Louis Jacobs, Revelation, and the Ongoing Battle to Defend Jewish Orthodoxy

Louis Jacobs, (1920-2006), a British scholar-rabbi, became embroiled in the so-called “Jacobs Affair” in the 1960s, a controversy generally associated with his views on divine revelation. Influenced by his encounter with academic biblical scholarship, Jacobs tried to construct an apologetic account of how to maintain belief in Torah min Hashamayim— Torah from Heaven — while addressing secularist challenges to these teachings. Highlighting divisions between more conservative and liberal currents within Orthodox Judaism, Jacobs was effectively ostracised from British Orthodoxy for his efforts. Yet the challenge he sought to address has not gone away. Instead, there is growing engagement with the issue, with the internet increasingly influencing the contours and content of this debate. The questions directed at the dogmatic accounts of revelation promulgated within Orthodoxy form part of a broader challenge to religious authority. A study of Jacobs’ position, alongside some more contemporary arguments developed in a post-secular context, offers a framework for considering the varied apologetic Jewish responses that have been formulated to defend divine teachings against secularist critiques.