Questions about Christian Fundamentalism

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Spiffor:

For the OT, we do have the Dead Sea scrolls, written as originals at around the time of Christ. After they were discovered, there were a few, though not many changes that needed to be made. So again, we really see only one step, from Hebrew to English, although with a much different time scale from the originals.


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Not quite that simple. The jewish tradition of the Hebrew text goes back to the texts written in Israel in the 8th and 9th centuries CE(the Masoretic texts). The Greek text is based on a translation (the septuagint - dating to around 200 BCE, IIRC - but the earliest texts are later as you say. Now unfortunately some of the key proof texts cited in the gospels work better using the Greek text than the Hebrew - there are other discrenpancies as well. IIUC most Protestant translations follow the Hebrew text EXCEPT where that leads to a theological problem, where they follow the Septuagint, and they follow the Septuagint when there is a questionable reading. Thats why translations made under Jewish auspices are somewhat different from those made under Protestant auspices. (theres also a Samaritan textual tradition, but i know less about that)

Now IIUC the Dead Sea Scrolls did NOT show either textual tradition to be correct. They showed that BOTH textual traditions existed, and sometime in the same document. IE one version of a book might be closer to the Masoretic text, another to the Septuagint, and yet another might have elements of both.

[MrFun]

Fundamentalism, like all extreme ideologies, whether they be secular or religious, are repugnant to mainstream society.

[lord of the mark]

Re: Questions about Christian Fundamentalism

Originally posted by Spiffor
The other question is about the Law, as stated in the Old Testament. According to the Old Testament, the Law comes from God himself, and it is supposed to never change. Or decadent society is far from the word of God, and the fundies strive naturally to bring it closer: being against homosexuality, being against extramarital sex etc. are logical positions for the fundies.
But are you fundamentalists ready to follow the Law in its entirety? Do you strive to have raped women stoned to death, provided they didn't scream loud enough? Are you against pillows? Do you want adult males to be worth 50 shekels and adult females 30? There are tons of Laws that can be deemed absurd, yet they are the words of God. To put the question simply, what is your position towards them?

well to make sense of all those you need the oral law, which was passed down (according to the Talmud - speficially Pirke Avot) by word of mouth from Moses to Joshua to the judges to the prophets to the "men of the great assembly (dont ask) to the "pairs" (proto-rabbis) It wasnt written down till 200 CE, when Rabbi Yehuda Ha Nasi compiled the Mishnah. It was kept as an oral tradition until after the establishment of Christianity, in order (according to some) to keep the Christians from misinterpretating it, as they did with the written law.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
"What goes into a man's mouth does not make him unclean, but rather what comes out of it."

[Ben Kenobi]

LoTM:

Thank you.

I know more about the NT documentation than the OT issues.

I was going to ask for a Jewish perspective on the translation of the OT documents.

Yes, you have the Protestant's interpretation correct, IIRC.

IIUC, this was in the context of questions of eating food that had not been correctly tithed, and related issues of purity, NOT the commandments about forbidden species etc.

Read my link to Mark 7, it doesn't seem to be talking about anything to do with improperly tithed food.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
LoTM:

Thank you.

I know more about the NT documentation than the OT issues.

I was going to ask for a Jewish perspective on the translation of the OT documents.

Yes, you have the Protestant's interpretation correct, IIRC.



Read my link to Mark 7, it doesn't seem to be talking about anything to do with improperly tithed food.

"of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed"

that is it was a ritual purity issue, about which people at the time were getting particularly obsessive (as can be seen in the dead sea scrolls, and there are some hints in the Mishnah as well) NOT the basic commandments about forbidden species.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
LoTM:

Thank you.

I know more about the NT documentation than the OT issues.

I was going to ask for a Jewish perspective on the translation of the OT documents.

well then the first thing to keep in mind, is that there IS NO jewish perspective on the translation of the OT. Since in Judaism there IS NO OT. Theres just the bible (Tanakh) - to avoid confusion (and to avoid offending either side) it is sometimes called "The Hebrew Scriptures" in English (despite a small bit of it being in Aramaic).

[lord of the mark]

AFAIK Jewish translators continue to use the Masoretic texts as the basis for translation. Though the DSS are of great interest, AFAIK theres nothing in them that is considered to provide a basis for fundamental (oops) change.

Other texts also provide insight into issues of biblical text - notably the targumim - Circa 1st century Aramaic versions of the biblical books - though clearly not literal translations, more like a retelling, they provide insight into how the text was viewed at the time, which IIUC can be useful in understanding particular words. (BTW the Targum Esther makes that book A LOT racier than the Masoretic/Septuagint version)

Theres also insight provided by midrash (hermeneutic interpretations from 200 CE to 1000 CE) and the Talmud. Not just for the respective interpretations, but as clues to textual problems.

[Ben Kenobi]

Fine.

On the books considered by the Christians to by the Old Testament.

Better?

Now, as for the ritual purity issue, that evades my argument to Rufus on the Atonement, rendering the whole 'cleanness' / 'uncleanness' part of the sacrificial system moot.

[lord of the mark]

the other thing that makes judaism different is a different approach to the text. if some schools of christianity can be accused of literalism, the traditional Jewish approach is "hyperliteralism" G-d put nothing superflous in scripture - that means that a repeated word, an extra Hebrew grammatical partical, an odd usage MUST HAVE MEANING. If you find there are "problems" in the text that require explanation reading it literally, there are gads MORE when you read it this way. But that wasnt a problem, cause one of traditional Judaism's main ways of interacting with the text was to creatively, hermeneutically reconcile texts and overcome problems - from this process can new concepts, new readings, and new spiritual ideas. This is called midrash, and is central to trad. Judaism and its view of scripture.


Note also that traditional Judaism accepts 4 ways of reading scripture - Peshat - direct - not quite literal, but almost. Drash - the midrashic method described above Ramaz - allegorical, Sod - mystical - in which people and things in biblical stories represent mystical aspects of G-d. As it happens the acronym for these methods is Pardes - garden, or Paradise.

For a good intro to the Jewish history of the scriptures, and to some other texts as well I recommend a book called "Back to the Sources"

[lord of the mark]

"Therefore, the standard now becomes one not of consumption, but of conduct"

But you can atone, either through sacrifice, through christ, or (in post temple Judaism) through repentance prayer and charity, for Sins of conduct. So i dont see who the replacement of one method of atonement by another impacts this. Note also that the Hebrew scriptures dont as a rule distinguish "consumption" from conduct - consumption is just one more form of conduct that G-d chooses to regulate, along with sex, war, farming, trade, charity, and everything else.

[lord of the mark]

Heres a very idiosyncratic view of bible translation, by Martin Buber, Jewish Existentialist philosopher, and co-author of what in all likelihood will prove to be the last translation of the bible into GERMAN under Jewish auspices. http://home.olemiss.edu/~djr/pages/t...man/buber.html

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
LoTM:

Thank you.

I know more about the NT documentation than the OT issues.

I was going to ask for a Jewish perspective on the translation of the OT documents.

another aspect of the Jewish view - is that translation itself is not quite legitimate - its a compromise even more so than for Christians. Its not that long ago (well a couple of hundred years ago) that probably close to 90% of adult Jewish males had a working knowledge of biblical Hebrew. Today among the Orthodox the figure is close to 100% for both genders - the figure is much lower for Conservative Jews, but the elite that goes to day school can read with understanding, and the rest who get their hebrew a couple of days a week can read the Aleph bet( i mean unless theyre like poor students), and can understand a certain amount.

[Ben Kenobi]

Why the difference between conservative and Orthodox WRT to the Hebrew?

What about the non-religious Jewish population? What percentage know Hebrew?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Ben -

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I'm not sure I would read Matthew 5 (not Mark 5; my mistake) the same way you do; after promising to fulfill the law, Christ goes on to specifically say that the law is not changing regarding a variety of specific things. In fact, regarding adultery and divorce, JC's verios of the law is actually more draconian! However, it's true that he doesn't specifically mention dietary law. So if he doesn't mention dietary law in Matthew 5, and then suggests that it doesn't apply anymore in Mark 7, that would explain it. Thanks.

I now wonder this, though. I've read somewhere that in the US, at least, divorce rates among fundamentalist Christians run as high or higher than the rates for the general population. And there in Matthew 5, Christ gets really strict about divorce. Do the churches, in your experience, uphold that strictness, regarding second marriages as adulterous (and, by implication, children of those marriages as illegitimate)? And if not, why not?

Anyway, thanks again. I had always been curious about that.