Posts by KalebOutWest

56

Old Greek Daniel's Son of Man

by peacefulpete in

again this is large topic, some of which has been discussed elsewhere on this site.

the basic question i want to discuss is the identification of the 'someone like a son of man" in daniel 7. as we all know christians understood the figure to be the messiah (christ), so the question posed is did the author intend it to be a singular personage or a collective symbol of the holy of israel as jews typically read it?

or how about the unexpected idea that the "someone like a son of man" was the very same character as the "ancient of days" in another role?.

KalebOutWest

It appears, in editing a space, I lost my entire comment. I will return when I can to add it again. I don't know what happened.

11

The Akedah

by peacefulpete in

the genesis 22 episode, often referred to as the akedah (aqueda) ie "the binding" is a topic worthy a masterclass in textual and theological development.

a comprehensive discussion regarding this development would involve volumes and still leave much to be uncertain.

in short, the internal contradictions the narrative offers as it appears in genesis have inspired millennia of interpretive expansions and elaborations.

KalebOutWest

I understand the strict D.Hypothesis as it was originally formulated has fallen out of favor, especially outside the US.

I see some of these views as possibly threatening to US/Christian/Western society. They are based on the understanding that we Jews were likely not descendants of an "Abraham" type figure and thus the Canaanite or original Lavant people.

It puts forth the view that there were no 12 Tribes of Israel and no "Lost 10 Tribes."

It also posits that "King David" and "selected tribe of Judah" narrative were inventions.

While Jews seem to swallow these things because you can do a lot when you realize you are talking about your own culture and looking back millennia (and are not surprised anymore on how your own people or anyone's manipulates history or tall tales in their favor), this doesn't work well for a civilization that totters on the belief that these things are true as a Cecil B. DeMille flick.

Western civilization loves carving its idols, whether in its mountainside rocks or especially those mental recesses where they can be denied that they do not exist and can be the most dangerous and do the most damage. God is so real that it is the central figure of the culture war in the United States that neither side can do without. Who are the theists or the atheists without this God? Who are the Fundamentalists/Conservatives and the Liberals without him?

It's not as if this data has not reached the shores of the US. It is here and has been here for some time. It is that it is Jewish and scary because it is coming from a place of theological evolution, an evolution moving at a speed that is disturbing to Westerners.

God went from Entity to Ineffable Entity over the course of 2000 years in Judaism. But went from Ineffable Entity to Ineffable, period, in the next 400, and then from Ineffable to Non-personal, to Questionable, to "legally" non-existent in less than 50. Who would think that rabbis would ever agree on a large scale theologically across so many spectrums that as long as a Jew doesn't worship another God that "not believing in God" is still "O.K." in the history of Judaism? But that is where we are today.

But such views like this cannot work in a society where the status quo is "us-against-them." If there is no such thing as "God," what is there to argue about? What is there to believe in? What is there not to "not" believe in? Who and what are you in a society that defines you by where you stand in this great culture war then?

So no one is going to seriously buy into something that begins to pick away at the very floor they stand on unless they don't realize it will make them vanish. That might be why it's not rushing out to be widely accepted. People need God, even anything to disbelieve in. They need Judah so they can have King David, so he can be the forefather of Jesus, so they can have their religion, so they can have their political view that they stand for or against.

They need the 12 Tribes so they can be part of the "Lost 10 Tribes" so that America can be special or they themselves can be part of a special race that replaces the Jews because they believe the Jews are special.

But we are not. We aren't even what people thought we were.

So people keep all this quiet, less they disappear too, no matter what side you are on, no matter what you believe or don't believe. Don't look behind the curtain.

11

The Akedah

by peacefulpete in

the genesis 22 episode, often referred to as the akedah (aqueda) ie "the binding" is a topic worthy a masterclass in textual and theological development.

a comprehensive discussion regarding this development would involve volumes and still leave much to be uncertain.

in short, the internal contradictions the narrative offers as it appears in genesis have inspired millennia of interpretive expansions and elaborations.

KalebOutWest

I personally cannot speak to much of what has been written here.

I was taught some of the Document Hypothesis but only as in "that is what we used to teach," almost sort of the way the Governing Body offers "new light" except that this is due to new archological scholarship.

While Jews do talk about the "Deuteronomist" author(s), this is for a very limited portion of the Torah, actually limited mostly to verses found only in Deuteronomy itself. The rest of the Torah is actually divided, along with the work of other books of the Hebrew text, namely into the work of the Israelites and the work of the Judahites. The reason for this is that it is no longer believed that we were ever originally one people, or that the Biblical stories originally came from a singular culture. It appears that what we have is a story politcally manipulated by the Judahite people to read the way it does, and instead of the Torah and the Nevi'im (Joshua-Judges-Samuel-Kings) being separate collections written by different writers at separate times, the Torah and Nevi'im is actually one collection produced by one redactor or set of redactors, namely the Jedahites. They merely collected some legends and folktales from Israelites who merged with them after the Assyrians destroyed their northern territory.

While this does not mean that there are no more separate composers like "J" and "E," etc. There are, and in fact, there are a plethora more. Many others have been identified since the original Document Hypothesis was developed in the mid-18th century. "J" and "E" have now, for example, been merged, and they are considered the probable source of the Akedah.

While this doesn't mean that some of what was posted above isn't correct or that some of what many scholars have posited is no longer applicable. (You did great work, PeacefulPete. I should have teach my Sunday Hebrew school for me. My kids would love you.) What it does suggest is that we have to make room for what we now are coming to understand and that this could mean that we might have to abandon some very long-held theories.(I can hear some people crying in the backrow. It's okay. Let it out.)

Whatever the critical data shows doesn't change the traditions or applications much, nor does it makes our previous study a waste. To illustrate, of interest are the midrash traditions where Isaac does indeed seem to die and Satan plays a trick on Sarah coming to her as her son only to announce he is dead which causes Sarah's own death. There are a few versions of this. But the particular one with "the Satan" is one of the few where one can see the development of a personification that leaped from Judaism to Christianity, only to be abandoned once the character takes off as Jesus' archenemy. (See Sarah and the Akedah for more interesting details of the narratives themselves.) Jews had only a short history of demonology that came from our exposure to Persian culture but became lost with the introduction of great sages like Rambam (Maimonides) who introduced rationalism and a return to stricter adherence to traditional Judaism which has no demons. It was believed that good and evil should be morally attributed to God in the end according Scripture.--Job 2:10.

I think the Akedah is less a story about a deity and more a story about us. Where do we come from? What do we do? Do we sacrifice our children ever so blindly on altars? We do it when there is a call for secular war. We do it when there are politcal demands when we vote someone in office that our young people don't like and make them live by laws they don't agree with or can't live by. We do it when we take away their rights by these laws. We do it when we carelessly do things in this generation that makes it difficult for the young to inherit the world we live behind. We sacrifice our children on altars to our gods all the time, gods that we blindly follow because we believe in them, but gods they might not, whether it's the God of the Bible or the gods of our disbelief.

It's a shame we don't put up more of a fight for our children before we sacrifice them to something we think is best for them. There are no angels to call from the heavens to stop us. There will be no rams to wonderously appear to take their place. If we don't learn from myths or legends, then we obviously aren't smart enough to face reality.

47

The First Holocaust

by nicolaou in

please, please ignore all the scientific impossibilities here, that's not what this topic is about.. let's make the assumption as many christians do that the bible is historically accurate.

the noachian flood actually happened a little less than 4,500 years ago after which eight adults stepped off the ark to repopulate the planet.. that means that approximately 60 million lives had been snuffed out, a holocaust by anyone's estimation.

as if that isn't horrific enough just think about the babies, toddlers and young children god killed.. he drowned all of them, every single one.

KalebOutWest

For joey jojo:

I will offer below two good sources to help answer your questions. But first a brief explanation.

Judaism is a spectrum of belief and practices, not only among its groups of peoples such as the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Secular Humanist, Renewal, and Post-denomantional, but also among each individual person that allows for constant change.

Can an atheist change their beliefs and still remain an atheist? Can a Christian change theirs and still remain a Christian?

Unlike Westerners who are usually identified and self-identify according to strict creeds or general static set of definitions, Jews can and will switch what they believe and practice among this spectrum as they live and grow and age employing a diverse cornacopa of traditions and ethics to without losing their place in the tribe.

This doesn't work for, let's say a Jehovah's Witness who cannot stop believing in Jesus one day and still expect to remain a Witness. But a Jew can indeed go from theist to atheist one day then agnostic the next and then decide that they are something called an "ignostic" the next day, only later to start the cycle again, never to loose there place or membership in Judaism.

How? Why?

Open Judaism: A Guide for Atheists, Believers, and Agnostics by Rabbi Barry L Schwartz (it's available as an Ebook too)

and a YouTube series about charts--yes, charts, by Dr Matt Baker (yes, he is also a Jew). How will charts help? Click on his playlists and watch his Introduction to the Bible series at

https://youtu.be/KqSkXmFun14?si=wZEd1MLmnnPrQ1QY

and his Religious Studies series.

https://youtu.be/7wtBBVnyX3A?si=IC4y7Yw-sGBCDS8k

Many, many hours of stuff that will explain things.

Now, I am off to be "enslaved" by resting on the Jewish Sabbath.

Shabbat Shalom.

47

The First Holocaust

by nicolaou in

please, please ignore all the scientific impossibilities here, that's not what this topic is about.. let's make the assumption as many christians do that the bible is historically accurate.

the noachian flood actually happened a little less than 4,500 years ago after which eight adults stepped off the ark to repopulate the planet.. that means that approximately 60 million lives had been snuffed out, a holocaust by anyone's estimation.

as if that isn't horrific enough just think about the babies, toddlers and young children god killed.. he drowned all of them, every single one.

KalebOutWest

You are right NZ.

There was a Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, Rambam, who though persecuted at the time eventually won the Jews over with the prevailing theology that we had to reject the literal reading of any text of Scripture that suggested that God had a body or human traits or features.

While in many of the stories of the Bible, God is merely a player no less or greater than any other, this went often forgotten by the rabbis and they began to take it literal that God had a body. Rambam taught the opposite, that the writers made a character out of God in our human image to make God pliable for the purpose of each storyline. If one takes these literally, Rambam taught, you are actually guilty of idolatry.

Today this, outside of the claim that "God is one," is the only other universal definition that Jews tend to agree upon (if even they are agnostic and atheist), that the Jewish God is "Ineffable."

This is why the idea of a deity flooding the world and "feeling regret" for his actions is not taken literal by the Jews. It breaks Rambam's rule of ascribing anthropomorphic facets to God.

This makes most of Watchtower's theology incompatible with Judaism because it basically advocates worship of a god in human form with human features and qualities.

To many Jews, due to the introduction of teachers like Spinoza and Kaplan and even Sherwin Wine, God is not a person or there is no personal God.

47

The First Holocaust

by nicolaou in

please, please ignore all the scientific impossibilities here, that's not what this topic is about.. let's make the assumption as many christians do that the bible is historically accurate.

the noachian flood actually happened a little less than 4,500 years ago after which eight adults stepped off the ark to repopulate the planet.. that means that approximately 60 million lives had been snuffed out, a holocaust by anyone's estimation.

as if that isn't horrific enough just think about the babies, toddlers and young children god killed.. he drowned all of them, every single one.

KalebOutWest

We are not "enslaved" as JWs teach or you suggest.

A Secular Humanistic Jew, for example, who observes the sabbath or a holy day or places a mezzuzah on their door post is not doing this because they are enslaved to biblical obligations. Humanist Jews don't even believe in the Bible and most are strict atheists.

These are cultural practices, most of which came before they were written down into laws and regulations and given mythical significance. Jews celebrated things like the Passover and the Festival of Tabernacles with totally different meanings before the priesthood attached the meanings you read about them in the Torah. Our culture didn't start with the Bible. It is older. The laws you read in the Bible are not the way the Jews ever did things or do them today.

The Torah is mainly illustrative, not practical. That is why we have the Talmud and responsa.

Our culture is impotant to us. The music, food, dress, languages, holidays and myths and just some of the ways we celebrate our identity as a people.

It isn't slavery to celebrate your culture.

47

The First Holocaust

by nicolaou in

please, please ignore all the scientific impossibilities here, that's not what this topic is about.. let's make the assumption as many christians do that the bible is historically accurate.

the noachian flood actually happened a little less than 4,500 years ago after which eight adults stepped off the ark to repopulate the planet.. that means that approximately 60 million lives had been snuffed out, a holocaust by anyone's estimation.

as if that isn't horrific enough just think about the babies, toddlers and young children god killed.. he drowned all of them, every single one.

KalebOutWest

P.S.--I know you are not mad at God.

Or Luke or his dad.

47

The First Holocaust

by nicolaou in

please, please ignore all the scientific impossibilities here, that's not what this topic is about.. let's make the assumption as many christians do that the bible is historically accurate.

the noachian flood actually happened a little less than 4,500 years ago after which eight adults stepped off the ark to repopulate the planet.. that means that approximately 60 million lives had been snuffed out, a holocaust by anyone's estimation.

as if that isn't horrific enough just think about the babies, toddlers and young children god killed.. he drowned all of them, every single one.

KalebOutWest

I was pointing out how the stories present the god of the Bible from a straightforward reading...Stories about the noachian flood (and those stories that followed)...

First, the Noachin Deluge is the newer myth. It was composed after the Babylonian Exile, around 538 BCE, and was added to the Torah during the Persian Era. We know this because it has the editorial earmarks of Gilgamesh tablet 11. The other stories came before, they did not follow. In fact, some scholars are in agreement that the redactors of the Torah might be making fun of the Atrahasis (another older Mesoptamian flood legend) and the Gilgamesh story by showing that Yahweh hangs up his weapon at the end and won't be like the heathen gods in the other stories by his limiting his power via covenant-making, a new element not found in the other flood myths.

These are not the qualities we were taught to understand that he [God] had, nor are they the qualities that many who worship this god insist he has, or represents. Growing up, I was taught to approach these stories in a certain way, which is very different from how they read if you just... you know... read them.

As a Jew I can attest that we do not teach anywhere in our Scriptures that "God is love," like it does in 1 John chapter 4:8 & 16.

Is God just? Is God merciful? Is God omnipresent? Omniscient? In Judaism, God is often not even considered an entity let alone a deity. Humans created deities. Many Jews are atheists, agnostics or don't put belief in God central in their religious lives. (It sounds weird to Christians who measure religion by what "God" is, but yeah.) One's view of God can change from one day to the next.

The word "Israel" means "he who wrestles with God." Our nation and people is called "Israel" and not "Abraham" because we wrestle with the God-issue. We don't obey or believe blindly.

As for reading these stories, we Jews know how to read them. We understand that the first 11 chapters are filled with mythology and legends. And Genesis is part of the Mosaic Law, not the Mosaic History. It's a book teaching Jews how to perform the Law. It's stories having a bearing on how to perform the Law: the first chapter of Genesis about why it's important to observe the Sabbath, the second chapter about our need to observe the commandments, the third about what happens when you break a commandment and so on, etc. It's not really about history. It the Torah. It teaches you lessons to be a good Jew. It wasn't written to be read literally or outside the idea that it wasn't the Torah or wasn't the Mosaic Law.

I was there for a few years with my JW aunt in the Kingdom Hall and listened to how people were taught that this meant this and that meant that. So? What if you were taught that Star Wars was a real story all your life when you were raised as a Mormon? And then you grew up and learned it wasn't? Are you going to hate Luke Skywalker? Or George Lucas?

It's fiction. You had a wrong view of it. Others taught you that wrong view. There was a correct view, but you never learned it. The more you refuse to learn that there is a possible correct view, that it is fiction, the more you will just sit being angry.

You anger isn't wrong. It's just misdirected. There are people who you should be angry at.

A myth and a mythological god are not to blame, especially when the story had a completely different context than you thought it did.

(I mean, God is not even named "Jehovah." That name means nothing to us Jews. That should tell you something right there. You can't even read the story straightfoward either. It's in Hebrew. We can, and we do. You folks argue over whether or not you have a good or correct translation, and can't ever be sure if you have a correct one. We don't need a translation. That should also tell you something.)

Be mad if you want to. But I would direct my anger at the right people and do something constructive with it instead of being mad at, for example "Luke Skywalker" and "Darth Vader." They were never real to being with. And being mad at them all day ain't gonna make them "realler"

47

The First Holocaust

by nicolaou in

please, please ignore all the scientific impossibilities here, that's not what this topic is about.. let's make the assumption as many christians do that the bible is historically accurate.

the noachian flood actually happened a little less than 4,500 years ago after which eight adults stepped off the ark to repopulate the planet.. that means that approximately 60 million lives had been snuffed out, a holocaust by anyone's estimation.

as if that isn't horrific enough just think about the babies, toddlers and young children god killed.. he drowned all of them, every single one.

KalebOutWest

The flood story also brings up an interesting thought: doesn't it speak to god's failures?

When we leave the Jehovah's Witnesses, we might often focus our disappointment in "God" and do our best to criticize (in an honest and rational way) what we might see as a betrayal on behalf of the trust we once put forth.

The mythology of the Hebrew Bible is not stating what the Watchtower taught us or what you or I believed when we faithfully went to the Kingdom Hall. Ancient peoples of various cultures believed that the present world, in fact the entire universe was created from a previous existing one that had been wiped out of existence by the cosmic forces closing in on themselves and starting from scatch.

They did not believe in a vacuum of space but that the world was flat and covered with a bowl that likely held the stars and sun in place and kept the cosmic waters from falling upon us, allowing only some of them to sprinkle upon us every now and then in the form of rain or snow.

But practically each culture, not just the Jews, had this view. Since they all believed that the forces of nature were either controlled by the gods or were gods, they blamed this cataclysmic restart on their deities.

The Vikings blamed their Norse gods for flooding the previous world, starting over and creating the world we previously live in now. And North American Hopi taught that the world has had not just one restart but that we are currently living in the fifth world! (If you thought Jehovah was a failure...)

The gods that started all these horrific restarts in these stories, slaughtering millions, perhaps billions, each time in these mythologies, do you believe any of them are real? Or are you just angry at God in Genesis because you were once one of Jehovah's Witnesses?

What makes the God of the Bible more of a failure in the Noachin flood when that is clearly just the same sort of creation type of mythology? Should we blame stories that were clearly creation/origin myths, including any or all deities that are clearly the product of another culture or our misunderstandings that were not even produced by the people who wrote these myths but were introduced to us by others?

If you are going to think with a critical mind, is it logical to be angry at a mythical god in a myth based on the interpretation made by a cult that is run by unlettered and uneducated men who cannot even read the myth in its original language? Critically, where does the blame really lie? The deity? The myth? The cult? In us who believed the false teaching of the cult at one time?

The story is even considered allegorical by Orthodox Jews, and they take most of the Hebrew Bible at face value. And we angry about a flood that even Orthodox Jews said never happened? Think about that for a while. What rational mind would spend time being angry about something that never happened?

Just some things to consider. We may not have answers right away. We might not all have the same answers or agree.

One this is certain. A lot of blame should be placed at the feet of the Watcthtower leaders who offer impossible interpretations of Noah's Flood that cannot be traced to the original sources or type of writing that these type of stories are meant to reflect to ancient peoples.

47

The First Holocaust

by nicolaou in

please, please ignore all the scientific impossibilities here, that's not what this topic is about.. let's make the assumption as many christians do that the bible is historically accurate.

the noachian flood actually happened a little less than 4,500 years ago after which eight adults stepped off the ark to repopulate the planet.. that means that approximately 60 million lives had been snuffed out, a holocaust by anyone's estimation.

as if that isn't horrific enough just think about the babies, toddlers and young children god killed.. he drowned all of them, every single one.

KalebOutWest

This is ridiculous.

The story doesn't even originate with Yahweh, the God of Abraham. The original flood story comes from the Gilgamesh tradition.

It claims the flood was the result of a debate between the gods Enlil and Enki.

The Genesis story just copied that one. So if really believe there was a flood, why not pick the older story? Why not blame the gods Enlil and Enki?

See how stupid all this sounds?