Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] oral law

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] oral law
  • Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 05:42:12 +0200

Peter, Harold, Shoshanna and others,

We seemed to have arrived at a dead end. While I do think that this topic is a perfectly legitimate one, I think that we have made itself clear. Shoshanna, based on her traditional Jewish position, insists that: a. the Law is indented to be kept as literally as possible, in every minute detail, and b. that those details that are not in the written text were given to Moses as an Oral Law, which has come down to us through rabbinic tradition. I, while not agreeing with Shoshanna on every issue, have tried to clarify what this means from a historical perspective. Peter and others, instead of accepting this as the Jewish tradition (which they of course do not have to accept in itself), have attempted to "prove": a. that the traditional Jewish view is historically unlikely (with which I agree but Shoshanna obviously does not), and b. that God never intended the Law to be carried out in minute detail, and that the prophets (including Jesus!) have made it clear that what is important is the moral aspects of the Torah, not the ritual ones.
People: point b. is exactly as Christian-faith-based as is Shoshanna's opinion Jewish-faith-based. Obviously any opinion based on sayings of Jesus is not relevant to Jewish tradition (I know that I'm going to ruffle some feathers with that one!). Since we have all clarified out positions, any further debate, without introducing new evidence, DOES come close to proselytizing, which I, for one, DO think is not appropriate for this list. So unless someone comes up with something really new, that's my last word!

Yigal





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page