The Torah was dictated by God and written by Moshe. Biblical criticism attempts to identify contradictions and repetitions in the text that supposedly point to human authorship. Yet anyone deeply familiar with the Torah recognizes that these claims often reflect a lack of understanding and ignorance on the part of the critics themselves.
Biblical Criticism: Honest Inquiry or Biased Agenda?
Biblical critics argue that the Torah is not a Divine text but a human composition, written by multiple authors over time. According to their claims, internal contradictions and textual repetitions prove the Torah’s composite nature.
But can these conclusions really stand up to scrutiny? Are biblical critics truly objective scholars, or are their findings shaped by personal ideologies and agendas?
The Traditional Jewish View
Jewish tradition teaches that the Torah was written by Moshe, “the man of God,” as dictated by God. It has been passed down from generation to generation without alteration. This belief is explicitly stated in the Torah itself: “Moshe wrote this Torah and gave it to the Kohanim, the sons of Levi” (Devarim 31:9); “Moshe wrote all the words of the Lord” (Shemot 24:4).
The Rise of Biblical Criticism
Roughly two centuries ago, a theory known as the “documentary hypothesis” emerged, challenging the traditional belief in the Torah’s Divine origin. Its founders-figures like Jean Astruc, de Wette, Wellhausen, and Gunkel-were secular Christian intellectuals who sought to dismantle religious authority and reduce the influence of Scripture. Their ideological motivations were far from neutral.
These scholars argued that the Torah was a human creation compiled by priestly elites during the Second Temple period, over a millennium after the events it records. According to this theory, the Torah is a collection of conflicting narratives and ideologies, assembled from multiple sources. Their evidence? Alleged contradictions, stylistic differences, and thematic inconsistencies. Others claimed that the biblical text had evolved over time, that it borrows from Ancient Near Eastern mythology, and that archaeology disproves its historical claims.
The documentary hypothesis is now accepted as mainstream in academic circles. In fact, it is even taught in Israel’s secular public schools, where it is often treated as “scientific truth.” In reality, despite its widespread adoption, this approach remains an unproven and problematic theory.
Claim: Contradictions in the Torah prove multiple authorship.
Response: Critics argue that internal contradictions suggest different authors. But what appear as contradictions are often subtle distinctions in meaning and emphasis.
Consider the Code of Hammurabi, an 18th-century BCE Mesopotamian legal text authored by a single ruler or unified group. Despite being a cohesive document, it contains numerous apparent contradictions. Did its authors overlook these discrepancies, or did they not view them as contradictions? According to Prof. Moshe Greenberg: “Contradictions no less striking than those biblical critics point to in the Torah appear in Hammurabi’s code… but we know when, where, and by whom it was published, as a unified text.” (Torah Nidreshet, Am Oved Press)
Traditional Jewish sources offer detailed insights into these so-called contradictions. Our Sages, steeped in the depths of Torah, explain these variations as deliberate nuances rather than errors, revealing the Torah’s complexity and layered wisdom.
Claim: The Torah was written long after the Exodus as a national myth.
Response: No modern author, no matter how diligent, could authentically recreate the worldview, culture, and language of a society that existed thousands of years ago. Yet the Torah is filled with details that align with what we now know about the ancient world.
For example:
These and many other examples support the Torah’s authenticity and early authorship.
Claim: The Torah’s repetitions point to a patchwork of sources.
Response: Repetition does not necessarily imply redundancy or multiple sources. Often, repeated phrases or concepts seek to place an emphasis on one aspect of the text or communicate educational or theological principles.
The classic example is the commandment to teach your child the story of the Exodus, which appears four times. Critics see this as repetition. The Sages, however, understood that each instance addresses a different type of child: the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son, and the son who does not know how to ask, and encourages parents to provide each child with an explanation of the story that is tailored to their needs and level of understanding. This differentiated educational approach is foundational to the Haggadah and the entire Pesach Seder.
From this perspective, repetition doesn’t call into question the veracity of the text. It deepens the text’s message.
Claim: Biblical critics were the first to notice contradictions in the Torah.
Response: The Sages themselves were the first ones to identify these issues and question them. The Talmud and Midrash are full of observations about textual anomalies. But unlike modern critics, the Sages approached the Torah as a Divine text. What seemed contradictory at first glance was understood as an invitation to deeper study. For them, the Torah was not a static document but a living, breathing source of wisdom.
Claim: Archaeological findings support biblical criticism.
Response: This claim is unfounded. In fact, the opposite is increasingly true. Many recent archaeological discoveries align with the Torah’s historical accounts and challenge the assumptions of biblical critics.
Claim: Biblical critics are objective; traditionalists are biased.
Response: This claim is misleading. The founders of biblical criticism were 18th-century German scholars shaped by Enlightenment ideals and Christian theology. Many resented Judaism’s survival and influence. Some even sought to prove Christianity’s superiority by undermining the Torah’s authority. Their criticism was not born of scientific neutrality but from cultural and religious rivalry.
Though biblical criticism may sound persuasive on the surface, its foundations are weak. It is built on assumptions, ideological biases, and a selective reading of the text. The Torah, by contrast, is Divine, and it is necessarily complex, multi-layered, and deeply coherent.
Far from being a collage of contradictions, the Torah reveals its unity and depth to those who engage with it sincerely and thoroughly. As generations of scholars and sages have shown, the Torah’s truths are not easily undone by surface-level critique. They endure precisely because they are rooted in something higher.
Prof. Joshua Berman, a Bible scholar at Bar-Ilan University, has explained in several essays that the field of biblical criticism today has reached a low point. Unlike other scientific disciplines, where scholars generally agree on a set of foundational assumptions, in biblical studies, there is hardly any consensus at all.
As a case in point, he cites a unique study group formed in Jerusalem in 2013, including eight of the world’s leading Bible scholars. Their mission was to articulate shared assumptions and create common ground on the fundamental issues of the field. It was an unprecedented opportunity for collaboration. Yet after an entire year of discussions, the group could not agree on even a single major disputed issue. As a result, some scholars in the field admitted: “Each researcher operates according to his own set of assumptions, applies different methodologies, and reaches his own conclusions. In any other academic discipline, such a situation would be deemed unacceptable” (Thomas Dozeman, Konrad Schmid, and Baruch J. Schwartz, Introduction in The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011).
At a conference on the diachronic study of the Torah, Prof. Berman further remarked: “When we say ‘source’ [in reference to a biblical source], what do we actually mean? I suspect that each one of us uses the word ‘source’ to denote precisely whatever he wishes it to denote.”
These and many other examples support the Torah’s authenticity and early authorship.
Claim: The Torah’s repetitions point to a patchwork of sources.
Response: Repetition does not necessarily imply redundancy or multiple sources. Often, repeated phrases or concepts seek to place an emphasis on one aspect of the text or communicate educational or theological principles.
The classic example is the commandment to teach your child the story of the Exodus, which appears four times. Critics see this as repetition. The Sages, however, understood that each instance addresses a different type of child: the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son, and the son who does not know how to ask, and encourages parents to provide each child with an explanation of the story that is tailored to their needs and level of understanding. This differentiated educational approach is foundational to the Haggadah and the entire Pesach Seder.
From this perspective, repetition doesn’t call into question the veracity of the text. It deepens the text’s message.
Claim: Biblical critics were the first to notice contradictions in the Torah.
Response: The Sages themselves were the first ones to identify these issues and question them. The Talmud and Midrash are full of observations about textual anomalies. But unlike modern critics, the Sages approached the Torah as a Divine text. What seemed contradictory at first glance was understood as an invitation to deeper study. For them, the Torah was not a static document but a living, breathing source of wisdom.
Claim: Archaeological findings support biblical criticism.
Response: This claim is unfounded. In fact, the opposite is increasingly true. Many recent archaeological discoveries align with the Torah’s historical accounts and challenge the assumptions of biblical critics.
Claim: Biblical critics are objective; traditionalists are biased.
Response: This claim is misleading. The founders of biblical criticism were 18th-century German scholars shaped by Enlightenment ideals and Christian theology. Many resented Judaism’s survival and influence. Some even sought to prove Christianity’s superiority by undermining the Torah’s authority. Their criticism was not born of scientific neutrality but from cultural and religious rivalry.
Though biblical criticism may sound persuasive on the surface, its foundations are weak. It is built on assumptions, ideological biases, and a selective reading of the text. The Torah, by contrast, is Divine, and it is necessarily complex, multi-layered, and deeply coherent.
Far from being a collage of contradictions, the Torah reveals its unity and depth to those who engage with it sincerely and thoroughly. As generations of scholars and sages have shown, the Torah’s truths are not easily undone by surface-level critique. They endure precisely because they are rooted in something higher.
Prof. Joshua Berman, a Bible scholar at Bar-Ilan University, has explained in several essays that the field of biblical criticism today has reached a low point. Unlike other scientific disciplines, where scholars generally agree on a set of foundational assumptions, in biblical studies, there is hardly any consensus at all.
As a case in point, he cites a unique study group formed in Jerusalem in 2013, including eight of the world’s leading Bible scholars. Their mission was to articulate shared assumptions and create common ground on the fundamental issues of the field. It was an unprecedented opportunity for collaboration. Yet after an entire year of discussions, the group could not agree on even a single major disputed issue. As a result, some scholars in the field admitted: “Each researcher operates according to his own set of assumptions, applies different methodologies, and reaches his own conclusions. In any other academic discipline, such a situation would be deemed unacceptable” (Thomas Dozeman, Konrad Schmid, and Baruch J. Schwartz, Introduction in The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011).
At a conference on the diachronic study of the Torah, Prof. Berman further remarked: “When we say ‘source’ [in reference to a biblical source], what do we actually mean? I suspect that each one of us uses the word ‘source’ to denote precisely whatever he wishes it to denote.”
Biblical criticism claims that the Torah was written by multiple authors across different periods, and later stitched together by a “biblical editor.” In reality, biblical scholars often disagree with one another, and even reverse their own conclusions-as in the case of Prof. Israel Finkelstein, who later walked back many of his findings in The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement. This raises the question: Is the academic world reliable? Can we really build our worldview on it? The following story may make you rethink everything you thought you knew.
Three bold researchers-James Lindsay (PhD in mathematics), Helen Pluckrose (a humanities scholar), and Peter Boghossian (professor of philosophy)-set out to expose academia’s hypocrisy and weakness. To do so, they invented a series of completely fabricated academic articles, filled with made-up arguments and conclusions, and to their astonishment succeeded in publishing them in prestigious peer-reviewed journals.
Every paper submitted to a respected academic journal is supposed to undergo peer review. Specialists in the field read it, provide detailed feedback, and recommend whether it should be accepted, revised, or rejected outright. Yet these fraudulent papers, submitted to some of the world’s top journals, passed peer review and were published.
The trio explained that their purpose was to rescue academic research from the stagnation imposed by the dogma that “everything is a social construct.” If there is no truth and no meaning, then the world becomes nothing more than a struggle of oppressor versus oppressed. In such an environment, the only real criterion for an academic paper is political: which side it supports. But for that kind of low politics-where truth itself is erased-there is no need for academia.
When knowledge itself is equated with power, any dissenting opinion is branded as violent oppression to be silenced. This has fostered a culture of censorship that has come to dominate wide swaths of academia.
The 2018 exposure of the hoax made global headlines. Since then, James Lindsay has continued to study the ideas that enabled this scandal. In an interview with The Epoch Times, he warned of “the political corruption taking over our universities,” explaining how distorted ideologies are gradually undermining society itself.
“We started with the conclusions and built the papers to reach them,” Lindsay admitted. “We stole ideas from existing literature and twisted them. Not everything even followed logically. Today, there are countless cases where a methodology is chosen ‘just because.’ We engineered the research backwards-manipulating it until it said what we wanted. And you can reach any conclusion you like that way.”
He went further: “This undermines research as a whole. It’s dangerous. Totalitarian regimes don’t just control people with propaganda that glorifies the party. They also make it impossible for the average person to tell what is true and what is false. That way, you can force a narrative on society.”
When asked the secret to getting published, Lindsay replied: “The trick is to invent problems in areas that already preoccupy researchers, and push in the same direction as everyone else. As long as the paper fits the dominant moral narrative and cites the existing literature, it will probably get published. We would ask ourselves: what do we need to write and who do we need to cite so that this academic madness will be accepted as legitimate research?”
Helen Pluckrose echoed this in an interview with Calcalist. She pointed out how one poor-quality article can spawn an entire chain of bad research: “It shows how knowledge gets corrupted by building on false ideas from the start. One awful article gets published, then another builds on it, and another, until you have an entire structure of scholarship without any foundation. And if you try to argue against it, they’ll say you’re defying decades of research.”
What was once meant to be the arena for honest debate about human rights and the future of society has, in their view, become narrow, conformist, and ideologically rigid, where only certain views are allowed.
When the three were asked what they hoped would result from their experiment, they answered: “We want reform in academia. More importantly, since these ideas are seeping into culture everywhere, we need people outside academia who reject them to say clearly: this research does not represent us.”
