Replies

I know that his Jewish contemporaries found him to be undesirable and I can see why. If he rode into town preaching some of the stuff that he said in his letters, he’d be considered quite offensive. (Just his take on women... sheesh! Jewish women always found power in their femininity and his suggestion that women sit down and shut up is really quite insulting.) Back then, Jewish women could divorce their husbands (for good reason), ruled their households, and sometimes ran businesses and managed the financials. (And we still do.)

I don't know what brand if Judaism you follow, but it's very unlikely the ancient Jews would have taken issue with Paul or Christ on the subject of women, seeing as how they were the ones with the actually negative views all around, such as in their old prayer (still used today) wherein they thank God for being born a man an not a beast, a Israelite and not a Gentile, a man and not a woman, and free and not a slave.

It was very likely that Paul was responding to this prayer when he wrote:

Gal_3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

As for divorce and the Talmud: "According to the Talmud, only the husband can initiate a divorce, and the wife cannot prevent him from divorcing her. Later rabbinical authorities took steps to ease the harshness of these rules by prohibiting a man from divorcing a woman without her consent. In addition, a rabbinical court can compel a husband to divorce his wife under certain circumstances: when he is physically repulsive because of some medical condition or other characteristic, when he violates or neglects his marital obligations (food, clothing and sexual intercourse), or, according to some views, when there is sexual incompatibility."

Furthermore, "Under Jewish law, a man can divorce a woman for any reason or no reason. The Talmud specifically says that a man can divorce a woman because she spoiled his dinner or simply because he finds another woman more attractive, and the woman's consent to the divorce is not required. In fact, Jewish law requires divorce in some circumstances: when the wife commits a sexual transgression, a man must divorce her, even if he is inclined to forgive her."

http://www.jewfaq.org/divorce.htm

This divorce for "any reason or no reason" of the Hillel school, with the husbands having the ability to put away their wife at a whim, in fact, was something Christ spoke out against Himself:

"The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." (Mat 19:3-6)

Your religion is not the feminist paradise you are making it sound like.

While it is true that divorce (except for fornication) is a sin in Christianity, this is not an oppressive view against women. It is simply a higher view of marriage.

Our ancestors were just as rational and thinking as we are and the didn’t make such decisions lightly.

Really? Your religion spends a great deal of time dictating different ways on how to take a pee, even charging that if you have sex too soon afterwards, your kid will have epilepsy, because the demon of epilepsy hooks gets you if he catches you breaking the rule:

"The Rabbis taught: 'On coming from a privy (outdoor toilet) a man should not have sexual intercourse till he has waited long enough to walk half a mile, because the demon of the privy is with him for that time; if he does, his children will be epileptic.'" (Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 70a)

And you expect me to believe that the reason why you are not a Christian is because Judaism is so much more rational than the rest of us?

"I don't know what brand if Judaism you follow, but it's very unlikely the ancient Jews would have taken issue with Paul or Christ on the subject of women, seeing as how they were the ones with the actually negative views all around, such as in their old prayer (still used today) wherein they thank God for being born a man an not a beast, a Israelite and not a Gentile, a man and not a woman, and free and not a slave." First of all, that prayer was adopted from the greeks and modified in the second century. It isn't in the Torah. We have many, many prayers. There's one we said every Friday in the Shul for American and Israeli soldiers. It's our local tradition to say that prayer, but the prayer's only a few years old. Second, Jewish men have many more religious obligations than the women ever did (because women didn't *need* to do these things to be closer to Gd). Most men feel grateful for these obligations. Yes. Jews have always had 'no-fault divorce'. So does America. As for the epilepsy thing, I can honestly say that I've never heard of that. I tried to look it up, and all I found was the charge on a bunch of anti-Semitic websites. You did make me curious and I'll keep researching until I find the original source. Many of the 'weird' traditions have been proven to be beneficial for health. (IE: the rule that a couple can't have sex until a woman's gone a week without bleeding protects her in many ways. Cleaning the house once a year. "Kashering" the counters by running boiling water over them.) Some of the stranger ones (like tying your shoelaces in a specific order) are designed to ingrain Gd into your everyday life. To make the Jew ever-mindful that we are children of Gd with every task. Yes, you're supposed to think of Gd when you tie your shoes. It also reminds us that we're not Gentiles. We're 'other' and these traditions help us to maintain our unique identity. (Really tough since the Diaspora.) And no, I never claimed that Judaism was 'feminist'. Judaism does respect women for what they are. We don't try to make women into men or vice versa. We each have our one roles to play. Want an idea of how ancient Jews saw women? Look at Ester, Rebecca, Sara, Deborah, and Rachel. “Whatever Sarah tells you,” G‑d told Abraham, “listen to her.” (Genesis 21:12) These women were revered. (And many times they were rewarded for running over the men.)