dyl (02/06/83)
This is not a flame! I am overjoyed that Jews are paying attention to what Christians are saying. I just like to clear up some things brought out by Daniel Glasser in net.flame and encourage Christians to quote even more from the old testament. If you wonder why dragon, serpent, devil and Satan are equivalent, here it is. Revelations 12:9 The great dragon was hurled down - that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. The word 'Satan' appears in 1 Chronicles, Job, and Zechariah a total of 18 times so the old testament is definitely good for quoting by Christians. I dislike the acts (but not the persons) of giving Christians a bad image (i.e. Christians only read what their ministers allow) for no apparent reason. So for Daniel's information: In the old testament, 'Baal' appears about 58 times in the book of Numbers, Deuteronomy, Judges, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Psalm, Jeremiah, Hosea, and Zephanian. 'Baal' appears only once in the new testament in the book of Romans. I guess you missed Baal pretty badly and you also spelled testament wrong. I for one would like to learn more about Jewish traditions, what books are included in the old testament, how some of the prophecies are treated etc.
sher (02/09/83)
To defend a fellow Jew, whatshisname (names are not my specialty) got the spirit right if not the details when he said that the devil is basically a christian idea. The devil was completely absent from my jewish education and apparantly he is largely absent from Jewish culture (that is the concept not the hypothetical being). I think the concept of the devil is not compatible with the Jewish concept of an all encompassing God. Evil roles are generally assigned to the angel of death or perhaps a deamon who tend to be limited to following the letter of the law of the torah. Identification of baal or the genesis serpent with a being which is basically nonexistent in our culture obviously does not occur in our philosophy. On another point the fact that baal was mentioned in the torah 87*10**17 times (exact figures are also a weakness) does not mean that the devil is mentioned in the torah. It is my teaching that baal is a false god who is essentially powerless (there being only one real god). The devil on the other hand has all sorts of power in Christianity. Some of the misconceptions involved in the current christian/jewish argument on the net result from the fact that in judaism the emphasis is placed on the five books of moses (the torah) primarily then on