6. Moses
As trusted vehicle for the world of God, Moses is the personification of information integrity.
The Hebrew Bible means many things to many people, but rarely do we think of it as a milestone in the development of information technology. Such for-granted taking is typical of the obliviousness we practice towards the information inventions that transformed our society and define our way of life. To understand information integrity we must see things differently. Interpretation of the Bible is a challenge both for historians and for the faithful. This discussion of Moses and Judaism will consider what is written in the Torah, commonly attributed to Moses. It acknowledges that many key events are accepted as truth by the faithful, even if they are difficult to confirm through independent sources. The goal is to consider what is written and how it shapes peoples’ beliefs, not to argue for or against the truth or historical accuracy of scripture.
Who Is Moses?
Moses is the personification of information integrity. Like many leaders, Moses is recognized for his leadership and his force of character. Among such leaders, Moses distinguishes himself through his stewardship of information. The people trust and depend upon Moses to faithfully relay the word of God, without biasing or manipulating God’s word. The integrity of Moses in handling information, and the trust vested in him by his people, is essential to his role.
As a human who acted among humans on behalf of God, Moses is the most important prophet in the Jewish faith, and one of the most important prophets in Christianity, Islam, Druze, Rastafari, the Baháʼí faith, and the many other derivatives of Judaism up to such modern sects as Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Moses is the principal character of the book of Exodus, the story of how the children of Israel escaped slavery and repression in Egypt. Observant Jews believe this happened around 1300 BCE[1], about 3300 years ago. This was near the peak of Egyptian power, and in the same timeframe as the Battle of Kadesh. While it’s easy for a modern reader to interpret such ancient events as if they were fiction, one must for the purposes of this book acknowledge the cruel reality for the victims. Objectively, the practice of killing all males born of a particular race is comparable to the most egregious racially-motivated abuse practiced in the modern era. This is the fate that Moses escaped when his mother, Jochebed, put him in a papyrus basket lined with tar and pitch and hid it along the banks of the Nile. The infant was discovered by the daughter of the Pharaoh, who took pity on the child. Moses was raised as a Hebrew in the court of the Pharaoh. He became a notorious outlaw when he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew. Thus begins his emergence as a champion of freedom for the children of Israel. Moses successfully challenged the Pharaoh to free the Hebrews, supported by God with such plagues as frogs, lice, locusts and the death of all firstborn Egyptian children and cattle. He then led his people across the Red Sea, where, with support from God, he parted the waters. The Egyptian army suffered cruel defeat when they attempted to follow and the waters closed around them. After additional miracles, by which the Hebrew masses witness God’s power through Moses, they arrive in the wilderness of Sinai.
The Lord speaks systematically to the people through Moses rather than speaking to them directly. When writing is employed in the narrative, its use demonstrates the acute importance of the written word, and the role of Moses as an agent for the integrity of those words. As described in Exodus 32, Moses delivered the Ten Commandments, descending Mount Sinai with two stone tablets. When Moses found the people had disrespected the Lord by worshiping a golden calf, he broke the tablets. Later (Exodus 34) Moses re-ascended Mount Sinai and returned with a second set of tablets. These episodes establish a pattern, incorporating the importance of God’s words, the dependency of the people on Moses and on writing as a vehicle for those words, and the extreme degree to which people are expected to trust such writing. For the many followers who were illiterate, their trust was required despite their inability to read the words themselves. This demanded trust in the integrity and authority of the literate few, Moses and the prophets.
As the children of Israel continued their journey, God instructed Moses to build a golden ark for the tablets. Called the Ark of the Covenant, it represents the covenant between God and the people of Israel. Hebrews 9 details its contents, each associated with episodes of human weakness. First is a pot of manna, the bread that God rained from the heavens in Exodus 16 to nourish the people during the forty years from leaving Egypt to their arrival in Canaan. Second is a staff, God’s device to designate Aaron as prophet and leader, a choice initially rejected by the people. Third is the tablets containing the Ten Commandments, a reminder of the importance and difficulty of obeying God’s laws. These contents are protected by a gold “atonement cover” to shield these artifacts of human imperfection from God’s view.
The Torah provides multiple demonstrations of the supernatural power of the Ark of the Covenant and by implication of the word of God. In Leviticus 16:2 and 16:13, God instructs Moses to tell Aaron that he must never look directly on the atoning cover of the Ark or he will die. In Numbers 4, God instructs Moses and Aaron that those who carry the Ark must use poles, and never touch or look at it directly, or they will die. Other Jewish scripture further describes the power of the Ark. In Joshua 3, the waters of the Jordan River part when touched by the soles of the priests who carry the Ark. The book of 1 Samuel describes Israel’s weakness when it fails to properly respect God and his covenant. After a first defeat at the hands of the Philistines, the sons of Eli carry the Ark into battle, thinking the object’s intrinsic power would assure their victory. Instead, they are defeated again. The Philistines capture the Ark. This too angers God. The Philistines suffer from tumors and other ills over a period of seven months as they come to terms with the foreign power of the Ark. During the process of returning the Ark to the people of Israel, 50,070 men from Beth-Shemesh die because they see its contents.[2] God’s favor for Israel is restored when they end their worship of Baals and Ashtaroth[3] and discontinue other practices that violate the Covenant. Through these events, the Ark of the Covenant elevates God’s word by giving it supernatural power.
Exodus 32:31-32 further demonstrates the acute importance of written word:[4]
31 Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Oh, this people has committed a great sin, and they have made a god of gold for themselves!
32 “But now, if You will forgive their sin, very well; but if not, please wipe me out from Your book which You have written!”
Scholars generally agree this passage refers to the Book of the Living, conceptually a volume maintained by God, a registry of the people who live within God’s rules. This volume is also referenced in Psalms 69:28, which scholars generally believe was written before Exodus. When Moses asks God to strike his name from the book, it again suggests a distinguished role for writing in God’s order. Note that “book” is translated from Hebrew “sepher” (סִּפְרְ) which refers more generally to writing or a document, and here implies a ledger, register or scroll.[5] Exodus 32 concludes by indicating that those who sinned would be struck with a plague, hence a consequence in life, not afterlife.
These references to the written word are not the first in the Torah. In Exodus 24:7 Moses reads to the people from the Book of the Covenant (again using “sepher” (סִּפְרְ)), a forward reference to the laws that Moses would bring down from Mount Sinai in Exodus 32 and 34. The order of events in the text is not strictly linear. Also, Genesis 5:1 refers to “the book of the generations of Adam” to review Adam and his progeny. In this case the same Hebrew “sepher” (סִּפְרְ) refers to a register or family record, usage that echoes the predominantly practical uses of writing in Mesopotamia.
Through his role as source of the Torah, Moses is entrusted with the integrity of the word of God in a unique and personal fashion that is exceptional in the Hebrew tradition. The importance of this text is not limited to Judaism. The same scripture is also the first five books of the Christian Bible. In that tradition it was known historically as the Pentateuch, Greek for “five rolls.” This text, and in particular Leviticus and Deuteronomy, also provides the basis for halakhah, the laws observant Jews should follow to maintain their covenant with God. Beyond religious practice, food and health considerations, this system acknowledges the relevance of fixed, written laws to objective, equitable application of justice, as an alternative to more primitive systems that depend on the arbitrary authority practiced by despots and tyrants. This notion of a society governed by fixed, written laws is the basis of modern notions of government. It lends important support to a concept previously established by others like the Amorite king Hammurabi. Overall, these examples show how the influence of the Torah and therefore of the written word extends far beyond Judaism.
Throughout his life and his journey, Moses has a distinct role in supporting trusted information from God. The stone tablets, the Ark of the Covenant, and the Book of the Living all reinforce a notion of the importance of trust in the written word, and the importance of Moses in delivering God’s word to the people. Considering the prominence of scripture in the history of written information, this mentality of unquestionable integrity and the blind trust placed in the written word represents a potent tool for building trust, but also a tool that risks exploitation by the dishonest.
Who Wrote The Torah?
Beyond the immediate role of Moses as an information conduit for his people, there is a rich history in how the Books of Moses have been received over the centuries that followed. A core question, and one of central importance to information integrity, is: who wrote the Books of Moses? The simplest answer, as held by many orthodox Jews, is that they were written by Moses, acting as scribe on behalf of God. The answer among historians and other scholars, that the text was revised or wholly written by one or more anonymous intermediaries, complicates notions of the integrity of the text. Certain superficial observations present obstacles for the notion of “Mosaic authorship,” such as the fact that the end of Deuteronomy describes the funeral of Moses. Such observations were often ignored during the first 1700 years of the Common Era, during which the crime of heresy was commonly punishable by death. But with the “Age of Reason,” an acknowledgement of the role of skepticism in scholarship enabled the emergence of the “Documentary Hypothesis,” a theory by which the Pentateuch represents not the efforts of a single author but of multiple authors and editors over a span of centuries. Many books have been written on the Documentary Hypothesis. A full exploration of the topic is beyond the scope of this book, but a few examples here will indicate how scholars have approached the subject.
Theories of authorship such as the Documentary Hypothesis require a contemplative reader to consider scripture as a historical document in the context of ancient history. An example of such history that also documents concern for information integrity in ancient Israel appears in the description of King Josiah and the recovery of the Book of the Law, from II Kings 22-23 and II Corinthians 34. These passages describe events circa 622 BCE, about 650 years after the death of Moses. The scene occurs in a context where a young King Josiah is concerned for the security of his kingdom, considering failures to observe God’s covenant and mindful of the dependence of his kingdom on the grace of God. Royal scribe Shaphan presents King Josiah with a scroll, “the Book of the Law of the LORD given by Moses,” which was recovered by high priest Hilkiah during repairs to the house of the Lord. Josiah is deeply concerned, as he is determined to follow God’s laws, but is uncertain how to interpret the text. He asks scribe Shaphan to “inquire of the LORD … concerning the words of this Book.” Hilkiah and Shaphan bring the scroll to prophetess Huldah. She says that, because Josiah has humbled himself to the Lord, his eyes may be spared God’s wrath. Accepting the authenticity of the scroll, Josiah commits his people to God’s covenant. This review and acceptance of the scroll indicates one of the earliest known acts of canonization. King Josiah has the laws read to his people, and proceeds to apply them with rigor. He reinstitutes Passover, and he destroys and defiles shrines and altars made to false gods. Despite many important reforms, his safety concerns were not unfounded. He would be killed by Pharaoh Neco of Egypt in 609 BCE, and in 597 BCE, Babylon would defeat the Jews and destroy Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem, beginning a period known as the First Babylonian Exile.
The scroll used by King Josiah to guide his reforms is an example of evidence used by early modern scholars to develop the Documentary Hypothesis. In 1805, German scholar Wilhelm de Wette observed that the series of reforms attributed to Josiah in II Kings and II Corinthians demonstrated many parallels to central elements of the book of Deuteronomy.[6] These elements include Josiah’s disruption of the worship of false gods, restoration of the central place for worship, reestablishment of Passover, and fear of the curses that would befall the people for not obeying the written law. Such observations informed de Wette’s theory that the scroll applied by Josiah was an early version of Deuteronomy, representing a “Deuteronomist” source. His theory augmented an existing theory asserting “Elohist” and “Jehovist” sources, as scholars sought to explain instances of redundancy, divergent style and vocabulary in the Torah. In 1878, Jullius Wellhausen published his influential Geschichte Israels, Bd 1 (History of Israel, Vol. 1), drawing heavily on prior scholarship, and making an effective argument among scholars for these multiple sources and their relevance to the history of the Torah and to the development of law in ancient Israel.
The Documentary Hypothesis as described by Wellhausen was the predominant theory of Torah authorship among religious historians through most of the 20th century. In this framework, the Covenant Code of Deuteronomy is believed to be among the earliest written works in Jewish scripture, together with versions of Psalms, Proverbs, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes, all originating before the first exile of the Jews to Babylon. Scholars place Genesis, Exodus and Numbers post-exile and Leviticus as during exile.[7] Some of the early texts may have developed from oral traditions. In this context they would have coexisted with Mesopotamian and Egyptian mythology, older polytheistic traditions that include familiar themes such as floods and forbidden fruit.
Like the tension between Darwin’s theory of evolution and the description in Genesis of the creation of life, the scholarly consensus on Torah authorship does not align naturally with the views of all people of faith. Some religious authorities acknowledge the complexity of the question of Torah authorship, but Jewish orthodoxy is less flexible regarding the role of Moses. The principle of Mosaic authorship is a fundamental precept, part of the extraordinary integrity they demand of the Torah. This does not mean that divine Torah authorship is a matter of blind faith.
In Discover This, Rabbi Tzvi Gluckin provides an approachable introduction to how some practicing Jews think of Mosaic authorship. He explains that rational people don’t believe things on a whim, they need evidence. For important things, they need a lot of evidence. In his book, Gluckin reviews five kinds of evidence that support the notion of divine authorship of the Torah. Relating directly to integrity, Gluckin describes the process for maintaining definitive copies of the Torah, which to this day continue as scrolls on parchment, copied by hand by certified scribes. Rabbis apply a rigorous protocol of twenty rules for how such copies are to be written, with strict rejection of scrolls with transcription errors. Gluckin also describes a cross-check that was performed by Rabbi Mordechai Breuer, whose work supported the restoration of the 10th century Aleppo Codex. The Aleppo Codex had been the earliest known full manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, prior to the Aleppo Pogrom of 1947. Significant parts of the codex were lost during the pogrom, including the entire Torah.[8] To support a reconstruction of the Torah for the Aleppo Codex, Breuer quantified the frequency of errors across important copies of the Torah, comparing four ancient texts as well as a 16th century text printed in Italy. He also considered a more recent Torah from Yemen, selected in consideration of the geographic isolation of their Jewish population. Breuer found that, despite independent maintenance and recopying over the 3300 years since the life of Moses, there were only nine differences across these sources, all of which were alternative spellings with no semantic impact.[9] Overall, these rabbis conclude that the rules for maintaining the integrity of the Torah are effective.
Gluckin also describes evidence from outside the Torah, phenomena in life and society that affirm the contradictory nature of Jewish survival and how it is anticipated accurately by the Torah. The Torah is full of contradictions. Gluckin starts with Jewish survival, in the face of wars, exile, assimilation, and intermarriage. Yet in spite of these contrary forces, Jewish people not only survived, they thrived, responsible for outsized contributions up to our day in business, science and popular culture. Gluckin explains that this survival in the face of adversity is not just a question of Jewish pride, it was anticipated in the Torah through specific statements about Jewish destiny. It predicted that Jews will be “great but oppressed, influential but despised, and an eternal people but hated.”[10] Gluckin points out how historically, peoples who are oppressed, despised and hated typically disappear. But instead the Jewish people thrived, despite exile, their relatively small numbers, the global extent of antisemitism, and the lack of a homeland for most of their history. Gluckin asserts that such clairvoyant predictions are hard to explain without a divine source.
Perhaps the most controversial of the evidence Gluckin cites relates to the so-called “Torah codes.” The principle is that the Torah is more than just Israel’s laws and history, it is a “blueprint for creation.” For support he cites Chapter 5 of the Sifra DiTzniuta by Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, commonly known as Vilna Gaon, an influential rabbi who died in 1797.
The rule is that all that was, is, and will be until the end of time is included in the Torah from the first verse of Genesis until the last verse of Deuteronomy. And not merely in a general sense - but including the details of every species and of each person individually - and the most minute details of everything that happened to him - from the day of his birth until his death.[11]
Gluckin describes the “Torah Codes” as an example of such minute knowledge. He explains that, encoded in the Torah, there are words, important words that anticipate the future in very specific ways, predictions that are statistically improbable and unexplainable without a divine source. Many codes are based on a notion of an “equidistant letter sequence” (ELS), words hidden in the Torah using letters spaced an equal distance apart. For example, the Hebrew word for Torah (תוֹרָה) can be recovered from Genesis by finding the letter Tav (ת) and then counting forward fifty letters, ignoring spaces, to find the second letter, Vav (וֹ). Two more letters and you’ve recovered the entire word (תוֹרָה).
Finding an ELS is not remarkable. Given a large corpus like the Torah it’s possible to find many, perhaps any Hebrew word. The odds grow smaller, however, for patterns and groups of words. As an example, Gluckin explains how the word for Torah is encoded in a similar way in four of the five books of the Torah. He describes the work of Eliyahu Rips, a professor of mathematics at Hebrew University, who around 1970 started using a computer to search the Torah and other Hebrew texts for ELSs. Rips collaborated with Doron Witztum, another scholar from Hebrew University. Rips and Witztum found names of important rabbis from Jewish history encoded in the Torah in proximity to their birth and death dates. They constructed experiments, based on independent sources, for creating such a list of rabbis, and evaluating the statistical significance of the embeddings they found. They submitted their results to the academic journal Statistical Science. Editors there had concerns with their draft. Stanford statistician Persi Diaconis was consulted. Additional experiments were proposed, including control cases using Hebrew translations of War and Peace and Moby Dick. After more experiments and substantial engagement with editors and reviewers, Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg published the article “Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis” in Statistical Science in 1994.[12] Unsurprisingly the paper provoked controversy and numerous rebuttals. Other more provocative ELS clusters are documented on Web sites like torahcode.us. Gluckin cites proximity of terms like “Hitler,” “Nazi” and “Berlin,'' or “Twin,” “Towers” and September 11 written as a Hebrew date.
Rabbi Gaon’s claim that the Torah encodes all that will be until the end of time is impossible absent divine intervention. Some faithful Jews believe the Torah Codes are evidence of the supernatural essence of the text. This is among the boldest arguments by which devout believers assert the divine source of the Torah. However, Mosaic authorship is not a preoccupation for all practicing Jews and Christians. While it was a core belief during more than a millennium of medieval practice, many religious moderates do not insist on the divine source of sacred scripture. A modern perspective that bridges the gap between divine source and secular history is divine inspiration, that humans worked under the influence of God to create a text that, while imperfect, provides sincere and trustworthy guidance to the faithful. Also note that religions vary regarding rigidity of beliefs. Islam and Judaism place a greater emphasis on practice, for example diet and prayer, with somewhat less dogma regarding core beliefs.[13]
In practice, achieving an objective view of antiquity is not easy. Challenges include the prism of modern culture and the distortions that accumulate over centuries of human civilization. This discussion of biblical authorship reflects modern information culture, a phenomena with multiple distinct facets. Modern culture is invested in the notion of authorship and originality as a requirement for legitimacy. We commonly imagine that authentic intent exists exclusively in the original author, and that subsequent derivative works are inferior and even corrupt. For example, we systematically prejudice against plagiarism and copyright violation. This prejudice is modern, rarely considered prior to the emergence of copyright law. In the time of Moses copying was expected, and the only way anything could be published at all. In their textbook An Introduction to the Bible, David Carr and Colleen Conway explain that our expectations of specific dates and authorship, as part of our culture of books, is likely out-of-step with the ancient Hebrew perspective.[14] Carr and Conway observe that some instances of “doublets” in the Torah, narrative repetition or redundancy, differ in vocabulary or writing style in ways that indicate different periods or authors. What to us seems repetitive and archaic in translated 2000 year old scripture may in part represent authors over the years adapting the work for later audiences, revisions that likely increased the relevance of the text in their time. A modern reader of English can experience this difficulty first-hand by considering Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.[15]
“Torah” (תוֹרָה) in Hebrew can mean “law” but it can also mean “teaching,” or refer specifically to the Torah scrolls. The details from the Torah were useful as examples because they demonstrate a pattern: a designated corpus of text that unifies a group of adherents who use it as a canon of organizing principles, principles they are prepared to defend with their lives. That act of trust and belief enables a community and their beliefs to scale across distance and time. The Torah demonstrates the precedent of a canon of holy scripture providing the foundation for a monotheistic religion that unifies people across the globe. It also represents the integrity of authorship as personified by Moses. It demonstrates a pattern that is echoed by other religions and societies throughout history up to and including our current day. This pattern is not limited to religious texts. It’s echoed in the U.S. Constitution, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It supports more mundane documents too, like the Federal Aviation Administration’s IR-M 8040-1C, Airworthiness Directives Manual and the California Building Standards Code. It supports The Book of Mormon, and Zhuan Falun, and Scientology, the Fundamentals of Thought. It was applied by proponents of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, by Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and by Le Grand Replacement by Renaud Camus. The pattern of commitment to guiding principles embodied by a written text is a basic means by which literate societies scale organizations and movements in space and time.
The precedent of Moses and the Torah also demonstrates patterns in society. It demonstrates the pattern of theocracy. It demonstrates how race and gender divide the peoples of a region, and how they enable a society to rationalize inequality and violence. It also demonstrates tolerance, hospitality and generosity.
The pattern represented by Judaism, where a canon of sacred scripture provides the foundation for a monotheistic religion, was repeated in the millennia that followed to create institutions and beliefs with tremendous import for society, politics and conflict in our time. Note that this pattern did not begin with Judaism, which was not the first monotheistic religion. In Egypt, Pharaoh Amenhotep IV attempted to establish monotheism by decree circa 1348 BCE, curiously close to the time of Moses, but his preferences were rejected by his successors. Evidence suggests Zoroastrianism started in Persia 700 years earlier. Regardless of whether you see such canon as an act of God or an act of humans, the confidence placed by society in the integrity of such a text represents an enormous cultural investment, and tremendous momentum behind the notion that the greatest truths are to be found in books.
APPENDIX: The Great Divide
This material helps to complete a discussion of religion, but is out of place in this chapter on information integrity. For now it’s here for readers interested in modern interpretation of the Torah.
If the reception of the Bible by ancient readers was not identical to our own, then how did they receive it? To unwind the layers of culture and interpretation that color our perception of scripture, we need to extrapolate through multiple profound cultural transformations, transformations we will explore in later chapters. They include copyright, authorship, publishing, canonization, and the steady hands of the scribes, typically serving in a religious order, scribes directly responsible for maintaining the ancient texts we know today.
We also need to see beyond high literacy rates, recognizing literacy rates in ancient times were commonly in the low single digits. The practical importance of the literal text to an illiterate congregation would be very different from a modern literate congregant. This reality is acknowledged in Deuteronomy 11:18-20, when Moses tells his people:
18 “You shall therefore take these words of mine to heart and to soul; and you shall tie them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets on your forehead.
19 “You shall also teach them to your sons, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up.
20 “And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,
This passage affirms the reality that, prior to the modern era, the Torah and the Bible were more commonly memorized, iconified and objectified, not read. This phenomena is reflected in the rarity of books in pre-modern times, and in the distance maintained by the Roman Catholic Church prior to Luther between the Bible and the congregation. In our time it is reflected in how the most sacred copies of the Torah are scrolls of parchment.
In The Closed Book, Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg exposes the evolution of the practice of actually reading scripture.[16] As Wollenberg explains, “many early rabbinic authorities liked the idea of the Bible but were less enthusiastic about the actual biblical text itself.”[17] She explicates the great divide theory of biblical studies, perhaps the original culture war, between those who took a pragmatic, academic view to the text of the Bible, and those who saw it, in the words of Professor James Kugel, “as an utterly consistent, seamless, perfect book.”[18] This divide is a relatively modern invention, manifested by the Documentary Hypothesis, and less relevant to preliterate culture. Wollenberg describes how early rabbis likely did not practice our scholarly approach to the text. As she explains, “classical rabbinic authorities primarily engaged with the Hebrew Bible as a series of memorized formulas in quotidian practice”[19] Her work documents the reservations about the Bible expressed by earlier authorities, and how they struggled with its many oddities and contradictions.
Our continuous immersion in modern culture makes it hard to recognize how religion permeates and shapes modern thinking. In his book Divine Teaching & the Way of the World, Samuel Fleischacker argues for the continued relevance of religion in our time, building a conceptual framework for recognizing how religion has shaped society over time.[20] He explains the concept of the “revealed religion,” a religion based on the premise of ignorant humankind that achieves knowledge of spiritual and moral truth by means of a supernatural intervention or influence, commonly manifested as a book. Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism all demonstrate this pattern. As explained by Fleischacker, such divine revelation is at odds with the intellectual culture of the pre-modern European Enlightenment, which asserted the contrary belief that everything we see, experience and know can be explained through science and reason. Fleischacker cites the notion of “enthusiasm” in the Enlightenment sense, the maintenance of beliefs that while fervent lack basis in objective reality. This meaning of “enthusiasm” derives from the Greek enthous (ενθουσιώδης) meaning “possessed by a god,” in this derogatory context implying excessive zeal. While acknowledging the historical connection of enthusiasm to revealed religion, and endorsing Enlightenment thinkers like Immanuel Kant and Adam Smith in their critique of enthusiasm, Fleischacker argues that the viability of revealed religion in our time requires that it be tempered by scientific and rational skepticism. In his words:
The point is to defend faith while being alert to the danger that it can arise out of, or be mixed with, a state of fear or arrogance or madness—to defend a faith consonant with decency and moderation: with what the Jewish tradition calls derekh eretz.[21]
In this context, derekh eretz is a Hebrew term referring to “the way of the world,” a concept of secular morality with historical precedence in Jewish culture. Fleischacker explains how religious tolerance is practically impossible without a robust secular notion of morality. He argues that revealed religion and secular morality are compatible in a modern, rational, humanist context. He explains, with examples from Jewish history, how such a secular morality is consistent with Judaism, and how sacred beliefs can harmonize with such a rational morality without acquiring the weaknesses of irrational beliefs. This notion of revealed religion also exposes a belief among the faithful regarding the nature of God. It implies that God created humanity in his image not only in terms of physiology but also intellectually, as a producer and consumer of information. This belief that God acts through writing, and in the integrity of God’s words, has profound influence on how written word is received by society, and has roots in the Torah.
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[1]Gluckin, Tzvi. Discover This: Who Wrote the Torah and How Do You Know? Israel, Mekabel Press, 2010.
[2]1 Samuel 6:19.
[3]1 Samuel 7:14
[4]Exodus 32:31-32 cited from the New American Standard Bible on crosswire.org
[5]Documents in this era were typically on scrolls of papyrus or parchment. The book format would not be invented for another thousand years. See the discussion of the codex in Chapter 9.
[6] Carr, David M., and Conway, Colleen M. An Introduction to the Bible: Sacred Texts and Imperial Contexts. West Sussex, United Kingdom, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. p 123.
[7]Carr and Conway 2010. These approximate dates are from the “Basics” boxes indexed on pages x-xi.
[8]Tawil, Hayim, and Schneider, Bernard. Crown of Aleppo: The Mystery of the Oldest Hebrew Bible Codex. United States, Jewish Publication Society, 2010, pp 113-114. archive.org.
Also Breuer, Mordechai, Keter Aram Tsova veha Nusah haMekubal shel ha Mikra (The Aleppo Codex and the Accepted Text of the Bible). Jerusalem, Kook, 1976.
[9]Gluckin 2010, p 98.
[10]Gluckin 2010, p 13.
[11]Gluckin 2010, p 36.
[12]Witztum, Doron, Eliyahu Rips, and Yoav Rosenberg, “Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis,” Statistical Science, Volume 9, Number 3, August 1994, pp 429–438. https://users.cecs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/WRR94.pdf and archive.org
[13]Denny, Frederick M., “Orthopraxy in Islam and Judaism: Convictions and Categories,” in Studies in Islamic and Judaic Traditions: Papers Presented at the Institute for Islamic-Judaic Studies, Volume 2, Center for Judaic Studies, University of Denver. United States, Scholars Press, 1986. pp. 83-95.
[14]Carr and Conway 2010, 111.
[15]Chaucer, Geoffrey and Thomas Tyrwhitt, The Canterbury Tales, New York, Appleton & Company, 1870.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/cQlEAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP7
[16]Wollenberg, Rebecca Scharbach. The Closed Book: How the Rabbis Taught the Jews (Not) to Read the Bible, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2023.
[17]Wollenberg, Rebecca Scharbach. “How the Rabbis Taught the Jews (Not) to Read the Bible.” ANCIENT JEW REVIEW, MAY 31, 2023. Online at https://www.ancientjewreview.com/read/2023/5/31/how-the-rabbis-taught-the-jews-not-to-read-the-bible and archive.org.
[18]Kugel, James L. How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now. New York, Simon & Schuster, 2007, p. 15.
[19]Wollenberg 2023, The Closed Book, p 14.
[20]Fleischacker, Samuel. Divine Teaching and the Way of the World: A Defense of Revealed Religion. United Kingdom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011.
[21]Fleischacker 2011, p 9.