Hiwi al-Balkhi
Ḥiwi al-Balkhi was an exegete and Biblical critic of the last quarter of the ninth century born in Balkh, Khorasan. It is not entirely clear whether Hiwi was a Jew, as suggested by, or whether he was perhaps a member of a gnostic Christian sect. Some claim that he was a member of the ancient Bukharan Jewish community of Central Asia.
Criticism of the Bible
Ḥiwi was the author of a work in which he offered two hundred objections to the divine origin of the Hebrew Bible. Ḥiwi's critical views were widely read, and it is said that his contemporary Saadia Gaon found in Babylonia, in the district of Sura, some schoolmasters who used elementary textbooks which were based upon Ḥiwi's criticisms to teach children. Saadia not only prohibited the use of these books, but combated Ḥiwi's arguments in a work entitled Kitab al-Rudd ala Ḥiwi al-Balkhi. Both Saadia's and Ḥiwi's books are lost.Ḥiwi's book appears to be one of the most significant contributions to skeptical Jewish literature. Only a few of his objections are preserved, in quotations by other authors. In this way, it became known that Ḥiwi raised the question why God preferred to live among unclean mankind instead of living among the clean angels, and why He required sacrifices and showbread if He did not eat them, and candles when He did not need light. Another objection of his was based on the claim that God broke a promise which He had made under oath. All these objections are preserved in Saadia's The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, among twelve other objections of a similar kind, most of which are supposed to have originated with Ḥiwi. They point out several discrepancies in the Scriptures and infer therefrom a non-divine authorship. Ḥiwi even objected to the teaching of the unity of God, and referred to Deuteronomy xxxii. 9. In this case, as in several others, Saadia combats Ḥiwi without mentioning his name.
Some others of Ḥiwi's views are preserved in Abraham ibn Ezra's commentary on the Torah. Ḥiwi explained the passing of the Israelites through the Red Sea by the natural phenomenon of the ebb-tide and the phrase in Exodus 34:29, " was not aware that the skin of his face was radiant", he explained as referring to the dryness of his skin as a consequence of long fasting. Ḥiwi further explained manna as a naturally occurring phenomenon.
These few instances of Ḥiwi's criticisms are sufficient to show his skeptical and irreverent spirit, the cause of which David Kaufmann traced back to anti-Jewish polemical Middle Persian literature. also indicates that all of these Biblical difficulties can be traced to Manichaean dualist views. Both Karaite and Rabbanite Jews denounced Ḥiwi as a heretic. His real surname, "al-Balkhi," is correctly preserved in one instance only; in all others it is changed into "al-Kalbi".