Intro to the Documentary Hypothesis

Ever wonder how and when the Christian Old Testament / Jewish Bible (divided into the Torah "Law," Neviim "Prophets," and Ketuvim "Writings") were written? There is a large body of scholarly work on the subject, and it's all pretty fascinating. Especially if you like studying history and culture. The first thing I would recommend is this brief introduction to the Documentary Hypothesis. This covers the very basics behind scholarly understanding of the Torah.

Thanks to heterodoxism and his hard work making these abridged lectures a visually interesting jumping off point.



If you enjoy this short playlist and want to delve deeper, OpenYale Courses has this entire lecture series from Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) available online.

I share this because there are two ways to read holy books.

The first way is to assume that you are the intended audience, and to assume that the theology of the authors is the same as what you were taught.

The second is to take a critical approach to the text and to the history and culture of the authors. In the Five Books of Moses alone we have evidence for the four distinct cosmologies/theologies of J, E, D, and P; each so old that modern Judaism and modern Christianity are closer to each other than they are to their ancient source material.

When I studied the Torah in college I entered the class committed to truth and hoping to strengthen my religious faith by delving into Christianity's origins. I saw several students that would rationalize away or simply ignore the historic and archaeological evidence and continue to argue the "truth" of their churches explanation for the text. They couldn't defend their positions, but they wouldn't budge. This bothered me greatly. If my fellow Christians were honestly opening themselves up to the truth of God's word, why did they feel threatened by long documented and well understood facts about the Hebrew history? Interestingly, their faith in their particular church's doctrine led them to disagree with each other almost as often as with the professor.

On the other hand, I understood and accepted my ignorance of the subject and approached the class with an open mind. When I saw that my position didn't match the evidence I accepted that I was wrong. I abandoned the assumptions that I had been taught by volunteer Sunday School teachers with no scholarly background, and accepted the position that was supported by verifiable historic facts. Ironically, this eager commitment that I made to learning the true roots of my religion was also my first step to seeing it as it really is: a human construct that stands in contradiction to the natural world.

"The bible must be seen in a cultural context. It didn't just happen. These stories are retreads. But, tell a Christian that -- No, No!
What makes it doubly sad is that they hardly know the book, much less its origins."
~ Isaac Asimov

In search of reason,

Mike

Biblically Sanctioned Marriages Explained for Non-Christians

I promised that I would be posting more on the Proposition 8 decision, and I have been working on it. The hardest part is that so much is worth reading. As I get my notes organized, here is a fun clip on what biblical marriages look like.



In search of reason,

Mike

Guest Post - Amanda on her agnostic theism

This entry is about my personal beliefs. I would never expect anyone to read it and change their own beliefs; it's simply an informative essay. If you have any questions, I'd love to answer them in the comment section.

In order to fully understand my religious beliefs, I need you to first strip away the title of “Jewish.” I will re-apply this title later in the post, and explain the part it plays. But first you need to understand my core religious beliefs, which are my own and not necessarily a part of Judaism (although they were developed because of the lessons the Torah has taught me).

In scientific pursuits, we first ask a question. Once we investigate this question, more often than not, we end up with more questions rather than finding a definite answer. Eventually, we end up with some answers, and a heightened understanding of the universe and its structure. But even then, there is often a gap in our understanding. In order to illustrate this, I like to picture a stone arch. Each piece in the arch is necessary for it to stand, but most important is the keystone at the top – the wedge-shaped piece that allows the two sides to support one another. Imagine that the stones in the arch are facts; knowledge derived through scientific endeavors. And now imagine that the keystone is invisible. We can’t see it, but we can see its outline, and we can use that information to inform our understanding of its structure and function. We know there must be something holding up the other pieces, and we know where it must sit, and its approximate shape. Moreover, we can even assume it’s made of the same material as the rest of the arch. But we still can’t see it or know its exact nature for certain.

It is my belief that the last unknown in each scientific field will all lead us to the same conclusion. We will eventually find a construct at the center of existence that affects all things, is a part of all things, and is necessary and essential to existence. I originally found this concept in the Hebrew name for God. It has four letters (which is unique because all other words in Hebrew have three-letter roots), which stand for “I Am Who Am,” and has been interpreted to mean that God is the source of existence. Not in the sense that he woke up one day, pointed his finger and created the universe, but in the sense that he is in everything, he is everywhere, he IS existence itself. Eventually, I realized that because science is the pursuit of studying the universe, and God is the universe, there is no reason why religion and science can’t both be right.

This is where I get to the core idea that makes my personal beliefs possible. I find that Christians often find this concept challenging because it so directly contradicts what they have been taught. Aside from that, however, it’s a fairly simple idea: the stories told in religious books are metaphors. Every component of the Bible, the Torah, the Koran and any other myth used to worship or explain our existence is metaphor meant to educate us about the nature of the universe, and moreover, to inspire us to explore it. This goes for God as well.

I don’t believe God is a bearded father figure in the sky, looking down on us and creating miracles. That version of God is a story, told with the intent of inspiring people to explore the world around them, and to ask questions of nature, and never be satisfied with just one answer. As such, no religious book is necessarily wrong or right. They are all attempting to describe the same thing.

I do believe, however, that it’s wrong to teach someone to ignore science. And it’s wrong to emotionally handicap someone by teaching them that God should be feared, life should be feared, and the afterlife is a giant test of their moral fiber. I believe it’s wrong to tell someone to shut their eyes and let the universe do the work for them. And I believe it’s wrong to tell someone that prayer provides results. All of these things make people weak and vulnerable, and blind them to the beauty of the universe. It’s healthy to embrace randomness and statistical probability. Nothing happens for a reason, unless you consider causal factors and other conditions surrounding the event to be a reason.

In my life, I use the ceremonies surrounding Jewish holidays to acknowledge that life is diverse, the universe is big and weird and full of randomness, and that there is something out there worth knowing. I pursue this something through my scientific pursuits, and celebrate it through Judaism.

Theists think too,

Amanda