Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

a. Please remember to sign your posts (that goes for all).

b. Isn't that saying the same thing? We have a different understanding of 
the biblical text, because our understanding of the world around us is 
different. If what you're saying is, "the Bible has an intrisic 'true' 
meaning, which previous generations simply did not understand but which we 
now do", that is a statement of faith.

Yigal Levin


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <dwashbur AT nyx.net>
To: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 7:34 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Dinah raped?


> I would suggest that what has advanced is our hermeneutic, and we now 
> understand that
> things like the pro-slavery interpretations were simply wrong based on 
> sound interpretive
> principles.  All interpretations are not equally valid, and the fact that 
> someone has used the
> Bible to support something like slavery does not make that use legitimate.
>
> On 23 Jul 2007 at 7:31, Yigal Levin wrote:
>
> > Very good question, Karl, and probably way too philosophical for this 
> > list.
> > But let's take a little example, which I hope nobody on this list 
> > considers
> > to be contemporary. In the decades leading up to the American Civil War,
> > people on both sides of the pro and anti-slavery debate, many of whom 
> > were
> > God-fearing Christians and Jews, used and quoted the Bible to support 
> > their
> > views. Now, 150 years later, all (I hope) civilized people consider 
> > slavery
> > to be abhorrent, and to quote the Bible to support it would be considered 
> > to
> > be perverted.
> >
> > No doubt that human values have evolved and (hopefully) advanced over 
> > time.
> > The Bible has had an immense influence on this evolution, but the Bible 
> > has
> > also constantly been reinterpreted over time in pace with that evolution.
> > The Bible is a huge collection of works, and every generation "connects" 
> > to
> > those parts in which it finds meaning and comfort. In part, this is what
> > makes the Bible relevant to so many millions of people, thousands of 
> > years
> > after it was written.
> >
> > Yigal Levin
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
> > To: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> > Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 5:14 AM
> > Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Dinah raped?
> >
> >
> > > Yigal:
> > >
> > > "We must be very careful of assuming that the authors of the Bible 
> > > shared
> > > the
> > > same views on "morality" that modern-day Jews and Christians do. This 
> > > is
> > > especially true for matters of sexual behavior."
> > >
> > > The question is, how much of the modern mores are based on Biblical
> > > ones? In other words, how well have people understood the Biblical
> > > ones and translated them into their own? Or how much of the modern
> > > understanding are taken from contemporary mores and eisegeted back
> > > into Hebrew?
> > >
> > > Karl W. Randolph.
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > b-hebrew mailing list
> > > b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> > > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > -- 
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> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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>
>
> Dave Washburn
> But I can't say Sylvester, George!
> _______________________________________________
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