Posted on 09/30/2010 7:54:18 PM PDT by Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo
Our former NR colleague, Joe Sobran, passed away today after a long battle with a variety of ailments. He was relatively young, just 64, and while physically beaten at the end, he also departed spiritually triumphant.
Surely, in short order, there will be ample reflection — much of it critical — on the hyper-talented, hyper-controversial writer. There will be a recounting of his history at NR, the break, the following years, and Joe’s soured relationship with WFB (happily, they rekindled their friendship before Bill passed away). Good, let’s discuss all that, and more. But later. Right now, let us, if only for a minute, pray for the repose of his soul, to hope: That he abides now with his old boss, and they together with our Creator. For the peace that proved so elusive in this lifetime, Joe, may you now have it.
Muslims regard Jesus as a Prophet (though not divine) whereas he holds no role in Judaism.
So you claim.
You can whitewash it away by saying that is only a collection of debates, however the discussions about Jesus Christ are not in that context.
That's the only context the Talmud has.
There are plenty of translations of the Talmud.
No, there aren't. If there are "plenty" please cite 5.
All of them contain the same basic comments when discussing Christ.
Bold claim. Why don't you find a passage in the Talmud you consider to be blasphemous toward Jesus, and cite it in 5 separate translations.
A Christian only needs to see the blasphemy of Jesus Christ once to know that there is great antipathy towards him.
The issue here is what is actually seen. Anyone can go on the Internet and find quotes from any neo-Nazi site they like purporting to be Talmud passages. How many Christians have bothered to even read the original? Despite your magisterial tone, I can tell you certainly haven't.
Even the Muslims don't speak about Christ in such a manner.
The theology of Islam says that Jesus was a lesser prophet whose role was to proclaim the great prophet Mohammed. This was part of Mohammed's conversion strategy: absorb Abraham, Moses and Jesus into his narrative in order to convince Jews and Christians to follow him. So Islam speaks sweetly about Jesus, but in doing so calls all Christians liars who have betrayed Jesus and diminishes Jesus into a mere man subordinate to Mohammed. Jews do not see conversion of all Christians to Judaism as one of the purposes of their religion.
In point of fact, there are only two translations of the Talmud into English available on the Internet. One isn't a very good translation: it' s based on a flawed text, and no site seems to have the entire text.
This is because there are, as opposed to your claim of "plenty" of translations available, only four translations of any completeness or value: the Steinsaltz, Soncino, Schottenstein, and the Neusner - only one of which is available online.
You can't just make outrageous claims and say: "I don't need to back up anything I say - just google it." You made the claims, so cite specific passages that substantiate those charges.
If a Jew said: "Christianity says horrible things about the rabbinic Sages, so Christianity is just objectionable" and you asked which Christians said what things about these sages, and the response you got was: "Just check the Internet, dude. There's like a ton of Christian stuff on there that's all nasty and stuff" - well, you'd be pretty unimpressed by the quality of the scholarship.
You made a claim. You said there are "plenty" of translations, you cultivate an air of being conversant and cultivated in the knowledge of Talmudic blasphemy.
Give us one citation, just so we know you're not a complete fake.
Of the 4 given, there are really two: the Soncino (Slotki is one of the Soncino translators, the Gutenberg looks to be a tiny selection of passages from the Soncino) and the Rodkinson. Rodkinson is not very good, the Soncino is generally good.
However, the full Soncino is several thousand pages long. Care to indicate which pages contain the material that substantiates your claim?
The claims I made are common knowledge.
Oh, of course they are. That's why no one can find them anywhere.
Every known copy of the Jerusalem Talmud
There are plenty of known copies of the Jerusalem Talmud, which is a different work from the Babylonian Talmud you linked to. The Babylonian was the popular one in the European world, and the Jerusalem one was not well-known or used much outside of the Holy Land. The Church's destruction of the Babylonian Talmud (not the Jerusalem, which was not mentioned) was based on the claims of converts not actually substantiated by any specific blasphemous references that any prelate cited in any specific document.
Why do you defend blasphemy?
That's the equivalent of asking "when did you stop beating your wife?" You're alleging blasphemy, but have so far proven completely incapable of substantiating your claim. If I'm defending blasphemy, please show me precisely which blasphemy I am allegedly defending. Slander is a sin.
I just googled the matter and came up with primarily kook sites making those claims and a few other sites refuting them.
That assertion is rank nonsense.
Of course it isn't. The New Testament canon is precisely that: a canon, or rule of faith.
What Christian community has ever rejected the Pauline corpus?
Even the tiniest, unaffiliated nondenominational congregations recognize the canon of the New Testament as inviolable.
Every other Christian denomination - Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Reformed, Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostal, Baptist, etc. includes the whole New Testament as a foundational element of their faith.
You made the claim, back it up.
Why would Christians find comments, that as far as you can ascertain don't even exist, offensive?
It wasn't "unfair."
Joe went around the bend a few years back and pretty much alienated his audience. It seemed like almost overnight that he went from a sober, deep, engaging writer to a shrill, hysterical one, and after the transition he was basically never heard from again.
I always had a feeling that his sudden shift was more medical than intellectual.
After making all this noise and then coming up with exactly nothing to substantiate it, I am forced to consider whether BTM is trying to get me to give hits to neo-Nazi sites to follow his baseless assertions down the rabbit hole.
I don't see Christian sites making these claims.
I see two sets of sites: neo-Nazi sites parroting BTM's claims (or, more likely, BTM is the parrot in this analogy) and fringy atheist sites claiming that the lack of concrete Talmudic references to Jesus is proof He didn't exist.
....
Just to pick one ... Consider the Epistle of James, which Luther derided as "the epistle of straw." Still, it's generally accepted as part of the Canon of Scripture. Are you suggesting that Martin Luther, in rejecting it, belonged to a different religion than Christianity?
Had he insisted to the contrary, even after being corrected by his colleagues, then he would have belonged to a different religion.
That a man so deeply egotistical and headstrong as Luther would bow on this point is testimony to how essential the canon is.
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