Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

I didn't realize this went to the whole list,
so I'll respond to the list what I responded to Christine
and to others who have responded to me on and off list.
I had gotten myself onto a Bible discussion list which
soon became infected by a group of vicious anti-semites,
a group called the Watchers.
They are the "many people," but I should (hopefully) have
said "a few people."
Now I can, and did, argue with my interlocutors that Jesus
was simply speaking to a small group of people, and it was
polemical hyperbole which was not to be taken literally.
But they didn't buy that.
The text has Jesus say to "the Jews (Ioudaious) (John 8:31),
 "you are out of your father the devil."(John 8:44).
Whether or not you accuse me of bad exegesis, this is what the
text says.

Liz

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christian M. M. Brady [mailto:cbrady AT tulane.edu]
> Sent: Thu, June 13, 2002 11:42 AM
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: Re: The english word "Jew"
>
>
> On 6/13/02 9:47 AM, "Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu> wrote:
>
> >
> > The problem that many people have is that the NT provides Jesus'
> > genealogy
> > as descending from the Judean kings, and then it has him say that
> > Jews are descended from the devil. Since people don't want
> to have Jesus
> > himself be descended from the devil (!) they go through all kinds of
> > convolutions
> > to deny that the Kings of Judah are Jews!
>
> Liz,
>
> This would quickly be booted from the list, so I am sending it to you
> privately. I understand what you are trying to say and that
> some Christians
> have read the NT this way, but you have grossly
> misrepresented the Gospel
> passage to which you refer.
>
> The passage is John 8 and Jesus does not say that the Jews
> are descended
> from the devil, but he accuses the Pharisees of being "from
> your father the
> devil" because they are lying and misleading the Jewish
> people. This is
> polemic against the religious teachings of a select group,
> not a rejection
> of the Jewish people as a whole. The rabbis had similar harsh
> words and
> rejection of those they felt were heretics and misleading Jews.
>
> So in many ways your post is "problematic" and is bad
> exegesis at best.
>
> Yours,
>
> --
> Cb
> cbrady @ tulane.edu
>
> (Below is a quote that was randomly selected by Entourage.)
>
> Writing bows one's back, thrusts the
> ribs into one's stomach, and
> fosters a general debility of the body.
>                        Ancient Colophon
>
>
>
> ---
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