Aaron, Miriam and Moses: all in the family

[Deeje]

The Tanach isn't as simple as saying it's "history" and our religion is contained just there.

Everything God’s people needed to know was given to Moses and he was commanded to write it down. It was men who wanted to add to those instructions....and add they did, often to a ridiculous degree.

The answer to the previous two quotes stems (among other examples) from your Sabbath quote:
"Six days shall work be done; but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation; ye shall do no manner of work; it is a sabbath unto the LORD in all your dwellings." (Lev. 23:3)
Okay, it clearly says here that you shall work six days and refrain from that on the seventh day.
Kindly tell me, based only on the written text, how one would define "work" and how one would define "rest".
It doesn't say! What if playing on my phone is work, but I thought it wasn't - will I be sent to hell because of that? How was I supposed to know?! And so forth.

It’s a common sense thing. Getting lost in the letter of the Law meant losing the spirit of the meaning behind it. God said that his people would benefit from having a day of rest to concentrate on spiritual things.
The Sabbath was originally intended to be a joyous, spiritually upbuilding time. But in their zeal to distinguish themselves from the Gentiles as much as possible, the Jewish religious leaders, especially after the return from Babylonian exile, gradually made it a burdensome thing by greatly increasing the Sabbath restrictions to 39, with innumerable lesser restrictions. These, when compiled, filled two large volumes. For example, catching a flea was forbidden as hunting. A sufferer could not be given relief unless death threatened. A bone could not be set, nor a sprain bandaged. The true purpose of the Sabbath was made void by these Jewish religious leaders, because they made the people slaves to tradition, instead of having the Sabbath serve the people to the honor of God.

How many more restrictions have been added since those times?
How many of them contribute to the spiritual refreshment that the Sabbath was meant to engender? If people are stressing over all those restrictions, how refreshing can it be?

I concede that I don't know much about argumentative terminology and may not completely understand what a "strawman" is. However, whether or not I wrongly inferred something, you yourself said some scripture-based questions are stupid and irrelevant.

Whoa....you’ve done it again....I didn’t say that some scripture based questions are stupid and irrelevant at all. Stupid and irrelevant questions are self-evident. The OP is such a question IMO. There are so many scripturally based questions that are begging for answers......why not ask them? Why not explore important questions instead of nit-picking stuff that, in the big picture, doesn’t really matter....?

Based on scripture, do you have a list of what subjects are stupid and irrelevant, so that I'll know what not to ask you about in the future?

How about a more constructive list of things that DO need discussing? Wouldn’t that be more productive?

Can we talk about those Sabbath restrictions for starters?
How serious are the various sects of Judaism about observing those restrictions? How do Orthodox Jews view their fellow Jews in their Sabbath observance if they are not as strict?

How strict does God want you to be? What do the scriptures say, as opposed to what the oral traditions demand?

 

[PruePhillip]

Most of the OT was written during and after the Babylonian exile.. and the different versions were combined during the reign of King Omri.

The Hebrews were just another Canaanite tribe from NW Syria ..Much of Psalms is lifted from Ugaritic poetry.

Don't you realize that monotheism (Judaism) evolved?

However, the archeological conclusions are not based primarily on the absence of Sinai evidence. Rather, they are based upon the study of settlement patterns in Israel itself.

Surveys of ancient settlements--pottery remains and so forth--make it clear that there simply was no great influx of people around the time of the Exodus (given variously as between 1500-1200 BCE). Therefore, not the wandering, but the arrival alerts us to the fact that the biblical Exodus is not a literal depiction.

In Israel at that time, there was no sudden change in the kind or the volume of pottery being made. (If people suddenly arrived after hundreds of years in Egypt, their cups and dishes would look very different from native Canaanites'.) There was no population explosion.

Most archeologists conclude that the Israelites lived largely in Canaan over generations, instead of leaving and then immigrating back to Canaan.

continued

Did the Exodus Really Happen?

The objections to scripture s.l.o.w.l.y. crumble.
Now we understand (ca 2019) this "invisible archaeology" of people's who built no monuments
nor lived in conventional cities. The new estimate for the Jewish population in the Judean hills
alone is 50,000. This was taken from studies of the Edom population.
Even with the death of King Solomon large portions of Israel/Juda lived in tents. Even the ark
of the covenant was in a tent until Solomon.
King Omri lived long before Babylon.
There WAS a flurry of writing during and after Babylon - but of course, our self-described experts
also deny that Babylon material (ie Daniel) was written during Babylon. So you can't win.
No more scripture after about 400 BC. By this time the Jewish cannon had been established.
Too bad for the authors of Maccabees and other books.
Lots of texts were destroyed in the endless wars in Israel. But King Josiah found an old copy of
Deuteronomy in a wall during the rebuilding of the temple. So even these guys were struggling
to maintain their culture/religion. "Scholars" claim this Deuteronomy is purely mythic but again,
we have evidence the priests were obeying it 600 years earlier.
Nothing is black and white - it's all complicated. With "scholars" and archaeologists you have
the spectrum of minimalists to maximalist - that's you and me.

 

[Harel13]

was

Why 'was'? It still is.

The Sabbath was originally intended to be a joyous, spiritually upbuilding

And now it isn't? Bro, do you have any experience with keeping Shabbat? It's a beautiful time. How can you say it was destroyed by laws - which, BTW, are not "made-up" - when you have zero experience in the matter?

How many of them contribute to the spiritual refreshment that the Sabbath was meant to engender? If people are stressing over all those restrictions, how refreshing can it be?

All. It is. Who's stressing? Seriously, do you personally know any Jews who keep all the Shabbat laws and are stressing over them? Were you once an Orthodox Jew?

It’s a common sense thing

What's common sense? Knowing what's considered work and what isn't?

There are so many scripturally based questions that are begging for answers......why not ask them? Why not explore important questions instead of nit-picking stuff that, in the big picture, doesn’t really matter....?

Don't worry, we'll get to those as well. But we're covering all of the bases. You seem to not be interested in doing that.

How about a more constructive list of things that DO need discussing? Wouldn’t that be more productive?

It'll be the same list, but in reverse. But since you're so into sticking into scripture, can you or can you not produce a completely scripture-based list of important topics to discuss (so I'll know that everything else is nonsensical gibberish God put in to fill the holes. Yes, I know you didn't say this, but that's what I'm reading between the lines. Define important and how you know it's important).

Can we talk about those Sabbath restrictions for starters?
How serious are the various sects of Judaism about observing those restrictions? How do Orthodox Jews view their fellow Jews in their Sabbath observance if they are not as strict?

How strict does God want you to be? What do the scriptures say, as opposed to what the oral traditions demand?

This is a good topic for the Judaism DIR.

 

[sooda]

They're not, but what you may consider education they may consider nonsense. You repeatedly give your view as the scholarly, educated one while undermining others' as myth, superstition and fabrication without even thinking that in a few years, your own version of events may be proven wrong, by continuously making statements of fact rather than belief.

I don't have the power or inclination to change scripture.

 

[Rival]

I don't have the power or inclination to change scripture.

This has nothing to do with what I said...

...at all.

 

[sooda]

The objections to scripture s.l.o.w.l.y. crumble.
Now we understand (ca 2019) this "invisible archaeology" of people's who built no monuments
nor lived in conventional cities. The new estimate for the Jewish population in the Judean hills
alone is 50,000. This was taken from studies of the Edom population.
Even with the death of King Solomon large portions of Israel/Juda lived in tents. Even the ark
of the covenant was in a tent until Solomon.
King Omri lived long before Babylon.
There WAS a flurry of writing during and after Babylon - but of course, our self-described experts
also deny that Babylon material (ie Daniel) was written during Babylon. So you can't win.
No more scripture after about 400 BC. By this time the Jewish cannon had been established.
Too bad for the authors of Maccabees and other books.
Lots of texts were destroyed in the endless wars in Israel. But King Josiah found an old copy of
Deuteronomy in a wall during the rebuilding of the temple. So even these guys were struggling
to maintain their culture/religion. "Scholars" claim this Deuteronomy is purely mythic but again,
we have evidence the priests were obeying it 600 years earlier.
Nothing is black and white - it's all complicated. With "scholars" and archaeologists you have
the spectrum of minimalists to maximalist - that's you and me.

LOLOL.. They found Deuteronomy hidden in a wall.

 

[sooda]

The Egyptian Empire rose during the period of the New Kingdom (c. 1570- c. 1069 BCE), when the country reached its height of wealth, international prestige, and military might. The empire stretched from modern-day Syria in the north to modern-day Sudan in the south and from the region of Jordan in the east to Libya in the west.

Egyptian Empire - Ancient History Encyclopedia
www.ancient.eu/Egyptian_Empire/

 

[PruePhillip]

LOLOL.. They found Deuteronomy hidden in a wall.

The Old Testament sometimes refers to other books, paraphrase
"and the rest of the acts of Solomon, are they not written in the
book of Solomon" --- that kind of thing.
Jerusalem itself was destroyed or taken two dozen times. Lots
of times Judaism was attacked even by the pagan Jews, plus
the Babylonians, Egyptians etc.. So it's a wonder the bible as
we know it survived.

I think the reference to Egypt could be to imply Canaan was
always under Egyptian control? Depends on many things -
was this control a military protectorate? A vassal state? An
alliance? It varied as Egypt varied.
And to be obtuse - one might argue that Egyptian control
of Canaan was purely mythic.

 

[sooda]

The Old Testament sometimes refers to other books, paraphrase
"and the rest of the acts of Solomon, are they not written in the
book of Solomon" --- that kind of thing.
Jerusalem itself was destroyed or taken two dozen times. Lots
of times Judaism was attacked even by the pagan Jews, plus
the Babylonians, Egyptians etc.. So it's a wonder the bible as
we know it survived.

I think the reference to Egypt could be to imply Canaan was
always under Egyptian control? Depends on many things -
was this control a military protectorate? A vassal state? An
alliance? It varied as Egypt varied.
And to be obtuse - one might argue that Egyptian control
of Canaan was purely mythic.

I know Jerusalem was destroyed many times.. Israel and Judea also fought each other.

The Egyptian empire had weakened during the reign of Ramses III, but Egypt was still able to maintain its rule over Canaan. This is the only life-size statue of an Egyptian pharaoh ever found in Israel. The statue was carved out of local basalt stone, clear evidence that it was made in Canaan.

Egyptian Relations with Canaan – Ancient History et cetera
etc.ancient.eu/interviews/egyptian-relations-canaan/



Egypt used Canaan as a buffer against rival empires further north, such as the Mitanni. Canaan was also a source of revenue through taxes, tribute and trade. Egypt stationed small garrisons in major towns like Jerusalem and created administrative centers like the one at Beth Shean in Israel.

Egypt in Canaan - Canaan & Ancient Israel @ University of ...
www.penn.museum/sites/Canaan/Egypt.html

 

[IndigoChild5559]

TheTorah.com was a recent discovery for me. They have some really fascinating articles.

I read about half of the article and will get to the rest later, but It seems to me that there's an assumption being made that Micah was written before the Five Books of Moses, hence the theory that the genealogy developed over time, but I don't quite understand how this assumption was made.

What is meant is that the Torah was compiled and edited in Babylon. The various sources for it are much, much younger.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

The Sabbath was originally intended to be a joyous, spiritually upbuilding time.

If you think that this has somehow changed, you have never experienced a shomer Shabbat with an Orthodox family, the peace that arrives after the rush with the lighting of the candles its hospitality at table with its company and fine food, its family time, the wonder of its Torah studies and conversations, the beauty of the synagogue prayers, the ease of the time off, even the luxury of napping, the ease on the mind of the clean home, the unique rest that comes from turning off technology for a day... If you ever experienced this, you might get hooked and never want to give it up.

 

[Deeje]

If you think that this has somehow changed, you have never experienced a shomer Shabbat with an Orthodox family, the peace that arrives after the rush with the lighting of the candles its hospitality at table with its company and fine food, its family time, the wonder of its Torah studies and conversations, the beauty of the synagogue prayers, the ease of the time off, even the luxury of napping, the ease on the mind of the clean home, the unique rest that comes from turning off technology for a day... If you ever experienced this, you might get hooked and never want to give it up.

My point was, not what Jews of today experience in the Sabbath observance, (because they know nothing else) but how the ancient Jews, to whom the Law was given did not have hundreds of nit-picking definitions added to the restrictions that God clearly outlined for Sabbath observance.
Instead of using common sense, the rabbis turned the restrictions into categories, as it says in Wiki...."The thirty-nine melakhot are not so much activities as categories of activity." Each 'category' needed detailed definitions....some of which were nothing short of ridiculous.
Reading through the restrictions, we get a sense of how legally minded the Pharisees were in dictating what is, or isn't part of Sabbath Law?

Activities prohibited on Shabbat - Wikipedia..... Its an interesting read and helps us understand why the Jews stumbled over Jesus, who did not support the rabbinical definitions of "work", whilst he respected the spirit of the law....something he said that the 'legalistic' Pharisees had lost.

When Jesus and his apostles grabbed a few grains of wheat on their way through a wheat field, they were accused of 'doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath'. (Luke 6:1-5) Is that what God meant when he said no reaping, harvesting and threshing?

Matthew 12:11-12, on the subject of healing or doing a good deed on the Sabbath....
"[Jesus] said to them: “If you have one sheep and that sheep falls into a pit on the Sabbath, is there a man among you who will not grab hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do a fine thing on the Sabbath.”

Which seems more reasonable to you.....withholding medical treatment (which is not life threatening) because it is a Sabbath, or going and getting a serious wound some medical attention? Or seeing an animals in distress and coming to their aid? What would God want you to do, using some common sense rather than human rules and regulations that were never in God's Law in the first place?

You are free to practice whatever you wish, but the question is whose laws are you obeying really?

 

[IndigoChild5559]

My point was, not what Jews of today experience in the Sabbath observance, (because they know nothing else) but how the ancient Jews, to whom the Law was given did not have hundreds of nit-picking definitions added to the restrictions that God clearly outlined for Sabbath observance.
Instead of using common sense, the rabbis turned the restrictions into categories, as it says in Wiki...."The thirty-nine melakhot are not so much activities as categories of activity." Each 'category' needed detailed definitions....some of which were nothing short of ridiculous.
Reading through the restrictions, we get a sense of how legally minded the Pharisees were in dictating what is, or isn't part of Sabbath Law?

Activities prohibited on Shabbat - Wikipedia..... Its an interesting read and helps us understand why the Jews stumbled over Jesus, who did not support the rabbinical definitions of "work", whilst he respected the spirit of the law....something he said that the 'legalistic' Pharisees had lost.

When Jesus and his apostles grabbed a few grains of wheat on their way through a wheat field, they were accused of 'doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath'. (Luke 6:1-5) Is that what God meant when he said no reaping, harvesting and threshing?

Matthew 12:11-12, on the subject of healing or doing a good deed on the Sabbath....
"[Jesus] said to them: “If you have one sheep and that sheep falls into a pit on the Sabbath, is there a man among you who will not grab hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do a fine thing on the Sabbath.”

Which seems more reasonable to you.....withholding medical treatment (which is not life threatening) because it is a Sabbath, or going and getting a serious wound some medical attention? Or seeing an animals in distress and coming to their aid? What would God want you to do, using some common sense rather than human rules and regulations that were never in God's Law in the first place?

You are free to practice whatever you wish, but the question is whose laws are you obeying really?

You call them "nitpicky categories" but what they provide is the settled comfort of knowing what is and isn't allowed, so that you dont have to tax yourself every five minutes trying to figure something out.

Once you have adjusted to the pattern (and most Jews grow up with it) it's a piece of cake. Think about the thousands of State laws that you obey every day without thinking.

My son especially found these worked out laws soothing. He would stew about some question, and then be comforted once he had the answer.

 

[Deeje]

You call them "nitpicky categories" but what they provide is the settled comfort of knowing what is and isn't allowed, so that you dont have to tax yourself every five minutes trying to figure something out.

Once you have adjusted to the pattern (and most Jews grow up with it) it's a piece of cake. Think about the thousands of State laws that you obey every day without thinking.

My son especially found these worked out laws soothing. He would stew about some question, and then be comforted once he had the answer.

I said.....

When Jesus and his apostles grabbed a few grains of wheat on their way through a wheat field, they were accused of 'doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath'. (Luke 6:1-5) Is that what God meant when he said no reaping, harvesting and threshing?

Matthew 12:11-12, on the subject of healing or doing a good deed on the Sabbath....
"[Jesus] said to them: “If you have one sheep and that sheep falls into a pit on the Sabbath, is there a man among you who will not grab hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do a fine thing on the Sabbath.”

Which seems more reasonable to you.....withholding medical treatment (which is not life threatening) because it is a Sabbath, or going and getting a serious wound some medical attention? Or seeing an animals in distress and coming to their aid? What would God want you to do, using some common sense rather than human rules and regulations that were never in God's Law in the first place?

You are free to practice whatever you wish, but the question is whose laws are you obeying really?

You didn't answer my questions....

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

I have started writing about King Josiah and I wondered if:
Josiah =Moses
Hilkiah=Aaron
Huldah=Miriam

 

[IndigoChild5559]

I said.....



You didn't answer my questions....

According to my studies, the specific halakhah regarding the Shabbat was not yet set. You had the two major schools arguing over it and probably other voices as well. For example, the school of Shammai, which was ultra strict, taught that you could never heal for any reason on the Shabbat. The School of Hillel taught that it was okay to heal with prayer. Eventually halakhah worked it out that life ruled over obedience to the law -- that one was actually obligated to break the Shabbat in order to save a life. But in Jesus' day this clarity was not there yet. Jesus participated in the disputes same as everyone else.