Study the Torah with Academic Scholarship

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Torah Mi-Sinai

The precept of the Torah being given at Sinai

Moses, Rabbi Akiva, and the Expansion of Torah Mi-Sinai

Prof.

Haim (Howard) Kreisel

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Torah, Historically Not from Sinai, Can Still Be from Heaven

Prof.

Edward L. Greenstein

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Anchored in the Authority of Sinai

“Who controls the past controls the future.” – George Orwell, 1984

Dr.

Kevin Mattison

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On the Relationship between Academic and Traditional Torah Study

Dr. Rabbi

Avital Hochstein

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Better Perplexed than Whitewashed

Dr.

Hayah Katz

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Humility, Skepticism, and Defining the Boundaries of Faith

Rabbi

Yuval Cherlow

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Children Should Be Taught the Myth that Torah Is from Sinai

Prof. Rabbi

Yossi Turner

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Biblical Literalism Makes Judaism a Withered Tree

Prof. Rabbi

Arthur Green

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God as an Author Is Akin to Idolatry

Dr. Rabbi

Haviva Ner-David

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The Torah’s Essence Does Not Lie in Its Origin

Prof. Rabbi

Shaul Magid

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Torah Thoughts, Rabbinic Mind, and Academic Freedom

Na’aseh Ve-Nishma

Prof.

Zev Garber

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The Psychological Mechanisms that Protect Unreasonable Faith Claims

Prof.

Solomon Schimmel

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The Status of the Decalogue

Rabbi

David Bigman

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Whose Torah Do We Celebrate on Shavuot?

Rabbi

David D. Steinberg

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The Ancient Practice of Attributing Texts and Ideas to Moses

Ancient scribes would write as if Moses was the author, or they would claim that a tradition was originally stated by Moses, but they did not intend to convey a historical fact with this description. Instead, they meant that a given tradition was “authentically” Jewish, or God’s will and that Moses would have approved. I call this phenomenon “Mosaic Discourse.”

Prof.

Hindy Najman

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Experiencing Moments of Torah Mi-Sinai

A Personal Reflection

Dr.

Michael Carasik

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Judaism Without Sinai?

The Sinai theophany is virtually absent from the Bible outside of the Torah and the very late book of Nehemiah. This absence reflects an alternative tradition that sees Israel’s laws as deriving from multiple small revelations from prophets throughout history. 

Prof. Rabbi

David Frankel

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My Personal Struggle with Unreasonable Belief

Torah Mi-Sinai and other dogmas compelled me to reconsider my place within the Orthodox world.

Prof.

Solomon Schimmel

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Who Wrote the Torah According to the Torah?

Jewish and Christian tradition ascribes authorship of the Pentateuch to Moses in the 13th century B.C.E. Is this what the Pentateuch itself implies about who wrote it and when?

Prof.

Christopher A. Rollston

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Trusting in the Process of Torah Mi-Sinai

Contemporary Jewish polemics use the term “Torah mi-Sinai” to mean a doctrinal belief in the Mosaic authorship of the Torah. The Sages, however, use the term differently, to claim that all of Torah, written and oral, including their very own words, come from Sinai. But is this claim meant to be taken literally?  

Rabbi

Yoseif Bloch

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Torah MiSinai and Biblical Criticism: Rising to the Full Challenge

Dr. Rabbi

Jeremy Rosen

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In What Way Is Shavuot Zman Matan Torateinu?

No biblical text states that the Torah was given on Shavuot. What does it mean then that Shavuot is the “time of the giving of our Torah”?

Dr. Rabbi

Zev Farber

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Hearing God’s Voice: Two Models for Accepting The Torah

By considering two moments in the Bible at which the people gather to hear God’s word: the revelation to Moses at Sinai in Exodus, and Ezra’s assembly in a Jerusalem square in Nehemiah, we can contrast the clear revelation we yearn for with the hidden revelation that upon reflection we should accept.

Prof.

Sam Fleischacker

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