Quote:
Originally Posted by levite
It's all part and parcel of the same problem. Seems like a lot of folks don't even read the entire Tanakh (Bible) let alone learn how to read and interpret it properly. I can't speak for the Christian Scriptures or the Quran, of course, but the Tanakh, at least, wasn't designed to be read in a vacuum. It was designed to be read as part of an integrated oral corpus of traditional understandings; and barring instruction in doing so, reading it on its own is like reading every third line of "Hamlet" and then wondering why the play makes so little sense.
It's shocking to me not only how many people forget that they are reading a work that was composed in another language (one very, very different from English) over the course of a thousand years, incorporating numerous different viewpoints-- all generally different from the modern, Euro-American viewpoints; but who simply don't realize that things which we take for granted in other kinds of literature are also present in the Scriptures: metaphor, simile, hyperbole, idiom, allusion, allegory, poetic imagery, puns, and all the things we would expect from the great works. Somehow, many people think that those kinds of literary devices are somehow "below" the Bible. But there is nothing lowly about them: they make for great literature, and the Bible uses them freely. Not only are they often misread and overlooked, but often, as Xazy alluded to, they are not even translated properly, and then those translations are themselves retranslated and recast for modern readers.
It's a morass.
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Let me put it this way: of all the people I know IRL or in cyberspace, you're probably the most knowledgeable when it comes to all things Judaism, particularly your holy texts. You dedicated years of intense study at institutions of higher learning. You're even a teacher! Isn't it true that there's a lot about your religious texts that you don't know? While you may not be guilty of the kind of slip of spoken about in the OP, like thinking there's some Biblical edict about vaguely erotic vampire fiction, but certainly, even with your truly impressive knowledge, there are still things you have yet to learn or discover, yes? And really, is it fair to expect everyone to get a PhD level education on their religion?
I was a Christian for approximately 14 years and I studied my ass off, and I've studied even more after my de-conversion, but there's still much I don't know about Christianity, it's history, the earlier translations, different theories from different experts. It could take me ten lifetimes to know it all. I know next to nothing about Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Wicca, Zoroastrianism, Druidism, etc. relative to your average person in that religion.
My long-winded point is maybe you've set the bar too high. Maybe even basic knowledge is sitting the bar too high. Sure, say "That's not actually in the Bible/Torah/Qur'an/etc." when people speak in err, but you're talking about your average person, here, and your average person doesn't take his or her religion seriously. I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but for most people religion is a back burner kinda thing, an Easter and Christmas (or Chanukkah and Pesach) belief system. They care because their parents pretended to care going back generations.