I hope you will permit me another brief comment, haha.
“It is not history; it is midrash…Therefore, when approaching Rabbinic statements about the antiquity of the Oral Law and the transmission process, its infinitely more plausible that they are constructed narratives, not actual history.”
I agree with this to an extent (with major reservations). However, as I said in my comment to the previous post, our mesorah does not depend upon a handful of Aggadic statements about the Torah transmission process, but the fact that the entire Mishnah and Talmud is clearly derived from a mesorah, and we can pose a separate question as to when that mesorah begins.
“When we analyze the core elements of the doctrine of the Oral Law in Rabbinic texts, we can trace a clear historical development over the course of multiple generations. This would suggest a developing tradition, rather than ancient tradition that was simply recorded at a later time.”
Nobody argues that there is a developing tradition. This is what Rabbinical enactments are all about. The Rambam explains that there were always new halachic questions that needed to be addressed throughout the generations. However, most of your examples are not this.
“For example, the Tosefta in Sanhedrin (7:5) says that Hillel the Elder listed 7 hermeneutical laws in front of the B’nei Beteira. However, in the famousברייתא דר' ישמעאל, which was at least a century later (even if we accept the Rabbinic attribution to Hillel and R. Yishmael) he lists 13 methods. A generation later, R. Eliezer the son of R. Yosi Hagelili listed an astounding 32 methods! Evidently, there was a progression over time, with each generation refining and adding new methods.”
The classical explanation is that the 32 methods are a derivation of the 13 methods, and the 7 methods are a kitzur of the 13. I see nothing wrong with this explanation. You must assume away the classical explanation in order for this to be a proof. According to you, why didn’t the Gemara discuss this major machlokes between Hillel the Elder and the much later R. Eliezer? Were they just embarrassed?
“In general, scholars have identified two streams of thought in early Rabbinic literature. The school of R. Yishmael advocated an emphasis on the literal reading of the text, and in general did not allow for expansion of the law…”
Well, traditional scholars vehemently disagree with this. See Rav Hirsch in Collected Writings where he goes through tens of counterexamples from R’ Yishmael.
“(Additionally, the traditional distinction between Beis Shamai and Beis Hillel as being stricter or more lenient, which align with the personality of their founder is rather puzzling. In modern day halacha one can easily be a machmir or a meikel as we have plethora of sources with multitudes of opinions, and one can either forbid relying on one opinion over another or alternatively allow one to rely on a specific opinion. However, in the times of the Mishnah, this was rarely the case. If it was simply a matter of tradition, hermeneutics, or dispassionate logic, it’s difficult to see how one can tend to be one over the other.”
The opposite. This just shows that Bais Shamai and Beis Hillel were drawing from earlier oral sources and interpreting them, and that ultimately, Bais Shamai tended to be stricter. In this way, it is similar to modern day halacha. Your question is basically the same as “why is there machlokes?”, which is already addressed by Chazal and explained by the Geonim and the Rambam.
“In the Hellenic world, there were large schools of Grammarians (which corresponds to the term סופרים in Kiddushin 30a), most notably in Alexandria in the third and second centuries BCE, who developed various hermeneutical tools based on philology and logic, and they used these to interpret the books of Homer and other sacred texts. Some of the methods they used corresponded with Greek methods, such as קל וחומר (known in Latin as a fortiori, or from the stronger), גזירה שוה (known in Greek as synkrisis pros ison, or comparison to the equal), גימטריא and נוטריקון (which are themselves Greek terms). Many of them don’t correspond directly with Hellenic methods, but the general approach to interpreting texts used many of the same fundamental elements.5 While hermeneutics existed in the biblical era as well, particularly in the interpretation of dreams, incantations, and prophecies, they did not resemble the Hellenic system at all, which were largely lexical constructions and logical inferences.”
I find this to be a very weak point. Some of the comparisons are good, some are exceptionally weak. For example, kal v’chomer does parallel what is found in Aristotle, but kal v’chomer is already found in the Bible, and in many other legal systems and philosophies throughout the world. It is a pretty basic logical construct, and it is no surprise the the Greeks would share it with us. I find the gezeira shava comparison ridiculous, the Greek analogy has nothing to do with gezeira shava the way it is used in Shas, of using one word to transplant halachos from one concept to another. On the other hand, Chazal do use analogies, but that again is a pretty basic form of argument, found in the Bible and worldwide, and it is no surprise that we share it.
“…the Passover Seder which was modeled closely after the Greek Symposium”
There is no proof of this, and it’s an exceptionally weak comparison. Because they had drinking parties, our drinking parties must be modelled after theirs?
“One institution which has much halachic import is the Sanhedrin…An argument can possibly be made from the fact the early second temple texts make no reference of such a body.”
This has nothing to do with Oral Law. Judges are a universal function of all cultures. And why not make an argument that Biblical Texts make no reference to such a body? But that would be foolish, it’s clear that there were judges tasked with interpreting and meting out the law.
In general, these similarities are all minor and weak, just like the similarities between the Bible and Hammurabi. One can find similarities between the Rabbinic Law and ancient Hindu Law. One can find similarities between the Bible and ancient Hindu Law. One can find all sorts of interesting similarities between Aztec rituals and ancient Hindu rituals.
“The earliest record of esrog pollen in Judea is in the 5th century BCE, suggesting it was brought back from Persia after the exile.”
Wikipedia (quoting a book) - “Archaeological evidence for Citrus fruits is limited, as neither seeds nor pollen are likely to be routinely recovered in archaeology.”
“There have been numerous mikvaos discovered throughout Judea in the late second temple era (from the 2nd century BCE and onwards). However, although there have been a large amount of excavations in sites which were inhabited in the previous centuries, there has been very little found in terms of anything resembling a mikvah.”
Do we know when they made the enactment of מים שאובים? Because a mikveh מן התורה doesn’t have to “resemble” anything. From Wikipedia “The absence of dedicated mikvoth prior to the first century BCE is surprising, in that laws of purification were in fact kept by many Jews in earlier periods, as indicated by Biblical narratives[16] and the Elephantine papyri.[17] One suggestion is that Jews used natural water sources such as springs for immersion, rather than building dedicated mikvoth.[18] Alternatively, according to many Halakhic authorities the prohibition on using pumped water for a mikveh is rabbinic, not biblical.[19] Prior to the creation of such a rabbinic decree around 100 BCE,[dubious – discuss] Jews may have immersed in above-ground basins that were built as part of buildings, or affixed to the roofs of buildings, and filled manually.[17] Such structures, dating to the First Temple period, have been discovered in ancient Ashdod and possibly in Dan.[17]”
“However, prior to the caves in Qumran, there hasn’t been one pair of tefillin found.”
How many pairs of tefillin do you expect to be found? How many leather shoes were found? Not that many. Also, we should ask ourselves, why was there a pair of Tefillin found among the sectarians of an opposing sect to the Rabbis? The obvious conclusion is that Tefillin predated this sectarianism.
Your response is formidable, and I will admit that many of my arguments are not conclusive. I actually caveated in the beginning of installment 1a that I intend to build a cumulative case from all the arguments together.
That being said, I'll try to address some of your points.
1) Although there was definitely a mesorah in later generations, it's not just a random question 'oh but when did this begin'. It is the question, and there's no reason to a priori assume it existed before we observe it or it is implied by our observations. To that end, ourr observations fall short.
If this is the case, I think it's fair to argue that even chazal may have only had the impression that they were carrying a tradition within their schools that did not necessarily predate it, but they spoke hyperbolically to develop a theology which defended their worldview (and to an extent they definitely did believe it, particularly in later generations).
2) My point about developing traditions was referring to the core elements of the oral law itself, and pointing to rabbinic enactments is disingenuous.
3) Take a look at the lists of middos and tell me how דבר גדול שנתלה בקטן הימנו or גימטריא are included in the 13 of rabbi yishmael. However, I am still not arguing that they were disagreeing which would neccessitate a discussion about it, rather I am trying to illustrate how these lists functioned. It seems to be the exegesis was done even without knowledge of these lists, and these list were put together after the fact to try to maintain some order or to guide in exegesis, (similarly to klalei hatalmud from shmuel hanaggid of the beis yosef which are descriptive, not prescriptive), and they therefore did not represent an actual tradition from moshe rabbeinu, rather were attempts at categorizing drashos, and in that process each generation built on the work of the generation before.
4) The meta-point about hellenic influence was the style of exegesis which was rooted in philological and literary analysis complemented with logical constructs, as opposed to earlier methods of exegesis which were more about symbolism and metaphor. (And kal v'chomer for example fits with the hellenic style of exegesis, although maybe in argumentation it was used more broadly).
With regard to gzeirah shavah specifically, I was writing based on the conclusion of saul leiberman that gzeirah shavah and mah matzinu were originally one method which split into two, which is a discussion in it's own right. The greek gzeirah shavah was parallel to mah matzinu, and when it was split into textual and logical parallels the textual one retained the original name while the logical one was termed binyan av. See leiberman, hellenism in jewish palestine, in the chapter titled rabbinic interpretation of scripture.
5) The parallels in the symposium are far more significant than just a drinking party. The format of questioning, the apetizer first, than lengthy discussions, than the meal, followed by a celeration, the focus on specific cups of wine, even the specific minhagim of heseibah, karpas and the talmudic version of the kearah, all have a striking resemblance to the symposium.
6) I'm not familiar with rav hirsch's work on the two schools, but this paradigm as around for almost two centuries and has withstood academic debate. I know that that's an argument from authority, but being that i'm not personally so familar with the topic (aside from random essays here and there) I would quicker bet my money on the dozens of supporters than the lone criticism of rav hirsch. That being said, I don't know, and if I ever get around to studying the topic seriously I will try to review rav hirsch's writings on the subject.
7) I mentioned your point about the sanhedrin, but i was also focused on the style of the institution, but i agree it's not a good example, and my argument rests on more concrete halachic examples, such as the ones i mentioned and others.
8) I don't know where that wiki reference is from, but the migration of the citrus is well documented as having originated in southeast asia, migrated to india (the name comes from sanskrit suranga) and than persia, and only traveled westward from there under the persian empire. See for example this article https://www.jstor.org/stable/2484763
9) Regarding mikvaos, the wiki article is sourced from only frum sources, and some of their arguments are fallacious. For example, the biblical reference they were refering to is about tumah in general, not about mikvah. It's a major debate amongst scholars whether biblically immersion was necessary or it was sufficient with rinsing with water. There are solid arguments on both sides (daniel abraham has made a strong case for immersion), but there are a lot more halachos of mikvah besides for mayim sheuvim, such as 40 sa'ah and others. However, in the temple area there haven't been found any such baths either (and the ones in ashdod could simply be for hygiene).
10) Although leather shoes are found in small quantities, they are still some found, and they are commonly referenced, as opposed to tefillin which we wouldn't know existed before qumran.
Regarding the essenes, first of all they weren't opposing the rabbis, they were opposing the pharisees, which is a different, earlier entity. So for all we know the rabbis got it from the essenes (who seemed to have merged post-destruction with former pharisees). Even if that's not true, common customs don't show they predated sectarianism as there was a lot of borrrowing and mutual influence. (heck, the samaritans say slichos, does that show that the minhag predated the split?) Alternatively, it did originate earlier, but not significantly enough either timewise or in how widespread it was to show up on the historical record.
1) I think the opposite, there’s plenty of reason to assume there was a tradition surrounding the Torah. Clearly the Torah is insufficiently explained in of itself, and requires exposition. In any legal system, there is an idea of precedent, and there is no reason why that should apply to the Torah any less. Therefore, a priori, there is a good reason to assume that there was some legal tradition dating back to the origin of the Torah, and the question is, what is the best candidate. The system that is built on tradition or the ones that are not built on tradition and/or attack the whole idea of tradition?
3) I don’t know, good question. I will try to give it some thought. Clearly there are many drashos in Shas and reasoning that can’t easily be pigeonholed into the 13. But my main point stands, the Talmud didn’t think there was a contradiction, despite knowing about these lists (not to mention many other drashos) and believing the 13 middos are from Sinai.
4) What “earlier methods of exegisis” that are rooted in symbolism and metaphor are you referring to? Dream interpretations? As I said, Kal v’chomer is a basic logical construct, already found in Bible (and why would that be surprising?) And Mah Matzinu is just analogy, which is not an invention of the Greeks but found in the Bible and everywhere (לדוגמא, כאשר יקום איש על רעהו וכו). I looked in Lieberman and he points to lots of parallels between Greek rhetoric and drashos, but says “We have no ground to assume that the method itself of both logical and verbal analogy was borrowed by the Jews from the Greeks." He also says “Most likely general standards for the interpretation of legal texts were in vogue which dated back to high antiquity. But it was the Greeks who systematized, defined and gave definite form to the shapeless mass of interpretations.” Unlike you, he doesn’t see reason to conclude that the 13 middos couldn’t have come from Sinai, simply because of these resemblances to Greek rhetoric.
5) When I read about the parallels, they looked very silly and spurious. For example, “Sometimes, as at the Seder, the symposium lasted until dawn. At Plato’s Symposium (4th century B.C.E.), the crowing of the cock reminds the guests to go home (Stein, p. 34).” Like, whoever came up with this was clearly mining every scrap of every Greek source he could get his hands on to find parallels between any Greek feasts/banquets/drinking parties and the Pesach seder. Heck, I can find lots of striking resemblances between birthday parties and the Shabbos Seudah. They both have candles, singing, often they have cakes, children, guests, special hats, etc
6) Rav Hirsch was responding to Frankel who originated this concept. “Withstood academic debate” is an argument from authority, as you point out. Obviously I would prefer the authority of those who affirm the mesorah, and you would prefer those who reject it, so this is meaningless as far as our discussion goes. But read Collected Writings, Volume V, I believe, to see R’ Hirsch’s many counterexamples.
8) Don’t have access to Jstor, so I can’t see what you mean by well documented. This article brings possible cases of earlier citrus findings in the Near East, https://books.openedition.org/pcjb/2184?lang=en, I don’t see a clear proof either way.
9) So it’s a frum source. Should I reject all your sources without counterarguments simply because they are secular? His arguments are good. מן התורה you don’t need a special mikvah, you can use any sort of basin or even a barrel. Also, in Jerusalem there were plenty of springs and wells. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/biblical-water-systems-in-jerusalem. A spring doesn’t even need 40 seah. Any of these could have been used. Once specialized stone mikvaos were built in the Roman times, these probably weren’t used anymore.
10) They only found a few leather shoes all dating from the Roman period. This is because, as the Israeli Antiquities authority says “Sandals, made of leather, usually do not survive in the Mediterranean climate”. And as far as I can tell, none from the Hellenistic, Persian, or First Temple. And I would expect shoes to be of a much tougher leather than tefillin. That’s probably why there are so few Tefillin found even from the Mishnaic/Talmud period. As for your suggestion that maybe the Rabbis borrowed it from the Essenes and the the Essenes made it up out of whole cloth, maybe they did. Maybe the Rabbis also got 2000 amos on Shabbos from the Essenes, or countless other similarities, and mysteriously neglected to mention where they got it from. But it’s much more likely that both the Rabbis and Essenes drew from a common ancient tradition.
"heck, the samaritans say slichos, does that show that the minhag predated the split?"
Yes, it's a great support for the tradition of 10 days of teshuvah, which is not found in the Bible but is only by tradition. Thanks for informing me about this. Not that the Samaritans borrowed it from us, but rather they retained this element of tradition that the Rabbis also had.
1) This is a seperate argument which I address in installment 2a of this series.
4) You are misrepresenting lieberman's position, he goes on for the rest of the chapter to provide examples where they do correlate. The position I was arguing for is not direct borrowing, but that the hermeneutical methods make sense in the hellenic world, while in the more ancient world there was a completely different style of hermeneutics. See for example this work https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/ois6.pdf#page=101.
5) I agree with you that that example is not sufficient to establish a correlation, but I believe we can build a cumulative case from all the similarities. (And once that established it might provide context for the story in the hagada in bnei brak.) The way we differentiate between the kinds of parallels between a birthday and a seudah is by identifying the salient features through understanding the purpose of the format.
8) Even that article you linked only speculates that it may have been available as a commodity, but everyone agrees that they were not common, and if everyone needed it every year they would invest in cultivating it on a large scale.
9) I didn't mean that a frum source is unreliable by virtue of being frum, I was saying that the fact that they consider it puzzling is only because of being frum, and the sources they provide which raise the issue are not compelling if we don't accept the traditional position. I'm sorry if I came off more biased.
IIRC in a kli is not a mikveh mayim at all even min hatorah.
10) You seem to have missed the point that I said that the rabbis did not exist at the same time as the essenes. Until the destruction there were the pharisees, after the destruction we have no more references of either pharisees or essenes, and what we call the rabbis took their place. The question is how much did they inherit their traditions from the pharisees (which they obviously did to a large extent,) how much from the essenes, and how much from neither. They don't mention in most cases that traditions came from the pharisees even though they likely did in many cases, and similarly we shouldnt expect them to attribute traditions to the essenes even when they did. (Randomly, some speculate that chassidim harishonim in brachos 5:1 were essenes, and possibly the sofrim in kiddushin 29a as well.)
4) Not a misrepresentation, that's exactly what he means. His point is that terms and categorization used may have been borrowed from Hellenism, but the methods themselves can be much more ancient (he says even pre-Sinai).
5) Ok, I disagree.
8) Not everybody needs an Esrog. How many Esrog seeds would you find digging around Polish hamlets?
9) You're right, I forgot about that. Stupid me. But then I remembered that even after מים שאובים you can tovel in a barrel as long as you make a hole and attach it to the ground.
10) I didn't miss it. I think it's pretty obvious from the Talmud that the Rabbis saw themselves as stemming directly from the Pharisees. You point out that they don't mention inheriting specific traditions from them, but that would make sense if they saw themselves as a direct line from themselves to the Pharisees, to the Chassidim in the times of the Greeks, to the Anshei Knesses HaGedolah, etc. It wouldn't make sense if they knew their traditions were entirely invented by some Essene (or Pharisee) leader.
Your basic thesis of arguments 2 and 3 is that since Chazal were unreliable in their history, (a) they were wrong about a lot of things and mainly (b) the mesorah *is* history so how can we trust them on that? When things seem to contradict the historical evidence, they were probably just wrong about the mesorah as well and it’s more parsimonious to assume they just made things up.
The issue with these sorts of arguments (for me) is that in order to make these claims you need to also take into account what they do have going for them. We’re not talking about you’s and me’s. I would include in this list of "greas" not just our חכמים, but also the greats of the חכמי אומות העולם, the Greek philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, etc.) and the non-Jewish contemporaries of the tannaim and amoraim. In this we can also include the greatness of the Rishonim and their philosopher contemporaries. In light of this analysis, even the many things they got wrong in the field of history and science, was not without tremendous חכמה. This doesn’t mean they were right about everything either, but it does mean that there is weight to the areas that they can be trusted for. I don’t know how you account for this level of חכמה other than denying it entirely, in which I have nothing further to add.
What I’m saying is that despite all your arguments which may even be valid and turn out to be true, do you know what you’re up against? Do you know what the Rambam’s definition of חכמה was? If yes, even strong questions like these, and even if we have no answers, are simply not strong enough to knock down the strongly grounded tower. As before, this is a part of a longer discussion but before we talk about the arguments, I’d like to hear what you think about the “greatness” of the earlier authorities. Most people in the Marc Shapiro, Natan Slifkin, Joshua Berman camp (loud voices of today frequented in the blogosphere) completely or almost completely deny this thing exists. If they are right, I’m actually right there with you, but imho the astounding evidence points otherwise.
I just want to make it clear, I’m not going to start apologizing if they got things wrong. Perhaps they weren’t historians like they weren’t scientists, but there is a whole lot more you need to clarify in your stance before we come to any conclusions here, because the greater the tower, the more it takes to knock it down and I need to clarify how strong you think the tower is in the first place. If it’s not so strong to begin with, we have a whole different line of discussion in front of us; these “questions” are side points which we can’t and shouldn’t quite engage in yet.
By the way I once objected to Berman about his view on talmud (that it's simply evolving cultural tradition) based on this point, and he had no idea what i'm talking about. I imagine shapiro wouldn't be as ignorant, but i don't think he's that deep (but his conclusions are often supported by loads of evidence, although sometimes hes biased)
I'm with you in appreciating the astounding and deep chochmah of chazal, and it's definitely true that much of it gets lost on many academic scholars, such as Shapiro Berman and Slifkin. (I would like to remark that the previous generation of academic jewish studies giants had many who did appreciate chazal, such as Saul Lieberman, Abraham Heschel, David Weiss Halivni and Mordecai Kaplan.) However, I probably would not agree that the full extent of depth we appreciate today in their words were actually their intention, and much was superimposed by later generations through reinterpretation (think maharal and maharsha style).
However, their genius was very different than the factual analysis that modern scholars have. Yes, it was greater in depth, but it was largely theological and conceptual in nature. They developed a masterful version of Judaism, but that doesn't mean they are reliable in their claims. Look at a modern day example of a deep Jewish thinker such as Rav Dessler, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, R' Yerucham Levovitz, or R' Chaim Soloveitchik. They were absolute giants, but I would be very skeptical about thier claims about the external world, or even their claims to represent earlier generations attitude towards judaism. They developed (obviously with input from their predecessors) comprehensive systems of thought which was able to be used to understand evertything else anew. But that is not indicitave of the historicity of their approaches. The freedom to interpret rendered their approaches unfalsifiable from a historical standpoint, although they may be wonderful and deep from a religious standpoint. I've always found machshava deeply compelling, but I recognize that it's a construct, and the grand ideas don't always fully explain reality.
With regard to the Rambam, yes it's true most modern philosphers don't appreciate the old style of philosophy, but I still think there strong epistemic limitations to actually engaging in that approach to accurately describe the world. A clear way of demonstrating would be to study the Rambam's laws of motion in the beginning of Moreh nevuchim chelek beis, which are deeply insightful and seemingly logical, but we know that newtonian physic conclusively showed that that kind of logic is unsufficient to arrive at concrete truth, and he completely demolished that model. So I respect them greatly, but with regard to literal truth I value empiricism over rationalism.
Therefore, I think my demonstration of the lack of reliability of chazal on historical claim should completely change the way we view their understanding of torah sh'baal peh. It is a theological construct, however masterful, but not a literal truth.
With regards to 4 and 5, they are more holistic arguments, and they are more compelling to me because I've read up on much of the literature and the general approach seems compelling, but i recognize that a few examples presented without rigorous analysis aren't so convincing on their own.
However, argument 6 I think is very strong in it's right. It's virtually impossible to mantain that the esrog was used in biblical times, and mikvaos and tefillin are pretty clear that they come onto the map in the 3rd-2nd centuries. The strength of the observation is similar to the assumption we make that the bronze age only began in the 4th millenium bce.
As far as the limitations, the Rambam was obviously dead wrong, as was Aristotle, about the laws of motion. But let's take this back a step, what do you think about nevuah? Is that all made up as well? Did Moshe receive the torah from Hashem? Because if you do, once we start deconstructing the greatness of *those* levels in the same intimate way the Rambam does, the level of greatness is almost infinite to us and this changes the playing field a lot. It's not just genius; it's a level of intimate understanding of the metaphysical which in Chazal's world (again following the Rambam's guidance) is the core of חכמה, which is true even regarding Aristotle. This being the case, it makes a difference how easily we get to reject their views, even when we find they were wrong in one area like in science. And to say they were a bunch of conspirators needs a lot of work as well. (This besides the idea that Hashem wouldn't fool us by giving us a false Mesorah...)
מחשבה particularly is not my cup of tea because it is often speculative (though extremely grounded in deep and truthful ideas); I'm more Reb Elya Weintraub style which is simply explaining what the Gra means instead of expounding on it Reb Moshe Shapiro, or for that matter Maharal style which is full of fascinating chidushim.
Gotta run now; I'll add to this more personally later bln.
How do you know that their ideas obout the metaphysical world weren't simply genius constructs (and although it obviously contains a lot of insight which is relevant to us as well because its common to the human experience, it doesn't mean its always true).
Also, marcus aurelius, st. augustine, thomas aquinas, and schopnehauer all had deep insights. (And i'm not so familiar with eastern philosophies, but they say some of them are also very deep.) What makes chazal particularly special? Was the rambam more profound than Avicenna? (By the way, appreciation of depth is a common fallacy people fall into. You may not consider some charismatic leaders particularly, but some def. are and many people fall into thier trap including crazies and cults. This is why i prioritize evidence, although deep constructs can be meaningful and useful in my life, but i don't put them in the same category as knowledge. Basically, i like theology and get what its doing, but i dont trust it)
Anyways, what does this whole thing have to do with believing a historical claim?
I happen to think Aquinas, Augustine, Avicenna and so on were extremely wise and had a really good understanding of the metaphysic world, just like the Rambam's testimony on Aristotle. What differentiates them from us is that we are claiming that if you take this "genius" further, it can lead to prophesy, something they could have easily imagined despite that they never experienced it. (- Aristotle only denied prophecy because of his view of science and philosophical ideas of "God" didn't allow it, but it wasn't beyond his imagination at all like it is to today's metaphysics denier. And not because he was more "superstitious" but because he tapped into the deep truths behind it all, which is why he was so influential in the Christian and Muslim (and the Rambam's) worlds.) That just about the only thing that differentiates us from them. But once you get to the Aristotle level, the jump is quite small, and if we add some basic ideas about the decline of the generations which are clear when discussing the greats of the earlier genertions, which is specifically in the area of perceiving the metaphysics, Aristotle fits neatly into the pigeon hole which history would have created for him, which is why before him all we find are pagans (which I'd contend from a plethora of sources that the likes of Pharaoh's or Haman's wisdom (for example) runs even deeper than the Aristotelian philosophy, parallel to the higher levels of חכמה available in those times). I would find it strange to be aware of the tremendous ירידת הדורות in חכמה following back until Aristotle and not appreciate that this is just the way things work - the further we distance ourselves from that world and enter the world of חיצוניות, the harder it becomes to access the depths of חכמה.
I'll get to how this matters if we can be on the same page until here...
Ok. Let me first be clear where I stand. I was also enthralled for a long time by these great works (although until I began questioning I only had access to the jewish sources and what they quote, not the primary non-jewish sources). In fact, for a long time my belief was grounded in the chovos halevavos exposition in shaar hayichud. Even when I began questioning the historical narrative of the torah and chazal (and hence the divinity of the claims within) I was still holding on to belief because although evidence shmevidence, it's "beetzem true". However, eventually I came to two realizations. 1. Rationality is overrated in its reliability and empiricism is the only method that is accurate, because the world clearly doesn't match up with the way it would make sense to be, and 2. Many of these grand narratives can easily be taken in another direction if you are so inclined. (Just as the rambam had major philosophical differences with the ramban and the later mekubalim and aristotle for that matter, and most of the disagreements there's really no way to know who is right, even the basic things they agree on have a lot of room to disagree with. For example, I believe david hume's objection of brute fact [which is commonly misunderstood] has a lot of merit, along with other fundemental issues.) This is especially true when discussing matters which are built on dozens of previous conclusions, for example the the nefesh hachaim's ideas.
Eventually when these two problems coalesced, I began to see this entire enterprise for what I now believe it is- a combination of seeing the world as fundementally ordered in a logical fashion in way that our minds percieve order (ancient philosophy) and placing every event or human experience within this paradigm in our quest for meaning (theology). Both of these endeavors have no justification to assume they're true.
Therefore, I exited the paradigm for a bit, and attempted to see if the world makes sense (not in the aristotlean sense) without it. I now see things from a bottom up groundwork, which takes note of the axioms that we experience, investigates as far as we can as to why they are that way, but grounds that reflection through observational data, and I find this is vastly superior in terms of accuracy (and coherence) than the older model.
Do the arguments that these ancient thinkers raise need to be addressed? Of course they do? But I now recognize that their entire methodology was largely speculative, as the two major assumptions noted above have no justification. If that's true, than these worldviews are human constructs of how to see the world. Of course they are deeper in the sense that they define how abstract concepts form our world, and they are more meaningful in the sense that everything is comprised of higher concepts. But it's not true. So II appreciate their wisdom, but I contextualize it with their epistemological framework which i reject. (Much like you may be able to appreciate buddhist thought, but you don't accept their fundemental axioms.)
Now that that's clear, I do not agree at all that they accessed metaphysical truths. They may have thought they did, and one who subscribes to their paradigm will see it that way and respect them far greater than is warranted by their actual genius, and it will also make it way easier to accept claims such as yeridas hodoros and nevuah, but as a skeptic I see this as a major obstacle in that it blinds one from seeing reality as is. For example, I think it's totally ridiculous to ascribe major wisdom to pharaoh and haman, both because we don't have good reason to assume that their experience was different from ours in that respect, and because an objective reading of historical sources (even from tanakh) flatly contradict that notion. I get why someone like you accepts that, but I think you are being blinded by a debunked paradigm.
I'm still more than happy to accept your POV for the purposes of a conversation, as I like to have a better understanding of the way the ancients viewed even if they were wrong, and I appreciate the significance their ideas had within their culture, but this doens't answer any of my questions like the ones in the post.
And I'm a big fan of modern philosophy because they're epistemological assumptions are for more sound, although I don't like how they corrupt ancient wisdom, and I also think human constructs like some of the ideas in kabala (especially the gra) are true in a sense (meaning from an existentalist POV anything that can accurately describe our conception of reality which necessarily understands things as if they were metaphysical [which is what emotions are] is valuable in its own right and true if you are simply using them to explain human experience.)
(Although there are philosophers esp. continental philosophers who do focus on meaning, like nietzsche, shopenhauer, and even some pop philosophers like Jordan peterson and sam harris. It also helps that they incorporate cognitive science and psychology.)
i think the question ultimately comes down to how we are supposed to come to a proper version of historicity. You seem to be claiming that since we can't know anything let's start from scratch and ignore the fact that my rebbi heard from his rebbi who heard from his (besides for the fact that there was a clear decline in the understanding of Judaism from a larger perspective, i.e. we don't have prophets anymore which makes it trust system stronger then a normal one). Your approach assumes that they didn't have the tools we have to evaluate things and they were all trusting somewhat blindly the tradition we hold so dear, where none of them ever asked themselves, well maybe we got it wrong? (Of course anyone who did is out of the fold immediately, no questions asked and such the system is designed to keep itself alive without dissonance). The issue with your approach is, imo, that you will never get better than a postulation and a possible alternative theory, but it won't give you much more than a 50/50, because you'll never know that we got it wrong. (And to be perfectly clear, I mean 50/50 in reasonability not in probability.) this means that if we are correct in our understanding of history, this is exactly how it would play out to a tee. And we have the advantage of a trust system, which is all we ever really have to know anything that we know, including the truths of science and history.
I guess to lay it out more clearly, your proposition of how to read history isn't something i reject entirely; it's a distinct possibility, but my version is also a plausible explanation. The advantage of yours is (a) answering the questions you pose, which are not all weak, and (b) they allow all the non physical stuff to be merely conjecture without considering the greats to be idiots or evil conspirators. My only real question is that if my version*is* true and almost definitionally we don't have access to the spirituality they had, how would our logical thinking help prove anything? Like proving that sight exists to a group of blind people? of course it could be this question itself is theory and conjecture, but that's how the Rambam describes and that's how the neviim alude to it, and how the mesilas yesharim, gra, orchos tzadikim, kuzari, plato, aristotle, and quite. honestly, all of the ancient religions (Buddhism, zoroastrianism, jainism, taoism and of course judaism, Christianity and Islam) have ideas of working hard to obtain this other reality, each in their own form. I'm not sure why we shouldn't trust them? How do you have the confidence to assume you're not just up against a giant we clearly don't understand. I've never heard a satisfying rebuttal to this except something like "yah but maybe they were making it up." of course we would say that if we didn't have access to their reality! The main argument against this proposal is that it almost seems conspiratorial, but if that's where the evidence points, I'll go with it despite sounding strange (many scientific things, especially post Einstein seem completely absurd). Although I understand that religion itself is not cool and current, why am I wrong about what seems to be the truth at least of what they were saying? I mean could anyone have said it better than plato with the cave analogy?
One more important addition, the comparative religion argument is weak because the underlying concept is universally agreed upon which means they were all accessing this "third eye", "sixth sense", "spirituality", "yin yang", or whatever you want to call this experience that we don't have.
And if you agree they had the experience and want to to know why I think my version is true, that would be the next step of this discussion. But to entirely deny the reality they so clearly describe, by people like us who haven't really gotten there, seems like a blind person denying color with all kinds of arguments relying on the need for empiricism instead of some level of trusting what they said and not building everything ground up ourselves. Again, it could be I'm dead wrong, but taking them at face value (a) I can't be too confident and (b) we trust many things including most of our history and science without our own personal empirical evidence.
This blog is awesome!
Keep on writing.
Thanks!
I hope you will permit me another brief comment, haha.
“It is not history; it is midrash…Therefore, when approaching Rabbinic statements about the antiquity of the Oral Law and the transmission process, its infinitely more plausible that they are constructed narratives, not actual history.”
I agree with this to an extent (with major reservations). However, as I said in my comment to the previous post, our mesorah does not depend upon a handful of Aggadic statements about the Torah transmission process, but the fact that the entire Mishnah and Talmud is clearly derived from a mesorah, and we can pose a separate question as to when that mesorah begins.
“When we analyze the core elements of the doctrine of the Oral Law in Rabbinic texts, we can trace a clear historical development over the course of multiple generations. This would suggest a developing tradition, rather than ancient tradition that was simply recorded at a later time.”
Nobody argues that there is a developing tradition. This is what Rabbinical enactments are all about. The Rambam explains that there were always new halachic questions that needed to be addressed throughout the generations. However, most of your examples are not this.
“For example, the Tosefta in Sanhedrin (7:5) says that Hillel the Elder listed 7 hermeneutical laws in front of the B’nei Beteira. However, in the famousברייתא דר' ישמעאל, which was at least a century later (even if we accept the Rabbinic attribution to Hillel and R. Yishmael) he lists 13 methods. A generation later, R. Eliezer the son of R. Yosi Hagelili listed an astounding 32 methods! Evidently, there was a progression over time, with each generation refining and adding new methods.”
The classical explanation is that the 32 methods are a derivation of the 13 methods, and the 7 methods are a kitzur of the 13. I see nothing wrong with this explanation. You must assume away the classical explanation in order for this to be a proof. According to you, why didn’t the Gemara discuss this major machlokes between Hillel the Elder and the much later R. Eliezer? Were they just embarrassed?
“In general, scholars have identified two streams of thought in early Rabbinic literature. The school of R. Yishmael advocated an emphasis on the literal reading of the text, and in general did not allow for expansion of the law…”
Well, traditional scholars vehemently disagree with this. See Rav Hirsch in Collected Writings where he goes through tens of counterexamples from R’ Yishmael.
“(Additionally, the traditional distinction between Beis Shamai and Beis Hillel as being stricter or more lenient, which align with the personality of their founder is rather puzzling. In modern day halacha one can easily be a machmir or a meikel as we have plethora of sources with multitudes of opinions, and one can either forbid relying on one opinion over another or alternatively allow one to rely on a specific opinion. However, in the times of the Mishnah, this was rarely the case. If it was simply a matter of tradition, hermeneutics, or dispassionate logic, it’s difficult to see how one can tend to be one over the other.”
The opposite. This just shows that Bais Shamai and Beis Hillel were drawing from earlier oral sources and interpreting them, and that ultimately, Bais Shamai tended to be stricter. In this way, it is similar to modern day halacha. Your question is basically the same as “why is there machlokes?”, which is already addressed by Chazal and explained by the Geonim and the Rambam.
“In the Hellenic world, there were large schools of Grammarians (which corresponds to the term סופרים in Kiddushin 30a), most notably in Alexandria in the third and second centuries BCE, who developed various hermeneutical tools based on philology and logic, and they used these to interpret the books of Homer and other sacred texts. Some of the methods they used corresponded with Greek methods, such as קל וחומר (known in Latin as a fortiori, or from the stronger), גזירה שוה (known in Greek as synkrisis pros ison, or comparison to the equal), גימטריא and נוטריקון (which are themselves Greek terms). Many of them don’t correspond directly with Hellenic methods, but the general approach to interpreting texts used many of the same fundamental elements.5 While hermeneutics existed in the biblical era as well, particularly in the interpretation of dreams, incantations, and prophecies, they did not resemble the Hellenic system at all, which were largely lexical constructions and logical inferences.”
I find this to be a very weak point. Some of the comparisons are good, some are exceptionally weak. For example, kal v’chomer does parallel what is found in Aristotle, but kal v’chomer is already found in the Bible, and in many other legal systems and philosophies throughout the world. It is a pretty basic logical construct, and it is no surprise the the Greeks would share it with us. I find the gezeira shava comparison ridiculous, the Greek analogy has nothing to do with gezeira shava the way it is used in Shas, of using one word to transplant halachos from one concept to another. On the other hand, Chazal do use analogies, but that again is a pretty basic form of argument, found in the Bible and worldwide, and it is no surprise that we share it.
“…the Passover Seder which was modeled closely after the Greek Symposium”
There is no proof of this, and it’s an exceptionally weak comparison. Because they had drinking parties, our drinking parties must be modelled after theirs?
“One institution which has much halachic import is the Sanhedrin…An argument can possibly be made from the fact the early second temple texts make no reference of such a body.”
This has nothing to do with Oral Law. Judges are a universal function of all cultures. And why not make an argument that Biblical Texts make no reference to such a body? But that would be foolish, it’s clear that there were judges tasked with interpreting and meting out the law.
In general, these similarities are all minor and weak, just like the similarities between the Bible and Hammurabi. One can find similarities between the Rabbinic Law and ancient Hindu Law. One can find similarities between the Bible and ancient Hindu Law. One can find all sorts of interesting similarities between Aztec rituals and ancient Hindu rituals.
“The earliest record of esrog pollen in Judea is in the 5th century BCE, suggesting it was brought back from Persia after the exile.”
Wikipedia (quoting a book) - “Archaeological evidence for Citrus fruits is limited, as neither seeds nor pollen are likely to be routinely recovered in archaeology.”
“There have been numerous mikvaos discovered throughout Judea in the late second temple era (from the 2nd century BCE and onwards). However, although there have been a large amount of excavations in sites which were inhabited in the previous centuries, there has been very little found in terms of anything resembling a mikvah.”
Do we know when they made the enactment of מים שאובים? Because a mikveh מן התורה doesn’t have to “resemble” anything. From Wikipedia “The absence of dedicated mikvoth prior to the first century BCE is surprising, in that laws of purification were in fact kept by many Jews in earlier periods, as indicated by Biblical narratives[16] and the Elephantine papyri.[17] One suggestion is that Jews used natural water sources such as springs for immersion, rather than building dedicated mikvoth.[18] Alternatively, according to many Halakhic authorities the prohibition on using pumped water for a mikveh is rabbinic, not biblical.[19] Prior to the creation of such a rabbinic decree around 100 BCE,[dubious – discuss] Jews may have immersed in above-ground basins that were built as part of buildings, or affixed to the roofs of buildings, and filled manually.[17] Such structures, dating to the First Temple period, have been discovered in ancient Ashdod and possibly in Dan.[17]”
“However, prior to the caves in Qumran, there hasn’t been one pair of tefillin found.”
How many pairs of tefillin do you expect to be found? How many leather shoes were found? Not that many. Also, we should ask ourselves, why was there a pair of Tefillin found among the sectarians of an opposing sect to the Rabbis? The obvious conclusion is that Tefillin predated this sectarianism.
Your response is formidable, and I will admit that many of my arguments are not conclusive. I actually caveated in the beginning of installment 1a that I intend to build a cumulative case from all the arguments together.
That being said, I'll try to address some of your points.
1) Although there was definitely a mesorah in later generations, it's not just a random question 'oh but when did this begin'. It is the question, and there's no reason to a priori assume it existed before we observe it or it is implied by our observations. To that end, ourr observations fall short.
If this is the case, I think it's fair to argue that even chazal may have only had the impression that they were carrying a tradition within their schools that did not necessarily predate it, but they spoke hyperbolically to develop a theology which defended their worldview (and to an extent they definitely did believe it, particularly in later generations).
2) My point about developing traditions was referring to the core elements of the oral law itself, and pointing to rabbinic enactments is disingenuous.
3) Take a look at the lists of middos and tell me how דבר גדול שנתלה בקטן הימנו or גימטריא are included in the 13 of rabbi yishmael. However, I am still not arguing that they were disagreeing which would neccessitate a discussion about it, rather I am trying to illustrate how these lists functioned. It seems to be the exegesis was done even without knowledge of these lists, and these list were put together after the fact to try to maintain some order or to guide in exegesis, (similarly to klalei hatalmud from shmuel hanaggid of the beis yosef which are descriptive, not prescriptive), and they therefore did not represent an actual tradition from moshe rabbeinu, rather were attempts at categorizing drashos, and in that process each generation built on the work of the generation before.
4) The meta-point about hellenic influence was the style of exegesis which was rooted in philological and literary analysis complemented with logical constructs, as opposed to earlier methods of exegesis which were more about symbolism and metaphor. (And kal v'chomer for example fits with the hellenic style of exegesis, although maybe in argumentation it was used more broadly).
With regard to gzeirah shavah specifically, I was writing based on the conclusion of saul leiberman that gzeirah shavah and mah matzinu were originally one method which split into two, which is a discussion in it's own right. The greek gzeirah shavah was parallel to mah matzinu, and when it was split into textual and logical parallels the textual one retained the original name while the logical one was termed binyan av. See leiberman, hellenism in jewish palestine, in the chapter titled rabbinic interpretation of scripture.
5) The parallels in the symposium are far more significant than just a drinking party. The format of questioning, the apetizer first, than lengthy discussions, than the meal, followed by a celeration, the focus on specific cups of wine, even the specific minhagim of heseibah, karpas and the talmudic version of the kearah, all have a striking resemblance to the symposium.
6) I'm not familiar with rav hirsch's work on the two schools, but this paradigm as around for almost two centuries and has withstood academic debate. I know that that's an argument from authority, but being that i'm not personally so familar with the topic (aside from random essays here and there) I would quicker bet my money on the dozens of supporters than the lone criticism of rav hirsch. That being said, I don't know, and if I ever get around to studying the topic seriously I will try to review rav hirsch's writings on the subject.
7) I mentioned your point about the sanhedrin, but i was also focused on the style of the institution, but i agree it's not a good example, and my argument rests on more concrete halachic examples, such as the ones i mentioned and others.
8) I don't know where that wiki reference is from, but the migration of the citrus is well documented as having originated in southeast asia, migrated to india (the name comes from sanskrit suranga) and than persia, and only traveled westward from there under the persian empire. See for example this article https://www.jstor.org/stable/2484763
9) Regarding mikvaos, the wiki article is sourced from only frum sources, and some of their arguments are fallacious. For example, the biblical reference they were refering to is about tumah in general, not about mikvah. It's a major debate amongst scholars whether biblically immersion was necessary or it was sufficient with rinsing with water. There are solid arguments on both sides (daniel abraham has made a strong case for immersion), but there are a lot more halachos of mikvah besides for mayim sheuvim, such as 40 sa'ah and others. However, in the temple area there haven't been found any such baths either (and the ones in ashdod could simply be for hygiene).
10) Although leather shoes are found in small quantities, they are still some found, and they are commonly referenced, as opposed to tefillin which we wouldn't know existed before qumran.
Regarding the essenes, first of all they weren't opposing the rabbis, they were opposing the pharisees, which is a different, earlier entity. So for all we know the rabbis got it from the essenes (who seemed to have merged post-destruction with former pharisees). Even if that's not true, common customs don't show they predated sectarianism as there was a lot of borrrowing and mutual influence. (heck, the samaritans say slichos, does that show that the minhag predated the split?) Alternatively, it did originate earlier, but not significantly enough either timewise or in how widespread it was to show up on the historical record.
1) I think the opposite, there’s plenty of reason to assume there was a tradition surrounding the Torah. Clearly the Torah is insufficiently explained in of itself, and requires exposition. In any legal system, there is an idea of precedent, and there is no reason why that should apply to the Torah any less. Therefore, a priori, there is a good reason to assume that there was some legal tradition dating back to the origin of the Torah, and the question is, what is the best candidate. The system that is built on tradition or the ones that are not built on tradition and/or attack the whole idea of tradition?
3) I don’t know, good question. I will try to give it some thought. Clearly there are many drashos in Shas and reasoning that can’t easily be pigeonholed into the 13. But my main point stands, the Talmud didn’t think there was a contradiction, despite knowing about these lists (not to mention many other drashos) and believing the 13 middos are from Sinai.
4) What “earlier methods of exegisis” that are rooted in symbolism and metaphor are you referring to? Dream interpretations? As I said, Kal v’chomer is a basic logical construct, already found in Bible (and why would that be surprising?) And Mah Matzinu is just analogy, which is not an invention of the Greeks but found in the Bible and everywhere (לדוגמא, כאשר יקום איש על רעהו וכו). I looked in Lieberman and he points to lots of parallels between Greek rhetoric and drashos, but says “We have no ground to assume that the method itself of both logical and verbal analogy was borrowed by the Jews from the Greeks." He also says “Most likely general standards for the interpretation of legal texts were in vogue which dated back to high antiquity. But it was the Greeks who systematized, defined and gave definite form to the shapeless mass of interpretations.” Unlike you, he doesn’t see reason to conclude that the 13 middos couldn’t have come from Sinai, simply because of these resemblances to Greek rhetoric.
5) When I read about the parallels, they looked very silly and spurious. For example, “Sometimes, as at the Seder, the symposium lasted until dawn. At Plato’s Symposium (4th century B.C.E.), the crowing of the cock reminds the guests to go home (Stein, p. 34).” Like, whoever came up with this was clearly mining every scrap of every Greek source he could get his hands on to find parallels between any Greek feasts/banquets/drinking parties and the Pesach seder. Heck, I can find lots of striking resemblances between birthday parties and the Shabbos Seudah. They both have candles, singing, often they have cakes, children, guests, special hats, etc
6) Rav Hirsch was responding to Frankel who originated this concept. “Withstood academic debate” is an argument from authority, as you point out. Obviously I would prefer the authority of those who affirm the mesorah, and you would prefer those who reject it, so this is meaningless as far as our discussion goes. But read Collected Writings, Volume V, I believe, to see R’ Hirsch’s many counterexamples.
8) Don’t have access to Jstor, so I can’t see what you mean by well documented. This article brings possible cases of earlier citrus findings in the Near East, https://books.openedition.org/pcjb/2184?lang=en, I don’t see a clear proof either way.
9) So it’s a frum source. Should I reject all your sources without counterarguments simply because they are secular? His arguments are good. מן התורה you don’t need a special mikvah, you can use any sort of basin or even a barrel. Also, in Jerusalem there were plenty of springs and wells. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/biblical-water-systems-in-jerusalem. A spring doesn’t even need 40 seah. Any of these could have been used. Once specialized stone mikvaos were built in the Roman times, these probably weren’t used anymore.
10) They only found a few leather shoes all dating from the Roman period. This is because, as the Israeli Antiquities authority says “Sandals, made of leather, usually do not survive in the Mediterranean climate”. And as far as I can tell, none from the Hellenistic, Persian, or First Temple. And I would expect shoes to be of a much tougher leather than tefillin. That’s probably why there are so few Tefillin found even from the Mishnaic/Talmud period. As for your suggestion that maybe the Rabbis borrowed it from the Essenes and the the Essenes made it up out of whole cloth, maybe they did. Maybe the Rabbis also got 2000 amos on Shabbos from the Essenes, or countless other similarities, and mysteriously neglected to mention where they got it from. But it’s much more likely that both the Rabbis and Essenes drew from a common ancient tradition.
"heck, the samaritans say slichos, does that show that the minhag predated the split?"
Yes, it's a great support for the tradition of 10 days of teshuvah, which is not found in the Bible but is only by tradition. Thanks for informing me about this. Not that the Samaritans borrowed it from us, but rather they retained this element of tradition that the Rabbis also had.
1) This is a seperate argument which I address in installment 2a of this series.
4) You are misrepresenting lieberman's position, he goes on for the rest of the chapter to provide examples where they do correlate. The position I was arguing for is not direct borrowing, but that the hermeneutical methods make sense in the hellenic world, while in the more ancient world there was a completely different style of hermeneutics. See for example this work https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/ois6.pdf#page=101.
5) I agree with you that that example is not sufficient to establish a correlation, but I believe we can build a cumulative case from all the similarities. (And once that established it might provide context for the story in the hagada in bnei brak.) The way we differentiate between the kinds of parallels between a birthday and a seudah is by identifying the salient features through understanding the purpose of the format.
8) Even that article you linked only speculates that it may have been available as a commodity, but everyone agrees that they were not common, and if everyone needed it every year they would invest in cultivating it on a large scale.
9) I didn't mean that a frum source is unreliable by virtue of being frum, I was saying that the fact that they consider it puzzling is only because of being frum, and the sources they provide which raise the issue are not compelling if we don't accept the traditional position. I'm sorry if I came off more biased.
IIRC in a kli is not a mikveh mayim at all even min hatorah.
10) You seem to have missed the point that I said that the rabbis did not exist at the same time as the essenes. Until the destruction there were the pharisees, after the destruction we have no more references of either pharisees or essenes, and what we call the rabbis took their place. The question is how much did they inherit their traditions from the pharisees (which they obviously did to a large extent,) how much from the essenes, and how much from neither. They don't mention in most cases that traditions came from the pharisees even though they likely did in many cases, and similarly we shouldnt expect them to attribute traditions to the essenes even when they did. (Randomly, some speculate that chassidim harishonim in brachos 5:1 were essenes, and possibly the sofrim in kiddushin 29a as well.)
4) Not a misrepresentation, that's exactly what he means. His point is that terms and categorization used may have been borrowed from Hellenism, but the methods themselves can be much more ancient (he says even pre-Sinai).
5) Ok, I disagree.
8) Not everybody needs an Esrog. How many Esrog seeds would you find digging around Polish hamlets?
9) You're right, I forgot about that. Stupid me. But then I remembered that even after מים שאובים you can tovel in a barrel as long as you make a hole and attach it to the ground.
10) I didn't miss it. I think it's pretty obvious from the Talmud that the Rabbis saw themselves as stemming directly from the Pharisees. You point out that they don't mention inheriting specific traditions from them, but that would make sense if they saw themselves as a direct line from themselves to the Pharisees, to the Chassidim in the times of the Greeks, to the Anshei Knesses HaGedolah, etc. It wouldn't make sense if they knew their traditions were entirely invented by some Essene (or Pharisee) leader.
Your basic thesis of arguments 2 and 3 is that since Chazal were unreliable in their history, (a) they were wrong about a lot of things and mainly (b) the mesorah *is* history so how can we trust them on that? When things seem to contradict the historical evidence, they were probably just wrong about the mesorah as well and it’s more parsimonious to assume they just made things up.
The issue with these sorts of arguments (for me) is that in order to make these claims you need to also take into account what they do have going for them. We’re not talking about you’s and me’s. I would include in this list of "greas" not just our חכמים, but also the greats of the חכמי אומות העולם, the Greek philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, etc.) and the non-Jewish contemporaries of the tannaim and amoraim. In this we can also include the greatness of the Rishonim and their philosopher contemporaries. In light of this analysis, even the many things they got wrong in the field of history and science, was not without tremendous חכמה. This doesn’t mean they were right about everything either, but it does mean that there is weight to the areas that they can be trusted for. I don’t know how you account for this level of חכמה other than denying it entirely, in which I have nothing further to add.
What I’m saying is that despite all your arguments which may even be valid and turn out to be true, do you know what you’re up against? Do you know what the Rambam’s definition of חכמה was? If yes, even strong questions like these, and even if we have no answers, are simply not strong enough to knock down the strongly grounded tower. As before, this is a part of a longer discussion but before we talk about the arguments, I’d like to hear what you think about the “greatness” of the earlier authorities. Most people in the Marc Shapiro, Natan Slifkin, Joshua Berman camp (loud voices of today frequented in the blogosphere) completely or almost completely deny this thing exists. If they are right, I’m actually right there with you, but imho the astounding evidence points otherwise.
I just want to make it clear, I’m not going to start apologizing if they got things wrong. Perhaps they weren’t historians like they weren’t scientists, but there is a whole lot more you need to clarify in your stance before we come to any conclusions here, because the greater the tower, the more it takes to knock it down and I need to clarify how strong you think the tower is in the first place. If it’s not so strong to begin with, we have a whole different line of discussion in front of us; these “questions” are side points which we can’t and shouldn’t quite engage in yet.
4, 5 and 6 aren’t so strong to me, similar to 1.
By the way I once objected to Berman about his view on talmud (that it's simply evolving cultural tradition) based on this point, and he had no idea what i'm talking about. I imagine shapiro wouldn't be as ignorant, but i don't think he's that deep (but his conclusions are often supported by loads of evidence, although sometimes hes biased)
I'm with you in appreciating the astounding and deep chochmah of chazal, and it's definitely true that much of it gets lost on many academic scholars, such as Shapiro Berman and Slifkin. (I would like to remark that the previous generation of academic jewish studies giants had many who did appreciate chazal, such as Saul Lieberman, Abraham Heschel, David Weiss Halivni and Mordecai Kaplan.) However, I probably would not agree that the full extent of depth we appreciate today in their words were actually their intention, and much was superimposed by later generations through reinterpretation (think maharal and maharsha style).
However, their genius was very different than the factual analysis that modern scholars have. Yes, it was greater in depth, but it was largely theological and conceptual in nature. They developed a masterful version of Judaism, but that doesn't mean they are reliable in their claims. Look at a modern day example of a deep Jewish thinker such as Rav Dessler, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, R' Yerucham Levovitz, or R' Chaim Soloveitchik. They were absolute giants, but I would be very skeptical about thier claims about the external world, or even their claims to represent earlier generations attitude towards judaism. They developed (obviously with input from their predecessors) comprehensive systems of thought which was able to be used to understand evertything else anew. But that is not indicitave of the historicity of their approaches. The freedom to interpret rendered their approaches unfalsifiable from a historical standpoint, although they may be wonderful and deep from a religious standpoint. I've always found machshava deeply compelling, but I recognize that it's a construct, and the grand ideas don't always fully explain reality.
With regard to the Rambam, yes it's true most modern philosphers don't appreciate the old style of philosophy, but I still think there strong epistemic limitations to actually engaging in that approach to accurately describe the world. A clear way of demonstrating would be to study the Rambam's laws of motion in the beginning of Moreh nevuchim chelek beis, which are deeply insightful and seemingly logical, but we know that newtonian physic conclusively showed that that kind of logic is unsufficient to arrive at concrete truth, and he completely demolished that model. So I respect them greatly, but with regard to literal truth I value empiricism over rationalism.
Therefore, I think my demonstration of the lack of reliability of chazal on historical claim should completely change the way we view their understanding of torah sh'baal peh. It is a theological construct, however masterful, but not a literal truth.
With regards to 4 and 5, they are more holistic arguments, and they are more compelling to me because I've read up on much of the literature and the general approach seems compelling, but i recognize that a few examples presented without rigorous analysis aren't so convincing on their own.
However, argument 6 I think is very strong in it's right. It's virtually impossible to mantain that the esrog was used in biblical times, and mikvaos and tefillin are pretty clear that they come onto the map in the 3rd-2nd centuries. The strength of the observation is similar to the assumption we make that the bronze age only began in the 4th millenium bce.
Just edited a bit:
I agree about Saul Lieberman!
As far as the limitations, the Rambam was obviously dead wrong, as was Aristotle, about the laws of motion. But let's take this back a step, what do you think about nevuah? Is that all made up as well? Did Moshe receive the torah from Hashem? Because if you do, once we start deconstructing the greatness of *those* levels in the same intimate way the Rambam does, the level of greatness is almost infinite to us and this changes the playing field a lot. It's not just genius; it's a level of intimate understanding of the metaphysical which in Chazal's world (again following the Rambam's guidance) is the core of חכמה, which is true even regarding Aristotle. This being the case, it makes a difference how easily we get to reject their views, even when we find they were wrong in one area like in science. And to say they were a bunch of conspirators needs a lot of work as well. (This besides the idea that Hashem wouldn't fool us by giving us a false Mesorah...)
מחשבה particularly is not my cup of tea because it is often speculative (though extremely grounded in deep and truthful ideas); I'm more Reb Elya Weintraub style which is simply explaining what the Gra means instead of expounding on it Reb Moshe Shapiro, or for that matter Maharal style which is full of fascinating chidushim.
Gotta run now; I'll add to this more personally later bln.
How do you know that their ideas obout the metaphysical world weren't simply genius constructs (and although it obviously contains a lot of insight which is relevant to us as well because its common to the human experience, it doesn't mean its always true).
Also, marcus aurelius, st. augustine, thomas aquinas, and schopnehauer all had deep insights. (And i'm not so familiar with eastern philosophies, but they say some of them are also very deep.) What makes chazal particularly special? Was the rambam more profound than Avicenna? (By the way, appreciation of depth is a common fallacy people fall into. You may not consider some charismatic leaders particularly, but some def. are and many people fall into thier trap including crazies and cults. This is why i prioritize evidence, although deep constructs can be meaningful and useful in my life, but i don't put them in the same category as knowledge. Basically, i like theology and get what its doing, but i dont trust it)
Anyways, what does this whole thing have to do with believing a historical claim?
I happen to think Aquinas, Augustine, Avicenna and so on were extremely wise and had a really good understanding of the metaphysic world, just like the Rambam's testimony on Aristotle. What differentiates them from us is that we are claiming that if you take this "genius" further, it can lead to prophesy, something they could have easily imagined despite that they never experienced it. (- Aristotle only denied prophecy because of his view of science and philosophical ideas of "God" didn't allow it, but it wasn't beyond his imagination at all like it is to today's metaphysics denier. And not because he was more "superstitious" but because he tapped into the deep truths behind it all, which is why he was so influential in the Christian and Muslim (and the Rambam's) worlds.) That just about the only thing that differentiates us from them. But once you get to the Aristotle level, the jump is quite small, and if we add some basic ideas about the decline of the generations which are clear when discussing the greats of the earlier genertions, which is specifically in the area of perceiving the metaphysics, Aristotle fits neatly into the pigeon hole which history would have created for him, which is why before him all we find are pagans (which I'd contend from a plethora of sources that the likes of Pharaoh's or Haman's wisdom (for example) runs even deeper than the Aristotelian philosophy, parallel to the higher levels of חכמה available in those times). I would find it strange to be aware of the tremendous ירידת הדורות in חכמה following back until Aristotle and not appreciate that this is just the way things work - the further we distance ourselves from that world and enter the world of חיצוניות, the harder it becomes to access the depths of חכמה.
I'll get to how this matters if we can be on the same page until here...
Ok. Let me first be clear where I stand. I was also enthralled for a long time by these great works (although until I began questioning I only had access to the jewish sources and what they quote, not the primary non-jewish sources). In fact, for a long time my belief was grounded in the chovos halevavos exposition in shaar hayichud. Even when I began questioning the historical narrative of the torah and chazal (and hence the divinity of the claims within) I was still holding on to belief because although evidence shmevidence, it's "beetzem true". However, eventually I came to two realizations. 1. Rationality is overrated in its reliability and empiricism is the only method that is accurate, because the world clearly doesn't match up with the way it would make sense to be, and 2. Many of these grand narratives can easily be taken in another direction if you are so inclined. (Just as the rambam had major philosophical differences with the ramban and the later mekubalim and aristotle for that matter, and most of the disagreements there's really no way to know who is right, even the basic things they agree on have a lot of room to disagree with. For example, I believe david hume's objection of brute fact [which is commonly misunderstood] has a lot of merit, along with other fundemental issues.) This is especially true when discussing matters which are built on dozens of previous conclusions, for example the the nefesh hachaim's ideas.
Eventually when these two problems coalesced, I began to see this entire enterprise for what I now believe it is- a combination of seeing the world as fundementally ordered in a logical fashion in way that our minds percieve order (ancient philosophy) and placing every event or human experience within this paradigm in our quest for meaning (theology). Both of these endeavors have no justification to assume they're true.
Therefore, I exited the paradigm for a bit, and attempted to see if the world makes sense (not in the aristotlean sense) without it. I now see things from a bottom up groundwork, which takes note of the axioms that we experience, investigates as far as we can as to why they are that way, but grounds that reflection through observational data, and I find this is vastly superior in terms of accuracy (and coherence) than the older model.
Do the arguments that these ancient thinkers raise need to be addressed? Of course they do? But I now recognize that their entire methodology was largely speculative, as the two major assumptions noted above have no justification. If that's true, than these worldviews are human constructs of how to see the world. Of course they are deeper in the sense that they define how abstract concepts form our world, and they are more meaningful in the sense that everything is comprised of higher concepts. But it's not true. So II appreciate their wisdom, but I contextualize it with their epistemological framework which i reject. (Much like you may be able to appreciate buddhist thought, but you don't accept their fundemental axioms.)
Now that that's clear, I do not agree at all that they accessed metaphysical truths. They may have thought they did, and one who subscribes to their paradigm will see it that way and respect them far greater than is warranted by their actual genius, and it will also make it way easier to accept claims such as yeridas hodoros and nevuah, but as a skeptic I see this as a major obstacle in that it blinds one from seeing reality as is. For example, I think it's totally ridiculous to ascribe major wisdom to pharaoh and haman, both because we don't have good reason to assume that their experience was different from ours in that respect, and because an objective reading of historical sources (even from tanakh) flatly contradict that notion. I get why someone like you accepts that, but I think you are being blinded by a debunked paradigm.
I'm still more than happy to accept your POV for the purposes of a conversation, as I like to have a better understanding of the way the ancients viewed even if they were wrong, and I appreciate the significance their ideas had within their culture, but this doens't answer any of my questions like the ones in the post.
And I'm a big fan of modern philosophy because they're epistemological assumptions are for more sound, although I don't like how they corrupt ancient wisdom, and I also think human constructs like some of the ideas in kabala (especially the gra) are true in a sense (meaning from an existentalist POV anything that can accurately describe our conception of reality which necessarily understands things as if they were metaphysical [which is what emotions are] is valuable in its own right and true if you are simply using them to explain human experience.)
(Although there are philosophers esp. continental philosophers who do focus on meaning, like nietzsche, shopenhauer, and even some pop philosophers like Jordan peterson and sam harris. It also helps that they incorporate cognitive science and psychology.)
i think the question ultimately comes down to how we are supposed to come to a proper version of historicity. You seem to be claiming that since we can't know anything let's start from scratch and ignore the fact that my rebbi heard from his rebbi who heard from his (besides for the fact that there was a clear decline in the understanding of Judaism from a larger perspective, i.e. we don't have prophets anymore which makes it trust system stronger then a normal one). Your approach assumes that they didn't have the tools we have to evaluate things and they were all trusting somewhat blindly the tradition we hold so dear, where none of them ever asked themselves, well maybe we got it wrong? (Of course anyone who did is out of the fold immediately, no questions asked and such the system is designed to keep itself alive without dissonance). The issue with your approach is, imo, that you will never get better than a postulation and a possible alternative theory, but it won't give you much more than a 50/50, because you'll never know that we got it wrong. (And to be perfectly clear, I mean 50/50 in reasonability not in probability.) this means that if we are correct in our understanding of history, this is exactly how it would play out to a tee. And we have the advantage of a trust system, which is all we ever really have to know anything that we know, including the truths of science and history.
I guess to lay it out more clearly, your proposition of how to read history isn't something i reject entirely; it's a distinct possibility, but my version is also a plausible explanation. The advantage of yours is (a) answering the questions you pose, which are not all weak, and (b) they allow all the non physical stuff to be merely conjecture without considering the greats to be idiots or evil conspirators. My only real question is that if my version*is* true and almost definitionally we don't have access to the spirituality they had, how would our logical thinking help prove anything? Like proving that sight exists to a group of blind people? of course it could be this question itself is theory and conjecture, but that's how the Rambam describes and that's how the neviim alude to it, and how the mesilas yesharim, gra, orchos tzadikim, kuzari, plato, aristotle, and quite. honestly, all of the ancient religions (Buddhism, zoroastrianism, jainism, taoism and of course judaism, Christianity and Islam) have ideas of working hard to obtain this other reality, each in their own form. I'm not sure why we shouldn't trust them? How do you have the confidence to assume you're not just up against a giant we clearly don't understand. I've never heard a satisfying rebuttal to this except something like "yah but maybe they were making it up." of course we would say that if we didn't have access to their reality! The main argument against this proposal is that it almost seems conspiratorial, but if that's where the evidence points, I'll go with it despite sounding strange (many scientific things, especially post Einstein seem completely absurd). Although I understand that religion itself is not cool and current, why am I wrong about what seems to be the truth at least of what they were saying? I mean could anyone have said it better than plato with the cave analogy?
One more important addition, the comparative religion argument is weak because the underlying concept is universally agreed upon which means they were all accessing this "third eye", "sixth sense", "spirituality", "yin yang", or whatever you want to call this experience that we don't have.
And if you agree they had the experience and want to to know why I think my version is true, that would be the next step of this discussion. But to entirely deny the reality they so clearly describe, by people like us who haven't really gotten there, seems like a blind person denying color with all kinds of arguments relying on the need for empiricism instead of some level of trusting what they said and not building everything ground up ourselves. Again, it could be I'm dead wrong, but taking them at face value (a) I can't be too confident and (b) we trust many things including most of our history and science without our own personal empirical evidence.