Posted on 07/05/2003 7:04:25 AM PDT by truthandlife
It is hypocritical for you to pit the Rabbis against the TaNa"KH when for fifteen hundred years chr*stians relied on their priests, popes, councils, saints, and theologians to interpret the new testament. Your railing against the G-d given authority of the Sages (without whom the Torah would never have survived in its original form) is reminiscent of Korach's accusation that Moses appointed himself leader when any fool with one eye and half sense could read the Torah for himself (Korach denied the Oral Law).
Then you go on to accuse me of being a New Testament only type, when you have dropped 3/4 of the old off along the way, you do know it is the Tanach not the Torah right?
I did not accuse you of believing "the new testament only." I accused you of groundlessly assuming the truth of its claims (and those of J*sus) a priori without considering the possibility that the First Religion is still the true one. That is quite illogical on your part.
Just what 3/4 of the "old testament" have I dropped, pray tell? Are you actually claiming that Noachism is untenable because it doesn't teach the universal obligation of all mankind to become Jewish and keep the entire Torah? Where in the TaNa"KH do you find this mission given at any time? You are imposing your chr*stian missionism on Judaism from the outside. Jews are a distinct nation. They were never commanded to convert the nations of the world to Judaism but to Noachism.
I do not dispise Jews, "Palestinian Christians" or resemble any of the racist picture's you conjure up for me. Talk about nasty and insulting.
I simply don't know what you're referring to here.
It was troll bait, meant to get you to think and examine your foundation in your relationship with God. That is a healthy thing, most people tend to go Ah Ha, perhaps I should cling to God first...
Clinging to G-d first according to YOUR opinion, that is. It is insulting for you to accuse Jews or Noachides of not clinging to G-d first because they don't reject the Oral Law (which contains the rules for writing a Torah scroll correctly, btw) or accept the "new testament."
Then others get insulted, before actualy thinking about what I said, and their ears get plugged before they understand the layers of thought that are available.
There was no need for you to insult the late Rabbi Schneerson (zt"l) and to call him "Mental." That was really loving and profound, wasn't it? And I find it strange that chr*stians should ever use a "messiah's" death to discredit him, considering that they have argued with Jews for 2000 years that the messiah must die. That's sort of like your "proving" the divinity of J*sus by his miracles and then proving the authenticity of the miracles by the authority of who did them (for example, the "antichrist" will work the same miracles but is to be rejected as using the power of Satan, which you consider a horrible slander when applied by the Perushim to the miracles of J*sus). If this isn't reasoning in a circle nothing is.
Shallow tillers raise good grass, but poor crops. But grass withers in the heat of the day, and in the end is suitable only for feeding cows and making byproducts.
??? All I know is that you take it upon yourself to declare the Oral Law invalid and only the Written Law valid and from G-d despite the obvious fact that the rules for writing a Torah Scroll so it is an exact reproduction of the First one are contained only in the Oral Law. Plus let's see you build a Tabernacle and conduct a heave offering with the Written Torah only. And do I have to keep reminding you that your anti-Oral Law ideology was created by people who insist on an oral law for chr*stians?
Question Authority, not to have no respect, but because when you stand before God, it will be just you on the stand.
That view of "my Bible and me and nobody else" is unhistorical and a creation of the printing press (which made holy scribes, the true transmitters of the Written Torah, seem unnecessary). The Written Torah contains only consonants. The same Oral Law whose interpretation of the Written you reject not only preserves the text you invoke perfectly but even supplies its vowels and punctuation marks. That being the case, I think its official interpretations are trustworthy.
do a google search on the Talmud
Anyone can do a google search on the Talmud, which of course turns up a lot of "Reverend Praniatus" crap or Israel Shahak crap culled from the neonazi sites. I happen to own complete sets of Babylonian and Yerushalmi Shass. You have never seen an actual page of Talmud in your life and you have NO CLUE what it contains and you don't have the brains to understand it even if you had the Adin Steinsaltz translation. The only thing that is hate-filled is the inside of your skull.
Still picking and choosing individual lines out of context I see. All the bad stuff and curses you think refer to the JOOZ but all the fulfillment prophecies of the restoration to the Land to the "seed of Jacob", described in great detail from those exact same prophets now go to the the "replacements" who are not the "seed of Jacob."
And of course you know this from the FOOTNOTES that the Christian redactors put in to the KJV. Well, here's a news flash: THE ORIGINAL HEBREW BIBLE DOESN'T HAVE THOSE FOOTNOTES AND THE CHAPTERS MEAN EXACTLY WHAT THE PROPHETS SAY THEY MEAN. Not what some translator made up thousands of years later.
Go back and read the chapters IN SEQUENCE from your own blueletterbible.org, but don't bother me again with your pick-here and choose-there lines you got from the footnotes MY BIBLE DOES NOT CONTAIN THOSE FOOTNOTES.
More picking and choosing on your part. Here is the rest of the Chapter of which you quoted ONE SINGLE LINE:
Isa 65:16 That he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine eyes.
Isa 65:17 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
Isa 65:18 But be ye glad and rejoice for ever [in that] which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
Isa 65:19 And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.
Isa 65:20 There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner [being] an hundred years old shall be accursed.
Isa 65:21 And they shall build houses, and inhabit [them]; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.
Isa 65:22 They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree [are] the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
Isa 65:23 They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they [are] the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them.
Isa 65:24 And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.
Isa 65:25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust [shall be] the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.
I already cut and pasted for you edification the 31th chapter of Jeremiah from your very own favorite blueletterbible.org. Don't try this cutting and pasting stuff with me, all you do is embarrass yourself. Why don't you try actually reading the Bible sequentially?
He quoted Yirmeyahu as an authority for his contention that HaShem had severed his covenant with Yisrael - even though Yirmeyahu wrote before the Exile.
Apparently no one notified Ezra that he was not permitted to reestablish Yisrael in the land and to build the Second Temple. Odd how Scripture endorses Ezra's efforts, however, isn't it?
Quite a few FReepers are very fond of the decontextualizing, anti-intellectual process called prooftexting.
This is, of course, completely alien to your tradition which believes in the necessity of lifelong study and a continuous process of spiritual growth.
About the only thing they have any control over is when they can die.
Perhaps we can just convert future US "aid" exclusively to suicide vests?
I see that there is a communication problem taking place here. We are both slinging mud based on preconceptions, and both are missing. Perhaps a bit of understanding would help. I do not consider Judasism a first religion, I consider it the religion. I do not consider it the "old" vs "new" testament, I just call it the Bible. The new testament without the old is like reading the third book in a series. It does not make much sense.
I am also fine with the oral traditions, as long as they do not deviate from the written one. But If the oral and the written conflict, I never go with the oral.
You know, last week I bought a sandwitch in a shop, and bought cheese in another on the way back to work. I assembled a good cheese and turkey sandwitch and had a good lunch. It struck me as funny that the reason I could not buy a turkey cheese sandwitch was because the Rabbi's were afraid of offence. But it is pretty hard to boil a baby turkey in its mothers milk isn't it? I actualy do eat rather kosher, if you stick to the written tradition, but would make a Rabbi's hair tangle if he came to dinner.
I recall a story of a man in a tent seeing three men on the way to Sodom. The man in the middle he identified as the Messiah. He convinced them to stop to eat and served them meat and cheese...
Now I do not care if the Rabbi wants to, or does not want to eat meat and cheese together, but in building fences he chains the people of God, and oppresses them, that I do not like. The kids can see the king has not clothes, and find another way, but if given the understanding of God alone, would not be offended, but filled with Joy.
Question Authority, but question with respect. Do not throw the baby out with the bath water.
As for Christianity, I find that the oral traditions strayed farther from the tracks than the Rabbi's did to be truthful about it.
But then, I live in Israel and you do not... -grin-
Blessings on ya!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.