That was totally worth a snort and a slight burning sensation as ravioli went up my nose.
Wait, what? I gather that the bagel comment falls under the “personal insults” bit, but are we seriously required to avoid non-insult anti-semitic arguments out of our line of reasoning? I mean, I don’t want to start threads about Jewish banking conspiracies, but are we not allowed to under board policy?
What does the phrase “above all people” imply? That God likes Jews more? That Jews are better? The OT conclusively demonstrates that this is not what is meant - after all, much of the OT consists of God punishing the Jews for failing to live up to their covenant with God. It sure isn’t an unbroken series of God preferring Jews to other people - it is much more consistent with the notion that Jews are “special” in that they have special obligations. They are not considered a “chosen people” in the sense that (say) the Nazis considered Aryans.
As usual, reading in context is necessary to understand the meaning.
However, you will not find any modern-day Jews who literally follow the “rules” as set out in the OT - for the obvious reason that many of those rules are specific to (yes) Iron-Age conditions that are irrelevant or contradicted by modern realities.
For example, a great deal of the OT revolves around a priestly cult centred on a central Temple. Judaism no longer has either “Priests” or a central Temple (Rabbis are not Priests - the difference is that Priests have a religious role, a direct conduit to God as it were, and Rabbis don’t). The reason: the Temple and the priestly cult were destroyed by the Romans 2,000 years ago.
I do not think you will find any modern-day Jews who literally follow any of the commandments found objectionable in the OP - i.e., stoning adultresses, keeping slaves, etc.
So yes, harping on these matters to critique modern Jews is ignorant. Jews simply are not fundamentalist in that way (they can be, in some cases, fundamentalist in other ways - but this critique badly misses the mark). Judaism is an evolving religion, Jews do not accept every word of the OT as the inerring word of God applicable to today - they have mechanisms for updating it. When you think of modern-day Judaism, you must look to the Talmud and commentaries as much as to the OT …
The “You are a complete imbecile” line struck me as the more personal insult.
More proof, if any were needed after the bagel comment, that she’s a fucking idiot and paranoid nutcase. I wonder if she’s worried about getting one of her kidneys stolen every time she goes on a date, too?
We could cherrypick quotes back and forth, I’m not in the mood to do that. I could quote Amos: “You only have I singled out of all the families of the earth: therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities.” You could quote more of Deuteronomy, I could point out that the Tanakh is often self-contradictory, was written over a span of time by numerous authors, interpreted differently at different points in history, etc… Bah.
You have to look at the actual conversation in context and not simply look at my comment out of context. First, our OP was busy claiming, in error, that the Torah has a set of laws for the treatment of Jews and a different set of laws on how to treat strangers, all while putting words ‘the chosen’ in hard quotes. Further, as her argument makes quite clear, she is conflating modern and ancient times, and modern and ancient Jews. Pointing out what the phrase ‘the chosen people’ has actually come to mean is certainly not outside the scope of the discussion. Especially since, even in ancient times, people like Ruth were viewed as just as righteous, if not more so, than any born to a Jewish mother.
It’s not misleading, at all, to call a Bronze Age document a Bronze Age document, regardless of whether or not religious nutters believe it to be the 100% literal and actual word of God. An infinitesimally small number of Jews believe that the Tanakh is the actual word of God. Using rhetoric of that sort, for any purpose other than discussing only those Jews, is at best absurd and at worst, some scary agenda driven stuff.
Want to bet on whether or not I could find at least one modern Greek who’s also a modern Pagan? What would it prove, anyways? Is the pantheon of Olympus not a Bronze Age myth, too?
The OP simply did not attack fundamentalist Jews,but Jews (and Christians) in general. Whitewashing her actual statements serves no legitimate purpose.
No, I saw the warning over the personal insults coming- I don’t think we’ve hit the only ones in the post, either. But that’s not my point- are anti-semitic ideas forbidden here? Even if they’re reasonably and civilly discussed in GD, or screamed in the Pit?
I would imagine civil argumentation would be allowed by the moderators, if not exactly welcomed by the membership. “Go eat a bagel” doesn’t really strike me as constructive.
Personally, for what it’s worth, I believe that anti-semitism is another form of being a jerk, and should be treated accordingly. Debates about Jews who happen to be bankers and/or engaged in a conspiracy = fine. Debates about how there is a “Jewish” banking conspiracy, depending on context = probably not fine.
With that being said, however, I took the OP’s statement not as anti-semitism, but as a puerile jab taken at me for stating that the most intense thing I got into as a child learning about my religion, was bagel and lox Bible Breakfasts.
As to whether or not she’s a racist, I honestly don’t know. Lots of signs point in that direction, but also point to her being an ignorant fiery hearted child with more anger and righteous indignation than sense. Could go either way, to be honest.
Ah, this has made it into the pit. I can now point out, calmly, cooly, that anyone who thinks that race is a cause or indicator of “goodness” or “evilness” is by definition a racist, and worse than that, a moron. You have to be pretty detached from reality not to realize that people are good and bad regardless of their color.
Why do you single out anti-semitism?
Why not just say that “racism is another form of being a jerk” ?
You mean… why, in a discussion as to whether a poster is or isn’t an anti-Semite and in the specific context of whether an anti-Semitic GD thread would or wouldn’t be allowed… I was talking about anti-Semitism?
Come on.
Well, we’ve have serious, in-depth “Ask the Racist” threads that were actually pretty informative, so I don’t think that we can say that it falls under that category given current board policy.
She referred to FinnAgain as a “complete imbecile” in that post, which is clearly over the line.
I think I’m on safe ground in saying that bigotry is considered jerkish here. And I’m not using a restrictive definition of anti-Semitism here; for our purposes I don’t think it’s even anti-Semitic to say “Israel shouldn’t exist.” But Becky01 has consistently described Jews in a negative light, from the use of “Evil” in the title to “maniacs” (which I believe refers to Jews and not religious people in general) and her description of them as deceptive, along with dismissing FinnAgain’s reasoned response because she apparently believes he is Jewish/believes Jewishness to be a bad thing. It’s the characterization of Jews/Hebrews that makes it anti-Semitic. We wouldn’t tolerate “Niggers are stupid, go eat some watermelon” here, we wouldn’t tolerate “Mexicans are lazy, go eat some beans,” and we wouldn’t tolerate “Fags are evil, go fuck a little boy,” and Becky01’s comments, while less blatant, are along the same lines.
In theory, if you say “I don’t like Jews,” that’s a statement about you and might - I stress might - be allowable in an “Ask the Racist”-type thread. “Jews are bad” is an insult to Jews and to particular posters, and would not. I’m aware we’re slicing things thin here, but that’s the way I see it.
OOOOOOOOOH! The ignorance is strong in this one! I hope she sticks around, not because I think there’s a chance in hell of fighting her blazing ignorance, but because her posts are the most amusing things I’ve seen in months.
Indeed, my friend. Indeed.
From “wounded deer” to “rabid wolverine” in 28 posts. [Darth Vader]Most impressive![/Darth Vader]
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some evil maniacs and money lenders coming over for bagels and chopped liver pretty soon. L’Chaim! 
As author of the Staff Report that started this, I wonder if this shouldn’t actually go in the CoSR forum. However, it’s been moved here, so I’m not going to overrule Marley And, Becky: FYI, we do not allow personal insults in other forums, only in this one called the Pit.
Anyhow, the point is not whether the Old Testament is humane and just by today’s standards – of course it’s not. We’re 3200 years later. The Torah contains comments and rules that are abhorrent by today’s standards. The point in my Staff Report is: compare the biblical injunctions, not to today’s values, but to those of the other societies of 3,000 years ago.
As someone has already noted, “eye for an eye” was a huge humanist advancement over “you insult me, I kill your entire family.”
The concept of the rapist marrying the victim? First, context – my recollection is that applies to soldiers who rape women during war/battle and aftermath. Such rapes were not uniqute to the ancient Hebrews – every ancient culture felt that women of the enemy were to be raped. What’s different about the bible is recognizing that men in the midst of war lust are going to commit atrocities, and trying to control ratively much more humane to try to put some restrictions on the rapist, who must take care of his victim.
The bible is full of efforts directed at trying to impose a more humane law than what was common elsewhere.
The rape in the city bit: yeah, the assumption is that a woman being raped when there are people around, who doesn’t object or cry out, it consenusal. The rules are different if the rape occurs in the countryside where there’s presumably no one around to help. And note that this assumes the woman is married, so the crime is adultery. Polygamy was permitted, so if a man raped an unmarried female, he was obliged to marry her (that is, take care of her, provide for her wellbeing, etc.) Again, by today’s standards, this is somewhat barbaric. But compare it to Egyptian or Phoenician or Greek laws, and it’s remarkably advanced. The death penalty requires two eye-witnesses, not just the word of the landlord.
I could go on at length: the requirements of kindness to animals are pretty remarkable (from not muzzling an ox when it’s grinding the grain, to not taking baby birds from the nest if the mother is nearby.) Consider that only 500 years ago in England, it was considered “sporting” to torture helpless animals.
In short, while lots of the bible is barbaric, I’m not so sure that we’ve come all that far, taht we can feel all THAT superior. The idea that the hand of a thief should be cut off (absolutely against the biblical rules) still happens today in some countries. We don’t require that a rapist provide financial support for his victim, we throw him in prison; is that really so much better? The historical record is that modern-day America imposes far more death penalties than did ancient (pre-Roman) Israel. We’ve come a long way in some things, but we’ve got a long way to go before we can start feeling superior to the biblical writers’ sense of justice and humanity.
I’m late to this thread, so my quotes may be out of order, but I’ll start here. I know of “88” as a slang term only as a Morse Code closing used only by female senders. (To the best of my knowledge, 88 has been long since deprecated in favor of all operators closing with the signal “73”.)
Regarding “eye for an eye”: I was preparing a reading of Lev. 24 two years ago, which includes a repetition of lex talionis. The rule there is stated (pulls out book): Shever tahat shever, ayin tahat ayin, shen tahat shen. Shever: tooth; `ayin: eye; shen: limb(?). The word in the middle, tahat, caught my attention, for it is the same word used in the Binding of Isaac – Abraham offered the ram tahat his son. I translate this word as “in place of,” so the rule clearly (to me) requires compensation for the bodily injury appropriate to the injury suffered (since Bronze Age medical technology was not up to the task of removing the attacker’s eye and implanting it in the victim’s head).
I had typed up a reply on the “chosen people” concept, then remembered that this had fallen into the Pit. I’ll just note an observation about bridge dwellers and dietary services.
Wow, what a thread. I suppose the OP won’t be back.
As a quasi-Christian myself, I tend to basically disregard most of the OT and focus solely on the NT. Much nicer towards people it is.
/Yoda
Sleep deprived Mod issues second admonition when following thread (with intermissions) from GD.
Excessive Modding removed via edit.
According to many other Dopers, neo-Nazis and racists have adopted 88 - such a cool number, WHY??? - because H is the 8th letter of the alphabet. 88 - HH - shorthand for Heil Hitler. It’s not much in the way of evidence and Becky01’s posts speak for themselves, but I can see why it makes some people suspicious.