208 B a ruch J. Schwartz
(5) Hence, traditional Jewish learning, aimed at harmonizing the Torah
into a unifi ed whole, and at reading into the Torah the teachings of later
generations as if they had been contained there all along, could no longer
be accorded any methodological legitimacy. Th e modern critical method
leads inescapably to the conclusion that the Torah and the “authoritative”
rabbinic interpretation of the Torah are not identical. Th e Torah and Juda-
ism are distinct phenomena.
Religious Responses to the Challenge
In the category of religious response are three groups: those who have been
persuaded by modern criticism, coming to view it as grounds for religious
reform and/or theological reconsideration; those who have attempted to
discredit critical theory and thereby reinforce Jewish traditional learning,
belief, and practice; and those who have attempted to arrive at some sort
of accommodation between the fi ndings of critical biblical scholarship and
traditional Jewish belief and law.
Th e translations and commentaries of the German-Jewish philosopher
Moses Mendelssohn (1729 – 1786) and his associates were the catalyst for
the Jewish religious response. Th is is somewhat ironic, since Mendelssohn
himself, though already aware of the work of the earliest critics, made no
room for Pentateuchal criticism in his commentaries and generally de-
manded that legal texts be interpreted in accord with rabbinic law. He did,
however, take several steps in the direction of legitimizing Bible criticism.
He emphasized the aesthetic side of biblical literature, calling constant at-
tention to its literary features and explaining them on stylistic grounds,
thus cutting away much of the infrastructure on which rabbinic midrash
was based, interpreting the text in ways departing from rabbinic tradition,
and implicitly viewing the text of the Torah as human — subject to the rules,
conventions, and styles of human literary creativity. On the philosophical
front, he promulgated the doctrine that Judaism is not a faith but a legal
system, theoretically enabling “orthopraxy” to accommodate heterodox
views of revelation — including a critical view of the Pentateuch.
Jewish ReformA scholarly acceptance of the method and fi ndings of Pentateuchal criti-
cism is evident as early as the writings of Leopold Zunz (1794 – 1886) and