Freethought & Rationalism Archive

IamJoseph · 08-18-2009, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by storytime

[ But in those OT days, would Jews have been allowed to enter those places of "idols" at all?

For what purpose - remembering that the first two commandments are not fullfilled away for Jews? :constern01:

IamJoseph · 08-18-2009, 05:33 PM

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Originally Posted by semiopen

Maybe I'm missing something in this thread but...

Aren't Christianity and Islam Abrahamic by definition?

Abrahamic_religions

Genesis 17:5 goes

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Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for the father of a multitude of nations have I made thee.

Is there something later that says something like:

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All the nations but the Jews will be a bunch of assholes.

This refers to belief and the God of Israel, not a biological thread falsely promoted. The former vindicates the prophesy - the latter distorts it. The nations will adopt the laws even when they swear to fullfil them away and overturn them - this is vindicated today, to the extent not a single law accepted by the world is not contained in the Hebrew laws. The Hebrew laws are enshrined in a multitude of nation's Institutions - even when those nations try to distort them. This is my reading of it.

IamJoseph · 08-18-2009, 05:36 PM

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Originally Posted by semiopen

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Originally Posted by IamJoseph

This was said while he was exiled in Egypt. But certainly, the ONE God premise rules, and this is more applicable with Islam than Christianity, no matter what anyone says. There is a closer cultural/moral/ethical affinity with Judaism and Christianity, while a closer one with Islam with its higher Monotheistic threshold.

I'm not clear what significance exiled has here. His family wandered for awhile when the Almohades conquered his home town, but this was when he was between 10 and 20. His family finally left Spain. Everything he wrote was while he was "exiled".

It is interesting to imagine what he would think if he was alive today, since so many of the things that he thought were true have been refuted. These include:

The Pentateuch was not written by Moses.
The Bible was changed often during history.
There was no unbroken oral tradition from Moses to the writing of the Talmud.

One might speculate that he might become a modern orthodox Jew, with a rational view of Jewish history, one could also argue that he might be an atheist. I agree with IAJ that he would defibnitely not become a Christian or Muslim.

Maimonides was nominated Man of the Millinium by Time Mag. Re:

Quote:

The Pentateuch was not written by Moses.
The Bible was changed often during history.
There was no unbroken oral tradition from Moses to the writing of the Talmud.

None of these have ever been refuted. You forgot to attach your proof.

storytime · 08-18-2009, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Quote:

Originally Posted by IamJoseph

What makes you say that Islam and Christianity are 'Abrahamic'? They do not follow Hebrew laws, and have no biological connection with Abraham or Moses. Consider this:

Europeans who begat christianity at no time followed any of the Hebrew laws - ever; not before they became christian or after. In fact they negated all laws which they did not want to follow, and added laws totally in contrast of the Hebrew bible.

The pre-Islamic Arabs never followed the Abrahamic or Mosaic beliefs, and also have no biological connection with Abraham. The Arab race is 2,500 years old and Abraham lived 4000 years ago - there were no Arabs in that 1,500 year period, nor did they follow Abrahamic laws in that time.

Both religions emerged thinking Israel was dead. They destroyed the Jewish homeland and proclaimed themselves owners of the land and religion. Both made demands and doctrines in total contradiction of the Hebrew bible and of their own doctrines, introducing chaos, insanity and mass murder wherever they went, and converting by force. There is nothing Abrahamic of both those religions.

The Hasmonean, John Hyrcanus apparently had forced conversions before Christianity and Islam existed. Herod the Great's father, Antipater the Idumaean (Edomite) was a convert. The reports of forced circumcision are probably wrong since circumcision was common in the area.

True, the Hasmoneans were something of an anomaly since they actually were the only Jewish dynasty to actually control a good portion of Palestine, albeit briefly. Even here though, they were not truly independent.

I didn't notice any comments here about Ishmael, Abraham's son, who was supposedly the patriarch of the Arabs. Granted he is probably about as historical as Abraham, but he is worth mentioning. I thought a son was technically a biological connection. Genesis notes that Abraham's biological relationship to Isaac is a bit questionable, as Sarah was entertaining Avimelekh about nine months before Isaac's birth.

From Avi:

IAJ unwittingly posted a similar link recently. The Palestinians generally appear to be Jews who remained in Palestine after the Jews defeated the Romans... at least IAJ says we won.

DNA is tricky and a lot of the stuff on the net is commercialized and slanted.

Quote:

despite their more open breeding culture.

is an odd remark, here we have -

http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html

This discusses the various population mixtures that define present day Jews.

I think the key message is that there is no such thing as ethnic purity. IAJs views are not only wrong but very close to racist.

Herod's were Edomites? That's the people of Esau, and whom God always hated. But then, God hated everyone but Jacob-Israel. Amazing how the scriptors wrote in their favor all the time every where. Reminds me of IAJ.

semiopen · 08-18-2009, 07:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IamJoseph

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

I'm not clear what significance exiled has here. His family wandered for awhile when the Almohades conquered his home town, but this was when he was between 10 and 20. His family finally left Spain. Everything he wrote was while he was "exiled".

It is interesting to imagine what he would think if he was alive today, since so many of the things that he thought were true have been refuted. These include:

The Pentateuch was not written by Moses.
The Bible was changed often during history.
There was no unbroken oral tradition from Moses to the writing of the Talmud.

One might speculate that he might become a modern orthodox Jew, with a rational view of Jewish history, one could also argue that he might be an atheist. I agree with IAJ that he would defibnitely not become a Christian or Muslim.

Maimonides was nominated Man of the Millinium by Time Mag. Re:

Quote:

The Pentateuch was not written by Moses.
The Bible was changed often during history.
There was no unbroken oral tradition from Moses to the writing of the Talmud.

None of these have ever been refuted. You forgot to attach your proof.

Scholarly consensus has been a popular subject on this board today. The three examples I gave have absolutely overwhelming support. It is difficult to name even a single scholar who would disagree with any of these statements.

The Pentateuch was not written in the time of Moses. Probably over 95% of biblical scholars believe that Moses didn't write any of the Pentateuch. The only scholar I know who supports Mosaic authorship is Kenneth Kitchen, and no one tries very seriously to engage him because he is extremely nasty to people who don't agree with him. This is really standard, even Provan and Longman, Rabbi Freeman's Evangelical buddies, who believe Sarah literally had a really nice ass, don't believe this.

BTW, there is a scholarly consensus that the Tel Dan Stele is evidence for the existance of David (although certainly not as king of a united kingdom). There is a very small minority opinion that the Stele is a forgery. This opinion, which I personally think is extreme, is many times more popular and reasonable than a Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.

The bible was changed often during history. Even Kitchen wouldn't argue with this, he might have an opinion about what "often" means. If it wasn't written by Moses the redaction logically follows. I'm not aware of anyone who would argue for no changes.

The unbroken oral tradition. If the bible wasn't written by Moses, etc. it follows that there was no unbroken tradition. In any case, this is the strongest of the three refutations I gave. An interesting observation is that the Sadducees, who were the priests of the second temple were totally unaware of any oral law.

BTW, call me a traditionalist but I give Jewish scholars more attention than Christians. Jewish studies scholars are about 50% modern orthodox and many are rabbis. A higher percentage of Jewish scholars probably agree with these statements than Christian.

The main issue with fundamentalists is that they have not grasped the remarkable advances in knowledge of the past 150 years. I have little doubt that Maimonides would not be a Chasidic Rabbi if he was alive today.

semiopen · 08-18-2009, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by storytime

Herod's were Edomites? That's the people of Esau, and whom God always hated. But then, God hated everyone but Jacob-Israel. Amazing how the scriptors wrote in their favor all the time every where. Reminds me of IAJ.

Quote:

Judges 5:4 YHWH, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the land of Edom, the earth shook, the heavens poured, the clouds poured down water.

The Song of Deborah, one of the oldest passages in the bible.

Esau did what I think was the most decent thing anyone did in Genesis:

Quote:

Genesis 28:8-9 Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac;so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.

Poor guy, gets nothing but nasty commentary. The Talmudic commentary reflects the political situation at the time as opposed to the plain meaning of the text in Genesis.

storytime · 08-18-2009, 08:26 PM

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Originally Posted by IamJoseph

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Originally Posted by storytime

Well Joseph, Jesus did say to the Pharisees, "ye are of your father the devil". Jesus didn't include all Jews

You may read it as you like - but I see your laffable denial as a quagmired plight - you cannot admit this today because it will leave genuine believing christians in an abbys.

The truth is, this was directed at all Jews, it did culminate in antisemitism, millions of innocent peoples were murdered, and most christians chanted VE VERE NOT AVARE. Calling the Father of Judaism as the devil is typical Romanism - in fact the Father of the universe has become a cursory after thought for Christians today - how Roman can it get!

The Pharisees were absolute angels compared to Europeans - they sacrificed themselves along with their families without seccumbing to Rome - omitted in the Gospels!

In my view, there is no quagmired plight as the story is Jewish and excluding Gentiles[Christians].

In the story Jesus is arguing with his fellow Jews about law and tradition. He didn't go to Rome and argue Roman laws and their tradition. Any "anti-semitism" was within the Jewish body itself. In the OT there is portrayed Jews against Jews and anti-semitism within that many plays.

The truth is Joseph, that Jews were insistent on trying to convince non Jews that their Hebrew god was more superior than any other gods. The Jewish argument didn't persuade the non Jews. The religion of Judaism has always been an accusatory religion and it's hatefulness always repugnut to others. People who want nothing to do with the Jewish religion are not always anti-semitic and being anti-semitic is no different than Jewish hatred of other religions. You want to stand on a platform of innocence but it's already pulled out from under you. The Jews in centuries past were just as evil and murderous as any other people, and the Jewish god nothing more than an idol in the minds of those who believed in their thunderous god of threats of violence and death.

If you want body counts then the non Jewish world has more casualities than your inflated numbers. The non Jewish world has seen more inhumanity to man in untold numbers of holocausts. Persecution was never a Jewish only thing, but the Jews thought to try and monopolize and make merchandise of it.

storytime · 08-18-2009, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Quote:

Originally Posted by storytime

Herod's were Edomites? That's the people of Esau, and whom God always hated. But then, God hated everyone but Jacob-Israel. Amazing how the scriptors wrote in their favor all the time every where. Reminds me of IAJ.

The Song of Deborah, one of the oldest passages in the bible.

Esau did what I think was the most decent thing anyone did in Genesis:

Quote:

Genesis 28:8-9 Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac;so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.

Poor guy, gets nothing but nasty commentary. The Talmudic commentary reflects the political situation at the time as opposed to the plain meaning of the text in Genesis.

Esau's sin was then marrying "daughters of the land"[of Canaan]? This the means by which he sold-out his birthright in Isaac? I wonder how Paul managed to hide this part of the story as he told Gentiles that God loved everyone via Jesus?

steve_bnk · 08-18-2009, 09:21 PM

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Originally Posted by IamJoseph

Quote:

Originally Posted by steve_bnk

But that is the point, Christians do not follow Jewsh dietery rules, yet are considered Abaramic as are Musilms.

Yes, but that is a self-declared voluntary and improvised factor, which emerged with the assumption Judaism was dead post the Roman war. The more applicable factor concerns their conclusion about Jews - they are targeted as unbelievers and infidels - and this is not because they do not follow 'all' the laws from the Abrahamic belief - just the reverse applies here.

Agreed this applies today. But the christian bible was forbidden to christians for its first 800 years.

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Have you read either the Bible or Koran in any detail? Have you actulay talked to a Muslim knowedgeable in his/her theology?

Just excerpts - and it scared the living daylights of me. I'm still cofused if jews are born of the devil [Gospels] or apes [Quran]. :banghead:

Have you read all of Paul? Paul was the one who urbanaized the Jewsh/Christ sect by opening the door on food and circumcision. In fact Chisdtianity today is better called Paulism.

It was forbidden to translate into any language other than Latin so that the RCC became the sole arbiter of relgious truth to the und educated masses. Educated people of the times could get access.

Judaism was never dead. The Jewiosh heretocs beacme Chrtians when they claimed ownership of the bible for themselves.

steve_bnk · 08-18-2009, 09:34 PM

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Originally Posted by storytime

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Just a side point Steve.

It is difficult to talk to a Muslim about theology. I'm not clear if there is even a biblical studies equivalent in Islamic academia. (Wonder if Islamic academia is an oxymoron.)

Maimonides writes that it is ok for a Jew to go into a Mosque because the God is the same but that the bible is changed, so it is not ok to discuss the bible with one.

This seems like good practical advice, whatever the merit of the underlying premise.

I'm wondering if the underlying premise is that used in the OT that prohibits "speaking" to non Jews about laws, tradition, or whatever Jewish. The thought being that the Jews would somewhat be influenced by other doctrines and other gods. But in those OT days, would Jews have been allowed to enter those places of "idols" at all?

In Ecclesiasticus the writer states he is writing in part to 'outsiders' with the intent of communicating the Jewsh wisdom. It is interesting that he says translating from the Hebrew does not always communicate the true meaning of the original writings..

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