Tuesday, July 08, 2008

The Documentary Hypothesis vs. Orthodox Tradition

New blog Three Jews, Four Opinions is starting what promises to be an interesting project.
I am formally launching the Torah Min Hashamayim / Documentary Hypothesis Project. In a very long-term ongoing series of blog posts, I will comprehensively examine and analyze, in detail, the arguments for and against both Torah Min Hashamayim [Torah from Heaven] and the Documentary Hypothesis. I have been meaning to do this for myself for a long time, and this blog will provide a good opportunity to do so.


As I argued in a comment to a previous post, attacking this problem formally is a little silly, considering the intellectual bankruptcy of the TMH position. It's a little like opening up a serious project to examine evolution vs. young-Earth creationism. If people were going to be convinced by the preponderance of evidence, they wouldn't believe in TMH to begin with.

But it should be fun and informative reading.

Previously: Who Wrote the Bible?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am surprised by your rather unrealistic comparison of anti-documentary hypothesis opinions to something as insane as christian/jewish creationism.

Don't get me wrong. I don't believe for a second the common Jewish myth that Moshe wrote the totality of the Torah and I do believe that Rabbis over the centuries have added their own tidbits to it. But I also believe that the structure of documentary hypothesis is based purely on conjecture.

You seem to have an axe to grind against Judaism because it has hurt you so badly, and I fear it is the cause of your obvious lack of objectivity in this matter.

Jewish Atheist said...

I am surprised by your rather unrealistic comparison of anti-documentary hypothesis opinions to something as insane as christian/jewish creationism.

I intended to compare creationism to believing in TMH, not to simply disbelieving the DH. Obviously, the DH may be partially or completely untrue. TMH, on the other hand, is plainly false.

asher said...

So it's either given by God or it's not. However, TMH is plainly false cause you said so. This is really going to be an very open-minded discussion. "The law is always false when the judge has made up his mind before the case begins" from Ivanhoe.