SOURCE: "The Study of Bible and the Primacy of the Fear of Heaven: Compatibility or Contradiction?" in Modern Scholarship in the Study of "Torah ": Contributions and Limitations, edited by Shalom Carmy, Jason Aronson Inc., 1996, pp. 159-80.

In this essay, Breuer asserts that the Torah was directly written by God and that its different styles reflect different qualities of God.

The topic assigned to me implies a possible contradiction between the study of Bible and yirat shamayim (fear of heaven). The God-fearing student of the Bible must confront this presumed contradiction and seek to resolve it. Failing to do so, his wisdom will take precedence over his piety; even worse: as the result of psychological conflict, the scholar in him will undermine his piety and as one who is God-fearing he will reject his scholarship.

To address the alleged contradiction we must first define the concepts involved, the study...