winstonjen

I agree! Where's Lorena Bobbit when you need her?

B. H. Manners

Stuff like the adultery test and other things similar expose the Bible for the bullshit it is.

Did you read where if two men get in a fight and one is overwhelmed it is wrong for a woman to help her husband by grabbing his opponent's nuts and racking him? If a woman ever did such she was to have her hand chopped off.

diana

Yeah, BH. In one of the translations I was skimming through yesterday (can't recall which), it said, "if she grabs his 'secrets.'" HAHAHahahahaha.

d

Evangelion

OK, I'll admit it - I'm curious.

Have any of you taken the time to ask an orthodox Jew about this passage of Scripture, or are we expected to labour under the convenient misapprehension that Christians are solely responsible for the OT and its message?

brighid

Evangelion,

Well, the really nice things about the vast majority of Jews is that they don't SEEK to convert you. As a matter of fact, a non-Jew is staunchly turned away THREE times before conversion into the Orthodox faith is allowed. They also have allowances for non-Jews who observe the laws of Noah as being righteous gentiles, whom they have no beef with. Furthermore, since it is the claim of the Christian that the God of the OT and the Christ Savior of the NT are indivisible, and of the same "flesh" so to speak AND that the Christian God is entirely dependent on Judaic scriptures it seems we should not have to confront a Jew about these things.

Depending on the Rabbi and depending on the sect the same passages with be apologized away to a greater or lesser degree. Although I have found that Rabbis tend to be a lot less dogmatic, even the Orthodox Rabbis I am acquainted with.

Brighid

Echo

Since Christian authors did not write this passage, I do not labor under the misapprehension that they are responsible for it. I am, however, interested in how bible-believers of all stripes (Christian, Jewish, liberal Christian, Muslim, etc) understand this verse and what, if anything, it says about the nature of the god they believe exists.

I would be just as interested in any responses from Orthodox Jews as I would from Christians.

Evangelion

brighid -

That's all fine, and I take no issue with it. Please also bear in mind, however, the fact that not every Christian is a rampant convert-O-matic. (Though I accept that the Australian experience is very different to the American one. Here, you would be hard pressed to find the same sort of militant Christianity which plagues the US.)

Well, no, that doesn't follow at all. Your contention with the "Foolproof Test for Adultery" springs from the message of the OT itself - not from Christianity. (That much is clear.) Seeing that the message of the OT is the historic message of Judaism, it makes no sense at all to say that "We should not have to go confront a Jew about these things." In fact, if you want a Jewish perspective on historic Judaism, it makes more sense to ask a Jew, than anyone else - and no sense to say that you should be asking Christians about it instead of Jews!

So why make such a big deal about it with the Christians? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: Evangelion ]</p>

Bible Humper

Was Jesus the avatar of Yahweh or not?

The deity described in the OT is your deity, he has evolved into a somewhat less primitive character since the NT writers were exposed to Greek and Eastern thought, but it is the same old Yahweh.

The fact that Yahweh is recorded to have granted magic powers through the performance of this voodoo ritual is completely relevant to Christianity.


This is the same deity who you worship. You are just gonna have to swallow that pill. And like it.

[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: Bible Humper ]</p>

Evangelion

Echo -

Fine. We're off to a great start.

So why are you asking Christians about it in the first place?

Well, seeing that the OT has nothing to do with Islam, I don't know why you'd bother to ask a Muslim in the first place.

Now, a Christian can certainly offer his perspective, but his answer is not going to be as good as a Rabbi's IMHO, because he's looking at the Law "from the outside." He has no personal experience with it; it doesn't represent his history, his culture, or his religious ideology.

Yes, Christianity is based upon OT Judaism. But this doesn't mean that a Christian is expected to have a comprehensive understanding of the OT and its 600+ laws - let alone an apologist's answer for each and every one.

And how many Orthodox Jews have you asked? Or is this simply one of the items in your "Let's embarrass a Christian" repertoire?

[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: Evangelion ]</p>

jess

I am still laboring under the delusion that 'bitter water' is a something... yikes.

The OED has a ton of listings for bitter-***, inclusing bitter earth being maganese , but nothing on bitter water. Still researching... I guess it is time to dig out the herbalism books... have to go through a pile to get to them, though...

a few concordance lines and other notes:

this implies to me that there are two waters, a bitter and a holy with the dirt. My guess is that the bitter was a rabbinical secret, probably made in batches and stored until needed, and labelled 'bitter water'.

bitter is translated as/from: 4751. mar, mar; or (fem.) marah, maw-raw'; from H4843; bitter (lit. or fig.); also (as noun) bitterness, or (adv.) bitterly:-- + angry, bitter (-ly, -ness), chafed, discontented, X great, heavy.

curse: 779. 'arar, aw-rar'; a prim. root; to execrate;-- X bitterly curse.

thigh: 3409. yarek, yaw-rake'; from an unused root mean. to be soft; the thigh (from its fleshy softness); by euphem. the generative parts; fig. a shank, flank, side:-- X body, loins, shaft, side, thigh.

bowels: 4578. me'ah, may-aw'; from an unused root prob. mean. to be soft; used only in plur. the intestines, or (collect.) the abdomen, fig. sympathy; by impl. a vest; by extens. the stomach, the uterus (or of men, the seat of generation), the heart (fig.):--belly, bowels, X heart, womb.

other things:

while it was not legal for a man to commit adultery, there are rare occasions of him being caught. Most of the time, it is a woman caught by 'catching', and the pregnacy is the proof.

well, that's interesting. Because the verse promises that it will cause an abortion or fertility...

I am not against asking a rabbi about this. Of course, odds are it will be a simple answer of 'oh, that was just put in there by shamanistic misogynists. We don't believe that!'

AFAIK, only small groups of Jews believe the bible is literal, while a large amount of Chirstians do. I also believe that muslims and christians both use the OT as a base for their religion (as do mormons, and JW, and B'hai, etc), so any who use it as a holy text have a responsiblity to defend it, and defend it well.

It is a 'stump the christian' only because the christian is the most common person you need to stump. In a muslim or evengelical jewish society, it would be 'stump the &lt;insert brand name here&gt;'

ok, off to hit the books...