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Amazing how the two main heroes of the OT were both murderers?
Moses and David
The ancient world was a violent place. In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna counsels Arjuna that deaths on the battlefield are merely "shedding of bodies" and in essence encourages him to continue a "just war" that will kill relatives of his. (Although some interpret it differently)
Also it was to some degree deemed necessary for the Jewish people to remain "pure" in order to survive. Other societies as ancient as the Jews often assimilate and lose their distinctiveness, particularly if they've been conquered as often as the Jews. Some things they did to maintain distinctiveness may not make sense to us now, but were effective and comprehensible for the era.
I started a thread on the "Book of Jasher", but I was meaning the lost book. In mainstream Christianity and historical study it's considered to be a book quoted in a couple books of the Bible that was lost to history.
I hadn't really intended it as a spur for someone to tout a claimant of the lost book, but I did know of the possibility. I can neither confirm nor deny whether the book said person means is THE "Book of Jasher", as I've not investigated the matter, but I would generally lean toward saying it's not. I think if it were it would have much more mainstream support in Christian study and academia. (So far as I can tell it's main support is in Mormon circles) Especially as it's been known for decades or centuries.
If he or she wishes to believe in it that's fine, but I think it's problematic to use it as evidence of anything to a mixed audience. Besides there's sufficient evidence, from respectable sources, that Horus is not that similar to Jesus. For that matter there's sufficient evidence to show Mithra is not as similar as claimed either. You don't need to look into books whose validity is not widely accepted.
YSM is quoting from the fraud printed in the late 1700's. The publisher who wrote it admitted to the fraud and spent a few years in the slammer for it.
Also it was to some degree deemed necessary for the Jewish people to remain "pure" in order to survive. Other societies as ancient as the Jews often assimilate and lose their distinctiveness, particularly if they've been conquered as often as the Jews. Some things they did to maintain distinctiveness may not make sense to us now, but were effective and comprehensible for the era.
You know, I can understand that in relation to human nature and the subsequent pattern of history. Now when you toss a "god" in the mix and claim he/she/it said to do it is when I start having problems. Just admit that as a people you wanted other people's land and used propaganda ("they are wicked and evil and might influence us with their weapons of moral destruction") to get it. That would far more honest than saying, "And the Lord spoke to Moses and said, go kill all those evil, wicked people. Loot their land, split up the booty and keep all the virgin girls for yourself and don't forget to kill all the male children while you're at it because they made us do bad things."
YSM is quoting from the fraud printed in the late 1700's. The publisher who wrote it admitted to the fraud and spent a few years in the slammer for it.
You are making an outright lying slanderous accusation which I have pointed out to you before.
There is no connection to the real book of Jasher which I link to @ Book of Jasher, translated by 1840 to English, and which is without any contradiction to anything in the OT and which correlates with the OT, and which makes the OT understood in many obscure places, for "behold, it is written in the Book of Jasher".
There are frauds of everything, and this is not that which you are trying to pass off as the one linked to.
http://www.ccel.org/a/anonymous/jasher/real.htmIs (broken link) it possible that someone created this book as a clever fraud, by appropriating the name of the Biblical Jasher to give the work credibility? There are, of course, many examples of such pious counterfeits from the early new testament period. Could someone have fabricated this book by incorporating a huge number of additional details into the framework of Bible stories, and do it with such accuracy as to be convincing? It is remotely conceivable that some writer of the rabbinical period could have gathered a vast array of those stories, as are common in rabbinical writings, and incorporated them into this work in a framework to, in some way, add credibility to the stories. But such a scenario seems very unlikely, since rabbinical writings have a great deal of credibility otherwise, and no major effort of promoting this book for that purpose has ever occurred.
It is hard to imagine that this book would be counterfeited for that purpose or any other. There is simply no motive for such an act. In any case, if this were true, it is such a masterful job as to be a very valuable work in it's own right. The accuracy and credibility of this supposed Pseudo-Jasher is absolute genius. If this be a forgery it is a marvelous one.
Such a fraudulent writer would not have needed to add so much detail into the account to be convincing. The more details he drew from his imagination, the greater his chances of making some glaring error that would give away his deception. A faker would certainly have written a much shorter work and left out unnecessary details. In actuality, we have a wonderful example of just such a fraud. I have in my possession three different works that go by the title Sepher Hayasher or The Book of Jasher. This first is, of course, this book. The second is the 13th century ethical treatise that I mentioned earlier. It makes no claim to being the Biblical Jasher and would never be taken for it. The third book is widely recognized for the fraud that it is. It has been republished by the Rosicrucian Order. It claims to have been discovered by Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus, Abbot of Canterbury in the 8th century, while on a pilgrimage. It is the briefest outline of the first six books of the Bible, consisting of about 70 pages of large print. It contains no useful details, and only the barest account of the familiar Hebrew stories. It seems to have been prepared hastily and with little attention to detail. The most obvious feature is that it claims to be the work of a man named Jasher who was the son of Caleb and one of the Judges of Israel. This seems to be its entire reason for existence. It is clear that the author had no real knowledge of Hebrew and failed to recognize that Jasher is not a proper noun. It is not anybody's name. It rather carries the meaning of the upright book or the faithful record. Clearly this book is a fake. It has all the characteristics that you would expect to see in a forgery. It is very brief and contains no unique information except the one thing that is so absurd as to expose it as a hoax. So the contrast between that imitation and this book is very telling. It is easy to see which is genuine.
Finally, consider how Josephus described the Book of Jasher. He said "by this book are to be understood certain records kept in some safe place on purpose, giving an account of what happened among the Hebrews from year to year, and called Jasher or the upright, on account of the fidelity of the annals." There could be no better description of the book you see before you. The bottom line is that you, as the reader, will have to answer the question of legitimacy for yourself. Whichever side of that issue you take, I think that you will be enlightened by exploring the issue and by reading the book. If you feel as I do, that this book has the powerful credentials to commend it as the biblical Book of Jasher, you will now have in your hands an additional source to investigate when studying the Bible. You will also have much food for thought in regard to the issues of conventional chronology in ancient times.
Stop lying, and I ask you to retract your lies against what I am posting from. -and you brought it up!
The ancient world was a violent place. In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna counsels Arjuna that deaths on the battlefield are merely "shedding of bodies" and in essence encourages him to continue a "just war" that will kill relatives of his. (Although some interpret it differently)
Also it was to some degree deemed necessary for the Jewish people to remain "pure" in order to survive. Other societies as ancient as the Jews often assimilate and lose their distinctiveness, particularly if they've been conquered as often as the Jews. Some things they did to maintain distinctiveness may not make sense to us now, but were effective and comprehensible for the era.
This is a common apologetic in that "back then" folk were more violent. I would offer that as an untruth as folk today and even in the last century have shown us they can be just as barbaric.
Moses killed and David killed by proxy. Both are lauded as biblical heroes. Yet in Xianity/Judaism, both get a free pass.
It does not help to purport that folk then were more violent than modern man - that I am afraid is a myth. How about genocides in the last 20 years?
You are making an outright lying slanderous accusation which I have pointed out to you before.
There is no connection to the real book of Jasher which I link to @ Book of Jasher, translated by 1840 to English, and which is without any contradiction to anything in the OT and which correlates with the OT, and which makes the OT understood in many obscure places, for "behold, it is written in the Book of Jasher".
There are frauds of everything, and this is not that which you are trying to pass off as the one linked to.
From the introduction:Stop lying, and I ask you to retract your lies against what I am posting from. -and you brought it up!
Riiight, an oped piece by a student at Calvin College? It's probrably your own work.
And how, pray tell, can a book forever lost be "translated from the original Hebrew in 1840?" and then first printed in 1887 by a Mormon printer? Mormons aren't renowned for their honesty where scripture and archeology are concerned. And how, pray tell, are HEBREWS from the BCE era going to use the MIDEIVAL Hebrew names for countries and places, like Franza and Lumbardi.
Well, I will have to admit you are correct in one case. You aren't using the first fraud I mentioned, you are merely using a second, seperate fraud.
This is a common apologetic in that "back then" folk were more violent. I would offer that as an untruth as folk today and even in the last century have shown us they can be just as barbaric.
Really? Hmm I got it from a secular anthropologist. I think the one who studied the Yanomamo of Venezuela and Brazil.
Modern barbarism can be just as lethal, or moreso, but that's in part due to there being more people and more efficient weapons. A real totalitarianism was difficult in ancient times because people didn't have a mass-media to indoctrinate or spy in the same way. Killing millions at a time was much harder before machine guns.
Still the stuff Romans or Assyrians did, pretty commonly, outdoes even the Sudanese in many ways. And the Sudanese are more primitive. Take a developed nation, even a more military-oriented one like Israel, and you really don't see anything like what BC-era Mideastern peoples did.
Plausibly a big part of this is that death is less a part of our life. Our life-expectancy is considerably longer and infant mortality rarer. A world where kids often die anyway and those who lived to seventy suffer from crippling injuries might not value life in the same way. I'm hesitant to say that, but it seems logical.
Uhh no, actually our laws are based on English Common Law which in turn was derived from Roman Law.
Our Constitution is a secular document created by secular minded Deists and freethinkers. It is not in any way religious.
FAIL
No, no ... that fail is with you ... in failing to take the basic principles far enough back in time. There is a reason why the ten commandments have graced the halls of courtrooms across our nation. Go back to your history classes and keep studying.
No, no ... that fail is with you ... in failing to take the basic principles far enough back in time. There is a reason why the ten commandments have graced the halls of courtrooms across our nation. Go back to your history classes and keep studying.
The first TC's were not put in place in our court rooms until the 1930's, first placed on the SCOTUS building when it was built.
In 2003, the notion that religious icons were allowable on public buildings came to a head with the removal from the bench of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore for refusing a Federal Judge's orders to remove his TC display.
What I could never fully realize was how judges, such as Moore, could consider themselves above the Law. Our Constitution forbids such displays on public property, a concept worn away over the centuries of our history and largley ignored during the first half of the last century.
This Nation is once again on track to returning the idea of Secular Law as put in place by our Founders.
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