Documentary Hypothesis and Betrayal

Betrayals abound. Some might say that betrayal is as much a part of human condition as loyalty.

There are, I think, three types of betrayals.

One is when one party to the convenant does not give the other party what it deserves. A a husband who does not give his wife the respect that she deserves, or a citizen who, in JFK's immortal words, asks what his country can do for him and not what he can do for his country, betrays by omission.

Another kind of betrayal is an exchange. A husband who gives his affection to a woman other than his wife commitsinfidelity, irrespective of whetheradultery was committed, or a soldier who spies for another country to the detriment of his own,are egregious betrayers.

These are pretty clear.

There is, however, another kind of betryal. It is a pitiful and nebachykind, one in which a person becomes a traitor without ever recognizing it. A husband who flirts with another woman but denies that there is anything wrong with just a little flirting, a Jew who supports the Palstinian cause citing Jewish ideals, deserve pity as much as contempt. To betray and not even know it is sad; it is sad!

A Jew who adopts the historical-scientifc approach to Scripture commits that kind of betrayal.

To explain why this is so, I begin with a few assumptions.

1.I contend that there is no "correct" way to read any text and that multiple interpretations are legitimate. Neither is there an understanding that is divorced from method and what determines method is the tradition of the interpreter. How one reads a text depends on what assumptions one makes and what background informs the reader. This is, by the way, the standard approach in many disciplines, associated with Hans George Gadamer. Therefore reading Torah like a Biblical critic is not in any way truer or superior to reading it out of the ArtScroll.

.2.If no particular method is more true than another, how should one select a method? Well, based on one's background, of course. Inother words, the choice of the interpetative tradition is based on moral adn nto technical considerations. Iit is more moral to be loyal than to exchange one's inheritance for another's. There is a Jewish way of approaching the Scriptures and there is a Christian one. Jews see Bible as one kind of a book and Christians as another. This is where the betrayal comes in. When a Jew uses a method of interpretation that is essentailly a Christian one, a betrayal has occurred. When a Jew reads the Bible like a Christian, he has turned his back on this heritage and tradition. It is even worse when the interpreter does not even recognize that he has switched sides.

I guess you see where I am going. I contend that Biblical Criticism is a Christian or one of Christian methods of interpreting the Old Testament and a Jew who holds the Documentary Hypothesis as revealing the "truth" about the "Old Testament" has committed betrayal, whether he realizes it or not, whether he recognizes it or not.

In what way is the Documentary hypothesis Christian? Let me cound the ways. The following is based on Umberto Cassuto's discussion(pp.xvi-xvii).

1.Wellhausen's understanding of the Bible was informed by the evolutionary and Hegelian concepts in which there is a continuous gradual progression from the primitve to the highly evolved but there is also a process of decline and deterioration adn then revival. In this view, Judaism was a precursor of Christianity and when Judaism detriorated into empty and mindless legalism, Christianity came and Spirit replaced Law. As such, sections that deal with Law and ritual are late and represent deterioration of Judaism. That is why he dated the Pentateuch to the post-exilic period (something that no serous scholar any longer believes).

2.Old-time Biblical critics said that there are four essential documents out of which the Torah was stitched together, just like there are four Gospel, the three synoptic gospels and the Gospel of John.

3.For Christians, religion is not about a book or about a way of life. Christianity is about Jesus and everything else is there solely to provide a theologically "correct" account of who he was. Scriptures are there only so that Christians can teach the correct doctrine. This is a very surprising feature of this unique religion for Jews and Moslems, for whom religion is about a way of life and Scripture is holy in a way that Christians do not recognize. When they speak of the "inerrant word of G-d", they mean that the substance of what Bible teaches about Jesus (and it is all about him) is true, not that the text itself is from G-d or that it is intrinsically holy.

I remember once listening to the radio and a Moselm convert to Christianity was talking about how two of the things he initially found most offensive about Christian worship was the mixing of the sexes during worship and that the congregants put their Bibles on the floor after reading from it. A Moslem would not lower the Koran below his belt and Jewish Law prohibits sitting on the same bench as the Torah. To us, it is a holy book. To Christians, it is not holy in itself and the text is not literally given by G-d. The text is only important inasmuch as it presents the correct doctrine; it has not intrinsic value. This is why slicing and dicing the Scriptural text is fine for a Christian but an anathema for a Jew. The Jew sees the Torah as a Divine document that partakes of the holiness of its Giver. For a Jew to adopt the historico-critical method is the on some deep level to adopt Christian assumptions about the Bible. This is a betrayal . This must be understood.

4.One more point, and it's not from Cassuto.

The historical-critical approach sees each book of the Bible, and sometimes even each chapter or sentence, as presenting different points of view that come out of different religious groups with disparate theologies and perspectives. Somehow, at some time, someone cobbled all these different perspectives and documents together. Why didn't the Redactor eliminate contradictions? Because the culture of the times did not see anything wrong in contradictions since the goal was to preserve a record of different communities and views ( I know that this is weak and I know that you recognize it too). With this assumptions, the end to reconcile disappears, and with it, the drive to think deeply about the Biblical text.

This approach has a great deal of explanatory power because of the way we think nowadays. The reductionist approach has yielded great benefits in the scientific sphere. The price that we paid for that is atomization and scattering of focus and perspective.The reductionist scientific approach makes is appealing to those who grew up adn are educated in it, and we all have been impacted by it. This is why it is not questioned beyond the traditionalist circles. But for a spiritual person, it is immensely harmful because it has not focus and no "larger picture". It leaves us without meaning as we desperately attempt to see the forest behind the trees.

It does not explain the most remarkable and obvious truth about the BIble - its unparalleled power of ideas, its ability over and over again to change societies and redirect human history, its ability to claim allegiance of millions and millions in generation after generation. In short, it misses exactly what is unique and central to the Bible - its religious potency. It is like looking at Michelangelo's the Last Supper and seeing only what is on the plates. In short, it misses THE point.

Traditional interpretations are focused precisely on the sacredness of Scripture, not only on its text. Certain kinds of interpretation, the ones that are not consistent with the message that a particular religious community subscribes to, cannot possibly be true, because it is not about the Bible ' as we know it". On the other hand, they cannot be "proven" by one community to another. Most believers, however, do not look for proof, they are in pursuit of meaning.

Some might counter by saying: "I don't care. It makes sense and what do I owe to Judaism anyway?". Unfortunately, loyalty to one's people and one's heritage is a concept that is rapidly becoming incomprehensible to the new generation of American Jews. Russian and Iranian Jews understand it so much better.

The answer is that his question had been considered before.

Certain philosophers in the Middle Ages raised a question. In their view, philosophy teaches the truth and religion is at best a shortcut to that truth for the uninitiated. If so, is there anything wrong with a Philosopher switching from one religion to another, if more convenient? They answered that a philosopher should not change religions because he must remain loyal to the religion in which he was born. Would it be that all Jews understood this!

Comments

The Documentary Hypothesis or critical study begins with the following foundation stone: "God doesn't write books, people do". Consequently, the bible as a human composition must be have been developed along the same lines as similar works of literature. Large, copious books with internal chronologies spanning thousands of years have to be based on existing sources (oral or written), with multiple authors and a final editor that brought them all together (analogous to the modern day Encyclopaedia). Without the critical component of revelation that is the only conclusion one would arrive at.

Further more, the issue gets compounded when the contents of the book depict fantastical accounts of global floods, talking donkeys, splitting seas, etc. The logical conclusion to come to again would be that this is a work of fiction, no different to Lord of the Rings, X-Men or the Odyssey and not an accounting of history. Without the critical component or divine providence/miracle that is the only conclusion one would arrive at.

So essentially if one doesn't believe in God, or if one has a deistic/naturalistic conception of him the documentary hypothesis is where you arrive - which is exactly what happened to say Benedict Spinoza.

Posted by: Rael Levinsohn | July 27, 2011 at 08:51 AM

The problem with your logic here is as follows:
If you, Mr. Avakesh, were born into a Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist family, would you approach religious and philosophical issues from the assumptions of those societies out of loyalty to your heritage, or would you seek the truth, whatever it might be?

Posted by: a | August 23, 2011 at 07:28 AM