The Bible, Divine Revelation, and Dynamic System Theory

A guest post by my Dad

The following is a guest post by my Dad. He, back in the day, had a blog of his own which you can read if you are interested. He is a conservative Jew and a pretty cool guy. Also, if we assume that being the sort of writer that you enjoy is pretty heritable, and you like my writing, odds are decent you’ll like his! In this post, he attempts to answer a question I wrote a while ago, in an essay titled “What’s Up With the Bible.” Enjoy!

INTRODUCTION

Several months ago, Matthew posted an article entitled “What’s Up With the Bible?” Matthew asked why the Bible—assuming it contains divine revelation—has so many apparent contradictions, immoral commandments, and just really odd stories. As Matthew frames the question, “it’s puzzling why God’s main method of transferring information to us would be through a book filled with errors, both moral and factual.” He offers four theories, all of them problematic.

I’m offering a fifth theory here to reconciled the oddities of the Bible with a coherent understanding of divine revelation. In short, the Bible embeds divine revelation in a dynamic system rather than a static list.

Some preliminary matters first. I will assume that God exists and that He revealed something or another through the Bible. The issue is not whether this is true, but assuming this is true, is the Bible a coherent vehicle for transmitting this revelation?

I’m Jewish, and I’ll focus mainly on the Hebrew Bible, although much of what I argue is also applicable to Christianity and the New Testament as well.

My analysis depends on some common understanding of the Bible and divine revelation. Let’s start with the Bible. Under all views, religious and secular, the Hebrew Bible is actually an anthology, not a single unified book. It contains 39 “books.” (Sometimes this is stated as 24 books, counting 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, and Ezra and Nehemiah as one book each, and the 12 minor prophets as a single book.) These books were written over more than 1,000 years by different authors living in different places and under different social conditions. They involve multiple genres: myth, narrative, poetry, song, wisdom literature, theology, philosophical musings, and history. It is hard to imagine that such texts would have no inconsistencies or differences in perspective.

Divine revelation is the idea that God in some sense has revealed something to us. The revelation might be factual, metaphysical, ethical, legal, or general wisdom.

In his original post, Matthew offers (then rejects) one theory that he calls the evangelical view, although I think “fundamentalist” view, in the non-pejorative sense, is a more accurate description. Under this approach, any perceived odd and puzzling passages are not really problematic. They might seem problematic to us because of our lack of understanding, but that it not a flaw in the Bible itself. The difficulty for this view is explaining why and how the very many apparently problematic parts of the text actually contain important insights. Many of these fundamentalist explanations involve odd textual interpretation or special pleading, with one-off interpretive rules that apply nowhere else. I don’t want to go into detail about this viewpoint, other than to simply note it, note that I don’t find it persuasive, and note that my approach is not fundamentalist.

I’m going to attempt to answer this question in four sections. I’ll analyze some Biblical wisdom texts, theological texts, and legal texts, all with some arguable problems. I’ll explain how they work as a dynamic system of divine revelation. With these specific examples in mind, I’ll then offer a more theoretical explanation of dynamic systems in general.

WISDOM TEXTS - Contradictory Proverbs

Let’s start with what I think is the clearest and simplest contradiction in the Bible, although one easily resolved. However, its resolution provides some insight into how to think about contradictory texts.

Proverbs contains a simple directive:

“Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.” (Prov. 26:4)

Immediately followed by another equally simple directive:

“Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.” (Prov. 26:5.)

So we have two contradictory instructions, and we certainly cannot do both—answer the fool and not answer the fool—simultaneously. And this contradiction cannot be a mistake or an oversight. The fact that two contradictory instructions are placed next to each other suggests that it was deliberate.

This is actually not much of a problem. The fact that these are back to back suggests that this is really a rhetorical device. If so, how do we reconcile these? The simplicity of this contradiction suggests the answer. They must be referring to different situations; sometimes we should answer a fool and sometimes we should not. But when?

The Talmud (written roughly 400-500 CE) picks up on this text in discussing the controversy over whether the Book of Proverbs should have been canonized.

“[T]he Sages sought to suppress the book of Proverbs as well because its statements contradict each other” After citing these two proverbs, the Talmud explains, “This is not difficult, as this, where one should answer a fool, is referring to a case where the fool is making claims about Torah matters; whereas that, where one should not answer him, is referring to a case where the fool is making claims about mundane matters.” (Shabbat 30b.)

The distinction the Talmud draws—the first rule applies to Torah matters and the second to mundane matters—is one way of reconciling these, But importantly, this proposed resolution cannot be found in the text itself. Instead, what the rabbis of the Talmud did was start with the two contradictory texts, add an additional extra-textual insight, and from these derive a more complex rule.

Rashi, the famous 11th century commentator, proposes a different solution and takes a more textual approach. “The meaning of these two verses is explained in [the verses] themselves: Do not answer in a matter in which you will become like him if you answer him. Answer a fool in a matter in which he will be wise in his sight if you do not answer him.”

While Rashi’s interpretation provides some guidance, it still is incomplete. What situations would render you like the fool, and what situations would make the fool wise in his own sight? (My experience with fools is that always think they are wise in their own sight.) What if both situations, or neither situation, are implicated. We need some extra-textual knowledge to flesh out this rule.

And of course, other people might interpret these two proverbs differently. For example, one could answer a fool if we think the fool is capable of learning from his mistake, but not answer the fool if we don’t. Or we could answer the fool if he is making an innocent mistaken, but not answer the fool if he is being deliberate or trying to embarrass others. All of these are possible ways of resolving this contradiction.

In other words, the Biblical text (at least in this case) does not contain wisdom, at least in the simple sense of a statement conveying a rule or idea. Instead, it contains a contradiction, requires the application of extra-textual knowledge, and this combination —a fixed text and individualized knowledge—produces wisdom. Thus, this problems is more of a wisdom generator than a simple statement of wisdom.

This is not the only set of contradictory proverbs. Compare “Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.” (Proverbs 10:4) with “The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, without painful toil for it.” (Proverbs 10:22.) I’m not going to go through the analysis of these proverbs, but suffice it to say, the analysis is similar to the proverb discussed above.

We thus have one rhetorical rule for Biblical interpretation. A contradiction (or apparently contradiction) might simply be a rhetorical device designed to flesh out different factors that go into analyzing a deeper problem, without giving a more specific answer to the deeper problem. We start with the fixed text, do that analysis using our own ideas, and it is that analysis, not a simple rule, that contains the wisdom.

THEOLOGY

1. Inner-Biblical Exegesis. How the Traditio Becomes the Traditum.

Let’s turn to some more complex problems involving theology. Before discussing specifics, I’d like to present a theory developed by Michael Fishbane (professor emeritus at the Divinity School at the University of Chicago) in his book Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (1985) (BIAI). I’ll then apply that to some problems Matthew notes (or more specifically, I’ll pass along Fishbane’s analysis of these problems.)

Ordinary biblical exegesis typically involves a commentator trying to explain or interpret the Bible. The Bible says something, and a later commentator offers an interpretation or explanation of what it means. Inner-biblical exegesis involves the same thing, but within the Bible itself. That it, one part of the Bible interprets or explains an earlier part of the Bible.

Fishbane calls the “content of the tradition”—that is, the understanding of the thing that is being interpreted—the traditum. He calls the “long and varied process of transmission” the traditio. (BIAI, p. 6.) (If you really want a good theory in philosophy or the social sciences, use Latin words. In contrast, if you are doing math or the physical sciences, use Greek letters.) “At each stage in the traditio, the traditum was adapted, transformed, or reinterpreted . . . .” (BIAL p. 6.) In other words, the process starts with a written text and some understanding of its content and meaning. Over time, this understanding (the traditum) is transmitted and interpreted (the traditio). The important point here is that the traditio—the interpretation itself—becomes a new traditum.

By itself, this is not news to anyone. For example, Talmudic rabbis changed the plain meaning of texts as an interpretive matter. (For example, “an eye for an eye” was understood by the Talmudic rabbis to mean the perpetrator must give monetary compensation, not that a court should inflicting the same wound.) They also gave new meaning to existing rituals. (For example, in the Bible, the holiday of Rosh Hashana is linked to hearing shofar blasts. But the rabbis linked to Yom Kippur and instituted the 10 “days of awe” between the two holidays where the focus is on repentance.) And these rabbis also creased midrashim, colorful stories, many of which pick up on a odd word or phrase or even an odd spelling and derive meaning through an often colorful tale.

And of course Christianity has adopted a new understanding of much of the Hebrew Bible, including the idea that many Biblical verses point to Jesus. And Jesus himself reinterpreted Biblical ideas and that interpretation become a new traditum, at least for Christians. A striking example:

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 19:3–9.)

Jesus took several verses from the Torah, reinterpreted them, and reached a new conclusion.

Where Fishbane breaks new ground is that he notes this process occurs within the Jewish Bible itself. Some Biblical authors interpret or change (traditio) the existing meaning of texts (the traditum) and incorporate this new meaning into their own Biblical books, thereby creating a new traditum. Fishbane’s lengthy but quite thoughtful book is an exhaustive classification and analysis of this inner-Biblical exegesis.

Let’s take a look at some of these, and I’ll start with one that Matthew noted.

2. Vicarious Divine Punishment (and Reward).

Matthew pointed out an interesting contradiction. He notes that Deuteronomy 5:9 describes “a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation” but “Ezekiel makes clear that, contra Deuteronomy, sons are not to be punished for their father’s sin.”

Matthew just found the tip of the iceberg. This problem involves more passages than those two, and Fishbane analyzes this broader problem. (BIAI pp. 335–350.) Here’s what we’ve got.

Let’s start with four verses in the Torah that mention God (1) forgiving wickedness and abounding in love, but (2) punishing the guilty and even their decedents. These two attributes are in tension with each other, if not actually in contradiction. If God is loving and forgiving, why is he punishing people for the sins of their great-grandparents?

In Exodus 33, after the golden calf incident, Moses requests to see God’s “glory.” God tells Moses to stand in a cleft in a rock and He will pass by, not allow Moses to see his “face,” but allow him to see his “back.” In Exodus 34:6–7, as God passes by, God (or perhaps Moses) says, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” (Incidentally, this passage is a central part of the liturgy during Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.)

Moses repeats these attributes (more or less) in Numbers 14:18–19. After the Israelites whine and complain a lot, Moses notes that God is “abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion” but “punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

Similarly, Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 contain the Ten Commandments. The relevant verses:

“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exod. 20:4–6.)

Deuteronomy 5:8–10 repeats the same text.

These verses speak of God both (1) punishing the children for the idol-worshiping sins of the parents, and (2) rewarding the decedents of people who obey God’s commandments. But the love and reward continue for many more generations than the punishment.

A fifth verse, Deuteronomy 24:16, contains a simple rule for human judgments. “Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin.” Thus, people may only punish the wrongdoer (at least if the death penalty is being imposed) but not his parents or children.

That’s the traditum, at least at the end of the Torah. The traditum also includes popular extra-Biblical proverbs, at least if they are commonly known and well-accepted. One of those is “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” That is, children are punished—or at least bear the consequence of—their parents’ actions, and this proverb carries the same message as the Torah texts quoted above.

Later (in both time and the Bible), Jeremiah and Ezekiel take on this traditum.

Jeremiah speaks of a “new covenant” where people will be punished only for their own sins and the sour-grapes proverb will no longer apply.

“ ‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will plant the kingdoms of Israel and Judah with the offspring of people and of animals . . . . In those days people will no longer say, “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Instead, everyone will die for their own sin; whoever eats sour grapes—their own teeth will be set on edge.” ’ ” (Jer. 31:27–30.)

Jeremiah then speaks of making a “new covenant” with Israel and Judah.

After Jeremiah (again, in both time and the Bible), Ezekiel modifies this rule as well. However, he does not defer this change to some distant future “new covenant” but places the new change in the present. After quoting the same proverb, Ezekiel, speaking in the name of God, rejects this proverb itself.

“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. . . . .The one who sins is the one who will die.

Suppose there is a righteous man who does what is just and right. [Ezekiel then lists examples of righteous behavior, including not worshiping idols.] That man is righteous; he will surely live, declares the Sovereign Lord.

Suppose he has a violent son, who sheds blood or does any of these other things, though the father has done none of them: [He then lists wicked things, including worshiping idols.] Will such a man live? He will not! Because he has done all these detestable things, he is to be put to death; his blood will be on his own head.

But suppose this son has a son who sees all the sins his father commits, and though he sees them, he does not do such things: [He then lists wicked things this son does not do, including worshiping idols.] He will not die for his father’s sin; he will surely live. But his father will die for his own sin, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother and did what was wrong among his people.

. . . The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.” (Ezekiel 18:3–17, 20.)

So multiple verses in the Torah state that God will punish children (up to the fourth generation) for their parents’ idol worshiping and reward the children for their parents’ virtuous behavior, but Jeremiah says the rule will not apply sometime in the future and Ezekiel seems to reject this rule even in the present.

So what does this all mean?

The resolution of this apparent contradiction based on the text itself is fairly easy. Exodus and Deuteronomy both speak of God punishing children for parental idol worship by “those who hate me.” Thus, vicarious punishment is reserved for the descendants of God-hating idol worshipers. In contrast, Ezekiel speaks more general of unethical or improper behavior by the parent, including idol worship, but never suggests these misbehaving parents hate God. They might be acting out of confusion or ignorance. Thus, the more general rule of Divine punishment is the one stated in Ezekiel; the narrower rule applicable only to Got-hating idol worshipers, is the one stated in the Torah. Incidentally, Ezekiel’s rule is also the rule for people and courts, as Deuteronomy 24:16 makes clear.

This punishment might take the form of direct divine punishment. Or it might simply be a consequence of seriously wrong behavior. Parental behavior certainly has an effect on children.

This resolution might solve the textual problem. But it still leaves the theological problem. Even in the now narrowed Exodus / Deuteronomy case, it seems problematic for God to take into account a person’s great-grandparent’s behavior in deciding whether to punish that person. Is that a reasonable conception of divine punishment, and thus of God? Perhaps it was this intuitive sense of justice that causes both Jeremiah and Ezekiel to reject the sour-grapes proverb and pass along a more individualized sense of justice. This traditio then becomes a new traditum.

LEGAL TEXTS

Here’s four legal stories that seem to raise the same problem that Matthew addresses but at a more fundamental level. I’ll try to make some sense of these stories as I go.

Story 1: Jethro’s Advice and the Missing Revelation.

The Book of Exodus starts with the oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, their enslavement, Moses’s epiphany at the burning bush, his negotiations with Pharaoh, the Ten Plagues, their eventual freedom on the first Passover (the 15th day of the first month), and the crossing of the Red Sea. It’s quite a story, and it is complete by Exodus 15. They make it to Mount Sinai in the third month. “On the first day of the third month after the Israelites left Egypt—on that very day—they came to the Desert of Sinai.” (Exod. 19:1.) They then experience divine revelation and the ten commandments, first by hearing God’s voice and then by receiving the text on stone tablets.

I want to focus on an odd and seemingly minor story in Exodus 18, after the Israelites left Egypt and crossed the Red Sea but before the reached Mount Sinai. Moses’s father-in-law Jethro heard was what happening and came for a visit. He and Moses greet each other warmly, and Jethro then praises God and offers a sacrifice.

The next day, Moses acts as a judge for the entire very long day. He tells Jethro, “Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God’s decrees and instructions.” (Exod 18:16.) Jethro replies “What you are doing is not good (Hebrew: lo tov).” (Exod. 18:17.) Jethro explains that this approach is too much for Moses and will tire him out. Instead, he should appoint capable people act as judges in routine matters, and have them bring only the difficult cases to Moses.

This seems like a commonsense idea. But then Jethro says something odd. “If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.” (Exod. 18:23.)

This apparently simple story raises two very difficult questions, both of which lay the groundwork for the answer to Matthew’s original question.

First, what body of law was Moses using to decide these cases?

Second, when did God inform Jethro that God was commanding Moses to do this?

Let’s start with the body of law. Importantly, the Israelites had received almost no commandments yet. They were on their way to Mount Sinai. The Ten Commandments, the set of laws in Exodus 21–25, and the entire books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy were in the future, Sure, they had already received a handful of commandments: keep a calendar and celebrate Passover in Exodus 12, consecrate the first-born male children and redeem certain first-born animals in Exodus 13, and don’t gather manna on the sabbath in Exodus 16. But these laws were not complex enough to cause significant disputes, let alone disputes that require Moses to judge all day long.

Certainly, the people might have had ordinary inter-personal disputes. But Moses specifically said that as he judged, he “inform[ed] them of God’s decrees and instructions.” (Exod 18:16.) The Hebrew (“chuki” and “torotai”) means exactly that. Moses was working from a body of divine law. What body of law was that?

To answer this question requires a deeper dive into legal theory.

When most people think about law, they think about a code system of rules. In such a system, the rules are fixed, usually are written, and cover all applicable situations likely to arise. For example, the rules of baseball fall in this category. If a fly ball hits an outfield on the head and bounces over the fence without hitting the ground, it is a home run? Yes. And we know this because Rule 5.05(a)(9) says “The batter becomes a runner when . . . [a]ny fair fly ball is deflected by the fielder into the stands, . . . but if deflected into the stands or over the fence in fair territory, the batter shall be entitled to a home run.” There’s a written rule that covers the situation.

But there are legal systems other than code systems. One of them is a common law system. In a pure common law system, there might initially be no rules. A judge decides a case based on common sense, tradition, or equitable, philosophical, or social principles. The judge then records the case in some format and this becomes precedent. In a subsequent case, the parties might argue that the precedent is binding because the current case is analogous to the prior case, or it is not binding because the current case is different in some material respect. And that second case then becomes a precedent. In some situations, a judge might overrule precedent, concluding that it was wrongly decided or that social conditions have changed and this requires a change in the legal rule. What develops is a body of law consisting of many particular legal decisions.

In some common law systems, we might start with a general rule. For example, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution starts by saying “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . .” These two clauses set forth general principles, but the application of these principles in numerous specific cases is not covered by the text the way the rules of baseball cover balls bouncing off fielders into the stands. So courts have applied these ideas over time, have developed more specific rules, and those rules themselves have changed over time.

This looks very much like Fishbane’s traditum and traditio moved into a legal system.

My claim is that at this point, Moses was deciding cases based on a common law system and he called his rulings, especially prior rulings, “God’s decrees and instructions.” That is, at the time of Jethro’s visit, he had very few actual divinely-commanded legal rule to work with. But he was deciding numerous controversies and disputes in accordance with divine principles or simply a sense of ethics reflecting the fact that God created people in God’s image.

Before turning to the second question I raised, I will note an important difference between code and common law systems. Code systems cannot evolve. People refer to the original rules, and those rules don't change (except by legislation). So for example, if a baseball umpire erroneously rules that a ball hit over the fence is not a home run, that decision has no precedential value. The next time a ball is hit over the fence, the umpire will consult the rules as contained in the rulebook, not the prior ruling of the mistaken umpire.

In contrast, common law systems evolve. People refer to precedents, and those can change as new decisions come along. As new social or economic conditions arise, or understandings of justice change, an existing precedent might have been right initially but not good law under current conditions. The law can change and evolve, and the traditio becomes the new tradkitumi.

The second question I asked was based on Jethro’s odd comment that Jethro did not merely say that his plan was a good idea (and it was), but said “and God so commands." When did God actually command Moses to appoint these other judges (or Jethro to tell Moses that God commanded this)?

One simple answer is that God told this to Jethro and it just was not reported in the text. That’s certainly possible.

But another answer is that Jethro made a decision that Moses being the sole judge was, in his words, “not good,” and that alone – promoting goodness – is a divine command. Or at least reflects prior divine revelation.

This is a seemingly radical approach, and one that might allow any person with their own view of the good to claim divine sanction for implementing their ideas. Anything is susceptible to abuse, but I think this approach has much merit. A careful reading of texts, a reasoned analysis of a good course of action, made by appropriate people, constrained by history and tradition, and grounded in careful analysis might actually be the method for understanding divine commands and divine revelation. And my claim here is that this is not some wacky radical idea, but is well grounded not just in this story but in several others.

Story 2 - A Second Passover?

Here’s another story that supports my claim that the Torah sets up a common law system. The Children of Israel were commanded to offer a Passover sacrifice on the 14th day of the first month. But in general, people who were ritually unclean (among other reasons, because they had touched a corpse) were prohibited from offering sacrifices.

In Numbers 9, Passover rolled around while the Children of Israel were in the wilderness, on their way to Canaan. However, some men were ritually unclean because they had touched a corpse. They came to Moses, noted that they were ritually unclean, but asked. “Why should we be kept from presenting the Lord’s offering with the other Israelites at the appointed time?” (Num. 9:7.) Well, from a legal perspective, this is an question has an easy answer: You may not do so because you are ritually unclean. We appreciate your enthusiasm, but come back next Passover and presumably you can participate then.

But Moses took a different and surprising path. “Moses answered them, ‘Wait until I find out what the Lord commands concerning you.’ ” (Num. 9:8.) Why would Moses even take up this simple question with God?

And God’s answer is even more surprising. “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Tell the Israelites: “When any of you or your descendants are unclean because of a dead body or are away on a journey, they are still to celebrate the Lord’s Passover, but they are to do it on the fourteenth day of the second month at twilight.” ’ ” (Num 9:9–11.) That is, they are to celebrate “Second Passover” (Pesach Sheni) a month after the regular Passover.

Note the structure here: there’s a rule, a potential problem with the rule develops, and then there is a new more complex rule. That is exactly a how common law development rules work, or how a traditio becomes a new traditum. And this is not some wacky theory that some liberal theological came up with. It is explicit in the Torah.

And what was the reason for the change? Inclusiveness. The ritually unclean men wanted to be part of the ceremony worshiping God and celebrating Passover rather than excluded from it. That is, there was a desirable value that conflicted with the original rule, and—at least in this case—the value was sufficiently strong to warrant a change in the rule.

Note further that the new rule is broader than the particular circumstances required. The men were ritually unclean, but the new rule applies more broadly and allows people to celebrate a Second Passover if they are ritually unclean or away on a journey.

One more comment. If the purpose of the legal texts in the Torah were simply to convey the legal rules, there would be no need for this story. The Torah could simply have stated the more complex rule without the story: offer the Passover sacrifice on the 14th day of the first month, unless you are ritually unclean or away on a journey, in which case you do it on the 14th day of the second month. The fact that the Torah includes a story showing how divine law evolves and changes must be to teach us something about how divine law evolves and changes.

Story 3: The Daughters of Zelophechad

Here’s a second story with another legal change.

Here’s the background. In the Torah, looking forward to the Israelites’ future time in the land of Canaan, the land would be divided among the tribes, and then among clans within the tribes. Sons are members of their father’s tribe. The rules of property inheritance were simple. Sons inherit the father’s property. Daughters do not. The daughters will marry, live with husbands, their children will ultimately inherit land from their paternal grandfather.

There’s an obvious feminist critique of this system. It might work well for happily married women, but divorced women, widows, and unmarried women might suffer. The Talmud enacts a complex series of provision in several tractates (Tractate Ketubot, most prominently) designed to protect divorced or widowed women. Essentially, a woman’s father, husband, and even ex-husband had numerous obligations to provide for women. But put all that aside. What about a family with no sons?

Numbers 27 tells the story of a man named Zelophechad, who was a member of the tribe of Manasseh. He had five adult daughters and no sons and then died.

Under existing law, his daughters would not inherit. The land would go to his brothers or uncles.

The five daughters came to Moses, then did not argue that the existing rules were not fair to them. The somewhat harsh response would presumably have been, “Well, go marry someone.” Instead, they argued it was not fair to their deceased father because his name would be forgotten.

Moses takes case to God, and God replies “The plea of Zelophechad's daughters is just (Hebrew: "Keyn"). (Num 27:6–7.) So God institutes a new rule: sons generally inherent, but if a man dies without sons, his daughters will inherit.

Note that the structure is the same as the Second Passover story. There is an existing rule, a problem with the rightness or justice of the rule, and God then creates a new modified rule. The traditio just became the new traditum. And there was no need to have included the story if the Torah simply wanted to present a more complex rule.

Story 4: The Daughters of Zelophechad - Epilogue

The Daughters of Zelophechad story has in interesting epilogue in Numbers 36. This is the last story in the Book of Numbers, and apart from several speeches and a song or two in Deuteronomy, the last story in the Torah.

The change in the law that benefited the daughters of Zelophechad ended up creating a new problem for the member of Zelophechad’s tribe Manasseh. If the daughters of Zelophechad married a member of another tribe, their sons will be members of the other tribe and will inherit both their father’s land (located within the borders of that other tribe) and Zelophechad’s land through the mother (located within the borders of Manasseh). The result will be that other tribes will end up having a little piece of land within the borders of Manasseh. They go to Moses and explain, “Now suppose they marry men from other Israelite tribes; then their inheritance will be taken from our ancestral inheritance and added to that of the tribe they marry into. And so part of the inheritance allotted to us will be taken away.” (Num 36:3.)

Here’s where the story takes an subtle and odd turn. Moses immediately replies. “Then by God’s word (Hebrew: al pi Adonai - by the mouth of God) Moses gave this order to the Israelites: ‘What the tribe of the descendants of Joseph is saying is just (Hebrew - kayn).’ (Num 36:5.)

This is looking very much like a common law system. The law changed once in response to the daughters of Zelophechad’s just plea, and then changed again in response to the men of Manasseh’s just plea. Two additional things to note here.

First, Moses uses the same word – just or in Hebrew kayn – that God used in the first daughters of Zelophechad story.

Second, unlike the previous two stories where people come to Moses with a problem, the text here does not say that Moses spoke with God before telling people what God said. Instead, Moses immediately responds. There’s two explanations for this.

The simplest explanation is that he spoke with God, but that simply was not recounted in the story. The frequently used formula for divine commands through Moses in the Torah is that they are introduced by “And the Lord said to Moses, saying ‘Speak to the Israelites and say to (or command) them: . . . .’ ” This occurs, for example, in the preceding several chapters. (See Num. 33:50, 34:1; 35:9.) But occasionally Moses commands the Israelites without the prior command of God being recounted. For example, “Moses commanded the Israelites: ....” (Num 34:13.) But I do not know offhand of an example where Moses commands the people of Israel in God’s name without God’s command being explicitly mentioned (although it might be there).

The other explanation is that Moses understood the lessons of the previous stories. If a person comes forward with a plea that is just, or a request for inclusion, and the law can be modified without significantly detracting from its purpose, then God wants us to modify the law appropriately. After all, Moses started with a common law system back in Exodus when Jethro visited, God showed him how to modify the law of Passover to accommodate the ritually unclean men, and God showed him again how to modify the law in response to the daughters of Zelophechad’s initial just plea. Moses got it, and in the very last narrative story in the Torah, did what God commanded more broadly without a literal and specific command to do so. Moses’s traditio became the traditum.

WHY? DYNAMIC SYSTEMS AND STATIC LISTS

Under this analysis, it looks like the Bible is embedding divine revelation not solely in a static list of rules or insights, but in a dynamic system of contradictions and rules or ideas that might change over time. A common law system rather than a code system. A system where the traditio can become a new traditum, rather than a system where the traditum says what it means and means what it says? A system where later prophets can revise or modify earlier statements, instead of those earlier statements simply being true and unchanging. The question remains: why?

Let’s examine the general differences between a dynamic system and a static list.

A dynamic system is a set of components that work together in some dynamic way. It has the ability to evolve, change, and grow in response to external changes. In contrast, a static list is simply a fixed and unchanging list. It is much simpler, but lacks the capacity to change and evolve.

There are numerous examples of dynamic systems from very disparate areas of life, and they work remarkable well.

Evolutionary biology works as a dynamic system. Competition and evolution allow individuals to adapt over time to external changes to the environment and reach a new equilibrium.

Our immune system is another example of a dynamic system. As diseases change, our immune system changes as well and we can defend against new diseases.

Free markets work the same way (and in fact a lot of the math and ideas in price theory and evolutionary biology are similar). People and firm compete, prices signal exogenous changes, and things move toward a socially optimum equilibrium. The massive increase in wealth in the world and the equally massive reduction in extreme poverty over the past 250 years is a result of this dynamic system working well.

A common law system is another example of a dynamic system. Existing preceidend provides stable legal rules, but over time, the law can adapt to exogenous changes.

Dynamic systems work remarkably well for complex systems that can change over time. They generally provide stability, but allow changes when necessary.

I’ll mention here two recent insightful books that touch on some of the themes I’ve presented, albeit in very different ways.

Christine Hayes, What’s Divine about Divine Law? Early Perspectives (2015). This book, among other things, challenges the claim that the Biblical conception of divine law is that it is fixed and immutable. Instead, Hayes argues that idea is a later development taken from the Greek conception of law, and it may be the flexibility of divine law that makes it divine.

She recently gave a short commencement address at JTS, mentioning some of the ideas discussed here, and it is worth watching.

Benjamin Sommer, Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition (2015). In this book, Sommer notes that later Jewish writings like the Talmud prize disagreement and argument. However, traditional religious approaches to the Bible take the opposite approach and try to resolve any apparent discrepancies or contradictions. Sommer argues the passages in the Bible that disagree with each other—like passages in later works containing disagreements—reflect different and dynamic views and it is valuable to treat these divergent views as divergent rather than trying to resolve them.

In conclusion, if we think life is relatively simple, perhaps at the level of complexity of baseball, it might make sense for divine revelation to take the form of a simple (and perhaps long) list of particular rules. But life is not that simple. It is complex, varies in some ways by society and over time, but remains constant in other important ways. Because of that, it would make sense for divine revelation to take the form it takes in the Bible: rules and ideas and stories that sometimes contradict, or at least are in tension with, each other.