Ramadan & Revelation: The Message of the Torah

my name is Ali associate professor and Dean of undergraduate studies here at Zuna College in beautiful Berkeley California for this first session of this series entitled Ramadan and Revelation I want to explore the first of the major kutub or scriptures according to the Islamic tradition the Torah uh however I want to examine the Torah from three distinct perspectives number one the perspective of traditional Judaism number two the perspective of modern critical historians and number three the perspective of the Quran I think this more holistic approach to the scripture will be more academically enriching inshallah in Judaism the word Torah uh can be used to refer to different things the most common usage of the word is in reference to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible this is the narrowest usage of the word these five books also known as the pentet or Kash are named Genesis Exodus IUS numbers in Deuteronomy or in Hebrew and traditional Jews believe that these books were written some 3,500 years ago on Mount Si by none other than Moses peace be upon Him mam or in Hebrew Moshe Renu however it was God or Hashem who spoke these words through Moses Moses was simply the means or mouthpiece of God according to Exodus Hashem spoke these words to Moses panim Al panim literally face to face that is to say without any sort of mediation Angelic or otherwise therefore traditional Jews believe that the first five books are the Divine iysa verba or the very words of God himself I think most people probably don't know this but in addition to receiving these five books traditional Jews also maintain that Moses received an oral Torah on Mount Si this was something that was meant to be passed mouth to mouth from teacher to student I'll come back to the oral Torah in a minute but first let's go back to the Hebrew Bible so we said that the first five books are attributed to Moses the next 34 books in the Canon are split between the nabim or prophets in the Kim the writings generally books that are named after a prophet fall into the category of nabim these are books such as Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel Micah Hosea the ketu beim consists of books like first and second Kings Proverbs and Psalms we'll examine the Psalms later in this series inshallah so all three of these parts the Torah here referring to the five books the prophets and the writings are collectively called the tanak it's an acronym t for Torah n for Nim and C for Kim Christians call the tanak the Old Testament however the term Old Testament can be offensive to traditional Jews the Orthodox May refer to the Tanakh as the written Torah this is a broader usage of the word Torah now remember I said that traditional Jews believe that Moses received an oral Torah on Mount Si in addition to the the petuk this oral Torah was eventually written down this process picked up at the end of the first century of the Common Era by a group of Palestinian scribes known as the tanim this was after the destruction of the second temple by the Romans in 70 CE the writings of the tanim became known as the mishna between the third and sixth centuries of the Common Era Jewish scribes in both the Palestinian and Iraqi acmis known as the amorim wrote vast commentaries on the mishna these commentaries are called the gamara the mishna and gamar were then codified and called the talmud so there are two versions of the talmud Palestinian and Babylonian the word talmud is actually related to the word TM think of the talmud as being a student of the Tanakh so now the tanak and tal together is called or the Torah from Heaven this is the broadest usage of the word Torah now despite the claims of Orthodox Jews there is a general consensus among modern historians and textual critics of the Bible that Moses almost certainly did not write the five books that are traditionally attributed to him again the penet is also called kumash in Hebrew uh kumash is related to the Arabic word KSA meaning five the first five books of the Bible now if you read these five books you'll notice that stories are often times repeated with slight differences there are two creation stories two flood narratives this type of repetition is quite common in Semitic rhetoric however stylometric analysis of the patuk strongly suggest that there are multiple authors as you read the five books you will notice that different people in places are called by various names where did Moses receive the Torah Sinai or Horeb who was Moses's father-in-law Jethro or Ruel what is God's name Adonai or Elohim or both you will find different ways in which God is described sometimes very imminent even highly anthropomorphic and sometimes Transcendent why is that modern historical critics claim to have the answer it's called the DH the documentary hypothesis and its Pioneer was the German scholar Julius wellous he articulated his theory in his very influential critical introduction to the pentat called the prolamina which is still the standard in the academy basically the DH espouses that the petuk orash is a composite work combined work derived from four semi-independent and complete narratives stitched together into one by a redactor about a thousand years after after Moses thus a redactor took the words of four authors writing at different times and combined them into a single narrative the redactor is called R by wellhausen and He suggests that the redactor was the early second temple scribe Ezra The redactor Divided his final narrative into the five familiar volumes Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy according to historians this explains the repetition the different literary Styles uh and why there are different terms for the same people in places there were four original authors writing the same or similar stories and using their own terminology what were each writing basically a history of the Jewish people but who were these four original authors of the penet scholars have given them names they obviously do not identify themselves the first historians call the yahwist because he uses a tetrogen yod V for God these four letters were God's initials as it were their true articulation was only known by the kohanim the High Priests of the betam mikdash the temple The Narrative of the yahs is called the J Source by Scholars It Was Written around 1, to 900 BCE in Jerusalem it was written during the height of David and Solomon's kingdoms when Israel's borders stretched from the Nile to the Euphrates substantial portions of Genesis Exodus and numbers is from the J Source God is often anthropomorphized by the yahwist there is a focus on God's imminence God Appears directly to humans this is most apparent in Genesis chter 2-2 in Genesis 38 for instance Adam hears God quote walking in the garden and so Adam and Eve quote concealed themselves from God by hiding behind the trees there is very little legislation in Jay it is mostly theophany I.E direct experience with God the author of the second source is called the elist the elois prefers the word Elohim for God his narrative is called the eSource It Was Written around 800 bce. in Israel the northern kingdom substantial portions of Genesis Exodus and numbers is from the eSource God is more impersonal and Transcendent there is indirect contact with God through dreams visions and Angels major themes of e are prophets fear of God and bit Covenant these are solemn agreements with God so J and E form the backbone of the pental narrative the Patriarchs matriarchs Moses and the Exodus and the wanderings in the wilderness the famous Covenant code of Exodus 20-23 is associated with J and E the author of the third source is called the deuteronomist he is the author of The dource Deuteronomy literally means Second Law so the book of Deuteronomy is exclusively from the dource the redactor also placed a bit of dource material in Exodus the dource was written around 700 bcee probably in Jerusalem or Judah however some say the north major themes include God's Wrath repentance apostasy and criteria for True prophecy it recounts the laws and events of Exodus and numbers with different emphases it uses both the tetr grittin yod V and Elohim for God it has a unique horory and preaching style that focuses on the person of Moses the dource also contains three major speeches of Moses delivered on the east side of the Jordan before the children of Israel entered the promised land and contains an account of the death of Moses the fourth and final author is called the priest his narrative is called the PE Source or Priestly Source It Was Written around 550 BCE in Babylon by the kohanim the remnants of the Priestly class living in Babylonian captivity PE Source material is primarily found in Leviticus but also in portions of Genesis Exodus and numbers major themes include God's goodness ritual laws Sabbath circumcision Passover cashroot Purity sacrifices holidays Holiness as well as the genealogies the priest also uses Elohim for God Genesis 1 the creation narrative which famously begins B in the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth is widely considered to be P Source material which means it was likely written around 550 BCE some 900 years after Moses as far as literary style goes J is the most eloquent then E D and P E and d call the mountain horev J and P call it Sinai so R had these four narratives on his desk as it were around 500 BCE when the temple was being rebuilt in Jerusalem as I said according to wellhausen Ezra a priest and Scribe of this period was the redactor others maintain that the redaction was done by priests during the exilic period between 586 and 538 B.C when the children of Israel were in Babylon in in captivity the Babylonians were defeated by the Persians in 538 BCE in that same year the Persian king kuros or Cyrus the Great issued a decree authorized izing the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem and the return of the temple vessels captured by Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon some 50 years earlier the Oxford Study Bible says quote indeed some Scholars have suggested that this revision the final redaction of the Kash may have been undertaken under the sponsorship of the Persian government reflecting Persia's interest in achieving stability through its Empire by means of religious and legal reforms in the provinces in other words the redaction was supported possibly ordered by the Persians in order to bring political stability through scriptural Unity to the sopy of Palestine now you may be thinking does this mean that the pentat has nothing to do with Moses Herman gkl a pioneer of form criticism identified older what he called pre- literary forms used as the sources of jnp these include hymn law poem Legend song Etc in other words Jed and P did not invent their text out of thin air they were drawing upon older Traditions either oral or written many of these could very well have originated with Moses thus these pre- literary forms were the sources of the sources of the pentet I'll give you two examples numbers 2114 and 27 written by the elist quotes something called The Book of the wars of the Lord SE mil Adonai this was one of the elist sources the elois wrote therefore it it is said in the book of the wars of the Lord wahib and sufa and The Valleys of the Aron Etc numbers 2114 where is this book of the wars of the Lord it is lost to time but it was a source used by the elist when he wrote his narrative example number two the authors of Genesis the yist the elois and the priests explain the eological origins of names this is why Abraham is called Abraham this is why Isaac is called Isaac Ishmael is called Ishmael Jacob is called Jacob Etc these names were not invented by the authors of Genesis they were explaining their pre- literary origins in other words these names were known by J D and P not created by them before I continue I should mention that there's an alternate model used by biblical Scholars to explain the origins and composition of the penet this Theory goes back to the 19th century it started to become more popular in the 1970s due to John Van Cedars today it Rivals the documentary hypothesis it's called the supplementary hypoth hesis so according to the sh D or E depending on the scholar was written first and then supplementary material was added to it by various Scholars throughout the centuries therefore the penet was always one source with additional material added over time not for semi-independent and complete sources that were later integrated of course many Orthodox and conservative Jews have pushed back against these theories however among critical Scholars of the pentat these theories remain dominant now what is the Torah according to the Quran in the Quran we are told that Allah subhana wa ta'ala revealed the Torah to our Master M the Torah is described as and Huda light and guidance Moses peace be upon Him is considered one of the arc Apostles one of the greatest messengers of God in all of human history Allah subhana says in the Quran that the Jews were entrusted with preserving their scripture Over time however according to the dominant opinion of Muslim Scholars scribes began altering the text of the Torah the Quran refers to this of the biblical text which could mean alteration fabrication or decontextualization it appears that the text of the Bible has been corrupted to a certain significant degree and this is totally mainstream his hisorical scholarship on the Bible in fact scriptural alteration of the Torah is admitted in the tanak itself in Jeremiah Jeremiah 88 how can you say we are wise and we have the Torah Adonai the law of God he for falsehood the lying pen of the scribes have made it or to say it another way the false pens of the scribes have turned it the Torah into a lie therefore the Quran is the mman the overseer or supervisor of the Bible the Quran is thean the standard of judgment when it comes to the Bible Allah subhana wa tala says when it comes to the modern pentat our Scholars posit the following there are certainly things that are true that we as Muslims can confirm in meaning however nothing of the exact wording can be known with certainty for example in Deuteronomy 6:4 we read the famous hereo Israel the Lord Our God the Lord is one this is true God is one but is this statement in its exact wording what God revealed to Moses we cannot be certain therefore we believe that the theological essence of the actual teachings of Moses are found in the Quran as well as the major legal injunctions and apodictic principles in this sense the Quran is a m or confirmation there is much else in the Torah that we definitely cannot confirm and then there is a whole lot of gray area in the next session we will examine the second major scripture the zabur or the Psalms of David asalam alaykum and don't forget to join zetuna 12,000 strong initiative see our website for more information

Channel: Zaytuna College

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Length: 16min 27sec (987 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 25 2024