Myth of Origin and Narrative Theology: Rabbi Norman Solomon

[1] Norman Solomon, Torah from Heaven: The Reconstruction of Faith (Oxford/Portland, Oregon: Littman, 2012), pp. 320-321, 346. For a similar view, using Maurice Halbwach’s and Jan Assmann’s concept of mnemo-history, see Zev Farber’s essay, “Avraham Avinu is my Father: Thoughts on Torah, History and Judaism,” on TheTorah.com .  

[2]  And unlike that of Barukh Schwartz, despite the fact that Schwartz , like Kugel and Solomon, views the biblical account of the revelation at Sinai as an etiological myth – see Schwartz, “Matan Torah”.

[3]  Indeed, in Solomon’s survey of the various methods employed by contemporary theologians to reconcile belief in the divinity of the Torah with modern scholarship, Leibowitz’s seminal contribution to the discussion is conspicuous in its absence.

[4] As intimated by his biographical account, ibid pp. 7-8.  Shades of the later Wittgenstein (see excursus) may also be discerned in the fact that an entire chapter of Solomon’s book (pp. 299-315) is devoted to various theories regarding the nature of truth and their implications for the doctrine of Torah from Heaven, in which correspondence theory is declared the weakest. 

[5] Torah from Heaven (ibid), p. 346

[6] The degree of Wittgenstein’s influence on Leibowitz, if any, is difficult to discern. Both Sagi (“A Breakthrough in Jewish Philosophy”) and Bareli (”Faith and Mitzvot”) note some resemblance between the role that Leibowitz accords halakha in establishing the sanctified status of the Torah as the foundational text of Judaism and the critical importance that the later Wittgenstein attributed to context in establishing meaning. Nevertheless, Leibowitz’s evaluation of metaphysical truth claims as utterly meaningless on a factual level is more strongly reminiscent of the logical positivist distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive statements established by Wittgenstein in his earlier writings. Moreover, as Sagi himself observes, such similarities do not necessarily reflect direct influence; although Leibowitz knew of Wittgenstein’s work and spoke of it approvingly, most of his own ideas were framed long before the publication of Wittgenstein’s writings.

[7] The question whether biblical narratives were originally written for mythic purposes remains a moot point.  Some of the genealogies or chronologies appearing in the Torah which bear no moral or theological message certainly do not lend themselves to this assumption and are better understood as bona fide attempts at reporting history, whose inaccuracies simply reflect mistaken beliefs that people held at the time. However, the fact that other aspects of the accounts of our ancestors, such as repeated barrenness of the matriarchs or even the sacrificial binding of Isaac were adopted by rival traditions (with regard to the latter, see, for example, The Last Trial: On the Legends and Lore of the Command to Abraham to offer Isaac as a Sacrifice: The Akedah; translated from the Hebrew, with an introduction by Judah Goldin [New York: Pantheon Books,‎ 1967]), strongly suggests the influence of prevailing conventions as to how tales of origin should be written, and perhaps the lack of a clear distinction between myth and systematic history in ancient times.

[8] A similar opinion is voiced by Amit Kula, who acknowledges the possibility of a belief in Torah from heaven that does not depend on the historicity of the biblical account of revelation, although this is not his personal opinion – see his Existential or Non-Essential.  Kula’s stance accords with that of Rabbi. A.I. Kook, who undoubtedly granted great credence to the biblical narratives of Israel’s past, but was prepared in principle to advance an acceptance of Torah which was based – at least temporarily – on the beneficial influence of these narratives, even in the absence of faith in their historical accuracy – see his Iggrot Reayah I (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook,.1985), pp. 48-49. In Iggrot Reayah II (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1985), pp. 118-119), Kook appears to extend this attitude even further, when he leaves the decision as to how far nonliteral interpretations can be applied to the Torah to the “clear sense of the nation”, which “finds its paths not in isolated bits of evidence, but in general impressions”.  In this connection, it is worth noting Barukh Schwartz’s contention that this mythic function of the biblical account of the giving of the Torah is confirmed by historical scholarship, which indicates that the notion of a supernatural verbal revelation of God’s will at a precise historical moment was developed centuries after the characteristically Jewish way of life had already been established – see “Matan Torah” (ibid).

[9] Solomon, Torah from Heaven (ibid), p. 313