Freethought & Rationalism Archive

semiopen · 10-14-2010, 07:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Juststeve

Semiopen:

That his face glowed and emitted beams of light fits better with his need to wear a veil than the horns do.

You may know that understanding Biblical Hebrew requires consideration of context in translating many words. I think the veil tips the scale considerably in the direction of a glowing illuminated face.

Steve

On the other hand, Semiopen's 3rd principle of Biblical Exegesis is:

Quote:

When faced with two reasonable interpretations, select the one that will annoy the most people.

The most obvious answer to the veil is that it is possible that his face glowed and he had horns.

Considering the context -

Quote:

Exodus 30:1"You shall make an altar to burn incense on. You shall make it of acacia wood. 2 Its length shall be a cubit, and its breadth a cubit. It shall be square, and its height shall be two cubits. Its horns shall be of one piece with it. 3 You shall overlay it with pure gold, its top, its sides around it, and its horns; and you shall make a gold molding around it.

Quote:

Exodus 30:6You shall put it before the veil that is by the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where I will meet with you.

The Hebrew for veil is different than Exodus 34 (more like curtain), but the idea is that Moses is transformed to a living holy of holies.

The opposition to horns is clearly that Medieval and Modern Jews don't like the idea of Moses (Jews) with horns. The whole debate revolves around Jews not wanting the horns interpretation to be true. As such, early Christians are blamed for mistranslating the text, when the answer is far from clear.

OLD LIGHT ON MOSES’ SHINING FACE
by
SETH L. SANDERS

Quote:

recently published Midrashic sources have emphasized that
Jerome’s understanding of Moses as actually bearing horns, font of a
famous anti-Semitic image, was actually shared by a stream within
Jewish tradition.14 An anthology of legends about the Ten Commandments
describes Moses’ confrontation with the angels in heaven.
“And a crown appeared on Moses’ head and horns were born in his
face ( ), as Scripture says,
‘And Moses was not aware that the skin of his face was horned’”.15
While this particular source is unusually explicit and is attested only
in a collection copied in 13th-century France, the tradition is already
re ected in ancient Piyyut.16 The significance for our understanding of
Moses’ shining face is that the source draws an intermediate link
between the ancient Near Eastern image of the melammu and the typical
Midrashic interpretation of the passage, which takes Moses’ radiance
as a sign of his coronation in heaven.17

In any case, if we go back to the original point I made; the horns of the ram in the Aqeda are important, and the case of Moses is related and also important. The Torah is clear that it is also referring to horns on Moses, the only issue is whether these are horns of light, or material horns, or both.

Jimmy Higgins · 10-14-2010, 09:15 AM

Talking about Moses in a Genesis thread. Weird. :constern02:

semiopen · 10-14-2010, 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimmy Higgins

Talking about Moses in a Genesis thread. Weird. :constern02:

Genesis was one of the five books of Moses.

Probably he wrote it after his face started glowing and/or grew horns.

Jimmy Higgins · 10-14-2010, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimmy Higgins

Talking about Moses in a Genesis thread. Weird. :constern02:

Genesis was one of the five books of Moses.

Probably he wrote it after his face started glowing and/or grew horns.

Moses couldn't have written about it. He was too stoned and talking to bushes to be competent enough to write down anything.

Rich Oliver · 10-16-2010, 05:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Juststeve

Semiopen:

I’ll offer you a gloss on the Akeida, ie. the binding of Isaac that I received from my Rabbi when I was a boy. It is by no means a mainstream take on the story, but it is one that I think has significant ethical meaning.

Ordinarily when the story is told it is assumed that God was testing Abraham and that Abraham passed the test by obeying God. The text does not say however that Abraham passed the test, that is an assumption, one made quite explicitly by Christians who get a lot wrong with regard to Judaism. Lets consider for a moment that this may be a story about Abraham failing God’s test.

Torah makes it clear that human sacrifice is an abomination to God, yet God seems to demand that Abraham do what is abominable. Why would he do this? What did he expect from Abraham? What he may have expected is for Abraham to resist, to act has he had done in the case of Sodom and pled for the innocent, in one case the innocent residents of Sodom, in the instant case for Isaac. He may have wanted Abraham to refuse the commend on the grounds that God himself had said that human sacrifice is an abomination.

Under this view the proof that Abraham failed the test is seen in the changed relationship between God and Abraham. Never again does God deal directly with Abraham. Never again can it be said that Abraham walked with God. Even in the matter of the calling off of the sacrifice God deals with Abraham not directly but through a messenger. Understood in this way the story is a profound condemnation of Human Sacrifice, never, under no circumstances, no matter who commands it.

To understand this approach you must understand that when a Jew reads Torah he does not ask whether that event really occurred that way? He asks why is the story written that way? What is there to learn. The answer often is that there is much to learn but that you need to go through a lot of layers to get it all. And you are right that it is often far from clear.

Steve

God Damm, My eyes have been opened! Using the principles of Liberalism, I thought that human sacrifice was OK at least some of the time, but the Bible has showed me that human sacrifice is always wrong.

semiopen · 10-18-2010, 06:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rich Oliver

God Damm, My eyes have been opened! Using the principles of Liberalism, I thought that human sacrifice was OK at least some of the time, but the Bible has showed me that human sacrifice is always wrong.

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Num 31:40The persons were sixteen thousand; of whom Yahweh's tribute was thirty-two persons.

So in this case, gentile girls "who have not known man by lying with him" can be sacrificed.

The Aqeda is suggesting Jewish males from the person's family, thus it seems specifically addressed to

Moloch.

Quote:

2Kings 23:10 (on King Josiah's reform):

And he defiled the Tophet, which is in the valley of Ben-hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire l'Molech.

The daughter is not clear from the Aqeda.

Quote:

The 12th century rabbi Rashi, commenting on Jeremiah 7:31 stated:

Tophet is Moloch, which was made of brass; and they heated him from his lower parts; and his hands being stretched out, and made hot, they put the child between his hands, and it was burnt; when it vehemently cried out; but the priests beat a drum, that the father might not hear the voice of his son, and his heart might not be moved.

Here there is also no daughter. Probably this is trivial, but I doubt that daughters were sacrificed to Moloch... what would be the point?

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10-14-2010, 09:15 AM	#42
Jimmy Higgins Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Proud Citizen of Freedonia Posts: 42,473	Talking about Moses in a Genesis thread. Weird. :constern02:

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