- Torah Critics
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- Moshe Ben-Chaim
- Question:
- There are some scientists claiming the Torah couldn't be written in
the time when Moshe lived, because of the differences in God's name
and due to different styles of speech found in Torah texts. They claim
that Torah as we know it today, is a result of different traditions
which were unified in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah and they led into
unifying of the Five Books of Moshe. Are these arguments relevant for
the question of God's authorship of Torah written by Moshe?
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- Thank you,
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- Response:
- The Torah critics do not understand the method of learning Torah
which is acquired through years and years of Talmud study. They cannot
have any valid critique. It is as if one were to look at the human
body, with no knowledge of biology, and state that since the brain and
the heart are so different in design, they must have been created by
two different creators. But they would be incorrect, as they arrived
at an opinion with a grave lack of understanding, no Torah
methodology, nor accurate facts.
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- A scientist does not realize that there is a world of study and
style to the Torah. Many people ignorantly view the Torah as a book
like all others. What a mistake to equate a human author with God, One
so distinct, man cannot ever arrive at any positive knowledge of Him,
"You cannot see me and live". Scientists project their
limited scope of physical knowledge onto the metaphysical Torah,
without having toiled in the Talmudic and Scriptural reasoning and
teachings of the Rabbis, the Torah authorities. We have a Mesora, a
tradition, handed down to us from Moses, regarding the method of
learning Torah. Torah knowledge is acquired only after years of
submerging oneself with a mentor who himself received tutelage from
others.
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- Let the scientist first educate himself on this vast area and style
for a few decades. Once he becomes a Torah scholar, I am sure he will
withdraw his comments with much humility.
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