Page "Jewish philosophy" Paragraph 19

Hiwi espoused the belief that miraculous acts, described in the Pentateuch, are simply examples of people using their skills of reasoning to undertake, and perform, seemingly miraculous acts.

As examples of this position, he argued that the parting of the Reed Sea was a natural phenomenon, and that Moses ' claim to greatness lay merely in his ability to calculate the right moment for the crossing.

He also emphasized that the Egyptian magicians were able to reproduce several of Moses ' " miracles ," proving that they could not have been so unique.

According to scholars, Hiwi's gravest mistake was having the Pentateuch redacted to reflect his own views-then had those redacted texts, which became popular, distributed to children.

Since his views contradicted the views of both Rabbanite and Karaite scholars, Hiwi was declared a heretic.

In this context, however, we can also regard Hiwi, while flawed, as the very first critical biblical commentator ; zealous rationalistic views of Hiwi parallel those of Ibn al-Rawandi.