Who knows ten? Critical claims and counting one's plagues

By Daniel Abraham and Shmuli Phillips

In just a few nights time, the readership of this group will find themselves sitting around their respective Seder tables, gently dabbing ten drops of wine from the glass in front of them to commemorate the ten plagues which God inflicted upon the ill-fated Egyptians. The notion of the plagues as a set of ten features prominently in the traditional liturgy and festive songs recited by celebrants throughout the generations. Those approaching from a scholarly perspective, however, are confronted by a competing claim: that the account of Exodus 7-12 is in fact a combination of several original versions of the plagues which emanated from different sources (known as “E”, “J” and “P”). Such claims sometimes also draw upon references to the plagues in the book of Psalms (78, 105) which present only some of the plagues and do so in a different order.

The main thrust of these critical claims is that each original source contained only a smaller number of plagues, and that they were later fused into a single narrative by some unknown redactor who produced the Torah as we have it today. This post will attempt to demonstrate that a close examination of the text shows these claims to be unfounded.

Though source critics themselves dispute as to how the text should be divided, we will focus primarily on the version advanced by Richard Elliot Friedman (The Bible with Sources Revealed, 2005), which assigns half of the plague of Blood to “E” and half to “P”. Frogs are also half “E” and half “P”. Lice and Boils are “P”. Wild beasts (or flies), Pestilence, Boils, Hail, and Locusts are “E”. Friedman’s primary support for this division is linguistic – for example the various usages of terms such as “kaved” and “chazak” – while a narrative mentioning Aaron performing the plague is assumed to relate to the “P” (or Priestly) source.

In opposition to such attempts to divide the Torah’s account of the plagues in Egypt, other scholars have presented powerful evidence from the text to support the literary unity of the plagues narrative. The analysis by these scholars reveals several underlying patterns and parallels that run through the entire passage. If the narrative of the plagues had been cobbled together from disparate original sources, as Friedman claims, it is scarcely believable that they would produce such clear and consistent patterns in their combined form.

Placing the plagues into groups of three, we see plagues 1-3 are performed by Aaron and implemented by means of a staff. Moses performs plagues 4-6 with no mention of either hands or staff. Plagues 7-9 are also initiated by Moses, this time through the agency of his hands. These three groups of plagues share other sets of features. Plagues 1-3 involve the water and the lower regions, plagues 4-6 affect higher life forms (humans, cattle, then both humans and cattle). Plagues 7-9 invoke the sky.

This is by no means the only manner in which the Torah groups plagues in threes. In plagues 1, 4, and 7, Pharaoh receives a prior warning on his morning visit to the Nile. In plagues 2, 5, and 8 Moses is commanded “Go to Pharaoh” and delivers only a general warning. For plagues 3, 6, and 9 no warning is given at all.

Beneath the level of triplets, another pattern emerges this time based on pairs. Plagues 1 and 2 involve the Nile, 3 and 4 feature insects, 5 and 6 inflict disease, 7 and 8 arrive from the sky, while 9 and 10 deal with darkness – the 10th plague actually arrives at midnight.

These elegant, complex patterns within the plagues indicate that the entire passage was composed by a single author, who paid careful attention to detail and to the gradual development of the nature and impact of the plagues. For those who instead attribute the ten-plague narrative to a hastily arranged work of disparate sources which was somehow synthesized serendipitously, these patterns represent a set of uncomfortable yet undeniable coincidences.

A further blow to source critics’ suggestion that divisions of the text reflect distinct original sources is their inability to agree on some of the most basic, foundational aspects of these alleged sources. To highlight some of the key examples, Friedman criticizes his colleague Joel Baden, writing:

“On the positive side, Baden defends the existence of the E source against those who have denied it. On the negative side, Baden reverses much of the source identification of J and E in the section treated here and in the entire plagues text that follows. The evidence of language collected in The Hidden Book in the Bible is contrary to Baden’s re-identification of E texts as J, but Baden does not cite or deal with this evidence. The E texts that he calls J are entirely lacking all fifty of the terms that are characteristic of the J source and its related texts."

[The Exodus, 2017]

Meanwhile, David Carr, who also advocates for dividing the plagues up according to multiple authorship, attacks the above approaches of Friedman and Baden arguing that:

“By the end of the 1990s, few specialists in Pentateuchal studies continued to affirm the existence of a separate, identifiable, “Elohist” document.” He adds, “in his The Hidden Book in the Bible…pp.353-58, Friedman presents a brief summary of the traditional case for dividing J and E without an engagement of the critiques of that hypothesis, particularly in Europe.”

[The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction, 2011]

A completely different theory was proposed by the biblical scholar S. R. Driver, who understood the plagues as having originated from three distinct sources: J, P and E.

As biblical scholar Gary Rendsburg aptly summises:

“if the source critics themselves cannot agree in the main, then perhaps an entirely new approach is worthy of consideration…To my mind, a far simpler and less complicated approach is to discard the entire source-critical method and to assume an intentional ordering of the plagues in the manner described above…Once more, it is better to posit a single, unified authorial voce than to reconstruct hypothetical source that in truth are only the constructs of scholars, unattested in the actual record.”

[How the Bible is Written, 2019]

Kenneth Kitchen concludes similarly:

“The account of the plagues in Exod. 7-12 is a well-formulated unity; and (as some traditional critics already admit) it cannot meaningfully be split up between imaginary sources such J, E, P (for which no physical MSS actually exist!), without making a nonsense of the account of the plagues that only works as a unity…This kind of formulation is created ab initio, from the start—not by fiddling with fragments as with a jigsaw puzzle.".”

[On the Reliability of the Old Testament, 2006]

We conclude by addressing another argument advanced by those who challenge the cohesiveness of the Torah’s account of the plagues, this time on the basis of external rather than internal evidence. Two chapters of Psalms (78 and 105) provide descriptions of the divine punishments inflicted upon Egypt, but neither enumerate all of the plagues described in Exodus – and those which are recorded are presented in a different order. This omission and ordering is viewed by some scholars (cited in Kugel, How to Read the Bible) as being indicative of contradictory traditions and sources. Psalm 78 orders the plagues as 1,4, 2, 8, 7, 5, 10 (omitting 3, 6, and 9) while Psalm 105 lists them as 9,1,2,4, 3, 7, 8, 10 (omitting 5, and 6).

While the agenda of these chapters of Psalms certainly warrants a proper explanation, the very suggestion that a work of poetic praise can pose a challenge to the descriptive prose of Exodus is tenuous from the outset. As Kitchen explains:

“This illustrates a basic literary phenomenon endemic to the ancient Near East, yet one constantly abused by biblicists. When prose and poetry accounts coexist, it is prose that is the primary source and poetry that is the secondary celebration.”

In the case of Psalm 105, the author’s stated agenda, which is repeated throughout the introductory section of the chapter, is to proclaim and publicise the mighty wonders of God. In this context one can understand why he opens his list of plagues with what appear to be the most stunning miracles – sudden darkness and water turning to blood – before concluding with the more superficially nature-driven events such as hailstorms, locusts and death of the firstborns. Pestilence and boils, which do not feature in Psalm 105, are the two least conspicuous and arguably least severe miracles (they are the only two that Pharaoh does not beg Moses to remove).

Regarding Psalms 78, the American professor of Hebrew studies Robert Alter is not convinced by the source-critics’ claims writing:

"There are only seven plagues mentioned in the psalm, and they are not entirely in the same order as the ones reported in Exodus, though, as in Exodus, turning the Nile into blood is at the beginning and the killing of the firstborn is at the end. The scholarly inference that these lines reflect a different "tradition" from the one registered in Exodus is by no means necessary. That is, a poetic recapitulation of the familiar Plague narrative from Exodus would not have been obliged to repeat all the material from Exodus, or to follow the identical order."

[The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, 2018]

Much like the ten spilled wine drops on the Pesach Seder plate, the ten plagues may contain certain unique properties that may be taken to indicate independent existence. Yet one who observes them in their full context recognizes that they unmistakably originate from a single author.

First posted to Facebook 2 April 2021, here.

Does the Torah require a niddah to immerse in a mikveh?

By Daniel Abraham and Shmuli Phillips

This week’s parashah concludes a series of passages through Vayikra which focus on various forms of ritual impurity and their respective purification processes. One surprising feature which was brought to our attention this year concerns the purification processes for niddah and zavah (Vayikra chap. 15). The Torah simply states that women who have menstruated cause various objects with which they touch to become impure. No explicit mention, however, is made of what is traditionally considered to be a basic biblical requirement: that a woman immerse in a mikveh at the end of seven days in order to purify herself.

How does one approach such a phenomenon? Several scholarly articles (linked below) vividly demonstrate the extent to which this depends on one’s starting point and broader attitude towards the Torah.

Regular TheTorah.com contributors, Zev Farber and Isaac Sassoon, who promote a critical approach to interpreting the Torah’s text, seek to advance explanations based on the notion that the Torah evolved historically from multiple original sources. Their response to the Torah’s omission of an explicit command for a niddah to immerse in order to achieve purification is to suppose that this requirement is a later addition by the rabbis. According to Sassoon, there is a more lax attitude to niddah which can be detected in the “Priestly” layer of Tanakh – a layer which was superseded by a later rabbinic interpretation itself influenced by Zoroastrianism and its strict approach to menstruation. (The power and scope of rabbinic courts to amend and add to biblical law is a subject that is thoroughly examined in the upcoming sequel to Judaism Reclaimed).

While such interpretations may appear attractive to those who are convinced of the Torah’s gradual formation and multiple authorship, how seriously should it be taken by traditional students of the Torah?

A number of substantial arguments can be made in favour of the traditional position, some of which appear in the series of articles (linked below).

First, a number of powerful a fortiori arguments can be made to show the need for a niddah to wash despite the absence of a direct command. Such arguments emerge not just from comparisons with other, less severe forms of impurity, which all require washing – but even from within the laws of niddah. Most potently, the verse (15:22) requires that “anyone who touches any object upon which she will sit, shall immerse his garments and immerse himself in water...”. Does it not therefore go without saying that a niddah, who is the initial cause of this impurity, must also immerse in water to achieve purification? Furthermore, if a person touches the bed that a niddah lay upon, they are required to wash themselves for purification. Are we to imagine that a niddah who touches her own bed is exempt from this washing?

Given these strong indications from the text itself that a niddah requires washing as part of her process of purification, it is likely that this law was considered so obvious that it did not need an explicit mention. Alternatively, as Ramban appears to explain, the niddah’s need for purification is to be found regarding zava a few verses later, with the Torah waiting until it has concluded the laws of both categories of menstruating women before disclosing their requirement for purification.

In considering these possibilities, it is particularly significant to note that even the Karaites – who firmly rejected rabbinic oral tradition – accepted the niddah’s immersion as a basic biblical requirement.

Secondly, Yitzhaq Feder points out in his article on the subject (below) that the Torah's ritual laws can often be seen to have been built upon the practices of surrounding ancient cultures. Against this backdrop it is highly relevant that practically all of these ancient cultures had a requirement to wash after menstruation. Based on our current knowledge, none of these cultures allowed for menstrual impurity to be removed automatically.

Thirdly, the episode of David and Bathsheva (Shmuel 2:11) contains a clear early reference to the practice of women washing in order to purify from menstrual impurity: “and he saw a woman bathing… and she was purified from her uncleanliness”.

While it is clear that traditionalists such as ourselves are likely to be persuaded by these arguments, we are left to wonder about how scholars from thetorah.com balance such weighty considerations in their quest to furnish us with “Torah study informed and enriched by contemporary scholarship”. Our strong impression from many of the articles which they have published is that speculative interpretations which presume late and multiple authorship of the Torah are regularly preferred to seemingly simpler alternatives which seek answers in the context of surrounding verses, laws and the realities of ancient society.

First posted to Facebook 8 May 2022, here, with links to articles cited above.

Locating the Flood: Is there a licence to reread early biblical narratives?

By Daniel Abraham and Shmuli Phillips

In a chapter which explores some of the complex challenges posed by science to understanding the Torah, Judaism Reclaimed notes the approach taken by Rambam to similar difficulties in his day. Faced with what were considered in medieval times to be decisive arguments against the doctrine of ex-nihilo creation, Rambam – echoing Rabbi Yehuda Halevi in the Kuzari – works with a principle that the Torah cannot be interpreted in a way which contradicts matters which are clearly proven. It is notable, however, that Rambam set the bar for reinterpreting the Torah based on scientific knowledge particularly high, and did not ultimately endorse a re-evaluation of the Torah’s opening passages on the basis of Aristotelian science.

When we examine the Torah’s accounts of early humanity – and particularly its accounts of the flood – in the modern era, we are assailed by an array of basic challenges to its literal reading. Scientific theories and accepted wisdom based on geology, paleontology, zoology among other disciplines combine to present a formidable barrier to the Torah’s narrative. Had Rambam and Rabbi Yehuda Halevi been living in the 21stcentury, we might ask ourselves, at what point might they have considered this body of evidence sufficiently persuasive to justify reinterpreting the opening parshiyot of the Torah? Furthermore, are there any existing indications within our tradition which might support such an attempt?

With regard to the creation narrative, our tradition explicitly regards it as esoteric and containing profound secrets which go far beyond its simple meaning. These traditional teachings could be taken to support a radical – possibly even allegorical – rereading in view of modern scientific knowledge. Turning our attention to the flood, however, our tradition does not appear to regard the passage as being esoteric or bearing a hidden meaning. What can be found though are scattered teachings which seem to limit its scope from a worldwide deluge to something significantly more local – a position advanced by Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Hoffman in his Torah commentary.

One of the first midrashim that grabs our attention is from Midrash Tehillim. When God was deciding which mountain to give the Torah on, Mount Tabor speaks up and says “The Torah should be given on me because the water of the flood did not descend on me.” (Midrash Tehillim 68:9). Elsewhere in Bereishit Rabbah 33 we read about the flood not raining upon the entire land of Israel. Zevachim 113a says this as well – a particularly significant source because it is located in a legal rather than an aggadic passage.

Ramban also adds that it’s possible that the rains did not fall upon the oceans as the Torah specifies “The rain was upon the land”. Other opinions go further and state the flood did not affect all parts of the earth. Meam Lo’ez writes how the great ocean, “was not affected by the flood, which only destroyed inhabited areas. The Torah therefore says, “there was rain on the earth” (ha’aretz) (7:12), and not, “there was rain on the world” (ha’olam). [The “earth” primarily denotes inhabited areas.] In his book The Challenge of Creation, Rabbi Natan Slifkin also notes, “Rav Saadia Gaon’s view [was] that the Deluge only covered inhabited parts of the world.” Rabbi Yonatan Eybeshutz goes into more detail, explaining that the flood was not necessary in uninhabited areas. He also writes that if the Americas had no population at the time of the flood, then no flood would have occurred on the continent (Tiferet Yonatan to Bereishit 8:22). So although the Torah states that all the mountains on earth were covered with the flood, there are opinions that this was not a literal depiction.

When we turn our attention to early humans and civilisations, further indications can be found of human (or proto-human) civilization beyond the primary biblical narrative. After slaying his brother Hevel, Kayin is condemned by God to wander to distant lands whereupon he is worried that “I will be a wanderer and an exile in the land, and it will be that whoever finds me will kill me” (4:14). If the entire human population is represented by those named in the Torah, this concern is not easy to understand. Furthermore, having gone into exile far away from Eden, Kayin proceeds to build a city – for whom might one ask?

Other categories of ancient human mentioned in chapter 6 of Bereishit appear to include the Nephilim (“mighty men of old”) and perhaps also the benei Elohim who corrupt early humanity and are noted as a cause for its descent into the depravity that prompted the flood.

Further sources indicate that groups of these Nephilim survived the flood. Some identify Og as one of the Nephilim who was allowed to be saved by ark during the flood. Other midrashim say that Sichon was another of the Nephilim who survived as well. From the text of the Torah we see that both Sichon and Og had sons, and that the Israelites slew both of these giants and their children with them. Perhaps most significantly, in Bemidbar 13:33 Rav S. R. Hirsch writes about the “Anakim” observed by the spies: “Thus there were still remnants of the antedeluvian Nephilim living in Eretz Yisrael. This fact fits well with the opinion (Zevachim 113a) that Eretz Yisrael was spared from the flood.” The implication being that there were people who survived the flood in Eretz Yisrael. The Zohar also makes reference to descendants of Kayin surviving the flood in a distant land.

If it is true then that human society existed well beyond the Torah’s limited descriptions and that the flood only covered a local area of Mesopotamia, why would it have presented its early narratives in such a misleading manner?

The answer to this requires us to recognize that the Torah is not primarily a historical work but rather a religious text which seeks to provide a foundation and insight into the nature of humanity and our relationship with God. As Rabbi Sacks put it, this does not mean that the Torah conveys untruths, but rather that it presents actual historical events through the prism of its theological teachings (https://www.rabbisacks.org/.../individual-and.../...).

God’s relationship with humanity begins with Adam and Eve – the first creatures whose minds are sufficiently sophisticated to rationalize and think abstractly. As Rambam writes near the start of Moreh Nevuchim, the whole notion of commandments, reward and punishment only makes sense when one is instructing someone who can understand right and wrong and possesses the free will to apply it. Interestingly, the first humans who are believed to have been sufficiently mentally developed to create a system of writing – putting ideas and concepts into symbols – lived 6,000 years ago in Mesopotamia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing).

This was the society and “world” that the Torah was interested in; it therefore only obliquely references the existence of other groups of humans. Similarly, as far as the area of the planet that was of relevance to the Torah’s project at that time, the flood effectively encompassed the “entire world” and the ark contained “all animals”. As another chapter of Judaism Reclaimed demonstrates, while other ancient Near Eastern cultures proceeded to relate this flood through the eyes of their polytheistic prejudices, the Torah retold it instead with its own theological underpinning: monotheism, morality and justice.

Whatever extent one finds such an approach compelling or even desirable, we believe that it can legitimately claim solid basis within traditional sources, and is the leading candidate for those seeking to reconcile the Torah’s account with what science tells us today about ancient history.

First posted on Facebook, 30 October 2022, here.

Biblical births and a misinformed academic critique

Students and scholars seeking to gain a deeper understanding of biblical texts will often turn to the plethora of articles and books on the Tanach written by academics that attempt to present more informed insights into the meaning and intentions behind scripture. Unfortunately, closer analysis often reveals that these scholars are advocating various grandiose theories built on speculation and flimsy evidence. Questionable interpretations will often be seized upon and counter-indications dismissed or ignored in order to prove whatever pre-determined idea or theory they have chosen to focus on.

In this week's portion of Vayeshev, we read about the birth of Judah and Tamar's two sons, Peretz and Zerach. The Torah describes how Zerach's hand emerges first from the womb and how the midwife ties a crimson string around his finger indicating he is the firstborn. The hand then retracts and Peretz is born first.

In an article for thetorah.com [1], Dr. Eran Viezel claims that such a birth is medically impossible without killing one or both of the twins. He similarly claims that the Torah’s recorded description of Jacob and Esau’s birth is scientifically impossible. Viezel concludes condescendingly:

Biblical narratives were written by men or mostly by men, and in ancient Israel, as was the case in most places until recently, men were not present at childbirth, due in part to, the view that childbirth generated impurity...

Based on research undertaken by various (medically qualified) members of this group, we will endeavour to demonstrate that the author’s claims are rejected by the available medical knowledge.

Viezel introduces his article by asserting confidently that:

Twins cannot switch places mid birth. They do not come out of the uterus together nor are they both in the birth canal at the same time.

However medical research has firmly rejected Viezel’s statement. An important review of births of twins facing in the opposite directions revealed that a majority of cases where one twin had his or her hand out of the birth canal, the other twin was born first [2]. This suggests not only that twins are able to switch positions during the birthing process, but also that there was nothing unusual about Zerach being born after Peretz.

In a connected article he claims further,

There is no evidence at all of babies exiting the womb with their arms outstretched. Yet biblical accounts of childbirth contain explicit and implicit descriptions of the hand as the first limb to emerge from the womb.

Once again, Viezel’s assertion is contrary to scientific findings. While the hand emerging first is rare, medical records dating back to the 17thcentury have recorded the occurrence and survival rates of such births. According to the Oxford Textbook of Obstetric Anesthesia, when the hand emerges first, the baby is considered to have a compound presentation. Viezel does mention compound presentation in his footnotes but states that it results in the fetus breaking its neck as it exits the birth canal and therefore does not produce a good survival rate.

Medical research has found this claim to be wholly untrue. While the death rate is higher for compound presentations with twins, it is not significantly higher than regular twin births, which have a seven to ten-fold higher mortality than single births. So, while the chance of death is higher, the baby's living is still statistically a more likely outcome [3]. It is also worth noting that case studies from midwives show successful deliveries in very similar circumstances without medical intervention. [4]

Moving on to Dr. Viezel’s claims concerning the unusual twin-birth of Jacob and Esau, Professor John Makujina has concluded that:

The abnormalities in this birth, then, amount first to the early rupturing of Jacob's membranes, which would enable him to grasp the ankle of his brother. The second anomaly would be the almost simultaneous births of the two brothers, with the added complication of Jacob grasping his brother's ankle – anomaly number three. Interestingly, conditions that would facilitate or increase the likelihood of the last anomaly are themselves quite normal: the intrauterine position of the twins and the grasp reflex. In any case, the first two abnormalities are hardly unprecedented, and the third (grabbing the ankle), though unprecedented, is certainly conceivable.

Makujina concludes:

Given that bizarre events such as this occur outside the world of Genesis, Viezel is in no position to discredit the remarkable elements in the births of Jacob and Esau as the inventions of an obstetrically benighted male author. [5]

What follows in Viezel's article is a series of speculative claims that are built upon the initial incorrect facts examined above. For example, Viezel writes:

Perhaps this image is related to the idea that the womb is depicted metaphorically as a door, and doors are opened with hands. The use of a door as a metaphor for the womb is found most clearly in Job 3, where Job curses the day he was born:

Job 3:10 “Because it did not block the door of my [mother’s] womb…”

Not only is this a huge assumption based on a single verse, but it also ignores the fact that Job 41:14 also describes the mouth as a door. “Who will open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror."

Are we to say that the doors of the mouth also require a hand? Or could it be simply that the author of Job chose to use a door as a metaphor for parts of the body that have openings?

Viezel further postulates,

Biblical narratives were written by men or mostly by men, and in ancient Israel, as was the case in most places until recently, men were not present at childbirth," due in part to, "the view that childbirth generated impurity...the father is not present at the birth, but rather awaits word from a messenger, as reflected in Jeremiah 20:15: “Cursed is the man who brought my father the news, saying: A boy is born to you."

Does the fact that the few recorded biblical births refer solely to female midwives, combined with this one verse in Jeremiah really justify the forceful conclusion that "men were not present at childbirth"? Does the possibility of a relatively minor risk of impurity for a man mean men were never present during deliveries? This claim is possible, but by no means definitive given the very limited evidence we have regarding ancient Israelite birthing practices. Viezel’s theory also relies on the assumption that the hypothetical male authors would not have discovered any details of childbirth from midwives or other women.

Finally, Viezel concludes,

In standard births of cows, sheep, and goats, as well as horses, camels, and donkeys, the hooves (the tips of the forelegs) are the first parts of the body to emerge from the womb.

Viezel assumes that men's only experience with birth involved these animals, and thus any male writing about childbirth would have assumed that human babies emerge hands first as well. Of course, given all the above, this is speculative and based on very weak evidence and questionable readings of biblical verses.

Unfortunately, this sort of speculation is rather common in the world of biblical studies, where academics strike a confident tone and create the impression they are almost certainly correct, even when their ideas are poorly supported by available evidence. Websites which seek to publish such articles must take greater care to examine carefully the evidence being offered to support biblical theories. Weak speculation, while sometimes eye-catching and superficially enjoyable, is a poor substitute for true scholarly analysis.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

[1] https://www.thetorah.com/.../why-does-the-torah-describe...

[2] Weissberg S, O’Leary J. Compound Presentation of the Fetus. Obstetrics and Gynecology. 1973;41(1):60-64.

[3] Clark V, Van M, Fernando R. Oxford Textbook of Obstetric Anaesthesia. Oxford University Press; 2016

[4] https://www.midwifery.org.uk/.../hand-presentation.../

[5] John Makujina, “Male Obstetric Competence in Ancient Israel: A Response to Two Recent Proposals”, VT 66.1 (2016): 78-94.

First posted to Facebook 6 December 2020, here.