Confronting doubt

There are two origins of doubt in religious belief, first is the impact of scientific investigation and the opening of minds that has revealed other truths. A second origin is the growing conviction among some that what they were taught as a child and what their religion requires as faith is not true. An example of the former would be the 'Origin of species" by Darwin, that despite strong opposition from the Church in England and other religious authorities has gained ground during the past one and a half centuries. I have been influenced in this way, but then I have been in the fortunate position of having had a rigorous scientific training. But, there are many who start out as believers and then over a period of time come to doubt certain basic tenets of their faith. An example of the latter would be the assertion attributed to Maimonides (his Eighth Principle) that the Torah (the Five Books) were handed down to Moses by God at Sinai and have been immutable ever since. This is the situation of a friend of mine in Netanya, Woolf Abrahams.
I have received his latest essay entitled "Reasonable Doubt," in which he analyzes this issue of the veracity and immutability of the Torah from his readings and contacts, particular quoting several well-known Rabbis and Jewish Educators, including exchanges of letters with them over matters of faith and details of texts. Without reproducing the whole of this long essay, I commend it to anyone who has an interest in this subject or is grappling with the same issues. I emphasize that he starts out by quoting the qualifications of his sources, so that there is no doubt as to the significance of their statements and opinions.
He also makes the issue very personal, in a very Jewish way, so that this has relevance not just in principle, but also to the practice of religion and the actions of individuals. Since the Bible (the Old Testament) is also sacred to Christians, his conclusions are of relevance to Christians as well as to Jews (and after all they both presumably pray to the same one abstract God).
He writes: "What we are left with are questions concerning the accuracy of the traditional understanding of the bible. The questions fall into 6 different categories. Is the Torah a collection of earlier manuscripts? Have errors crept into the Torah? Is our understanding of the Torah correct because of possible errors when it was transliterated? If the ‘string of letters’ theory is correct can we be sure that the spaces were correctly inserted? Would our understanding of Judaism be reduced if Maimonides had never formulated his 13 Principles? Does it matter if the early rabbis rewrote our history?"
To those who are interested in grappling with matters of Jewish religious belief, from a positive viewpoint within the faith, I recommend his website "Reflecting on Judaism," where a collection of his essays including the latest one, can be found, at www.reflectingonjudaism.com .