[Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 06:00:33PM -0500, Meir Shinnar wrote:
:> We know we misunderstood something. Either revelation or science. (I
:> would not call science another way of revelation, that language confuses
:> the issue.) Or, of course, the theories that grow around revelation,
:> around the empirical data, or some combination of the two.

: No, the language is deliberate to clarify the issue - because the
: issue is how much credit do we ascribe to knowledge obtained by other
: means - and realizing hashem reveals himself in different ways.

The problem I have is that "revelation" (to my mind) refers to the
spectrum of bas qol, ruach haqodesh, nevu'ah, MRAH's nevu'ah...
that which we refer to as the unique national *revelation* at Har Sinai.

    "'Chokhmah bagoyim' -- taamin,
    'Torah bagoyim' -- al taamin."

There is an epistomological difference between that we know through
Inspired Sources and which we know through science. Yes, they have much
in common -- both tell us about the Borei. But they aren't fully in
common. It's not that chokhmah and Torah are really the same thing; not
if we're talking "which are we more sure of?" questions. They shouldn't
just be blurred into one under any label for this kind of conversation.

:> The question becomes which do you consider more sure?

:> I am arguing that your approach gives far too much relative surety to
:> theories that grew up around empirical data in comparison to our mesorah.
:> (Again, from the very subjective measure of my own comfort zone.)

: The problem is that the mesora itself both
:   a) gives credibility to knowledge obtained by other means
:   b) recognizes its own limitations - and that understandings can change.
: Therefore, giving some surety to knowledge obtained outside of the
: mesora is PART of the mesora itself...

"Gives credibility" yes. I didn't say all-or-nothing statements. I said
"gives far too much relative surety". And our limitations are in common
whether speaking of chokhmah or Torah, so there is no reason to think
error is more likely to be in one area than the other on that account.

I presume you accept anything in the scientific domain that is well
supported and doesn't raise experimental problems. That, for you, is
sufficient proof for accepting a scientific theory. You wouldn't reject
it because it doesn't fit mesorah, for example.

So, if something in mesorah is well supported within TSBP and doesn't
raise problems internal to Torah, why not afford it the same credibility?
Why does science stand in the face of a conflict with mesorah, as long
as it's sound on scientific grounds, but TSBP doesn't stand in the face
of a conflict with science, as long as it's sound on mesoretic grounds?

That is the lopsidedness toward giving more credance to science that I
see in your position.

:> I am okay with theories that grow up around both, and thus knowledge
:> obtained by what you call "one of Hashem's other ways of revelation
:> to us" IS included in this kind of debate.

:> But to assume we got the Torah wrong when the Torah itself has no hint
:> of such...

: Here is where we differ - because my argument is that the torah
: itself, by giving credibility to other evidence and reason, and by
: informing us of the fallibility of our understanding, gives us more
: than a hint that such changes are possible.  It is this refusal to see
: what is immanent in the torah that is a problem ...

Yes, such changes are possible. But I would expect to find flaws in
the mistaken understanding of the Torah that wouldn't work qua Torah.
Either that, or one must accept that Torah is incomplete, less than
temimah. So, shemesh begiv'on dam can change from its old meaning --
I'm just demanding a higher threshold for doing so.

...
:> If during the event people have conflicting experiences, is it such a
:> big chiddush to suggest the same is true after the event? We who don't
:> rise up to the level of experiencing nissim don't live in a universe
:> where their evidence exists.

: The maharal's theory of nissim works fine as applied to individual nissim
: - but certain parts of the torah are, by pshat, meant to be very public
: events that had an impact on the outside world rather than private events
: - eg, the flood. Interepreting them as private events is one that has
: the same problem that you suggest initially - it is driven by "external"
: evidence rather than internal.

I suggest you learn the Maharal. You are assuming a consistency to reality
that the Maharal is saying fails for miracles. Not internal/subjective
vs external/objective. But conflicting realities. If even within physics,
different frames of reference can have conflicting descriptions of reality
(Was the train ever entirely inside the tunnel?), why can't metaphysics
assert the same thing on a grander and more fundamental scale?

: Therefore, whether one tries to reconcile that "external" evidence by
: i) allegory
: ii) theory of nissim as private events
: iii) theory that events occured as a prophetic revelation, rather than
: in the external world (as in one previous go round)
: iv) flood was local

v) I have no way yet to reconcile the data. The data is too compelling
to let go, but still appears to conflict. Good enough for the conflicts
between Quantum Mechanics and Relativity. Heck, we use QM to design chips
which compute relativistic effects of the GPS sattelite in order to correct
for it and no my location. And yet the two conflict fundamentally when you try
to model gravity.

Why not accept all the data as compelling and postpone the answer?

: - all four are driven by the same issue that you find problematic, and
: no one, based purely on "internal" torah events, would ever have argued
: that, say, the flood had no public world wide manifestations...

Actually, this isn't true of (ii), since the Maharal proves his point that
this is how nissim work from things like the medrash about makas dam,
"shemesh beGiv'on dam" (and only in Giv'on) and other cases. Which is
why I proposed the possibility. He gives mesoretic basis to a theory
of miracle which -- with no appeal to anything but what I called above
"Torah" (in cotrast to "chokhmah") -- would imply something about
the mabul.

As I said, meanings can change within mesorah, even without giving
science greater epistomological weight, greater credance.

Actually, I think more people would find (v) more palatable than (ii).
I just emphasized (ii) because I'm not "most people.

On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 10:08:03PM -0500, T613K at aol.com wrote:
: My neighbor, R' Yakov Homnick, notes that the really interesting and
: significant thing about P' Bereishis is the Torah's claim that THE WORLD WAS
: CREATED IN STAGES. (Exactly how long each stage took is not that relevant and
: possibly not knowable by us.)  The Torah could have said, "And G-d  said,
: Let there be a world!  And there was a world."  It could have  been said in
: one pasuk.

This is central to RAYK's thought on this topic, and he has much positive
to say about evolution because of it.

On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 12:04:35PM -0500, Zvi Lampel wrote:
> RMB wrote:
>> As for RAK's handbook, here's the quote:
>     ...There are four conditions under which there is a tradition that the
>     Torah is not to be taken according to its literal meaning: [181]
>     1. Where the plain meaning is rejected by common experience.
>     2. Where it is repudiated by obvious logic. [182]
>     3. Where it is contradicted by obvious scripture.
>     4. Where it is opposed by clear Talmudic tradition. [183]<

>> ...But more importantly, we aren't talking about literal vs allegory.

> Yom literally means era, as in "lifnei ba yom Hashem hagadol vehanora".<

> Actually, Radak (Yoel 3:3 referring to Yoel 2:11) says that the "Yom  
> Hashem HaGadol V'HaNora" is the day of Gog and Magog's downfall. Sounds  
> like a specific (V-)day.

You skip over my "more importantly", and therefore deal with what I
would call a quibble. The Radaq says a yom can be a year, so I'm not too
bothered with when he says it could be a day. Bereishis pereq 2 refers
to all of maaseh bereishis through Gan Eden as a single yom. (Rashi even
includes the beri'ah yeish mei'ayin before the week of placements.)

I would suggest that there are times yom means a point in time, and
that's what the Radaq is speaing of where.

But I mentioned the possibility that "yom" is literally something other
than day to buttress a more important point. The key issue, AISI, is
not whether maaseh bereishis is literal or allegory, or the mabul is
global, just shy of global, local, or allegoric. It's whether we have
justification to be non-mesoretic about it.

Then we can argue what the mesorah says, although history has proven
that gets us nowhere -- we'll agree to disagree at some point.

...
> True, we're not talking about literal vs. allegory; but about literal  
> (i.e.,  peshat) meaning. But there are rules for determining correct  
> literal meaning as well. Rav Saadia Gaon, the Rambam and the Ikkarim  
> explicitly, and others implicitly, maintain the meaning of the word must  
> be its primary meaning, unless it transgresses one of the rules you  
> mentioned...

Except that maaseh bereishis EVEN IF WRITTEN LITERALLY can not be
understood literally. Anything you read in it that seems like a literal
description of history is a misunderstanding. That's a mishnah. All we
can touch in it is derashah.

We don't have this issue with the mabul, unless we can show that
nissim are also transrational even beyond the Maharal's hard-to-imagine
description of them.

But again, I am not discussing correct peshat. I am discussing correct
history. Which involves knowing how to relate to the TSBP vs other
indications, and nothying about peshat vs allegory vs derashah vs any
particular mode. AISI, it's just an issue of the modes TSBP supports vs
those TSBP doesn't support.

I can't argue with you what the TSBP supports, because what appears to
me to be clear statements by sources as diverse as the Rambam and REED
as showing that maaseh bereishis doesn't give the universe an age are
ones you dispute. (Even when I cite rishonim whose peirushim on the
Rambam who read it as I do. Or we ignore this paradoxical use of yom
by Rashi. Or Rashi's clear use of the two-creation model we generally
associate with the Ramban. Or we discuss REED's source for saying the
Ramban's "days are 24 hours" wasn't means to the exclusion of them also
being something longer. Or we look at R' Schwab's meqoros. Or...)

But unlike many others in this discussion, I'm not citing these sources
to say that Bereishis 1 is pure allegory. Rather, to say that Bereishis
1 is incomprehensible literally, and the effect of that within the set
of ideas we can understand is pretty close to that of allegory. A day
is 24 hours IN A WAY, but also 13 bn years IN A WAY, as per REED's take
on the Ramban. Yom doesn't mean what we think it does not because of
literal vs allegory but because we can't think its real meaning.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha at aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv