Yoram Hazony has authored what is, in my opinion, one of the most trenchent, cogent and respectful critiques both of the dogmatism of self-styled Orthodox Bible Critics and the (I hope, naive) openness toward their teachings by young rabbis, many of whom identify with Open Orthodoxy. torahmusings/2014/05/open-orthodoxy/ The entire essay is worth both reading and pondering. Two key passages are: It is an unfortunate fact that the institutional autonomy of the different academic disciplines makes the modern research university an almost perfect hothouse for the generation of vast intellectual enterprises whose worth as engines for the discovery of truth is principally in the eyes of their own practitioners. The fact... does not mean that Jews are under any obligation uncritically to accept the findings of these disciplines. On the contrary, given the natural human inclination to laziness, unthinking acceptance of authority, stupidity, and groupthink—not to mention the overtly anti-Semitic origins of many academic paradigms—we have every reason to suspect that any given idea presently popular in academic circles may very well be a bad one. And sometimes they are not just bad, but very, very bad. Nor does the fact that “the consensus of scholars” in a given field thinks X have the slightest bearing on whether X is true. Much of the time, the fact that something commands a consensus among scholars reflects nothing other than a simple self-selection process: and What I want to know is: Where does Open Orthodoxy stand here? Is it committed to the uncritical acceptance of whatever happens to be the current consensus among university Bible scholars on matters in which “the Guild” sees itself as expert—first in the area of the historical study of the Bible and its composition; and now, increasingly, in the area of Jewish theology as well? Or does Open Orthodoxy have the capacity for a truly skeptical or critical appraisal of academic biblical criticism—by which I mean an appraisal that may involve the rejection of many of the premises and conclusions that the academic Bible Studies consensus holds dear?
Posted on: Thu, 29 May 2014 08:51:16 +0000
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