunk. That's a rather high bar to set and, if I apply to Judaism the same conditions that he applies to other religions, then it's easy to show that Judaism is false.
Before I go any further, I want to make one thing very clear: I *do* believe in Judaism. Just because a person shows that a "proof" to Judaism is flawed and invalid doesn't make the religion itself flawed and invalid. I *do* believe that the Torah is of Divine origin and if a real proof to it is discovered one day, I will wholeheartedly embrace it. But I will not embrace flawed proofs, shoddy logic or emotional claptrap.
Biblical Errors And Consistent Standards
As I mentioned earlier, Rabbi Mizrachi begins with his cardinal rule; that if an error can be found in a "Divine book," then that error serves proof that the book is, in fact, not Divine, and that the religion that it supports is false. As an example, he brings up the verse in Acts 7:14 which states that Jacob went down to Egypt with 75 people. Of course, we know from Beraishis (46:27) and Shemos (1:5) that the number of people that went down to Egypt was only seventy. Did God forget how many people went down? Of course not, hence, it is argued that Acts (and, by extension, the rest of the Christian Bible) is a flawed document and not Divine.
On the surface, it's a sound argument. However, one has to wonder if Rabbi Mizrachi actually gave the Christians and honest and sincere hearing on the matter. Assuming that most of the Christian clergy are not total idiots, I'm fairly certain that some of them must have noticed this contradiction. Has he asked any of them for an explanation? Somehow, I doubt it. A simple Google serach turned up two possible answers that Christians can use to reconcile the 70/75 count; and, truth to tell, those answers are entirely plausible -- or at least certainly as plausible as the answer given to explain why the total given in Beraishis 46 is 70 while only 69 names are mentioned.
In other words, I can support the basic premise that Rabbi Mizrachi puts forward -- i.e. that if you find a flaw in a book claiming to be Divine then the book is not Divine. What I do object to, however, is the fallacy of holding Christians accountable for contradictions in the text itself, without giving them a chance to reconcile the contradictions, while allowing Chazal, the Rishonim and Achronim to engage in explanations that, to an outsider, would sound far-fetched and forced. In other words, if you're going to call out Christian books because they contradict themselves (or other established sources), then you have to allow the adherents to explain the contradictions; much as you wold allow yourself to explain the apparent contradictions in Tanach. I'm not saying, of course, that you have to accept the explanations offered, but, in the name of honesty, you have to give them the chance and to accept the possibility of an explainable if it sounds plausible. Somehow, my gut tells me that Rabbi Mizrachi would not accept *any* explanation from a Christian of the 70/75 discrepancy, but would entertain almost any effort to explain an apparent error in the Torah.
Mass Revelation
Rabbi Mizrachi also brings up the argument of mass revelation. In short, the argument is that Judaism is unique because it has, at its origin, a mass revelation. Millions of people (he says between six and fifteen million, but that's quite a stretch, even accepting the 600,000 number as literally true) stood at Mt. Sinai and literally heard God speak. Putting aside, for a moment, the fact that the only proof that this happened is because it says it in the very book you're trying to prove, it's a fair argument. Most religions, begin with a single individual who makes an unverifiable claim (Mohammed receiving the Koran from the angel Gabriel, Joseph Smith receiving the Golden Plates from the angel Moroni, etc.). The fact that Judaism makes a claim of mass revelation is a striking point in its favor. However, Rabbi Mizrachi is not content with that. He says that if *any* religion can claim that they had an origin even involving one other eyewitness, then that proves the Torah is false, since (and I don't know his source for this) he says that Torah says that no other religion will be able to make the claim of a plural origin.
Sadly, his claims do not stand up to scrutiny. The Aztecs, for example, had a mass revelation story. They believed that their god, Huitzilopochtli, led them (in person) to the site of present-day Mexico City. Based on Rabbi Mizrachi's assertion, the very fact that another group even claims a mass revelation shows that the Torah is not true. I suppose it's a good thing that I don't agree with Rabbi Mizrachi's underlying assertion. :)
Textual Variations and Consistent Standards
The next claim he makes is that if a "holy book" has multiple versions, then it cannot be divine. After all, how would you know which version is the correct one? He makes the point that there are over 150,000 textual variations of the New Testament (I don't know if this is correct or not... it's really beside the point) and therefore, it's impossible to determine which is the "correct" version that would have been Divinely given. R. Mizrachi makes the point that no matter where you go in the world, the Torah is the same. Since it's the same everywhere in the world, it must be divine. Well, I don't know if Rabbi Mizrachi has ever been to Yemen, but there are Jews there that have a different Torah than ours. In fact, there are nine differences. But even if we dismiss the Yemenite Torahs, we even have differences here in the United States. There are two different versions of the word "daka" in Devarim 23:2; some Torahs have an aleph as the last letter while some have a heh. So, which Torah is the correct one? The Yemenite? The daka-aleph? The daka-heh? Does this mean that the Torah is not divine? If Rabbi Mizrachi were to apply the same standard that he does to the Christians to the Torah, he'd have to say no, but I don't think he's going to do that.
Faulty "Scientific" Proofs And Dubious Claims
In his lecture, Rabbi Mizrachi attempts to give "scientific proof" to the divinity of the Torah, but all that happens is that he comes off sounding incredibly uneducated about science. He trots out various "proofs," however, very often the underlying assumption of the proof is simply wrong.
For example, he tries to prove that the Jews knew, through the Torah (specifically, a verse in Isaiah), that the world was round before anyone else. He mentions that before Columbus, no one knew that the world was round. The spherical nature of the earth was discovered when Columbus sailed off to the west and returned from the east. Of course, that's not true. In order to do that, you have to go around the world, something that Columbus never did. It was not until Magellan's voyage, in 1521, that anyone actually went around the world. However, even that's not important, because people *did* know that the world is round many years before Columbus. The ancient Greeks knew the world was round because they observed that the earth casts a circular shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse.
He also tries to show that the Zohar, written in the days of the Tanaim (itself a very dubious claim) revealed many secrets of the world, that could not have been known before the advent of modern science. However, for two of the proofs that he brings, it's very clear that the Zohar was *not* written by a Divine Being. A Divine Being would not have peddled such incorrect information.
One proof from the Zohar that he mentions is a passage that descibes that there is one place in the world where it is always light and only dark for one hour a day -- the North Pole. However, that statement is simply not true. The North Pole is not always bathed in light except for one hour. The fact is that the sun is above the horizon at the North Pole for six months in the summer and below the horizon for six months in the winter. In other words, it is daytime for six months straight and night (to various degrees) for six months. In other words, the Zohar is completely wrong in the way it describes the North Pole.
Another "proof" from the Zohar is the fact that different people in the world look differently. According to the Zohar (at least according to Rabbi Mizrachi -- I haven't actually checked the source material), the climate affects the appearance of people. Or, to put it in Rabbi Mizrachi's words: "In Africa, everyone is black, almost the same face. Same hair, same face, same shape in the face. You go to China -- copy machine. Two billion copies." Rabbi Mizrachi clearly doesn't know what he's talking about here -- Africa is the most genetically diverse place on Earth. To say that everyone in Africa has the "same hair, same face, same shape in the face," simply shows that Rabbi Mizrachi hasn't done a great deal of reading about genetics or geography. In any event, to get to the point, the fact that different people in different regions look different is hardly a surprising discovery, even in the days when the Zohar is said to have been written. Anyone who had traveled would have known that.
As another proof to the idea that only God could have written the Torah, he mentions the Gemara in Megillah which purports to give the exact number of stars. Rabbi Mizrachi states that the number given is 1019 , although the true number mentioned in the Gemara is approximately 1018. However, we can forgive him the math error. What's harder to overlook is the simple logical mistake of using the Gemara's figure to prove the actual number of stars. In other words, the Gemara gives a really number, so it *must* be right. The fact is that the only way to prove that it's right is to compare it to another counting. The current estimate to the number of stars is actually 7x1022.
There are other "proofs" that he brings in his speech, which are equally easy to discredit (the four animals proof, the fins/scales proof and the calendar proof stand out most prominently), but this post has already gone on for quite a while.
Where R. Mizrachi Completely Disproves His Own Point
There is, however, a deeper, more fundamental problem with Rabbi Mizrachi's argument. He attempts to prove that the Torah (and by extension, the Oral Torah) is Divine because it's an error-free document and contains information that only a Divine Being could have possessed. However, by allowing supporting proof from the Gemara and the Zohar, he also leaves them open to refutation. In other words, if you're going to claim that the Pentateuch is divine, then you can only find fault with items in the Pentateuch. But by stating that the Gemara and Zohar are also divine, Rabbi Mizrachi is asserting that they, too, are error-proof. He's also asserting that they, too, must be free of textual variations (since a divine document must have only one version). The fact of the matter is that there is no one today who will say that the Gemara doesn't have textual variations. So, according to Rabbi Mizrachi's definition, the Gemara is not Divine; and if the Gemara is not divine, then the religion it supports, Judaism, must be false.
Far More Harm Than Help
At the beginning of his speech, Rabbi Mizrachi states that over 100,000 people are religious today because of this lecture (whether delivered by him or someone else). All I can say is that I find that *extremely* hard to believe. I'm not the smartest guy in the world, and yet, I was able to pick apart most of his arguments pretty easily. If this is the "proof" of Judaism, I'm left to wonder if his lectures don't do far more harm to the kiruv movement than help.
The Wolf
Thursday, June 05, 2008
The Definition of God
An interesting letter on Chabad.com asks for a logical proof that there is only one God. I don't know if any such proof (I'm not even certain that God's existence is provable, but we'll leave that for another day) truly exists. However, it's not so much the question, but the answer that was given that intrigues me.
An answer to this question is provided on the site by one Aaron Moss. He writes as follows:
The definition of G-d is: "a Being without definition." G-d cannot be defined, because if I define Him then I limit Him. And something limited is not G-d. By defining something, I give it borders. If for example I define an apple as a sweet, round fruit that is green or red, then when I find a long purple fruit, I know that it can't be an apple. An apple is limited to being round and red or green. That is its definition. G-d can't be defined, because by defining Him you are saying that there's something He can't be; but this could not be true, because G-d is unlimited.
The definition of G-d is: "a Being without definition."
Now, I'm not sure that I agree with that definition. Indeed, by making that the definition of God "a Being with definition," you *are* defining Him, thus invalidating your own definition. Heck, God Himself defines Himself several times in the Torah as the one who redeemed us from bondage in Egypt.
Putting that aside, there is the problem of the fact that we *do* define God. We do it all the time. He's defined in a number of ways. Some sources define Him as the Creator of the Universe. Others define Him by assigning Attributes to Him. He is defined in classic Jewish literature all the time with positive attributes (mah hu rachum...) and negative attributes (He is noncoporeal, etc.). To say that God is without definition is just incorrect.
In addition, you can't say that the definition of God is something that is undefined. Left to that, the result of division by zero would be God too...
G-d cannot be defined, because if I define Him then I limit Him. And something limited is not G-d.
By that definition, it's possible to say that the universe (or multiverse, or whatever "top level" object you want to use to define reality) is God, since it, too, is unlimited.
By defining something, I give it borders. If for example I define an apple as a sweet, round fruit that is green or red, then when I find a long purple fruit, I know that it can't be an apple. An apple is limited to being round and red or green. That is its definition. G-d can't be defined, because by defining Him you are saying that there's something He can't be; but this could not be true, because G-d is unlimited.
And yet, many prominent Jewish thinkers disagree with this point. R. Aryeh Kaplan discussed this in one of his essays. I believe he quotes the Rambam (although I could be wrong on this... I'd have to check when I get home) that we don't say that God can do the logically impossible. God cannot create a rock that He cannot lift. He cannot create a triangle with more than three sides or whose angles add up to more than 180 degrees. He also brings down that God cannot do the things that the Christians maintain He did: He cannot corpify himself and He cannot die.
It's interesting that the respondent chose to use a geographic metaphor to explain that a boundary is necessary since there are many examples where, despite a lack of a formal boundary, we can still define an area. For example, where does the "West Coast" (of the United States) start? When you say the "West Coast," people don't mean literally just the coast. They usually mean regions of California, Oregon and Washington. But where does it begin and end? Where does the "Midwest" begin and end? What are the borders of "the Bible Belt?" Heck, what are the defined boundaries of Boro Park? And yet, there comes a point where you are undoubtedly on the West Coast, in the Midwest, Bible Belt or Boro Park. Because these areas don't have defined borders, that doesn't mean that they don't exist. In fact, I'd wager that for the majority of human history, most countries didn't have defined borders as we have today.
G-d has no borders, so how can there be more than one god? Where would one god end and one begin if there is no dividing line between them?
How can there be more than one informal region of the United States? How can there be more than one ocean on the world since there is no definite border between the oceans?
In any event, the logical comparison is silly anyway. He's using a human concept (borders, boundaries) to define a supernatural concept. There's no (logical) reason to say that two (or more) gods co-exist together in a way that is beyond the human ken (much as we say that God's lack of origin is beyond our understanding).
Would I love to see a logical (as opposed to a theological) proof to God's unity (or even His existence)? Sure. But this proof doesn't do anything for me.
The Wolf
An answer to this question is provided on the site by one Aaron Moss. He writes as follows:
The definition of G-d is: "a Being without definition." G-d cannot be defined, because if I define Him then I limit Him. And something limited is not G-d. By defining something, I give it borders. If for example I define an apple as a sweet, round fruit that is green or red, then when I find a long purple fruit, I know that it can't be an apple. An apple is limited to being round and red or green. That is its definition. G-d can't be defined, because by defining Him you are saying that there's something He can't be; but this could not be true, because G-d is unlimited.
That's why there can be only one G-d. Because if you don't have a definition, then there is nothing outside of you. There can be no "other".
An example: two neighboring countries can only be called two countries when there is a border in between them. But if a country has no borders, if there is no defined place where it ends and another country begins, how can you say that there are two countries?
G-d has no borders, so how can there be more than one god? Where would one god end and one begin if there is no dividing line between them?
The act of creation is the act of making borders and drawing definitions: this is an apple and not a banana, this is land and this sea. Creation has definitions. The Creator doesn't have a definition. That's what makes Him G-d. And that's why there can only be one.
Personally, this "proof" does nothing for me. On the contrary, I find it very lacking. Let's see if we can break it down a bit. He starts out by saying:The definition of G-d is: "a Being without definition."
Now, I'm not sure that I agree with that definition. Indeed, by making that the definition of God "a Being with definition," you *are* defining Him, thus invalidating your own definition. Heck, God Himself defines Himself several times in the Torah as the one who redeemed us from bondage in Egypt.
Putting that aside, there is the problem of the fact that we *do* define God. We do it all the time. He's defined in a number of ways. Some sources define Him as the Creator of the Universe. Others define Him by assigning Attributes to Him. He is defined in classic Jewish literature all the time with positive attributes (mah hu rachum...) and negative attributes (He is noncoporeal, etc.). To say that God is without definition is just incorrect.
In addition, you can't say that the definition of God is something that is undefined. Left to that, the result of division by zero would be God too...
G-d cannot be defined, because if I define Him then I limit Him. And something limited is not G-d.
By that definition, it's possible to say that the universe (or multiverse, or whatever "top level" object you want to use to define reality) is God, since it, too, is unlimited.
By defining something, I give it borders. If for example I define an apple as a sweet, round fruit that is green or red, then when I find a long purple fruit, I know that it can't be an apple. An apple is limited to being round and red or green. That is its definition. G-d can't be defined, because by defining Him you are saying that there's something He can't be; but this could not be true, because G-d is unlimited.
And yet, many prominent Jewish thinkers disagree with this point. R. Aryeh Kaplan discussed this in one of his essays. I believe he quotes the Rambam (although I could be wrong on this... I'd have to check when I get home) that we don't say that God can do the logically impossible. God cannot create a rock that He cannot lift. He cannot create a triangle with more than three sides or whose angles add up to more than 180 degrees. He also brings down that God cannot do the things that the Christians maintain He did: He cannot corpify himself and He cannot die.
That's why there can be only one G-d. Because if you don't have a definition, then there is nothing outside of you. There can be no "other".
An example: two neighboring countries can only be called two countries when there is a border in between them. But if a country has no borders, if there is no defined place where it ends and another country begins, how can you say that there are two countries?
Boundaries are not always necessary to define something. In a previous apartment, we had one large room that we used as a dining room and a living room. Although it was one room, there were areas of it that we defined as the "living room" and "dining room." There was no formal boundary. And yet, there were clearly areas (under the dining room table and on the couch, for example) that were clearly "dining room" and "living room" even in the absence of a defined boundary.It's interesting that the respondent chose to use a geographic metaphor to explain that a boundary is necessary since there are many examples where, despite a lack of a formal boundary, we can still define an area. For example, where does the "West Coast" (of the United States) start? When you say the "West Coast," people don't mean literally just the coast. They usually mean regions of California, Oregon and Washington. But where does it begin and end? Where does the "Midwest" begin and end? What are the borders of "the Bible Belt?" Heck, what are the defined boundaries of Boro Park? And yet, there comes a point where you are undoubtedly on the West Coast, in the Midwest, Bible Belt or Boro Park. Because these areas don't have defined borders, that doesn't mean that they don't exist. In fact, I'd wager that for the majority of human history, most countries didn't have defined borders as we have today.
G-d has no borders, so how can there be more than one god? Where would one god end and one begin if there is no dividing line between them?
How can there be more than one informal region of the United States? How can there be more than one ocean on the world since there is no definite border between the oceans?
In any event, the logical comparison is silly anyway. He's using a human concept (borders, boundaries) to define a supernatural concept. There's no (logical) reason to say that two (or more) gods co-exist together in a way that is beyond the human ken (much as we say that God's lack of origin is beyond our understanding).
Would I love to see a logical (as opposed to a theological) proof to God's unity (or even His existence)? Sure. But this proof doesn't do anything for me.
The Wolf
Friday, June 01, 2007
Head. Wall. Bang.
I had a conversation with an interesting fellow on the subway this past week. He tried to prove to me that the Torah is true from the "four animals*" proof.
Once he got into his shpiel I told him very simply that the hyrax and hare are not, in fact, true ruminants.
"Yes they are," he told me.
"If you're certain that the hare and the hyrax are ruminants, how do you answer zoologists that say that they've observed and studied these animals and found that they aren't ruminants?"
"I don't have to answer them," he told me. "I know that they are ruminants. How do I know? Because it says in the Torah that they are ma'ale geirah."
The Wolf
* The "four animals proof" to the divinity of the Torah goes like this: The Torah lists four animals that have only one of the two signs of a kosher mammal. The fact that the Torah listed these four shows that they are the only four in existence (otherwise, the Torah could have just specified the rule and not given the examples). Since no other animals with only one sign have been discovered, and we know that Moshe did not hold a PhD in zoology, the information could only have come from God.
For more on this, read Rabbi Slifkin's book "The Camel, the Hare and the Hyrax"
Once he got into his shpiel I told him very simply that the hyrax and hare are not, in fact, true ruminants.
"Yes they are," he told me.
"If you're certain that the hare and the hyrax are ruminants, how do you answer zoologists that say that they've observed and studied these animals and found that they aren't ruminants?"
"I don't have to answer them," he told me. "I know that they are ruminants. How do I know? Because it says in the Torah that they are ma'ale geirah."
The Wolf
* The "four animals proof" to the divinity of the Torah goes like this: The Torah lists four animals that have only one of the two signs of a kosher mammal. The fact that the Torah listed these four shows that they are the only four in existence (otherwise, the Torah could have just specified the rule and not given the examples). Since no other animals with only one sign have been discovered, and we know that Moshe did not hold a PhD in zoology, the information could only have come from God.
For more on this, read Rabbi Slifkin's book "The Camel, the Hare and the Hyrax"
Sunday, April 15, 2007
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