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  • From: Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Dinah raped?
  • Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:03:25 +0300

Dear Bryant,

That's a perfect illustration of my point. In our culture, saying that "all men are created equal" menas that all men have the same basic civil rights, and that one man should not own another. We also real "men" as including women. But that's not how it was understood in the 18th century. In most of the world incluing the US women had very few rights, and neither did blacks. In many places, even white males had to own property in order to vote. If you would ask them what "all men are created equal" meant, the answer would be something like "all have the same chance at salvation". In the two centuries that have passed, we have re-interpreted that dictum to refer to civil rights, political rights, the right to an education and so on. Would Jefferson agree with out interpretation - that's anybody's guess.

Yigal Levin

----- Original Message ----- From: "Bryant J. Williams III" <bjwvmw AT com-pair.net>
To: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>; "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 8:06 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Dinah raped?


Dear Yigal,

Karl's question is very good, but your answer is actually incorrect since,
in most cases the following has occurred. First, the confusion of
application with interpretation. Second, the violation of key hermeneutic
principles. Third, just because the hermeneutic is correct does not mean
that the application was perfect.

Example: Thomas Jefferson wrote (relying on John Locke) in the Declaration
of Independence, "that all men are created equal." Yet he did not free any
of his slaves even upon his death bed with the exception of only 5 slaves on
July 4, 1826. Now, did Thomas Jefferson believe in what he wrote. Yes. The
application was definitely faulty. Thomas Jefferson also excised from his
Bible what he did not like about God's actions. That is confusing
application with interpretation.

Respectively yours,

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III


----- Original Message ----- From: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
To: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2007 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Dinah raped?


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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