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I don't think it was just a poetic device. I think it really indicated a distaste for the intricacies of Torah law and a desire to chuck it all and be more immediately responsive to what people wanted.
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starLisa, I believe that the sentiment was there in Jesus' words, however the repetitive nature of the quotation in Matthew 23 definitely seems to be somewhat poetic as well.
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Sure, that's true. It just sounded as though you were labeling it as only poetic. Every charismatic leader I've ever heard of had set phrases that were used over and over. Catchphrases, I suppose you could call them.
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Actually, I don't believe he ever existed. I think he's a fictional character; an amalgam of several messianic figures we know about from around that time.
We know of a Yeshua the Notzri who lived about a hundred years before the character of JC, and he had 5 disciples, some of whom had names similar to some of the 12. Notzri didn't mean someone from Nazareth, though. There's no evidence that there was ever a city called Nazareth until Queen Helene dropped by to find historical sites from the Christian scriptures.
No Orthodox Jews consider him a prophet. Not one. Those who think he existed consider him to have been either a bad person or a person who tried to be good in the wrong ways.
We don't even consider him to have been a knowledgeable teacher, let alone a prophet.
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Sort of like Paul. Paul here, not Saul/Paul. Some people just don't want to be constrained by the law, so they rebel. And since they don't want to feel guilty, they construct a framework in which the law is guilty and they aren't.
Come to think of it, Saul/Paul fits that as well.
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Something tells me starLisa has never read the New Testament; although read plenty of people's opinions of it, including popular secterian interpretations. Why do I think that? Because, just like she said about my understanding of Torah as less than stellar, I think her understanding of Christianity is surface.
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Ok, and starlisa and bannoj have no clue about what I'm talking, which probably means I'm not clearly making my point (though I've given up on lisa. Saw too much of her on ornery, and then the terrorism thread, to give much credence to the possibility she has an open mind. Thats probably offensive, but so be it).
My point isn't that there should be a de-emphasis on law and ritual. My point is that simply because one interpretation of the law became dominant in the years preceeding and following jesus's life, does not mean its the only possible interpretation. Reform and conservative judaism try to understand ritual, and the law, through the torah (both oral and written), and have come to different interpretations then whichever orthodox sect Lisa belongs to.
The fact lisa claims that hers is the only legitimate sect DOES NOT MAKE THIS TRUE. In fact, it probably makes her wrong, since the judaic tradition has ALWAYS questioned the text, and tried to understand current practices in light of the torah.
Lisa's claim that conservative and reform jews have never interpreted torah in a strict fashion is downright false. There are literally hundreds of thousands of american jews who stay in reform or conservative congregations all their lives, and as they get older, interpret the law to mean that they should do more then they did as children within their family context.
Law and ritual are IMPORTANT. But the orthodox jews do not have a monopoly on what the correct laws and rituals are. They've stagnated. Reform and conservative movements brought some much needed life to jewish debate. Lisa's statement that reform and conservative jews are as dangerous as baal worshippers is simply ludicrous.
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"Sort of like Paul. Paul here, not Saul/Paul. Some people just don't want to be constrained by the law, so they rebel. And since they don't want to feel guilty, they construct a framework in which the law is guilty and they aren't."
It doesn't matter to me, personally, either way. I think religion is dumb as nails, regardless of the religion. I'm not going to feel guilty regardless of whether I eat a cheeseburger, drive a car on the sabbth, or whatever. I'm not going to be restrained by Judaic law no matter who is doing the interpreting. So your statement about my motivations is wrong. Kindly don't speculate on my motivations again.
But its not dumb as nails to a lot of people I know who are conservative or reform, who do their utmost to understand the law god gave us... and don't think orthodox jews are even remotely correct in interpreting that law, because in their view, the law as interpreted by the orthodox community distances us from god, rather then drawing us nearer to understanding god.
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: Something tells me starLisa has never read the New Testament; although read plenty of people's opinions of it, including popular secterian interpretations. Why do I think that? Because, just like she said about my understanding of Torah as less than stellar, I think her understanding of Christianity is surface.
I think you'd be surprised. When I went off to college, I decided to look into it. It wasn't that I had any reason to think there was anything to Christianity. But you know, there are a lot of y'all. And I certainly wasn't going to hear anything positive about it in school or at home.
It's interesting. One of the things that sharpened my interest in Judaism was this professor I had for Jewish History from Antiquity. He was so offensive, with his JEDP sources and all, that I felt compelled to argue with him. And since I didn't want to make a fool out of myself (and on the off chance that he had a point), I spent a lot of time in libraries boning up on the material.
Something similar happened with Christianity. Every spring when I was in college, a group calling itself Jews for Jesus [sic] showed up trying to convert Jews. Washington University in St. Louis had about 5000 undergrads, about 2000 of whom were Jewish. If the J4J were mice, we were a big pile of cheese.
I spent a lot of time doing battle with them. I remember once, the Hillel House did a "brown bag lunch" with a discussion on the topic of "The Jews' Rejection of Jesus". I nearly failed a Chem exam that evening.
The J4J showed up to heckle, which they did in the back. At the end, a few of us stuck around to argue. All of them, I mean, but a few of us Jewish types. After about an hour, all of our people had left except for me and this guy who'd gone to Wash U and then went to Israel to learn in a yeshiva (seminary). He was just back visiting.
Two hours later, he begged off as well. The J4Jers... well, there were 7 or 8 of them, as I recall, and they played it tag team. Two or 3 of them in the room at any given time, trading off to stay fresh, and to force us to redo points we'd already covered.
The thing was, not one of us had throught to bring a book. Not a Bible to be found. Not them and not us. So we were doing this all from memory.
I'll never forget one particular half-hour stretch when they were throwing quotes from Paul at me, and I was batting them down with quotes from the Gospels. Ah, those sweet college days...
Anyway, it doesn't pay to assume, Occasional.
Mind you, I wouldn't have nearly as much of a problem with Christianity if it didn't claim to be coming out of Judaism (to say nothing of "fulfilling" it). There are very few things more horrifying to the human psyche than a near duplicate of ones own self that has grown malignant and deadly. You must understand that that's what Christianity has been to us.
And just like Paul's Conservative Movement, it never met any of the criteria from within. In Paul's case, it substituted numbers. They figure that if they have a lot of members, it doesn't matter whether they ever made their case. In the case of Christianity, pretty much the same thing was done, but they had more than just numbers. They had a lot of swords as well.
Swords can be very convincing, you know. But we're a stiffnecked people. For good and for ill. They just weren't convincing enough.
Just to reiterate, never assume that just because someone disagrees, they must not know enough. I drew that conclusion about Paul because I was Conservative and I know a ton of Conservative Jews, all of whom have been maleducated as Paul has been. The quotes I posted... I can virtually guarantee you that Paul had never heard that stuff before. And that's not his fault. It's the fault of his (mis)leaders.
You don't know me well enough to draw such conclusions about me.
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: "Sort of like Paul. Paul here, not Saul/Paul. Some people just don't want to be constrained by the law, so they rebel. And since they don't want to feel guilty, they construct a framework in which the law is guilty and they aren't."
It doesn't matter to me, personally, either way. I think religion is dumb as nails, regardless of the religion. I'm not going to feel guilty regardless of whether I eat a cheeseburger, drive a car on the sabbth, or whatever. I'm not going to be restrained by Judaic law no matter who is doing the interpreting. So your statement about my motivations is wrong. Kindly don't speculate on my motivations again.
Thanks, Paul. I couldn't have said it better myself.
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"Thanks, Paul. I couldn't have said it better myself."
You probably couldn't have, but that doesn't mean you understand. I don't think you do.
" I drew that conclusion about Paul because I was Conservative and I know a ton of Conservative Jews, all of whom have been maleducated as Paul has been. The quotes I posted... I can virtually guarantee you that Paul had never heard that stuff before. And that's not his fault. It's the fault of his (mis)leaders."
Wrong on all counts. I wasn't raised in a conservative home, I was raised in a non-religious home that became reform, and as of may my mother is an ordained rabbi. And I've seen almost all the quotes you've posted.
And, like you, I may have been misled by my teachers. My teachers, however, are the actual texts and my own brain, rather then teachers. Whats your excuse for not having a clue on what conservative judaism is?
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I'm seriously considering changing the thread title to more appropriately describe the current conversation, but all the good titles I can come up with are really snarky. I'm not sure I want to be as snarky publicly as you guys are making me feel.
Possible new titles:
"Condescension Smackdown 2005" "Torah Wars" "I Know Your Religion Better Than You Do"
quote:In the case of Christianity, pretty much the same thing was done, but they had more than just numbers. They had a lot of swords as well.
In the beginning, they weren't the ones with the swords. And the swords didn't work on them, then.
You do realize that they were persecuted in the beginning, not as Christians, but as a troublesome group of Jews. Right?
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: And, like you, I may have been misled by my teachers. My teachers, however, are the actual texts and my own brain, rather then teachers. Whats your excuse for not having a clue on what conservative judaism is?
How can you say that I don't have a clue about what the Conservative movement is when I say they don't believe in the revelation at Sinai, and you do, and then I bring actual written proof that you were wrong?
Is this an alternate reality kind of thing?
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I apologize, mr_porteiro_head. I would have been fine had Paul not first started making claims about Judaism.
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This orthodox/reform argument in Judaic thought actually has a lot of parallels between the fundamentalist/liberal argument in modern Christian thought. In fact some of them almost feel "fill in the blank" and you could swap it to the other religion.
AJ
P.S. Tom... I got a Chick Tract from my Uncle in the mail yesterday. I'm saving it for your file.
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Any grandma letters recently Banna? It's been a while since I've heard you mention getting any, but I could have just been in the wrong threads or something.
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Yeah I've been getting them. Just coping better. And she hasn't been writing it out herself, just mostly underlining the inserts, which are getting increasingly acerbic.
AJ (the last insert from her, was a flyer on "apostates are going to hell") (it originated from these lovely folks: http://www.swrc.com/subscriptions/po/ )
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Yeah, God forbid someone make claims about Judaism. Literally.
Oh, stop. I mean that he was making claims about Judaism when he was only talking within the context of a breakaway movement that's barely a century old. If he wants to talk about his movement, fine. But since that movement has a track record of lying to its members about the Judaism it broke away from, it'd be better if he didn't make claims about that.
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That's too bad Banna--I hoped that she was letting up a bit. Glad to hear that you're handling it better though.
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