[Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood

[Micha Berger]

>From micha at aishdas.org Wed Dec  1 10:12:29 2010
From: Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org>
To: avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood
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On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 09:48:49PM -0500, Zvi Lampel wrote:
> *RMB:>We've debated this numerous times. And I still believe you're  
> mistaken.<*

> *And despite my quoting-- *

Interested Avodah-ites can peruse the hundreds of posts we spent on
these very rishonim over the last decade. Since I can not convince RZL
that numerous acharonim, including the Maharal and REED, understood
those sources differently than what he was taught by R' Avigdor Miller
and others, and instead he just refers to the rishonim exactly as when
they were first introducted, I don't see the point in going around this
circle again.

Just two notes I found something new to say about:
> *5. The Rambam (MN **2:30**), as I will elaborate.*
> positied that each day consisted of thousands of years)*
...
>       ... 11. Abarbanel ...

This was in reply to my previous mention of the Abarbanel's take on 2:30,
which also followed a quote of that Abarbanel. The Abarbanel understands
the Rambam to be speakiing of a causal sequence that was lemaalah min
hazeman, not of any duration at all. AND, he informs us that Narbonni and
the Ralbag explain the Moreh similarly (if you, like most Adovah-ites,
do not have access to copies of the Moreh with their peirushim).

So why bother trying to establish an argument that the Rambam says
something else, particularly in the middle of your own argument based
on the authority of rishonim?

...
> *Yes, I am aware that you personally are not promoting this, but a view  
> that neither academia nor we can attempt to have any idea at all of how  
> the world developed. But this does not correspond to the  
> commentaries...

You think the Maharal didn't know the rishonim?

What is flawed in your citation of sources is that in order to prove
they didn't believe the six yamim were 24 hour days in the same sense
as human experience of days, you would have to prove they don't ALSO
describe the days as something else.

However, REED shows the Ramban does. And so on, with similar conflicting
quotes for most, if not all, of the rest of the list. I think I left our
last such debate with the belief that only Rashi refers to the yamim
of beri'ah as comprehensible days (and then asked if Rashi's focus
on peshat means that he is only talking pshat in pasuq, not history)
without contradiction, but thanks to our debate about 2:4, I'm not sure
about him anymore either.

On Wed, Dec 01, 2010 at 10:34:15AM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
: I think it is clear that Rambam, Ralbag etc. chose allegorical interpretations
: (ie the events occurred in a dream rather than in real life) whenever the
: stories conflicted with their theology or sense of the real world.

The Rambam makes a point of citing Chazal when doing so. Whether direct,
or one he feels forces the implication. Even in the famous case of
turning much of parashas Vayeira into a nevu'ah.

RZL also argued that this finding an internal indication from within
the mesorah is the norm amongst rishonim.


On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 07:37:36AM -0500, Meir Shinnar wrote:
:>    "'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.

: They do have a difference - but one has to be sure what is the
: difference.  One argument is a la yeshayahu leibowitz - that
: revelation (in your sense..) is primarily in the connative sphere -
: while the other is in the cognitive sphere...

Other differences:
    Science deals with "What?" religion with "Why?"
    Or Is vs Ought.

But I cited another difference, an epistomological one -- you can
believe a nakhri's science, but not his "Torah". Which means that they
are different in their information gathering properties as well.

If all of science were subsumed in Torah, that Chazal I quoted would
be paradoxical.

...
: but it DOES FIT mesora - because mesora contains within it the
: understandign that our understanding is limited.

You don't see circularity in this sentence?

Yes, our understanding is limited. And BH grows every day, if you believe
we're still standing there on the shoulders of giants. But that's true
of both sides of the equation.

You're saying that because we don't have perfect grasp of Torah, and there
is TSBP indicating it, it is therefore less authoritative than our imperfect
grasp of science.

:> 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.

: Why?? it is this limited uinderstanding of torah that reflects, IMHO,
: a lack of emunah

I don't understand this sentence. You appear to be saying that there is
a lack of emunah in Torah to think that if we didn't perfectly understand
the Torah, it would be obvious from within the understanding itself rather
than needing to rely on science.

That greater emunah in the Torah means trusting it less in the face of
things less clearly part of it (if at all).

:> 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.

: higher threshold in terms of scientific acceptability - fine
: remember the rambam is explicit (ma'amar techiyat hametim)that the
: reason that he can allegorize is not that there is a specific mesora
: about this  item - but that there is a general mesora that one can do
: so..

Yes, that stories in Chazal are stories, not history. If you and I are
thinking of the same bit in the MTH. Nothing to do with this.

There is no parallel WRT the text of Tanakh.

The problem is your argument is too powerful, and if it worked, then
even belief in Maamad Har Sinai would have to fall to scientific theory.

After all, the notion of a half a million families leaving Egypt,
traveling for 40 years in the desert, entering Canaan and needing decades
to conquer it -- and never entirely succeeding (e.g. Dan and Shim'on)
-- runs against current models of life of that period. We would have
been too large of a percentage of the Egyptian Empire, and multiples
the total population of the land we were to conqure. The archeological
doesn't reflect that.

So, do we allegorize sefer Shemos too?

Or course there are times where we must say that Torah itself is enough
evidence to assume the flaw is in current scientific theory. I would think
therefore the only question is when.

Which I would think excludes this notion that science is part of Torah
(even though goyim have one and not the other), and that the Torah itself
tells you you will always be more advanced and sure in your scientific
knowledge than in your knowledge of it.

...
:> 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?

: I have actually learned the maharal a long time ago.  However, we are
: not dealing with those directly experiencing the nissim - but their
: aftermath. Eg, for the flood - when it says vayimach et kol hayekum -
: did that just happen in the perception/sphere/? of the people at that
: time, or did it actually happen?

As I said, "conflicting realities". It did really happen -- for the people
who experienced it. That doesn't mean that if we were there, it would
have happened for us. From that I suggested a resolution to the problem
that this is why we don't find the evidence, even though numerous cultures
(even those in areas safe from flooding) have a human memory of the event.

: In the end, the difference between your version of the maharal
: approach (it happened but not in our physical world) or allegorical
: approach is actually quite small.

With the difference that it really did happen in the physical world of
the people who alive then. There was a Noach, his neighbor really did
drown, every person descends from Noach, etc...

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

: There is a difference between saying we have a conflict between our
: understanding of the torah and science - and postponing resolution -
: as you are proposing here - and sayign that therefore our
: understanding of torah is correct, and science must be wrong - as you
: said earlier.

What I said earlier was that you were being lopsided in your standards
of truth. To quote myself:
:> 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?

...
: Again, all the examples that he gives reflect nissim whose primary
: impact was on those experiencing them (BTW midrashic undestandings of
: the global impact of shemesh begivon dom is rejected here.). Who is
: the person experiencing the flood as a nes?

Noach and the 7 other people in the teiva, as well as many people for
whom it was their last experience.

I leave the question of whether the cats experienced hashchases kol
hayequm or not to Schroedinger's Cat. (Which again, is a totally different
kind of conflicting reality, just a good metaphor.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Between stimulus & response, there is a space.
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