spin

Just a reminder that to call the Hebrew bible the "Old Testament" is an insult to practising Jews. It is not the second class religious book of xians. While advertising tells you "new" is better, calling it the "Old Testament" implies that the new one must be better. OT makes me now think of Operating Thetans of $cientology infamy. Why can't you have more respect and call it the "Hebrew bible" or the Tanakh (the Jewish name formed from the initials of its three sections, Torah, Nebi`im, Ketubim)?

How 'bout calling it the Big Testament as against the Little Testament and see how that goes down...


spin

greyline

I called it OT in the subject line to keep it short. I called it Jewish scriptures in the body of the post.

Am I to believe that Jews call it "the OT" out of respect to practising Christians when discussing the Tanakh?

I didn't think so.

Why can't you have more respect for practising Scientologists?

spin

As the Jews wrote the Tanakh, do you really think there is any reason to call it the ot for those who misappropriated the text? :down:

If you knew something about the brainwashing techniques of Hubbard's crew, you probably wouldn't ask such a question, if not for the limp attempt at polemic mileage.


spin

greyline

If Christians don't believe they "misappropriated" the text then I don't think Jews have much of a case. The great thing about religion is that one is always right.


But I know plenty about Scientology. I don't think it's a good idea to criticise me for insulting one group while you insult another. Kind of weakens your argument...

spin

The Hebrew bible is a collection of texts, all of which were developed within the culture of the Jewish people. In fact it is mostly written, strangely enough, in Hebrew and large portions have come to light from the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is no doubt that they are the product of the ancient Jewish culture of which most of the Jews of today are descendents.

Labelling the Jewish text the "old" anything by another culture and then giving priority to a "new" something is misappropriation, co-opting the text as though it were a second class text in a different religion. If Christians want to defend their position regarding the Hebrew bible, all they need do is to 1) show that it is a product of their culture and 2) provide an objective criterion for why the Christian testament should outclass the Hebrew one, that is, in order to reasonably trumpet the Hebrew bible as the "old testament".

Then you'd know all about Sea Org. And witness hatting. How about L.Ron's interest and relationship with black magic and Aleister Crowley and the magic content in $cientology? You'd know about Xenu. You'd know that you have to wait till OT VIII to find out that God didn't exist. You would have forked out zillions of dollars to reach OT VIII. You'd know about "Fair Game". And of course you'd know why they died.

Although $cientology is a plain tangent to this tangent, I don't see that a complaint against $cientology weakens my remark that the Hebrew bible is a product of, and part of, the Jewish cultural heritage and should be seen first and foremost as part of the Jewish heritage and not the cultural possession of anyone else except in its place as part of the world's heritage. As such, to make it a B-grade text, as calling it the "old" testament does, is an attack on that cultural heritage.

This doesn't mean that I negate the debt Christianity has to early Judaism or its religious ideas or its literature. Without this cultural context there would be no Christianity. It is a normal event to denegrate that which came before in order to bolster your own position. It doesn't mean that we have to maintain the dogma inherent in such terminology as the "old testament".


spin

greyline

I'm really not interested in these semantics. I also don't care if "OT" insults Jews. No doubt their views on "the messiah" and all kinds of other doctrine are insulting to Christians - and to Scientologists, for that matter. Their practice of cutting off babies' foreskins insults me, a lowly heathen. Religions across the board have never been compatible - insulting each other, deliberately or not, is the name of the game.

But fear not, I personally am an equal-opportunity insulter of religions.


Yes, I know about these things. I read up quite a bit on Scientology a few years ago. I don't think they've slaughtered thousands of women and children (saving the virgins) at God's command - yet.


Nevertheless, weaken your argument it did. "$"cientologists surely disagree with you, and just like the Jews and Christians and every other religion, they know they are right. I'm not inclined to step in and tell one of them that they are less right than another.

Since Jesus did say he came to overturn (or "fulfil" or whatever) the "Hebrew Bible", it seems logical to me to call it the Old Testament. My initial question was really a question about Christianity as well, since Christians rely on Jewish history for the pre-Christian era. If it's true that there was a time Jews didn't consider their scriptures inspired by God, then presumably Christians should also believe that, or believe the early Jews were mistaken.

spin

I understand that.

But then I also understand that. My comments are not directed at you, who show little respect for cultural traditions.

This is boringly beside the point.

Yet, it is based on good healthy practice. Babies are often circumcized which are not Jewish in modern society. I understand the "lowly" part of your self-epithet.

This is more irrelevance, as it is not dealing at all with my comment about culture at all but at your problems with religions. And I understand that you don't care. But then relelvance is somewhat important to me.

Fine.

This again has little relevance. When was the last time in the last 100 years that "thousands of women and children" were "slaughtered" "at God's command"? You're just grandstanding to cover the lack of content.

You are merely repeating yourself, while not dealing to the subject of cultural property.

More irrelevance.

You have already gone beyond your evidence, by assuming that there was a Jesus. How can you expect to be taken seriously?

But logic is already seen not to be one of your strong points. You don't check your premises, so your conclusions have no value.

Religious works were treated differently by the two cultures. Religious texts were the product and the tutelage of the temple until its destruction, though that tutelage had been damaged when the most of the temple priesthood had been killed in the siege of the temple in 63 BCE. It had also been damaged by the rise of the Pharisees who were of a lower class, but had been empowered in the struggle against the Seleucids so did not like being excluded from the temple religion by birth. This led to the development of non-temple worship, in synagogues, partly developed informally in the diaspora for lack of access to the temple.

The Pharisees were conservatives when it came to religious literature. Mostly their approach was that it was too sacred to alter. And with their ascendency the Hebrew bible was standardized and preserved with little change from then on.

In all cases though Jewish literature was understood by the populace as inspired by God.


spin

greyline

Then why did you write "Why can't you have more respect...?" in reply to my first post, followed by other posts that quote my posts? Sounds to me like it's directed at me.

I'm sorry you think so. Is it okay for Judaism (or perhaps any other religion) to insult Christianity but not vice versa?


This is for another recent thread - but, no, it's not healthy. And only American babies are "often" circumcised these days for non-religious reasons.


My apologies for skipping too quickly to the end of my argument - I thought it was clear since I've already made the intervening points. Religions can do whatever they like, and a religion is always right within the context of itself. (Just ask a religious person.) Therefore, there are no rules for who can or can't co-opt and overturn someone else's religious text.

What does "100 years" have to do with it? You mentioned the evils of Scientology, so I mentioned the evils of the OT god. I don't understand why you think Christianity and Scientology are fair game, but Judaism is not.


"Cultural property", ie. stories in this case, doesn't have legal rights. Should Hollywood stop making mangled movies of Greek myths because they don't "own" the stories?

It's just a book in the public domain, you know.


No, you assume that I assume there was, despite declaring myself a heathen. Jesus in the Gospels said that his word superceded the old scriptures. For a Christian, that's evidence that Jesus said it. I'm not inclined to favour one religion over another when it comes to "who's right", since I think they're all deluded, so if Christians want to call it the old testament then they have a logical reason to do so within the context of their religion.


Saying it don't make it so, I'm afraid.

spin

Caused by you, no longer directed at you.

All you are doing is approving the misappropriation. But that is now just obvious.

You still think it's fine for a culture to subsume the work of another culture in some way claiming that work is actually theirs and not of the originating culture.

We are in a modern world. We have different requirements. Apply those requirements to the modern world. And don't be ridiculous.

The usual poor analogy. Hollywood isn't misappropriating them by claiming that they are the "property" of Hollywood.

Doh!

You should be more careful with what you say:

"Since Jesus did say he came to overturn..."

Jesus is the subject of the clause, ie the actor. "did" stresses the reality of the statement. The clause forces the assumption. If you didn't mean it, you should have indicated it. One can only understand what you say by what you say.

I have no interest in religion in this issue. It is one of culture and the abuse of one culture by another. In this more "conscious" age we are more able to consider the effects of what our cultures have done and continue to do. Calling the Hebrew bible the "old testament" is misappropriation of the work of another culture, but at the same time it has been a relegation of that work (along with its original culture) to a secondclass status. All you are doing is saying you don't care.

On greyline's lacking logic:
When you use phraseology which assumes the existence of Jesus and the reality of the statements attributed to him in your premise, then you have gone far beyond logic allows you, making your conclusion have no logic.


spin

greyline

Well, gee, then stop quoting me and talking to me.


Absolutely.


Christianity doesn't claim the work is Christian.


Christians don't claim the Old Testament is their "property", either. They are perfectly aware that those texts are Jewish.


Or perhaps you should be more careful with how you interpret. I made it clear that not only was I not Christian, but that I was speaking of how religions view themselves within the context of their own beliefs. You can persist with this pretended misunderstanding, or you can just accept that I was speaking from a Christian viewpoint in order to explain why a Christian culture might call the Hebrew bible the Old Testament.


I disagree. The Hebrew bible is a religious text, so it's impossible to leave religion out of it.

No, I don't care, in a religious sense.

"...assumes the existence of Jesus..." is a misunderstanding on your part. My apologies if I wasn't clear. Maybe my irreverence towards religion in general got the better of me.