Pushing Authentic Judaism Down in the Google Rankings

Hirhurim has now taken up the issue of Rabbi Bearmant. Apparently Rabbi Gil Student has gotten multiple emails from him. I guess I have a new goal to reach, to be spammed multiple times by this blog hit whore. Rabbi Student offers a great way to respond: “Please link to this post and even put up a similar post of your own to push him down in the ranks. Feel free to copy this word-for-word if you want. And while you're at it, it might also help if you end every new post with the words ‘Authentic Judaism.’”

I see that Chaviva has already taken Rabbi Student up on this suggestion.

I Got Spammed by Rabbi Raphael Bearmant of Authentic Judaism

Last week, Wolfish Musings posted on an unnamed Haredi blogger who sent him an email advertising his blog. Wolf refused to say who the blogger was. My guess was that it was Authentic Judaism. I ran into this blog recently as well. My reaction was “wow this guy makes Jewish Philosopher sound almost Modern Orthodox.” I think it is useful to notice the Rabbi Avigdor Miller playbook at work. We have a crude argument from design leading to the conclusion that Judaism must be the true religion followed by blanket condemnations of anyone who does to follow “authentic Judaism” and ad hominem attacks. I particularly found his swipe at Dr. Leiman amusing as I know him personally. It is comforting to know that I have never treated any Haredi godol as flippantly as he does a man who actually should be one of the people speaking for Orthodox Judaism.

To my surprise, I have just received the same email:


Dear Colleague,

I sincerely thought that the following new blog would be of interest to you:

Authentic Judaism

Please expect to be presented with some new ideas. I hope you are strong enough to rise above the mediocre thinking based on a materialistic world outlook and consider adopting an Authentic Jewish one.

Please forward the url of this blog to anyone you think could benefit from it.

We are proud to see that after much effort, this blog is number one on Google: Authentic Judaism Search on Google as well as Yahoo: Authentic Judaism Search on Yahoo

Sincerely,
Rabbi Raphael Bearmant


PS This is not spam or junk mail. This is a sincere endeavor to get this important information to as many people as possible. Don't worry, as long as our technology holds up, we will not be contacting you again.

I must be coming up in the blogging world if random lunatics are emailing me and asking for my help in promoting them. I do love that end part about this email not being spam. He calls me a colleague, without bothering to stick my name at the top, so this is clearly a form letter. Then he tells us that he is relying on technology to send out these emails and make sure he does not repeat himself. That sounds like spam to me. We can conclude from this that, not only is Rabbi Bearmant a loudmouth Haredi clown, and a blog hit whore, he is a liar as well. As you can see, Rabbi Bearmant was nice enough to give out his phone number. The area code indicates that he lives in Northern New Jersey. Since he so freely gave his number to me even though I did nothing to ask for it, I see no problem in giving it out to anyone else who wants it. 

I understand Wolf’s wish to not grant this person any publicity. That being said, with all due respect to Wolf, I am posting this piece. I do have my own self-interest to think of. If Rabbi Bearmant and his blog are going to be such hot keywords I want to get in on the act. I may not be enough of a whore to send out mass mailings to random bloggers begging them to check out my blog, but I do like getting hits and comments. Also, I believe that publicizing lunatics like Rabbi Bearmant serves a constructive purpose. The existence of someone like him is a challenge to more “moderate” and “intellectual” Haredi bloggers like Freelance Kiruv Maniac, Daas Torah, and Not Brisk by placing the burden of showing how they are not like him and that their positions do not inevitably lead to him. As someone who is trying to move Orthodox Judaism in a more liberal direction, I believe that it is important to raise the stakes and make it as damaging as possible to hold Haredi positions. Contrary to what Not Brisk might think, Rabbi Avigdor Miller was not all happiness and smiles. Authentic Judaism is an excellent demonstration of how there is nothing innocent about holding Haredi positions. Either you come out in the open to accept evolution and turn away from gedolim worship or you become complicit in fostering Rabbi Bearmant’s hateful ideology.

The Attack of Some Vampires from my Past

When I first posted on Twilight I mentioned a series of books called The Vampire Diaries L. J. Smith.

These books are very similar to Twilight. Vampire Diaries even has a werewolf making an appearance. It makes a very useful comparison in that the Vampire Diaries serves to demonstrate how easily Twilight could have gone wrong in the hands of a less talented author.


I read Vampire Diaries when I was in fifth grade. Like Twilight, Vampire Diaries is built on the premise of girl meets guy, girl falls in love with guy, guy falls in love with girl, guy just happens to be a vampire and stuff ensues from there. The Bella Swan character here is named Elena Gilbert and the role of Edward Cullen is taken up by Stefan Salvatore. Stefan, a vegetarian/black-ribbon vampire, comes from Renaissance Italy where he had a brother named Damon. Both he and Damon, while hating each other, fell in love with the same woman, Katherine, and asked her to choose between them. Katherine, unbeknownst to them, was a vampire and, unwilling to make a choice, decided to go with both of them. Stefan and Damon proved unwilling to live with the arrangement. Seeing this Katherine committed suicide by stepping out unprotected into sunlight. (The obvious plot twist does occur. We later find out that Katherine faked her suicide and shows up in the present.) Elena looks almost exactly like Katherine and, once Damon shows up, she becomes caught up in this centuries old brotherly war. Damon in the right hands could have been an interesting character along the lines of Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He is the villain through the first two books, who becomes good, at least sort of, and provides the cynical commentary. As it plays out in the book though, Damon comes out as making no sense. When the books needed him as a villain they made him a villain and then make him one of the good guys once Stefan needs a brotherly sidekick.

Just to be clear, I do not consider Vampire Diaries to be worthwhile reading. They are like the Twilight series, but without the charm, Bella’s running straight-man commentary and the long supply of characters that one actually cares about. The quality writing is about the same as two better known young adult horror authors of that generation, R. L. Stine with his Fear Street series (This is before he turned to writing for pre-adolescents with the Goosebumps series.) and Christopher Pike. Smith is on the more chaste side of things, more Stine than Pike. I find it to be an interesting reflection on our society that Twilight has been controversial for its abstinence message. There is more sexual content in Twilight than Vampire Diaries. Vampire Diaries was written long ago in the early 90s when one could write young adult novels without any sex and no one would think twice. (One had to be careful on the off chance that ten-year old Orthodox boys might read them.) To be fair to Smith, I did read all four of the books in the series back then. (I have since found out that she has continued the series in recent years.) Despite the fact that I viewed the books then as trash and would likely have an even lower opinion now, there must have been something that drew me in. I even fantasized about being able to play Klaus, the “big bad” who appears in the fourth book as the vampire behind the scene pulling the strings of the story. I do think I would make a great vampire and would love to play one. Klaus, though, would be too head man Dracula vampire for me. I would be better off as the second-in-command vampire who gets to run around, kill people and laugh.

Soon after Twilight became really big with Breaking Dawn, I noticed Vampire Diaries on sale in a two-volume edition. I had a laugh at that; apparently Twilight was powerful enough to resurrect a book from the netherworld of used paperbacks. Now I find out that Vampire Diaries is being made into a television show by the CW. That counts as taking the desire for something Twilight-like to an extreme. Since the source material was mediocre at best and is being made, one assumes, because it is like Twilight, I do not expect the show to be any good nor do I expect it to last for more than a few weeks. I would like to say that will have the good sense to not bother watching it at all. I suspect, though, that I will find myself watching at least an episode for all time’s sake.

I would like to add a side note as to the nature of young adult/teenage fiction. As it should be clear from the post, I regularly read young adult fiction before I was a teenager when I was a pre-adolescent reading on a teenage level. I still read a fair amount of young adult material since I have a strong inner-child and like a good story no matter what age category. In this sense, I represent both ends of the market for young adult literature. This begs the question of is the audience for young adult literature really teenagers. The book reading population is quite small and those who do read are likely to be significantly above average readers. Teenagers who actually read books are likely to be at an adult reading level and therefore reading adult books. Pre-adolescent readers, though, are likely to be reading at a teenage level and will, therefore, turn to young adult books. On the flip side, there are also going to be adults who are going to be attracted to young adult fiction. Sean Jordan argues that since most adults are not capable of reading adult fiction there is a large market for children’s books that are mature enough to appeal to adults but are “childlike” enough for such people to read. He makes this argument in regards to Harry Potter. The model would also fit Twilight and to a large extent the Da Vinci Code (a young adult book openly marketed for adults from the beginning) as well. In the end audience for young adult books are not teenagers, but pre-adolescents and adults.

Luther Wanted to Burn Down Synagogues But He Was Not an Anti-Semite

I spoke about Martin Luther the other day. I asked my Hebrew Academy students to define anti-Semitism and whether Luther was an anti-Semite. (As an early modernist, one of my personal goals is that after a year of my class my students, when they hear the name Martin Luther, should not think of a black preacher with a dream but a fat, beer-drinking German.) Almost every one of my students defined anti-Semitism as hating Jews. They also all saw Luther as an anti-Semite. I sympathize with my students’ feelings. When I was younger I agreed with my students. In my ninth grade history class, I called Luther a bum. The history teacher, Mr. Jesse, responded that he was a Lutheran. I guess you can say oops. (Mr. Jesse was the perfect middle school teacher. He was physically intimidating as in over six feet tall, built like a brick wall, yelled, and threw stuff. He also had a basic command of the material, was a genuinely likable person, and had a great sense of humor.)

There are certainly good reasons for viewing Luther as an anti-Semite. After taking a fairly positive attitude toward Jews early in his career, Luther turned on Jews with a vengeance in On the Jews and their Lies (1543). Luther advises:

First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. …
Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. …
Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.
Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb.
Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like.
While this aspect of Luther was mostly ignored until the twentieth century, the Nazis made use of Luther, viewing him as a precursor of theirs. The modern Lutheran Church has officially rejected all statements of Luther’s regarding Jews.

I believe that it is important that for anti-Semitism to mean something it has to mean something more than hating Jews. The English hate the French and vice versa. At Ohio State, we have a Hate Michigan Week every November. Pretty much every group on the planet has been hated by someone else, has been the subject of bigotry, discriminated against, and even on occasion killed. Anti-Semitism is something beyond that. Jews are unique in the sort of hatred they have consistently evoked in so many different places and people. What other group of people has something to compare to the blood libel or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century? The Nazis hated lots of different groups of people yet there was something about the Jews that made them a special target. For example, the German war effort in 1944 was literally sabotaged in order to massacre Hungarian Jewry. So anti-Semitism is not just people hating Jews but people having a pathological hatred of Jews, a hatred of Jews that goes beyond reason.

When dealing with Christian-Jewish relations it is important to distinguish between Christians who were hostile to Jews for what they were and a Christian hostility that went beyond all reality. Let us be clear, medieval Jews were heretics, unbelievers, and blasphemers, who hated Christians. Toldot Yeshu was accepted as fact by Jews. They believed that their ancestors really did kill Jesus and were proud of it. To them, Jesus was a bastard, a heretic, and a magician while the Virgin Mary was a whore. From this perspective, Luther was being perfectly reasonable. All his accusations were things that Jews would have admitted to. Jews cursing Christians was a fact. When Jews, in the sixteenth century, said the curse for heretics in the eighteen benedictions they meant Christians. It was a fact that Jews referred to Christians as goyim. Jews called Jesus the ‘hanged one.' Jews practiced usury. Luther refers to the blood libel accusations. He was agnostic about these charges but argued that Jews hated Christians enough to murder Christians. Again this was a very reasonable assumption.

Luther was a polemicist, who wrote in an aggressive manner; even by the standards of the day Luther’s universe was highly Manichean one, sharply divided between the saved and the unsaved with no grey area in between. It was not just Jews whom he believed to be satanic. He believed that the Catholic Church and even fellow Protestants who disagreed with him were also of the Devil and going straight to Hell. So there was nothing particularly anti-Jewish about his demonization of Jews. The fact that they were Jews was incidental to the fact that they were people who disagreed with him.

In the pre-modern period, all government authority was inherently religious. It was assumed that it was God’s will that a certain person rule. Because of this, there was, almost by definition, no such thing as a non-political religious claim. Every religious claim had political implications and anyone who went against the established religion was by definition engaging in political subversion. For example, if God is not a Catholic then God clearly would not want the Catholic Charles V to rule over his German people and take care of their spiritual welfare like he has the Pope look after their spiritual welfare. Therefore anyone who was not a Catholic in early sixteenth-century Germany was implicitly advocating for the overthrow of Charles V. Because of this it is impossible to ever accuse a pre-modern, Luther or anyone else, of being intolerant of other religions. Luther was perfectly in his rights to advocate the use of violence against Jews or any other religious subversives just as we accept the legitimacy of the use of violence even today against political traitors. And in fact, Jews got off much easier than Luther’s Christian opponents. Luther explicitly warned against directly harming Jews. The fact that Luther only wanted to destroy Jewish property, interfere with the ability of Jews to earn a livelihood and practice their religion while at the same time advocating physical violence against Catholics and Anabaptists begs the question not why Luther was hostile to Jews but why he was not more hostile to them. One suspects that it had something to do with his strong Augustinian leanings.

In conclusion, I do not think it is accurate or helpful to view Luther as an anti-Semite. He was an active opponent of Judaism which is nothing remarkable as to be a Christian, unless you are a very liberal one, requires that one be at least a passive opponent of Judaism, along with every other religion. Luther’s opposition to Judaism was internally consistent. His accusations against Jews are all grounded in solid fact; there was nothing fantastical about them. He took these things to their logical conclusion and endorsed a very reasonable sixteenth-century solution to the problem. Jews today do not have any legitimate grounds for any personal animosity against Luther himself let alone to use Luther as a polemical club against modern-day Lutherans.

History Quiz

I gave a quiz today to my Modern Jewish history class at Hebrew Academy with two questions and a bonus.

1. How is the historical method different from the scientific method? Does this mean that historical claims are just random guesses or leaps of faith? (I cannot prove that Napoleon ever existed, but I believe in my heart that he did. Believing in the existence of Napoleon gives meaning to my life and makes me a better person. I therefore believe in him just like I believe in fairies, floating invisible teacups in outer space and flying spaghetti monsters.)

2. Name five prominent Jewish historians.

One bonus point for each historian that you can match with their choice for the starting point for modern Jewish historian.

For more detailed discussions of the historical method than I wanted from my students see the posts on Philosopher Football, Dragonseed, and evolution as history. As for the historians, the ones that I discussed in detail in class along with their views on modern Jewish history were Gershom Scholem (Sabbatai Sevi), Heinrich Graetz (Moses Mendelssohn), Shimon Dubnow (French Revolution), Isaac Jost (Frederick the Great), and Benzion Dinur (Yehudah Ha-Hasid). Other historians mentioned either in class or in my student’s readings were Josephus, Jacques Basnage (not Jewish but certainly a historian of Jews), Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, Shmuel Ettinger, Michael Meyer, Salo Baron and Yosef Yerushalmi.

Method Thinking or How Not to Play Sports

I was never particularly good at sports. The only thing that I did even somewhat well was playing defense in street hockey. That is a position that does not require much in the way of skill but a willingness to throw your body around, put yourself in the way of people and the ball, take a hit and hit back. I never had much in the way of talent, to this day I have remarkably poor hand and eye coordination, but I always played with a lot of heart and did my best. As such, I took it as a personal offense to see kids who were not trying and who even just sat there staring off into space with their hands in their pockets. In sports, there are no guarantees to win. There is certainly no way to always stop your opponent from scoring. Your opponent will score and will win games. A team that can win two-thirds of their games over a season is an elite team. That being said there are ways to maximize the chances of winning. It does not take any great sports wisdom to understand that to succeed, whether at soccer or at other sports, one needs to play with all of one’s heart, do one’s utmost to get in the way of the opposition and stop them from scoring and on the flip side to go after the ball and try to score for oneself. This may not be enough to win, but it is better than the alternative of staring off into space with one’s hands pocketed. Staring off into space with one’s hands pocketed is not an “alternative” style of playing, it is not playing at all, not even if you come up with clever philosophical arguments to prove that your opponent’s goals are nothing artificial intellectual constructs.

As a historian, I engage in method thinking. I know that I do not have a sure path to being right. In fact, I will be wrong quite often. That being said I know that the historical method allows one to maximize the chances of being right about past historical events and that it is far superior to any of the alternatives to such an extent that the alternatives cannot be seen as playing the game at all. As a historian I know to rely on written documents, particularly internal documents such as private letters and diaries. I know to be suspicious of the memory of individuals and to show no faith in oral traditions. Either you have written texts or you go home. I know how to critically interrogate texts, to look for contradictions, biases and narrative constructions. This allows me not only to spot a falsehood but also to form hypotheses that are remarkably close to the truth. Cherry-picking sources to find things that one wants to hear or employing radical skepticism to throw out all source readings, leaving one to believe whatever one wants, does not. Such a method may sometimes get things right, even some things that the historical method gets wrong. In the long run, though, it cannot compete. Furthermore, even when the historical method makes a “mistake” it still has the internal mechanism to eventually correct itself. The “alternatives” have no such mechanism.

As a follower of the historical method, I am not afraid to be wrong and accept that I will quite often be wrong. I am not omniscient; the study of history often forces me to make guesses based on incomplete evidence to almost no evidence. As a person, I have my biases and will misread sources. While I may be biased and flawed and the sources I work with are certainly that, the historical method has no such weaknesses. I will, therefore, rely wholeheartedly on the historical method, win or lose. I would rather be wrong following the historical method than be right following an “alternative.”

Whig Propaganda Coming Soon to a Theater near You

Lionel Spiegel has tipped me off to the coming movie Agora, starring Rachel Weisz. It tells the story of the late antique pagan female philosopher Hypatia, who was murdered by a Christian mob. Judging from the preview, the film seems to hit the basic Whig and feminist talking points. The fourth century is the downfall of civilization with the coming of fanatical misogynistic Christianity, who also burn down the Great Library at Alexandria. Might it be too much to ask that the movie actually give some context to these events and actually deal with some of the complexities of the political situation beyond pagans were good and tolerant and Christians were nasty and intolerant? And they have the nerve to call this a true story.

Hypatia was not a modern scientist nor was she a modern feminist. She was a Platonist philosopher who lived in the period of late antiquity. Of course, this would actually require some actual background on philosophy in late antiquity. The moment you treat her as anything besides this, you are no longer dealing with history but with fiction. Any attempt to consciously pass off such fiction as history is to engage in falsehood.

Harry Potter in the Dragon Age

I am in middle of reading Dragonseed, the newest book in James Maxey’s Dragon Age series. It is about a post-apocalyptic age in which humans are ruled by dragons. (This is one of those story ideas that sound absolutely lame, but somehow, due to some brilliant writing and character development, manages to work.) In the beginning of Dragonseed, two characters, Shay and Jandra, find a cache of old books, dating from before the time of the dragons, among which is Harry Potter:

Shay let out a grasp. Jandra looked at him. He was in front of the bookshelf.
“By the bones!” said Shay. “He has all seven!”
“All seven what?”
“The Potter biographies! The College of Spires only had five of the volumes… four now, since I stole one.”
“What’s so special about these books?” She picked up one of the fat tomes and flipped it open.
“Potter was a member of a race of wizards who lived in the last days of the human age,” said Shay.
Jandra frowned as she flipped through the pages. “Are you certain this isn’t fiction?” she asked.
“The books are presented as fiction,” said Shay. “However, there are other artifacts that reveal the actual reality. I wouldn’t expect you to know about photographs, but-“
“I know what a photograph is,” she said. …
“Photographs recorded the physical world, and a handful of photographs of this famous wizard still survive. Some show him in flight on his …” His voice trailed off. He turned toward Jandra, studying her face carefully. …
“How did Potter control his magic?”
“With a wand and words. Is this how you control your magic?”
Jandra was intrigued. Her genie could take on any shape she desired. Why not the form of a wand? Of course, she’d never needed any magic words – the genie responded to her thoughts. Still … could this Potter have been a nanotechnician? (Dragonseed pg. 78-80.)

As a historian, I find this passage to be of interest. This is a version of a scenario that I often play with my students; imagine a future historian, who knows nothing about our time period trying to make sense of a given document and constructing a historical narrative based on it. The secular version of this involves audio recordings of the Rush Limbaugh show. The Jewish version involves a stack of Yated Neeman newspapers. I have actually used the example of Potter when dealing with narrative construction. If I were J. K. Rowling and I wished to write a series of books about a boy named Harry Potter that was going to sell millions of copies, what would I put into it? I would stick things in that were out of the ordinary like magic and a world full of wizards. But beyond the obvious issue of magic there are a host other more subtle devices. To keep the story interesting the stakes must always be maximized. Harry must constantly find himself in mortal peril with the fate of the entire wizarding world in the balance; mere detention just will not do. The story should be fairly neat with a clear beginning and end. Harry should escape from the Dursleys and get to Hogwarts. Once he gets to Hogwarts he should sniff out some evidence of a foul plot. After spending the main part of the book investigating matters, Harry should walk right into the villain’s clutches, setting off a rousing climax and a happy ending. There should be a fairly limited number of characters. All the important actions in the story should be carried out by a select group of people, who the reader is already familiar with. There should not be random characters coming into the story, performing crucial actions and then disappearing. Furthermore, in order to maintain an orderly plot, there should be clear cut heroes and villains. The audience should be cheering for Harry Potter to defeat Lord Voldemort. There is no need to give Lord Voldemort a fair hearing and allow him to explain his side of the story.

In addition to the structure of the plot, there is a need for a certain amount of story logic to move things along. For example, it is necessary that top secret objects be hidden in maximum security facilities that are nothing more than obstacle courses to be traversed by a group of eleven-year olds. Schools like Hogwarts need to stay open despite the fact that there are mythical monsters on the loose and not act like real schools, which close down for any two-bit bomb threat. Villains need to suffer from excess monologuing, thus allowing Potter to constantly not get killed. The teachers at school should be incredibly powerful to allow for any necessary dues ex machina actions and yet either be less capable of dealing with the yearly acts of villainy than a group of pre-adolescents or have the eccentric pedagogic theory that allowing children to end up in extreme mortal peril is something to be recommended. (The lack of any functional child services is also a necessary plot element.) With all due respect to Harold Bloom, this is not a weakness of the Potter series. Potter, at its heart, is an attempt to graft the hero story onto a school setting. More importantly, like almost any work of fiction, Potter operates on its own logic, which needs to be accepted on its own terms as part of a suspension of disbelief.

These elements, far more so than claims of magic, serve to tag Potter as a work of fiction. Potter engages in narrative and story logic in order to craft a story that someone would actually wish to read. The historian, as part of his arsenal, can think counter-narratively. Any narrative that contains things like an organized plot, clear heroes and villains and relies on certain leaps of logic to move along can be viewed as a created narrative, as fiction. Shay and Jandra are trained to think like scientists, but not like historians. They therefore have nothing to protect themselves with once a narrative moves past some theoretical baseline of physical plausibility.

Putting the History into “Natural History:” A Proposal to Shift the Debate over Evolution

Evolution can be divided into what I would like to refer to as theoretical evolution and practical evolution. There is the theory of evolution that species can evolve over time, most likely through some variation of Darwinian natural selection. The truth of this claim can easily be demonstrated scientifically in that operating on the assumption that evolution is true allows us to make certain successful predictions as to what will take place in the world. For example the whole process of proscribing antibiotics relies on the assumption that the bacteria in question will evolve. Evolutionary theory even allows us to predict precisely how bacteria will evolve. (Yes evolution is a theory, but so is gravity. All you anti-evolutionists out there please get over it.) This theory of evolution, though, is a different from practical evolution, which I would like to deal with here. For evolution to hold, one needs to be able to go from saying that evolution is physically possible to saying that it actually happened and that it accounts for the diversity of life on earth.

Opponents of evolution are fond of arguing that evolution is not a science. In a sense they have a point, evolution, at least as a something that has happened in the past, is not subject to scientific analysis. Opponents of evolution will take this line of argument further and challenge evolutionists to prove that the conditions of life on earth were not radically different and that scientific laws were not different then. This speaks to a major limitation of the scientific method. The scientific method requires one to be able to make future predictions. All the demonstrations of scientific principles working in the here and now will not demonstrate that things were not different in the past. If this is a weakness of science I would point out that this also illustrates the hypocrisy of anti-evolutionists, particularly those who are religious fundamentalists, to engage in such a naked display of selective self serving empiricism.

I am not troubled by this challenge to evolution because, as a historian, I deal with things that are outside of the scientific method and do not yield future predictions on a daily basis. For example, as a historian, I accept the existence of Napoleon Bonaparte as a historical fact. This is the case despite the fact that there is no scientific experiment that can confirm this; there is no future event that I can predict based on my acceptance of the Napoleon “theory.” I believe that Napoleon was a real person and that he led France during the Napoleonic wars because there are literally warehouses of documents from all over the world that, when interpreted through the lens of the historical method, say that he did. It would have required that the entire human race conspired to invent such a character or for some alien power to come and brainwash all humans for us to come up with a different solution. I cannot “prove” that a worldwide conspiracy or an alien brainwashing did not take place, but I am required by the principle of Ockham’s razor to accept the simplest interpretation of these warehouses of evidence that Napoleon really did exist. Anyone who doubts the existence of Napoleon or who wishes to consider “alternative” theories deserves a one way ticket to a padded cell, a straight jacket and a lifetime supply of happy pills.

This notion of historical fact suggests an obvious response to the argument that evolution is not a science; agreed that practical evolution is not a science, it is history. The evidence for evolution having happened is of the same nature as the evidence for any historical event. No historian has personally witnessed the rise of ancient civilizations, the move from hunter gatherer societies, to agricultural societies, to urban cities, the change from bronze work to iron, or the invention of the wheel. The historian is faced with layers of archeological evidence; he sees the remains of more complex cultures situated above the remains of less complex ones and sees that the former has a carbon dating that points to a later time. The simplest narrative that can be constructed from this, in terms of Ockham’s razor, is of the evolution of civilizations from hunter gatherer societies all the way through urban iron making societies with complex governments and not any Garden of Eden, flood or tower of Babylon dispersion narratives. The historian therefore comes to accept the evolution of civilization narrative despite the fact that these events cannot be reproduced in a laboratory nor can they enable one to successfully predict any future phenomenon. Similarly with evolution, we are called to interpret a body of evidence consisting of different organisms in different strata of rock. The simplest narrative that we can fit the evidence into is not some supernatural being bringing all creation into existence in a matter of days but of different organisms existing during different periods over the course of hundreds of millions of years. We therefore assume the later. From science we already know of the theory of evolution via natural selection and its extreme plausibility. We therefore take evolution via natural selection as our vehicle to get us from earlier organisms to later ones.

To move away from theory, this understanding of evolution, as a type of history, should have practical implications. May I suggest that evolution be taught not as science but as history? The study of nature as a historical field already exists and is known as environmental history. Examples of this type of history are Fernand Braudel’s The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II and, on a more popular level, Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel. Ohio State has Professor John L. Brooke working in environmental history. (He guest lectured once in my historiography class where he devoted himself to attacking Diamond.) This growing field should be expanded by placing those who deal with practical evolution in this field with the title of natural historian. The fact that this newly expanded field would require people with strong scientific backgrounds need not make it any less a historical endeavor. Historians who deal with firearms during the Napoleonic wars need to know something about physics in order to understand the practical implications of different gun designs.

This could make for an excellent opportunity to increase the public awareness of evolution. Just as schools teach American and European history, they should also have to teach natural history. This would be the grand narrative of evolution. Rather than a decrease in the amount of time devoted to teaching students about science, this would, in practice, serve to increase the amount of science as more time could be devoted in science classes to actual science, including the theory of evolution. Finally it should be said that this plan holds within it the seed for a new form of environmental conscious-raising. Just as traditional history is useful, for better or worse, for strengthening the student’s willingness to identify with the state, natural history could be useful in getting students to identify themselves with the planet. We are part of this grand narrative of the evolution of life on earth. This story began millions of years before we were born and hopefully will continue for millions of years after we die. Let us make us make sure that we do something positive with this small role of ours.

I am a Genius (the Street Sign Told me so)

Here are two Jerusalem street signs. The first is Ben-Zion St. The second street is Ha-Iluy, which is Hebrew for “the genius.” So there you have it, Ben-Zion the genius.

A Trip to the Creation Museum

There is a wonderful series of videos over on Pharyngula from a recent trip of over two hundred secularists to the Creation Museum in Kentucky. The first video is the most interesting one so do try to see at least that. When it comes to attacking creationism I am with these people one hundred percent. The people who made the video did an excellent job, both in terms of the quality of the video and in terms of the fact that they were kind, courteous and professional to those they interacted with. Take a look at the material on displays at the museum and the patrons. Richard Dawkins and an army of atheist professors could not make a more effective argument for the non-existence of God than this museum.

Maimon on Hasidim: Are Haredim Capable of Acts of Virtue?

In earlier posts, I discussed the importance of an ethical God as the basis for a truly monotheistic religion. I am not a big fan of Solomon Maimon. As with Voltaire, I find Maimon to have been a miserable excuse for a human being. His autobiography is useful mainly for its “how I became an apikores” and “how I gave my rebbe a heart attack” hilarity. In the following passage from his autobiography, though, he does say something of value.

But as these people [the Hasidim] have false ideas of religion itself and their virtue has as its basis merely the future rewards and punishments of an arbitrary tyrannical being who governs by mere caprice, their actions in point of fact flow from an impure source, namely the principle of interest. Moreover, in their case this interest rests merely on fancies; so that, in this respect, they are far below the grosses Epicureans, who have a low, to be sure, but nevertheless genuine interest as the end of their actions. Only when it is itself founded on the idea of virtue can religion yield a principle of virtue.

Haredi apologists, such as Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz of the Yated, often point to the willingness of individual members of their community to perform acts of kindness even to random strangers. Such things are obviously commendable and I acknowledge that the greatest strength of this community is the personal goodness of its individuals. That being said the source of such goodness makes any claim to virtue problematic. Haredim are very open about the fact that the source of their morality is their belief that they are commanded by God to behave in such a manner and that God will reward or punish them based on their actions. I do not challenge the proposition of divine reward and punishment either in this world or in some future world, but to have it as the primary motivation for one's actions negates any virtue.

There is the classical Kantian quandary of if my friend is sick, do I visit him and why. If I am a Kantian then I must visit my friend in keeping with a universal ethical imperative, but if I act out of such a universal imperative I am not acting as a friend, out of any sense of emotional attachment. On the reverse side, if I go as a friend than I am not acting according to a universal imperative and am therefore as a Kantian. This requires one to redefine friendship as something apart from emotional attachment. I recognize that it is physically impossible to live up to the full extent of one’s ethical imperatives to the entire human race. For example, I could not possibly go visit every sick person in the world even though they would all, in theory at least, be deserving of my attention. The solution is to pick a limited number of people and devote one’s efforts in fulfilling one’s ethical imperatives with them. These people are labeled friends. As an Asperger, this understanding of friendship works perfectly for me and I have no problem understanding love I these terms.

If a Haredi person comes to visit me because I am sick, I have to assume that he is not doing it out of any actual concern for me or any desire to be virtuous. The only reason why he is visiting me is because he believes that he is earning points with his god, which can be cashed in for goodies in this world and in the next. If this Haredi person’s god, or whomever this Haredi person takes as speaking for god, tomorrow tells him to spit at me and laugh at the fact that I am incapacitated and that he will score special bonus points for doing so then I have every reason to assume that he would spit and laugh at me. In the end, the only people who can be virtuous are those who act out of the principle that what they do has innate value as a virtuous action, regardless of any divine command, offer of reward or threat of punishment.

Fifteenth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Hebrew Bibliography in Early Modern Europe

Adam Shear – Reuchlin and the Categorization of Jewish Literature circa 1500

How did Early Modern Jews organize books? How did such categories affect how the books were treated? Such a study should reveal something about the mental framework of those who used them. One place to look are lists of books whether Jewish nor non-Jewish. These lists, though, are not divided by categories. Historians are left using modern categories. Using our modern categories can obscure the relationship between these books. All historical research involves translation, but there is still a need to understand things as people at the time understood them. The Christian Hebraist Johannes Reuchlin responded to Johannes Pfefferkorn, a convert from Judaism, who had told the emperor that Jewish literature contained damaging material to Christians. Reuchlin defended the Talmud and Jewish rights. According to Reuchlin, Jews had legal protection and that furthermore their works benefited Christians. Reuchlin offers the earliest bibliographical scheme for Jewish books, going from most authoritative to least authoritative.

Holy Scripture – This carries the highest authority.

Talmud – Reuchlin makes no mention of the Mishnah nor does mention the Oral Law. He simply views the Talmud as exegesis on the Bible. As a Christian he was not about to lend any extra authority to the Talmud as having any basis in a tradition. This stance, though, also helps when dealing with anti-Christian statements. Reuchlin could argue that such statements were not intrinsic to Judaism.

Kabbalah - This was not something that Pfefferkorn or the Cologne theologians were familiar with. This had more to do with Reuchlin’s interests.

Commentaries – These, Reuchlin points out, are not binding, like the Talmud.

Midrash and Sermons – Reuchlin removes Midrash as a category of series of authority and places it on the same level of medieval sermons. There is no mention of Jewish liturgy.

Philosophy

Poetry, fables – These are deemed by Reuchlin as whimsical. Even the Jews, he claims, do not take them seriously. Reuchlin places the Nizzahon and Toldot Yeshu in this category. He even makes the claim that the Jews forbid these books themselves. Reuchlin may have been a naive sap but a very canny lawyer.

As Yaacov Deutsch argues, this is a period in which Christians, particularly converts, begin to offer descriptions of what Jews do. There is a parallel to the Barcelona debate of 1263. Reuchlin seems to engage in both sides of the Barcelona Debate. Like Nachmonides he tried to limit authority of midrashic literature. On the other hand he wished to give a Christian interpretation of Jewish texts.

(Dr. Shear is the author of the Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity and the Tea, Lemon, Old Books.)


Stephen G. Burnett – Jean Plantavit de la Pause’s Bibliotheca Rabbinica (1645) and Seventeenth - Century Jewish Bibliography

The Christian Hebraist Jean Plantavit de la Pause’s (1576 – 1651) bibliography of Jewish books, Biblia Rabbinica, is often criticized for repeating the errors of Johannes Buxtorf and adding his own. Plantavit is still valuable as an example of this period where knowledge of Judaism growing because of converts and because of more Judaic libraries. Plantavit lead a dramatic life with two theological careers. He was born into a Hugonaut family and trained as a Protestant theologian. He converted to Catholicism after he already had a degree in theology. Interested in Hebrew, Plantavit studied with Leone Modena. Modena encouraged him to start his own Hebrew library. Modena may have done this out of self interest as he was a book seller. Plantavit also studied under Domenico Gerosolimitano, the converted Jew who served as the chief censor for the Catholic Church. (See Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin’s The Censor, the Editor, and the Text.)

Biblia Rabbinica was intended to replace Buxtorf’s work. Such a bibliography served a Catholic polemical purposes. In a post Index world, Catholics needed a guide as to what books were permitted to read and quote. Plantavit owned over one hundred and eighty books out of eight hundred books he listed. He also owned a copy of the Jerusalem Talmud, even though he does not list it. This book was banned; Plantavit was more interested in telling other people what to read than in following his own advice. While Plantavit had Buxtorf outnumbered by two to one, the younger Johannes Buxtorf put out an updated version of his father’s book five years earlier. This had over a thousand Hebrew books, making Plantavit’s book outdated from the start. Between the two of them, Buxtorf and Plantavit only listed about a quarter of the Hebrew books printed.