Legislating morality

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Oddly enough, you quote only what supports your soup de jour. Given the choice between two paragraphs on the link provided, you quote but one, leaving the second of the two (which offers a completely different take on the passages) languishing in the shadows.

Oh well. That just harmonizes with your usual MO. Kinda like your characterization of "exper ...[text shortened]... s" when citing the work of but two people. Gotta hand it to you, though: 'two' is plural!

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]Can you fathom a scientific advance so incontrovertible that you would reject a literal element
of Scripture (on any topic: creation, the flood, evolution, whatever)?

This is a simple 'yes' or 'no' question.

My answer to this one is 'yes.' What is yours?

The assumption here is that science would be able to produce some sort of 'proof' ...[text shortened]... But some, like you, have not given up hope. My hope is placed otherwise.[/b]

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Actually your frantic search provided you with the exact opposite of what the most reliable texts reveal. Keep searching, though. You're bound to get somewhere.

Originally posted by Nemesio
Gonna try ONE more time:

Can you fathom a scientific advance so incontrovertible that you would reject a literal element
of Scripture (on any topic: creation, the flood, evolution, whatever)?

'Yes' or 'No.'

Nemesio

Originally posted by Nemesio
I think you are answering my question by your actions.

Presented with a contradiction, you conclude to read the Hebrew in a
way which avoids the contradiction, despite the fact that such a reading
is an inconsistent application and, more notably, that Jewish
scholars of their Scripture have made a specific point to clarify the
reading which le ...[text shortened]... lwedge your closed-minded viewpoint is not closed minded either.

Thanks for playing!
Nemesio

Originally posted by whodey
My question is can we legislate morality? Could this happen with gay marriage? Today polls show that the majority of Americans oppose gay marriage. If the Supreme Court makes it legal, however, will America then embrace it as they do abortion today in a few decades or so?

Of course there are Jews who no little, if any, Hebrew. But No.1 is right: rabbinical Judaism has recognized the fact that Biblical Hebrew not only allows, but indeed insists upon, multiple interpretations. For example—

“The scroll of the Torah is written without vowels, so you can read it variously. Without vowels, the consonants bear many meanings and splinter into sparks. That is why the Torah scroll must not be vowelized, for the meaning of each word accords with its vowels. Once vowelized, a word means just one thing. Without vowels, you can understand it in countless, wondrous ways.”

—Bahya ben Asher (13th-14th centuries), quoted in Daniel Matt, The Essential Kabbalah.

Also: “The Torah scroll may not be vowelized—so that we can interpret every single word according to every possible reading.” (Jacob ben Sheshet, quoted by Matt in a footnote to the above quote.)

Of course, the Masoretes, by deciding on vowel-pointing, decided the standard or conventional interpretation for the “plain reading” ( ha p’shat). This vowel-pointing shows up in the printed texts, but the Torah scrolls remain unpointed.

There are lots of examples in Midrash and Talmud and Kabbalistic texts such as ha Zohar that go something like: “Do not read [word with standard vowel-pointing]. Rather, read [alternative word with changed vowel-pointing].”

According to Marc-Alain Ouaknin, in The Burnt Book: Reading the Talmud— “The Book [i.e., Torah] of the beginning is illegible and meaningless. Before the book can be read, it must be composed; the reader is actually a creator. Reading becomes an activity, a production. And so an infinity of books are constantly present in the Book [Torah]. There is not one story but many stories.

“The first function of the reader is to introduce breaks between the letters to form words; between certain words to produce sentences….”

I have to say that, although he has argued with me, Freaky has never attacked my midrashic methodology in dealing with the texts. We do disagree on the availability of a “one right meaning,” and his exegesis is driven from within a Christian paradigm, whereas mine is not.

Nemesio, you once corrected me on my misunderstanding of such terms as literal, inerrant and infallible—but I forget... 🙁 Perhaps that would be helpful here (it would for me anyway.)

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Gonna answer one more time. What type of incontrovertible evidence are you imagining as able to offer the proof you are suggesting?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Cute.

Forget the multiple texts which support the interpretation already provided, and (instead) attack the person providing the same as subjective. God forbid that you turn your laser-like analytical abilities toward the myriad (oops, I mean 'two'😉 Jewish (hey: who knows Hebrew better than a Jew, right? ) scholars (unquestionable, as they are cited ...[text shortened]... ght... but you probably have no problem with them, right? Now, who, exactly, has the agenda?

Originally posted by vistesd
Of course there are Jews who no little, if any, Hebrew. But No.1 is right: rabbinical Judaism has recognized the fact that Biblical Hebrew not only allows, but indeed insists upon, multiple interpretations. For example—

“The scroll of the Torah is written without vowels, so you can read it variously. Without vowels, the consonants bear many meanings a ...[text shortened]... d infallible—but I forget... 🙁 Perhaps that would be helpful here (it would for me anyway.)

Originally posted by Nemesio
Clearly the answer is 'no.' You cannot fathom it.

Just one follow-up question: Is it because of your lack of intelligence, imagination, or
simply the fear that letting go of the mythology of Scripture?

Nemesio

Originally posted by Nemesio
Snore......

The tighter you clutch onto the literal words of the Bible, the more you choke yourself.

But, hey, auto-erotic intellectual asphyxiation works for some guys.

I prefer to draw conclusions from a tabla rasa rather than a priori assumptions
like you, however.

Nemesio

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]I prefer to draw conclusions from a tabla rasa rather than a priori assumptions like you, however.

Sure you do. That's why you automatically accepted the interpretation of two proclaimed scholars on the passage, without even a glance in the direction of source documents. You have an assumed position that doesn't allow you to consider anything else.[/b]

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Here's your follow-up answer, as you continue to avoid the first one. I'm not sure if it's due to your inability to read and/or comprehend, or if it's just because I'm doing a really poor job of getting my point across, but your follow-up question has already been answered.

Remember a few posts back wherein I told how I had previously held that the Bib ...[text shortened]... pouse now, do you really think it could be fear holding me where I sit now?

You decide.

Originally posted by Nemesio
Here's a way you can get your point across: answer the question!

Are you opened to the idea that the Bible may not be meant to read
literally?