It is not entirely clear whether Hiwi was a Jew, as suggested by Schechter (1901), or whether he was perhaps a member of a gnostic Christian sect (Rosenthal 1948).
The passing of the Israelites through the Red Sea Ḥiwi explained by the natural phenomenon of the ebb-tide; and the words "the skin of his [Moses'] face shone" ("ḳaran," literally, "cast horns" or "rays"; Exodus xxxiv.
29) he explained as referring to the dryness of his skin in consequence of long fasting (see Ibn Ezra on the passage in Exodus).
These few instances of Ḥiwi's criticisms are sufficient to show his skeptical and irreverent spirit, the cause of which D. Kaufmann traced back to anti-Jewish polemical Pahlavi literature.
His real surname, "Al-Balkhi," is correctly preserved in one instance only; in all others it is changed into "Al-Kalbi" (אל-כלבי = "the dog-like").
At the first glance we are inclined to take our fragment as the remainder of a polemical work containing an attack on Rabbinic Judaism directed by some Karaitic writer.
v. 6 and 11, which verses (among others in the same chapters) the Karaites were particularly fond of applying to the two great Rabbanite schools in Sura and Pumbeditha.
This impression, however, entirely passes away when we have gone through tho whole of the MS (manuscript) and found that not a single stricture is made on any particular Rabbinic teaching or traditional law.
This brings us naturally to Chivi Albalki, who, rightly described by Graetz, was the first Bible-critic, and who was followed by a large section of his community which perpetuated his teaching for some three generations or more.
These are of course more or less mere linguistic or philological difficulties; but the medieval Jews apparently considered such obscurities and inconsistencies in the diction and in the spelling as incompatible with the divine nature of a book, which is expected to be clear, concise, and free from ambiguities.
(5) That the various books constituting the Scriptures are either directly contradictory to each other or ignore laws and ceremonies in the one portion which are considered as of the greatest import in the other.
Our author, however, entirely ignores their existence, and his scoffing tone makes it probable that he regarded all these attempts as mere apologetic trash.
These, as he endeavors to prove, extend not only to mere difference in numbers between the books of Kings and the Chronicles and Jeremiah, but touch also the more serious question of law.
Again, how came it about that "the Mighty One in his Torah" forbade the eating of "things torn by beasts or that died by itself, and yet commanded the ravens to feed Elijah (with meat)?"
He also wonders how Ezra could insist on the putting away of the strange women after the Torah in such a case only demands the bringing of a trespass-offering?
"Those of the congregation who joined in affinity with an Egyptian people hastened to put away all the wives and such as were born of them according to the counsel of my God.
Very interesting is his remark regarding the prohibitive law of eating fat pieces (חלב) and the affirmative law relating to the blowing of trumpets on the first day of the seventh month, and the keeping of the day of Atonement which "the prophet of the Lord" did not mention in the Book of Deuteronomy.
Again he conceives the story of Balaam as described in the Pentateuch as attributing to God a sort of double-dealing with the heathen prophet, as well as attempting to protect Israel against himself.
In a similar way he cites the verse from Ezekiel in which God first said to the prophet, "Behold I take away from thee the desire of thy eyes" (Ezek.
He also protests against God's dealings with the houses of Baasha and Jehu, who are supposed to have provoked punishment from Heaven, the latter for his shedding the blood of Jezreel (Hos.