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New York
Times, March 9, 2002
Abraham, 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.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/09/arts/09BIBL.html
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