One could argue that, more than anything else, the Torah unites and connects the Jewish people. At the same time, however, few things have been more divisive in the last few centuries than the controversies of the divinity of the Torah, its perfection, its coherence, and Sinaitic provenance.

This class will develop a picture of what's really at stake when we discuss or ignore questions of revelation, the Torah's perfection, and its origins, questions invoked in the earliest rabbinic texts all the way into the late 20th century.

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