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Posted on 04/15/2002 12:16:07 AM PDT by 2sheep
Who ARE you talking to? I have never been in any experiential (read "feminized") movement of the visible professing Christian church.
You may have a problem with comprehending what you read. Please go back and note that I was not the author of the article that I posted in order to enlighten the understanding of "religious" people (if possible).
Sigh, what was your question?
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I favor Rabbi Baumgard's definition: In 1970, Rabbi Herbert M. Baumgard wrote "Who is a Jew?"
Who is a Jew? There was a time when it was easier to answer the question, "Who is a Jew?" In the small villages of Russia and Poland, a Jew was anyone with whom another Jew mingled...One hundred years ago, in the most populous Jewish sections of Europe, a Jew was someone who was not a Christian, someone who said the blessings before the Torah, someone who did not eat meat and milk together. The tens of thousands of Jews who came to America around the turn of the century were people who ate hamentaschen on Purim. They ate matzah on Passover and gefilte fish on Friday night. You did not need to define a Jew very closely in those days, because he defined himself so clearly in what he did and ate and in how he spoke and dressed.
Short decades ago, the Nazis set themselves up as authorities on the question, "Who is a Jew?" The Nazi leader Goering, declared, "I decide who is a Jew." What he meant, of course, was that he decided who was worthy of the gas chamber. For Goering, being Jewish was a matter of blood, on the one hand, or a matter of being anti-Nazi on the other. Short decades ago, anti-semitism was so open that the French philosopher, Sartre, wrote, "A Jew is anyone the non-Jew believes to be a Jew"...
The age old definition of a Jew, as found in the Talmud, was recently challenged by a case tried before the Israeli Supreme Court. The Talmud teaches that a Jew is one who has a Jewish mother and has not openly renounced his faith. It further teaches that a non-Jew may become a Jew by sincerely accepting the Jewish faith. When the Supreme Court of Israel tried to broaden this definition in order to justify the entry of more people into Israel, a furore arose in that nation led by the Orthodox Rabbinate. The problem was not resolved until the Israeli Congress, or K'nesset, had passed a new law which, in effect, distinguishes between a Jew and an Israeli. The K'nesset left the religious definition of a Jew intact but it legislated that one need not be a "Jew" to become an Israeli, if one is married to a Jew or if one is the child of at least one Jewish parent.
The Orthodox and traditional Jews in America, will, of course, hold to the Talmudic definition. For them, a Jew is anyone born to a Jewish mother or a sincere convert. It is my suggestion, however, that the Hebrew prophets had a definition much more suitable to our time. The prophets emphasized that being a Jew is not a matter of birth but a matter of belief and actions. Twenty-six hundred years ago, the Prophet Jeremiah proclaimed against those who were Jews in name only. "Behold," he contended, "the circumcised have become as those uncircumcised." Jeremiah believed that if a Jew did not follow the laws of justice and mercy associated with the covenant, then, he ceased to have those particular qualities which make one a Jew. Reform Jews hold with the Prophets that it is the inner commitment that makes one a Jew and not the accident of birth.
The Prophets further distinguished between those who make a show of ritualistic observance and those who are true to the essence of the covenant. The core of the covenant consists of laws concerning the proper treatment of one's fellow human beings. The Prophet Micah tells us that what God wants most from us is the performance of mishpat (the core laws of the covenant, justice-judgment), the love of covenant duty (ahavat hesed), and walking with God in humility (doing what God wants us to do). Micah's instruction to his people has been translated as "do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly...." I have tried to translate the Hebrew to stress the fact that Micah was not referring to abstract or general ideals. He was referring to the hundreds of specific humane laws detailed in our Scripture which were an ingrained part of the ancient society.
How critical is the belief in God? For the Prophets, as for me, God is the source of whatever special meaning there is to the Jewish people. In days gone by, the Jewish community has excommunicated those who proclaim publicly that there was no God...The only thing the Jewish community would not countenance in the past was the public proclamation of atheism, for this was like saying all community standards have no foundation and may be willfully ignored. Our ancestors thought with Dostoevsky, "Without God, all things are possible." There are no restraints and no standards without God. Without God, good and evil flow into each other and the value of human life and society are questioned.
A person's belief in God is to be deduced from his actions. As one Jewish teacher wrote, "If a man says he believes in God, but acts cruelly towards God's creatures, behold this is blasphemy." Here we see again that it is a person's conduct which is the chief thing in Judaism, not his professed beliefs. ...
We could discuss the question of what it means to be a good Jew for many hours and days. I think that it is a much more involved question than the simple question - What is a Jew? A Jew is one who by his personal actions identifies himself as a Jew. He identifies himself by what he does in his home, in the Synagogue, through Jewish and non-Jewish communal organizations, and by his ethical deeds. Who is a Jew - one who is born of a Jewish mother, or of any other mother, who willingly joins himself to the Jewish group and to its sacred covenant with God. In brief, a Jew is one who is circumcised in his heart, to use Jeremiah's phrase, that is to say he is committed to the covenant in thought and deed.
2. If only 50,000 from the Southern Kingdom returned to Palestine, why are the remaining Southern Kingdom diasporites not called Jews as well? After all, they were originally from the Kingdom of Judah. Also, can you tell us where they settled? Iberia, Greece, Turkey, Egypt?
Whew! Glad we got that settled.
>When you say "Jew", maybe you can clarify to us if you are talking about the Biblical definition, the Talmudic definition, the physical definition, the spiritual definition, the anthropological definition, etc.
What could be more clear than my Profile page? It very clearly states, right at the top:
This site is about HISTORY, both Archeological and Biblical.
>I favor Rabbi Baumgard's definition: In 1970, Rabbi Herbert M. Baumgard wrote "Who is a Jew?"
Of course you do, because it is all about name building, and little to do with history. Remember:
The Vikings (probably) discovered America a thousand years ago. That doesn't mean the
Minnesota football team cannot call itself Vikings. But it does NOT mean all those football
players are REAL Vikings, even though some of their ancestors may have been real
Vikings.
No, you go do your own homework.
> If King Sargon II of Assyria carried off 29,270 from the Northern Kingdom, and their population was estimated at 400,000-500,000 at the time, then isn't it true that many of the Northern Kingdom inhabitants were absorbed into the Kingdom of Judah?
No, because we don't know if Sargons numbers are for a single raid or for several of them. We do know that The Northern Kingdom was not evacuated as one unit, but it was conquered over a number of years. Our lack of his total numbers is not an excuse to ASSUME (thereby becoming someones fact) that they went back to Judah to be part of that diaspora. The Northern Kingdom had it's own diaspora.
Furthur, the Northern Kingdom numer of COMBATANTS was closer to 800,000. Using the Standard Mutiplier of x6 to account for the women, children and old folk, their total number was closer to 5 million.
> If only 50,000 from the Southern Kingdom returned to Palestine, why are the remaining Southern Kingdom diasporites not called Jews as well?
Aren't they?
> Also, can you tell us where they settled? Iberia, Greece, Turkey, Egypt?
No better than you can. Besides, its off the subject and not my problem (or interest) since it all occurs after 500 BC. However, it does make sense to me (and probably you) that IF these people returned to Jerusalem they would be accepted as Jews by their fellow Jews. Fine with me. Isn't that what's happening now?
Your claim that I am making just anyone a Jew falls flat: only about 16 million persons alive on Earth today make it past my qualifications, and I myself am not one of them!
The only persons who disagree with me are religious cultists, Christian or Jewish, with some axe or other to grind. --in their attempts to include or exclude some favored or disfavored group...
I realize that Halakha ties things heavily to the mother, and I am fully aware of the need for certain persons to "convert" if it is their dad that was Jewish, but none of that affects the street or daily-paper definition.
There are about 16 million persons in the world who meet my definition, and I will bet that fewer than a million borderline cases exist to be argued about by cultic hair splitters.
PS In antiquity, Jewishness went by the father however, the change was made in the medieval era, in antiquity it went by the father like Islam does today.
My writing specifically had the context and purpose of addressing those who think one has to be genetically a descendant of Jacob and thus of one of his twelve sons (tribes) to be a Jew. I pointed out that this is now totally confused, and there must be many or most Jews today who are not biologically primarily descended from the sons of Jacob, but from any of the various others I mentioned.
Similarly, I pointed out that many of the sons of Jacob intermarried into Gentile nations and were lost there, and not just the "TEN" tribes, but Judeans too! God will have to sort this out himself, with the possible help of Elijah, in the Messianic era.
Until that era comes, my definition is the one to go with, and it excludes cultisms Christian or Jewish or otherwise.
There's about as many different theories about the Ten Tribes as there are authors. I thought "Lost Tribes Found!" was a waste of money, so I'm not in a hurry to buy any more Lost Tribes books soon. I'm more interested in learning about the Crypto-Jews/anusim/forced converso Jews/whatever-you-want-to-call-them, and those researchers are documenting their information and theories for free on the internet so I'll frugally (frugal with money, but much more frugal with time) concentrate on that for now.
It has occurred to me, that in this battle between good and evil, God and Satan, the UN is Satan's vehicle. I recall that Satan is compelled to (try to)duplicate God's work, only to fail in the end. And was not the creation and destruction of Isreal God's work?
Just a thought. Go Isreal.
Wow, that's heavyweight stuff! A DICTIONARY yet. Is it the Jr. High School version...
>The only persons who disagree with me are religious cultists, Christian or Jewish, with some axe or other to grind.
Didn't Adolph Hitler say something like that? It's sounds like you are in good company.
I'm not, and never have been functioning at the "slang" level. Nor at the "propaganda" level. The only thing that's clear is that you have never read my Profile, or you are quite incapable of understanding what you read. My Profile begins with:
This site is about HISTORY, both Archeological and Biblical
Kindly stick to the subject. I am not interested in your philosophical fantasies using a "Dictionary" as the primary reference.
Not really, but there are a number of "authors" who seem to be deliberately clouding the issue by making sure the Lost Tribes are never found. I wonder in who's interest it is that the Lost Tribes not be found?
For all you need to know about the Lost Tribes of Israel just actually READ MY PROFILE. What you find there is no fantasy. It reads easily, and tells the basic story with the basic facts. And it is backed up by a whole lot of good historical and archeological research, not just agenda-driven opinions.
I've laid out the case quite clearly. It's there for you to accept or reject, but not until you have honestly looked at the evidence.
Judah: Tribe of King Messiah!
Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Gen. 49:8-10
I wonder in who's interest it is that the Lost Tribes not be found?
Well, I don't think its a Tribe of Jewdah conspiracy because they need all the help they can get. Lost Jews of Mexico, Come on Over!
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What? The Lost Tribes of Israel not Jewish? 
