Episode 31: A Godly Bible Filled with Errors? w/Zev Farber

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson on the notion that a great person does not have to think consistently from one day to the next. This remark comes from the essay “Self-Reliance”.

Zev Farber writes, teaches and edits for a living. He holds an M.A. from Hebrew University (Jewish History), a Ph.D. from Emory University (Jewish Studies/Hebrew Bible), and ordination (yoreh yoreh) and advanced ordination (yadin yadin) from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) Rabbinical School. He currently holds a fellowship at Project TABS and writes/edits for their website, TheTorah.com. He is a founding member of the International Rabbinic Fellowship (IRF), blogs actively at Morethodoxy, and answers questions for Jewish Values Online. He lives in Zikhron Yaakov with his wife, Channie, and their six children.

Zev Farber journeyed from a childhood in the Conservative movement to receiving rabbinic ordination from an Orthodox yeshiva to nowadays finding himself studying and writing about Torah through a unique blend of these two worlds – primarily through the use of biblical criticism (commonplace in Conservative Judaism circles and new to the scene in the Orthodox world). Rabbi Dr. Zev Farber joins us for this latest podcast episode to share about his personal journey of finding the inconsistencies (sometimes referred to as “errors”) in the Hebrew Bible and helps us to look at the text with fresh eyes. If we read the stories as if we had never read them before, we are then able to discover parts of the Torah that scream out new narratives – narratives that were hidden in plain sight in this most ancient of texts.

For some books recommended by Zev Farber – be sure to check out:

• “How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now” by James L. Kugel

• “Who Wrote the Bible?” by Richard Elliott Friedman

To learn more about biblical criticism, watch the video below!

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