Quote:
Originally Posted by preacher
On the other hand, perhaps it is people like you who say that the Bible is "complex, infinitely nueanced, and in general, no friend to people looking for simplistic attitudes and lowest-common-denominator platitudes" that are reading too much into something that is meant to be simple and easily understood. Have you considered that your position on the bible being a great work of delicate, spiritual art might not be the intended purpose of the scriptures as originally written? They are history and instructions from Jehova, my friend. . .nothing more, at least when speaking of the Old Testament. They are simplicity defined.
The followers of Jehova's peace-loving bastard son are the ones who caused most of the problems by pretty much writing their own rules over the ones that already existed. . .but who are you going to listen to, my friend? The owner of the plantation, or his whiny overseer of a son? When you go to someone's house to borrow their lawn mower, do you ask the man of the house, or the teenager with the iPod? Who owns the lawn mower? Who owns the Earth. . .Jehova or Jesus? Will you let the rules of the son supercede those of the Father?
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With all due respect, that is a view of scriptural text that is deeply inconsistent with Jewish thought. Traditional Judaism has always conceived of the Tanakh as deeply, deeply complex, and intended by its authors for use in partnership with interpretive traditions and exegetical techniques. Even the Torah, which Orthodox Judaism does view as of Divine Authorship, is deemed highly complex by the tradition:
shiv'im panim l'Torah "The Torah has seventy faces," they say in the Midrash; and in Pirke Avot, we are taught,
hafokh v'hafokh bah ki d'kula bah "Examine and re-examine it [Torah], for everything is within it." Written Torah must be understood complexly, through Oral Torah, because it was not designed to be read and understood and followed on its own.
This, according to many traditional Jewish authors, is attributable to the complexity of Divine Authorship/prophetic authorship. God is subtle and complex and nuanced, and expects the same of people.
But in any case, Judaism is usually quite clear on the idea that the Bible is neither simple nor basic. The idea that God is simple and presents simple instructions is foreign to Judaism.
It is also worth noting that the name Jehovah is an error: it represents an attempt by Latin and German Biblicists to vocalize the Tetragrammaton (four letter name of God), which is the Hebrew letters yod, heh, vav, heh (YHVH). Now, this name is actually a deliberate paradox: it is the Hebrew verb to be, expressed in all three tenses simultaneously, signifying Gods living eternality. A long, long time ago, this most sacred name of God was used aloud, though never lightly, and some think rarely. However, more than two thousand years ago, we lost or forgot the correct pronunciation. When vowels were first introduced to the written text of the Hebrew Bible, about 1300 years ago, the Masoretes (who were the scholars vowelling the text) vowelled the Tetragrammaton with the vowels for the word
Adonai, meaning My Lord, which is an addressive of God typically used amongst Jews as a euphemism, spoken aloud when the written text uses the Tetragrammaton. The Masoretes did this to remind readers not to attempt to pronounce the Tetragrammaton, which we are forbidden to do now that the true pronunciation is lost, but to rather say
Adonai instead. But the Latin and German Biblicists, who were all Christians, and knew little of Jewish thought and practice, did not know that, and thus took the vowels to be the correct vocalization for the Tetragrammaton. So the Latins translated out the Tetragrammaton as Iahove or Iaouah, and the Germans thought it was to be said as Yahwah or Yahovah; and since in German, the sound y is made with a j, and the vowel sounds a and e are close, and often elided, they spelled it Jahweh or Jehovah. But of course any of those spellings and pronunciations are entirely erroneous, stemming purely from faults in translation.