Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Where is Matan Torah, Moshe, and the laws of the Torah in נ"ך?

The surprising answer is almost completely missing. If you read through Tanach the story of Matan Torah as well as references to Moshe and his Torah are basically ignored/non-existent.

If you look at Neviim Rishonim, it is completely absent. For example, In יהושע פרק כ"ד Yehoshua details the history of the Jewish people starting with Terach (this is famous from the Hagadda). He mentions יציאת מצרים and קריעת ים סוף and fact that the Jewish people were in the desert for a long time. However, what is conspicuously absent is any mention of Matan Torah. The biggest event in Jewish history, the reason for יציאת מצרים, in fact the reason for the creation of the world, and it's simply skipped over and not mentioned. Shmuel also (פרק י"ב) gives a short history lesson and again he mentions יציאת מצרים but leaves out completely Matan Torah.

When Shmuel refers to laws he never makes any mention of Moshe or Matan Torah. For example, after Shmuel appoints Shaul as King, he writes down the laws of the King and places it before Hashem (שמואל א י:כ"ה). The laws of a King are written in the Torah in Sefer Devarim yet Shmuel makes no mention of them and it sounds like he wrote his own version. Similarly, when Shmuel commands Shaul to go to war with Amalek and destory them, there is no reference to the Biblical commandment from the Torah in Devarim. Rather Shmuel commands Shaul to destroy Amalek based on a Nevua that he Shmuel received.

If we look at the later Neviim we find the same absence of Matan Torah. Yishayahu mentions it zero times in his work. Yirmiyahu mentions it zero times.  You would think that Yirmiyahu, when trying to convince the Jewish people not to worship avoda zara would mention Matan Torah and the עשרת הדברות and the prohibition of idolatry.

Similarly if we look at Yechezkel (פרק מ - מ"ח) we find that Yechezkel lists many laws that are in the Torah and some that contradict the Torah (for example that a Kohen can't marry a widow from a non-Kohen) without ever referencing the fact these laws came from Moshe and Matan Torah.

If we look at Zecharya (פרק ז:י"ב) we see a similar idea. He writes:
ולבם שמו שמיר משמוע את התורה ואת הדברים אשר שלח ה' צבאות ברוחו ביד הנביאים הראשונים ...
They made their hearts into stone lest they should hear the law and the words which Hashem had sent by his spirit in the hand of the first prophets ...

Zecharya attributes the laws of Hashem not to Moshe, but rather to the first prophets. We see that Zecharya seemingly did not believe in Toras Moshe, but rather believed that all the prophets had a hand in relaying the laws from Hashem.

Similarly if we look at Tehillim, which according to tradition was written by King David, it makes no mention of Matan Torah. In fact Tehillim refers to Moshe as a Kohen (משה ואהרן בכהניו ושמואל בקוראי שמו) not as the person who gave the Torah.

The clear and obvious conclusion is that during the period of the first Beis Hamikdash, the overwhelming majority of the Jewish people were unaware of Matan Torah, Moshe Rabenu as lawgiver and Torah in general. In contrast, we see that the story of יציאת מצרים was well known. The implications are clear.

15 comments:

  1. Dear Questions,

    You're in luck! I am a Jew With Answers! Really. Please check out my blog, in particular my little book advertised in the first post.

    http://www.torahphilosophy.com/

    Good luck.

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    1. I don't see any answers to the specific questions I am asking

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    2. High are doing Jewish Philosopher Jacob Stein ?

      I have seen your blog and we have had discussions, but for the most part the type of questions presented by AJWQ are different that the types your blog and I assume your book addresses.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Regarding this particular question, Hemingway never mentions the American Revolution or the US Constitution. Why not?

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    1. We're the Neviim writing fiction? Did Hemingway write about the history of America? Yehoshua detailed the history of the Jews only leaving out Matan Torah. Explain that.

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  3. AJWQ - I just discovered your blog about 30 minutes ago thru a link at Kefirahoftheweek. Frum people have told me how 'Judaism' is internally consistent. When pressed they could not explain what they meant by that, they just said it was. I encourage you to keep up your excellent blogging and questioning up. You are providing some insights and information that probably has not been written up by anybody, making it a significant contribution to the discussion.

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    1. Thanks for the encouragement. This is exactly why I am blogging about what I call internal questions because I feel I have what to contribute as opposed to the more standard science Torah questions.

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    2. If you could spread the word about the blog I would really appreciate it

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    3. Halacha is more or less internally consistent, becuase like most legal systems it relies on precedent to maintain consistency. Tanach is not at all consistent, but if you accept the fixes that thousands of years worth of clever people came up with, then it is.

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  4. @AJWQ - check out Kefirah of the weeks post on the Kuzari - he raises some of the same issues. http://kefirahoftheweek.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-modern-kuzari-argument.html

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  5. A piece of evidence can support a hypothesis or support some other hypothesis. If the historical sources you cited mentioned Torah from Sinai it would at least weigh in as supporting Torah from Sinai (TMS), at least as it being a very ancient tradition. The fact is the sources do not mention TMS and that lack is a strike against the TMS hypothesis.

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    1. I made the mistake of pointing this out on a frum forum (writing in my frum disguise) and was met with shock and horror at how I could say something like that, I was destroying people's emuna. I chose (wisely I believe) to not respond as I would like to continue on that forum commenting as a frum Jew.

      What a double life I lead.

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  6. Biblical scholars are of the opinion that parts of the Chumash and the earlier neviim were written around the same time, as they express similar ideas and use similar language.

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