[net.religion] Yiri's Last Stand

mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (10/03/84)

As few comments on Yirmiyahu's last pronouncement as I can restrain myself
to:

   The significant protestant translations use the Sinaiticus, Vaticanus,
Alexandrius Codices primarily (they tend also to the the Washington Codex
because of its availability).  While Sinaiticus is the oldest now existing,
it is still at least 40 to a hundred years after the likeliest initial
writings.  There is no evidence whatsoever for any Hebrew text at all.
Most translations do in fact rely primarily on Sinaiticus, whose place of
origin is, incidentally, unknown (the names generally refer to discovery
sites or to where the codex is now kept).  From what I can tell, 
Yirmiyahu's textual recostruction technique consists of rejecting any
ideas which are identifiably Christian; it is no wonder that the
remainder is very jewish.

The etemology of "Easter" provided is only relevant to English.  English
is in fact the only language that uses different words for "Easter" and
"Passover".

Since I view Judaism as a religion, my comment concerning Yirmiyahu's
jewishness should be correctly read to mean that I expect people who
subscribe to a particular position to argue as if they actually believed
in it.  I should hardly expect Yirmiyahu to suddenly come out and say that
christianity is right and judaism is wrong-- and it would take all the fun
out of it :->.

Textual reconstruction is no more immune to slanting than translation is.
The method that Yirmiyahu has chosen is guaranteed to strip the
christianity from christianity.  If I were to apply the same method to
the torah, stripping away Sumerian ideas, for instance, there would be
little left of Genesis.  One could just as well attempt to strip the
so-called pagan ideas from the NT.

And a couple of key things are quite constant, such as the ressurection.
Is someone prepared to tell me that "He who has seen me, has seen the
Father" is jewish?  It's much more like blasphemy.

THe question of the spelling of the words traditionally rendered
"Nazareth" and "Nararene" is a ripe field of speculation, but without some
outside references, signifies nothing concrete.  My "ludicrous suggestion"
was made on the spur of the moment, and was labelled as such; I suggest
that a little tolerance on Yirmiyahu's part would make others a lot more
receptive to his arguments....

I am aware that not all references in the Talmud to a Y'shua are to Jesus.
I too can read things in context.  The context of the passage I cited was
quite clear (unless Soncino can be accused of distorting the Talmud!).

At the end of this debacle, I must take offense at Yirmiyahu's rather
abusive language.  My comment concerning Jeremiah versus Yirmiyahu was
intended to reinforce the point that almost nobody can read hebrew or is
familiar with the hebrew names of things.  Yirmiyahu's persistence in
giving things their hebrew names may be (from a certain point of view)
more accurate, but its effect can only be to conceal what he is talking
about.  He is very smug about the fact we cannot understand what he is
talking about, when all he has to do is speak English.  Hebrew name magic
aside, there is no difference between the prophet Jeremiah and the
prophet Yirmiyahu.  I respect Yirmiyahu's right to his name; I expect him
to respect my right to spoken to in a language I understand.

And finally, about my age:  no man my age should be subservient to another
for his religious views.  I would not have learned as much as I have if
I had let people browbeat me with their age.  Most probably, I have
studied religion more than most college graduates.  Yirmiyahu makes it
sound as if he has had the analogue of 20 years of fundamentalist
instruction.

My last word on this subject:

Absolutely.

Charley Wingate

"My wings are like a sheild of steel."

brunson@usfbobo.UUCP (David Brunson) (10/07/84)

[]

From Charley Wingate:
>At the end of this debacle, I must take offense at Yirmiyahu's rather
>abusive language.  My comment concerning Jeremiah versus Yirmiyahu was
>intended to reinforce the point that almost nobody can read hebrew or is
>familiar with the hebrew names of things.  Yirmiyahu's persistence in
>giving things their hebrew names may be (from a certain point of view)
>more accurate, but its effect can only be to conceal what he is talking
>about.  He is very smug about the fact we cannot understand what he is
>talking about, when all he has to do is speak English.  Hebrew name magic
>aside, there is no difference between the prophet Jeremiah and the
>prophet Yirmiyahu.  I respect Yirmiyahu's right to his name; I expect him
>to respect my right to spoken to in a language I understand.

I would like to suggest another reason for using Hebrew names (besides
accuracy).  Sensitivity to heritage.  While Yirmiyahu's method of
argument is, Ahh, *unusual* (he seems to depend too heavily on
transliteration) he is nevertheless to be lauded for making some
(potentially) useful points.  We should hope that he doesn't become
too discouraged by some of the recent flagrant personal abuse (not
referring to the referenced article) to contribute further.

Who can deny that the gentile church callously, deliberately, violently,
and *wickedly* cut itself off from its jewish roots?  But people need
a heritage, and so the church adopted the greek.  I must say that I
*cringe* when people start talking about "the original greek."  Or
(like CS Lewis), are so enamored of the greek world-view that they
apply this goyishe abomination in discussing essentially Hebrew concepts
(love, judgement, righteousness, wisdom, understanding, and even *knowledge*).
The NT writings were (with the possible exception of Luke) written by
Jews whose native language, culture, and *heritage* was jewish.  It
seems clear that the best way to properly understand them is to become
saturated in Hebrew culture, concepts, and heritage.

Use of the Hebrew transliterations certainly couldn't hurt.  If you're
concerned that readers might have difficulty understanding you could
parenthetically append the English equivalents.

It is also undeniable that "Christianity" has an anti-Torah thrust
to it.  But that's another subject, sort of.
--
David Brunson

... better understanding through higher education.

yiri@ucf-cs.UUCP (Yirmiyahu BenDavid) (10/07/84)

Since there seems to be a valid misunderstanding of why I make a point
of transliterations. I will explain this point (it is the only point
made which I deem worthy of further elucidation).

Within the articles, I showed the difference between the N'tzarim (who
were Jewish) and the Roman/pagan Christians who subsequently took over
the movement and perverted it into their own idea of what the 'true'
religion should be. I also pointed out that they were diametrically
different regarding the Torah (nomian vs. antinomian). I further pointed
out that they were so vastly different that the Christians persecuted
and killed the N'tzarim who would not forsake Judaism and go to 'church'
on Sunday instead of synagogue on Shabbat, who would not eat pork on
the way out after 'Easter' services, etc. 

It seemed painfully clear to me why it would be necessary to distinguish
between these two groups if one ever hoped to understand either of them.
Further, it seemed an obvious step to use the N'tzarim transliterations
to denote the authentic N'tzarim things and the Christianized terms to
denote the Christianized things in order to differentiate between them
and keep track of which group one is really talking about. 

The popular practice, so vociferously defended on this net, promulgates
the muddling of the two groups and precludes any in depth understanding
of either. If you don't really know which you are talking about you are
surely not going to come up with anything which clarifies either group.

mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (10/10/84)

> Who can deny that the gentile church callously, deliberately, violently,
> and *wickedly* cut itself off from its jewish roots?  But people need
> a heritage, and so the church adopted the greek.  I must say that I
> *cringe* when people start talking about "the original greek."  Or
> (like CS Lewis), are so enamored of the greek world-view that they
> apply this goyishe abomination in discussing essentially Hebrew concepts
> (love, judgement, righteousness, wisdom, understanding, and even
> *knowledge*).

> The NT writings were (with the possible exception of Luke) written by
> Jews whose native language, culture, and *heritage* was jewish.  It
> seems clear that the best way to properly understand them is to become
> saturated in Hebrew culture, concepts, and heritage.

First of all, scholars have recently come to the conclusion that NT
contains Jewish ideas couched in Greek.  I will certainly agree that it
is important to understand something of first century Judaism to 
understand certain aspects of the NT text.

On the other hand, there is no evidence for a Hebrew text for any gospel,
and the textual evidence we have strongly implies the original texts were
in Greek.  Almost all OT/Tenakh quotations are from the Septuagint, which is
in Greek; it would be hard to explain this if the original were in anything
but Greek.  C. S. Lewis, by the way, was a classicist, and I suspect that
he knew more about this than either you or I know.

Brunson's argument is essentially that the church ought not to look to
any heritage other than this lost Hebrew one.  I for one am unwilling
to throw away two thousand years of christian thought, if only because
I think it is valuable to examine other people's mistakes.  (and not
incidentally, to instill a little humility into my theology)

Charley Wingate

daver@hp-pcd.UUCP (daver) (10/19/84)

>It is also undeniable that "Christianity" has an anti-Torah thrust
>to it.  But that's another subject, sort of.
>--
>David Brunson

If this is the case, why are "Christians" so firm in their support of biblical
creationism and so opposed to homosexuality?  Both of these subjects are 
mentioned only in the Torah (old testament) and not in the new testament.

Dave Rabinowitz
hplabs!hp-pcd!daver