Quote from: Hydra009 on December 15, 2022, 12:33:29 PM"Poetic translation" seems suspiciously like a way to describe a poor/improper translation while making it appear to not be bad.
If you have to be "initiated" before you can read a book, you might be in a destructive cult.
If both of these sentences are true, I'm surprised you haven't jumped out of an airplane while flapping your arms.

...hmmm...
Yeah, that "show me the empirical evidence" stuff can get pretty tricky for some reason...

I'm not in a cult, I haven't been in a church outside of a wedding for 20 years. You get initiated by the spirit world and experience same stuff mentioned in Bible and more

Quote from: NagaMorningstar on December 16, 2022, 03:30:01 PMI'm not in a cult, I haven't been in a church outside of a wedding for 20 years. You get initiated by the spirit world and experience same stuff mentioned in Bible and more

Alrighty then!...........................

Quote from: NagaMorningstar on December 16, 2022, 03:30:01 PMI'm not in a cult, I haven't been in a church outside of a wedding for 20 years. You get initiated by the spirit world and experience same stuff mentioned in Bible and more

A large majority of it is just history being recorded; I don't think I need to stress why that's important.

The next largest chunk is of prophets saying, "Yeah, that behavior is bullshit and the Lord is going to punish you for your wickedness."

Neither of those are offensive to me, and when they make up the majority of the work... I just don't get it.

Quote from: Shiranu on December 16, 2022, 10:26:11 PMA large majority of it is just history being recorded; I don't think I need to stress why that's important.

The next largest chunk is of prophets saying, "Yeah, that behavior is bullshit and the Lord is going to punish you for your wickedness."

Neither of those are offensive to me, and when they make up the majority of the work... I just don't get it.

It has been said that Torah can be summed up as "love your neighbor" but I agree the history stuff is important too.

Quote from: NagaMorningstar on December 18, 2022, 03:12:54 PMIt has been said that Torah can be summed up as "love your neighbor" but I agree the history stuff is important too.

The OT is about 600 commandments and the savagery of the ot god. 

Quote from: Mike Cl on December 18, 2022, 05:26:47 PMThe OT is about 600 commandments and the savagery of the ot god. 

A suspicious amount of rules about what people are allowed to eat, and yet not a single condemnation of holding ownership of other people.

Quote from: NagaMorningstar on December 18, 2022, 03:12:54 PMIt has been said that Torah can be summed up as "love your neighbor" ...

You're paraphrasing a NT passage and leaving out half of it.

Quote from: Blackleaf on December 18, 2022, 09:06:08 PMA suspicious amount of rules about what people are allowed to eat, and yet not a single condemnation of holding ownership of other people.

Several rules about how they are to be treated humanely and freed after time though - all things considered for 600 B.C. and older laws, not too bad.

Quote from: Shiranu on December 18, 2022, 10:44:56 PMSeveral rules about how they are to be treated humanely and freed after time though - all things considered for 600 B.C. and older laws, not too bad.

They were only freed if they were Hebrews. Slaves of war, or slaves purchased from other lands, were slaves for life. Also, I'd hardly call a culture that says it's okay to beat your slave as long as they can stand up again after a couple of days "humane."

Quote from: Blackleaf on December 18, 2022, 11:07:37 PMThey were only freed if they were Hebrews. Slaves of war, or slaves purchased from other lands, were slaves for life. Also, I'd hardly call a culture that says it's okay to beat your slave as long as they can stand up again after a couple of days "humane."

Compared to their neighbors who were cutting babies in half and who knows how they treated their slaves?

Yeah, I would still argue they were the humane ones.

Quote from: Shiranu on December 18, 2022, 11:11:34 PMCompared to their neighbors who were cutting babies in half and who knows how they treated their slaves?

Yeah, I would still argue they were the humane ones.

I'm not super well-versed in levantine cultural practices at around, I dunno, the bronze age or thereabouts, so I guess I'll have to take your word for it.

Whether they were the humane ones or not back then isn't particularly relevant to the here and now.  At present, no one takes the cutting babies in half stuff seriously, if that was indeed the case.  But they do take the Old Testament stuff seriously at present.  And compared to modern cultural norms, that stuff is pretty twisted.

It's good to know the past.  And it's wise to learn from the past.  But imho, it's a pretty awful to march towards the past.

Quote from: Hydra009 on December 18, 2022, 11:32:17 PMI'm not super well-versed in levantine cultural practices at around, I dunno, the bronze age or thereabouts, so I guess I'll have to take your word for it.

Whether they were the humane ones or not back then isn't particularly relevant to the here and now.  At present, no one takes the cutting babies in half stuff seriously, if that was indeed the case.  But they do take the Old Testament stuff seriously at present.  And compared to modern cultural norms, that stuff is pretty twisted.

It's good to know the past.  And it's wise to learn from the past.  But imho, it's a pretty awful to march towards the past.

I would argue they don't hold that Old Testament stuff seriously at the present, and that's their biggest problem; they never have.

Even the traditionalists - the ultra-Orthodox Jews (the people who made headlines with a notably poor ability to follow simple covid procedures to save lives, "modest" dress code, and a strange aversion to the sinful practice of male-female touching, among other things) - aren't traditionalistic enough.  Now there's an idea.

What sort of super-orthodox society do you envision?  One in which males and females cannot look at each other except through a mirror?  Perhaps one where reading any other book except the Torah is forbidden?  A society of insular people with childlike faith, a fraught relationship with education and science, and backwards social ideas, especially about women and gender roles and sex.  Is this something to aspire towards?

QuoteWhat sort of super-orthodox society do you envision? 

One that follows half of the Mitzvot that hold good values to this day; if they desire to uphold the other other 40% that relates to cultural expectations, that's up to them.

Hell, they don't even uphold most of the 10% that's garbage.

Here are 153 of the 613 commandments that I deemed to be "objectively good" - you can pick and choose which one's they should be following for yourself.

Objectively Good Commandments - 153

• -To love your neighbor as yourself.
  -To love converts.
• -Not to hate your brother in your heart.
• -To reprove your brother when necessary.
• -Not to embarrass others.
• -Not to oppress the weak.
• -Not to slander.
• -Not to take revenge.
• -Not to bear a grudge.
• -To respect and defer to the elders.
• -Not to turn a people to idolatry.
• -Not to burn your children in a sacrificial fire to Molech.
• -Not to be superstitious.
• -To rest on the seventh day.
• -Not to withhold food, clothing, and relations from your wife.
• -To free a childless widow from the obligation to marry her brother-in-law.
• -Not to have relations with your father's wife.
• -Not to have relations with your mother.
• -Not to have relations with your sister.
• -Not to have relations with your father's wife's daughter.
• -Not to have relations with your son's daughter.
• -Not to have relations with your daughter.
• -Not to have relations with your daughter's daughter.
• -Not to marry a woman and her daughter.
• -Not to marry a woman and her son's daughter.
• -Not to marry a woman and her daughter's daughter.
• -Not to have relations with your father's sister.
• -Not to have relations with your mother's sister.
• -Not to have relations with your father's brother's wife (same father).
• -Not to have relations with your son's wife.
• -Not to have relations with your brother's wife (same father and/or mother).
• -Not to have relations with your wife's sister.
• -A man must not have relations with a beast.
• -A woman must not have relations with a beast.
• -Not to have homosexual relations with your father.
• -Not to have homosexual relations with your father's brother.
• -Not to have relations with a married woman.
• -Don't abhor or keep third-generation Edomite and Egyptian converts from marrying into the Jewish nation.
• -Not to abhor or refrain from marrying a third-generation Edomite or Egyptian convert.
• -Not to castrate any male (including animals).
• -To examine animals that are permitted as food.
• -To be careful to eat only clean birds.
• -To distinguish which sea creatures are fit to eat.
• -To distinguish which winged insects may be eaten.
• -Not to eat unclean animals.
• -Not to take a nesting bird with her eggs and young.
• -To release the mother bird if you did not take her.
• -To not lie or deal falsely, or deny that something of value was left in your possession.
• -To not swear falsely.
• -Not to break oaths or vows.
• -Not to sell vowed possessions.
• -Not to redeem any vowed possessions.
• -To leave forgotten sheaves in the field or leave a sheaf for the poor.
• -Not to retrieve them but leave them for the widow, alien, and orphan.
• -To separate the tithe for the poor.
• -To give charity.
• -Not to withhold charity from those in need.
• -To relax all loans in the seventh year.
• -Not to pressure the debtor in the seventh year.
• -Not to refrain from lending in the year of remission for fear of monetary loss.
• -Not to sell land (in Israel) in perpetuity.
• -To follow the laws pertaining to houses in walled cities.
• -Not to eat from sacrifices that have become impure.
• -No bone of the Paschal Lamb shall be broken.
• -Not to break any bones from the second Paschal offering.
• -To discover when a house is infected by a skin disease.
• -Not to steal money stealthily.
• -Each individual must ensure that his scales and weights are accurate.
• -Not to commit injustice with scales and weights.
• -Not to possess inaccurate weights and scales even if they are not for use.
• -Not to move a boundary marker to steal someone's property.
• -Not to kidnap.
• -Not to rob openly.
• -Not to withhold wages or fail to repay a debt.
• -Not to covet and scheme to acquire another's possession.
• -Not to desire another's possession.
• -Return the robbed object or its value.
• -Not to ignore a lost object.
• -Return the lost object.
• -The court must implement laws against one who assaults another or damages another's property.
• -Not to murder.
• -Not to accept money to save a convicted murderer.
• -Not to accept monetary restitution instead of sending the accidental murderer to, or releasing him from, a city of refuge.
• -Not to kill the murderer before he stands trial.
• -Not to stand idly by if someone's life is in danger.
• -Designate refuge cities and prepare routes of access.
• -Make a guardrail around flat roofs.
• -Not to put a stumbling block before the blind.
• -Help another remove the load from a beast that can no longer carry it.
• -Help others load their beasts.
• -Not to leave fallen beasts distraught with their burdens but help to load or unload.
• -Not to overcharge or underpay for an article.
• -Not to insult or harm anybody with words.
• -Not to cheat a sincere convert monetarily.
• -Not to insult or harm a sincere convert with words.
• -Not to sell him as a slave is sold.
• -Not to work the slave oppressively.
• -Not to allow a foreigner to work the slave oppressively.
• -Not to have the kinsman slave do menial slave labor.
• -Give the slave gifts when he goes free.
• -Not to send the freed slave away empty-handed.
• -Not to extradite a slave who fled to (Biblical) Israel.
• -Not to wrong a slave who has come to Israel for refuge.
• -Do not delay payment of wages past the agreed time.
• -The hired worker may eat from the unharvested crops where he works.
• -The worker must not eat while on hired time.
• -The worker must not take more than he can eat.
• -The courts must carry out the laws of a borrower.
• -The courts must carry out the laws of the unpaid guard.
• -Lend without interest to the poor.
• -Not to press the poor for repayment.
• -Press the idolater for payment.
• -The creditor must not forcibly take collateral.
• -Return the collateral to the debtor when it is needed.
• -Not to delay returning the collateral when it is needed.
• -Not to demand collateral from a widow.
• -Not to demand as collateral utensils needed for preparing food.
• -Not to lend with interest within the community.
• -Not to borrow with interest.
• -Not to play any role in an interest loan.
• -Lend to, and borrow from, idolaters at interest.
• -The court must carry out the laws of the plaintiff, admitter or denier.
• -Appoint judges.
• -Not to appoint judges who are not familiar with judicial procedure.
• -A judge who presents a case for acquittal must not present an argument for conviction in capital cases.
• -The court must not kill anybody on circumstantial evidence.
• -The court must not punish anybody who was forced to commit a crime.
• -The judge must not pity the murderer or assaulter at the trial.
• -The judge must not have mercy on the poor man at the trial.
• -The judge must not respect the great man at the trial.
• -The judge must not decide unjustly the case of the habitual transgressor.
• -The judge must not pervert justice.
• -The judge must not pervert a case involving a convert or an orphan.
• -Judge righteously.
• -The judge must not fear a violent man in judgment.
• -Judges must not accept bribes.
• -Judges must not accept testimony unless both parties are present.
• -Anyone who knows evidence must testify at a trial.
• -Carefully interrogate the witness.
• -A witness must not serve as a judge in capital crimes.
• -Not to accept testimony from a lone witness.
• -Transgressors must not testify.
• -Not to testify falsely.
• -Not to deviate from a legal discussion.
• -Respect your father and mother.
• -Mourn for relatives—even priests
• -The king must not have too many horses.
• -The king must not have too much silver and gold.
• -Offer peace terms to the residents of a city under siege and treat them according to the Torah if they accept surrender terms.
• -Prepare latrines outside the camps.
• -Prepare a shovel for each soldier to dig with.
• -Not to conscript or involve the newly married man in military or communal service.
• -Not to panic and retreat during battle.
• -Not to sell her into slavery.