Does it make any sense to keep the mitzvot if you accept the basic propositions of biblical criticism, according to which the Pentateuch was written by four groups of scribes and sages in ancient Israel? 

Is it hypocritical to say Amen to the blessing before the Torah reading affirming that God “gave us His Torah” if one doesn’t believe that God or Moses wrote the words that are then chanted out loud from the Torah scroll? Can you put tefillin on or light Shabbat candles in good faith if you think the Pentateuch is, even in part, a human document?

Many modern Jews confront questions like these, which we might paraphrase more broadly as: can observant Judaism and modern biblical scholarship happily and honestly co-exist? I have argued in my recent book, Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition, that Jewish theology provides ways to show the binding nature of Jewish law can indeed be harmonised with modern theories of the Torah’s origins.

In this it echoes modern Jewish thinkers such as Abraham Joshua Heschel and Louis Jacobs, who regard revelation not just as a top-down phenomenon but as a dialogue between God and Israel. In emphasising the role human creativity takes in fostering an organic and ever-growing Torah, it also resonates with themes found in the work of such Orthodox thinkers as Tamar Ross, Rav Kook the elder and the late Yitzchok Hutner.  

The famous Documentary Hypothesis theory, worked out largely by Protestant scholars in the 19th century, claims that four documents written by particular groups of scribes were combined shortly after the Babylonian exile to create the Pentateuch as we know it. Orthodox Jews have long been vehement opponents of this theory, yet in recent years such opposition among some has certainly wavered. 

The website thetorah.com in the United States is dedicated to addressing the challenges posed by modern biblical scholarship to traditional faith and observance. There have been a number of scholars in Israel who have also conducted similar initiatives. 

My own embrace of the Documentary Hypothesis would, I had thought, render my approach a clear example of heresy from an Orthodox point of view and yet I have been met by many from the Orthodox establishment with great enthusiasm and approbation. 

I have come to suspect there are not a few observant Orthodox Jews who believe that the biblical critics are probably more-or-less right about the composition of the Bible and yet who believe no less that Jews are obligated to observe Jewish law — and to observe it not as a bunch of communal folkways or as an entry ticket to a community they enjoy, but as mitzvot, as divinely authorised commandments.

I think the people who have these two beliefs also have a deep intuition that these beliefs are not contradictory. But these people can’t quite justify that intuition; they don’t have the tools to articulate why believing that human beings wrote the Pentateuch need not undermine their commitment to accepting God’s sovereignty and the binding nature of Jewish law. Perhaps the reason some Orthodox Jews are enthusiastic about my approach is that it provides the practical tools they were looking for as halachically observant and intellectually open Jews.

I use biblical critical methods to support very traditional conclusions that in fact support Orthodox points of view in critical areas of debate between Orthodoxy and Progressive Judaism. I utilise the Documentary Hypothesis to bolster Orthodoxy’s insistence on the centrality of the law in Judaism. 

This is the case because all four sources agree that revelation was lawgiving and that a binding covenant, which included laws, was the result of the revelation. To be sure, the four documents that were combined to form the Pentateuch (known as J, E, P, and D) disagreed about a great deal when it comes to the revelation: how, precisely, it occurred (verbally or in a way that is beyond language), when it occurred (in one fell swoop at Mount Sinai, or over the course of decades) and, not least, what are the laws it produced.

But however much they differ on specifics of the law, they agree that to live as a member of the nation Israel involves, first of all, obeying a law. The centrality of law to Judaism, then, is one of the upshots of my critical method of reading the Bible.

Just because you no longer accept the idea that every word of the Torah was written by God, does not mean therefore that you should assume there is no divine command underlying Jewish law. The centrality of law to Judaism is then certainly one of the upshots of my critical method of reading the Bible. As such an embrace of the findings of biblical criticism therefore need not be seen as an enemy to traditional Judaism and it may well in fact be a friend. 

Benjamin Sommer is Professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He will give this year’s Louis Jacobs’ Memorial Lecture at Central Square Minyan, London on Sunday evening. For details  email info@louisjacobs.org