[Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar

[Lisa Liel via Avodah]

On 5/11/2015 4:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
> <<I think this is tragic.  Rather than allow the blasphemous thought 
> that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their 
> minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple 
> frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern 
> Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>>
>
> I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R.  Schwab  once 
> suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. 
> While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion 
> "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. 
> Leibtag do accept the secular dating.

I didn't call it blasphemous.  I referred to doubting secular 
scholarship as blasphemy, tongue in cheek, because that seems to be the 
way it's viewed by some of the secular thinking Modern Orthodox.  R' 
Schwab once wrote a thought experiment, which was one huge hava amina.  
What if, he said, we were faced with absolute proof that the 
historiography of Chazal was wrong?  And he gave an idea.  He was 
horrified by the way in which the secular thinking Modern Orthodox 
misread what he wrote as an actual position, opposing the veracity of 
Chazal, and wrote, not a retraction, but a clarification that he had 
*never* espoused the position that was being attributed to him.

If R' Leibtag accepts the secular dating, then my comments about the 
tragedy of Modern Orthodox Jews bowing to the modern idol of secular 
scholarship apply there as well.

> In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a 
> tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples
>
> 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu
> As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front 
> of Achav's chariot.
> It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu 
> when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu.

Wrong again.  There's no historiography going on here.  No chronological 
framework of any kind.  It's Midrash.  Like Moshe Rabbenu jumping 10 
amot into the air when fighting Og.  Like Pharaoh's daughter having a 
stretchy, Fantastic Four kind of arm. Midrashim are all true.  They 
aren't all true in the literal sense. Pinchas was not literally Aharon's 
grandson Pinchas ben Elazar. That's quite different from throwing away 
the entirety of Chazal's historiography, which is internally consistent 
all the way through, and which *Chazal clearly believed to be literally 
true*.

If you want to say they were wrong, that they were ignorant of the 
facts, go ahead and do so.  But please, don't play games by imagining 
that they intentionally fudged the facts.

> Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the 
> northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol 
> can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is 
> clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later 
> generations

Again, he wasn't Kohen Gadol.  No one holds that he was.  Let me try and 
explain a little more about Midrash.  Chazal bring Midrashim that 
contradict one another.  For example, there's a Midrash that says Esther 
never slept with Achashveirosh.  That Hashem sent a mal'ach that took 
her place.  That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as with 
the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son.  None of this is 
problematic.  Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their concretes.  
Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are anchored with 
concretes, but are not defined by those concretes.

> 2)  Ezta = Malachi  because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives

And maybe Ezra was Malachi.  And maybe he wasn't.  I don't see much of a 
nafka mina either way.  Do you?

> 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel
> R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the 
> same pasuk

Ditto.  Not one single example you're bringing has anything to do with a 
massive chronological framework that Chazal clearly knew to be the way 
things happened.  Megillat Esther took place *before* Bayit Sheni was 
built, and not after.  Baruch ben Neriah was the talmid of Yirmiyahu and 
the rav of Ezra, and if you throw that away, you literally snap the 
chain of tradition from Sinai, rendering all of Judaism stuff and nonsense.

> 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer
> Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this

Again, l'mai nafka mina?

> 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta
> This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are 
> several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings
> Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta

It's not part of the missing years anything.  You need to read what 
Chazal say about that inside.  As far as Achashveirosh being 
Artachshasta, Chazal say Artaxerxes was a throne name.  And in fact, 
Greek sources say that both Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne 
name.  Furthermore, the Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king 
as Artaxerxes, so saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that 
has nothing to do with chronology.

> 6)  Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat
> with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam
> Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra

I'll go further.  R' Moshe Eisenmann's Divrei HaYamim for Artscroll (one 
of the few books in the Artscroll Tanakh series which I consider to be 
of inestimable value) has an entire section on the Kalevs.  I highly 
recommend it.  But again, Midrash is Midrash, and there's zero relevance 
here.

Let me ask a simple question.  Was Baruch ben Neriya Ezra's teacher?  As 
Chazal say, and as Iggeret Rav Shrira Gaon and Rambam and others bring 
down.  Or not?  And if not, how do you feel about *not* having a chain 
of tradition going back to Sinai?

Lisa