I defended genuine Sacred Tradition by pointing out that that Tradition is that Cain married his twin sister (and that this was a cause of friction between Cain and Abel).
Is that universally held? In my Midrash studies (which I admit I know a lot more of than Talmud, though -- from what I've read -- Talmud works the same way), there are normally several comments on each verse, which may agree or disagree (sometimes wildly), and all are allowed to stand and are held in respect.
It is true that the Rabbis of the Talmud argued all the time in matters of both Halakhah and 'Agadah (and Halakhah is the more important). However, there is also a very important principal: 'Ellu va'ellu divrei-'Eloqim Chayyim ("both these and these are the words of the Living G-d"). In other words, in some mysterious way that we cannot understand, all the words of the Talmudic Rabbis are true, even when they seem to disagree with one another. In fact, Rav Nachman of Breslov taught that they do not really disagree at all but only appear to for the sake of the student.
NYer, I apologize for my extremely harsh words to you, but you simply make no sense to me. You are supposedly this "ultra-conservative" who posts all this pre-modern, hyper-traditional stuff--shoot, you're a Maronite!--yet when I point out Catholic inconsistencies on a thread supposedly about the validity of Tradition you respond not with Tradition but with the words of "modern scholarship" about "the intention of the author" and "literary genres" (or whatever they're called). Where in your Catholic traditional literature do the church fathers or saints mention "literary forms" or "the intention of the author?" Did Jerome think of this stuff while translating the TaNa"KH from the original Hebrew in Bat-Lechem while on his knees? The attitude of your reply to my initial post merely serves to illustrate the enormous changes that have taken place in the "unchanging" Catholic Church.
Allow me to illustrate. It just so happens that I own a Douay-Rheims bible (TAN). In the commentary on Lemekh's declaration to his wives in Genesis 4 the commentator (Challoner?) mentions the Jewish Tradition about Lamekh's killing of these two men--Cain (whom he shot) and the young lad who led him around in his old age (by accidentally crushing his skull when he clapped his hands together in grief on learning he had accidentally shot his ancestor). Now THAT is Tradition. No "literary forms." No "what was in the mind of the 'sacred author.'" No "the scriptures teach only 'spiritual truth.'" Do you see the difference now? ONE is Tradition. The OTHER is "modern scholarship." The fact that a supposedly ultra-conservative Maronite Catholic confuses the two and mixes them up in order to attack the facticity of the Biblical narrative is emblematic of the Catholic Church, the Walter Cronkite of chr*stian churches: old as the hills and yet liberal as blazes.
What about the many Old Testament references to the Queen Mother, the gebirah. There are so many. Don’t you think they are a foreshadowing of the role of Mary, just as so many other things about Christ were foreshadowed?
Old Testament references to the gebirah, the Queen Mother, a foretelling of Mary’s role in the Church (written by Scott Hahn):
“Let’s turn now to 1st Kings, chapter 1. This, I believe, is the missing link. I really am convinced that this is the most important exegetical Biblical piece of evidence that we have to go on. It was one of the best-known institutions in ancient Israel’s monarchy or after the Civil War ancient Juda’s monarchy and in fact, the idea of the Queen Mother was ubiquitous. You don’t find ancient monarchies in the Near East or the Middle East that don’t have Queen Mothers. I’ll refer you to a key article written by N.A. Andrieson in Catholic Biblical Quarterly in 1983, pages 179 through 194. It’s entitled, “The Role of the Queen Mother in Israelite Society.”
When I read this article, it was like a thunderclap striking me. I knew I had to really pay close attention to the evidence. What evidence? Well, this is known as the gebirah. The gebirah is the Hebrew term for the Queen Mother. I found in another book, The Graphic History of the Jewish Heritage, that the gebirah, the Queen Mother “occupied a unique and powerful position” throughout the history of ancient Israel’s monarchy. He gives as an example Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, who was enthroned.
Also, another example, Maacah, in 1st Kings 15:13; Jezebel, who is the only Queen Mother in the rebellious northern kingdom of Israel. In fact, the northern kingdom of Israel is conspicuous because it lacked the Queen Mother. Father DeVoe, one of the greatest Old Testament scholars of the century said, “This was due to a lack of dynastic stability.” They kept getting overthrown up north. They didn’t have the Davidic covenant to anchor the claims of these potential kings. That’s in 2nd Kings 10:13. And then Athaliah, the very cruel and wicked queen who ruled for six years, trying to suppress the cult of Yahweh in the Temple. Mehushta over Johoachin in Jeremiah 13:18. Another scholar in Scandinavia, Ostrum says, “The Queen Mother’s position was essentially cultic in nature,” that is she actually had a position or a role to play in worship. It wasn’t priestly but it was important and it was cultic. It’s still left undefined.
In the ancient Near East it goes on talking about how, “The Queen Mother throughout all these ancient Near Eastern monarchies sat beside the king on a throne, survived the death without being deposed. If the king died, the Queen Mother continued to reign without being deposed. There was a cultic role for her in leading the songs and so on in worship but also she had an essential role in political, military and economic affairs of court. In fact there are records of where the Queen Mother could oppose the king on issues of state. This is found in the Eplah tablets and Uhr Hittite records, Egypt Marri tablets, Assyria and other Arabian documents, as well. And the Queen Mother usually began her reign, just as an interesting incidental detail, after menopause.
What’s really interesting from Andreason’s perspective is that even after the prophets are sent by God to purify the Jerusalem cult and the kingdom of all of these pagan encrustations, the institution of the gebirah continues with reforms by Hezekiah and Josiah. The fertility cults are suppressed and these ashora poles and so on are torn down, including sacred snakes, you know the nahushta and so on, but never the Queen Mother, that’s allowed to remain. The central role for Andreason’s research is that she was to be the king’s wisdom counselor. Lady Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs is sort of like a personification of the Queen Mother, or visa versa.
It goes on listing several other examples. I won’t bother you with all these examples but of the sixteen Queen Mothers named, seven explicitly seem to be Jerusalemites. It just runs throughout the whole gamut, the whole historical span of the monarchy and actually, the only chapter of the Bible that we know was written by a woman, Proverbs 31, was written by a Queen Mother as instruction for her son before he accedes to the throne and finds himself a wife, she says, “This is the kind you’ve got to find.” Andreason concludes that “This is the theological paradigm for Mary’s Queenship. Jesus is the Son of David and the genealogy in Matthew links Mary to the Davidic line. Being the Son of David makes her the Queen Mother.” There are some other works too, The Nature of the Queenship of Mary, published in 1973, The Royal Son of God, published in 1979 and so on.”