|
|
Article: Revelation, textual criticism, and divine writ. (evaluation of the Pentateuch)
- Article from:
- Judaism
- Article date:
- March 22, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 American Jewish Congress. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Forty days after the giving of the Torah, when the children of Israel danced around the golden calf proclaiming, "This is your God, Israel who brought you out of Egypt" (Exodus 32:8), revelation was suspended.
Seven hundred years later, when the children of Israel returned from Babylonian captivity, repenting and singling out the sin of having proclaimed the golden calf to be "your God who brought you out of Egypt" (Nehemiah 9:18), revelation was restored.
How can it be that the text that resides at the very core of judaism, the Pentateuch itself, is susceptible to textual criticism that reveals it to be both internally uneven and apparently inconsistent with ...