The Idea of Technological Innovation, In (and Out of) Rabbinic Literature

The modern iteration of technological historiography began sometime in the sixteenth century, but the subject itself has roots in the ancient world. Despite the relatively slow pace of technological progress in Antiquity, the idea of technological invention—the possibility of human development of practical new objects or techniques—is a regular trope in the literatures of various civilizations. The Bible is no exception, though the Bible`s technological origin stories are quite brief. At their most extensive, ancient technological historiography contained organized list of dozens or even hundreds of inventors and their inventions. While the details of these historiographies were frequently (and often wildly) inaccurate, the historiographies themselves attest to an awareness that the tools of the present are (a) not eternal and (b) are the product of human ingenuity.

These two awarenesses are conspicuously absent in rabbinic literature; indeed, rabbinic literatures frequently avoids the subject of human invention, posits God as the ultimate inventor, or describes human inventions as calamitous events. In my lecture, I will outline the rabbis` exceptional attitude towards technological progress and explore potential motivating factors. Further, my paper will investigate how the rabbinic attitude shaped rabbinic conversation in the medieval period and beyond, as the human ingenuity behind technological innovations became increasingly difficult to ignore.