dag (02/10/83)
I don't know why people try to use Christian documents to justify what they interpret as being the meaning of Jewish documents to the Jewish populace. Revalations is not in the old testiment, or as we call it, the Holy Scriptures. The books in the Jewish Bible are: The Pentateuch (The Torah) Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy The rest... Joshua Judges I Samuel II Samuel I Kings II Kings Isaiah Ezekiel (The twelve) Hosea Joel Amos Obadiha Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi (Back to the writings...) Psalms Proverbs Job Song of Songs Ruth Lamentations Ecclesiastes}i Esther Daniel Ezra Nehemiah I Chronicles II Chronicles Only the first five books - The Pentetuch or Torah (The Law) are considered to be written with divine intervention. The rest of the books are less holy and broken into several groups. The last group, the writings, are}i not taken as the word of god at all - they are histories and allegory, as is most of the rest of the bible, that are there for their illustrative value. The name "Saten" is found in several places in these later books - but only as the name of a man, not as a being of the devil's caliber. The god Baal is mentioned in one writing - he was the god of a rival religion. Judaism never made him into the embodyment of all evil. I have read the bible (Jewish) in its hebrew form and know the nuances of translation. Something that should be pointed out. In general, the Jewish interpretation of the Bible and other holy writings is nothing like the Christian "gospel" interpretation - As I have been taught, the Bible is not the word of God. It is, in short, "the work of man, for man, to help man understand that that it is beyond understanding." Some have said in this forum that Jews have told them that the reason they did not believe in Jesus as Christ is that they did not think that the Christ has come yet. I've yet to meet a Jew who thought this way. The embodyment of God into the form of a single man is not an option in the Law... This kind of personification of God is strictly forbidden in my teaching at least, and I think that the roots of this can be found in Deuteronomy. I am no religious scholar, but I do know that many of the arguments made in order to prove to me the correctness of the Christian view involve concepts that are abominations to the Jewish viewpoint. This is longwinded, but I'm home, sick, and have more time than I should for this sort of thing. If !trb is watching, please make some comment - You have a habit of making sense. ...!decvax!sultan!dag Daniel Glasser
trb (02/11/83)
In his netnews, sultan!dag wonders if I'm listening... of course I am, in the netnews universe, I'm omnipresent... Anyway, by popular demand I participate in this fracas. You'll see, by the time I'm finished, that part of the reason I don't jump into these arguments is that I have lots I want to say, and I don't have the energy to say it well and coherently, and you probably wouldn't care to read it if I did. I just hope you find my comments enlightening. I don't think holy wars make much sense, but they make more sense than religious arguments of the type I find on netnews. Here's why: People mistakenly believe that religion is a simple subject that they have a good grasp of. As we grew up, many of us went to our places of worship, to religious classes; I went to yeshiva, and so on. There are several subjects about which I know enough to hold my own in polite conversation, but on which I'm not a foremost authority. UNIX, chess, frisbee, ballet, netnews, religion, etc. All of these subjects are more or less boundless. Of all subjects, religion is least boundless. At its very base, there are impressions rather than facts. And upon these impressions, VAST systems of knowledge are built. As I said, I can talk about religion in polite conversation. I look at an analogy with my knowledge of chess. I know a bit about chess, I play weekly, at a mediocre to poor level (weakly), which means that if you've never played chess on a regular basis that I can probably eat you up. But there are poor players who can eat me up, and there are levels and levels of players between me and the grandmasters of chess. Chess is a simple game played on a board of 64 squares. Rather a small analog of our universe. The rules are clear, I enjoy the game, I've had a good amount of practice but the game is still quite taxing. (Oy!) Religion is like chess, only much more so. I know a bit about Judaism, quite less about other religions. I know a bit about it, and I could eat up many of you in an argument about the finer points of Judaism. Sometimes I make pretty astute observations, but they are akin to my shooting at a target with my eyes closed. There are levels of students of religion whose abilities exceed mine to incredible degrees. The knowledge of the greatest sages is not less than Awesome. In their transcendent wisdom, if I asked them about the facts, they would just smile and shake their heads. The answers are aren't simple. Jewish scholars NEVER wave the Bible. Jewish scholars study commentaries of commentaries of the Torah, they study small sections with great devotion for long periods of time with Rabbis who have spent their entire lives studying these small sections of the body of Jewish Law. There are Rabbis who are experts on various aspects of the Law who serve as authorities for people who need decisions. They are only judges, humans who aren't infallible, they're just more qualified than you or I. I tell ya, it's complicated stuff! Anyway, I see Christians waving their bibles telling me that the scripture says this and that. I don't believe in the New Testament at all, they can't use that as the basis of Truth for me. They take the Old Testament, and they say that all this stuff applies to their savior, Jesus Christ. That might be good for them, but for a Jew to worship other than the one God is the most nastiest of crimes. The first commandments. I'll tell ya, God told me that the Messiah is coming. When he comes, I'll know. I don't know, so he ain't come yet. Second coming? I don't remember seeing that, I'm still waiting for the first coming. My religious beliefs are based on my upbringing and my limited studies. I like Judaism, but I don't go forcing it on people. Judaism isn't perfect as I understand it. That might be Judaism's fault, it might be mine, that's ok. I like it better than the other choices. If you aren't Jewish, that's fine with Judaism, we aren't recruiting. I can't help but associate the classical Christian religious proselytizers with the drones from Amway and est and the rest of the wrecking crews. Each organization is allegedly based in the good and beautiful, but part of their charter is to self-replicate. And they ALL believe that "we are right, and they are wrong (or at least, less right)." Anyways, there's all these guys yelling about brimstones and stuff, saying that my ass is gonna fry in hell if I don't do it their way. I try to be a good boy, I'm nice to people and most animals and I try to leave the forest cleaner than it was when I found it. When I die if I go to judgement and one of God's G-men tells me that I blew my chance to worship the right one when I had it, well then, I'll just suck in my gut and go where they send me with the good and righteous people of this Earth who all blew it too. I'll see ya there. Andy Tannenbaum Bell Labs Whippany, NJ (201) 386-6491