You have graciously apologized for having UNINTENTIONALLY offended me and I can do no less. I apologize for saying things that you, or anyone else, might have been offended by. That was never my intention. My goal was to broaden this discussion, not to take it down the path you mistakenly attribute was my intention. Suffice it to say, we have misunderstood each other.
I will admit that I have little truck with the religiously pompous, self righteous, psalm singing, Bible quoting, morally arrogant, scriptural dictators that think they have all the right answers and a closer relationship with GOD than the rest of us. I was attempting to show that they have no moral absolutes beyond their own narrow sense of themselves and that all religion is based on the incorporation of myth as fact. I see now that was too ambitious a task
The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. Gracian.
Geez, John John, it’s so nice that you apologized to Shayna. Too bad you decided to go back to slamming in your second paragraph. I haven’t seen ANY “religiously pompous, self righteous, psalm singing, Bible quoting, morally arrogant, scriptural dictators that think they have all the right answers and a closer relationship with GOD than the rest of us.”
Religion is based on faith. No one is disputing that. Why are picking arguments? Stop it, please.
good point john john . . maybe some peeps here need to think about that one. look at everybody here; arguing about personal beliefs . . its been over 2000 years of fighting and no one can get along. maybe religion is the problem . . not the answer. all it seems to do is make people argue . . if there was no judiasm, christianity. etc would we all be running around raping and pillageing. i hardly think so. to me; all organized religion is a bunch of wahooey as far as rules are concerned. no one had to tell me its wrong to kill or steal. so you guys just argue on for another thousand years or until you exterminate each other; or the peacekeeper police disarm you. totally. just read this thread . . look at yourselves . . there may be some point in the future where youll all be told to get along or find another planet to live on. as long as you insist on arguing and fighting amongest yourselves, your a safety risk for all of us. organized religion and intolerance just may be humanities downfall; not our salvation.
First of all, wow! I’ve taken week-long sabbaticals before, and I haven’t seen as much action on a thread, and especially re: my personal involvement in it as on this one, in a mere weekend. I’ll do the best I can to wrap up some of the stuff mentioned here.
First of all, thanks, manhattan for the Shabbos note. I should mention, though, that I usually post only from work anyway…so the board wouldn’t hear from me until today anyway, even for non-religious reasons! Thanks, tomndebb, shayna, brooklyn44, for the defense. I don’t mean to sound unappreciative, but hey, I’m here for spirited debate, aren’t I?
Gaudere:
Thanks. This is the second time I’ve been called this in this thread. Can we lobby OpalCat to have a “most polite GD poster” category in her recently posted poll? With Satan around, I’ll never be the most popular, but at least I can salvage something here…
John John:
As others have pointed out, he was reared, according to the Torah, by his own mother. Second of all, I again point you to the example of modern-day immigrants, even a few generations removed, who speak two languages quite fluently.
I wouldn’t be so quick to say “none,” but that’s been the subject of past threads, and will hijack this thread even more than it has been. Suffice it to say, I and other Orthodox Jews (as well as members of other religions) find sufficient reason to believe that the Torah is a divine document, and it’s not something that would be considered absolute proof, but it’s hardly “none.”
Any such person is certainly not acting in accordance with the Torah, and people of that sort are condemned up and down in both the Scripture and the Talmud. I do agree that in judging whether a man is trustworthy, how well he practices religious rituals is no indication.
I’m sure your instincts are a fine judge for you. Others have their own instincts of right and wrong.
While I can’t speak for everyone, it’s generally understood on this board that when a religious poster answers a question relating to Biblical issues, he means his answer to be “according to what my religion teaches.” Most people asking about the Bible who do not believe in its veracity are asking from the standpoint of questioning its internal consistency rather than attempting to match it with external facts or requesting external proof of its veracity.
Jewish law says you’re allowed to kill in order to stop any murder, not just your own. I’ll look up the source of the law later. By this standard (and what other standard would you expect in the Torah?), Moses definitely did the right thing.
First of all, the word “exodus” just means the departure of a large number of people. It does not at all describe their arrival or resettlement elsewhere. Second of all, the Torah (which is the only source which says it took forty years) says that the forty-year delay was a specific punishment from G-d for the incident of the spies.
My personal opinion? Don’t know enough about the Essenes to judge whether or not he was one, but from the Talmudic accounts, he was probably not trying to start his own religion. Of course, I’m not a Christian, so I don’t see why my opinion on that subject matters much.
What’s your source for this? Biblical or otherwise?
Which sets of passages are these?
Look again. The passage says 14 of each animal that was “pure”, i.e., fit to be sacrificed (cows, sheep, goats and pigeons/turtledoves). 2 of all other species. Or possibly, 2 of all species as breeding pairs and an additional 14 of those pure ones.
Again, I challenge this. There is no verse that says that rain was the sole source of the flood water, and no verse that says rain fell for a period other than forty days and nights.
First of all, “Chaldees” is one modern translation; the Hebrew word “Kasdim” might not mean that (in fact, most Rabbis translate it as “furnaces”, as in, a place with many furnaces). Second of all, our knowledge of the ancient Middle East, while better than that of other regions, is by no means comprehensive or complete. And finally, the Torah often uses names that were in use at the time of the Exodus rather than at the time contemporary with the event described, for the clarity of its intended audience.
The Talmud discusses this very point. Some Rabbis say Moses wrote those last eight verses with prophetic vision; some say that those eight were written by Joshua.
Genesis 14:14; it refers to the city of Dan. That name did not exist until a long time after Moses’ death.
This one I’ll have to look up.
Actually, Chaim, this one is fairly easy to answer. Dan is a very simple name. It’s possible that a place called “Dan” existed during Abraham’s time that has no connection to the tribe, and that is the city referred to in the narrative of the war of the Five Kings against the Four Kings.
John John, thank you for the apology. Consider it accepted. Although I, too, wish you hadn’t gone on to throw another little jab in there, I’ll forgive that as well, with no further apology necessary on your part.
Perhaps we’ll meet again some day in another thread. I am certain that if we do, our discussion will be quite lively.
Take care
Chaim, I don’t mean to appear unappreciative either, but I would like to respectfully point out that it wasn’t you I was defending. I can see by your eloquent posts that you really don’t need anyone to intervene on your behalf.
It was I that was personally offended by the statements made, and the tone taken, by John John against the Jewish religion as a whole (and by extension, anyone who followed it – meaning me). When someone says, “I was attempting to show that they [meaning Jews and other believers in the bible] have no moral absolutes beyond their own narrow sense of themselves,” I do, in fact, find that very insulting. Especially when contained within a thread that’s intent was clearly to enlighten and/or educate people about the plight of Jews throughout history.
I asked what any of John’s tangents had to do with the persecution of Jews, which was the question posed by the OP. And the conclusion that I drew was that it was precisely because of the kinds of things John was saying that persecution existed, and will continue to exist on this earth so long as tolerance of others’ beliefs is not practiced.
John has since said that “[his] goal was to broaden this discussion.” However honorable his intentions may have been, I still contend that this was not the place to do that. I would liken that to someone walking into a group of people who were attempting to understand the ramifications of Black slavery in America, and announcing that they wished to broaden the discussion to include the “fact” (as they see it) that African Americans are ‘morally narrow’ and then finding supporting “evidence” to back up their claims. And that’s exactly what I felt John had done here with regard to Jews and Judaism.
My approach was to lash out in self defense. Your approach has been to further the discussion in whatever vein John wished to pursue, perhaps in an effort to educate him so that he would no longer hold those thoughts against us. Your approach was probably the better of the two. I just didn’t feel that I could remain silent any longer in the face of some of the claims that had been made and the extreme change in direction this thread had taken.
John and I have since made our apologies, and each of us has accepted. I simply wished to clarify my motives since you mistakenly took them to have been in your defense.
I’ll look forward to reading with much interest, any further insight you are able to share regarding this topic. Even if a bit aggravating, it has certainly been fascinating.
Shalom,
Shayna
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
You compound the problem by incorrectly attributing my post as an attack on Jews rather than an expose’ on the falibilty of the Bible and the books of all religions, which are based in myth and very little fact. I still hold that to be true and correct.
You suggested that we move on, I think that idea has much merit.
To handle yourself, use your head. To handle others, use your heart. unknown
john john wrote; You compound the problem by incorrectly attributing my post as an attack on Jews rather than an expose’ on the falibilty of the Bible and the books of all religions, which are based in myth and very little fact. I still hold that to be true and correct.
You suggested that we move on, I think that idea has much merit.
i agree; all religions are deep in myth . . so where do you go from here? . . peace, handshake? . . maybe thatll work here . . but it doesnt seem to work in the middle east. in reality. instead of arguing details; why not work out the the problems of coexistence. therin lies the core problem.
Some people hold that the other guys religion is steeped in myth and less special but THEIRS is all fact and sacrosanct. Religious arrogance is nothing new.
To handle yourself, use your head. To handle others, use your heart. unknown
I’m not Chaim, and I don’t even know why I’m doing this, but…well, I’m nuts.
There is absolutely no evidence at ALL that Jesus was an Essene. In fact, the Essenes are mentioned a whopping ONE TIME in historical sources, by Josephus, who mentions them in passing. It is often concluded that the Essenes were the people who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, but this is far from conclusive (although I have seen it written as so) so truth be told, we know close to nothing about the Essenes at all. If you want to go along with the assumption that the Essenes and the Dead Sea Sect were the same thing, it seems highly unlikely that Jesus would have been one - the DSS were messianic, true, but Messianism was going around the Land of Israel like a plague at that time, so that doesn’t prove anything - because their attitude and his just don’t mesh all that well. The DSS were big on punishing themselves for really minor things, like fast for a day if you laugh, no touching children, no…well, doing anything remotely fun at all. If they were into having fun, they wouldn’t have lived at Qumran, believe me. ANYWAY, they wrote a lot about the coming battle between the forces of good (themselves) and the forces of evil (everyone else). Doesn’t really remind me of Jesus in the Gospels, you know?
Again, that is only under the assumption that the Dead Sea Sect and the Essenes were the same thing.
You’re quite correct that there is NO evidence that Jesus was an Essene. I was just tossing that out to see what some people thought. You make good points that he might not have been.
I know squat about the Scrools but I’m sure that what they found was not the WHOLE deal on them. I realize that’s when Judaism was in flux and there were a lot of sects and things. Just speculating.
To handle yourself, use your head. To handle others, use your heart. unknown
John John, no worries. I must admit that I’m a wee bit tired of hearing these Essene theories which don’t make any sense if you’ve studies the Dead Sea Scrolls at all. FWIW, I’m not an expert by any means, but I took a course on the development of Judaism and early Christianity, where we covered the subject. It’s just frustrating that people speculate all these wild theories which just indicate that they have NO idea what they are talking about - and if I know that after listening to a couple lectures on the topic, that’s pretty sad.
Didn’t realize that other people conjectured on whether Jesus was an Essene or not. It was just a thought I had once while watching the History Channel. Are there many people that think that Jesus might have been an Essene?
Since you studied the Scrolls, what did they actually say -overview, short version? How about John the Baptist?
To handle yourself, use your head. To handle others, use your heart. unknown
John the Baptist gets his share of speculation regarding some relationship with the Essenes. However, the Gospel stories regarding John make him out to be a hermit and/or a preacher. The Essenes were a tight community (more akin to monastic or Shaker communities), so it seems unlikely that John was one.
As to what “the” scrolls say: lots of things–there are lots of scrolls.
Among the scrolls they have found (nearly?) all the original Hebrew Scriptures, several documents relating to the ordering of the Essene community, and a wide range of other religious and secular/community-based texts. The scrolls that were found were the equivalent of a library put away for safe-keeping, and they do not represent a single monolithic presentation of the thoughts of one group. (There is no consensus that all of the scrolls were originally held by the Essenes; it is possible that the material of the Essenes was gathered up with other texts and stored in the caves or that the Essenes included texts from outside the group when they stored their scrolls.)
