In Judaism, halacha means “established law” as decided by the rabbis (in Talmudic times it was often by vote). The Mishna (the oldest part of the Talmud) might contain a very terse line: “Rabbi Jeff says X, Rabbi Bill says Y”. Here it’s not clear for an observant Jew which ruling to follow. Later commentaries usually discuss reasons behind why Jeff says X (and Bill Y), weigh them up, and say “the halacha follows Jeff”. In which case “you’d better do X”.
1 of the 63 tractates of the Mishna isn’t like the others. Instead of dealing with legal rulings, Midot describes the Second Temple. Here’s a quote (no need to think about the actual details for the purpose of this post): The second storey had[...]4 cubits of railing and a cubit for the hook [to stop crows perching]. Rabbi Yehudah says: the hook was not included in the dimensions, rather the railing was 4 cubits (4:6). Nothing strange so far. But then we turn to Kehati (one of the many-many authoritative commentaries): “the halacha follows the first opinion”. What The Flying Fuck??? When I saw it I burst out laughing. It seems the rabbis have taken a vote on what was at the Temple! They’ve literally legislating facts!
It’s only natural for a system where correct action is decided by rabbinical discussion to eventually forget itself — and start deciding facts by the same method. Especially if the system believes itself to be the endpoint in a chain that originates from God. In fact, Talmudic rabbis did this all the time. This was just a particularly eggregious example. But it made me realise that virtually every religion is in the business of legislating facts. It’s just done so matter-of-factly that most people start missing the pink elephant:
- During the council of Nicea (HT DeepThought) When the Bible was canonised, they decided which books were written with the holy spirit and which weren’t
- Most Papal encyclicals are examples of legislating facts, eg. changes of dogma or the long historical development of concepts like limbo
- The idea of Papal infallibility legislates whatever the Pope says whilst wearing his special hat as fact. In fact this gives the Pope a license to print facts.
Obviously this is wrong and bullshit. Facts aren’t decided by authority and especially not by vote. In fact it’s ironic that fundamentalists cry out about the “relativism of secularism”. But this has helped me put my finger on why I’ve found Holocaust denial laws so ridiculous. They’re doing something very close to legislating facts. They say “the government of Germany rules that the Holocaust happened”. And although Holocaust deniers and all other cranks cause great harm, legislating truth is as ridiculous as Alabama ruling that pi equals 3 — which BTW is an urban legend.
8 comments ↓
The rabbis as time went on had only dim memories of the temple. Their predecessors, the Pharisees were never in control of the temple.They certainly were lacking detailed knowledge of the first temple.
The temple they were talking about was always an idealized temple where the rabbis controlled the priests. As we now the actual history of second temple times the High Priest and the temple priests were far more powerful than the pharisees.
Idealized models if they are to be plausible always have admixtures of reality. Models in science also contain large measures of idealized conditions.
Evanstonjew — thanks for commenting.
As far as I understand, according to Orthodox Judaism, Kings and Chronicles talks about temple 1, Middot about temple 2 and Ezekiel about temple 3.
Also Middot definitely reads like a reconstruction of historical past as opposed to idealisation (compare to other tractates such as Shabbat where it never says “in such and such a case the person WOULD be liable”).
But I think the ultimate point is that the Rabbis of the Talmud mix idealisation and historical reconstruction — very deliberately (they weren’t fools and these aren’t coincidences) to the point where it’s not feasible to see what’s what exactly.
Also I think the Mishna specifically assumes the Pharisees were in control at some point? I think in Yoma it mentions that they would ask the Kohen Gadol a question about the ceremony to make sure there was a public declaration he was not a Sadducee and then weep.
Bzzzt! Thanks for playing. In fact, the canon of the New Testament was *not* determined at the Council of Nicea (and if you had bothered to read the article you linked to, you would have known that).
Next, Papal encyclicals deal with doctrine, not dogma. There is a difference, and it is important. Also, dogma, *by definition* does not change. And no encyclical has stated anything like ‘the moon is made of cheese’ but deal mainly with topics such as ‘cheating a worker of his just wage is immoral’ or ‘Bishops may not charge a fee to open a new parish’ so there is no discussion of brute fact involved. On top of that, the majority of encyclicals are about theological debates and are freely disagreed with all the time!
And, also,. Papal Infallibility does *not* claim that “whatever the Pope says whilst wearing his special hat [is a] fact”, it states that if the Pope makes a formal announcement of moral or religious teaching and states that it is a dogma, Catholics must believe it. (Once again, the article you linked to had a hyperlink to a piece that describes this very clearly). And to keep going, while the papal tiara was sometimes worn when making an Ex Cathedra statement, it has literally *nothing* to do with making the statement infallible or not.
That’s 3 statements, 3 strikes. Pretty tough, especially when your own links showed your errors.
Or was this an ironic attempt to ‘create’ facts of your own?
Thanks for pointing out about Nicea — I’ve heard that Constantine had the council decide on the final version of the canon at Nicea from a few documentaries — not sure if this was a false memory or if they were lying/wrong (another reminder of how flawed human brains are).
I must disagree on the other two. In terms of the hat I thought it was obvious that I was making a sarcastic exaggeration. The hat itself isn’t considered causal but the mechanism of papal infallibility in announcing dogma is a license to print facts (whether or not it has been used in this way is another question).
As for encyclicals I don’t think you’re claiming that the discussions are free of reference to facts — this would be hard to defent. It is the weakest of the 3 examples — I guess I should have mentioned the entire concept of theology instead (the encyclical being an example).
Well, I once had an Objectivist bet me $500 that Constantine dictated the canon of the bible at Nicea – it is a very common anti-Catholic fable.
So, you know a great deal about Catholic theology? The process, the great thinkers, the underlying concepts? It doesn’t seem to be the case. After all, you don’t seem to grasp the strict limits on papal infallibility so I doubt you understand the objective, empirical, logical basis of theology.
I’m not sure how this would be an anti-Catholic fable, how would it be an attempt to discredit Catholicism?
You mentioned
“…I should have mentioned the entire concept of theology …”
Since you seem to be discussing theology as a whole, I as asking about a specific ‘flavor’.
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