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From my research Ezra the Scribe seems to be the guy that collected and consolidated all of the written and oral histories and put it all down in writing. He is also the one that put into place many safeguards in place so that it was copied correctly.
The problem is that the the Tanakh is full of contradictions and examples of just terrible behavior like slaughtering every man woman and child of towns they conquered except virgins were kept as plunder, and stoning your son if he gives you lip. Evangelical Christians who take the Bible literally are pretty intolerant and unyielding in social matters like abortion and gay marriage, while most Jews are pretty laid back. Is that because Jews have learned that it is best to ignore all of the cruel and harsh punishments and behaviors and accept the Tanakh as an inspirational but metaphorical story not to be taken literally?
From my research Ezra the Scribe seems to be the guy that collected and consolidated all of the written and oral histories and put it all down in writing. He is also the one that put into place many safeguards in place so that it was copied correctly.
The problem is that the the Tanakh is full of contradictions and examples of just terrible behavior like slaughtering every man woman and child of towns they conquered except virgins were kept as plunder, and stoning your son if he gives you lip. Evangelical Christians who take the Bible literally are pretty intolerant and unyielding in social matters like abortion and gay marriage, while most Jews are pretty laid back. Is that because Jews have learned that it is best to ignore all of the cruel and harsh punishments and behaviors and accept the Tanakh as an inspirational but metaphorical story not to be taken literally?
...Is that because Jews have learned that it is best to ignore all of the cruel and harsh punishments and behaviors and accept the Tanakh as an inspirational but metaphorical story not to be taken literally?
Yes. It happened during the Jewish Enlightenment (google it, and google Moses Mendelssohn, the composer's grandfather), and continues to this day.
Before that, we were as f*cked up as anybody else. In some ways we still are, but not in terms of interpreting Iron Age mythology literally.
From my research Ezra the Scribe seems to be the guy that collected and consolidated all of the written and oral histories and put it all down in writing. He is also the one that put into place many safeguards in place so that it was copied correctly.
The problem is that the the Tanakh is full of contradictions and examples of just terrible behavior like slaughtering every man woman and child of towns they conquered except virgins were kept as plunder, and stoning your son if he gives you lip. Evangelical Christians who take the Bible literally are pretty intolerant and unyielding in social matters like abortion and gay marriage, while most Jews are pretty laid back. Is that because Jews have learned that it is best to ignore all of the cruel and harsh punishments and behaviors and accept the Tanakh as an inspirational but metaphorical story not to be taken literally?
Interesting question
I look at it as a choice that Israel made, not God.
My opinion is that when Moses broke the first law, he brought another law the second time.
The Shulamite’s Brothers
We have a little sister,
And she has no breasts.
What shall we do for our sister
In the day when she is spoken for?
If she is a wall,
We will build upon her
A battlement of silver;
And if she is a door,
We will enclose her
With boards of cedar.
The Shulamite
I am a wall,
And my breasts like towers;
Then I became in his eyes
As one who found peace.
Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon;
He leased the vineyard to keepers;
Everyone was to bring for its fruit
A thousand silver coins.
I think that if Moses had come down that mountain and not found Israel committing adultery, they would have been like the angel standing before God, and given a battlement of silver{spirit}.
I think they chose the work of their hands instead of the power of God, and so God gave them a law of flesh to let them try and rule the world by might, and it was shown to them what they must do because it's what they chose.
I THINK that God has let Israel struggle by their own might most of this time, but sooner or later God is going to come and change Israel into something wonderful, something they would have obtained at the mountain had they not built that calf of Gold.
I THINK{Somebody correct me if I am wrong} that the plan was not to build an ark of the covenant in the first go round, but when the first law was broken and a second one made, Moses had to then build an ark of the covenant.
Deuteronomy 10
At that time the Lord said to me, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to me on the mountain. Also make a wooden ark. will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Then you are to put them in the ark.”
Those were real people and real events. G-d wrote the book. Moses taught it to his students and it's been taught to successive generations in an unbroken chain of transmission for the last 3300 years. I'm reading the same words as Moses.
Yes, guys like Mendohlssen have tried to assassinate the collective Jewish soul with their "enlightened" approach to Judaism. But enlightened Jews are typically only a generation or two away from being Chrstians. Not really a self-sustaining model. Torah Judaism (those who look at the Torah literally) is now 3300 years old and hasn't been this strong and growing in centuries.
Just read a nice little summary of how the bible developed. It is an interview with professor Ernst Axel Knauf, who has been investigating that topic for decades. (The interview is in German, though, maybe Google can translate it in a way that makes sense ) Bibel: Wie die Heilige Schrift entstand - SPIEGEL ONLINE
Being an atheist, I don't really care and it seems that fellow atheists who keep comparing the bible to fairy tales and fiction are mostly right after all. There is some correct historical data in the bible, but the big religious rest it is embedded in is largely based on fabrication and twisting reality beyond recognition (for instance Knauf says there was only a small group of Jews in Babylon, who were to become the elite upon their return to Palestine; most Jews had never left Palestine to begin with, which resulted in ideological conflicts with the returnees). It seems that ideological conflicts within Jews and later between Jews and Christians were a driving force behind the many attempts to fuse it all together somehow, which for a long time was the job of an elite with respectable writing skills.
Just read a nice little summary of how the bible developed. It is an interview with professor Ernst Axel Knauf, who has been investigating that topic for decades. (The interview is in German, though, maybe Google can translate it in a way that makes sense ) Bibel: Wie die Heilige Schrift entstand - SPIEGEL ONLINE
Being an atheist, I don't really care and it seems that fellow atheists who keep comparing the bible to fairy tales and fiction are mostly right after all. There is some correct historical data in the bible, but the big religious rest it is embedded in is largely based on fabrication and twisting reality beyond recognition (for instance Knauf says there was only a small group of Jews in Babylon, who were to become the elite upon their return to Palestine; most Jews had never left Palestine to begin with, which resulted in ideological conflicts with the returnees). It seems that ideological conflicts within Jews and later between Jews and Christians were a driving force behind the many attempts to fuse it all together somehow, which for a long time was the job of an elite with respectable writing skills.
You're an Atheist writing on a Jewish Religious forum...How ironic...
Oh yes, I am interested in lots of things, including religions, in the sense of comparative religious studies...
Views like the ones in your post above (I didn't want to lend it any credibility by quoting it) are fun to read, but ultimately have no merit in a forum like this. I get it - it's interesting to reframe the bible in some kind of foreign context that satisfies your personal view. I understand your goal of posting it here - to shake the faith of an already fragile Jew (btw, very few if any of those participate in this forum). The points in your view are not worth debating here. But stick around if you like and participate in some of the Jewish discussion that occurs here. Doing so may give you the sensibility some day to refrain from posting views like those in a Jewish forum, no matter how much they may personally resonate with you.
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