The Neo-Documentary Hypothesis

Joel S. Baden

I have talked before about source criticism of the Torah/Pentateuch, usually whenever the Kuzari Principle comes up. My 2011-12 series on biblical scholar James Kugel's How to Read the Bible dealt by necessity with source criticism, that is, with the Documentary Hypothesis (DH).

I once summarized the DH this way:

The modern form of [the DH] emerges from seven types of evidence: (1) the Hebrew language of different periods in the Torah, (2) the use and quantity of terms in the different sources, (3) consistent content (such as the revelation of God's name, (4) the narrative flow of each source, (5) the connection between parts of the Torah and other parts of the Bible, (6) the relationships of the sources to each other and to history, and (7) the convergence of the different lines of evidence. According to the Documentary Hypothesis, the Torah as we have it today develops from early oral and written sources that coagulated into four main sources--J, E, P, and D. Between 922 BCE and 400 BCE, the four sources were compiled and woven together to produce the Torah.

This summary, taken from Richard Elliott Friedman, does not discuss the divide between documentary and non-documentary pentateuchal scholars. Indeed, the summary doesn't indicate how much of the DH had been discarded because of the approach's methodological problems.

Joel Baden, an Assistant Professor at Yale Divinity School, writes about the transformation of the DH in the last four decades. This transformed DH is sufficiently new; he calls it a Neo-Documentary Hypothesis (NDH) and asserts that through it, revitalized source criticism "is regaining its place as a viable, productive, and current approach to the Pentateuch."

Baden's NDH is a narrative-based approach to the Pentateuch, interested in assessing literary phenomena against the source-critical position that the text was formed from the combination of previously independent documents, that is, essentially complete and self-contained sources.

I like Baden's framing of the DH/NDH:

The Documentary Hypothesis, it must always be remembered, is precisely that: a hypothesis. It is an attempt to explain the literary phenomena of the Pentateuch: clear narrative contradiction, repetition, and discontinuity. It posits that the best explanation for these features is the existence of four independent documents that were combined into a single text, basically the canonical Pentateuch as we now have it. It is the literary solution to a literary problem, no more and no less. Scholarly claims regarding stylistic criteria or similarity of narratives are not inherent parts of the theory; they are aspects of the methods used to argue for the theory. If they do not succeed, the theory does not of necessity fail; the methods do. The theory may simply need to be argued on different grounds. Thus the very correct criticisms of anti-documentary scholars from the earliest days of the theory until our own time are not necessarily grounds for dismissing the whole hypothesis; they are, rather, a call to refine and revise the methods employed by scholars when describing and applying the hypothesis. When such refinements and revisions are undertaken, as they have been recently, the Documentary Hypothesis regains its place as the most economical, comprehensive explanation for the literary phenomena of the canonical Pentateuch.

The last bit above boldly asserts the preeminence of the DH via the NDH. Below, Baden explains the literary focus of the NDH:

We place at the forefront of the analysis plot and narrative continuity—the events that occur, the sequence in which they occur, cause, and effect. The mark of an author is his creation of and adherence to a distinctive and definable set of narrative claims: who did what, when, where, and how. Where these claims are contradictory, we must consider that a different author is at work; where they are the same, there is no need to pursue any source division.

One key issue for the DH/NDH is separating it from at least some of the work of Julius Wellhausen (and followers):

For generations now, the Documentary Hypothesis has been considered synonymous with Wellhausen’s reconstruction of the evolutionary growth of ancient Israelite religion. The source division and the placement of the sources in a straight line of development from earliest to latest, from naturalistic to legalistic, has been taken as the fundamental claim of the hypothesis. This is demonstrated by the attempts in scholarship to debunk the Documentary Hypothesis by arguing against Wellhausen’s view of Israelite religion, as if the former is dependent on the latter. On the contrary, however, it was Wellhausen’s source division in his Composition that allowed for his historical reconstruction in the Prolegomena. In the first book, he addressed only the literary evidence; in the second, he addressed only the historical questions. The Neo-Documentary Hypothesis returns to the first stage, and leaves the second unconsidered. The literary question is primary, and is in fact the only question that can be answered by the documentary theory. Even if one disagrees with or disproves the arguments of Wellhausen’s Prolegomena, the literary analysis of the Pentateuch stands on its own merits.

Separation and restriction are recurring themes in Baden's explanation of the NDH. Below, he discusses how the NDH becomes a better scholarly approach by being properly restricted in scope:

The Neo-Documentary Hypothesis is concerned only with the penultimate form of the text: what the compiler had at hand when he put the four documents together. This approach allows for far greater clarity in addressing the question of how the Pentateuch came to be this way, for it goes back only a single step. It is crucial to note, however, that the Neo-Documentary Hypothesis does not deny the internal growth of the sources; it is simply unconcerned with them. Like so much else, how each source came to look as it does is a secondary question. The Neo-Documentary Hypothesis does not deny that each source has a history; nor does it deny that the Pentateuch itself has a history after the compilation of the documents. It is a restricted answer to a restricted question.

The next bit, below, presents the NDH as a kind of return or re-start of the DH model:

The classical theory began as a fairly simple proposition: four independent documents, combined into a single Pentateuch. Over time, however, it expanded dramatically, so that even within a generation or two of Wellhausen the analysis of the Pentateuch required innumerable sigla, regular divisions of the text into half-verses and even single words, and highly complex theories about redaction. The unwieldiness of this theory inevitably led in part to opposition, as it could no longer be said that the Documentary Hypothesis was a particularly simple or elegant solution to the problems of the pentateuchal text. Ironically, of course, the newer analyses coming out of Europe are, if anything, even more complex than the most tortuous classical source-critical work. The Neo-Documentary Hypothesis restores the simplicity of the earlier scholarship. It requires precisely four sources and one compiler.

This is a tremendously interesting essay, and comments/objections from readers appearing below the article are also enlightening. I would be very interested to understand non-documentary hypotheses better.

Kuzari Principle, Round 3

Another round of discussion on Kuzari.

Is it rational to believe that a nation of former slaves, the Hebrews, experienced a mass Divine revelation at Sinai?

Frankly, I don’t know. I do know, however, that the so-called Kuzari Principle is insufficient as a basis for said belief. I have written many posts on the Kuzari Principle and I have answered many challenges. Let me briefly summarize these posts:

Round 1:

• The Kuzari Principle: Ultimate Proof of God’s Existence? – An introduction to Kuzari with background and applications.
• The Sinai Argument – A sketch of how Kuzari gets used to argue for Sinai.
• Definitively Refuting the Kuzari Principle – An analysis of Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb's Kuzari arguments that concludes Kuzari fails to prove either Sinai or Judaism.
• Kuzari Keeps on Giving, or Pay No Attention to the Assumptions Behind My Principle! – A review of early emails with Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb on my Kuzari refutation.
• Kuzari: Final Thoughts – A bullet list of key disagreements between Rabbi Gottlieb and me.
• Are Divine-Human Interactions Possible? – A meditation on establishing the possibility of the divine.
• Going Nuclear on the Kuzari Principle – An extended treatment of Rabbi Gottlieb's call for false NETs and a presentation of a real NET: the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.
• Kuzari Principle: Index of Posts – Summation of important conclusions on Kuzari, and a list of all posts to date.

Round 2:

• Kuzari Returns! – A clarification and defense of the “evolving myth hypothesis,” which Kuzari defenders routinely mis-characterize.
• Belief and Evidence (and Bias, Oh My!) – A definition of a task I will take on: explaining the Sinai story.
• Deuteronomy Doesn't Validate the Sinai Revelation – An examination that concludes Deuteronomy 4:9-40 presents a later account and interpretation of the Sinai event.
• Three Sinai Stories – A presentation of the Sinai stories from the J, E and P biblical sources.
• Why Aren't There More Sinai-Like Stories? – An inquiry into the alleged uniqueness of Sinai.
• On Evidence and Hypotheses – A discussion on identifying evidence as evidence, with further points on using evidence in hypotheses.
• How the Sinai Story Originated and Developed – An opinion explaining the Sinai story as “a fabrication using pre-existing narrative elements which may have been factual at some point in the distant past.”

We now enter Round 3, a discussion of a new logical proof (rKP) developed by Sam Lebens at Philosophy of Judaism. Lebens is a philosophy doctorate and, based on our online exchange, a decent fellow. His proof, however, doesn't sway me.

Here is the full proof, which I will comment on afterward:

(rKP1) A myth will not initially find any traction with a culture who know it to be historically inaccurate, although once it has been adopted and becomes culturally significant, then a culture will not abandon it merely because of its historical inaccuracies.

(rKP2) The generations of a g-chain will not accept a g-narrative about them unless:

1. The generation is the first in the g-chain and witnessed the events for themselves, or
   
2. The generation received the g-narrative as an inheritance from their parents, although each generation after the first may have members outside of the core of the g-chain who adopt the g-narrative as they join or merge with the community and adopt its history as their own, or
   
3. The entire generation becomes convinced, presumably only with a large amount of evidence, that a g-chain that was supposed to have reached them was broken – this doesn’t seem to be the case with the small number of Jewish g-narratives, all of which seem to stretch right back into the mist of Jewish pre-history.

(rKP3) G-narratives can be subject to slow corruption and exaggeration. Thus, the fact that a g-narrative is widespread among a contemporary generation of a g-chain is no reason to believe that that g-narrative presents an accurate history.

(rKP4) The original g-narrative, before any corruption or exaggeration, must have been sufficiently impressive in and of itself to have initiated a sustained desire to transmit the story down a g-chain.

(rKP5) There are a small number of remarkable and widespread g-narratives about the Jewish people, about mass revelation and divine deliverance. These narratives are still transmitted to the majority of Jewish children by their parents at events like the Seder Night, in which Jewish parents recount the exodus from Egypt for the benefit of their children. This ritual retelling is even conducted by a very large number of Jews who no longer believe in the historical accuracy of the narrative.

(rKP6) Given (rKP3), the fact that these g-narratives are widespread among the living members of the Jewish g-chain is no reason to trust the historical accuracy of the stories.

(rKP7) But, given (rKP2) and (rKP4), the fact that these g-narratives are widespread does provide good reason to believe that the story wasn’t initially adopted by a generation to whom the story didn’t actually happen, and that the story is grounded in fact even if it’s been distorted, and that the facts, in and of themselves, were sufficiently impressive to generate the very long lasting feeling of cultural obligation to pass the story on down the g-chain.

(rKP8) We have no reason to believe that the details of Jewish g-narratives are historically accurate, but we do have reason to believe that they are grounded in extraordinary facts witnessed by an entire generation of the g-chain.

(rKP9) Therefore, we have good grounds to believe that an entire generation of the forbears of the Jewish people, or an entire generation of a tribe that would later amalgamate into an emergent Jewish people, were collectively witness to an extraordinary sequence of supernatural events, and events that would have been collectively understood as Divine revelation

In discussions with Lebens, I pointed out immediately that rKP1 made me uncomfortable. We have no reason to think it's true and we probably have better reason to think it's false. Some clarity may be gained by defining the term "myth," but otherwise I don't know what to do with rKP1.

At this point, Lebens wanted to shelve the issue of rKP1's possible vagueness (and falsity) and move to whether, given rKP1, the whole rKP argument worked. I appreciate his desire to move on, but I think it's a mistake to do so. I have had many conversations with Kuzari proponents, and I've always been struck with the willingness for vagueness on terms such as "myth" and "acceptance." To me, any argument using Kuzari should require specificity because myth evolution and cultural development are complex forces. If we cannot be sufficiently clear in our terms, how can we hope to say anything true and useful?

One quick example to illustrate: If I talk about the role of the King of England, that role is very different in the twentieth century ( I know we are now in the 21at century) than it was in 1520 or 1214. The term means very different things across the three dates. Consider, then, how we might assess whether a myth, story, or meme gained "traction" (see rKP1) in an ancient Near Eastern culture? Any point we want to make about "traction" would need to consider what the term meant in that world and then meant later. Thus, if "traction" meant something like "repeated approvingly by the priesthood" and then later developed into "a tenet of orthodox belief," we would want to know--the validity and soundness of our arguments would depend on it.

Throwing my discomfort with terminology and anachronism aside, let me use the following table to introduce my view of the rKP. The right-hand column offers my "translation" of Lebens's revised Kuzari argument. I have translated it to make clear my understanding of rKP's essential arguments. I have translated "myth" as "meme" because I think "meme" has less semantic baggage and actually names the essential part of what "myth" seeks to convey.

Revised Kuzari Premise (Lebens)	Larry's Translation
(rKP1) A myth will not initially find any traction with a culture who know it to be historically inaccurate, although once it has been adopted and becomes culturally significant, then a culture will not abandon it merely because of its historical inaccuracies.	A meme will "stick" if it contains some historical factuality.
(rKP2) The generations of a g-chain will not accept a g-narrative about them unless: The generation is the first in the g-chain and witnessed the events for themselves, or The generation received the g-narrative as an inheritance from their parents, although each generation after the first may have members outside of the core of the g-chain who adopt the g-narrative as they join or merge with the community and adopt its history as their own, or The entire generation becomes convinced, presumably only with a large amount of evidence, that a g-chain that was supposed to have reached them was broken – this doesn’t seem to be the case with the small number of Jewish g-narratives, all of which seem to stretch right back into the mist of Jewish pre-history.	A special meme will stick if it has some historical witnesses, if it is told to children by parents, or if it is subject to whatever rKP2c means.
(rKP3) G-narratives can be subject to slow corruption and exaggeration. Thus, the fact that a g-narrative is widespread among a contemporary generation of a g-chain is no reason to believe that that g-narrative presents an accurate history.	Special memes can change in their content.
(rKP4) The original g-narrative, before any corruption or exaggeration, must have been sufficiently impressive in and of itself to have initiated a sustained desire to transmit the story down a g-chain.	Special memes must be originally impressive.
(rKP5) There are a small number of remarkable and widespread g-narratives about the Jewish people, about mass revelation and divine deliverance. These narratives are still transmitted to the majority of Jewish children by their parents at events like the Seder Night, in which Jewish parents recount the exodus from Egypt for the benefit of their children. This ritual retelling is even conducted by a very large number of Jews who no longer believe in the historical accuracy of the narrative.	Some special memes are still transmitted today.
(rKP6) Given (rKP3), the fact that these g-narratives are widespread among the living members of the Jewish g-chain is no reason to trust the historical accuracy of the stories.	Widespread prevalence of special memes doesn’t tell us about their historical accuracy.
(rKP7) But, given (rKP2) and (rKP4), the fact that these g-narratives are widespread does provide good reason to believe that the story wasn’t initially adopted by a generation to whom the story didn’t actually happen, and that the story is grounded in fact even if it’s been distorted, and that the facts, in and of themselves, were sufficiently impressive to generate the very long lasting feeling of cultural obligation to pass the story on down the g-chain.	Widespread prevalence of special memes does tell us that they were accepted--in whatever form they originated--by a first generation.
(rKP8) We have no reason to believe that the details of Jewish g-narratives are historically accurate, but we do have reason to believe that they are grounded in extraordinary facts witnessed by an entire generation of the g-chain.	Widespread prevalence of a special meme gives us reason to think that the first generation found the special meme sufficiently impressive.
(rKP9) Therefore, we have good grounds to believe that an entire generation of the forbears of the Jewish people, or an entire generation of a tribe that would later amalgamate into an emergent Jewish people, were collectively witness to an extraordinary sequence of supernatural events, and events that would have been collectively understood as Divine revelation.	The first generation witnessed something impressive.

Is this a "better" Kuzari-based argument than others, such as Gottlieb's? It depends on one's criteria for better. To me, it's great omission is that it doesn't account for memes that change their importance or their meaning over time. My earlier Kuzari posts addressed this matter. Some memes acquire a place of centrality years after they first "stick," and this acquisition can  happen for any number of reasons. With respect to the Bible, I recommend my reading of James Kugel's How to Read the Bible because the book focuses on how Israel's ancient library of texts became the Bible.

Personally, I think Gottlieb's argument is more forceful:

In modern language the principle that the Kuzari uses is as follows. I beg you to look at it, hear it, and pay close attention to all of its details. Let E be a possible event which, had it really occurred, would have left behind enormous, easily available evidence of its occurrence. If the evidence does not exist, people will not believe that E occurred. [Emphasis in original]

If you buy Gottlieb's argument, Jewish belief about Sinai almost must be correct. If you buy Lebens's argument, the most you get is that the witnesses thought they had seen something miraculous. Of course, how much should we care about what illiterate, scientifically ignorant former slaves thought about miracles? I do not use the descriptors to belittle these people, but to set some context on what we are being asked to accept and to rationalize.

So, rKP doesn't work for me. It's a series of assumption after assumption that gets us not to reasoned belief but to a question of trust: do we or do we not believe according to what the Torah tells us illiterate, scientifically ignorant former slaves believed?

In rKP, the Kuzari Principle is neutered, but I think Lebens understands that it must be so. He says:

As far as I'm concerned, that is the only power that the Kuzari argument could possibly hope for: the power to justify our belief in Sinai, or something like Sinai, without direct historical evidence. But you'd still need something like 'indirect' historical evidence; i.e., evidence about how myths were formed in ancient times. I'm not claiming that we can arrive at justified historical beliefs a priori. I look forward to continued discussion with you, and to your answers to these questions. I'm certainly far from convinced that the Kuzari argument is even as strong as I suggested in this post.

Neither Gottlieb's not Lebens's Kuzari justifies belief in Sinai, in my opinion. I still hold to the view from my piece on Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

With Sinai, we have one report given from one perspective. We don't know the report of the people closest to the mountain. We don't know the observations of witnesses in the very back. We cannot hear the voices of the women, the outsiders, and the opponents. We have no documents from the nations closest to Sinai telling us about something most unusual having happened. The strongest inference we can draw from Sinai is that something--a natural event or some other fantastic occurrence--may have happened out in the wilderness. We may even be able to justify saying something must have happened. We cannot, however, say with any confidence that Sinai happened. Kuzari changes nothing about this because even if the principle itself is 100 percent true, it doesn't tell us anything about what exactly happened at Sinai, how, to whom, over what time period, and at what stakes. It's a believer's reason to believe, a "nice to have." But it's not especially compelling to a neutral observer.

And that's why at this point it's best to leave the discussion because, with Sinai, the one thing we have not talked about is the one thing we should have been talking about all along: The actual evidence that we have for the actual people we think correspond to "Biblical Israel." Although this has been a fascinating discussion on logic, belief, and classification of events, we cannot get very far without a collection of real evidence and data. I have already shown that the pro-Kuzari side is not forthcoming when it comes to direct, positive evidence. We cannot derive a clear picture of Biblical Israel, Sinai, or the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki based on a principle. If we truly want to understand the events and these people, we need to study the writings and the physical data, and we need to remember not to get carried away by the existence or non-existence of evidence. The evidence often means what we want it to mean, and the non-evidence doesn't tell us much of anything.

I also think that Kuzari proponents need to go beyond new Kuzari syllogisms. My challenge from an earlier posts still stands:

If the Kuzari discussion is to continue and be productive, it now falls to Kuzari's champions to delve more deeply into the reality of the Torah--the reality of the Torah as a cultural document that emerged in historical time in certain cultural contexts.

Sam, I'm interested in your thoughts. Do you think that Kuzari-oriented discussions will benefit from bringing in historical data, biblical criticism, and sociological studies?

Kuzari Principle Conclusion: How the Sinai Story Originated and Developed

In this post I will fulfill my promise to explain how the Mt. Sinai story originated and developed. In the interest of full disclosure, I must say that I am not a biblical scholar, critic, or historian. If you are reading this post and want to use it in a school paper or cite it as a source...you really should move along. I should be considered a Herbert with an opinion, not a credible source for scholarship.

In previous posts on this topic I have clarified what the story actually is and is not. For instance, we have three different versions of the story from the J source, the E source, and the P source. On the other hand, we have a later commentary and interpretation in the D source (e.g., Deuteronomy 4:9-40). This later text is not a version of the story.

For my purposes, the Sinai story will be what we get in the earliest source, which is J. The verses below are the J source pulled from Exodus 19:

And the Lord said to Moses, "Go to the people and prepare them today and tomorrow, and they shall wash their garments. And they shall be prepared for the third day, for on the third day, the Lord will descend before the eyes of all the people upon Mount Sinai. And you shall set boundaries for the people around, saying, Beware of ascending the mountain or touching its edge; whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death.' No hand shall touch it, for he shall be stoned or cast down; whether man or beast, he shall not live. When the ram's horn sounds a long, drawn out blast, they may ascend the mountain."

So Moses descended from the mountain to the people, and he prepared the people, and they washed their garments. He said to the people, "Be ready for three days; do not go near a woman." It came to pass on the third day when it was morning. And the entire Mount Sinai smoked because the Lord had descended upon it in fire, and its smoke ascended like the smoke of the kiln, and the entire mountain quaked violently.

The Lord descended upon Mount Sinai, to the peak of the mountain, and the Lord summoned Moses to the peak of the mountain, and Moses ascended. The Lord said to Moses, "Go down, warn the people lest they break [their formation to go nearer] to the Lord, and many of them will fall. And also, the priests who go near to the Lord shall prepare themselves, lest the Lord wreak destruction upon them." And Moses said to the Lord, "The people cannot ascend to Mount Sinai, for You warned us saying, ‘Set boundaries for the mountain and sanctify it.'" But the Lord said to him, "Go, descend, and [then] you shall ascend, and Aaron with you, but the priests and the populace shall not break [their formation] to ascend to the Lord, lest He wreak destruction upon them."

So Moses went down to the people and said [this] to them.

As before, I am using text drawn from Richard Elliott Friedman’s The Bible with Sources Revealed. The main question before us is how the story began. We have several possible answers to consider:

1. The story is one-hundred-percent literally true. This answer is unrealistic because in the text of the story, the narrator presumes to know the actions and statements of both YHWH and Moses. The plain presentation of the content provides no reason to think that either YHWH or Moses is speaking in the third-person about himself. Instead, we have an unidentified and unknown storyteller relating events, actions, and speech--this is a very common mode of storytelling! The implication that YHWH was somehow directly responsible for the smoke and fire on Sinai is unsupportable.

2. The story is partially true and partially embellished. This option is more plausible than #1. Could there have been a Moses-like leader and a gathering of people around a smoking mountain? Yes, certainly this is a possible scenario. This is the legend option. In this case, however, we have no information to tell us definitively how close the story is to the true part. That is, we don’t know how much is factual, and we don’t know the distance in time between the real events and the story.

3. The story is completely fabricated. This option is plausible, as fabricated stories are a particularly human pastime. Today, no one thinks the movie Independence Day is based on real events and people, even though it mentions real places, real occupations (such as President of the United States), realistic scenarios (sometimes), and so forth. No one requires a real Harry Potter or Hogwarts. So why should we doubt that ancient people could want and could create fictional stories? The story could have served a didactic function (explaining why we observe the laws taught by Moses and his heirs), an entertainment function (titillating with fire and smoke on a desert mountain – ooh!), or both.

We can justifiably take option #1 off the table because we have no reason to keep it. Can we decide between #2 and #3? Personally, I lean toward #3, since there’s no evidence that there ever was a real Moses. Yet, perhaps #2 is salvaged if we speculate that the earliest performances of the Sinai story drew upon a character known more generally in the Ancient Near East, like a Sargon of Akkad. After all, YHWH was one of something like 70 deities in the Ugaritic pantheon.

So we can only speculate--let’s call it option #3.1--that the Sinai story was a fabrication using pre-existing narrative elements which may have been factual at some point in the distant past. The story was part of a larger tapestry of narratives involving legendary figures and the local god. The story later became taken as historical. It became the basis for justifying the various daily religious observances and obligations of the people.

The E version already signals some of the elaborations that could be made from the story:

And Israel encamped there opposite the mountain. Moses ascended to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, "So shall you say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel, ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and [how] I bore you on eagles' wings, and I brought you to me. And now, if you obey me and keep my covenant, you shall be to me a treasure out of all peoples, for mine is the entire earth. And you shall be to me a kingdom of princes and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel."

Moses came and summoned the elders of Israel and placed before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. And all the people replied in unison and said, "All that the Lord has spoken we shall do!" and Moses took the words of the people back to the Lord.

And the Lord said to Moses, "Behold, I am coming to you in the thickness of the cloud, in order that the people hear when I speak to you, and they will also believe in you forever." And Moses relayed the words of the people to the Lord.

There were thunder claps and lightning flashes, and a thick cloud was upon the mountain, and a very powerful blast of a shofar, and the entire nation that was in the camp shuddered. Moses brought the people out toward God from the camp, and they stood at the bottom of the mountain. The sound of the shofar grew increasingly stronger; Moses would speak and God would answer him with a voice.

The people remained far off, but Moses drew near to the opaque darkness, where God was. The Lord said to Moses, "So shall you say to the children of Israel, ‘You have seen that from the heavens I have spoken with you. You shall not make [images of anything that is] with Me. Gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves. An altar of earth you shall make for me, and you shall slaughter beside it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your cattle. Wherever I allow my name to be mentioned, I will come to you and bless you.’”

The god of E is less the warrior than that of J. This god is more interested in a covenant, in the mutual embrace between a divinity and his people.

In both J and E, God is obscured. Whether by cloud or by shofar, the people are apparently in an ecstasy yet at a prescribed distance from Moses (and Aaron, in J) and from God. I am reminded of those TV shows where pastors magically heal the crippled or where people speak in tongues. Both J and E describe not witnessed events but whipped-up events. Perhaps this is the kind of religious ceremony they cultivated in the kingdoms of Judah and Israel.

So, I have fulfilled my promise to offer my own explanation of how the Sinai story originated and developed. Readers will recall that I was asked for such an explanation because I had challenged the way Kuzari proponents characterized the arguments of Kuzari opponents (like me). Those who support Kuzari state that we opponents argue either that

(a) someone along the way made it [i.e., the Sinai story] all up and sold a tall tale to millions about their own ancestors

or

(b) The story of mass Divine revelation started out as a small scale, untrue, but plausible story. After is [sic] was accepted, it evolved and grew imperceptibly into the full blown version we have today.

My account differs from (a) by separating the origination and circulation of the story from its being “sold” as true and as “scriptural.” The problem with the (a) scenario is that it assumes the story was invented and offered as true at the same time. My account assumes just the opposite, that the story appeared first and was later re-interpreted as something people needed to understand as true and important.

The problem with the (b) scenario is that it assumes the story was taken to be true from the first and then became ever more outlandish over time, yet still regarded as true. The story, in other words, became more and more fantastical, yet it was never regarded as anything other than true. My account of the Sinai story does not assume the story was taken as true. In fact, it really does not matter whether the story was taken as factually true or literally true at the outset. What actually matters is that at some point in time, after the story had been around and known, the story’s implications--if it were true--were articulated and exploited. Sinai was transformed from a story to a teaching, from a narrative component to a theocratic justification.

The Sinai story is neither a hoax nor an evolved entity. The story was invented at some point, and elements of its narrative did “grow” over generations of re-telling and reflection. But what I think really changed over time was the cultural environment that the story circulated within. As that environment developed and underwent changes, it saw the Sinai story anew and saw new aspects of it. It helped ancient stories such as Sinai to become capital-b Biblical.

*  *  *  *  *

Now, we all know that the Kuzari Principle gets invoked to keep option #1 in the conversation and to make it seem reasonably, if not eminently, plausible. As I have shown, however, Kuzari-based arguments have very limited value, at best. I once wrote,

Whether or not we are convinced by Kuzari, we must never ignore or forget what it actually is. It is a principle designed to favor a certain interpretation of Jewish history and texts. It is not evidence and it is not proof. Most of all, it is itself unproven.

Furthermore,

outside of the Torah's report of Sinai, there is no positive case for the event. To my knowledge, we have no reason to believe Sinai actually happened other than the Torah's ambiguous description of an event. As thinkers, we have a responsibility to ask what sorts of evidence might reasonably have been produced from the Sinai event in the Torah. For instance, should we expect that other nations might have seen something from afar and reported it? If we say "no" in this case, then perhaps we need to address the problem of Sinai's being an enclosed event. Kuzari downplays other revelations [in other religions, that is] as being "semi-private," yet the Sinai revelation is private in its own way because only the one group has received the revelation. Had Israel, Sinai, and the Amalekites all experienced the same revelation and recorded it, then we would have strong[er] evidence of a most momentous event in human history.

We have come to another concluding point in this ongoing discussion of the Kuzari Principle. To sum up, let me bulletize the important ideas that we have reached through study and discussion:

• We can construct an historically plausible model of how stories such as Sinai originated and developed. 
• What's more, this model is more nuanced and realistic than the "evolutionary myth hypothesis" usually ascribed to those who challenge Kuzari-based arguments.
• Anyone who wants to argue for option #1, or its enhanced version which says that Torah we have today is 100% literally true as it appears, must make the full case for it--including justified explanations of how the Torah was written, when, by whom, where, over how long, for what purposes, and with what relationships to the societies within which this composition took place
• What's more, this case must go beyond "tradition" or "this is what the sages tell us," because I am asking for the historical case.

If the Kuzari discussion is to continue and be productive, it now falls to Kuzari's champions to delve more deeply into the reality of the Torah--the reality of the Torah as a cultural document that emerged in historical time in certain cultural contexts. I invite and welcome serious responses that defend option #1.

Kuzari: A Reply to Dovid Kornreich on Evidence and Hypotheses

I have yet to fulfill my promise to Dovid Kornreich: I agreed to explain how I think the Sinai story originated and developed.

Today I want to take yet another step toward directly formulating this explanation, but let me first review earlier steps:

• In "Kuzari: Belief and Evidence (and Bias, Oh My!)," I bracketed the task--i.e., my speculative explanation on the Sinai story--to give what I hope is proper perspective on its value. The best I can hope for is a fair approach to and accounting for the observed evidence. This means we cannot simply grant that the story might be true as it appears in the Torah because that smuggles in the assumption (among others) that the God of Moses existed. Anyone who wants to claim that the story is true as reported in today's Torah must show both evidence and argument for the existence of that God and his involvement in the event in question. Incidentally, that anyone might also want to show both evidence and argument for Moses, as the existence of Moses is considered unlikely.
• In "Kuzari: Deuteronomy Doesn't Validate the Sinai Revelation" I examined Deuteronomy 4:9-40 and concluded that it presented a later account of the Sinai event and interpretation of it. The passages did not, I said, provide us with a report of Sinai as it was happening. My reading was based in part on understanding the context established in Deuteronomy 1. I concluded that we could not use the Deuteronomy 4 passages to validate the Sinai event itself, but that we could use them to discuss the understanding of the Sinai story.
• I presented the Sinai stories from the J, E and P sources in "Kuzari: Three Sinai Stories." They are quite different and remarkable accounts. J is about the coming of God to Sinai and the establishment of Moses and Aaron as the official go-betweens of God and Israel. The account is more personal in E. There remains a distance between God and the people, but Moses functions as more a translator in E, whereas I see him as a representative in J. God is a black box in P, and Moses alone enters. All knowledge and authority rest with Moses.
• Most recently, I posted "Kuzari: Why Aren't There More Sinai-Like Stories?" to address the question in the title. My answer is that we have three Sinai-like stories: J, E, and P. We also have stories with one or more elements such as we find in the Sinai story. What we do not have is another story from another tradition or culture that is exactly like Sinai. But we don't need carbon copies of Sinai, and a demand for them is unreasonable.

Before I can get to a direct formulation, I have to address one more topic, which comes from comments made by Dovid Kornreich:

Please specify (in future posts, perhaps) 1) the observed evidence and 2) tested hypotheses which reconstruct the textual history of Deuteronomy--which do not commit logical fallacies. Namely: of assuming the conclusion at the outset. Meaning they do not initially view the evidence through the prism of the conclusion.

I have yet to come across such fallacy-free evidence and hypothesis testing in Biblical scholarship.

This is a great comment deserving serious consideration, and the topic it raises concerns the nature of evidence. What is the evidence? What does it mean for something to be taken as evidence? What is the relationship between evidence and hypothesis?

These are huge questions that I think can be usefully approached by first establishing the big picture. For us, the big-big picture is essentially a model of the world and how it works. There are several ways to specify the model, but let's try this:

1. The natural world operates according to physical laws.
2. Events in the natural world have physical components.
3. Events can cause other, subsequent events.
4. Some events can literally be more effective than other events.
5. Some events are more likely to have regular causes than other events.

I assume we all can agree with the general outline of this model, although some may question or object to specific elements. It is hopefully beyond question that the natural world, per specifications 1 and 2, has enough regularity and predictability to allow us to develop a stable picture of it. Now I'm aware that our human ability to apprehend and describe the world breaks down at some extremes, and this is fine. Ultimately, however, with physical laws we know we are talking about the measurable behavior of matter and the transfer of information.

If someone wants to modify the model by saying--for example--"The natural world operates according to physical and spiritual laws," then I need to know what we are talking about when we use the term spiritual laws. I need to know what spirit is, what it does, and how we build knowledge of it.

But I want to return to the model I sketched out before because we do not need to commit ourselves to it. We can test the model and ask questions about it:

• (a) Given the model I described, how do we assess the likelihood of specific observations?
• (b) Given a set of observations and the model above, how do we choose the cause-effect chain that best explains the observations?
• (c) Given a set of observations and different models or different variations within the model above, how do we find the best model or model variation that best explains the observations?

Using all the above, let's consider a statement such as we find in Deuteronomy 16b:

there were thunder claps and lightning flashes, and a thick cloud was upon the mountain, and a very powerful blast of a shofar

In our model, how likely are thunder claps, lightening, and clouds by mountains? Likely within normal ranges. In other words, weather events fit right into our model. So far as I know, there is nothing related to climate or geography that would make a weather event practically impossible at Sinai.

Now, what happens if we use our model and the second bullet (b) above? Well, we can establish different configurations of natural causes and events that would lead up to thunder, lightening and clouds on Sinai at a particular time. Our proposed configuration may or may not be close to the truth, but they will be complete. We have no need to invoke anything beyond the model to develop a minimally viable hypothesis.

How about using our model and the third bullet (c) above? This could be the time to ask whether a model that included "and spiritual" might perform better than the original model for the given observation. It won't, unless we have a way to identify what specifically is spiritual in the observed event. In other words, unless and until we can agree on what information does and does not fall within the category "spiritual," then the concept is superfluous for our purposes.

We can now return to Dovid Kornreich's question to me and talk about the observed evidence. I'll cite biblical scholar Richard Elliott Friedman (from The Bible with Sources Revealed) and list the evidence of the multiple source hypothesis as follows:

1. Linguistic evidence (p. 7): The different sources reflect the Hebrew language of several distinct periods. The change in language is attested through Hebrew texts outside the Torah.
2. Terminology (p. 8): Certain words and phrases appear disproportionately and even entirely in some sources but not in others.
3. Consistent content (p. 10): This is the "different sources use different names for God" line of evidence. More correctly, the sources differ on when the name of God was first revealed to humans. A second line of evidence in this same category concerns sacred objects such as the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, Urim and Tummim, and so on. Some sources dwell excessively on one or more of these objects while other sources make no mention at all.  A third line of evidence involves the priestly leadership. In the P source, the line of Aaron has exclusive access to the divine. The arguments for this line are more substantial than I can relate here and now, so do read Friedman and others on this. Finally, P is unique among the sources in its concern over ages, dates, measurements, numbers, order, and precise instructions.
4. Continuity of texts (p. 13): When the sources are separated from one another, each makes a flowing, sensible text. In discussing this line of evidence Friedman addresses an objection I already know is coming, as it is expressed in Kornreich's question. The objection is that the multiple source hypothesis came first, and then the Torah was divided to produce this result. Friedman anticipates this type of objection:

   So much of the text flows smoothly flows smoothly...that it is not possible that any scholar could have constructed it to do so while keeping all the evidence consistently within sources. The scholar would still have to keep all the sources' similar versions of common stories (known as "doublets") separated. The scholar would still have to keep all of the characteristic terminology of each source within the passages attributed to that particular source. The scholar would still have to keep all of the linguistic  evidence for the stages of Hebrew intact, all the occurrences of the divine name consistent within sources, and all the other lines of evidence intact--all of this while producing stories that flow smoothly.

5. Connections with other parts of the Bible (p. 14): I'll let Friedman's words make the case here.

   When distinguished from one another, the individual sources each have specific affinities with particular portions of the Bible. D has well-known parallels of wording with the book of Jeremiah. P has such parallels with with the book of Ezekiel. J and E are particularly connected with the book Hosea. This is not simply a matter of a coincidence of subject matter in these parallel texts. It is a proper connection of language and views between particular sources and particular prophetic works.

6. Relationships among the sources to each other and to history (p. 18): We see that each source has connections to specific circumstances in history and to other sources. J appears connected to the kingdom of Judah in the south of Israel. E has connections with northern Israel. Our time frame here is between 922 and 722 BCE. P is connection to the time of Hezekiah, king of Judah from 715-687 BCE. D is associated, as we have previously discussed, with the reign of Josiah, king of Judah from 640-609 BCE. Finally, the P source has a consistent relationship with the prior sources J and E. Its content and order of episodes show it to be an alternative composition to JE.
7. Convergence (p. 27): I'll once again let Friedman state the case:

   Above all, the strongest evidence establishing the Documentary Hypothesis is that several different lines of evidence converge....The most compelling argument for the hypothesis is that this hypothesis best accounts for the fact that all this evidence of so many kinds comes together so consistently.

We now have the set of seven observations listed above and a hypothesis purporting to describe the causal chain accounting for the observations. This puts us in range of the second bullet item (b) above. With a set of observations and a viable hypothesis, we can propose a model of how the Torah was constructed and then test it through bullet points (a) to (c). The model must recognize all of the seven observations as possible outcomes. The model must also be generally compatible with our big-picture model from before.

I will apologetically avoid sketching out a personal, provisional model of how the Torah was constructed. One reason for this is that Kornreich's question to me can be fully addressed now without such a model. The second reason is that I may need to provide it in the next post, which I expect will be my promised explanation of how the Sinai story originated and developed.

To answer Kornreich's question, then:

• The observed evidence is such that is enumerated above. We observe, for example, words in the Bible from different periods in the history of the Hebrew language. One explanation for this observation is that preserved content from earlier times was later combined with other content and the whole thing became one composite text.
• The tested hypotheses are not only the species of the Documentary Hypothesis but species of what I'll call the Divine Inspiration Hypothesis. The latter set ranges from taking the Torah as the word of God transmitted through Moses to taking it as assembled (a la the DH) by divinely inspired redactors. The tests include incorporating new observations and data points and reconciling lines of evidence with each other. In other words, we are not looking simply for an explanation to the language history observation, we are looking also for an explanation that is compatible and consistent with other lines of evidence.
• Do modern biblical scholars such as Friedman presume the truth of the Documentary Hypothesis at the outset? Friedman's statements in the "Continuity of texts" line of evidence (#4) argue against circularity. These statements also suggest how circularity could be exposed and the DH challenged. Now, we do need to bring some assumptions to the table beforehand. For example, if we assume that there are no contradictions at all in the Bible, we can come up with all sorts of ingenious ways to explain apparent contradictions to make them "go away." The real question is how do we choose between the assumption that Torah contains no contradictions and the assumption that it may contains contradictory accounts and statements? I don't think that we can answer this question without thinking long and hard about our big-picture model.

To conclude, we arrive at the heart of the disagreement in my perspective and Kornreich's. If I understand his position correctly, he will argue that at least some of the seven observations do not constitute "problems" at all; that is, these are not things that need to be explained.

But this is where I really should invite Dovid himself to respond. And so...my questions to Dovid:

1. Are the seven observations valid? Which ones are not, and why not?
2. Of the observations that are valid, how do you explain what we see in the text? 
3. How do your explanations better account for the observations than explanations under the Documentary Hypothesis?
4. How would you modify or alter the big-picture model I developed earlier in this post?
5. Assuming you subscribe to a version of the Divine Inspiration Hypothesis, how do you personally avoid assuming its truth when you are reasoning about what you observe in the Bible and in the sacred works of other religions?

Dovid, I'll look forward to your answers. I'm willing to give them a full post here or to link to your blog if you like. Next up for me: My explanation of how the Sinai story originated and developed.

Kuzari: Why Aren't There More Sinai-Like Stories?

Best miracle ever!

Let me paraphrase a Kuzari-related argument I hear often enough:

If the Mount Sinai story is a myth (taken to mean "untrue") developed through human cultural processes, then we should see more examples of Sinai-like stories. But we don't see more examples. There's only one Mount Sinai story and only one religion claiming to have had a national event like Mount Sinai. Therefore, it's more reasonable to think that Mount Sinai is not a myth and instead really happened.

To consider the argument, let's get clear on what the Mount Sinai story is. Tzvi Freeman characterizes the story as the national witness of Moses' authenticity:

[O]n the sixth day of the third month of the year 2448 from Creation, an entire nation full of dissidents and skeptics gathered at the foot of a mountain in the Sinai Desert and witnessed how G-d spoke with Moses. Rather overwhelmed by the experience, they asked Moses to kindly fetch all the details of what exactly G-d would like from them and report on it. [emphasis added]

Freeman's interpretation is that the nation witnessed not God itself and not God speaking but how God spoke to Moses. This distinction is important because it's Moses the people confirm, not God. The Sinai story is, in this sense, another "proving the prophet" story. But what's supposed to be distinctive about the Sinai story is that the entire nation witnessed Moses as being in conversation with God. Where Kuzari comes in is that allegedly the entire nation believed that what it had witnessed was a bona-fide miracle. Of course, we have no idea what the entire nation actually believed--assuming there was any sort of event at all. But these are the two pillars of Kuzari, national witness and national belief. And neither of these characteristics can be pulled from the history of Israel.

Back, then, to the assertion at the top that we should expect "more examples of Sinai-like stories." Contrary to the assertion, there's no logical requirement for myths exactly like Sinai. The bald fact of many Sinai-like myths or of none is in itself irrelevant. A perceived lack of more examples has no bearing on either the evidence of a Sinai event or the evidence of the Sinai story.

In considering "the Sinai story," we have a complication in that we have at least three Sinai stories. What's more, not all of them correspond well to Freeman's account, given above. Here, for example, is the Sinai story from the J source:

Ch. 19:10. And the Lord said to Moses, "Go to the people and prepare them today and tomorrow, and they shall wash their garments.

11. And they shall be prepared for the third day, for on the third day, the Lord will descend before the eyes of all the people upon Mount Sinai.

12. And you shall set boundaries for the people around, saying, Beware of ascending the mountain or touching its edge; whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death.'

13. No hand shall touch it, for he shall be stoned or cast down; whether man or beast, he shall not live. When the ram's horn sounds a long, drawn out blast, they may ascend the mountain."

14. So Moses descended from the mountain to the people, and he prepared the people, and they washed their garments.

15. He said to the people, "Be ready for three days; do not go near a woman."

16a. It came to pass on the third day when it was morning,

* * *

18. And the entire Mount Sinai smoked because the Lord had descended upon it in fire, and its smoke ascended like the smoke of the kiln, and the entire mountain quaked violently.

* * *

20. The Lord descended upon Mount Sinai, to the peak of the mountain, and the Lord summoned Moses to the peak of the mountain, and Moses ascended.

21. The Lord said to Moses, "Go down, warn the people lest they break [their formation to go nearer] to the Lord, and many of them will fall.

22. And also, the priests who go near to the Lord shall prepare themselves, lest the Lord wreak destruction upon them."

23. And Moses said to the Lord, "The people cannot ascend to Mount Sinai, for You warned us saying, Set boundaries for the mountain and sanctify it.' "

24. But the Lord said to him, "Go, descend, and [then] you shall ascend, and Aaron with you, but the priests and the populace shall not break [their formation] to ascend to the Lord, lest He wreak destruction upon them."

25. So Moses went down to the people and said [this] to them.

Now, here is Sinai in the E source. This is the one that is closest to Freeman:

Ch. 19:2b. and Israel encamped there opposite the mountain.

3. Moses ascended to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, "So shall you say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel,

4. You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and [how] I bore you on eagles' wings, and I brought you to Me.

5. And now, if you obey Me and keep My covenant, you shall be to Me a treasure out of all peoples, for Mine is the entire earth.

6. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of princes and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel."

7. Moses came and summoned the elders of Israel and placed before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him.

8. And all the people replied in unison and said, "All that the Lord has spoken we shall do!" and Moses took the words of the people back to the Lord.

9. And the Lord said to Moses, "Behold, I am coming to you in the thickness of the cloud, in order that the people hear when I speak to you, and they will also believe in you forever." And Moses relayed the words of the people to the Lord.

* * *

16b. there were thunder claps and lightning flashes, and a thick cloud was upon the mountain, and a very powerful blast of a shofar, and the entire nation that was in the camp shuddered.

17. Moses brought the people out toward God from the camp, and they stood at the bottom of the mountain.

* * *

19. The sound of the shofar grew increasingly stronger; Moses would speak and God would answer him with a voice.

* * *

Ch. 20:18. The people remained far off, but Moses drew near to the opaque darkness, where God was.

19. The Lord said to Moses, "So shall you say to the children of Israel, You have seen that from the heavens I have spoken with you.

20. You shall not make [images of anything that is] with Me. Gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves.

21. An altar of earth you shall make for Me, and you shall slaughter beside it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your cattle. Wherever I allow My name to be mentioned, I will come to you and bless you.

Finally, here is Sinai from the P source:

19:1. In the third month of the children of Israel's departure from Egypt, on this day they arrived in the desert of Sinai.

* * *

Ch. 24:15b. and the cloud covered the mountain.

16. And the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days, and He called to Moses on the seventh day from within the cloud.

17. And the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire atop the mountain, before the eyes of the children of Israel.

18a. And Moses came within the cloud.

Thus, the Sinai story is multiple. This multiplicity, in turn, reveals that Kuzari-style interpretations of Sinai are post-hoc and at least partly revisionist. Kuzari is therefore unable to prove anything--a critical point that ought to be acknowledged but seldom is.

One final note: myth formation is not incompatible or inconsistent with some "real" historical event serving as an originating point for the story--there could have been something like a real Sinai moment between 1313 BCE and 2200 BCE, but there also needn't have been. Even at best, Kuzari does not give us a solid reason to think whether there might have been any real Sinai event or not.

If one is so biased, one can use the Kuzari Principle to rationalize acceptance of Judaism. Indeed, given the fantastical nature of so many tales in the Torah and in the traditional Jewish library (which makes the tales fun and interesting, by the way), one needs whatever arguments are available to justify giving oneself over to traditional authorities. Without such bias, however, Kuzari appears as what it is: an interesting yet problematic stretch. When we leave idle philosophizing and start to collect and consider material artifacts, Kuzari's wish-world offers too little and too faintly.

Kuzari: Three Sinai Stories

Pregnant triplets. There's a connection with what we're talking about here. I just can't remember what it is.

I tend to be most productive when I have many tasks on my to-do list.

This post will be short on commentary, but nevertheless interesting and provocative (I hope). My Kuzari posts have all centered on the Sinai revelation; that is, on that story. I want to present the story now. Except...it's actually three stories, at least according to biblical criticism.

In what follows, I will present the theophany at Sinai from the J source, the E source, and the P source. In what we know today as the Book of Exodus, these three sources are woven together. When we take them apart, as it were, the narratives yield distinct impressions--not impressions of the event itself so much but of its significance.

With thanks to Richard Elliott Friedman's The Bible with Sources Revealed, here is the J source:

Ch. 19:10. And the Lord said to Moses, "Go to the people and prepare them today and tomorrow, and they shall wash their garments.

11. And they shall be prepared for the third day, for on the third day, the Lord will descend before the eyes of all the people upon Mount Sinai.

12. And you shall set boundaries for the people around, saying, Beware of ascending the mountain or touching its edge; whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death.'

13. No hand shall touch it, for he shall be stoned or cast down; whether man or beast, he shall not live. When the ram's horn sounds a long, drawn out blast, they may ascend the mountain."

14. So Moses descended from the mountain to the people, and he prepared the people, and they washed their garments.

15. He said to the people, "Be ready for three days; do not go near a woman."

16a. It came to pass on the third day when it was morning,

* * *

18. And the entire Mount Sinai smoked because the Lord had descended upon it in fire, and its smoke ascended like the smoke of the kiln, and the entire mountain quaked violently.

* * *

20. The Lord descended upon Mount Sinai, to the peak of the mountain, and the Lord summoned Moses to the peak of the mountain, and Moses ascended.

21. The Lord said to Moses, "Go down, warn the people lest they break [their formation to go nearer] to the Lord, and many of them will fall.

22. And also, the priests who go near to the Lord shall prepare themselves, lest the Lord wreak destruction upon them."

23. And Moses said to the Lord, "The people cannot ascend to Mount Sinai, for You warned us saying, Set boundaries for the mountain and sanctify it.' "

24. But the Lord said to him, "Go, descend, and [then] you shall ascend, and Aaron with you, but the priests and the populace shall not break [their formation] to ascend to the Lord, lest He wreak destruction upon them."

25. So Moses went down to the people and said [this] to them.

Now, here is E:

Ch. 19:2b. and Israel encamped there opposite the mountain.

3. Moses ascended to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, "So shall you say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel,

4. You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and [how] I bore you on eagles' wings, and I brought you to Me.

5. And now, if you obey Me and keep My covenant, you shall be to Me a treasure out of all peoples, for Mine is the entire earth.

6. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of princes and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel."

7. Moses came and summoned the elders of Israel and placed before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him.

8. And all the people replied in unison and said, "All that the Lord has spoken we shall do!" and Moses took the words of the people back to the Lord.

9. And the Lord said to Moses, "Behold, I am coming to you in the thickness of the cloud, in order that the people hear when I speak to you, and they will also believe in you forever." And Moses relayed the words of the people to the Lord.

* * *

16b. there were thunder claps and lightning flashes, and a thick cloud was upon the mountain, and a very powerful blast of a shofar, and the entire nation that was in the camp shuddered.

17. Moses brought the people out toward God from the camp, and they stood at the bottom of the mountain.

* * *

19. The sound of the shofar grew increasingly stronger; Moses would speak and God would answer him with a voice.

* * *

Ch. 20:18. The people remained far off, but Moses drew near to the opaque darkness, where God was.

19. The Lord said to Moses, "So shall you say to the children of Israel, You have seen that from the heavens I have spoken with you.

20. You shall not make [images of anything that is] with Me. Gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves.

21. An altar of earth you shall make for Me, and you shall slaughter beside it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your cattle. Wherever I allow My name to be mentioned, I will come to you and bless you.

And finally, here is P:

19:1. In the third month of the children of Israel's departure from Egypt, on this day they arrived in the desert of Sinai.

* * *

Ch. 24:15b. and the cloud covered the mountain.

16. And the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days, and He called to Moses on the seventh day from within the cloud.

17. And the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire atop the mountain, before the eyes of the children of Israel.

18a. And Moses came within the cloud.

There is so much more to say about what we have here: the reasoning, the context, the cautions. Please forgive me for not providing all that apparatus now. Nevertheless, I think it's fair to say that the three narratives are striking next to one another.

Kuzari: Deuteronomy Doesn't Validate the Sinai Revelation

Illustration by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld of Josiah hearing Deuteronomy read.

I am waaaay busy these days with work, dissertation, and teaching obligations, but I want to release some of the material I had already developed to answer the request of good Dovid Kornreich. Per this request, I agreed to provide greater detail about how the Sinai story began and developed.

This post will build on the last one and start to clarify the picture of Sinai. As a reminder: Sinai is not the whole of what the so-called Kuzari Principle is about. Rather, Sinai often serves as a representative example for Kuzari proponents, who apply Kuzari to argue that Jewish belief is trustworthy. Thus, they argue that Sinai must be true because such an event--a single divine revelation (theophany) before a nation of millions--could not be faked or invented. Whereas other religions claim private or semi-public revelations, thereby being open to fraud or error, Judaism claims that the entire nation of former Hebrew slaves witnessed God directly. At any time in the history of Jewish belief and tradition, the Kuzari proponent says, people could have discovered whether the story was false. A Jew could have asked her mother about the revelation. If the story were not true, the mother would have said "My mother and father never told me such a thing!"

The logical challenges to the Kuzari claim are many, as I have previously discussed at length. We have no good case at all for either divinities in general or divine-based explanations of actual phenomena. Kuzari-proponents offer no examples of either miracles or historically-verified events that are, like Sinai, too massive to have been false or mistakes. However, my biggest peeves with Kuzari and Sinai--and arguments involving them--involve imprecise terminology. I can be as guilty as anyone in using vague words; it's a common sin. But that's why we ask questions, and when we ask what Sinai is or what the Sinai story actually is, we get some interesting answers.

In this post, I am going to clarify what makes up the Sinai story and what doesn't. At the outset, I want to make sure we are distinguishing between the Sinai story, the report of a divine mass revelation, and the Sinai event, the historical phenomenon allegedly experienced by the nation of Israel immediately after their miraculous liberation from Egypt. My main concern is with the story, but the event is never far behind. Incidentally, we are not certain when the Sinai event could actually have occurred. Often, the date depends on the person telling you: I have seen dates (some with arguments) of 1313 BCE, 1250 BCE, 1446 BCE, and 2200 BCE. This range will have some importance a bit later.

Another caution, this time concerning the Sinai story itself. We need to be careful about identifying that which actually is the Sinai story and that which comments on and interprets the story. For this reason, I want to look at verses in Deuteronomy 4:9-40, where reference is made to the Sinai revelation. Here, we have a case where we are not--not, I say--given the Sinai story itself but are rather given commentary and interpretation on the story.

9. But beware and watch yourself very well, lest you forget the things that your eyes saw, and lest these things depart from your heart, all the days of your life, and you shall make them known to your children and to your children's children,

10. the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, "Assemble the people for Me, and I will let them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.”

11. And you approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire up to the midst of the heavens, with darkness, a cloud, and opaque darkness.

12. The Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of the words, but saw no image, just a voice.

13. And He told you His covenant, which He commanded you to do, the Ten Commandments, and He inscribed them on two stone tablets.

* * *

32. For ask now regarding the early days that were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and from one end of the heavens to the other end of the heavens, whether there was anything like this great thing, or was the likes of it heard?

33. Did ever a people hear God's voice speaking out of the midst of the fire as you have heard, and live?

34. Or has any god performed miracles to come and take him a nation from the midst of a[nother] nation, with trials, with signs, and with wonders, and with war and with a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great awesome deeds, as all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

35. You have been shown, in order to know that the Lord He is God; there is none else besides Him.

36. From the heavens, He let you hear His voice to instruct you, and upon the earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire,

37. and because He loved your forefathers and chose their seed after them, and He brought you out of Egypt before Him with His great strength,

38. to drive out from before you nations greater and stronger than you, to bring you and give you their land for an inheritance, as this day.

Because this section does not tell the Sinai story but rather comments on it, what we are reading is a later interpretation. What is more, in this interpretation the Sinai story plainly serves as the ground for behavioral prescriptions and prohibitions such as those that fill the Torah from Exodus through Deuteronomy. Do this and don’t do that because of what you saw at Horeb/Sinai (note: Horeb is the name used exclusively in D, while Sinai is used exclusively in the J and E sources. Traditional religious commentators remark that the names signify different spiritual aspects of the place.).

Indeed, modern biblical scholarship locates the text in the section we’ve just seen with the D source. This source appears connected to the reign of Josiah, king of Judah (640-609 BCE), a religious reformer who reads the scrolls of instruction publicly (2 Kings 23:2), demolishes idols (2 Kings 23:15, 23:6,12), and makes Jerusalem the exclusive center of sacrifice. On the possible relation between D and Josiah’s reforms, biblical scholar Richard Elliott Friedman explains:

Josiah’s reforms are connected to instructions that are found in D; the narrative of Josiah’s making those reforms is told in terms and phrases that are typically found in D; and Josiah’s reforms are traced to the promulgation of a particular scroll, which is identified by the same words as the scroll that Moses writes in D. This interlocking chain of connections led to the extremely widely held view in scholarship that that the scroll that was read in Josiah’s day was D. There have been a variety of conceptions: It may have been just the law code that appears in Deuteronomy (chapters 12-26). It may have been the law code and some of the material that precedes and follows it. It may have been written earlier and then made public and authoritative in Josiah’s time. But there is little room for doubt that D is linked in some integral way to the reign of Josiah. (The Bible with Sources Revealed, p. 26)

Whatever the link between D and Josiah, the gap is anywhere from 670 to 1460 years between when Sinai is thought to have possibly occurred and when Josiah’s reign began.

Just think about the magnitude of that time gap, between 670 and 1460 years (about 24.5K days to 53.32K days). How confident are you in the accuracy of any modern report on something that allegedly happened between 670 and 1460 years ago (or, between 551 and 1341 CE)? How confident are you in the accuracy of a report that is itself dated from between the years 551 and 1341 CE?

Another thought experiment: If Josiah were your king and basically shared your religion, how comfortable would you feel telling him that your fathers never said anything to you about having stood at Sinai? How do you think he might respond to your clearing up his misconception? Josiah didn’t need the story to be factually true. He didn’t even need it to be believed. He needed it to be accepted; that is, he needed his favored reading to be accepted. I'm not saying he didn't believe it, but I am saying that he seems to have understood how to use some stories for political authority and power.

Let’s leave Josiah, then, by acknowledging that the D reference to Sinai is a later interpretation of the story: what is more, the reference does not validate the story. We thus have one data point in the development of the Sinai story. We know it was useful as a way to provide historical and religious context to Josiah and his ambitions. We still don't know how the story started or what, if anything, is true in it.

At this point, then, we are in much the same position with respect to Sinai as Kornreich is when he justifies his skepticism concerning other religious claims:

Religious Claim	Kornriech's Response
Claim 1: Jesus Christ was the only begotten son of the Jewish God. Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.	I need to trust the account of 12 individuals who have not demonstrated any particular credibility. I don't KNOW its not true, but there is insufficient evidence due to scant number of witnesses with questionable credibility.
Claim 2: Muhammad was the messenger of God, and the Qu'ran is the eternal and uncreated speech of God.	Again, I don't KNOW its not true, but the claims give no method for verification. How do we know he is a prophet? Did he make true predictions? cause miracles? How do we know it is a divine text? Did only one person receive it? Does it make true predictions?
Claim 3: Mahaguru Parthasarathy, and Indian man, proves the existence and divinity of Vishnu by being an avatar of the god.	Same as #2--the claims give no method for verification. I need to trust the claim of an individual of unknown trustworthiness.

Kuzari: Belief and Evidence (and Bias, Oh My!)

Per the discussion in the latest Kuzari post, I’ve agreed to provide greater detail about how the Sinai story in Exodus—that is, the story of a divine revelation before the masses—began and developed. I'm still working on developing that content, so it will come in one or more future posts.

Nevertheless, I want to respond in the meantime to Dovid Kornreich, who says:

I commend you on your bravery and honesty. I’m glad you acknowledge that there is a need to provide a (probable!) alternative explanation to the mass revelation belief in order to justify ignoring it.

Thanks for the commendation, Dovid. I do acknowledge the need to explain my opinion and to justify it as well as I can.

However, let me be very clear on several critical points:

1. I am not “ignoring” belief in a mass revelation and I never have. Indeed, my entire series on Kuzari seeks to pay extraordinary attention both to the belief and to what inferences can reasonably be drawn from it. 
2. I also acknowledge that people do believe and have believed that a mass revelation occurred at Sinai. At the same time, I reject the idea that there was an actual divine mass revelation because (a) we don't have sufficient evidence to support such a claim, and (b) divinities are fictional.
3. Dovid, if you think I'm going to provide an "alternative" explanation for the mass revelation belief, as if your explanation is the "default" or "standard" one, then I must protest. There is no default or standard explanation. 
4. We are better served by dropping the idea of "probable," at least for now. Our focus should be on accounting for the evidence we have. We have evidence of the Sinai story: the Bible relates the story. Later commentators discuss it. We have evidence that in some historical periods the story was believed to be historically accurate. Let's talk about the evidence first and then think about which explanations seem more probable than others

It's not biased or prejudicial on my part to reject the actuality of the divine mass revelation when we don't have sufficient evidence of it. All that we have is the Torah and later commentaries. What we don't have but need is one or more first-hand accounts written for the purpose of communicating a reliable description of real events as they occurred. Even in a case such as having an account, the reliability of the writer and text must be scrutinized.

It's also not biased or prejudicial on my part to reject the idea that deities (deliberately plural) are real-world entities. To my knowledge, no one has shown that they are. I accept that they could be real in the sense that counts; that is, I am open to the possibility that . But until we get a clear demonstration of what a divinity actually is and does in a real-world context, I don't see how it's reasonable to assume they exist (or ever have).

The questions asked of me concern belief in Sinai. When did it start? Why? How did it develop? I will try to answer these questions as best I can. The question is not whether Sinai is true. If this latter question means something like "Did Sinai happen exactly as reported in the Torah I read today?" then I must answer "no." Now, the modern incarnation of "traditional" Judaism takes it as foundational that the answer to the question is "yes." To his credit, Dovid Kornreich expresses willingness to explore this foundation:

Please be aware that this is a two-way street. I myself admit that I too have the burden to justify ignoring all the thousands of religions' claims to the truth in favor of the one I was born into.

I appreciate this. Truly, I do. Indeed, I would be most interested to learn why you ignore and/or reject the following claims, as I assume you do (please forgive me if I am incorrect on this):

Claim 1: Jesus Christ was the only begotten son of the Jewish God. Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

Claim 2: Muhammad was the messenger of God, and the Qu'ran is the eternal and uncreated speech of God.

Claim 3: Mahaguru Parthasarathy, and Indian man, proves the existence and divinity of Vishnu by being an avatar of the god.

I am mostly interested in the underlined parts and the basis upon which you ignore/reject these claims. I thank you. As I said, I'll post further discussions on early Jewish belief in the Sinai story as soon as I can.

Kuzari Returns!

Maybe I'll answer you with a "laser" instead of with a voice. Wouldja like that?

According to Dovid Kornreich, the following summarizes my explanation of "how millions of Jews have come to believe the truth of Traditional Judaism":

The story of mass Divine revelation started out as a small scale, untrue, but plausible story. After is [sic] was accepted, it evolved and grew imperceptibly into the full blown version we have today.

CLARIFICATION: Kornreich is not referring specifically to my argument, as he was not aware of it at the time he wrote the above-quoted part. My point is that the view articulated by Kornreich is supposed to represent the kind of argument that I make, an argument dependent on the "evolutionary myth hypothesis." I apologize to Dovid Kornreich and my readers for being so unclear in my language as to mislead.

Unfortunately, the summary misses the mark widely from my position. I do not, for example, have much of anything to say about how the Sinai story "started." Indeed, I wonder if "started" even captures the nuance and complexity of what might have actually happened.

Stories in transmission are like hills. Just as we are hard-pressed to identify precisely how many grains of sand may be taken away before we no longer have a hill, so too are we hard-pressed to identify the moment in time when a particular story, as we know it, truly starts. With the Sinai story, we have the compound problem of trying to identify not only when the story began but also when it became interpreted in such a way to distinguish Judaic religion and community. The story could have been around a long time before someone said, "Don't you realize what this means? God spoke to our ancestors and so to us. God and all of us are bound together in a compact!"

In addition to voicing an origins claim I don't actually make, Kornreich's summary presents the "evolving myth hypothesis" as a progression. The problem with this presentation is the same as in other "ladder of progress" models:

Rudolph Zallinger's "March of Progress"

Scientists such as Stephen J. Gould have rightly criticized images such as Zallinger's "March of Progress" (1965) for implying that human biological evolution happened in a linear, sequential fashion. Human evolution is not a movement toward a predetermined “ideal form." The march of progress idea, then, can be misleading to the non-specialist.

Similarly, Kornreich's summary of the "evolving myth hypothesis" erroneously implies that the development and acceptance of "the story of mass Divine revelation" progressed in a linear, sequential way. I do not hold that Sinai was once a simple story that slowly changed and became ever more fantastic until it acquired all of the characteristics we find in Exodus. What's more, my own words do not imply such linearity and sequentiality:

Someone did not make up the Sinai story complete and unalterable at one time, for this is a modern sense of how stories are made and circulated. It was more like many people communally developing and interpreting back-stories for already existing rituals and practices.... The Sinai story was not a conspiracy but the ongoing evolution of culture. And it was not just the evolution of culture but the evolution of cultural texts.

The key difference between what I actually say above and what Kornreich thinks I am saying boils down to the idea of "growth." I am not talking about growth; I am talking about re-interpretation. I suspect, and it's only a suspicion, that Sinai changed not so much in context but in the approach people took to it and in the meaning people attached to it. I've never been talking about a true story becoming false or a false story becoming more fantastic: I've been talking about a story--who knows how true--gaining new significance.

This type of re-interpretation happens often enough. The battlefield at Gettysburg gets dedicated by Abraham Lincoln and becomes a symbol of both the Civil War's bloodiest battle and the very principles at the root of the conflict. William Shakespeare gives Henry V a speech that consecrates the Battle of Agincourt as a signature of one phase in the Hundred Years' War. Woodstock becomes romanticized as three days of peace, love, and music--the legacy of peaceful, dope-smoking kids who wanted the world to be a better place. Watergate becomes a lasting symbol of the US government's covert activities and its friction with America's stated principles. We know all too well that later interpreters and nationalist interests co-opt events; co-optation and re-interpretation hardly make up the implausible scenario that Kornreich suggests.

And we know that at least some of the Torah derives from a narrative matrix common to societies and civilizations of the Ancient Near East, such as Egypt and Mesopotamia. I'll list only a few points of similarity:

• The Ipuwer Ammonitions,  an Egyptian text going back to 2345-2181 BCE has analogies to the ten plagues.
• The Egyptian god Atum/Atom has conceptual similarities with the god of Moses.
• Sargon of Akkad's myth of origin has many parallels to that of Moses.
• The story of Sinuhe matches the Midianite adventures of Moses in several spots.

There's a world of difference, then, between the position Kornreich ascribes to Kuzari critics like me and the one I actually hold. Indeed, I'm not even sure we can responsibly grant his assumption that "millions of Jews have come to believe the truth of Traditional Judaism." Which Judaism is the "Traditional" one, hmm? Is it the Judaism of the Chabadniks? The Judaism of the Charedim? The Judaism of the American reformers? The Judaism of the Karaites? The Judaism of the Modern Orthodox? The Judaism of the Reconstructionists? What about the Judaism of Jacob Frank?

Contra Kornreich, I see no monolithic truth and no monolithic Judaism. What's more, Sinai (Exodus 19:17-20:18) remains a story with an uncertain interpretation:

With Moses and then Aaron seemingly as the sole exceptions, all Israel keeps its distance from Sinai and remains “far off.” The people see smoke and feel shaking, as if they are before a volcano. What did Israel hear? Certainly, they heard the shofar. What of God did they hear? Only sound. Moses later reminds Israel that when they encountered God at Sinai, “You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice” (Deuteronomy 4:12).

While Jewish tradition has maintained that God spoke the first two commandments directly to Israel (but see Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, II.33), this seems to be an interpretation that is not explicit in the text itself. In abject fear and standing from afar, Israel pleads to Moses, "You speak with us, and we will hear, but let God not speak with us lest we die." We might suppose that the Israelites actually hear nothing directly from God, if we accept the speaking Moses as being literal:

The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, while I stood between the Lord and you at that time to declare to you the word of the Lord; for you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain. He said, "I am the Lord your God . . ." (Deuteronomy 5:4-6; emphasis added)

In this regard, the biblical claim of God's direct interaction with Israel is like later miracle accounts, such as the risen Jesus appearing to a few followers. The singularity of Sinai, in other words, may be highly exaggerated.

Torah interpretation, too, has a history. In my ongoing blog series on James Kugel's How to Read the Bible, I have mentioned the centuries-long transition in the approach to reading the Bible:

This traditional way of reading the Bible and understanding what it really is, says Kugel, derives from the efforts of the Bible's earliest interpreters:

[T]his whole way of approaching the Bible is the product of its ancient interpreters. There is little in the biblical texts themselves to suggest that they were intended to be read in this fashion. Nevertheless, that is how they came to be read, and it was this way of reading that made the Bible what it was for so many centuries, a divine guidebook full of instruction and wisdom, yea, the word of God....Disquieting as it may be, one is left with the conclusion that most of what makes the Bible biblical is not inherent in its texts, but emerges only when one reads them in a certain way, a way that came to full flower in the closing centuries BCE.

With Sinai as with all, plurality abounds. The persistent claim of Kuzari proponents is that Sinai is a different kind of story, a story that because of its content could not have arisen and developed the way that other stories do. This argument is bunk. I have shown that it is at least plausible that the Sinai story arose and developed just as other stories do, despite its grandest content. What seems obvious to me is that resistance to the idea that Sinai is just a story derives from a combined bias for theism and against any idea perceived to threaten orthodox religious belief.

Perhaps what's needed at this point is a better understanding about how stories and legends begin. Stay tuned....