Proofs for the Oral Law [local], by Gil Student, is a comprehensive defense of the Oral Law. It sets out to prove that, on Mt. Sinai, God gave Moses an Oral Torah, that is, a Torah that was not to be written down, but rather passed down orally. I like the article because it gives many proofs of the Oral Law in one convenient place. The article is divided into sections, each containing several proofs, with 21 proofs in all. The sections of the article are:
Whether or not an Oral Law was given is very important, both from a theological and a practical point of view. Many people don't realize this, but much of what today is called traditional or Orthodox Judaism is based on the Oral Law.
In this series of Disproofs articles, I hope to go through each one of Student's 21 points and show that they do not actually prove that God gave an Oral Law. I also plan to look at other proofs, if I can find them.
Theoretical Proofs
1. R. Yosef Albo [Sefer HaIkkarim, 3:23] offers the following philosophical proof for the existence of an oral law. R. Albo states that a perfect text must, by definition, be totally unambiguous and not require any additional information to be understood. Since the Torah is called perfect [Psalms 19:8], the Torah must not have any ambiguities. However, it does have ambiguities. For example, the verse [Deut. 6:4] "Hear O Israel! The L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is one" is understood by Jews to imply absolute monotheism while it is understood by Christians to imply a trinity. How can a perfect Torah contain ambiguity? Only if the Torah includes an oral explanation that clarifies all ambiguities can it be called perfect [cf. Maimonides, Moreh Nevuchim, 1:71]. Therefore, R. Albo states, there must have been an oral tradition transmitted along with the written Torah.
1. Where does R. Albo get his definition of a "perfect text"? What does it mean to be "unambiguous"? A text might be ambiguous to some but not to others.
2. Everything requires additional information to be understood. Any text must be understood in its proper context. That is, we must understand the idioms used, the historic circumstance of the intended readers, and so on. With this context, the text might be unambiguous. Remove the context, and all of a sudden, there is "ambiguity", simply from lack of relevant knowledge.
Note that context is not the same thing as an Oral Law. We need context to read any text, not just the Tanakh.
3. The reliance on Psalms for doctrine is very problematic. Psalms are poems of prayer. There is no claim anywhere in the text that they are even remotely inspired. As they are devotional poetry, they are expected to contain hyperbole. R. Albo is being very literalist here.
4. The analysis of the Christian view of Shma is wrong. R. Albo implies that Christians, reading the exact same text in Deuteronomy, come to a radically different conclusion that God is a Trinity. This is not so. Christians derive the belief in the Trinity from the New Testament. They then search the Tanakh for proofs of their doctrine. In other words, they work backwards.
To show ambiguity, R. Albo would have to show that two reasonable people, with good knowledge of the text's context, and who have no vested interest in whether God is One, or a Trinity, or composed in some other manner, come to two different conclusions on the matter.
But again, whether or not there is actually ambiguity in the text is not that important, since R. Albo fails to show that the text must be absolutely without ambiguities, or what it would mean for a text to be without ambiguities.
5. "Only if the Torah includes an oral explanation that clarifies all ambiguities can it be called perfect". This is almost laughable. Does the Oral Torah clarify ambiguities, or does it introduce new ambiguities, not found in the text? On every issue in the Oral Torah, there are at least two opinions. Here are a couple of easy examples: Which kind of tefillin is correct: the one according to Rashi, or the one according to R. Tam? How many hours must one wait after eating meat before one can eat dairy? And so on. These are all ambiguities introduced by the Oral Torah, which do not exist in the Written Torah.
6. Are the explanations of the Oral Torah themselves ambiguous? If they are, then they do not make the Torah "perfect" and unambiguous, contrary to R. Albo. If they are not, then why was the text made ambiguous, while its explanations not ambiguous? Why aren't the explanations simply included in the text, making it unambiguous?
Posted by Ami at December 22, 2003 08:54 AM | TrackBack