<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Spengler</i>

Elendil,
I wrote "believe," not "know." One should be very careful in attributing specific actions to Providence. I very well might be wrong. Nor do I think policy should be made on the basis of theology, let alone my own thoughts on the matter. Israel has more than earned the right to exist as a nation. I don't think Iran will nuke Israel, given Israel's massive capacity to retaliate. Ahmadinejad is crazy, but sly, like Hitler, not a delusional lunatic.


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Fine, so you're scrambling around to my position by the back door. I am the one who you keep insinuating is somehow anti-semitic because I insist that Israel's claims must be judged on the basis of justice.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"> However, due to the necessity to take care of outdoor work while weather permits, I'll be delayed.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">If you can put up with some delays on my part for various reasons, maybe we can make something of this (& with others?...) Just took care of some outdoor business of my own, weather coldly & wetly un-permitting.
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The suggestion: use bold rather than italics for passages you wish to controvert--it's easier to pick up that way.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Find it a bit unpleasant, but will if I must.
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The emphasis is no more negative [re the "drastically wrong within creation"] than is Scripture itself: it begins with the story of the Fall of Man, and the first promises that God made to Man.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

How is the Scripture as "negative" as all that? Typically have many people been misled by Christian commentary on the Eden story. I don't know what you or Wright or Paul would actually say, but I suspect that it would be some distance from a Torahitic standpoint. The "Fall" story is deeply informative in addressing straight holiness functions, but I worry for lack of sufficient richness in others' accounts.
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Interesting [re my questioning central focus on worship as possibly alienated preparatory for recommended outcome]. If you were going to controvert this I would have expected you to say something like, the <b>observant life</b> is itself worship offered to God--that would have been a response that would have been quite comprehensible to Christians. The Psalmist also refers to that attitude ("A humble and contrite heart..." and so forth). Instead you chose to contest the centrality of worship of the Creator itself to man's existence.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Observance as <i>predominantly</i> & primarily inclusive of restraint, eg in the old days, in agricultural activity.
Worship-talk inclines one to enter more directly into holiness-pusuit ahead of groundwork, not as in "cart before horse", but as rider minus horse, one doesn't get very far. Now our terms are of course at important issue, for certainly it's admissible to include any properly directed observance of right behaviour in any field as worship. But the alienation from too many forms of relating to the world bred various coping mechanisms, & one seems to have been, from a Jewish perspective, too close to escape from facing what had to be faced <i>in the world</i>. Although if that charge formally fits, circumstances could surely be said to have excused it, maybe.
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Your third comment (quoted above) seems to confirm in a way Wright's statement of Paul's position: that Torah observance is seen (by some at least) as a means of putting right Man's relationship with God--that man by his efforts can effect a return from the exile that began with the Fall. Moreover, it seems to me that you are writing from the <b>anachronistic standpoint of Rabbinic Judaism</b>--anachronistic in the sense that Rabbinic Judaism was not a reality at the time of Jesus nor at the time that Paul wrote.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
It's clear that normative Judaism as we know it for some 1000 years hadn't taken fullest hold until then. But that has no bearing on validity of traditions as traceable to antiquity. It's in the fullness of traditions that answers are to be sought, traditions that were purportedly (actually, I hold, & not on "faith" grounds) rescued by the proto-rabbis.<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
From the relevant perspective of what is usually termed Second Temple Judaism the "centrality of worship" would have seemed a no-brainer for devout Jews. In fact, the Temple and its sacrificial cult was at the center of Jewish existence at that time. Pilgrimage to Jerusalem would not seem to make much sense except in that context--unless it were in remembrance of the very worldly kingdom of Judah?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Of course the Temple was utterly ritually central. What's contested is that focus is centred thereon <i>before</i> addressing the real socio-economic (& these days one'd say ecological)
issues <i>underlying</i> the spiritually desperate situation. Two things from this Sabbath past: ritual Torah reading cycle had us complete Va-YiQRa' (Leviticus), near the end of which there are the curses attendant upon disobedience, central to which was <i>care of the land entrusted</i>, with all that entailed. The service centred on the Tabernacle & later Temples has even been seen by some as <i>concession</i> to too many people's requirement for this. Once had, it's holy (and amazingly replete with maps of suggestiveness for right behaviour); once lived with, it is central; yet while obviously not able to be utterly jettisoned (note its retention to this day in study for the devout), is not indispensible. Restoration of the Temple <i>implies</i> restoration of ancient means & livelihoods. Loss of Temples (of which the 1st clearly most important in all this) implies shaking, disruption of the very <i>ground</i> of holiness. The SHeKHINaH departed at the catastrophe. Could God not bear to look any longer? This has to be at least part of what's intended by
" HeSTeR PaNIM ", usually "hiding of the face", which I bring up here to underline that Jews had faced this fact for centuries already pre-Paul. Traditions about dealing with the direness of it all were already established. The ground shook even further & more deeply with the Roman ascendancy, as did strife concomitantly multiply among Jews, <i>without sufficient loss of traditions</i> to render Jewish life unsupportable, however attenuated that life had become, & to our day. <blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Wright's point in this regard as well is that Israel at that time experienced itself as still living very much in a state of exile, in need of redemption. The Return had not put things to right, nor had the Macabees. Israel groaned not only under Roman oppression but under the realization (for many) that a corrupt clique of usurpers had taken control of the Temple and its cult.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Seems to concur with me (I hope you don't find it wrong that I blindly comment before full perusal, I do this for possible reader's benefit. Tell me if I should stop.)
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The centrality of worship, by the way, is also seen throughout the Old Testament: the besetting sin of Israel is almost always seen to be idolatry, i.e., false worship, rather than, say, eating pork or shellfish. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
What about sabbath observance? There are many rabbinic statements about what constitutes the equivalent of idolatry. But as I think was noted in my brief exchange with samwise, can we claim to have a firm handle on what was meant by " 'eLoHIM " (gods) to the ancients? (Recall Spengler's reference to Kugel's <i>God of Old</i>.) Without that handle, it's hard to address "idolatry".
There is a rabbinic viewpoint that actionable, technical idolatry had effectively disappeared from the world hundreds of years prior to them already. That can't stop us from addressing the issue even urgently today, but it would include little interesting purely regarding what ritual worship one pursues.
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According to Wright, Paul sees the emphasis on observance of Torah per se as a form of idolatry, i.e., a misplaced form of worship possibly motivated by a hope that this observance can fix Man's relationship with God. But in other places Paul recognizes the devotion of those who seek to observe Torah, but mourns at the failure of some to recognize that YHWH has finally visited his people to redeem them from exile.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Wasn't Paul booted out of a lot of Jewish congregations? Probably was directlty related to the level of learning in the crowd, the more learned rejecting the too facile.
I forgot above the 2nd item of Sabbath past, & here's good: we were going over the utterly amazing Talmducally recorded tale of how the 2nd Temple finally came to be destroyed...Let me see if I can find somthing passable online...<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Kamtza and Bar-Kamtza

"Rabbi Yochanan said, 'What is the meaning of the verse in The Book of "Mishlei" (Proverbs 28) which reads, 'Fortunate is the one who is always fearful, but the one who is hard of heart will suffer misfortune?' It was because of 'Kamtza and Bar-Kamtza' that Yerushalayim was destroyed

Elendil,
I never suggested that you were anti-Semitic! These are highly charged words; please use caution. I did say, and repeat, that anti-Zionism is a mask for anti-Semitism in the nearly universal use of the terms. Never have I taken the Pat Robertson view (or the view of some Orthodox Jews) that Jews are owed this land by contract from God. In that case one must demand that the Jews control the entire extent of the Solomonic kingdom, including large parts of Syria as well as what is now Jordan. But I agree with Robertson (and with Frederick the Great's pastor) that the validity of God's promise to the Jews stands surety for His promise to the Christians as well, and in that respect the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland and their ancient capital is as close to a miracle (as Paul Johnson called it) as we are likely to see. Nonetheless I do not think the foreign policy of great powers should be conducted on the basis of miracles but on the basis of justice and rational self-interest. In other words, I believe in separation of Church and State, and do not suggest that my personal beliefs should influence policy. The case for Israel's security is firm on the basis of international law, Western self-interest and common morality and requires no supernatural assistance.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Spengler</i>

Never have I taken the Pat Robertson view (or the view of some Orthodox Jews) that Jews are owed this land by contract from God. In that case one must demand that the Jews control the entire extent of the Solomonic kingdom, including large parts of Syria as well as what is now Jordan.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Actually the 'contract from God' promises the jews <b>all</b> the land between the Nile and the Euphrates:

"the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates" (Genesis 15:18)


<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">But I agree with Robertson (and with Frederick the Great's pastor) that the validity of God's promise to the Jews stands surety for His promise to the Christians as well
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How is that supposed to give christians confidence that the blood of Jesus has saved them from Hell, when your God has never kept his promise to the seed of Abraham? When have jews occupied all the land between the Nile and Euphrates? Even tiny Israel has been under jewish control for only a fraction of the time since the promise was made.

If you want to believe that the God of Abraham is a true God who does not make false promises, then perhaps you should start believing that it is the arabs not the jews who are the true descendants of Abraham. Since it is the arabs not the jews who occupy almost all the land that was promised by the biblical god to the seed of Abraham.

Bliss, Abraham's seed includes the descendants of Ishmael.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Spengler</i>

Abraham's seed includes the descendants of Ishmael.
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Does that mean that the Arabs are also an 'eternal race' as you claim jews are, since they are both branches of the 'holy' abrahamic blood lineage?

And since there is no baptism in the arab religion, through what rite or ritual does the 'sinful flesh' of goys get 'grafted' onto this branch of the sacred, eternal abrahamic race?


So Spengler, if you do believe that arabs are of the same 'holy' abrahamic blood lineage as jews and since that lineage <b>defines</b> your theology, why aren't you seeking an alliance between jews and arabs, instead of seeking one between jews and christians as you have been busy doing?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Albion</i>

So how are we Christians, given NT Wright replacement theology, going to avoid the temptation to institutionalize/idolatrize/Phariseeize/meta-sin/false covenant/religiositize our way right back in to the hell we supposedly escape from? Our genius? Our strong faith? Our grasp of Scripture? Belonging to the right Church?
What is the authentic stamp?

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Albion, there

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by elendil</i>

because I insist that Israel's claims must be judged on the basis of justice.
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Justice? My guess is you haven't the foggiest what that actually is.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tuor</i>

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by elendil</i>

because I insist that Israel's claims must be judged on the basis of justice.
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Justice? My guess is you haven't the foggiest what that actually is.
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Who let you out of the abyss? Albion, was it you?

Oh boy, it looks like I'll have to adopt dyr's technique of super lengthy posts with myriad quotes and short comments.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I've no intention to "refute", only to understand with an eye to acquiring means to effectively communicate with Christians for common cause.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Fine, but if you're looking for effective communication I recommend that you hold off on this kind of thing:
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Wasn't Paul booted out of a lot of Jewish congregations? Probably was directlty related to the level of learning in the crowd, the more learned rejecting the too facile.

That Christian ideas offer a way out of this seems to've been <b>rightly rejected out of hand</b> by learned Jewish people.
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I note that this mirrors your technique--no evidence presented for your assertions, only rejection out of hand and gratuitous denigration of the "opposition" as ignorant: all the while showing no comprehension whatsoever of Christian theology. This will not lead to effective communication with Christians, nor to <i>any</i> communication with me in the future. Mind you, I don't object to your own incomprehension; what I object to is your continual <i>ad hominem</i> statements when they are not backed up with rational discussion.

Anyway, "Christian ideas" offer no "way out." It is the historical reality of God's redemptive acts in Jesus that offer a way out. How strange that you see the "right" response to good news such as, God has acted to save his people just as he promised, is "rejection out of hand."
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"> <blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Paul is saying that God has saved Israel from exile--something that Torah observance had not been able to do--although in a far more wonderful way than could have been imagined.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
But this is illogical. Insufficient Torah observance, itself God's will, is what brings on exile. Whether it is overcomable with Torah as we know it is a legitimate question.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Shades of Spengler--by this logic, insufficient Torah observance brought on the Holocaust as well, the Nazis being mere instruments of God's implacable wrath against pork-eating Jews.

Anyway, Paul's position is not "illogical." It's merely different than yours. Whether it's true or not is a matter of historical fact, not of logic.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The "huh" addressed the intelligibilty, the logic.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Still an insufficient response, in that it exhibits no understanding whatsoever of Paul's thought. "Huh" is utterly inefficient as communication--is, in fact, totally incommunicative. Bad form for someone who claims to desire communication.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Neusner is a likely one to readily recognize this, for he is of a 'metal' "type".<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
I would be totally justified in responding "Huh?" to this--how am I supposed to know what a 'metal' "type" is? Not that I care. Neusner's scholarship speaks pretty well on its own and doesn't require my support. Again, totally ineffective as communication.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"> <blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">This is a clear development of prevalent themes that run from beginning to end of the Old Testament and is even more prevalent in the New Testament--as fulfillment. Your preference for reading this as distortion of Semitic meanings results from <b>"guessable reasons,"</b> I suppose.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Yes, knowledge of some Hebrew & a bunch of Torah traditions at least as venerable as Christian ones.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Again, this is typical of your style, and indicative of a lack of desire to actually communicate. It is a mere "comeback," an attempt to gratuitously denigrate your perceived "opponent" and a wisecrack that doesn't address the substance--that Paul's thought develops themes that were part of the common intellectual and theological currency of the Jewish world he inhabited. It is utterly irrelevant in addressing a scholar like Wright who, as part of his daily reading, reads the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek. Why would you choose to make such a stupid wisecrack when you knew full well that Wright is completely conversant with both languages? For your response to be in any way reasonable it would require that you actually knew some Greek so that you could form a basis for judging Paul and Wright. Until proven wrong, I'm going to assume that both Paul and Wright have a better knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures than do you.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">It's clear that normative Judaism as we know it for some 1000 years hadn't taken fullest hold until then. But that has no bearing on validity of traditions as traceable to antiquity. It's in the fullness of traditions that answers are to be sought, traditions that were purportedly (actually, I hold, & not on "faith" grounds) rescued by the proto-rabbis.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Once more you simply dodge the issue. You assume that Rabbinic Judaism is somehow "normative." Why is Second Temple Judaism not "normative"? Why, you reply, because it's different than "normative" Rabbinic Judaism! Apparently you assume that what is later is therefore better or more "normative," or that the norm for later times is somehow superior. That, dyr, is true illogic. You make absolutely zero effort to evaluate the scholarship of Jewish scholars like Neusner who find valuable insights into the later Talmud <i>from study of the New Testament</i>. Nor do you address the scholarship that I (and others) have cited on numerous occasions that describes the complexity of the Judaic religious environment in the first century AD--and which demonstrates the continuity of Christianity with the religion of Israel and the substantial innovation that is characteristic of Talmudic Judaism. That bespeaks a lack of desire to either understand or to communicate.