Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Asha'man · 07-11-2002, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kosh:
 Michael, are you SURE the translator of your version was filled with the holy spirit?

<sarcasm>
Of course that translator was filled with the holy spirit! All translations are!

Think about what would happen if a translator wasn�t filled with the holy spirit: he could make mistakes! The meaning might get garbled, or even worse: lost! What would be the point of divinely inspiring all this writing if it all just got lost in translation?

Entire civilizations might not be exposed to the truth, and therefore be damned to hell. God�s followers might become divided into 20,000 factions, each one with a different interpretation. Wars could be fought over such things! The bloodshed and suffering would be horrible!

How could an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God possibly allow that to happen over such a trivial thing as a translation error, when making it come out correctly is entirely within his power?
</sarcasm>

Berean · 07-11-2002, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vorkosigan:

They are pretty garbled. How are Ten to be reconstructed from here?

That was my point. You can get ten out of it, but you have to rely on merging a couple of them together (such as the ban on treaties and the command to break down pagan shrines). You have to work at it though.

Quote:

You solved this problem yourself. The Ten here are what was written on the first set

I don't believe I did that, but fair enough. That would indeed work, but you now have the burden of proving that these were written on the first set. Exodus itself is not explicit, but implies that the original tablets contained the standard Ten Commandments, and Moses confirms that explicitly in Deuteronomy 5.

Vorkosigan · 07-11-2002, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Berean:


I don't believe I did that, but fair enough. That would indeed work, but you now have the burden of proving that these were written on the first set. Exodus itself is not explicit, but implies that the original tablets contained the standard Ten Commandments, and Moses confirms that explicitly in Deuteronomy 5.

Bearn, I don't understand why I have to prove they were written on the first set. We know the last set had the Ten Commandments; scripture says so. The first set is irrelevant now.

Vorkosigan

Kosh · 07-11-2002, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vorkosigan:


Bearn, I don't understand why I have to prove they were written on the first set. We know the last set had the Ten Commandments; scripture says so. The first set is irrelevant now.

Vorkosigan

I think Berean is reading that there were two sets of tablets (4 total). That on the first set, God wrote the original 10 commandments again, and that on the second set, Moses wrote the set of commands that he was given in Exodus 34. This hinges on God saying "I will write them down for you", and then saying "Here, write these down".

Of course, it could be the God had his own set of tablets, and wrote on them while Moses watched, and then wrote on his own set. You know, kinda like a schoolkid...

Berean · 07-11-2002, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vorkosigan:


Bearn, I don't understand why I have to prove they were written on the first set. We know the last set had the Ten Commandments; scripture says so. The first set is irrelevant now.

Vorkosigan

Because 1) Exodus 34:1 clearly states that God intends to write the same stuff on the new set; and 2) you claimed that this was the same as the ritual commands listed in the chapter.

Berean · 07-11-2002, 06:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kosh:
I think Berean is reading that there were two sets of tablets (4 total). That on the first set, God wrote the original 10 commandments again, and that on the second set, Moses wrote the set of commands that he was given in Exodus 34. This hinges on God saying "I will write them down for you", and then saying "Here, write these down".

Of course, it could be the God had his own set of tablets, and wrote on them while Moses watched, and then wrote on his own set. You know, kinda like a schoolkid...

I'm not following you, and you don't seem to be following me either. When I refer to the "first set" I simply mean the original set that Moses broke. There is only one replacement set mentioned in Exodus 34, which explicitly has the same inscription on it as the first. Now Moses may have written all the extra stuff from both trips up Horeb on stone, but we are not told what the medium was. Might explain why he was up there 40 days though. That's a lot of chiseling. However, that's irrelevant, since the tablets in question are those intended to replace the original Tablets of Testimony.

Vorkosigan · 07-11-2002, 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Berean:


Because 1) Exodus 34:1 clearly states that God intends to write the same stuff on the new set; and 2) you claimed that this was the same as the ritual commands listed in the chapter.

Look at verse 10, 11 and then at 28. It seems pretty clear to me:

10The LORD replied, "All right. This is the covenant I am going to make with you. I will perform wonders that have never been done before anywhere in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people around you will see the power of the LORD--the awesome power I will display through you.

11Your responsibility is to obey all the commands I am giving you today. Then I will surely drive out all those who stand in your way--the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

28Moses was up on the mountain with the LORD forty days and forty nights. In all that time he neither ate nor drank. At that time he wrote the terms of the covenant--the Ten Commandments--on the stone tablets.

In 10 the Lord announces its a covenant. In 11, the new covenant is happening today. In 28, the covenant is written on the stone tablets.

It seems clear that the covenant of Ex 34:28 is the same one of Ex 34:10. Unless you can offer some reason to think it is not?

Vorkosigan

[ July 11, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]

ShottleBop · 07-11-2002, 08:43 PM

Here is a not-atypical Jewish interpretation of the "boiling a kid in its mother's milk":

Quote:

Ki Tisa - Exodus 30:11-34:35

In this week's parasha, Ki Tisa, it states:

"The choice first fruits of your soil you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil (hebrew "bishul") a kid in its mother's milk" (Exodus 34:26)

Now this phrase, "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk" comes up three times and traditionally this has been interpreted to cover cooking, eating, or deriving benefit or pleasure from the mixture of milk and meat.
However, most biblical commentators raise a different issue; rather than exptrapolate from the three phrases, they struggle to understand this phrase itself within the context in which it is appears.
The Rambam reasoned that since this prohibition is mentioned twice in Exodus right after pilgrimage festivals that boiling a kid was probably a rite practiced at a pagan festival and therefore prohibited. The problem with this is that threre is no evidence that such a rite ever exist.
The Rashbam: because festivals were celebrated with feasts of meat, it was customary to slaughter one of the kids of a fresh litter and to cook it in its mother's milk. The Torah, according to the Rashbam, looks upon such a practice as exhibiting insensitivity to the animal's feelings, and therefore a cruel practice to be avoid.
But neither of these commentaries take into account how that context changes by the time we reach Deuteronomy 14:21! For in that verse it says: "You shall not eat anything that has died a natural death; give it to the stranger in your community to eat, or you may sell it to a foriegner. For you are a people consecrated to the Lord your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk."
What is going on? How can we understand the same sentence in the same way and yet have it appear in two totally different contexts.

A third commentator, the Bechor Shor shows that we are in fact translating the phrase as it appears in Exodus incorrectly. Let's look at Genesis 40:9-10: In this verse the Pharoah?s cup bearer tells Joseph his dream. He says: ?On the vine were three branches. It had barely budded, when out came its blossoms and its clusters ripened/hivshilu into grapes.?
In this verse the Hebrew word for ?ripen? is ?hivshilu? which comes from the the same root as ?to cook or boil?. Therefore, taking this other meaning into account, we can retranslate the verse as follows: The choice fruits of your soil you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God, [But] And do not let a kid nurse/ripen on it mother's milk [before bringing it to me].
You might thing that by suggesting this retranslation I am trying to undermine the very foundation phrases of keeping kosher and urge us all have cheese burgers tonight for dinner. But don't worry, I am not. Rather, this retranslation resensitives and reaffirms for me what I believe is the very essence, the very core principle of keeping kosher and frankly the purpose of being Jewish. How so?
If we follow Bechor Shor's reasoning and accept his translation it would seem that the form of this commandment changes over time. In Exodus, the context of the commandment is the sacrificial cult whereas in Deuteronomy, the context is what is appropriate or inappropriate meat for consumption. In both contexts though, the principle is still to have the ultimate respect and sensitivity to life and seeking to separate as much as possible that which represents life from that which embodies death. We separate the kid from its mother before it starts to nurse/ripen because we know the kid will be slaughtered on the altar, and similarly, we separate the kid from its mother's milk and do not cook them together for such would violate the same boundaries of life and death.
Hence by accepting Bechor Shor's retranslation, we affirm that a core value of kashrut is the separation of life and death, but we learn that the form such respect takes can change over time.
Keeping kosher is principle about how we should separate life from death, maximize and respect life, even while we take it, and train us to be just, sensitive, humane, and kind. What form that takes has changed over time. We see the change in the Torah and we see changes even in our day. Some fear our changing the form in which keeping kosher has been traditionally observed, but for me, staring at the challenges we face to make Judaism meaningful and relevant as we enter the 21st century, I believe such changing of form is essential if we are to continue as a people. What we must never do is veer from is the principle, for it is such adherence that marks us as kosher.

(from <a href="http://adatariel.org/torahfromadatariel/tt21.html" target="_blank">http://adatariel.org/torahfromadatariel/tt21.html</a>

See also <a href="http://www.jhom.com/topics/goats/cook.htm" target="_blank">http://www.jhom.com/topics/goats/cook.htm</a>

As for the dual set of Commandments: Richard Elliott Friedman, author of Who Wrote the Bible, explains (in his new translation of, and commentary on, the Torah):

Quote:

In critical biblical scholarship we understand these two versions of the Decalogue to come from two different sources. . . .

[ July 11, 2002: Message edited by: ShottleBop ]

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