Study the Torah with Academic Scholarship

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Julius Wellhausen

Yehezkel Kaufmann: An Academic Defender of Israel’s Religious Spirit

Israelite religion developed from a revolutionary idea: monotheism. And religion alone, not external factors, accounted for the remarkable preservation of Jewish national identity and consciousness in exile.

Dr.

Aly Elrefaei

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Who Wrote the Story of Noah, and When?

Clue: Seven pairs of kosher animals are brought to the ark so that Noah can sacrifice to YHWH after the flood.

Dr.

Lisbeth S. Fried

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The Hertz Chumash: A Polemical Defense of Judaism

To instill Jewish readers with a sense of pride in their religion, Rabbi Joseph Hertz, the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom in the early 20th century, challenged Wellhausen’s Documentary Hypothesis, especially the claim that rabbinic Judaism was a degraded form of Israelite religion. Instead, Hertz went on the offensive, comparing Christian values unfavorably to Jewish values.

Dr. Rabbi

Harvey Meirovich

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Was the Documentary Hypothesis Tainted by Wellhausen’s Antisemitism?

Julius Wellhausen’s analysis of the Torah is perfused with the anti-Jewish sentiment prevalent in Bismarck’s Second German Reich. This adversely affected the use of the Documentary Hypothesis among Jewish scholars until Yehezkel’s Kaufmann’s introduction of a Jewish variation on the theory.

Prof.

Alan T. Levenson

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Biblical Criticism: A Common-Sense Approach to the Bible

Applying our critical faculties to study the Bible, asking questions about its origin, context, and genre.

Prof.

John Barton

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