[Avodah] What do we believe about the Kesuvim?

Zev Sero via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Thu Nov 19 21:02:29 PST 2015


We know that the Torah was directly dictated by Hashem.   The nevi'im
had dreams, woke up knowing their meanings, and wrote them down in their
own words.   But what are kesuvim?  When the Sanhedrin decided that a
sefer belonged in the 24, what exactly were they saying about it?
Were they saying that the authors were "inspired", as the Xians say?
Yes, of course they were written with ruach hakodesh, but so were the
mishna, gemara, and all the rishonim and at least the early acharonim.
The Xian idea of "inspiration" is something more than that; they think
the authors of the Bible (including the Torah) were guided by Hashem
to such an extent that their words are really His.  Do we have a similar
belief?

The decision to include or exclude a sefer isn't really discussed in
those terms.  Including a sefer meant that 1) it was metamei the hands
(in order to protect it from mice); 2) it could be saved from a fire
on Shabbos; 3) it was permitted to read it.  And if we look at the
reason given for the exclusion of Sefer Ben Sirach, it's because not
everything in it is true.  Also the reason why Yechezkel almost didn't
make the cut, again it was because it contained things that didn't
appear to be true.   So it seems to me that all the Sanhedrin was
paskening by including the Kesuvim is that they are entirely true,
not that they are in Hashem's work in any greater way than the mishna
or the shulchan aruch, or even than a completely reliable science
textbook, if such a thing exists.  Remember that at the time TShBP
was not yet written down, so it needed no protection from mice or fire,
and thus there was no need to "canonise" it.  Perhaps if the mishna
had already existed  it too might have been "canonised".

Is anyone aware of a source that could either confirm or refute this?

-- 
Zev Sero               All around myself I will wave the green willow
zev at sero.name          The myrtle and the palm and the citron for a week
                And if anyone should ask me the reason why I'm doing that
                I'll say "It's a Jewish thing; if you have a few minutes
                I'll explain it to you".



More information about the Avodah mailing list