Revelation Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Judaism=== {{Main|Jewish principles of faith}} {{Redirect|Mattan Torah|text=Mattan Torah is "the gift of Torah". For [[Z'man Mattan Torah]] ("the time of the giving of the Torah"), see [[Shavuot]]}} The term ''revelation'' is used in two senses in Jewish theology; it either denotes (1) what in rabbinical language is called ''Gilluy Shekinah'', a manifestation of God by some wondrous act of his which overawes man and impresses him with what he sees, hears, or otherwise perceives of his glorious presence; or it denotes (2) a manifestation of his will through oracular words, signs, statutes, or laws.<ref name=je>{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12713-revelation |title="Revelation", Jewish Encyclopedia |publisher=Jewishencyclopedia.com |access-date=2014-05-12}}</ref> In [[Judaism]], issues of epistemology have been addressed by [[Jewish philosophy|Jewish philosophers]] such as [[Saadiah Gaon]] (882β942) in his [[Emunoth ve-Deoth|Book of Beliefs and Opinions]]; [[Maimonides]] (1135β1204) in his [[Guide for the Perplexed]]; [[Hugo Bergmann|Samuel Hugo Berman]], professor of philosophy at the Hebrew University; [[Joseph Dov Soloveitchik]] (1903β1993), talmudic scholar and philosopher; [[Neil Gillman]], professor of philosophy at the [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America]], and [[Elliot N. Dorff]], professor of philosophy at the [[American Jewish University]]. One of the major trends in modern Jewish philosophy was the attempt to develop a theory of Judaism through existentialism. One of the primary players in this field was [[Franz Rosenzweig]]. His major work, ''Star of Redemption'', expounds a philosophy in which he portrays the relationships between God, humanity and world as they are connected by creation, revelation and redemption. Conservative Jewish philosophers [[Elliot N. Dorff]] and [[Neil Gillman]] take the existentialist philosophy of Rosenzweig as one of their starting points for understanding [[Jewish philosophy]]. (They come to different conclusions, however.) Rabbinic Judaism, and contemporary [[Orthodox Judaism]], hold that the [[Torah]] (Pentateuch) extant today is essentially the same one that the whole of the Jewish people received on [[Mount Sinai]], from God, upon their Exodus from Egypt.<ref>Rabbi Nechemia Coopersmith and Rabbi Moshe Zeldman: [http://www.aish.com/shavuotsinai/shavuotsinaidefault/Did_God_Speak_at_Sinai$_.asp "Did God Speak at Sinai"], Aish HaTorah</ref> Beliefs that God gave a "Torah of truth" to Moses (and the rest of the people), that Moses was the greatest of the prophets, and that the Law given to Moses will never be changed, are three of the [[Thirteen Principles of Faith]] of Orthodox Judaism according to [[Maimonides]]. Orthodox Judaism believes that in addition to the written Torah, God also revealed to Moses a set of oral teachings, called the [[Oral Torah]]. In addition to this revealed law, [[Halakha|Jewish law]] contains decrees and enactments made by prophets, rabbis, and sages over the course of Jewish history. [[Haredi Judaism]] tends to regard even rabbinic decrees as being of divine origin or divinely inspired, while [[Modern Orthodox Judaism]] tends to regard them as being more potentially subject to [[human error]], although due to the Biblical verse "Do not stray from their words" ("Deuteronomy 17:11) it is still accepted as binding law. [[Conservative Judaism]] tends to regard both the Torah and the Oral law as not verbally revealed. The Conservative approach tends to regard the Torah as compiled by redactors in a manner similar to the [[Documentary Hypothesis]]. However, Conservative Jews also regard the authors of the Torah as divinely inspired, and many regard at least portions of it as originating with Moses. Positions can vary from the position of [[Joel Roth]], following [[David Weiss HaLivni]], that while the Torah originally given to Moses on Mount Sinai became corrupted or lost and had to be recompiled later by redactors, the recompiled Torah is nonetheless regarded as fully Divine and legally authoritative, to the position of [[Gordon Tucker]] that the Torah, while Divinely inspired, is a largely human document containing significant elements of human error, and should be regarded as the beginning of an ongoing process which is continuing today.{{Citation needed|date=August 2007}} Conservative Judaism regards the Oral Law as divinely inspired, but nonetheless subject to human error. Reform and Reconstructionist Jews also accept the Documentary Hypothesis for the origin of the Torah, and tend to view all of the Oral law as an entirely human creation. [[Reform Judaism|Reform]] believe that the Torah is not a [[direct revelation]] from God, but is a document written by human ancestors, carrying human understanding and experience, and seeking to answer the question: 'What does God require of us?'. They believe that, though it contains many 'core-truths' about God and humanity, it is also time bound. They believe that God's will is revealed through the interaction of humanity and God throughout history, and so, in that sense, Torah is a product of an ongoing revelation. [[Reconstructionist Judaism]] denies the notion of revelation entirely. ====Prophets==== Although the [[Nevi'im]] (the books of the Prophets) are considered divine and true, this does not imply that the books of the prophets are always read literally. Jewish tradition has always held that prophets used metaphors and analogies. There exists a wide range of commentaries explaining and elucidating those verses consisting of metaphor. [[Rabbinic Judaism]] regards Moses as the greatest of the prophets, and this view is one of the [[Thirteen Principles of Faith]] of traditional Judaism. Consistent with the view that revelation to Moses was generally clearer than revelation to other prophets, Orthodox views of revelation to prophets other than Moses have included a range of perspectives as to directness. For example, [[Maimonides]] in ''[[The Guide for the Perplexed]]'' said that accounts of revelation in the Nevi'im were not always as literal as in the [[Torah]] and that some prophetic accounts reflect allegories rather than literal commands or predictions. [[Conservative Judaism|Conservative]] [[Rabbi]] and [[Jewish philosophy|philosopher]] [[Abraham Joshua Heschel]] (1907β1972), author of a number of works on prophecy, said that, "Prophetic inspiration must be understood ''as an event'', not as ''a process''."<ref>{{cite book | author=Heschel, Abraham Joshua | title=God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism | publisher=Noonday | year=1955 | isbn=0-374-51331-7 | page=[https://archive.org/details/godinsearchofman0000hesc/page/209 209] | url=https://archive.org/details/godinsearchofman0000hesc/page/209 }}</ref> In his work ''[[God in Search of Man]]'', he discussed the experience of being a prophet. In his book ''Prophetic Inspiration After the Prophets: Maimonides and Others'', Heschel references to continued prophetic inspiration in Jewish [[rabbinic literature]] following the destruction of the [[Temple in Jerusalem]] and into medieval and even Modern times. He wrote that :"To convey what the prophets experienced, the Bible could either use terms of descriptions or terms of indication. Any description of the act of revelation in empirical categories would have produced a caricature. That is why all the Bible does is to state that revelation happened. How it happened is something they could only convey in words that are evocative and suggestive."<ref>{{cite book | author=Heschel, Abraham Joshua | title=God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism | publisher=ason Aronson Inc. | year=1987 | isbn=0-87668-955-1}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! 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