Pilpul

Pilpul is a term that has entered the English language as a figure of speech for casuistry. It is borrowed from a Hebrew term for a particular method of studying the Talmud through intense textual analysis in attempts to either explain conceptual differences between various halakhic rulings or to reconcile any apparent contradictions presented from various readings of different texts. It has become a common colloquialism used by some to indicate extremes of disputation or casuistic hairsplitting.

Jewish rabbis have admonished many students to turn away from the intellectual stimulation of such obsessive hairsplitting debates to apply themselves to "more useful pursuits".

Saint Paul in the New Testament warned against disputing about words, which only ruins those who listen—"charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers." KJV 2 Timothy 2:14. (See 1 Timothy 1:3-7; 1 Corinthians 5:4-5, 11; 1&Thessalonians 1:6, 9; 5:14)

See also

Rhetoric

Sophistry

Kabbalah

Debate

Politics

Law

Cafeteria Christianity

Fundamentalism

Great Apostasy

External links

Pilpul (jewishencyclopedia.com)

Oneness Pentecostalism: Heresy, not Hairsplitting (equip.org)

What Is Pilpul, And Why On Earth Should I Care About It? by David Shasha, Director, Center for Sephardic Heritage