The irony is that Evangelical Christians tend to take the smiting and smoting HaShem more literally and without context more than Jews do.
But the “Jews are evil - look at this stuff!” has been part of Christianity’s assault on Judaism. Many Christian teachings say that the Jews have distorted their own bible and it’s up to the Jesus-loving Christians to figure it out and weed out evil. :rolleyes:
I agree with this. I was more thinking about those who believe the bible is bible is infallible which is a christian belief not a jewish one. The OP was directed at christians so I took that approach. It addresses the issue of biblical infallibility which is a christian belief. If the bible is infallible then it holds that what it says is the correct mores to hold and it’s fair to examine those critically.
I in no way meant that as an attack on those who hold differing beliefs regarding infallibility or as an attack on any current societies because clearly, none of these countries hold these beliefs that it’s the correct thing to do.
If this is directed at me then I must tell you it’s off base. The Christian god is supposedly the same god as the Jewish one so I don’t make a distinction regarding what’s in the bible. Christians as has been pointed out read the old testament too and I don’t know of any passages that say that there was a God change. Same for Allah. As far as I know they’re all the same entity.
Christians also nitpick at the Bible as well. They don’t think that Deut. 20 applies to all wars, as Deut. is an odd musing/rehashing of history by Moses.
I still don’t understand how ‘God’ came to equal ‘peace loving hippie activist’.
I agree with the general sentiment of your post i.e. wiping people out in the bronze age wasn’t necessarily seen as a bad thing (infact a lot of the talk of wiping entire peoples out was quite often bluster of same type that led many of the earliest kings of Babylon and Jewish leaders to be atrributed ridciulously robust longetivity).
However in modern day Israel there is a religious xenophobic element that exist beyond the fringes. Alot of the comments by Rabbi Dior strongly echo comments (admittedly not quite as extreme) made by Ovadia Yusef, the spirtual leader of the Israeli religious party Shas.
Now whilst Shas is detested by a sizeable number of secular Israelis, it cannot be potrayed as existing on the very fringes of Israeli soceity. It is a pivotal memebr of the current ruling coaltion, holding 4 cabinet posts and the 4th largest party in the Knesset.
The NIV as I quoted used the word rape. No mention of being put to death. It’s clear that your view on this isn’t the only one. That’s why I quoted both the King James ( you know, the christian one ) and the NIV to make the point that it’s talking about rape.
You are both Evil.
There, happy now?
Thousands of years ago some stuff was written down that seemed to explain society well enough, laws that seemed sensible, guidelines that were of use to organised groups, they were in tune with the general cultural structures of the day and acted as a central organising pillar around which the society could build. Whatever seemed reasonable was chucked in there because hey! whatever works right?
It was ascribed to a higher power in order to give it a special status (because otherwise it was just common sense) and of course a certain group of people laid sole claim to the right of interpretation (because being able to interpret the ambiguous words of a god make you powerful yourself and that is a good thing).
As society and science progressed, the words remained unaltered on the page and they are still holy and therefore absolutely correct. They must be, because that was what was claimed for hundreds and thousands of years.
Yet viewed through the lens of scientific and social advancements they become more and more ridiculous, bloodthirsty, discriminatory and flat out wrong. How can we go against what we previously considered to be holy and infallible?
Easy. We just need more and more interpretation of greater and greater theological intricacy to preserve that semblance of internal consistency.
Such interpretations are still handled by a certain set of people who’s whole power base rests on protecting their position and that of their holy texts.
From this we get modern theological gymnastics. Obscurantist, twisted, tortured logic that tries to make the best of a bad job. The whole… “killing good vs bad?” is the least of the modern theologist’s worries.
That explains any contradiction you find in holy texts and it works for any major religion. No point in picking up on any individual chapter or verse, the same applies regardless.
Exactly and it appears to be the point of the OP as well only the OP asked for the modern theological gymnastics involved.
Disgruntled Penguin, I was referring to the dualism expressed in the Dawkins and Ingersoll quotes above.
Christians believe Jesus was God. Jewish people don’t. Christians use the Greek scriptures in their bible. Jewish people don’t. (Some Christians also get the deuterocanonical works, but they’re the lucky ones. ;)) There are many theological and textual differences between the Christian god and bible and the Jewish god and bible. They’re different religions.
Skald, “Tanakh” is spelled with a kaf, which can be transliterated as either “kh” or “ch” (like halacha/halakha, baruch/barukh, etc). I think “kh” is used more often because “ch” can be misread as the “ch” in “Churchill” or “crunch”, but neither is incorrect.
To be clear, and I’m thinking you might have missed it, both quotes are translations of Deuteronomy 22:28-29. They don’t reference two different things but the same exact thing but the translations use different words. The King James version didn’t use the word rape but it seemed to imply it. I quoted the NIV to support this claim that rape is what was meant.
It’s not that easy though. Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God, then they have to create the whole trinity concept to justify it but as far as I’ve ever known, there is God and there is Jesus and the Holy Ghost and while they’re the same, they are still individuals.
It bears stating that I’m not Jewish, Christian or Muslim but many of my beliefs are based on the teachings of these religions as they were what I had to work with when I was discovering my own beliefs. I sometimes come off a bit harsh but I’ll admit that it’s more a love of my interpretation of what is I read/believe vs the interpretations of the any theologians. I also tend to joke about/with God but that’s his fault. He gave me a sense of humor.
I am familiar btw with the deuterocanonical works but at this moment, I can’t tell you if I am a lucky one as I really am not sure how exactly they differ from canonical works. I know that they also have influenced my thinking as anything spiritual has but I couldn’t tell you how exactly. 
Why the Christians are hellbent on bastardizing Hebrew text I’ll never understand…ahem.
But many many serious Christians today do make efforts to study the Torah in a different light - considering the Hebrew text and (gasp) even some rabbinical thinking.
These, Shas has 9 per cent of the seats in the Knesset. Considering Israel has a unicameral legislature where parties can quickly disband, jump ship, etc., and Likud should be ruling right now (//coughcough) I’m not sure of the significance.
No doubt racism exists in Israel. But Israel also bans extreme right-wing parties moreso than extreme left-wing Arab parties.
Though if the Charerdi in Israel keep breeding like they do, who knows? Israel could be polarized by religious Muslims and religious Jews in which the only thing that they can agree on is the death of their own apostates. 
Donno if you like short stories or not, but you may enjoy Shalom Auslander.
(:
This is the OT law, the one that Jesus nailed to the tree and no longer in effect for those who Love Him.
The command, in OT law was taken quite literally and still is today, but in the NT we learn that the Law is spiritual. What that means is more along the lines:
Some organized group (city) has other gods that they are worshiping, and not the true God who loves them. These other gods are false beliefs caused by the powerful in that city. This creates a stronghold in this group or city in the demonic sense. When God sends us, as His child, to such a city (group) He does so with the intent that we rule it and the demons must submit or be destroyed.
I will also add from scriptures (Eph 6:12 paraphrased) Our war is not against flesh and blood but the forces of darkness in this world and in the heavens.
Yes, but there’s also other smaller religious parties closely aligned to Shas with simalirly like UTJ (who despite being closely aligned to Shas have been in the news for supporting racism towards the Sephardic consituency which Shas represent rather than for racsim against non-Jews). All-in-all I would never claim Shas and their ilk represent mainstream Israeli soceity, but neither are they on the absolute fringes. In the religious sphere, a party like Shas hold huge influence, Yusef himself is the former Sephardic chief Rabbi of Israel, making him the (former) head of the largest Jewish religious division in Israel.
My points being that there are xenphobic elements in the Jeiwsh religion and they are in rude health. If you want to trace this xenophobia I think you could fairly trace it back to the xenophobia of the bronze age society that founded the religion (though as I intimated it’s exercise in futilty to apply modern social standards to ancient soceities) as more often than not it’s these very passages that are used to justify it. Simlair elements exist in other religions (e.g. Islam, Christianity) though these tend to be less ethnocentric as by their nature Islam and Christianity tend to be less ethnocentric religions.
If you want to support what it meant, you should probably grab a JPS or other Jewish translation and some commentary and take a look at the roots used. But since most people don’t do that (and aren’t expected to!), maybe just listen (or be open) to others who have these books at hand? Anyway, I’m getting tired and I was getting confused with the different passages, so thank you for the additional cite/reminder. (:
One thing you can note is the difference between one who is betrothed and not betrothed. Here is 28-9:
The woman is betrothed aka as good as married. A ‘woman not known to a man’ or any other variant means ‘virgin’. So is your fault with the idea that a man who sleeps with a woman outside of marriage must marry her?
Or that a man who rapes a virgin is not put to death?
If a man rapes a married woman, he has wronged in three ways:
Since a man who does this is put to death and the woman gets no punishment, #3 is canceled. It is also insinuated in that passage that it is expected that whomever witnesses a rape will do whatever it takes to stop it. There are few provisions in the Torah in which it is permissible to kill to prevent a sin. Rape may be one of them, as noted in Sanhedrin 73a.
Rescuing a woman from a rapist, even if you kill the rapist, is likened to killing a potential murderer before he takes a life. It’s that bad.
If a man rapes an unmarried woman, he has:
Sounds backwards, but to leave the woman without a husband is more problematic, so making him pay her father and care for her (as he cannot cast her aside) is the only reasonable solution circa 2500 BCE, modern psychology nonwithstanding.
Would you happen to be able to link or quote a more accurate translation for me? I’d be interested to read it but not enough to learn Hebrew.
I’ll give it a read. Sounds like my style of stories and the testimonials keep comparing him to Philip Roth who I really enjoyed reading.
For a longer read of biblical comedic gold I really enjoyed Joseph Heller’s book God Knows.
God Knows It’s about the life of King David.
And this is what I mean by people not knowing what they are talking about.
Even the current Rabbinic authority is detested by most Israelis. It isn’t as though they are democratically elected.
I don’t deny that racism exists in every single sphere of Israeli and Palestinian society. It doesn’t make everyone a racist, but racism, while not ‘politically correct’, may be more, uh, ‘voiced’ in Israel than it is in the west.
We have racism here, too. We’re just a bit more sleek about it.
There are xenophobic elements in humanity. It is not of the Jewish religion to preach ‘xenophobia’ of any kind. The absence of such behavior was noted for about 2,000 years.
Cite? I’d like to see an unbroken chain of xenophobia, please. Since Jews have existed as minorities for centuries, I doubt you can prove that ridiculous echoing of antisemetic frip frappery that Christians have been claiming since Jesus.
Islam is by no means less ethnocentric. Christianity isn’t ethnocentric so much as its just Christian-centric, unless of course you are talking about a culture that is dominated by Christianity.
Your assertion that Judaism is more ethnocentric than the other Abrahamic religions smacks in the face of academe, history, and anyone who has eyes and ears.
Actually, neither is my actual fault with the idea.
First, I don’t believe in anyone being put to death so while rape is indeed a horrific crime, I don’t support a rapist being put to death but I understand in 3000bc I would not have thought that way.
Second, I understand that a person who sleeps with a woman outside of marriage should marry her, especially in 3000 bc.
My fault, which admittedly may simply be lack of knowledge of the bible is setting out remedies for a rape but not really saying not to rape. I don’t know of any biblical passages that condemn rape. It’s not one of the 10 commandments although you can’t covet certain people. Heck, even stealing is in that part but with rape we only really get, take care of her if you rape her and that’s kinda unsettling.