Duvduv

And who, pray tell, is the arbiter of rationality and logic??
Surely not the scientist who analyzes subatomic particles that are unseen without the required tools........

Duvduv

Who knows where lots of remnants are in lots of places, and tons of cemeteries over the ravages of military conquest over 3000 years ago, Charlie?
And what about tons of archeological evidence for the cases I mentioned to which nobody responded? Will all that missing evidence negate all of history entirely?!

outhouse

No just the complete 100% lack of evidence for a mythical exodus in scripture right next to the part where Noah loads all the animals on a ark.


will that evidence show up to someday :wave:

Duvduv

Does that attitude apply equally for all the other cases I mentioned and many more which do not display sufficient physical evidence to confirm their existence??

Sheshbazzar

And you have 'sources' ....that wrote two thousand years after the time of this mythical giant, and was notorious for the employment of creative imagination. The 'history' and genealogy is about as trustworthy as the one given for Yoshi.

semiopen

I don't know if this is the best post to reply to, but your worldview is skewed.

You claim that there has been an unbroken chain of tradition going back to Moses, and that the sages wrote down the Oral tradition (law) in the Talmud.

Then you claim that the stories in the Talmud, the Aggadah don't have to be taken literally. I certainly agree with you on that, however this was a hotly contested topic during the Middle Ages. Many of the great Rabbis you refer to, not only believed that these stories are literally true, but that not believing them was heretical and cause for excommunication.

Even fundamental theological questions, such as Creation Ex_nihilo are not unanimously accepted. This is, after all, not part of the Maimonides#The_13_principles_of_faith

The wiki soft pedals the issues with the 13 principles -

There was deep resistance to these lasting well into the Middle Ages. However, in your view, nothing happened. Even today there are serious theological issues with them.

The point being is that all this stuff is relatively modern even though you have an idealized but incorrect view that none of this has changed in 3300 or so years.

If we see so many relatively modern changes, how many more changes must there have been in the time leading up to the Talmud?

Duvduv

Unfortunately you engage in considerable over simplification even while trying to get a handle on the nature of rabbinic discourse and disagreements. And you might note when some people in history were deeme to have heretical views and the unanimity of describing them as such, as opposed to the existence of legitimate disagreement.

semiopen

Herem_(censure) This was not uncommon.

The Trotsky herem was interesting to me. My father lived in a village that Trotsky visited around this time, and was selected from all the children to give him an apple. Presumably, this was before the herem.

One of the problems with a strict religious view is that there are things that happen that get ignored, swept under the rug as it were. Instead a facade is built.

The literal interpretation of Agadda was first challenged by Saadia_Gaon and a little later by Maimonides.

http://www.daatemet.org/questions/pr...MESSAGEID=3085

The article goes on

Personally, I regard the respect due to the sages as perhaps similar to the respect one has/gives to a parent.

In any case, I was just pointing out that your disbelief in agaddah seems a little heretical.

Sarpedon

Rabbis have an economic interest in promoting a certain world view. Therefore their opinions need to be taken with a grain of salt.

And why would I favor Rabbis over archaeologists? One group sits around talking about old books that, as you point out, have been gone over millions of times before, and the other group goes out and looks and digs and finds. Or in this case, doesn't find.

semiopen

The term Rabbi is not used exactly by Duvi.

If there was any known interaction between two Jews in the Middle Ages it would have to be between Rabbis, probably because they were the only Jews who could read and write.

Therefore, it is misleading to lump all Rabbis together.

Admittedly they probably all got hard-ons bossing other people around.

In the modern world a Haredi Rabbi is someone with perhaps the equivalent of a Bachelors or Masters degree in liberal arts, who has no problem lying to you to suit his purposes.