Language:
English
Year of publication:
2020
Titel der Quelle:
The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Theology
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2020) 423-452
Keywords:
Maimonides, Moses, Criticism and interpretation
;
Bible Philosophy
;
Judaism Doctrines
;
God (Judaism)
Abstract:
Does the idea that a text might express God’s will make any sense in the modern world? Modern Jewish theology, in part under the impetus of modern biblical criticism, has overwhelmingly moved toward a view of God as beyond speech, and of the Torah, correspondingly, as the record of various human beings’ attempts to figure out what God might want of them, rather than a divine intervention into human affairs. If any human/divine encounter lies behind the Torah, it is thought, that encounter can be conceived only as a silent, ineffable I-Thou moment. The Torah cannot literally be God’s word; that is at best a rough metaphor.This essay attempts to bring out the motivations for the above view and then, wholly, to upend it — from a perspective as committed to the accuracy of modern Biblical criticism, and to a progressive understanding of God and halacha, as that of those who uphold it. Maimonides says that we should see every verse and every letter of the Torah as “contain[ing] within it wisdom and wonders to whomever the Lord has granted the wisdom to discern it” — as, in a robust sense, divine. “In Defense of Verbal Revelation” recuperates a modern, progressive version of Maimonides’ view.
DOI:
10.1017/9781108233705.018
URL:
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