RE: Belief in white Jesus linked to racism
March 28, 2021 at 4:23 pm
(This post was last modified: March 28, 2021 at 5:05 pm by Bucky Ball.)
The conservative Aish HaTorah (in Jerusalem) takes the Biblical accounts literally today.
Why would the OT contain genealogies if they were not to be taken literally ?
Why would there be genealogies of Noah and Abraham, (and Jesus) if they were not to be taken literally ?
Are they "suggestions" ? Do Jews today believe the Exodus is true ? They do, as do most Christians.
Aquinas took them literally. Ancient Jews never even heard the Bible texts. There were no synagogues, and if they went to Jerusalem, the
texts were rolled up and locked away, and were not read from, in sacrificial ceremonies. The center of Hebrew life was not the Bible .. the Torah of Moses did not exist until at the earliest,
the return of the Judean priests, Ezra, and the king, (from Babylon), whom Artaxerxes sent back to Israel to reestablish a social system which would be viable enough to serve as a buffer-state between the Persian Empire and the invading Greeks. For that, they needed a "national story" and a set of laws. That's why there's a BIble. Ezra had under his arm the (newly minted) Torah of Moses, (the introduction of which in a fall festival, to the people is described in the Book of Nehemiah), and the decree from Artaxerxes saying the king he hand-picked, could rule in his name. The story (the Torah), and the laws, (Deuteronomy). The Persian Emperor is responsible for Temple II and the return of the "elite" (few) Jews who were in Babylon.
Even as late as Josephus and the first Christian writers, the Hebrew texts were taken literally.
Josephus presents them as literally true, as do some of the Christian writers. In Acts, Stephen presents them as literally true.
Today we know, thanks to archaeology mostly, that most of the OT is not historically true, but the process by which that is slowly, EVEN NOW being met with huge resistance,
is far from accomplished.
The modern era's questioning of the Bible as literal, began with Jean Astruc's looking at some of the "facts" about Moses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Astruc
Why would the OT contain genealogies if they were not to be taken literally ?
Why would there be genealogies of Noah and Abraham, (and Jesus) if they were not to be taken literally ?
Are they "suggestions" ? Do Jews today believe the Exodus is true ? They do, as do most Christians.
Aquinas took them literally. Ancient Jews never even heard the Bible texts. There were no synagogues, and if they went to Jerusalem, the
texts were rolled up and locked away, and were not read from, in sacrificial ceremonies. The center of Hebrew life was not the Bible .. the Torah of Moses did not exist until at the earliest,
the return of the Judean priests, Ezra, and the king, (from Babylon), whom Artaxerxes sent back to Israel to reestablish a social system which would be viable enough to serve as a buffer-state between the Persian Empire and the invading Greeks. For that, they needed a "national story" and a set of laws. That's why there's a BIble. Ezra had under his arm the (newly minted) Torah of Moses, (the introduction of which in a fall festival, to the people is described in the Book of Nehemiah), and the decree from Artaxerxes saying the king he hand-picked, could rule in his name. The story (the Torah), and the laws, (Deuteronomy). The Persian Emperor is responsible for Temple II and the return of the "elite" (few) Jews who were in Babylon.
Even as late as Josephus and the first Christian writers, the Hebrew texts were taken literally.
Josephus presents them as literally true, as do some of the Christian writers. In Acts, Stephen presents them as literally true.
Today we know, thanks to archaeology mostly, that most of the OT is not historically true, but the process by which that is slowly, EVEN NOW being met with huge resistance,
is far from accomplished.
The modern era's questioning of the Bible as literal, began with Jean Astruc's looking at some of the "facts" about Moses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Astruc
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell 
Militant Atheist Commie Evolutionist
Militant Atheist Commie Evolutionist
