As Rabbis Face Facts, Bible Tales Are Wilting

braham, the Jewish patriarch, probably never existed. Nor did Moses. The entire Exodus story as recounted in the Bible probably never occurred. The same is true of the tumbling of the walls of Jericho. And David, far from being the fearless king who built Jerusalem into a mighty capital, was more likely a provincial leader whose reputation was later magnified to provide a rallying point for a fledgling nation.

Such startling propositions — the product of findings by archaeologists digging in Israel and its environs over the last 25 years — have gained wide acceptance among non- Orthodox rabbis. But there has been no attempt to disseminate these ideas or to discuss them with the laity — until now.

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which represents the 1.5 million Conservative Jews in the United States, has just issued a new Torah and commentary, the first for Conservatives in more than 60 years. Called "Etz Hayim" ("Tree of Life" in Hebrew), it offers an interpretation that incorporates the latest findings from archaeology, philology, anthropology and the study of ancient cultures. To the editors who worked on the book, it represents one of the boldest efforts ever to introduce into the religious mainstream a view of the Bible as a human rather than divine document.

"When I grew up in Brooklyn, congregants were not sophisticated about anything," said Rabbi Harold Kushner, the author of "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" and a co-editor of the new book. "Today, they are very sophisticated and well read about psychology, literature and history, but they are locked in a childish version of the Bible."

"Etz Hayim," compiled by David Lieber of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, seeks to change that. It offers the standard Hebrew text, a parallel English translation (edited by Chaim Potok, best known as the author of "The Chosen"), a page-by-page exegesis, periodic commentaries on Jewish practice and, at the end, 41 essays by prominent rabbis and scholars on topics ranging from the Torah scroll and dietary laws to ecology and eschatology.

These essays, perused during uninspired sermons or Torah readings at Sabbath services, will no doubt surprise many congregants. For instance, an essay on Ancient Near Eastern Mythology," by Robert Wexler, president of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, states that on the basis of modern scholarship, it seems unlikely that the story of Genesis originated in Palestine. More likely, Mr. Wexler says, it arose in Mesopotamia, the influence of which is most apparent in the story of the Flood, which probably grew out of the periodic overflowing of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The story of Noah, Mr. Wexler adds, was probably borrowed from the Mesopotamian epic Gilgamesh.

Equally striking for many readers will be the essay "Biblical Archaeology," by Lee I. Levine, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "There is no reference in Egyptian sources to Israel's sojourn in that country," he writes, "and the evidence that does exist is negligible and indirect." The few indirect pieces of evidence, like the use of Egyptian names, he adds, "are far from adequate to corroborate the historicity of the biblical account."

Similarly ambiguous, Mr. Levine writes, is the evidence of the conquest and settlement of Canaan, the ancient name for the area including Israel. Excavations showing that Jericho was unwalled and uninhabited, he says, "clearly seem to contradict the violent and complete conquest portrayed in the Book of Joshua." What's more, he says, there is an "almost total absence of archaeological evidence" backing up the Bible's grand descriptions of the Jerusalem of David and Solomon.

The notion that the Bible is not literally true "is more or less settled and understood among most Conservative rabbis," observed David Wolpe, a rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and a contributor to "Etz Hayim." But some congregants, he said, "may not like the stark airing of it." Last Passover, in a sermon to 2,200 congregants at his synagogue, Rabbi Wolpe frankly said that "virtually every modern archaeologist" agrees "that the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way that it happened, if it happened at all." The rabbi offered what he called a "litany of disillusion" about the narrative, including contradictions, improbabilities, chronological lapses and the absence of corroborating evidence. In fact, he said, archaeologists digging in the Sinai have "found no trace of the tribes of Israel — not one shard of pottery."

The reaction to the rabbi's talk ranged from admiration at his courage to dismay at his timing to anger at his audacity. Reported in Jewish publications around the world, the sermon brought him a flood of letters accusing him of undermining the most fundamental teachings of Judaism. But he also received many messages of support. "I can't tell you how many rabbis called me, e- mailed me and wrote me, saying, `God bless you for saying what we all believe,' " Rabbi Wolpe said. He attributes the "explosion" set off by his sermon to "the reluctance of rabbis to say what they really believe."

Before the introduction of "Etz Hayim," the Conservative movement relied on the Torah commentary of Joseph Hertz, the chief rabbi of the British Commonwealth. By 1936, when it was issued, the Hebrew Bible had come under intense scrutiny from scholars like Julius Wellhausen of Germany, who raised many questions about the text's authorship and accuracy. Hertz, working in an era of rampant anti-Semitism and of Christian efforts to demonstrate the inferiority of the "Old" Testament to the "New," dismissed all doubts about the integrity of the text.

Maintaining that no people would have invented for themselves so "disgraceful" a past as that of being slaves in a foreign land, he wrote that "of all Oriental chronicles, it is only the Biblical annals that deserve the name of history."

The Hertz approach had little competition until 1981, when the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the official arm of Reform Judaism, published its own Torah commentary. Edited by Rabbi Gunther Plaut, it took note of the growing body of archaeological and textual evidence that called the accuracy of the biblical account into question. The "tales" of Genesis, it flatly stated, were a mix of "myth, legend, distant memory and search for origins, bound together by the strands of a central theological concept." But Exodus, it insisted, belonged in "the realm of history." While there are scholars who consider the Exodus story to be "folk tales," the commentary observed, "this is a minority view."

Twenty years later, the weight of scholarly evidence questioning the Exodus narrative had become so great that the minority view had become the majority one.

Not among Orthodox Jews, however. They continue to regard the Torah as the divine and immutable word of God. Their most widely used Torah commentary, known as the Stone Edition (1993), declares in its introduction "that every letter and word of the Torah was given to Moses by God."

Lawrence Schiffman, a professor at New York University and an Orthodox Jew, said that "Etz Hayim" goes so far in accepting modern scholarship that, without realizing it, it ends up being in "nihilistic opposition" to what Conservative Jews stand for. He noted, however, that most of the questions about the Bible's accuracy had been tucked away discreetly in the back. "The average synagogue-goer is never going to look there," he said.

Even some Conservative rabbis feel uncomfortable with the depth of the doubting. "I think the basic historicity of the text is valid and verifiable," said Susan Grossman, the rabbi of Beth Shalom Congregation in Columbia, Md., and a co-editor of "Etz Hayim." As for the mounting archaeological evidence suggesting the contrary, Rabbi Grossman said: "There's no evidence that it didn't happen. Most of the `evidence' is evidence from silence."

"The real issue for me is the eternal truths that are in the text," she added. "How do we apply this hallowed text to the 21st century?" One way, she said, is to make it more relevant to women. Rabbi Grossman is one of many women who worked on "Etz Hayim," in an effort to temper the Bible's heavily patriarchal orientation and make the text more palatable to modern readers. For example, the passage in Genesis that describes how the aged Sarah laughed upon hearing God say that she would bear a son is traditionally interpreted as a laugh of incredulity. In its commentary, however, "Etz Hayim" suggests that her laughter "may not be a response to the far- fetched notion of pregnancy at an advanced age, but the laughter of delight at the prospect of two elderly people resuming marital intimacy."

In a project of such complexity, there were inevitably many points of disagreement. But Rabbi Kushner says the only one that eluded resolution concerned Leviticus 18:22: "Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence." "We couldn't come to a formulation that we could all be comfortable with," the rabbi said. "Some people felt that homosexuality is wrong. We weren't prepared to embrace that as the Conservative position. But at the same time we couldn't say this is a mentality that has been disproved by contemporary biology, for not everyone was prepared to go along with that." Ultimately, the editors settled on an anodyne compromise, noting that the Torah's prohibitions on homosexual relations "have engendered considerable debate" and that Conservative synagogues should "welcome gay and lesbian congregants in all congregational activities."

Since the fall, when "Etz Hayim" was issued, more than 100,000 copies have been sold. Eventually, it is expected to become the standard Bible in the nation's 760 Conservative synagogues.

Mark S. Smith, a professor of Bible and Near Eastern Studies at New York University, noted that the Hertz commentary had lasted 65 years. "That's incredible," he said. "If `Etz Hayim' isn't around for 50 years or more, I'd be surprised."

Apotheosis can occur at a much humbler level. Indeed, most of history is just such a thing. If all the history books were burned, and a scholars raised who knew nothing of what happened before, say, 1500, and who were assigned the task of reconstructing the history of the world before that time, with only compemporary documents or the surviving archaelogical evidences at their disposal, then the product of this commission might be radically different from the history we have today. But as for an agenda: when one starts with the "'taint necessarily so" to supernatural events, then one is assuming that it doesn't, and all one's weighing of evidence, and even one's conclusions, flow from that assumption. In short, the Rabbi has converted to a new faith, one more profoundly different from Judaism than Paul's faith, that of the Enlightenment.

I read this article in the printed NYT this morning.

I was wondering why apparently none of the 45 essays reflected a more traditional view. They say there is no Egyptian evidence for the Exodus, and I would say that there is only no Egyptian evidence for the Exodus if one ignores the evidence that does exist. In Ages in Chaos Immanual Velikovsky discusses this evidence which includes an Egypian papyrus (in a museum in Leyden, I think) that essentially describes the same plagues as the Biblical version does.

They also say there is no or little archeological evidence for the Bible, and imply that there is contradictory evidence. It's too bad they don't explain this at all. I have a book on my shelf entitled Understanding the Bible through History and Archeology that I thought mostly confirmed Biblical accounts. Maybe I didn't read it closely enough?

"Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence." "We couldn't come to a formulation that we could all be comfortable with," the rabbi said. Translation: We are here reinventing the Bible in our own image. We could flim-flam our way through almost everything but it would be so obvious that we were frauds if we condoned homosexuality.

It's "uncomfortable" for a thief not to steal. The Bible is not about what is comfortable. If doing what we each felt was comfortable we wouldn't need any Laws at all.

ML/NJ

It's sad to see happening to Judaism what was attempted on Christianity back in the 19th century. It's just as baseless. The historical veracity of the Old Testament (as well as New Testament documents) is more adequately verified now than at any point in the past couple millennia or so (and about a century too late for the debunking movement since it was in full force before the advent of modern archaeology and hasn't bothered to change its tune even though, as a result, it has only bloody stumps left for legs).

First the gender neutral Bible, now this. They never give up and neither can we. These kind of people have a great fear and an emptiness

Validation

Where are they?
a brief note in history
guilty of murdering
the great man of mystery

There are others
who would do the same
to those preaching in His name

Like a dream they have faded away
chased away as a vision of the night
never again to see the light
His memory lives on to this day

Their triumph was shortlived
their joy only for a moment
they linger in their graves
with souls long dormant

while His words live on
theirs long gone
He wears the Crown
preached from town to town

It's a battle they can't win
but they refuse to cease
their wickedness and sin
their bodies will be fed to the beasts

Souls destined for the Lake of Fire
along with the Great Liar

Jericho was uninhabited and unwalled during the time when the Hebrews supposedly crossed over from the Jordan; had been that way for several centuries.

Ha ha ha. Obviously, if the Hebrews went through there and it was inhabited, then the dating system is off. And of course, this is what has happened. The earlier date of exodus is both consistent with Biblical chronology as well as with the archaeology. However, when one is dealing with ancient records which were more or less contemporaneous with the events they describe and there appears to be a discrepancy with a modern archeological interpretations, the benefit of the doubt is given to the ancient source. It is more likely to be correct; the modern spin, suffering from a lack of information. This has been demonstrated numerous times.

This is complete garbage.

The treatment of Exodus is a prime example. The biblical date for Exodus is 1461 B.C. The archologists say the assumed date is 1200; they then say there is no evidence for occupation of Israel in 1200; no evidence of a destruction of Jericho in 1200; and no evidence of the Israelites in Egypt or leaving Egypt in that time frame; therefore no Exodus.

If you back the event up to the biblical date on the other hand, first thing you find is a destruction of Jericho in which the walls fall outward at the end of the 15th Century B.C. You find capitive second nation labor in Egypt in the early 15th Century and late 16th Century; and you find writing of plagues that look like the biblical description at the middle of the 15th Century exactly where the bible says you should find them. The real archological evidence is there on and in the ground--the problem is that the archologists are antigonistic to the Bible and to God and do not want to find it.

Archeologists also contended there was no written language at the time the Torah was was alledged to be written... then they found Hamarabi's code. They also said there was no name Abraham during the time of Abaham's life... then they found and inscription on stone with the name Abram pre-dating the Biblical Abraham. They used to say there was no city of Ur until they found evidence and changed their mind. They said all the Gospels were written in the second or third century, until they found manuscripts dating from the first century. I'm certain the myth of no Jericho will be debunked with time.

It was this name that stopped me and convinced me to post this article. I read "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" at a low point in my life and found it comforting

Sorry but that is a really bad deceptive book. If you would permit me to suggest some alternatives.
Surprised by Suffering by R.C. Sproul
Disappointed with God by Philip Yancy.
In fact Philip Yancy has written several great books like The Gift of Pain, When Life Hurts.

Also here is an article by Ron Rhodes that you might by interesting.

Where is the BARF Alert?

Hardly called for. This critical (incl self-critical), rationalizing, demythologizing bent of Judaism and Christianity is a good thing, and an important part of what has made them reformist religions, ultimately contributing crucially to the development of Western Civilization and the preservation of its key values. This is what we want to also be occuring within Islam. Or would you prefer that conservative Judaism was more like conservative Islam?

This has been going on for centuries; typically lethargic, the NYT has just only happened to have learned about it. Observe:

Celsus, being of opinion that there is to be found among many nations a general relationship of doctrine, enumerates all the nations which gave rise to such and such opinions; but for some reason, unknown to me, he casts a slight upon the Jews, not including them amongst the others, as having either laboured along with them, and arrived at the same conclusions, or as having entertained similar opinions on many subjects. It is proper, therefore, to ask him why he gives credence to the histories of Barbarians and Greeks respecting the antiquity of those nations of whom he speaks, but stamps the histories of this nation alone as false. For if the respective writers related the events which are found in these works in the spirit of truth, why should we distrust the prophets of the Jews alone? And if Moses and the prophets have recorded many things in their history from a desire to favour their own system, why should we not say the same of the historians of other countries? Or, when the Egyptians or their histories speak evil of the Jews, are they to be believed on that point; but the Jews, when saying the same things of the Egyptians, and declaring that they had suffered great injustice at their hands, and that on this account they had been punished by God, are to be charged with falsehood? And this applies not to the Egyptians alone, but to others; for we shall find that there was a connection between the Assyrians and the Jews, and that this is recorded in the ancient histories of the Assyrians. And so also the Jewish historians (I avoid using the word "prophets," that I may not appear to prejudge the case) have related that the Assyrians were enemies of the Jews. Observe at once, then, the arbitrary procedure of this individual, who believes the histories of these nations on the ground of their being learned, and condemns others as being wholly ignorant. For listen to the statement of Celsus: "There is," he says, "an authoritative account from the very beginning, respecting which there is a constant agreement among all the most learned nations, and cities, and men." And yet he will not call the Jews a learned nation in the same way in which he does the Egyptians, and Assyrians, and Indians, and Persians, and Odrysians, and Samothracians, and Eleusinians.
-Origen, "Against Celsus," Third Century AD

PBS once aired "Testament: the Bible and History," in which the British scholar John Romer examined the roots of the Old Testament and the degree of correspondence between biblical text and archaeological evidence. That and Joseph Campbell were all I needed to have an epiphany about the 3 middle eastern religions.

Now what is myth? The dictionary definition of a myth would be stories about gods. So then you have to ask the next question. What is a god?
--Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Amazing. 'Religious' Jewish scholars abandoning the basis of their 'faith' (in what?) and calling God a fraud (in scholarly terms, of course) while they pat the still-faithful on the head and offer a patronizing smile while they, now proven to be enlightened and progressive, (quietly) become their own god.

This "Etz Hayim" sounds exactly like the atheist arguments that always refer to the bible as 'myth' and 'fairy-tales unsupported by the historical record'. Blah blah blah.

Puny little mortal men, stroking their chins and solemnly declaring that God was a fraud while they breath at His pleasure and yet, declare themselves more knowledgable and wise than the living God that made them.
Sad, tragic and ultimately destructive to many that will jump on the anti-faith bandwagon with them.

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As Rabbis Face Facts, Bible Tales Are Wilting

By MICHAEL MASSING