Although I basically agree with the substance of Jeremiah Untermans response to Elisha Paul, I was disappointed with the tone. It has been gratifying how up until now there was so much discussion about such a potentially incendiary topic and yet the tone has been consistently respectful and civil. Particularly since the point that Elisha raises (granted very much overstated) does deserve serious consideration. While Jeremiah is correct that literary analysis does not need to be based on Biblical Criticism, it is the case, as Jeremiah himself alludes to, that proponents of this method tend to use the tools of Biblical Criticism as well as literary tools. First of all, using archeological evidence is a dangerous road to go down, for every finding that bolsters the account in Tanach, there is atleast one, if not many, that contradict Tanach. Using the ones that work and ignoring the ones that dont borders on intellectual dishonesty. (I hope Dr MJ Bernstein will forgive me if this is a misquote, but I believe that I heard this from him: one cant be proud that the Dead Sea scrolls have rashi and rabbenu tam teffilin and then ignore that they also have variant versions of books of Tanach). Second of all, Biblical Criticism is not just higher criticism, as Jeremiah states, but includes lower criticism, which are questions of the how correct our text is, which has huge theological implications, yet are very much on the table for discussion. Third, Rav Bruers shittat habechinot is basically a frum version of higher criticism and there is tremendous danger there. Finally, I am sure all the readers recall the controversy with Machon Herzog a few years back and rav moshe lichtensteins masterful article on the issue, these are issues that ought not to be simply poo pooed.
Having said that, I dont want anyone to think that Im questioning the religiosity of the proponents of the literary method. I know many of them very well and people like Nati Helfgot are models of what modern orthodox tanach scholars should be like religiously.
Finally, the issue of womens learning, as everyone has pointed out, is not at all related to the Tanach discussion, but is one that deserves serious discussion. I believe that Gedalyah Berger is very much on target in inquiring what the revolution of womens learning has produced and questioning its direction (and as everyone who knows me will tell you, I am a huge proponent of more serious gemara learning for women) and I hope that a separate thread can be started to discuss the issue.
Yaakov Blau
