Philosophy of the Bible? Maybe Not Quite Yet

I wonder if the manager of that list would exclude a conference on Philo of Alexandria or on Spinoza? Which leads to another question. The study of the philosophy of the Bible is as old as Philo of Alexandria and the early Christian apologists, some of whom (Justin Martyr, Tertullian) made a point of adopting the traditional dress of a Greek philosopher. So I wonder whether your conference will devote attention to those antecedents?

> According to the old categories, the Bible isn’t reason, it’s revelation. I have to laugh. If the Bible really WAS revealed, then who cares what category it falls under, whether reason or revelation? Learn the damn thing, because whatever it is, it is the TRUTH. I mean, it would be very absurd for a philosopher to say, "Well, I believe that the Bible was given to us by the omniscient creator of the universe, but I don't have time to read it, because I'm too busy seeing where my human reason will lead." On the other hand, if you don't think the Bible was revealed, then apparently, some HUMAN(S) authored it, and if so, then ipso facto it is a product of their reason and cognitive faculties and philosophical opinions. Either you're religious and you think the Bible is inerrant, or you're not and you think the Bible was authored by humans. (I am using the terms "religious" and "not" religious very loosely, of course.) Either way, it should merit attention, no?

This is very exciting. I have often wondered why there was been so little written about this subject. One need only think of some random examples such as Samuels plea against appointing a King, or the interpretation that the Talmud puts on the 'eye for an eye' passage in the Torah. I wish you luck, and hope to read your final output

Wonder if they've accepted for distribution anything about Islam or buddhism or for that matter secular humanism?

Congratulations on the grant. I have no meaningful philosophical training, and have never played a philosopher on TV, but it has long been my impression that much of midrash was a response to questions raised by classical philosophy. For example, the midrashim that postulate that Avraham and the Avot figured out and kept all the mitzvot, seem to me a statement that the mitzvot are inherently good in of themselves, made as a response to the Platonic dialogue about whether the Gods command things because they are good, or they are good because the Gods command them. Perhaps the notion of your conference will inspire me to organize and expand my thoughts and examples.

the Hebrew Bible is the Source that almost everyone wants to kill. the Chistians wanted to kill us but they got over it(now some of them get back into that again) the Muslims extracted and twisted our Ideas, the Source, which they want to kill. So they can appear as the Source, they think they have to kill or convert. so they can be the Source. You have shown this with the rejection of philisophical study in a contemporary light of the Hebrew Bible. This precious item may even be banned in the future. Relegated to locked archives. We were taught the Enlightenment is the structural foundation for America. Later I learned of the Iroquois Confederacy influence. What was the influence of the Hebrew Bible? The influence of the Hebrew Bible on the Founders could be integrated into basic American history classes, if we try to save this sinking ship and ourselves.

Perhaps God is sending you a message: The Torah is not philosophy, it is life. All the same, success in your endeavors. You don't need the "philosophy list" to be successful.

I just read your complaint about the mailing list which declined to post the announcement for your conference on “Philosophical Investigation of the Hebrew Bible, Talmud, and Midrash”. I sympathize with your annoyance about being declined; I have a slightly different interpretation of what happened. I offer this interpretation with the advertisements that (a) I am a longtime subscriber to a few mailing lists, mostly in philosophy, and have seen this sort of scope-based declination many times before, (b) I don’t have an immediate sense of which mailing list you are referring to, and (c) I have no stake in whether your posting is accepted or not by any particular mailing list, in any case. Here are my thoughts. First, I’d have to agree that, on the basis of the conference title alone (and for reasons which I elaborate on below), there should be no principled reason (i.e. scope-related) to reject the posting of the announcement by a general purpose philosophy list. I think that’s actually independent of any other decision they might make regarding, for example, the philosophy of pornography or philosophy of any other X. Second, it strikes me as reasonably coherent for the mailing list managers to declare theological or scriptural postings out of scope if they apply such a rule so as to include philosophy of religion which touches, naturally enough, on theology or scripture. The same point would go, mutatis mutandis, for declaring postings out of scope if they concern the poetry of aesthetics, but not the aesthetics of poetry. Third, upon reading the actual announcement, I can see how the mailing list managers might have judged the conference to be out of scope on the basis of the repeated references to “philosophical theology”. Here is where we touch on the tricky distinction between “philosophical theology” and “philosophy of religion”. There is a sense in which the distinction is not tricky at all: the former is a branch of theology, pursued with the tools of philosophy; and the latter is a branch of philosophy, tout court. This is more or less the going view of the distinction and it is usefully exploited by Philosophy, Religion, Theology, and other academic departments in the West to meaningfully distinguish between different course offerings, kinds of faculty expertise, and so forth. There is, then, at a minimum a kind of sociological and utilitarian set of reasons for embracing or sustaining that distinction. In short, if “philosophical theology” is not philosophy per se but something closer to religious studies, then the list manager was within bounds for finding the conference to be out of bounds. Fourth, it occurs to me that one of the points of this project and this conference may be to blur, or attempt to redefine, the lines between “philosophical theology” and some standard areas in philosophy. Or at least that might have been the case I would have made to the Templeton Foundation when seeking their funding, given their interests and inclinations. I can easily accept that such a “redefining” perspective would, at a minimum, make the project and the conference at least borderline acceptable for a general philosophy framework (such as the mailing list in question apparently represents), if not wholly acceptable. In this regard, I think one important parallel in thinking about (a) the reading of traditional Jewish texts and (b) professional philosophy in the West is (c) the institutional treatment of non-Western philosophy, e.g. African, Asian, and various aboriginal or folkloric traditions in philosophy or of philosophical bent. Many, though not all, such traditions do not cleanly map on to philosophy in the Western tradition; many are spiritual in origin and in their present dominant character; many have far more and richer traditions of study in departments of religion and the like. But when proponents of their study in “strictly” (institutionall y) philosophical contexts make the case for examining such texts as philosophy, a variety of interesting issues arise, and the outcome is varied. Some such traditions have decent play in some philosophical quarters—ethics comes to mind—but generally speaking the scholars working in those areas are found in departments of Religion and their other-named counterparts. (I’m not sure this is a total disaster, intellectually or otherwise, so long as diverse and robust investigations are conducted, no matter the institutional frameworks.) Fifth, to make matters trickier still, and in full consideration of my not having a vote in the least, if I did have one I would vote to define your project not as “philosophical theology” but rather a traditional project in the history of philosophy. In short: here are some texts; we think they are foundational to understanding latter developments in the history of philosophy; and we think that, like other historical texts in philosophy, there are going to be claims and arguments there which continue to have merit; and our project is to give philosophical life to them, reintegrate them into the philosophical canon, and so forth. The word “theology” doesn’t really belong in this account, except by way of saying that traditionally these texts have a root theological origin and continue to be viewed in that way by the communities most closely associated with those texts. As the enterprise of history of philosophy is concerned, it’s a contingency (a fortuitous one, to be sure) that the communities who see these texts as living theological documents happen to be alive and well. After all, might we not benefit in similar respects when doing the history of philosophy if that were true of the Presocratics? And if we could so benefit, we would still be doing history of philosophy, and not (necessarily, anyway) philosophical theology. Hope this helps give a charitable framing to this set of issues.

I can only regret that we no longer have with us the esteemed scholar Richard H. Popkin who would have made, and has already made, a significant contribution to your project. Never the less I am following your ideas with great
interest and hope one day to take in some of the lectures in Jerusalem.

All the best in this exciting project.

Emerson observed in his essay on self-reliance "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness." It does not matter
what reception is given to truth so long as it is truth. Naysayers will always use rhetorical tools to prove their position and lessen cognitive dissonance. You have the opportunity to relate the effects of biblical principles. That effort could be oriented toward more hard science, as seen by Joshua Knobe's experimental philosophy. This could put the thrust of energy in the realm of the tangible and
out of the rhetorical haze often found in philosophy.
For example, Bell's theorem found that in quantum entanglement, with experimentation , there are no local hidden variables or counterfactual definiteness. That could be applied toward the entanglement of the distinct objects of biblical ethics and human behavioral option's models which include not lying, or stealing, or murdering etc. and their natural (positive or negative) sanctions that reinforce either choice. The philosophy of the Hebrew Bible may be risque to some people but it has stood the test of
time and that substance should be robustly and qualitatively examined.

How with today’s understanding of the Hebrew Bible; the Talmud, and other Classical Jewish writings, can Jewish and Roman Catholic centers of higher education hope to bring realism to the study. These are works long abused by Western scholars claiming they are late dated and little more than stolen treasures from Persian, Assyrian, Sumerian [1], or Egyptian [2] pre-existing works. Archaeology as well, has debunked the concept of an ancient Jewish history in the Middle East, except for a few kernels of truth. It should not surprise anyone that modern Western centers of education, refuse to consider these works seriously in any new manner, yet alone as an important source of philosophy. While these supposed stolen holy writings, have sustained the Jewish people through some of the most horrible times in history. Yet, they failed; so completely, believed by modern scholars, their original cultures. Imagine a chronology, independent of Roman, or Western thought, based only upon science. What kind of philosophy could be realized from ancient Jewish works? Maybe you'd find a real reason, to the purpose of Abraham offering up his precious son as a sacrifice, only to receive a substitute in the end. A great beginning for your task if, I may be so bold. Would be to determine how valid the chronology, that archaeology except for kernels constantly disproves, is. This chronology formulated between 90 A.D. and the fifth century A.D. completed only in 1650 A.D., and first published in 1701 in the King James Bible. Are we sure that span of 1560 years has the truth that we can trust, today in the light of modern archaeological findings? Or is it the truth that modern scholars are forcing the archaeological evidence into an archaic timeline with the resulting effect of kernels everywhere? I wish Shalem Center the very best success in achieving something other than the same old, same old regarding these ancient texts. Normally what comes from such an examination is a cultured, refined anti-Semitism so delicate it often skips realization of what it really is.

As a scholar of International Relations, specifically interstate war, I am aware of the irrational disregard for the role of scripture in understanding my discipline. In fact, I made it through my undergraduate and graduate programs without ever being exposed explicitly to the role of scripture in establishing the theoretical foundations of Political Science and International Relations. When I tie the concept of scripture to IR theory in classes now, students respond with discomfort—as if though I were breaking some social taboo. I could easily talk about pornography, even extol its virtues, but not scripture!

Congratulations on this great achievement in getting this huge grant, and more so in succeeding to raise interest in your vision! I would find this venue to be fascinating and challenging, but being a Hebrew Bible scholar who focuses attention on Hebrew Bible Theology, I would not rush into analogies of relevancy from the Bible to our current lives. In my studies I delve into theological issues which the Israeli society constantly is occupied with, such as concepts of God in times of war and national distress / ideologies of war; as also national and group identities (like Israel and the Diaspora of the 6-5 centuries BCE) -- in all I allow my students / audience to draw analogies and conclusions outside our classroom study, so that I would not sound (first of all to myself) as a Rabbi, which is beyond my skills and interests. Christian theology is more akin to such connections since they allow 'systematic theology' as a scholarly field. In Jewish studies we usually recognize such systematization as non-scholarly, non-academic.

I personally welcome this much neglected field—especiall y in the case of the Bible. While some biblical narratives have no roots in philosophical reflection, others are founded on philosophical ideas and ideals. Job and Ecclesiastes immediately come to mind. Much of Leviticus 19 is founded on philosophical premises (even if they are not explicitly announced). The same is true of the books of the Prophets and some Psalms. The reasons for this neglect, beside those mentioned by you, are in the traditional separation between Reason and Faith, between the Secular and the Sacred, even the American separation between State and Religion. There is no such separation in the Bible and in Judaism, and there is no justification to impose it on Philosophy or on Religion (other than the practical considerations of the United States). My own work—notably in the last twenty years—has focused on the philosophical foundations of some biblical texts. I hope this trend will expand and congratulate Shalem on its initiative and involvement.