Were Chazal liars?
In a Facebook thread, someone angry about the distortions he was fed by Judaism referred to "Chazal's crimes" and that their "lies" are what shaped most of the religion. This really bothered me. "Chazal's crimes"? Their "lies"? That's a worse distortion than what Chazal did. Were the ancient Greeks' misunderstandings about reality being composed of four elements "crimes" and "lies"? Was Aristotle trying to fool people when he maintained that the earth was at the center of the universe? They were men of their time who had at their disposal only the tools they were given. The very concept of empirical scientific proof hadn't been invented. They deeply believed in the divinity of the Torah and of the truth of the work they were doing. It's OK to still respect them and the remarkable work they did, while acknowledging that they were technically wrong. It's a distortion of history, shows a lack of