Presenting scripture as factual moral guideline is a technique acquired from my Christian contemporaries; manipulators far more disingenuous than I...
Fair enough! I cannot argue with that!
Choice. I chose not to make god say something he did not say; I chose to present the view that what the Bible says does not speak louder than what God says.
Well, that's the thing, though. It is by no means clearly decided (outside of radical fundamentalist circles) that any part of the Bible is, in fact, the literal word of God at all. Even to those who believe that God dictated much of the Torah to Moses, or had conversation directly with the prophets, there is still the acknowledgement that God's words had to be understood and set down accurately by flawed, imperfect human agents, and transmitted through the ages by even more flawed, imperfect human agents. Add to that the core concept in Jewish thought that the Torah is infinitely interpretable, and has limitless levels of meaning. What results is quite a lot of lattitude for possibilities, both in terms of arguing what God may want from us, and in arguing what God has not spoken to us about.
The problem, IMO, is not folks claiming that such-and-such a verse in the Bible does or does not support the idea that God wishes us to be prohibited from X or encouraged to do Y, but in claiming that said verse can
only be interpreted to mean that, and that that single intepretation is the precise and literal command of God.
And in any case, it is hard to say that there is an objective word of God outside of the scriptures that we have, with which scripture might be unfavorably compared, which might be clearer or more comprehensible to us. At least, such a word would not seem to be accessible to us on this plane of existence.
My father's rabbi, who was his head-of-yeshiva, commenting on Psalm 19:8
Torat YHVH temimah, meshivat nafesh... ("The Torah of YHVH is perfect, refreshing the soul...") said, "Yes, the Torah of Hashem is perfect, that remains with Him, in the Heavens. The Torah we have is only a reflection of that, the only kind suitable to our imperfect universe." Perhaps we can know the Torah of God in the World To Come, but not in this world, I think. For this world, we have only what has been passed down to us, and our own abilities to interpret it.
And the whole cultural tradition that authored it, is but a hundredth of the whole cultural tradition that is abusing it; to the detriment of all.
Perhaps let's say that the whole cultural tradition that authored it is but a hundredth of the traditions that are using it. To be fair, among its original cultural tradition it is only sometimes abused, and even among the traditions that have appropriated for their own uses, it is not always abused.
But you are Levite, and I respect both your scholarship and dedication. If you wish to instruct me, I am never too knowing to learn.
That is extremely high praise, and I thank you for it very much, and can only hope to live up to it!
