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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 4:23:58 PM | I was just glancing at the 10 commandments on Wikipedia and noticed this:
Exodus 20:5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,
I thought jealousy was a sin? Not to mention the children being punished for no good reason.
Is God really that much of sinful jerk? | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 4:38:09 PM | Take a look at luke 14:26 Jesus says "If any man comes to me and does not HATE his Mother and Father, his wife and children, yea even his own life he cannot be my disciple".
Does that mean to be a christian you have to hate your family?
Bob | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 4:47:10 PM | That's a blasphemously ignorant interpretation of scripture. Jealous, in this context, means "demanding exclusive allegiance, such as a wife must have for her husband."
Is God a doormat? Are you a doormat? Would you teach your children to be doormats?
There are natural consequences for our actions, already built into existence. And yes, some of those consequences can last for generations; that's a greater lesson to observe in this passage. Its not wise to reject your Lord, just as its not wise to reject a husband or wife who loves you. Get it?
Gusblindguidedog, you are funny, while you pretended like you processed the passage and missed the passage's meaning all together. Wow! That was cute. Good lesson there for everybody. :) | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 4:47:53 PM | Exodus 34:20 The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem.
No one shall appear before me empty-handed.
I don't understand...
Was this translated correctly? lol. | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 4:49:18 PM | God is God brother, he can do as he pleases, no questions asked.
It's a job privilege.
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 5:01:48 PM | | The approach to scriptural study you're demonstrating here seems super off John/Ann. It will be helpful to learn how to study scripture--and to learn about the relationship between the OT and the NT--and then make an informed and educated decision about what you are reading. Clearly, you are just starting out. Its ok though, a lot of folks start reading scripture like it was written by Dr. Seuss...lol. | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 5:14:22 PM | | Dr. Seuss, now there's a man that makes sense. | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 5:16:26 PM |
Jealous, in this context, means "demanding exclusive allegiance, such as a wife must have for her husband."
I have given no such allegiance, I'm still unsure of Gods existence.
I don't feel as though I am treating him as a doormat because we are just "dating" and not "married" yet.
Are the many other followers of other religions around the world doomed to suffer the "consequences" regardless of weather they are good people?
Or is it just "cheating" Christians who are doomed? | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 5:21:39 PM | | It's might be a good tip to note exodus was written by Moses, and he created god in his image ... Not the Other way around. | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 5:22:55 PM | No need for defensiveness. Its not an attack sweetie. I'm just saying that you can't expect a loving God to be a doormat just so that he seems like a nice guy to the general populous who never takes the time to seek. God is a good example of personal dignity and self respect.
Well, the followers of other religions might have had visits from Jesus, I am not certain. But what I do know is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is for everyone, not just a select few. To suggest that those who "cheat" are doomed is anthropomorphizing a very merciful and loving God.
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 5:27:41 PM | Dear John/Ann;
As agnostics you are quite free to examine major denominations other than Judeo Christian. Have you considered Hinduism or Buddhism........ or Theosophy perhaps..
Have you looked into the Raelian movement..
Somewhere along the way no doubt you'll find a belief system that suits your conscience.
On the other hand, if your conscience is already content then Agnosticism must be right for you just as it is. | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 5:37:11 PM | Jealousy in this context is not a sin. If you have a girlfriend and she flirts with another man, then you have every right to be jealous as opposed to seeing any woman who flirts with a man and be jealous of that. If you do not see the difference then you are lost my friend.
Hate used here is a slight misstranslation...again. The more appropriate phrase would be 'love less'. It is used in the statement that if you do not love [God] above all else, family...even yourself, then you are not a true follower of God. You are not told to hate your family but to love God more.
Why is it so many people fail to understand. | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 6:00:00 PM | Actually, Light Storm, scholarship is very divided over just whom could have written what, when it comes to the Torah/Old Testament.
It is rather difficult to maintain, for example, that Moses could have written Deuteronomy 34, as it purports to be an account of Moses climbing up Mount Nebo, having a conversation with G-d, dying at G-d's word, and being buried (by G-d? by himself? by others?-- the account is totally unclear).
It is difficult to believe that Moses wrote that particular account. (Roughly as difficult as it is to believe in a burning bush speaking to someone, but anyhow...). And if, for example, identifiable elements of the text itself are to be uses as a basis for the hypothesis that the author was one single person, then it would have to follow that that person was not Moses, but someone writing afterwards-- possibly centuries afterwards.
It is completely uncertain whom exactly wrote Exodus, or if it was even one person rather than several. I rather doubt it could be established with any degree of certainty that Moses ever actually existed at all, as a particular individual.
Of course, people with particular religious beliefs will insist that he did, but they do so because they believe their religions require that belief-- which is not the same thing as evidence.
There is considerable evidence, textual and otherwise, to suggest that the ancient Israelites spent several centuries with polytheistic belief systems that were later suppressed. Ex hypothesi, what would be the necessity for all the stern language about G-d, H-shem or whatever being the only god, if that was already understood and uncontested? | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 6:16:27 PM |
Exodus 20:5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,
I thought jealousy was a sin? Not to mention the children being punished for no good reason.
Is God really that much of sinful jerk? G-d isn't mortal. G-d isn't bounded by limited information. So it's not possible for G-d to arrive at an inconclusive judgement.
We already know that even murderers in prison live in denial about their crimes, and believe that they are helping people. We know that when they are shown the true reality of the consequences of their actions, they feel a tremendous sense of regret, and many feel almost suicidal, that they have committed such a terrible act. We humans can do this, because we are mortal, and capable of acting on limited information. G-d is not. G-d is onmiscient. So G-d could not kill anyone without knowing the full consequences of G-d's actions. As a result, G-d is in the situation which a doctor would be in, where he has to advise a patient who has a year to live, on whether or not to have a risky op that could save his life, or could kill him on the operating table.
So yes, it's quite possible for you or I to be a jerk. But it's not possible for G-d to be a jerk in quite the same way, only a jerk in the way you could kill a man who is the father of someone you know, and who every time you try to kill him, you can see her future pain at losing her father. You would only kill such a man if it was absolutely necessary, such as if he was about to slit the throat of a child, and there was no other way to stop him. G-d is in a similar position. The only difference is that G-d does know all, so he knows who will grow up to do much evil, and when it is better off for the world to end their life before they do terrible things as well. It's also true that G-d could kill people like Hitler when they were young. But again, we only know some of the story, and don't know what the world would be like if Hitler had not existed, and someone else had taken his place. G-d does. I wouldn't like to be G-d. It would mean killing a lot of people to save humanity, and letting many killers live, because the consequences of letting them die, would be far worse.
I thought jealousy was a sin? Yes, it is. Humans are mortal. We often make rash judgements withoutn thinking about the consequences. Take Iago for example. Iago is jealous of Othello's love for the beautiful Desdemona. So he frames Desdemona, and makes Othello think that he has been betrayed by her. In his imagination, Othello will reject Desdemona, and she will be single, and will fall for Iago. But, Othello kills her instead. Then, Iago's wife discovers Iago's plot, and threatens to expose him. So Iago kills his own wife. Othello takes his own life, to escape execution, and because he mourns the loss of his wife, and now has nothing to live for. Iago's plot, and the murder of his wife, is exposed to the Governor of Venice. As Othello is a great general of Venice, Iago has caused Venice a terrible loss, and he has committed murder. He can expect nothing but torture and death. Iago is the victim of his own jealousy.
This is exactly why we humans are always worse off when we give in to jealousy. We never have all the facts, and even when we do, we don't think about the consequences. So we are always better off not being jealous.
G-d isn't in that position. G-d is omniscient. G-d knows the full consequences of his actions. When G-d is jealous, G-d can be fair. So when G-d is jealous, he is able to redress imbalance in the world.
Not to mention the children being punished for no good reason. If you read elsewhere, it says that the children will not be punished for the sins of the father, as long as they return from following in the evil ways of their father. G-d is giving a declaration that if a man does bad, he'll give the man chances, and often the child, and even the grandchild chances, to return from following in evil. But at some point, the imbalance in society must be redressed, or the world will continue in evil, and so many of the poor and helpless will suffer, that the world will turn to hell in a handbasket. So G-d cannot give a family infinite chances to change. At some point, if the family persist in evil, then they must be stopped. But, if at any point before that, they change and do good, then they will not have to suffer. That's what happened to King Hezekiah. His father was King Ahaz, and even burned one of his sons alive, as some forms of idol-worship required. But Hezekiah chose to return to do good, and so he didn't suffer for the sins of his father. | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 7:00:45 PM |
Hate used here is a slight misstranslation...again. The more appropriate phrase would be 'love less'.
What's the basis for this translation?
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G3404&t=KJV
In every other place where the word occurs translating at as "love less" makes no sense. Apparently Christians are allowed to interpret words however they please. Sorry, but the word means hate or detest.
Jealousy in this context is not a sin. If you have a girlfriend and she flirts with another man, then you have every right to be jealous as opposed to seeing any woman who flirts with a man and be jealous of that. If you do not see the difference then you are lost my friend.
Why should I be jealous? First of all, she's not my property. Second of all, if she is flirting with someone else then clearly I'm not fulfilling a need in her life. Instead of being jealous maybe I should be a better boyfriend.
And if YHWH is the only god, then how could he be jealous of something that doesn't exist? This religion really doesn't make any sense.
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/25/2009 7:21:23 PM | RE Msg: 14 by slybandit:
Actually, Light Storm, scholarship is very divided over just whom could have written what, when it comes to the Torah/Old Testament. There is a lot of debate amongst English Xian and non-religious scholars in our day about the OT. The problems they face are many.
They don't speak Hebrew, and Hebrew is like Arabic, not like English at all. A Muslim would have a decent chance of understanding the Bible well, but an English speaker would have a lot more problems, about the same as me being able to tell a Navaho what his ancient text says. I don't think you'd think I was in the right to do that, not unless I could explain it so well, that the Navaho gets up and says I'm totally right.
Another problem is that they are Xian, and the OT concerns itself exclusively with Jewish history. Jews have a wealth of knowledge and philosophy, and an incredible amount of written discussions about almost every verse and issue in the OT. You'd be more likely to be right if you said that all of Quantum Physics is wrong. After all, you know more of it.
Another problem is that we just don't live in those times. Life was totally different then, and it takes a lot of work to study how life was then, something Jews take great pains to learn about, so they can study the subject in its proper context. You would have far better luck in figuring out why women used to put arsenic on their faces 100 years ago.
It is rather difficult to maintain, for example, that Moses could have written Deuteronomy 34, as it purports to be an account of Moses climbing up Mount Nebo, having a conversation with G-d, dying at G-d's word, and being buried (by G-d? by himself? by others?-- the account is totally unclear).
It is difficult to believe that Moses wrote that particular account. This was discussed at length in Jewish literature, stretching all the way back, to thousands of years ago. There are various opinions. One is that it was written by Moses himself, because he knew he was going to die then. Not really a stretch, because many people have a good idea that they are going to die in their last days. Another is that it was written by Joshua.
As to Moses' burial, if G-d could perform all the miracles in the Bible, it's hardly a stretch to say that G-d could move dirt around to bury Moses. Another view is that Moses dug the grave himself, as he knew that he was about to die, and as I explained, that's reasonable to know when you're about to die.
This is actually a very good example of the problems faced by modern Xian English-speaking scholars. After all, one could not help but question how hundreds of thousands of Hebrew scholars, who studied these passages every single year, for thousands of years, could not have asked this question. They did, and came up with some reasonable explanations.
But they didn't exactly tell everyone about it. Why not? Well, if they did, then they'd be getting close to persuading people to become Jews, and you can already see how missionising is so disliked by so many. People don't like to be convinced to join a religion. They'd rather choose to seek out the knowledge for themselves, at their own choice. Jews are not allowed to missionise, and fully agree with that. So, they don't go around telling people about everything they know in the Bible either.
So, yes, it's very difficult to say who wrote the Bible, if you really don't know all that much about it, apart from being a distant observer with no idea of the context, and no idea of the language, relying on an English translation, of an entirely different language.
But for traditional Jews, who have been studying it for thousands of years, it's really a lot more straightforward.
And if, for example, identifiable elements of the text itself are to be uses as a basis for the hypothesis that the author was one single person, then it would have to follow that that person was not Moses, but someone writing afterwards-- possibly centuries afterwards. We'd have very great difficulty in saying that, because we can see the styles of writing change across the different centuries in which different parts of the OT were written, and the Jewish literature after that. The style is extremely inconsistent with later authors.
It is completely uncertain whom exactly wrote Exodus, or if it was even one person rather than several. That's usually attributed to the use of different names for G-d, in different passages. The problem with this, is that you yourself weren't born named "slybandit". You probably have a name you were given at birth, and a nickname your friends know you as, and a username here, and plenty of others. Were I to read a autobiography of your life, I'd have to conclude that it was written by several different authors as well, because you would be known by several different names as well.
I rather doubt it could be established with any degree of certainty that Moses ever actually existed at all, as a particular individual. I think the same could be said of Ben Franklin. He is claimed to be a scientist, a philosopher, a statesman, a crusader for liberty, and much more. Today, it would be very, very rare to find even one man who would have accomplished 100th of his achievements. Frankly, he seems too great a character to be anything more than a myth, taken from lots of different characters, woven into the legend of American history.
Of course, people with particular religious beliefs will insist that he did, but they do so because they believe their religions require that belief-- which is not the same thing as evidence. The same is true of anyone who doesn't believe in the Bible. They insist that Moses didn't exist, because their beliefs require that he didn't. If they believed he existed and that the Bible was true, they would feel that they should follow the Bible, and that would mean they would have to change their lives severely.
There is considerable evidence, textual and otherwise, to suggest that the ancient Israelites spent several centuries with polytheistic belief systems that were later suppressed. It's unanimously agreed that before the exodus from Egypt, that most of the Children of Israel were worshipping other gods, and probably Egyptian gods, which were polytheistic. It's also clear that even with all the stern warnings, that time and again, many of the Israelites fell into idol-worship, time and again. Mind you, there is considerable evidence from a variety of sources, that show that Americans and British people have been communists over the last 200 years. But that's a far cry from saying that America or Britain is communist, or that the American people or the British people were and are all communists, or even that most of them were.
Ex hypothesi, what would be the necessity for all the stern language about G-d, H-shem or whatever being the only god, if that was already understood and uncontested? This is something that is difficult for modern Westerners to understand. Polytheism hasn't been considered as a valid concept in Europe or in North America, for the last 1500 years, not until the last 20-40 years. When Westerners encountered people like the Suomi, they either converted them, or wiped them out.
But back in the times of the Bible, polytheism was about as commonplace as democracy is now. It was the order of the day. Practically every culture was polytheistic. Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) tried to introduce henotheism to Egypt. He claimed that Aten was the only god that should be worshipped, but still acknowledged that other gods existed. But once he died, the entire history of Atenism was wiped out of history almost completely. The cities and temples dedicated to Aten were abandoned, disassembled, and all inscriptions relating to Aten and to Amenhotep were defaced. Things went so far, as to wipe his existence out of Egyptian history, by removing him, and everyone related to him, from the official lists of Pharaohs, including Tutankhamum, Amenhotep's son. Hardly anyone even knew of Aten and Amenhotep until recently.
Here was this tiny group, surrounded by polytheists everywhere they looked, even in their own lands. Polytheistic women even seduced some of the Israelite princes and convinced them to worship their gods. It would be like being a small group of people who didn't take drugs, living in a world full of drugs. Even in Britain and Canada, where the majority don't take drugs, anti-drug messages are everywhere, and the punishments are incredibly harsh, as a deterrent. Yet this is nowhere close to what the Israelites were in. If we follow your argument, then the only reason why the law bans drugs, is because heroin is good for you. | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/26/2009 3:37:43 AM |
What's the basis for this translation?
There have been numerous Greek scholars that have added their combined years of study to the discussion to testify that the word “hate” (miseo) in Luke 14:26 does not mean “an active abhorrence,” but means “to love less.”
E.W. Bullinger, in his monumental work, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible, described the word “hate” in Luke 14:26 as hyperbole. He rendered the word as meaning “does not esteem them less than me” (1968, p. 426).
W.E. Vine, the eminent Greek scholar, said the word miseo could carry the meaning of “a relative preference for one thing over another.” He listed Luke 14:26 under this particular definition (1940, p. 198).
A.B. Bruce, in The Expositor’s Greek Testament, stated that “the practical meaning” of the word “hate” in this verse is “love less” (n.d., p. 575).
In every other place where the word occurs translating at as "love less" makes no sense. Apparently Christians are allowed to interpret words however they please. Sorry, but the word means hate or detest.
Where you have a language of less than 8000 words, many had more than 1 'meaning', the classic being 'yom', where it can mean basically any period of time. If you solely translate it as 1 day in genesis then it would makes no sense in the rest of the bible. It has to be translated in the context in which it is spoken. Here [God] is trying to get over the difference in the relationship between him and you and the relationship between you and your family or even yourself. If I said the difference between me and you were ‘chalk and cheese’ you would know what I meant, well these sorts of expressions don’t translate well, but if you see the difference between us as the difference between chalk and cheese then you get it. If you see that difference as 'hate' then that's good enough, don't literally hate, but the gap between you and [God] and you and your family is the same as hate.
Why should I be jealous? First of all, she's not my property. Second of all, if she is flirting with someone else then clearly I'm not fulfilling a need in her life. Instead of being jealous maybe I should be a better boyfriend.
No she isn't your physical property, I am using a metaphor ok but emotionally she has committed to you right. If she then betrays that, you have the right to be angry or 'jealous', it is not wrong to have emotions of anger and jealousy but what you are angry and jealous over being the sin, this is not the same as being jealous over what someone else has and you have not...this is the sin and this is the difference trying to be conveyed in the language used.
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/26/2009 1:46:56 PM |
That's usually attributed to the use of different names for G-d, in different passages.
This is a pretty shallow explanation of the theory. If it was just different names in different passages then the hypothesis would just be an idle curiosity. The theory goes quite a bit deeper than this.
http://www.cs.umd.edu/~mvz/bible/doc-hyp.pdf | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/28/2009 1:53:21 AM | RE Msg: 16 by CountIbli:
And if YHWH is the only god, then how could he be jealous of something that doesn't exist? G-d isn't. If you think about it, why would a G-d who created everything, including emotions, even have a feeling of jealousy for something He created? If G-d wasn't happy with things, G-d could just change things to how G-d wanted. Obviously G-d isn't jealous like you or I might feel.
Actually, you'r right. I'm not even sure that jealous is quite the right term. The 10th commandment says that you should not covet your neighbour's house, or his wife, or anything that is his. But that's exactly how we would describe jealousy. It therefore occurs to me that the description against jealousy is the 10th commandment. This is a dfferent word. Probably means something else. Mind you, that's not surprising. The Bible was written in ancient Hebrew. It's not exactly the sort of thing that most Westerners speak, even today, and these translations were mostly written by Westerners.
The Bible does use Kineh in at least 2 other cases:
1) The Sotah, in Numbers 5:14, where it says "and a spirit of Kinah comes over him, and he Kinehs his wife, and then she is unfaithful". It really doesn't make sense to say someone "jealousies" his wife.
2) Pinchas, in Numbers 25:11, where it says "when he kineh'd my kinah amongst them, and I did not consume the descendants of Israel in my kinah." Actually, here is an ever bigger problem, because here, Kinah is normally translated here to "vengeance". But in Leviticus 19:18, we can see that the word for vengeance is nekamah, where it says "Lo Tikom", and this is consistent with the other places where the verbs and nouns for nekamah are found.
It therefore seems that in all 3 cases, the word is misunderstood, or at least, not understood well enough by many translators to give the word a consistent meaning in English.
We could solve that ourselves though. It's the same word. So all we need to do is to see what is common about all 3 cases that would fit the context of the words as they are used in each case.
In Numbers 5:14, the woman is suspected of being unfaithful. So what could the man have done to Kineh her? Well, the most likely possibility is that he told her to keep away from a certain man, and she was alone with him anyway, enough time that she could have had sex with him if he wanted. Then it makes sense why she's asked to swear that she didn't.
Then all 3 cases involve people who have made a strong commitment, and who are turning away from that commitment, and people who are trying to do what they can to get them to stick to what they believe in. But it also involves cases where the consequences of turning away from that commitment, are very serious.
Thus, the word "Kineh" means trying to dissuade people who have made a strong commitment from turning away from their commitment, and when breaking that commitment will lead to dangerous consequences. It's the same idea as when police give juveniles who are going off the rails a warning. It's also the same idea as when children of alcoholics who are on the wagon and about to fall off, stage an intervention, to stop them from falling off. I guess you could call it "consideration", or "warning", but there really isn't a word that I know expresses this idea in English.
In Numbers 25:11, Pinchas is trying to stop the people from turning away from G-d.
In Numbers 5:14, the woman suspected of being adulterous is warned by her husband to not spend time alone with a specific man, to keep her from ruining her marriage. It also explains why it says that the husband is filled with a spirit of Kinah, of warning. A woman isn't automatically in danger of breaking her marriage with just any man. It's only men she feels strongly attracted to. So it's only when a man gets a spirit of "warning", that he can see that his wife is way too charmed by this guy, that he might tempt her to make a mistake. It's not even unreasonable, as practically everyone makes temporary mistakes sometimes that cost them much. Lots of people ruined happy relationships with someone they really loved, because they were weak in a moment of temptation.
In Exodus 20:5, G-d is therefore warning the people. They made a commitment to follow G-d and His laws, and life has got unimaginably better than it was in Egypt, when they used to worship such gods. But worshipping imaginary gods will only serve to convince them that they can trust in these imaginary gods again, and then they'll just be putting themselves into the very same attitudes that put them in Egypt slaving away for others, and having hundreds of thousands of their babies drowned. They're almost like alcoholics who want to go back to drinking again, putting their trust in bottle, instead of reality, that the bottle will make everything all right, and all the problems that causes for them. He is telling them to not start worshipping things that cannot help them, for he is a "concerned" G-d, who will give them leeway to make mistakes and learn by their own experiences, even over multiple generations, but not to 4 generations "who reject him", and put their faith in things that cannot help us, and just make our lives a living hell.
All this even explains the different translations of Kineh. To keep one to a commitment, is to be "jealous", or zealous, to jealously guard that person, almost as if you could not stand to see them with anyone else, and lose the love of their life, not that you lose anything, but that you love them enough to protect them from their own moments of weakness. Similarly, Kineh is translated as "vengeance", because vengeance is when you jealously look after someone else, that although you could not protect them from previous harm, that you will take on anyone who has caused them harm, and stop them. It is jealously guarding someone after the fact. However, in Pinchas's case, that could have only applied to the people who already turned from G-d. But that would not explain why G-d says that G-d did NOT consume the descendants of Israel in his kinah, as these people HAVE been consumed, if not by G-d, then by Pinchas. So, this really means that G-d is speaking about the rest of the Israelites, THEY were in danger of following Prince Zimri, and THEY have been dissuaded from doing so by Pinchas' actions, and so it is THEY (the descendants of Israel) who are saved from consumption. There is just not a word for Kineh in English. So the translators found the words closest. But that seemed to be different words in different verses.
This religion really doesn't make any sense. It makes even more sense to me than before. Before, I never used to understand why idolatry was such a big deal in the OT. I used to think that it might be because then you're getting obsessed. I can now see that it's because if you start worshiping imaginary gods, then you're buying your head in the sand, trusting things that cannot help you. It's escapism, and as a friend pointed out to me recently, alcoholism and drug abuse, and much else, is all about escapism, pretending that alcohol or drugs will make things better, when all they'll do is just make you feel there is no problem now, but later, the problem will get much worse, and this becomes a vicious cycle, that ruins lives. G-d is against alcoholism, and drug abuse. It's just that idols can have the same effects, or worse.
Thank you, truly, Count Ibli. It's questions like this, that make me think, that make me understand G-d better, and make me really happy to understand things in a natural and clear light. It makes so much sense, it's blindingly obvious to me now. | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/28/2009 3:39:46 AM | RE Msg: 19 by CountIbli:
That's usually attributed to the use of different names for G-d, in different passages. This is a pretty shallow explanation of the theory. If it was just different names in different passages then the hypothesis would just be an idle curiosity. The theory goes quite a bit deeper than this. http://www.cs.umd.edu/~mvz/bible/doc-hyp.pdf
I also get why you think that it's an incredibly deep analysis of the theory. It's way way more analytical and comprehensive than most people's literary analyes, even educated people.
When anyone reads Rashi, though, one can see Rashi will frequently reference 6-10 different verses just for giving comprehension of one word. Often, he even brings more than one possible explanation of one word in a verse, each with 5 or 6 verses to support that definition, and then proceeds to explain what are the problems with each one, and how the definition that he prefers fits with all of the 15-18 verses he mentions. He does this very, very often, 3 or 4 times on each page of the Bible. Even when you look at the Rogachover Gaon's commentary of the Chumash, he lists several different talmudic passages on each verse, and then leaves the reader to look them all up and string the connections together. It's also a very common level of analysis found in commentaries on the Talmud, because Tosafot references the same amounts of other sources on each piece he comments on, and that's 3 or 4 on a side, of 4000 sides. The Beit Yosef does the same on the Arba'ah Turim. The Ktzot HaChoshen and the Netzivot HaMishpat list 10 sources on each line of the Shulchan Aruch. This sort of level of analysis is pretty standard for religious Jewish commentators on each verse that they want to pay a bit of extra attention to, kind of like when you post more than 2 lines on a thread.
I spent years studying these commentators, 10 1/2 hours a day, for about 4 1/2 years. So it's not really rocket science to me. This is more like an interesting diversion.
If you pay closer attention to the thesis, you'll notice that the first part is arguments for the thesis that there are different authors. Pages 3 and 4 are the actual dissections, though, and they are the basis of how to cut up the Chumash, mostly on the basis of the names, with an additional appendum to suggest that they also relate to other factors as well. But these are generalisations, as I doubt they hold for all situations.
But there are numerous problems with it:
1) Repetitions and Doublets (page 1): The book was written 2000 years ago. Not today. Today, we do see stories of repetition, such as Reservoir Dogs, and Boomtown. But we don't see any factual ones, not when it comes to historical or legal documents. We're just not that great at keeping multiple viewpoints in perspective anymore. We only do this in pure fiction, where the entire storyboard is dreamed up by one central author, and then the parts are drafted by multiple authors, and then re-scanned by the main author, to ensure that the script basically fit in with his original vision. However, it's still stuck in pure fiction, as we couldn't imagine working this out with real life.
Not so with documents back then, because authors were often story-tellers. I've heard old-fashioned Moroccan storytellers at work, and they can and do portray and weave multiple viewpoints into their stories, because that was normal back then. So even when it came to legal codes, or historical documents, it becomes clear multiple perspectives and multiple accounts would have been normal.
It's very hard to believe that people could be much more capable than modern authors. But I've personally met several people who knew all 2000 pages of the Babylonian Talmud by heart, and the text is so condensed, that you could take 20 pages to write a single page. So it's much closer to 20,000-40,000 pages, and these people knew them all. You'd be incredibly hard put to find even 1 person in the rest of the world with that, other than people with photographic memories, and I know from personal experience that they didn't have photographic memories, because they've not recalled exactly other texts that I'd shown them.
2) Inconsistencies (page 1): Inconsistencies can be suggested in many occurrences, like Abraham and Terach, if you don't accept Rashi's principle that the Chumash is not totally chronological. However, if it is totally chronological, then there are some very odd things, like Pinchas being 400 years old, and that the tribe of Dan still didn't have a home after Samson. Anyways, I don't have Rashi's proof to hand. But he's got quite a good argument. Of course, if it was totally chronological, then the accounts cannot be doubled up later on, and that makes the whole argument untenable. There is also the argument that in one place, G-d decided Saul was to be king, but in another it was described as due to the people's demand that G-d give them a king. It would imply that G-d's decisions involve considerations of the thoughts and actions of the people, as if G-d was not just an abstract and thoughtless being, much like the capricious Greek gods, but actually behaved much as we would expect a sophisticated Being that considers all factors, and doesn't just dictate to the world what should happen, like so many people do. Ex-President Bush springs to mind. I guess if you think that G-d has anything in common with Bush, that makes sense. But no-one I know would say that Bush has anything close to omniscience.
3) Stylistic differences (page 2): Again, this is abnormal for us, for when we write academic works, we try to keep the same style consistent throughout. Makes for easy reading for people with little versatility or imagination. But you can see this right through Tosafot, where a Tosafot will use one style, and then right in the middle, will change style, just for a change of pace. It's just very hard for your average university person to keep up.
4) Examples of other pieces of Judaic literature (not discussed in the PDF); There are plenty of books that we know were written by one man, and plenty of books that were amalgams of different authors. The Mishnah Brurah is one solid commentary, as is the Shulchan Aruch, the Beit Yosef, and plenty of other commentaries, and so is the Mishneh Torah. 2 classic examples of amalgams are the Mishnah, and the Talmud, which are openly admitted to be as such, and compiled to one cohesive whole, much as the thesis suggests, only those were by Rebbi (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi) and Rav Ashi. One can see the stylistic differences, the inconsistencies and the repetitions and doublets expressed in them. Even if one wishes to rule out all named sections, so much is left unnamed, that we can work with the rest, which are known to be of different authors and different time-periods. If the thesis wanted to present this as conclusive evidence, the only requirement is to show consistency with those works. But these books have both a far more terse style than the Tenach, and a much expressive style, as if this was different people talking with different personalities. Read the Talmud long enough, and become intimate with it, and you can almost get a feel for which time-period is doing the talking, from simply one or two words, and it's easy to see where it is a discussion that crosses generations, and where it is one long monologue, usually in agadic stories. All the factors that the thesis requires are present, and unanimous. Yet, none of the books of the Chumash reads at all like the Talmud or the Midrash.
You can even see this in the Tanach itself, because there is incredible consistency in individual books as well, but different styles in different books. So again, it's easy to identify.
You can even see that Jews don't have a problem with declaring that it is possible that the Chumash was written by multiple authors, because the thesis lists Jewish sources that have considered the issue. I don't have exact references, so it's difficult to confirm them. But even so, I'd have to track down these books, and I'm not that in contact with a Yeshiva enough to check the original sources. The comments are not unusual, as you could find dozens more. It's just the conclusions that are unusual, because the way they are stated, they would be ambiguous in their original Aramaic or Hebrew. I'd rather have the original quote, that I know how to translate, as there is so much lost translating to English. But, the main point is that Jews don't have a problem with the the premise of the thesis. It's just that most learned Jews disagree with the conclusions, as they find the logic faulty.
For instance, as I've mentioned many times, I have different names. So do my friends. I use different names for different contexts. When we are out and there are women around, they might like to be called one thing, and when we are discussing something a bit more deep, we might use other names. Names are not indicative of individuals, or even of particular authors, but of individuals referred by authors in specific contexts, and that's something not considered here, if the same author would use different names for different authors. It probably didn't occur to the author(s) of the thesis, as this is something you wouldn't do in modern academic contexts, as your name is your fortune and your reputation, and it's just not done. But I do it all the time, and many do it a lot more than I do.
Also, changing styles is something that you can see in my posts. From time to time, I go very terse. I also sometimes wax lyrical. Mostly I am pessimistic, but sometimes I am optimistic. It depends on the context of the discussion as to how that changes my view of things.
Even inconsistencies are something I do, because a lot of times I say one thing in one context, and then something else in another, and then I have to go back and explain that I don't always put everything in context. I've heard people say the darndest things in one context, and the opposite in another. So, it's normal. It's just nor normal for an academic to do that in one book. Their books are academic, they are essays, not books like the Bible at all.
I even change between talking in the 1st person (I), 2nd person (you), 3rd person (he), and use the "one" pronoun, often, but I try to be consistent across passages (paragraphs).
So yes, I find that it's possible, as much as my posts, or your posts, could have been written by more than one person. I'm sure that you could make the case that Richard Dawkins is really lots of authors, and only wrote a few pages of his books. But that doesn't mean it was true. It just means that if something is written in the modern time, with views similar to our own, then we like t think well of that person, and if it was written a while back, and by someone who had different views to us, then we tend to disassemble them, and find lots of faults with them and their work. They even used to do this on a program called Reputations. What annoyed me about this programme, was that I had watched documentaries on the same channel 10 years before, where the opposite was said, and half of that info wasn't mentioned. It was as if history was being re-written by whoever was top dog at the time.
Here too, if secularism is the most powerful force in Western society in the last 200 years, which it really seems to be, considering how over 99% of businesses are secular, and it's businesses that influence politicians, that pay lawyers who drive court cases, who fund scientists both in corporate labs and in many (if not most) research grants of universities (I went to university, and did a little personal research into the way grants work, because I was thinking of pursuing it), and pay the advertising companies that pay the media's bills, and so much else, then one might be accurate in saying that if this thesis is popular, then "history is written by the winners". That doesn't mean the thesis is wrong, only that it's not exactly objective, and requires further analysis.
Over 20 years ago, I elected to read the whole OT, in the original text, translating it myself, so that I could see for myself what it said. I try to read the Chumash every year. I think I've read it about 10 times now, cover to cover. Personally, I'm satisfied that the Hebrew text of the Chumash does fit far, far better with a single author, than with a multitude of ones.
But you don't have to take my word for it, or theirs. You can do the same. Or, you can take someone else's word for it as the "gospel truth". It's really up to you. Find out, or accept the "gospel". | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/31/2009 2:29:14 PM |
Yup. This is the same one I saw before, although this is an incredibly short version of the full theory, which stretches over several pages even in the summaries of the thesis.
I also get why you think that it's an incredibly deep analysis of the theory. It's way way more analytical and comprehensive than most people's literary analyes, even educated people.
I don't think that this paper was a deep analysis of the theory. Entire books can and have been written about the subject. However, to say that the theory is based on the use of different names for god, is a gross mischaracterization of it. | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/31/2009 2:39:13 PM | RE Msg: 22 by CountIbli:
I don't think that this paper was a deep analysis of the theory. Entire books can and have been written about the subject. Yes. But to give the impression that I am not aware of those arguments and haven't read them before, and considered them, is a gross misunderstanding.
However, to say that the theory is based on the use of different names for god, is a gross mischaracterization of it. It's a simplification of the issues discussed. To those who haven't read the theory a long time ago and considered it deeply, it's might also be true to say that for them, it sounds nothing like the theory. But that's because this is something new to them, and they aren't used to this level of analysis at all, not in any form of literature, let alone to the Bible. However, only some people are like that. Plenty of people have studied the Bible to a far greater level of analysis than this theory in all its entirety.
But, if you want to give it its proper depth, you're quite welcome to analyse every verse, in every example of every word, every style, every approach of discussion, and every angle, and, once done, collate them all, and give them a proper statistical analysis. However, since I do look up verses quoted here all the time in the original Hebrew, don't be surprised if I find problems with each one. After all, I try NOT to rely on a translation of a translation of a translation. | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 10/31/2009 6:41:34 PM | I was raised agnostic so I totally get this question. As a kid whos parent and grandparent rejected God and the auntie of several kids who's parents rejected God. I can see how hard you have it. Even though the blessing is to the 1000th for the ones who love him makes sure that at least one kid is able to find its way back, in my family it was me, the pain of the curse is seeing your kids flonder around with no purpose, no direction, now boundries, no truth.
It is God saying if you reject me your kids will reject you see how you like it.
Jesus died to free us from this piont of law but you can call for the stats on how bad off the children of people who screw up their life are compared to the ones who do not. | |
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| Confused agnostic.
Posted: 11/2/2009 7:49:24 PM |
Yes. But to give the impression that I am not aware of those arguments and haven't read them before, and considered them, is a gross misunderstanding.
It's true, I have no idea how much you've researched the subject. I can only go by what you've said. Your critique of the theory was extremely shallow so I could only assume that your knowledge of the subject was shallow.
It would be akin to someone arguing that Einstein's theory of gravity can't be right because rubber sheets have 2 dimensions but spacetime has 4. | |
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