"Biblical criticism" in Orthodox Judaism?

[Southern Noachide]

Apparently there is a movement afoot to bring liberal Xian "Biblical criticism" into the Orthodox Jewish world (http://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/fink-or-swim/can-one-be-a-shomer-torah-umitzvos-and-accept-bible-criticism/2013/08/22/0/).

Now of course I am a Noachide and what is more, a rural white Southerner, so I approach this subject with all sorts of biases.  It was my understanding that G-d wrote the Torah in its entirety and then dictated it to Moses as a series of consonants, Moses merely writing it down.  I have also understood that the message of the Torah is not only in its "plain sense" but in the sizes, shapes, names, translations, and numerical values of the letters, and even in every space between the letters.

Now an Orthodox Rabbi appears to be saying that all that matters is that people obey the Mitzvot.  If they can believe that the Torah is not 100% the work of G-d--that it may be a composite work from a later time--and **still** observe the Mitzvot, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with this.  If Jews can obey mitzvot that are middeRabbanan, then they can observe Torah commandments that aren't actually from G-d Himself.

Now here's where my biases kick in.  Isn't the whole point of the Mitzvot that they are from G-d?  If they all reduce to mere custom, or even if they are not all of Divine origin, then how is one "obeying" the Mitzvot?  The whole thing sounds to me like a Jewish version of civilizationism, the anti-Semitic ideology held by so many anti-Semitic Xians like the folks at V-Dare and the late Sam Francis (though the latter was an atheist).

There was actually a time when I was so foolish as to believe that Orthodox Judaism would be the one religion completely unaffected by all the storms and waves of modernism.  After all, in the West, at least, Jews who want to practice rituals and customs but who don't believe they are actually Divine commandments have their own movements.  Now this stuff is invading Orthodoxy itself.  Apparently the entire religious world is going to be infected.  There will be no exceptions.

We have already witnessed "Orthodox" feminism (female "rabbis") and a thrust to normalize homosexuality within Orthodoxy.  Now evidently the Divine origin of the Torah is up for negotiation--so long as one still goes through the motions.

I know that in Judaism the stress is on law rather than dogma, but surely there must be a line somewhere.

[Zelhar]

Just because someone self identifies as orthodox Jewish doesn't make him one. There have always been heretics within Judaism who falsely claimed they operate within the fences of halacha.

[muman613]

I wrote about this about a month ago... It is a very bizarre branch of 'modern orthodox' which has started down this path of heresy. At the time I learned about it I warned all righteous Jews to avoid this modern orthodox strain which has begun to question the divine origin of our Holy Torah.

This modern orthodox strain is like a virus which will eventually be extinguished.

[muman613]

See my original comments on this back on July 22...

http://jtf.org/forum/index.php/topic,70653.msg603250.html#msg603250

[Southern Noachide]

Thank you for the link to your previous post on this subject, along with all the links in that thread.

I have a question regarding something I read in that other thread that has always bothered me, the reference to Israel's eventual rule over "kol benei Shet."  While I understand it much better now, it is my understanding that the human race still preserves the lineage of Qayin through Noah's wife Na`amah (the sister of Tuval-Qayin according to one opinion) and through Qayin's descendant `Og Melekh HaBashan, who doubtless begot multitudes of children during his extremely long life.  Why then does the Torah refer to mankind as benei Shet rather than benei 'Adam?

[edu]

One of the 13 principles of Faith of the Jewish religion is:
I believe with complete faith that the entire Torah now in our hands is the same one that was given to Moses, our Teacher peace be upon him.