268 S h a l o m Carmy
“theory of aspects” (torat ha-beh.inot), eventually writing several books
of applied studies. On the one hand, Breuer maintains that all the liter-
ary phenomena adduced by the critics to show that the Pentateuch is the
product of multiple authors are compatible with divine authorship. On the
other hand, he insists that unitary authorship by a human being is impos-
sible. In each instance when the critics posit multiple authors, Breuer too
discerns diff erent voices. One task of the religious student is to grasp each
of these voices in isolation, unearthing the theology, narrative vision, or
legal positions implicit in each one. Finally, one also investigates the ways
in which the Torah as a whole integrates and mediates these voices. No
human author, in his opinion, could have orchestrated this multiplicity of
voices. Th us, either the critics are right, in which case we have a jumble of
confl icting writers spliced together, or there is a divine Author expressing a
complex message by employing diff erent voices.1
Th is, in a nutshell, is Breuer’s thesis. To appreciate his theological contri-
bution, it may be instructive to step back from Breuer’s confrontation with
academic Bible scholarship and to identify the elements in his intellectual
makeup that stand behind his orientation. Breuer’s views can be seen as the
crossroads of four diff erent strands of Jewish thought.
First, Breuer was the great-grandson of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch
(1808 – 88), founder of the Frankfurt school of neo-Orthodoxy, and the
nephew of Isaac Breuer (1883 – 1946), the most creative exponent of that po-
sition in the fi rst half of the 20th century. Th e elder Breuer produced his
theology with a portrait of Kant on his study wall and a version of Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason in his heart. Pure scientifi c reason yields an under-
standing of the world as a closed causal system but can say nothing about
its possible transcendent origin. Th us, it cannot legitimately affi rm or deny
the metaphysical doctrine of creation. Mordechai Breuer adopted an anal-
ogous thesis for the Bible. Modern biblical criticism is absolutely reliable
and “scientifi c” within its logical limitations: it can determine authorita-
tively that if the Torah (for it is the Pentateuch that is Breuer’s primary fo-
cus of attention) is a humanly authored book, it must have been composed
in exactly the way the critics have hypothesized. But whether the Torah is
a humanly authored book is beyond the determination of science. If it is
a divinely authored book, then the apparent evidence of multiple authors
is to be explained diff erently; Breuer, we shall see, proposes his theory of
aspects as the explanation.
As noted, the theory of aspects, as promulgated by Breuer, maintains
not only that the complexities and stylistic multiplicity found in the Torah