02 September 2023
In yesterday's post I called for questions from readers. I got some.
The first issue is a thing called "Hebrew Block Logic" as explained in the writings of Marvin Wilson in his book, Our Father Abraham. I haven't had time to get fully acquainted with his work, but I did look him up online and got a few summaries and reviews. I'm confident that I got the gist of it, since those various reviews were quite consistent.
Wilson and his reviewers all make the same mistake: equating Jewish with ancient Hebrew. The two are different, though with some overlap. Most western scholars simply ignore, and some stupidly dismiss, the radical departure of rabbis from the ancient Hebrew traditions, so that "Judaism" is not at all Old Testament religion. Indeed, way too many scholars don't recognize how the Postexilic Hebrew people had already made a significant departure from the ancient Hebrew culture.
The Exile was a one-two punch that really shook the Hebrew people loose from their foundations in Moses. The Babylonian followed by the Persian conquests and resulting cultural immersion for the Hebrews was quite damaging. It changed some of their assumptions and priorities. This is why the whole period of the Restoration, both with the Returnees in Judea and the Old Guard hanging back in Babylon, was a long drift away from their ancient roots, but one that had already begun during the decline not long after the reign of Solomon.
It's not that ancient Hebrew mystical faith was no longer available, but that it was no longer the default assumption of educated Hebrew people who were supposed to be leading the nation. This long slide was so significant that, when we finally see Alexander the Great marching through the Levant, evangelizing his Hellenistic religion and philosophy, this was not such a great leap for the rabbinical scholars to make. They had already been set up to wish for something like that.
What Wilson calls "Hebrew Block Logic" is not exactly accurate, but it is Jewish Block Logic. It's not as if Hellenism's influence on the Hebrew scholarship was absolute. It's easy to oversimplify the effects. Thus, where Hellenism yields the kind of step-logic for which math and science are now famous (AKA, linear logic), it didn't totally push out the Hebrew ability to hold conflicting ideas in tension. Jews are able to absorb paradox and not demand a resolution up-front, as would be more common with linear logic.
The whole idea behind calling it "block logic" means swallowing the whole block of data, conflicts and all, and letting it slide until closer to the end of the matter. The process is not halted by conflicting facts. Jews educated within their own culture can march right along because they assume all conflicts are simply apparent. This much they still carry from the ancient Hebrew forefathers.
But that this is not a hereditary ability should be obvious: Today's Jews carry darned little actual Hebrew DNA. They will argue with that, but we know that the vast majority of Jews today appear genetically North African and maybe a little west Asian. This "block logic" was not a part of their original pagan cultures, but they absorbed it as part of their adoption into Judaism. It's inherent in Talmudic teaching, which is as much about mindset and assumptions as it is about law and culture.
Here's a key point: Jewish Block Logic is what Hebrew thinking looks like if you come from a Hellenized background. Westerners can hardly tell the difference between Jewish canny handling of reality and the ancient Hebrews of the Bible. The difference is that Jews are predatory, whereas the Hebrews were not. That predatory element changes a lot of things at a subtle level.
It doesn't matter what brand of Jew we are discussing here. Whether some branch of Orthodox or all the way out to secular, there is something inherent in the Jewish identity that is predatory on Gentiles. That's because of the continuing influence of the False Messianic Expectations of the Jews. They became utterly certain that it was their duty and destiny to rule the world. Since it was obvious that God wasn't going to give it to them via military conquest, at least not at any time since they began discussing the coming Messiah in the Second Temple Period after the Exile, then it was a waiting game until the Messiah finally did come.
But over the centuries, they believed less and less in a literal Messiah and began believing in themselves as their own Messiah. That is, it is up to them to bring about the Messianic Age when they would own all wealth, control all governments, and all the world would be their slaves. For those who still believe a Messiah will come, they are simply setting things up for him.
Now, I must note here that there are plenty of Jews who aren't absorbed in this predatory commitment, but the people as a whole are raised with this expectation of someday taking over the world, and that it is their duty to do so, a genuine religious necessity. And it's one they never admit to outsiders. They are people, but the regard all Gentiles as animals that look like people.
The motivation behind their Block Logic is this predatory vision. They can handle paradoxes because this is how they stay on mission. It's their tactical advantage. It's not about the objective truth regarding the facts, but the Truth that they are the rightful rulers of humanity.
For the ancient Hebrew people, the real core of what Block Logic is supposed to be is the humility before God that they simply cannot know the answers. Wilson catches onto this part, and simply assumes it's what Jews do. Jews talk that way to outsiders, but it's not how they behave amongst themselves. Hebrew Block Logic is what Wilson suggests, but it is not what Jews are doing. The difference is the motive; that's part of ultimate moral truth. We who embrace God's revelation in Hebrew culture aren't seeking any advantage, just hoping to stand in the place where God can use us.
You and I, as those seeking the Covenant Way of God, would do well to embrace this block logic, this swallowing of whole blocks provisionally until God chooses to show us more clearly. We should recognize that our God has already warned us that some questions will never be answered, not least because some of them are the wrong questions. It's not just the limitations of linear reasoning, but the wrong-headedness of approaching reality that way.
We should know that reality is just another avatar for God Himself. The best approach to understanding reality is that it is alive, a person with whom we can all get acquainted, but which is unlikely to be precisely the same to each of us. One man's reality is as good as another's, and none of us will ever have a full grip on it. Embracing the ancient Hebrew Block Logic (and not the Jewish predatory version) is the right approach. Don't expect reality to make sense. Even if it did, no human is capable of fully knowing reality in the first place.
Comments
Fun and Prophet
There are so many traps in "logic." Relevance, the weight of counterexamples, adequacy and accuracy of data, and, related, whether the time is ripe for a conclusion. And most of all, the level of allegiance to actual truth. If an axe is being ground, consciously or unconsciously, the chain is likely to be contaminated at every stage.
I have found it is usually a fool's errand to debate as apologetics, or otherwise. As John Lennox says, our association is with a Person not a Theory. Persons encompass multitudes.
Catacomb Resident
Agreed. If we view the universe as alive, then everything is persons. There can be no objectivity without stepping away from reality itself. And to be human is inherently a self-contradiction.
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