Jewish Concepts of Scripture

Concepts of Scripture in Yehezkel Kaufmann 245

however, Kaufmann generally understands that the same kind of scribal errors can
be found in other biblical texts as well.

20. Kaufmann, Toledot, 1:xxi – xxii. For Dilthey’s “infi nite variety of philosophi-
    cal forms,” see Wilhelm Dilthey, Dilthey’s Philosophy of Existence: Introduction to
    Weltanschauungslehre, ed. William Kluback and Martin Weinbaum (London: Vi-
    sion, 1957); Hans Peter Rickman, Dilthey: Selected Writings (Cambridge: Cam-
    bridge University Press, 1976), 133 – 54.


21. Here, too, Kaufmann seems to take his cue from Dilthey’s work; see, e.g.,
    Dilthey, Selected Works, vol. 1, Introduction to the Human Sciences, ed. Rudolf
    Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 136 – 69.


22. Rickman, Dilthey: Selected Writings, 93.


23. See Kaufmann, Religion of Israel, 21 – 59, esp. 23n. 1, where this term is de-
    fi ned. Cf. also Mark Smith’s critique of Kaufmann in his Th e Origins of Biblical
    Monotheism: Israel ’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (New York: Ox-
    ford University Press, 2001), 12, 201n. 70. For a response to Smith’s critique from a
    Kaufmannian perspective, see Sommer, Bodies of God, 274n. 125.


24. Yehezkel Kaufmann, “Th e Biblical Age,” in Th e Great Ages and Ideas of the
    Jewish People, ed. Leo Schwartz (New York: Random House, 1956), 10.


25. See Kaufmann, “Religion of Israel” (in Hebrew), in Encyclopedia Miqra’it,
    4:729 – 30; cf. Maimonides, the fi rst chapter (esp. sec. 7) of “Basic Principles of the
    Torah,” in Th e Mishneh Torah. Th is oneness, for Kaufmann, is indeed not numeri-
    cal. Elsewhere he notes that biblical monotheism can assume the existence of other
    divine beings besides YHWH: “Th ere is room in monotheism for the worship of
    lower divine beings — with the understanding that they belong to the suite of the
    One” (Kaufmann, Religion of Israel, 137).


26. Cf. what Dilthey calls the “enigmas of life.” See David Naugle, Wo r l d v i e w :
    Th e History of a Concept (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 82 – 98, esp. 86 – 88.


27. Here, it is not claimed that polytheistic deities have no interest in morality.
    Kaufmann himself states that polytheistic deities were also conceived as ruling ac-
    cording to the principles of justice and righteousness; see Toledot, 1:224 – 25.


28. Kaufmann, “Biblical Age,” 92; the quotation is slightly modifi ed according
    to the Hebrew original in Mi-kivshonah shel ha-yetsirah ha-mikra’it (Tel Aviv: De-
    vir, 1966), 138.


29. Kaufmann, “Biblical Age,” 14; idem, Religion of Israel, 221 – 23.


30. Kaufmann understands that religion alone can no longer serve this role in
    modern times, especially in the face of the secularism that dominates Jewish cul-
    ture. For the preservation of Jewish identity, he thus holds, a territorial solution is
    henceforth inevitable.


31. Kaufmann, “Th e Bible and Mythological Polytheism,” Journal of Biblical
    Literature 70 (1951): 195.


32. Ibid.