Joey jojo...It's certainly not everyone's bag. Some folks really do enjoy culture more than others. I have friends that eat drink and sleep Norwegian. Another that is absorbed in Polish culture. That's probably not a perfect parallel but maybe close enough for me to understand the appeal. History, kinship and commonality. Centuries of oppression, has to be a powerful glue within the community as well.
Dip Anyone?
by peacefulpete 15 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
-
HowTheBibleWasCreated
Hmm if I may be so bold in 1 Corinthians 11:23"...
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night on which he was going to be betrayed....It has been argued that 1. The Pauline epistles are Marcionite. 2. This reference is to Satan or his angels as the scene might be in heaven. Mark likes the Pauline corpus , Matthew and Luke follow. John however has a very different agenda is is as Dr. Dennis McDonald called it a Dionysian gospel.
-
Jeffro
It is of some interest that 'dipping the morsel' has some basis in actual customs, but the specific purpose of the custom is ancillary to the point that subsequent versions of the story were modified to account for perceived flaws in the narrative.
-
peacefulpete
HTBWC....Yes we are off topic but, I guess there isn't much more to say on the OP anyway. I think it is unquestionable that cross cultural synthesis took place, not just in the Gospels but as you have elsewhere mentioned, in the Pentateuch through to the present (the Pesach meal rituals). The Homer and Euripides links are undeniably present throughout the Gospel narratives and Acts. More than 20 years ago I posted threads here about the recurring use of the expression 'kicking against the goads' when a mortal opposes a god, as well as story elements like earthquakes and prison escapes etc. The debate is whether this is simple cultural, and idiomatic, even motif exchange or conscious supersessionism that MacDonald suggests. I heartily agree with MacDonald on the layered nature of John. It clearly has been reordered, redacted, and expanded. We have to assume also edited for content.
The expression 'interpretatio Romana' often arises in religious history studies of those times. Parallel gods' names were often used interchangeably, not just names but characteristics and stories as well. Jews did this throughout the diaspora and in fact was an ancient practice, (e.g. El, Baal, Yahweh). Therefore, it becomes a nuanced thing when we see parallels, separating what was consciously commandeered from a less conscious emulation.
Regarding 1 Cor 11, I have wanted to write a thread on that. I've read some quite surprising suggestions.
-
KalebOutWest
joey jojo wrote:
Kaleb, I thought my life growing up as a JW was tedious and I particularly resented the chafing I felt at having my life dictated by the beliefs of my parents, even if some were beneficial.
It amazes me hearing about all the traditional rituals that practising Jews (and others) follow. I'm not necessarily saying it's all bad, however, to me at least, there is something disturbing about having every aspect of your life and how you spend your time pre-determined.peacefulpete gave the perfect answer. This is why I can see peacefulpete as a professor teaching at some university somewhere.
Jews don't have leaders or pastors or popes. A rabbi is not their authority or master. The Mosaic Law does not dictate to Jews what to do with their day or how to live each moment of their lives. If life were so simple and I really had such a guide, all my daily troubles would be over.
In reality a lot of what you might be suspecting comes from what you admitted--your past experience with the Witnesses. They tend to decipher Jewish life that way because the New Testament is written using rhetoric and not genuine language. Witnesses, as you know, read the Bible literally. The Gospels tell stories of Pharisees dictating a "heavy-burdened" life for Jews.
Jews, on the other hand, live on a theological spectrum. One moment we feel like being very zealous and want to follow every one of our cultural traditions. The next day we want to be like Paul Rudd and practice his type of Judaism, eating every slice of bacon we can find. We love HaShem one moment, argue with Him the next, deny His existence the day after that, and become pious Jews the next. We can and do all this all the time.
It's why we're the Children of Israel (meaning "He Who Wrestles with God") and not Jehovah's Witnesses (those who blindly listen and obey everything that comes from the Governing Body). We are a free people, struggling with an Ineffable God that we don't know, don't comprehend, cannot see or understand, and is probably not even an entity. (Many of us don't even believe in God.)
Our God is not a "God-Is-Love" God or "Ask-and-Ye-Shall-Receive" God or "I-Can-Do-Anything" God. Ours is the God who answered the poor smuck Job who was merely asking questions: "Who are you to ask questions of Me?" Ours is the God who told Moses who asked Him for a Name: "I Am However I Wish to Self-Identify Myself As, So There! Nyah!"
We kind of act the same way in response. It's a push and pull, a tug-of-war, a love-hate relationship that works. Kind of. Well not all the time. But the bagels are good.
Some of us are very serious--but I tell you, that even those serious people have their days where they dance across the rainbow of Jewish possibilities. It's never what it looks like on the outside. "Nobody puts baby in the corner" and forces them to do anything. (Hey, that happened in a Jewish context in that movie--hmmm.)
A good read on this is the book Open Judaism: A Guide for Believers, Atheists and Agnostics by Barry L. Schwartz published in 2023 by JPS. (And that is "believers, atheists and agnostics" among us Jews, not among you non-Jews--that should tell you something.) It will open your eyes if you think you know how we Jews live and what we believe.
With that, I have to prepare for Shabbat dinner on my end. Shabbat shalom!
-
Jeffro
KOW:
They tend to decipher Jewish life that way because the New Testament is written using rhetoric and not genuine language.
Indeed. There’s a lot of retconning in the NT and even more in modern Christian interpretations thereof, particularly the glaring insertion of Jesus and Satan into OT themes where they were not actually present either directly or even implicitly. As such, Christian depictions of Jewish history and culture appear almost(?) as a parody.
It’s not even the case that modern Judaism is an exact representation of ancient Judaism, reflecting successive influences by Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Syrian and Greek cultures, a significant shift after the destruction of the Second Temple, and the advancement of understanding of the natural world in general.