Not so esay to answer. There were at last count four versions of Judaism
with a couple of subdivisions: Orthodox (subgroup Hasids), Conservative,
Reform, and a recent addition that I think calls itself Liberal. There are
also the vast numbers of unaffiliated but Jewish-identified (myself
included). Of these, only some of the orthodox (including in theory all
hasids) are literalists. But that's not the whole of it. I have a friend
who's both an ordained Orthodox rabbi (without congregation) and a senior
neurological researcher at a major institution. I asked him once if he was
a literalist. With some hesitation he said he was. Didn't that conflict
with his scientific beliefs? Long pause, then: "It's like this. There's a
set of beliefs, but some are less essential to espouse or even believe in.
The creation story is one of those. I choose not to be concerned about it."
Which means, at a guess, that in the US, out of maybe 6 million Jews, there
may be as many as half a million literalists, but only a few are likely to
be active propagators of their views.
Moishe Yizzik
At 04:34 PM 5/5/2005, you wrote:
>As a matter of interest, can anyone give me a rough idea of how
>contemporary Judaism pans out in terms of literal belief in the
>(written) Torah?
>
>Dominic
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